Fear/Shooting Yellows/Rock and Roll

   I know why I can hold my breath this long. I don’t know what it takes to get to the point where I can do it so easily, but I know why I’m there when I feel it. Like I’m not really connected to myself. It was first the situation. It was a regular day, marking the beginning of the first week after the breakup, I finished the book Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman (4/5 stars) and I’d spent the night previous high on the best weed I’ve ever smoked (5/5 stars). So, as my brain slowly completed rebooting itself, I barely heard Kurt give out instructions for the next lap of buttefly drills. I felt suddenly I could manage it, even in my baggy trunks and so I did an underwater all the way across the pool like it was nothing. I popped up on the other side, hardly even winded. I’d been swirling thoughts and water all day, but I find myself hopelessly swamped in thought again. That’s classic. A real Jamesy thing to do. Think yourself into a paralyzing state of self-hypnosis. Nothing feels real, so twenty-five yards of underwater swimming doesn’t seem difficult at all. I can’t do it again though. That’s the rule. At just the right time it’s possible, when the water’s quiet and I’m inside my own head, I could probably lift a car as well. I can only do it once though, because doing it comes with such a huge sense of incredulity I remember what it feels like not to breath. I try again and pop up just between Pat and Amber. They were talking away about something. They seem pretty in sync. They focus on me for a moment. Put on the spot I do something classically weird and they laugh the way they always do. It was a regular day. Except that I wanted to ask Pat on a date. In a lonely drug fueled experience the night previous I realized that asking a girl to go out with you is probably the easiest way to figure out if she kind of digs you. That was the best thing I have ever gotten from weed that remained after I stopped being high. For some reason drunk James was convinced that going to a party, stripping to your undies, kissing a guy and a girl simultaneously, and then kissing Pat on the head instead of the lips, because of some strange and newly established rule about not kissing on the lips on a dare if you actually like them was the way to put yourself in Pat's FOV. To clarify, this party was sort of what I consider a palate cleanser. I needed some fun and The Ex, who used to me my best friend, dumped me, so now I drink and kiss people on dares. I guess that’s normal, and I did have fun, but High Jamesy and Drunk Jamesy always get two different ideas. Both still sound like ideas I would have, just slightly different from one another. Anyhow, after spending that night on Russell’s couch, I had a day off, I read some more of my book, and I got high, and remembered that going to parties and making out with chicks is only good if that’s all the emotional connection you want. I wanted to ask Pat out, not get dared to kiss her. That kiss wouldn’t even count. Let’s take a step back. My girlfriend of 4 years broke up with me a week and four days ago and you might be thinking I’m jumping back in there a little bit too soon. I tend to agree, except I can’t say I feel like I need a longer break. She broke it off, I looked after Bee and Kurt’s apartment for three days, smoked weed, made friends with Monty, and decided I could do better. And now I feel better. I can’t say I feel anything but lighter, like I just dropped a bowling ball. I felt my loins start purring again, and now every woman in the world is an option, and Pat was a girl who slid into my periphery because I was dating The Ex when I met her. But now I remember her, and today I was going to ask her out, but I Jamesy’d it right up.

               

  I believe in fate, in very little, strange ways, and I think that the amount of opportunity I had to privately ask Pat if she would go out with me must have been one of those signs from God. Of course, I was far too frightened to ask, and this isn’t surprising. My dad left a kind marginalia at the end of Killing Yourself To Live, and I found that I had made up my mind about asking Pat out at that very moment. “Your life is still your own! Live it!” that was the last thing he annotated for me, and it probably did to me exactly what he was hoping it would, which is good. I argued with the part of me that said it’s too soon, and the part that said it would be seen as weird, but I also tried to listen to the part of my brain slowly developing that says “Fuck you, I’ll do whatever I want!” I like that voice, because much of my life thus far has been a matter of fear. When I started to care more about what other people thought than I did about what I thought, I put myself in a position to have a long relationship and feel almost no remorse at separating. I’m tired of that. Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation started on the drive home. This was good, because as I struggled with my ability to act so suddenly, I found I no longer gave a damn about my bad reputation. Live It! Echoed in the back of my skull and I found myself closer to giving no fucks. That’s the goal. Existing as the purest, least fuck giving Jamesy there ever was. But I overthought myself back at the pool, and I hated it. Not only because I didn’t ask Pat on a date, but because now I have to think about how I didn’t ask Pat on a date, and that’s bad, because I find that the pain of potential rejection passes faster than crippling regret. This is real life, and real life is a lot like driving home was for me today. I felt like I hit every yellow light right when you just have to make a decision. Stopping is fine, and going is fine, but maybe if you shoot it, you’ll make the next green instead of a red, and all these individual decisions to shoot or stop add up to some great life altering change. Maybe I would’ve been hit by a car if I hadn’t shot all those yellows. Maybe if I asked Pat out I wouldn’t have hit so many yellows at all. Who knows? All I know is that I can only ask tomorrow so many times. So, tomorrow, if that day comes, I want to ask her. It’s Buddy Night, which means that big kids on the swim team and little kids on the swim team get to be each other’s buddies, and since I’m not responsible for anything , I still get at least one buddy each year, which is good, because I love Buddy Night, and it will mean that there is ample opportunity to teach any of my potential buddies, hopeful very small, very cute ones, how to ask Pat out for me. Hopefully that would appear cute and not cowardly. Not that I care. “Fuck You, I’ll Do Whatever I Want!” Now all I have to do is follow through. Don’t overthink until you die. Maybe don’t even think. Just let yourself ask. No fear.

            

I was raised on Rock and Roll, and if ever I found myself unafraid, it was tooling around town with my dad while Rob Halford or Alice Cooper taught us important things about ourselves out of the speakers on the dashboard. He’s a great driver, and really good conversations result in us missing an exit instead of us dying in a car wreck, so I give him some serious points for prioritizing. I just remembered in this last exciting week that I love Rock and Roll more than any other music. It’s actually pretty religious. When I’m doing fine and don’t need to Rock, it waits for me to come back from alternative music and techno. This last week it reminded me what’s important, and who I always have behind me. I was sliding downward into something, but Kiss’s Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio? started playing quietly in my head until I listened to it again, and then I listened to No More Mr. Nice Guy and then Metal Gods, and Moonchild and now I have a playlist titled “Jamesy’s Big Fat June Vol. 1” which effectively sums up my June so far. There’s a Vol. 2 coming when June ends, and I think it’ll be the best two volume mix I’ve ever created. So, with Rock and Roll in mind, I find that these challenges are not so frightening. When Ronnie James Dio tells me to ride the tiger, I feel just a moment like an immortal God, and every yellow light becomes my race. Not to go fast, not to be efficient, just to be active. Rock and Roll is named after motion because it’s best enjoyed when thrashing wildly while it plays at an unbelievably high decibel level. It’s about being strong, and fearless, and loud, and noticeable, and those are all things I could do a little bit better. But tomorrow, we start on the way to fearless and aggressive living. I will not be scared into corners anymore. I ask cute girls out, I race yellow lights, and I rock.