I don't even know... what... I'm doin' here

When her alarm went off at six a.m., her first impulse was to smash it to death with the table lamp. Instead, she held the urge back, picked up the phone, moaned, and shut it off. She rolled out of bed and rested her heels on the hardwood, cold-as-fuck floor and came close to crying out the dirtiest word that came to mind that day, just like she wanted to every morning. And, just like every morning, she swallowed it. This was her own fault for moving to goddamned Canada after growing up in a goddamn desert.

New Mexico. Shit. What did she have to go thinking about that for?

She closed her eyes, took a breath, and restrained the thoughts that wanted desperately to run there, steering them in the direction of the day ahead.

Shit. That didn't help.

She focused on the next ninety minutes.

That did it.

As she shuffled into the bathroom, her hand instinctively swept up a bottle of mood stabilizers and fumbled fruitlessly with the childproof lid. She barely kept herself from hurling it at the wall. After a great deal of concentration, she finally got the pills down her throat, leaving her free to speculate on the person watching her on the other side of the sink. Five years ago, that person would have been hung over. Ten years ago, she would have been crying. Twenty years ago, she would have been whining. This morning, she was calm, naked, and Zen with the events of yesterday.

She shook her head before wrapping her hair in a ponytail, slipping into a pair of track pants, pulling a sports bra over her head, making the necessary adjustments, zipping up a thick hoodie, and lacing up a pair of sneakers. On her way out the door, she leaned over to kiss the boy in her bed on the cheek. She wanted to tear off her clothes and fuck him, but she told herself she couldn't.

"Pete," she whispered, "I need to go to work."

"Why?" he mumbled.

"It's work."

"Oh." He rolled over. "Call me later?"

"If I feel like it."

Poor Pete--her perpetual rebound. She could tell he had been falling for her for a while now. She should probably stop calling him after days like yesterday, but she hated sleeping in a cold bed. Maybe she should just get a goddamn cat, like every other librarian.

It didn't take long to get to the gym, where she wrapped her hands and stretched. Here, in front of the heavy bag, her weight on the balls of her feet, her gloves up to keep from getting hit in the face again, it was okay to give in.

Five years ago, someone who maybe understood her more than anybody in the world--the person she hated most--walked out of her life.

One, two, one, two, one, six. Jab, straight right, jab, straight, right, jab, right uppercut. One, two, one, two, one, Sean.

Ten years ago, the closest friend she ever had up and quit on her.

One, two, three, two, five. Jab, straight right, left hook, straight right, left uppercut. One, two, three, two, Fuentes.

Twenty-five years ago, her mother was gone before they ever had a chance to get to know each other.

One, four, three, four, three, four, three, four, three, six. Jab, right hook, left hook, right hook, left hook, right hook, left hook, right hook, left hook, right uppercut. One, Mom, Mom, Mom. Mom. Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! DAD!

Yesterday, her boyfriend said something she could only think of as a deal-breaker, leading to a pretty dramatic public breakup.

One, one, four, three, two, seven. Jab, jab, right hook, left hook, straight right, nut-punch. One, one four, three, two, Brody. Okay, so she made up seven.

She bounced back for a second and had to admit that she and love just didn't get along.

Over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of some person bouncing around in the reflection of the room. Teeth clenched, sweat and tears stinging her eyes, muscles tight, lightning searing her bones, she looked like someone she used to know.

One more round to go: Six. Right uppercut. Me.

After a long shower, she didn't have to worry about holding anything back anymore--the medication had kicked in, taking care of most of it; the rest had been rinsed away. It had taken a long time for her to stop hating herself so much that the world wanted her gone; simultaneously, it had taken a long time for her to stop loving herself so much that the world wanted only to do her bidding. Now, with her collar straight, her hair swept back, and her makeup alluring-but-subtle, she was just another twenty-seven-year-old on her way to work.

A long day beckoned. She needed to have a talk with her more-likely-than-not-ex-boyfriend, she needed to figure out whether or not to keep stringing Pete along, and she needed to pick up her phone and call the man who'd told her specifically never to "ever fucking dare" ask him for anything ever again and ask him for something. In other words, she needed to clean up a series of messes she'd made. In other words, it was business as usual.

She studied the woman in front of her, through the rouge, the eye-shadow, lipstick, and brushed-out hair. "Yeah," Lisa Green said. "I'm still in there."

I know what those three little words mean. At sixteen, I'm not supposed to, but I do. They've been so diluted by music and television and movies that it seems pop culture's most touching uses of them is how they get substituted with little codes like "I know" and "Ditto." They still do mean something. I'm not stupid, you know.

Sometimes they're used to manipulate; my friend Hakim does that. Sometimes guys say them to each other when they're too drunk to know better; my friend Dusty does that with his frat brothers. Sometimes they're used to stop an argument; my sister and her boyfriend do that. Sometimes they're used as an apology; my step-uncle and aunt do that.

This is not what happened. She just whispered those three little words into my ear. Okay, it wasn't just those three little words. She started with three other words: "Maximiliano Alejandro Fuentes"--two big words and a medium-sized one, I guess, followed by those three little ones.

It started last night. Before that, it started in the afternoon, when I said, "I'm not getting naked. Not for anybody."

"Not even for Heather?" asked Hakim.

I did have to think about it. "Not even for Heather."

"Oh, come on!" he whined. "You made it to second base with her!"

I cleared my throat. "Third."

"So you've been naked."

"Well," I said, "we kept the rest of our clothes on."

"You must be the only sixteen-year-old who's never done it."

"Heather hasn't."

"I have," he told me.

"That's because you're a slut."

"Lisa has."

I stuck my fingers in my ears. "La, la, la-la, la!" Lisa has been my best friend since the first day she scrambled my huevos, so I wasn't going to think about her like that. Ever.

"Dude," Hakim insisted, "I'm not going skinny-dipping without you."

"That's wrong on so many levels."

He clarified, "I'm totally chickening out if you're not."

"But Ange and his girlfriend, Whatshername, said they'd go."

"Not the same."

"And..." I gulped. "... Lisa..."

"I get to see Lisa naked anytime I want."

"La, la, la-la, la!" I repeated.

"Come on, dude!"

"My name's not dude." And then, with utmost finality, I told him, "And I am not taking Heather skinny-dipping!"

And so last night I took Heather skinny-dipping.

Getting to that point was only a small challenge. The weaknesses in the security of the municipal swimming pool were the windows above the locker-room doors. These windows were really narrow, mind you, but, fortunately, Hakim was much, much narrower. He was tall enough that it only took the slightest boost to get him within reach, but, unfortunately, Hakim was as awkward as he was tall.

The only person with the strength and stubbornness to lift him up was Lisa, who steadied his legs with uncharacteristic patience. Her hands, perpetually grease-stained from the tune-ups she performed on her piece-of-shit truck and my piece-of-shit car, cupped his ass for balance, and her raised arms lifted the hem of her hoodie and turtleneck, exposing the bare skin of her hip as it thrust his weight upward.

"La, la, la-la, la!" I whispered.

"What the hell are you doing?" Heather whispered back.

"Did I just do that out loud?"

She giggled. "God, you are so weird." She gripped my cheeks in her palms and drew me in for a clumsy kiss, complete with anxious squirming. "Sexy and smart and totally weird." That's all it took to snap me out of whatever the hell that was.

A glance at Lisa stretching out her taxed limbs snapped me back into it.

In moments, Hakim cracked open the locker-room door, and we scrambled inside. Ange wasted no time stripping and getting into the water, which was just as well, since I had no desire to see him naked. His girlfriend, Whatshername, took her time, which was not just as well, since I had no desire to see her naked either. Teenage curiosity made me look anyway, though, and I was not happy about that.

Heather did a slow striptease for me. This would have been much more exciting had it not been for three things: the first was that, having rounded 75 percent of the bases, I was already very familiar with her long, creamy white torso--perfect for stroking with my tongue, and her barely swollen breasts--perfect for holding in my hands while my fingertips squeezed her nipples. The part of her I hadn't seen was covered by black denim, which she had yet to dispose of.

If she had gotten that far, I just might have missed the second thing, which was in my line of sight behind her. Hakim had removed his shirt to reveal the jutting ribs and shoulder bones I'd always suspected were hidden there. He'd peeled off his fishnet sleeves and half of his pants before he remembered he was also wearing tightly laced, calf-length leather and canvas boots.

The third was something I would not have missed, no matter how many girls might be rolling her hips for my benefit. And no amount of la-la-las could hide the way Lisa whipped off her hoodie and turtleneck and unhooked her bra in one smooth movement. I couldn't stop it--a teenage heterosexual boy was blessed and cursed with a photographic memory when it came to exposed female flesh, even if it was just an arched, muscled back.

And then, almost as if she could feel me fighting the urge to stare, she turned her head, smirked, and uttered to me three little words that seemed at the time to be just as--if not more important than--the earth-shattering three little words I would hear later. "Don't look now," Lisa said.

Just like that, a door slammed shut in my mind, reinforcing the wall of the status quo, echoing with the loudest la-la-la of them all.

That settled, I focused again on Heather, noting that most of her jeans were gone, and her thumbs were hooked around the elastic of her underwear. After they dropped down to her ankles, she kicked them over to the rest of her clothes and told me, "Your turn."

Home plate now in sight, I obeyed, with considerably less grace than she had shown.

"Wow," she said.

"Yeah," I repeated.

The other four were comfortable enough with each other's bodies to splash around the pool, squealing with the goofy innocence of five-year-olds. Heather and I, however, stared into each other's eyes in stunned silence. We drifted away, my arms holding her waist, her arms draped over my shoulders. After a romantic eternity, she leaned in close and said those three words--well, those six words. But it was those three at the end that were the most important. And though even though we're both only sixteen, we know they'll last forever.

"Mr. Murphy!" shouted the jaywalker behind me.

Crap. I knew that voice. It belonged to a reporter with a leather pea coat, a rumpled shirt, pointless tie, dusty-colored skin, dark and squinting eyes, bedroom hair, a nose scarred from some long-ago, violent injury, and the kind of smirk that made me want to straighten that nose out with my fist.

I replied, "I said I'm not taking questions."

"The public demands answers!" he informed me.

"No they don't."

He massaged his forehead and lobbed a journalistic Hail Mary: "Gary demands an introduction entry for this season of LJ Idol*."

My shoulders sagged, my eyes rolled, and I sighed. "Fine. Take a seat in that chair."

"Why is there a chair here?"

"Because I want you to be comfortable."

He frowned. "But we're in the middle of the street."

"Look again," I replied.

His eyes squinted around the surroundings. "I'll be damned. How?"

"This place is a product of my imagination," I explained. "And that makes me God."

"You're a little full of yourself, aren't you?"

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I am." I sat down in a chair that was far more comfortable than his. "Was that your first question?"

He scribbled in his small notebook. "It is now."

"Why aren't you using a digital recorder or some shit to take notes?"

"Because," he replied, "thirteen years ago you were a sort of intern at The New York Post, and that being the twentieth century, reporters carried pads like this."

"Was that going to be part of one of your questions?" I asked.

He flipped a few pages and crossed something out. "Not anymore." He added a smirk. "Thirteen years, huh? That makes you old."

"Hey! Thirty-five is not old!"

"It means you've aged out of the eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-old advertising demographic."

"Fuck."

"And that brings me to question seventeen," he told me. "Why the potty mouth?"

"There's seventeen questions?"

"Thirty-eight."

"I'm not answering thirty-eight questions."

"Then why did you put thirty-eight questions in my notebook, God?"

"Because," I replied, "I thought thirty-eight was a nice, daunting amount for me to object to."

"Fuck this metaphysical bullshit!" he announced, tossing the notebook over his shoulder. "What is the point of this?"

I snickered. "I thought you just said you had enough of this metaphysical bullshit."

"I've had enough of you too, but here I am."

I turned my attention to you, dear reader. "Since the first week of LJ Idol is devoted to introductions** I figured this would be a good opportunity to introduce my fellow contestants to some of my literary strengths, such as clever banter..."

The reporter muttered, "It's banter anyway."

"Watch it, you!"

"Just clearing my throat," he said.

I growled for a moment before continuing, "I also like cranky sarcasm..."

"Yeah, right. Whatever."

"And a little bit of vulgarity..."

"A little bit of vulgarity?"

"And a lot of vulgarity." I gestured to the reporter. "I'm also a big fan of this guy."

The reporter sat up and grinned. "Who isn't?"

"This is Max Fuentes, a twenty-seven-year-old entertainment journalist in New York City. He's clever..."

"It's true."

"Smooth..."

"Also true."

"A little bit sleazy..."

"But only a little bit, ladies."

"And morally deficient."

"I have morals," he told me. "They're just--"

"Missing?"

"Complicated."

"He's my most frequent writing subject, mostly because he captures not only the randomness that dominated my life in my mid-twenties but most especially the 'I-don't-give-a-fuck' side of my personality, which, you have to admit, is really fun."

"Except for the hangovers," he said, adding, "functional hangovers, but hangovers nonetheless."

"And that's something else that comes up. Even though most of the stories center around navigating the sex-crazed, booze-soaked, drug-addled, rock-n-roll lifestyle with no money..."

"Mama, Papa," Max said, "I want to assure you that the drugs and alcohol and sex talk is all exaggerated, unsubstantiated rumors."

"Max," I told him, "your parents are figments of my imagination."

"You only say that because your mother has never given you the mal de ojo.

I sighed. "Moving on... the strange web of Max's even stranger friends(sometimes even seen through their eyes), as well as his past also opens a different, more complex aspect of my life that I explore in my fiction, likemy bad luck, my even worse luck, growing up surrounded by poverty, heartbreak, and, most importantly, my struggles with

mental illness.

"I do write about other things, mind you, but really, I am at my best and most relaxed with this guy and his world, and so count on more of it."

"That it?" Max asked.

"I don't have anything else."

"Cool," he said. "

Let's go get a falafel."

"Lead the way, chico."

"I'm not that short, asshole."

"Yeah, you are."

__________

* Not this time.
** LIES!

Unless I can weave a narrative idea around the random bits and pieces of misfiring neurons (as in the case of my unpublished-because-I-have-no-idea-how-to-go-about-publishing-it novel, The Long Trip), I usually don't spend a lot time dwelling on dreams in my journal. However, sometimes, you kind of have to.

Early, early this morning, the move that Kate and I will be making late winter floated to the forefront of my mind in the idea of an apartment. She and I had been looking around for a long time, and we had finally stumbled on a place that looked kind of beautiful. It was old, and so there were problems--for example, the thermostat was kind of beaten-up and unreliable, and the floors were freezing cold. Also, we'd be sharing the place with another couple.

But that was also one of the draws, because they were good cooks, they were charming (the husband was a shorter version of Stanley Tucci's character from Easy A), and their furniture was comfortable, tasteful, and extravagant. The place was also really huge. The kitchen was open, and could actually fit four people into it (as opposed to the one and a half in our real-world kitchen). Behind the bedrooms loomed a mini-auditorium/ballroom (Dream logic. Just go with it) with floor-to-ceiling windows that made great loading bays for the move. And--this is my favorite part--in said auditorium say a wood-burning stove for a bit of extra warmth in the winter, and maybe some hot apple cider.

They asked us what we did for a living, and we told them, quite accurately. They told us what they did: they bought and sold authentic Nazi antiques, including posters, appliances, clothing, and the queen-sized bed that Adolf Hitler shared with Eva Braun before they moved to their bunker. With an excited squeal, the wife led us to the basement where she hid their prize acquisition: the basin that little Dolfy took baths in when he was just a baby. As you can imagine, we were horrified, but really, really classy about it.

The worst part was we continued the dream trying to convince ourselves to look past their business*. I mean, I once convinced a potential roommate I was an Evangelical Christian to get a spot in his apartment (this is 100 percent true in the real world, FYI). Maybe this was just a job to them... That also meant ignoring the sheet music for "Deutschland Über Alles" sitting on their baby grand piano. The place had a basement.

*This should probably go without saying, but, in non-dream world, Kate and I would have boogied the hell out of there, without even bothering to be classy, for reasons I shouldn't even have to elaborate upon.

Where PPC Hero lives, the halls deck you.

Merry Christmas!

'Tis the season for Holiday Sweater Day, and we all know what that means...

Yeah. That.

Luckily, PPC Hero and Ms. Clicks, they only have to "celebrate" when Mom comes to visit.

Like most of us, SEO Boy doesn't quite know where to start with his annual feast. Let’s just be careful not to overdo it, like PPC Hero.

Most importantly, let's not forget to put the Thanks into Thanksgiving. If you’re like me, there is a whole lot to be thankful for (including the opportunity to illustrate things as fun as this).

Let’s not forget the guys and gals who have sacrificed life and limb to keep us free and comfortable here in the States. PPC Hero won’t.