sex and death, heart-break and strife

cinco de mayo.
the plan was to meet up at a friends apartment, pre-game, and walk downtown from there. i pretty much always go over here to start the nights off when we go downtown and i leave a bottle there usually. my cache was dry so i got another bottle (captain morgan) on the way there. 3 girls were there, the friend who lives there, the second roomie and BF, and the other girlfriend we're walking with.
we live in a college town where 16,000 students resides in a town of 85,000 people, lots of drinking is involved.
these girls were working on their second bottle of jose quervo. yuk! i'm obviously behind (it's not a race, i know). both are named heidi (heidi r, heidi e), and they are inseparable. the other roommate is bailey. it comes up in our convo that heidi e is leaving that weekend to move back home. i was a little pissed because us 3 had always gone to parties, and downtown together, so i felt a little betrayed, but i got over it pretty fast.
we stayed there too long, or got too carried away in our pregaming. downtown from this place is about a 15min walk, and it was 12:30. closing time is usually announced at 1:30 so we decided to just stay at the apartment. heidi e goes to her room to go to bed at this time. the rest of us just hang around and play games and chit chat for a little bit. i get worried about heidi e, or whatever that feeling or motive was at the time, and i go into her room to tell her to come back out and hang out with us. that just ended up with me laying with her talking for a bit. i've always felt some sexual tension between us, but we've never acted on it. this time was different though. talking turned dirty, dirty words turned into kissing, kissing into foreplay, foreplay into articles of clothing being removed.
heidi r comes in becasue bailey and the BF left. the thing about heidi r is, is when she gets drunk, her pants come off. dad issues mainly. i love her to death, and we've been talking about it recently, and i feel like it's helping her cope and to understand that that is why she's like that.
anywhooo..
obviously me and heidi e are startled, but we're all drunk enough that the awkwardness goes away right away. she undresses and hops in with us. heidi r is a lot more handsy and more comfortable sexually, so me and her start. so by now i'm thinking, ok is this really happening? and then i ask heidi r the same thing, and she says it most certainly is. heidi e isn't comfortable with the whole group thing, so she watched for a lot of.. it, i guess. no reason to get much more detailed. but it was something most guys dream about. it was awkward, sweaty, funny, drunkenness, and i couldn't imagine being in that situation with any other girls. even if one watched for a lot of it, i still counts though, right? i think so.

so heidi e is gone for good, but we still text, and chat on facebook quiet often. heidi r and i are good friends, and we go party and hang out many times in the week. it's not weird or anything between us, which i'm thankful for. i really enjoy all the fun we've had after that night, and that we can still be friends.

june 15. my dad died of liver failure. he was 58.

here's what i put on fb that evening after i came home:
"this morning my dad died. it was out of no where. his liver failed. he's the only person who would ever dare to wash down hepatitis medicine with beer. crazy guy.

he was admitted to vvmc on thursday, but everything seemed fine. the doctors had only thought he would be there for 2 days for observation

then my mom called me at 5:30 this morning and said he had passed away



i've personally only told 1 person so far but i think everyone who needs to know, or is willing and able to come to the funeral has been notified, but if you want to come down it will be this thursday the 18th. my mom and i have yet to pick a time but we're thinking we'll have it at riverfront and it'll be a potluck

none of this has really hit me yet, but it always does after the funeral and everyone has gone home. so i'll need some love and comfort by weeks end. regardless of that though it's been really rough on me thus far.

if you want to stop by the house or want directions or just want to talk my cell is xxx.xxx.xxxx. the home phone is xxx.xxx.xxxx



<3"

i think that is a fair assessment of everything. i had to come home that day cause i left right after my mom called with nothing, i just put cloths on and took my wallet and phone. i live an hour north of my mom, so coming back to my apartment was something i needed to do. i was around all these people all day, and all week who were all saying the same words. ''if you need anything, i'm here for you and your mom'' it's amazing to hear that, but i didn't want to hear it anymore. the drive to and from my moms house was really the only time that week i had time to process everything that happened. i lost 10 pounds in 4 days due to how the depression affected me.
even still it's hard to type anything about this, but i guess it's part of the healing process.
on august 2nd at work it hit me like a ton of bricks. i was out by the front door and i broke down. i sat down by one of our displays and cried for about 3 minutes. it took 6 weeks for it to finally hit me, and i've been doing a lot better since then dealing with it emotionally. i have a good friend from high school whos dad died a little over 1 year year ago. she was very gracious to lend an ear, since she's gone through the same thing

my dad was someone who was just as wild and crazy when he was 18 as he was in his last few weeks with us at 58. always wanted to make people laugh, couldn't say no to anyone for anything. a lot of people when they first met him didn't like him becasue he was very honest, but after you got over the truth, then everyone loved him. great dad, great husband, great friend to have. he loved to be the center of attention. always had jokes, or stories to tell anyone and everyone, no matter if it was offensive or whatever, he lived for the attention.
he had hepatitis c from drinking too much when i was in high school, and the docs put him on some new drug that killed, or cured it. i don't remember much about it, as it was 7 years ago. after it was gone he stopped drinking for a few weeks, but started again.
me and my mom knew for a few years that it was going to happen, so we were not completely caught off guard about it.
we had him cremated. his ashes were really heavy, i was very suprised. you'd think ashes of that amount we had, about the size of a produce bag, wouldn't weight that much, but it was about 20 pounds. my mom went skydiving 2 weeks after his death and they let her spread some of the ashes while the parachute was open. it looked really cool. like those planes that have the colored smoke at airshows.
he was an amazing person.

august.
i had the unfortunate experience of falling in love with my best friend. we've known each other for almost 3 years. and when i say love, i mean it. i've only liked 1 other girl besides this one, so i think it's fair to say. i'm very picky.
we both were vegetarians, liked the same books, we both had the same values, same outlook on life, for her it was her best friend and for me it was a very good friend that died in high school in our senior year. both our parents wanted grand kids when we didn't, we both didn't want to get married until later on in life, both ride bikes and enjoy being outdoors as much as possible, both love to dance and sing, we are both science majors at the same college, it just goes on and on for what we have in common.
how these feeling started is stupid, it really is. i'm a hopeless romantic, and one day she stops by my work to say hi, and we talk for a bit. when she's ready to leave we hug and share a high five. everything was fine until that high five. god. on the slap we didn't let go, but we held hands on the way down, and the look in her eyes at that time was enough to, umm, make those feelings happen.
that happened a few days before thanksgiving in 2008. and i wrestled with it until sometime in may when we went to lunch. this lunch was my test to see if i really liked her. and it went exactly how i thought. it passes my little test and after that i started to court her, or so i thought.
now that i look back on it all, all that really stood out as something a potential boyfriend would do, is when i cooked for her. but since we've always been very good friends anyway, for her it wasn't anything like that. finally 3 months, in august, after i came to terms with my feelings for this girl, i told her. and it was exactly as i had expected. she didn't feel like that at all about me. we talked for a few minutes about the situation and then we went our separate ways. that night and the next few days i was crushed. devastated. but i got over her. so it turns out i didn't love her as i had previously said. or maybe i do, and i cant accept i lost her. whatever. she's the only friend i've ever felt that way about though.
no contact at all for 6 weeks after that, until we cross paths downtown one night. small town, it's bound to happen.
she has a new boyfriend. and i was actually very happy to see her finally. i asked the boyfriend if i could take her out casue we had some shit to talk about. i grabbed her hand and took her outside so we could catch up, and for me to say a few more things about it all. it felt great to see her and to say those things (good things). that night we ended up being the only two people to be dancing on the dance floor. i think i talked to her, and was with her more than her boyfriend. the night ended with us agreeing to have lunch the next day just to make sure everything was ok with us, since we both had a few drinks in us and to see if we were really ok being around each other when we were sober. lunch was fine, no awkwardness, and no pauses in the convo. it was like how it was before that stupid high five that ruined it all.
i talked with a girl friend who said she had studied this stuff in college. she said it was confusion on my part, which i agreed with. she said it wasn't love becasue seeing her and her new bf together didn't affect me emotionally as it should have if it was love. i was actually happy to see her with a bf finally. weird.

june 28. 1am.
bar fight. my old roommate works in a bar downtown. she moved out to a new place in the end of may, so me and a friend go there becasue i wanted to say hi and get some drinks that actually have alcohol in them me and my friend who's black (i say black becasue it's the reason this fight happens. setting up details) are inside and he sees a classmate of his. they're are in school for massage therapy. we're talking to her and this guy comes up to us, super defensive and the like saying, ''hey this is my girlfriend'' the girl was like, ''no dude, we broke up months ago'' so i laugh at him and walk off to talk to my old roomie. my friend stays there with the girl, buying her drinks and talking. all the while, that ex-bf is standing over those two. eventually my friend gets the hint and leaves her alone. too little too late.
as we leave we take the alley to get to the main road to start walking to my place. he's on his phone texting another friend who was out that night, but not with us, to see where he was at and if he was coming back with us. the ex-bf sucker punched my friend saying stuff like nigger this, nigger that, stay away from my girlfriend or i'll kill you.
i was walking a few steps ahead of him and i heard the punch, and saw his phone go flying ahead of me.
the time it took me to turn around, assess the situation, and to size up the guy, he had said those things. this guy was 6'1'' and somewhere around 200 pounds. i'm a mere 6'5'' and 155 pounds. i had lost 10 pounds because my dad had died 2 weeks prior. my depression had me lose a lot of weight very fast since i wasn't eating. (i'm back to 165 now, in case anyone is wondering)
he was standing over my friend already looking like he was about to start wailing on him, and then i start swinging. first punch of mine hits him in the ear, second punch in the cheek and it knocks him down. my friend got up by this time and i'm yelling at the ex-bf guy to stay down it's not worth it. i hadn't been drinking at all becasue i was working at 5am that morning, so i wanted to stay clean and sober for my shift. my friend was drinking a lot all night and the ex-bf was drunk too, so it was a pretty easy fight so far.
the ex-bf get's up after it's clear he's not going to do be able to do much in terms of fighting. he comes after me now since i'm the threat, and swings 4 times at me. i take steps back and block his swings with my left arm. i punch him a third time in the forehead and i get a sharp pain for a moment in my hand. the adrenaline kicks out any pain at this point instantly. and he falls down again. thankfully by now bouncers are able to break it apart and keep that guy from coming after me and my friend again. they tell us to leave cause they don't want to hold the ex-bf for any reason. we walk away and meet up with the third friend a few minutes later. tell him what happened. and we go back to my apartment.
on the way home i'm moving my hand around and i tell him to take me to the ER, i think my hand is broken and i want to get it looked at. so that happens and i tell the nurse what happened, barfight, blah blah. i get sent back to get xrays and a temporary cast. my 4th and 5th metacarpal are shattered from that third punch (pinky and ring finger knuckle). about 10minutes of being in the back, the police show up and ask me some questions about what happened, what did he look like, take my information and let the nurse finish up with me. the cop goes to the lobby and does the same thing to my friend that got sucker punched. our stories match, and he says we aren't going to be charged becasue it was a hate crime, and we were defending ourselves. i don't want to press charges on that guy cause it was a bar fight, my friend agreed after i talked to him about it. got him to see it's not worth it. plus the police wont find him.
the hospital trip was only 35minutes. and i was discharged with no hassle. i got a bright pink permanent cast a few days later and everything was fine. except that my insurance wouldn't cover it, but i wasn't aware of this during the time i was in the ER, so when they asked if i had insurance i said yes, and they did much more than they would to someone who did not have insurance. they said it was becasue it was of a pre-existing condition. so that little fight ended up costing me $2500 and the insurance. i had enough saved up for a trip i was planning on doing in february (go to vancouver for winter olympics), so it's all paid for and done and over.
except i dont have a pinky knuckle anymore. the ring finger healed well enough that it's not noticeable, but my poor little pinky knuckle is gone.