boundcreature

i just had, what may have been, the most magnificent meal of this year. it did not seem like it would be so, but it was. having just returned from the supermarket (and being exhausted, as i have been up for 23 hours at this point, on 2 hours of sleep) i decided to throw a sandwich together for a meal before i fell asleep.

let me tell you about this meal.

the sandwich was sliced oven-roasted turkey breast with alpine lace swiss cheese on a fresh sesame roll; it was accompained by a pile of green "guacamole" flavored doritos. for a drink, i had a bottle of ibc root beer (an impulse buy, in reward of the burgeoning release of the pure graphic fury that courses through my veins).

for dessert, i had strawberry yogurt with nestle crunch pieces.

the combination of tastes was, in the words of homer simpson (during his food critic phase): groin-grabbingly transplendent.

i will remember this meal like a lover.

***

today was a good day. i got very much work done and i also picked up a speedo for my halloween costume. how awesome is that? i only had to go to three stores to find it. i'm still on the hunt for a good wig though.

and now, i want to tell a story. i have wanted to tell for over a week and this is the first chance that i have had to tell it.

ode to madichon
by BuckyKatt666

madichon is cute. you know this, just go look at her pictures. but you don't REALLY know until you experience her, live, in person. i met her at the beginning of this summer. i found her profile and i saw that she had just moved to harvard square (10 minutes away from me) and that her favorite book was by paul hornschmeier, an artist whose work i greatly admire and who has given me advice numerous times when i have asked for it. back then, she was called plaingurl. i liked her name, because it was so perfect for her.

as i was to learn in the next month, madichon was the least plain girl you were likely to find. i enjoyed the (seemingly) calculated effect of the irony. it was like the resolution of a subplot in a fine character study, not everyone in the audience got it, but those who did...

we agreed to meet up at harvard square for dinner. after seven or eight minutes, it was abundantly clear to me that she and i would be friends. good friends. real friends. there was a connection between us as instantaneous as it was stong. i felt a level of comfort in her presence that i had not felt for a long time. conversation flowed for the entirety of our dinner at charlie's kitchen. afterwards, we went to my house and watched THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW. she showed me her tattoos, i showed her mine. afterwards, i walked her back to harvard square.

at that time, i was working out 4 to 5 nights a week. i was volatile and bitter, recently heartbroken, very confused... working through my sorrow via intense physical exertion. i did not want to be touched ever again, except by violence. tenderness, to me, was more frightening and intimidating than the gnarliest bruises that showed up on my arms and calves.

a week or two later, madichon traced the tattoos on my left shoulder with her fingertips as we were sitting around in my room one night. it was a curious gesture, a fascination with the ink and the flesh. i cannot say for how long it lasted, but it put me at peace and i knew, deep down, that i would feel tenderness again, like that i had lost when my girlfriend left me. i did not say so, but i did not want it to ever stop.

i gave her all of the artwork and writing i had published and had available. i did not fear misplaced affection for my words transferring to me and causing her to be dissapointed. one night later she sent me the nicest email i have ever received about my artwork. in my art, it is not praise that i seek, nor is it approval, i do not care what others think, i am the harshest bearer of judgement that my work will face... no, i did not care so much that she liked my work (which, i felt was mediocre anyway), what made me feel special, was that she saw immediately through the bitterness and frustration i have felt every single day since i had finished those comics years ago and have not created new ones. she saw the passion in my work and she saw that pieces of it were missing, and she commented on it.

as a reward for this understanding, i let her look through my sketches and notes for a comic story i am writing about the heartbreak. i do not like for people to see my sketches, because they cannot see what they will be, they only see what they are. i knew madichon could see what i was building and felt no pains at letting her spend time reading through my sketchbook.

a couple days later we went to see SPIDERMAN 2. i thought it would be cool if we went really early so we could spend the day together hanging out. she did not like the idea of waking up before 9 am, but i talked her into it. i said i'd be up. when she got to my house, she had to call my phone, because i did not hear the doorbell, because... i was asleep (who saw that coming). i answered the door wearing only a pair of small blue shorts, holding the telephone, when she gave me that look, you know, that look (the madichon i-am-sorta-furious-with-you-but-i-like-you-so-its-gonna-slide-look) all i could say was "what? i'm up!"

haha. it was a great day. we saw the movie, had indian food, looked at comic books, and retired to my house where i introduced her to random tracks of punk rock brilliance while she let me do some (shite) drawings of her in my sketchbook. it was a great afternoon.

i got invited to a small housewarming party. i wanted her to join me. but, she is shy and sometimes quietly withdrawn and anti-social in a burgeoningly poetic sorta way. i bullied her into it and we had a great time. she got to talk with one of my friends who is an english major type guy (they probably talked about poems that don't rhyme or somethin' i couldn't hear i was talking with my design-geek friends about how awesome typography is). thats not the point of the story though,

at the subway station, she was sad, because she let a friend slip away. she was dissapointed and hurt and trying not be jaded, trying to work out a way for friendships to have truth and last beyond the trivialities and hurt feelings of meaningless squabbles that blow themselves out of proportion. i did what i could to comfort her.

six weeks later, i surmise that she felt the same feelings when we stopped talking to one another after a bitterly stubborn series of emails. i suspect they plagued her for weeks afterwards...

the conflict is irrelevant. our actions were irrelevant.

all that matters, was that one week ago, when i saw her again, for the first time in months, at the goth club, when i took her beer and handed it to phil and grabbed her in my arms and hugged her with everything i had, we both felt the friendship that bonded us like siblings for most of the summer.

that something special, that bond i felt in the first seven minutes. that bond i knew existed when she made eye contact with me the night of our first time out with the SGBoston crew on Sid's birthday. we had only hung out once, but we were a pair of newcomers in the group, not loners...

we were pennsylvania castaways.

bonds don't break over little things.

i had fun with you this summer.

thanks bree.