Sometimes Ya Gotta Laugh

Chapter 1

Breaking The Girl - "Twisting and turning, your feelings are burning, you're breaking the girl. She meant you no harm, think you're so clever, but now you must sever, you're breaking the girl ..." Red Hot Chili Peppers

January 1(Tuesday)

New Year's Day. 5:00 am. My eyes are closed but I am wide awake. I open them to find my alarm clock mocking me with its metallic red neon numbers. The clock knows I am the only man in the universe waking up this early on New Year's.  

She purrs peacefully in the bed behind me. At least one of us is sleeping.

I reach down, grab my boxers off the floor, toss them on top of the clock, and close my eyes again. Doesn't help. The red neon still flashes, she still purrs, and sleep still escapes me. I give the clock the finger.

What is her name? Alison? Alisa? What time did I go to bed last night? Three am? And was I too drunk to close the shades when I came home? The outside streetlamp floods my loft, conspiring malevolently with the alarm clock to deny me any additional REM.

Nights like these are the ones that Tivo was created for. Those nights when Mr. Sandman has abandoned you at the orphanage for wayward sleepers, your sheep have found a knoll with better grass and a better shepherd, and your friend who works as a pharmaceutical rep just got put on final warning for giving out free samples of Ambien to his friends.

I toss my legs slowly over the side of the bed, trying to move quietly and not wake what's-her-name. I snatch my boxers off the clock and turn the clock toward the wall. That will teach it. And I walk toward the bedroom door.

Unfortunately, my door cannot be passed through without a quick study of my reflection in the cheval. When this ritual began, who knows? I'd guess somewhere around my thirty-fifth birthday began my obsessive compulsive check for signs of middle age and belly fat. Middle age men with paunches and receding hairlines don't get the girl. Whoever the girl is.

I look at my stomach - four pack not a six pack but good enough for the beach. And I battle the onslaught of gray hairs by plucking six from my goatee. 

She rolls over and sighs. What is her name? And why do I care? I've been butt-ass naked with several girls I've met in Uptown and haven't known their name - at least not their last name. So why her name?

Our sex wasn't mind blowing. But that wasn't her fault. Sex rarely is mind blowing these days. At eighteen, horniness is only a wind-blow away and any sex is good sex. At thirty-six, the horniness still persists. But the sex isn't as consistently good. Crazy thing is, she was earnest. She was making all the appropriate sounds ... almost but not quite ... a little over-the-top. Which was good because I prefer the more natural sounds to the wanna-be-Jenna-Jamison sounds. But I digress ... she's making the appropriate sex sounds and I'm obliging her with the appropriate pelvic thrusts. The headboard is knocking against the wall and the springs of my too old Posturepedic are creaking rhythmically to Maxwell's falsetto crooning out my iPod speakers. Almost all the ingredients were present for a toe-curling descent into jizz paradise. Yet, no dice. I'd give it a six on the one to ten scale. Long story short, and it's much too late for that now, exactly eighty-three minutes after we walked in the door and twenty-two minutes after she says, "I'm about to cum ..." she was sound asleep. (She came four times. She was tired).

My friend Gabrielle says that fuck buddies never spend the night. An interesting statement coming from Gabrielle as she doesn't believe in fuck buddies or one night stands. Nevertheless, she says once both of you get what you want, you go your separate ways. Why this is the case, I'm not sure. Perhaps staying overnight implies some level of emotional intimacy that isn't there.