Yūgure

Once upon a time, I dated a Mormon. Actually to be honest, one time I was setting up sound gear on a stage and this smoking-hot blonde with the tightest little body you ever saw came up to me and gave me her number. It's sorta funny thinking back on it, because even though I (not-so) secretly loved the fact that doing that kind of work provided me with a patchwork quilt version of the rock and roll lifestyle I'd always dreamed of living, I still kinda hesitated a bit before calling her because I was worried for some reason that she wouldn’t like the fact that I was a college drop-out.
Turned out to be no big deal, seeing as she was still in high school at the time.
I was only a year or two past graduation myself, and she was incredibly hot – so despite the initial "Oh crap I'm going to jail" moment of shock that came when I discovered that her age in no way matched her looks, I was all over that.
Or at least I tried to be.
We had a lot of good times -- but our schedules were really different and her dad (whom I made the critical error of actually meeting at one point) didn’t like the look of my long hair at all, which probably played a part in her not always being available when I called.

Eventually I decided to go back to college and moved to Tallahassee. It seemed like that would be the end of it; and for a while it was –- until I got a call one day telling me she had transferred to FSU and wanted to see me. So we started hanging out again and things were going pretty good –- but my young hormones found themselves frustrated at times by what seemed to be an invisible line that we continually approached, but never seemed to cross.

I’m sure a lot of it was on me (my game’s never been that slick) but a lot of it came from painfully clear nonverbal signals from her that while some things could happen, a lot more simply weren’t going to.

We went around for a while like that until things started unexpectedly developing with the girl I would eventually marry (and later divorce), causing whatever Kelley and I had to fade away -- leaving nothing behind but a series of hungry memories, photographs she took at the Groove Puppy show, and a rather embarrassing 10-second personal note I had left for her in the middle of a Radio One mixtape that I never got the chance to give her (which ended up being my own personal copy that I played in my car and continually caught crap for from the guys whenever the music was suddenly interrupted by the mushy message of affection I had hidden in the middle of a Whitesnake song).
I still think of her from time to time and the good times we had.
I actually heard from her a while back – she found me online and sent an email asking how I was. She’s married now with a child of her own, happy as a clam, and doing very well.
Still really hot, too.
The point of all this is that had we not been playing out our own little chaste version of Twilight –- it’s very possible that my life might have taken a very different path. There's a lot more subtext in that statement than I'm really willing to go into in detail right now, but what all of this boils down to is that as much as I'm sure that I wouldn't really enjoy Stephenie Meyer's popular novel series if I took the time to read it -- I can easily relate to the concept of fearing the consequences of drinking the blood you want more than anything (especially when it seems like a lifetime since your last taste) -- and what happens when eventually you throw that caution to the wind and in the process willingly blind yourself to the neck that those veins are attached to.

Not her, but you get the idea.I can’t regret the choices I’ve made (regardless of consequence), because without them I wouldn't have my son, be in the places I am now, or had the opportunity to connect with the people that I've found since walking past those woods on a snowy evening – but it’s hard not to glance back once in a while and wonder what might have been if I had played things more aggressively.
Life’s like that sometimes.
Especially when you’re dating (apparently) a sparkly vampire.


[Listening To:  Sneaker Pimps"Post-Modern Sleaze" ]

Comments

Frank said…
It's always the opposite for me. Apparently I look older than I actually am, so back when I was 19 or 20 I'd end up hitting on young-looking women who ended up being, like, 29. Always made for an awkward situation whenever it came up that she graduated high school when I was in 5th grade.
Heff said…
Yeah, I've dated a Moron. Oh, you said Mormon...
Anonymous said…
You sure your friends weren't giving you grief because it was a Whitesnake song?

Okay, now I gotta know? Slow 'n Easy, Slide It In, or what, what was the Whitesnake song you felt like actually committing to a mixtape?
Heff said…
My guess it is WASN'T "Spit It Out".
Heff said…
"It is WASN'T" ???

I forgot to take my pill today...
Werdna said…
Nice entry... sparkly vampire?

I am a sparkly vampire. You're a sparkly vampire! We're sparkly vampires!

It just appeals to my absurdist taste in combining words since I know jack shit about those books, other than they are some kind of pop culture thing out here that attracts a demographic with an extraordinary amount of young girls.
Hex said…
Frank -- It's kind of funny, because up to that point in time I had found myself meeting mostly older women through that job. In fact, my nickname at the Milk Bar for a while was "puppy" because the owner once overheard the gal who did lighting there (she was about 26, I was 18 at the time) say "I wish I'd known you were just a puppy before we did all that stuff."

Heff -- the moron church is pretty expansive. I've dated those too. I think we all have.

WIGSF -- by that point in time my friends had endured years of my crappy hair metal tendencies, and were largely accepting/surrendered to it. They weren't fans to be sure, but they were on me for being p-whipped, trust.

Kelley liked the same kind of music, so using Whitesnake at the time seemed a slam dunk. It was one of the ballads from the self-titled album (back when they sort of re-hit it big). Coverdale is a huge cheeseball, but then-guitarist John Sykes is a true badass.

And lets be honest here -- there were very few men in the world who weren't at least a little turned on by Tawny Kitaen straddling that Jaguar back in 1987. Sure she went bonkers later -- but she was it for a short while there.

Heff -- I think the correct name of that album was "Sell it Out"

Werdna -- All I know is that as much as I miss the job, enduring this whole "Twilight" deal is a bullet I definitely dodged by not being an 8th grade english teacher anymore.
Whitesnake?!
laughing at the romance of it all -
go on
you know you want to
what was the message???