My Stalker

Through the final two years of my three years in middle school, not a lot of things remained constant in my life. I was going through the hell known as puberty, I'd switched schools in between the 6th and 7th grade, and was still "discovering" myself.

Aside #1: Consider that a polite euphemism for "started to masturbate regularly."

One of the things that did remain constant towards the end, however, was the undying affection of a girl named Erica. I was thrown off by her advances when they began via a note slipped into the grates of my locker one afternoon. Written in green ink on notebook paper, it went something like this:

Dear Ty,

I saw you walking. We have a class together. Your cute [sic].

Call me.

(phone number)

Love,

Erica

Reading the name at the bottom of the note, I was confused and also flattered. I'd never heard of this person before or noticed anyone named Erica in any of my classes.

Then it hit me. A year younger than me, with braces and thick glasses, Erica was the mentally disabled girl that was in my Computer Literacy class. I wasn't sure what to do, and I definitely didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I ignored it.

Aside #2: My motto: "Don't want to hurt someone's feelings? Ignore them!"

But she was persistent. Over the next few weeks, she would drop more notes into my locker, despite the fact that I never replied to a single one or gave her any indication that her feelings were reciporicated in the slightest.

It started to get worse, too. Every time she walked by me in the hall, she would giggle, look down, and rush out of my field of vision. I was beginning to get worried. My sensitivity towards the handicapped like Erica made it difficult for me to say no without devastating her.

Aside #3: At this point in time, my mother was a Special Education teacher, so I was well aware of how emotionally unstable she may be. I don't mean to generalize this group of people, but it was a distinct possiblility.

Soon after her barrage of notes had started, spring break began. I was given a week off from my moral torture, and to be frank, forgot about it completely.

But the following Monday, I opened my locker to find a bright red envelope with my name on it. Opening it, I found a card with yet another plea to call her, and to my horror, a wallet-sized copy of her school photo with her name on the back next to a bright-red heart. She just wouldn't quit.

I knew I had to take some sort of action against her, for her sake and for my own. So one day, after school had ended, I walked to the special education room where Erica spent most of her time, and asked to talk to the teacher that had been assigned to her.

I was then introduced to a polite, soft-spoken teacher named Mrs. Morris, who, after I'd explained the situation, told me that one of the side-effects of Erica's particular disability was that she became obsessed with people that she found attractive, as a coping mechanism.

Aside #4: I say "coping mechanism" because she was apparently incapable of admitting these attractions like a normal person, instead choosing to become obsessive.

Apparently she'd cycled through celebrities, teachers and other students before, and had lost interest after a few weeks. Mrs. Morris assured me that Erica would become "bored" with me if I continued to ignore her, and the notes would stop. Thanking her for her candor and help, I left.

---

Three weeks later, the notes still hadn't stopped, and were becoming more and more unsettling. I began seeing her several times a day, as opposed to the two or three times I'd normally run into her. I can't say that I was scared, but I was definitely uncomfortable.

So I went to talk to Mrs. Morris again after school, to tell her that Erica's obsession with me hadn't waned. Immediately after I'd entered her room, she rushed over to me.

"Oh my gosh, I am so sorry she hasn't stopped bothering you," she said. "I haven't been able to contact you because I forgot to write down your name, and Erica refuses to tell it to me because she knows exactly why I want it. I was this close," she held her fingers apart a small amount, "to following her throughout the day and hoping she'd run into you."

After explaining what had been happening over the last few weeks, she sighed and took a folder out from her desk.

"These are what Erica has been drawing during her special ed. period," she said, opening the folder.

Handing me a stack of paper, I leafed through them. Every single one was a childlike drawing of either me alone, or she and I together, holding hands and partaking in various activities she must have assumed couples did regularly.

Aside #5: The few I can remember are she and I walking through a park, playing with a dog and eating dinner together.

"She's on a level of obsession with you that I've never witnessed before," continued Mrs. Morris. "I'm not sure what to do about it."

"Well, what if I told her that I'm not interested?" I asked. "Would she freak out?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "We've never had her take it this far before. The last time she drew pictures of someone like this, it was of Orlando Bloom, and we had to convince her that there was no hope. She didn't take it well."

Aside #6: And that was the only time in my life that I've ever been inadvertently compared to Orlando Bloom. Get on my level.

"If I were to do it," I continued, "I would be very gentle in letting her down. I could even lie and tell her that my fake-girlfriend doesn't like that she's sending me these love notes."

"You know...that actually might work," she admitted. "Well, I guess we'll try it and see how it goes."

We then made plans to call me out of class at a certain point the next day. She told me that Erica would likely "spaz out" when I entered the room, but to not show her that it made me uncomfortable. After planning out what I should say to her, I left.

The next day, I was called to the special ed. room just as planned. Walking down the hall, I rehearsed what Mrs. Morris and I had decided that I would say. Soon, I was at the door to the room. Taking a deep breath, I opened it.

The instant it swung open, Erica turned towards the door and saw me standing there. Just as Mrs. Morris had predicted, she started freaking out, not quite knowing how to contain herself. I walked over and sat in the chair across from her, as Mrs. Morris sat in the one beside her.

"Hi Erica," I said.

"Hi..." she said, in between making excited noises with her mouth.

"Erica, Ty has something that he needs to tell you," chimed in Mrs. Morris, looking at me and nodding.

"That's right. I came here to tell you that I think it would be best if you stopped writing notes to me. My girlfriend doesn't like it, and is getting jealous," I lied.

"Girl...girlfriend?" she stammered. "You...don't have a girlfriend..."

We hadn't planned for this. Thinking on my toes, I said, "Actually, I do. She goes to a different school. That's why you've never seen me with her."

"Oh...well...okay..." she said, sadness in her voice.

"But Erica, if you want to be my friend, I would be more than happy to come down to this room once a week to talk to you. But you've got to promise me you'll stop writing notes to me."

She looked at me for five seconds before looking away again and smiling.

"Okay..." she agreed, still grinning.

After spending a few more minutes talking to her, I left. I worked out a deal with Mrs. Morris before I did though, agreeing to be called out of one of my elective classes on every Thursday until her obsession with me had faded.

Two visits later, she was finished with me, and had moved on to a new crush. I saw her in the halls from time-to-time after that, but she never acted the way she had when she was obsessed with me.

I ran into Mrs. Morris some time later, close to the end of the school year. She told me that she had been working on this facet of her behavior with Erica, and that what I had done helped this cause immensely. She said that she expected this habit to be knocked within the next few months, if all went as planned. And I hope, for Erica's sake, it worked.

My First Guitar Lesson

I'm not sure if I've ever met anyone who has cycled through as many hobbies as I have. From the average (rock collecting!) to the odd (flying RC planes!), my collection of hobbies is a long one, at least compared to the average person my age. Nowadays, the reason I pick up hobbies is so that I can perfect them and never touch them ever again. I'm not sure why I do this. I suppose it's out of boredom, and I also suppose that it says a lot about me. But I haven't always been this way.

Before I hit high school age, I'd cycle through hobbies because I wasn't sure what I'd like, similar to most people in my peer group. I hadn't yet realized that everything interests me, and rather than take on several hobbies at once, I decided to go through them one at a time.

The first two were very, very normal: soccer and the Boy Scouts. No disrespect for those that stayed with either outside middle school, but a lot of us that were with you originally couldn't exhibit enough interest in either to keep up a good rapport with our coaches and Scout master, and were usually punted from the group.

Aside #1: I know this didn't happen to everybody. I'm not stupid. I'm just acting as if this very specific instance has happened to everybody, to imply that it's happened to me.

After failing at these two prospects, my mom and step-dad assumed that me being interested in sports or being a lifelong good Samaritan weren't likely futures for me,

so they bought me a guitar for my 13th birthday.

Being something of a guitar aficionado in another life, my step-dad didn't skimp out on purchasing me an instrument of fine quality. He bought me an Epiphone Les Paul Mini, complete with amp and guitar-and-amp-carrying guitar-and-amp case.

Note: Pictured above is the EXACT set that I had, except I'm pretty sure the amp had some sort of stencil across the front of it.

It was literally everything a budding player could want. It didn't have any scary pedals or weird bars sticking out of the guitar, it was the most basic of instruments for those with the most basic level of interest in playing it. And the fact that it carried the Les Paul name meant something to anyone who knew anything (or thought they knew anything) about guitars.

In addition to this gift, I also was given assurance that my mother would sign me up for a lesson in playing my newly acquired instrument, once my step-dad had taught me some form of basic string-plucking so I didn't go off embarrassing myself in front of a professional.

After doing so, three months later, I was signed up for my first lesson at my local Guitar Center. Walking into that store on the day of my first lesson (with my mom by my side, naturally), I was nervous and nearly shaking. We'd shown up early, so we were asked to sit in a tiled area attached openly to both the store and the hallway connecting the individual soundproof rooms where the actual "teaching" was done.

Sitting across from me was a girl who was approximately my age, who was holding the case for what was either a viola or violin. It was obvious just by looking at her that she was comfortable in her surroundings, as if she'd sat in that same chair dozens of times over the years, breaking it in to the point of maximum comfortability. While I, the "fresh meat," as it were, shifted uncomfortably in my plastic chair, the hard curves unknown, my feet not touching the ground, hands groping the neck of my guitar through its nylon carrying case. We were different beasts, she and I.

Minutes went by until a man turned around the corner, clearly having come out of one of the personally-sized rooms. He called my name, and I followed him back into a room with a number on its door. He shut the door, and introduced himself as Thomas. He was tall and buff, and to some people he might have been considered ruggedly handsome. His shoulders were double the width of his hips, likely as a testament to what appeared to be a Samoan heritage. He essentially had the ideal physique for a linebacker or a refrigerator, a variable man and woman's best friend.

Regardless, he was here to teach me, and teach me he did. Sort of. We spent the first 15 minutes of class with me awkwardly playing the three to four base chords I'd learned and actually remembered in the last few weeks, with me promising that I'd learned more but couldn't recall it at the moment.

Aside #2: I also remember a particularly embarrassing moment. in which I picked at the strings at the point between the nut (at the top of the neck) and the fret posts (where the strings are "strung" in, essentially), and claimed that it sounded just like a "creepy piano" tinkling. I hope that more than most of you understand exactly what I'm talking about, and understand how painful and jarring recalling this is for me right now.

After pretending to know more than what I actually knew about playing the guitar in front of someone who taught people how to play the guitar for a living, he pulled out his own instrument and began fooling around and playing a few dumb tunes. Being a dumb kid, I was amazed by his clear mastery of the guitar arts, and mentally bowed down to his talent and made him my master.

Aside #3: I really fucking love(ed) Star Wars.

"What kinda music do you like?" he asked.

"Uh, blink-182 and The Offspring are pretty cool" I replied, knowing that the latter of the two would be impressively considered "adult" taste for a 13 year-old (it wasn't).

"Aw, blink-182! They're that band with the song that goes..."

At this point, Thomas the Guitar Instructor launched into the most melodramatic rendition of "All the Small Things" by blink-182 that this planet has ever seen. Kind of. He sort of knew the lyrics, and the tempo was a little off, and the chords sounded a bit funny, but he got the general idea of the song down. Even more, he was very clearly impressed with himself for remembering (most of) the song.

Unfortunately, this was at a point in time where rabid blink-182 fans like myself had sort of formed a backlash against that particular song, because it was their most popular one, the single song that every person who had heard of the band had heard of. The least exclusive track in their catalogue. Every major band in history has had this exact situation occur to them at some point in their careers.

Here was my teacher, the man to whom minutes earlier I had dedicated the future of my musical life to. Singing my least favorite song (at the time) by my favorite band, out of key and absolutely terribly. I'd never seen someone I respected so highly, so quickly, fail so miraculously and without a single ounce of grace.

The rest of our hour-long session was spent with Thomas trying to tune my guitar with a digital tuner, before giving up on technology and attempting to use his voice. It didn't work.

I never went back. Aside from learning a dozen or so songs in the years since then, I've also given up on playing the guitar. My heart was just never in it.

My former guitar now resides in the closet of my little brother, stored there in hopes that he'll one day use it, become great with it, then buy me a house as thanks for inspiration.

The Metallica Story

Throughout middle school, I was obsessed with Metallica. I'm not embarassed about this fact at all. I am, however, VERY embarassed about the type of Metallica fan I was. You see, Metallica is one of those bands whose entire discography is filled eqally with albums that are hits and misses. I was unfortunately one of those rabid hyper-fans that was drooling over everything they'd ever done, including the absolutely abysmal "Garage, Inc." It was that bad.

Around the peak of my obsession, Metallica released their album "St. Anger." For those of you that don't know what this means in relation to the Metallica canon (if you will), I'd like you to think of your favorite band or musician that has more than five albums out. Now think of that artist's most generic, shitty, uninspired album (as a whole). That's what this album is for Metallica. Except this album was made during a period in their career where every member of the band wanted to kill one another in the most violent way imaginable (as shown by the sub-par-but-still-worth-a-watch documentary "Some Kind of Monster"). Even more, the entire band was fresh from famously suing Napster, after which bassist Jason Newstead left (for an unrelated reason). Their minds were probably on other things while recording this.

Regardless, I worshipped anything these four horsemen decided to hammer out, and listened to the album incessantly with my terrible blue Walkman CD player and ill-fitting headphones that made the loud parts (i.e., the whole album) sound like it was playing through a tin can. But I didn't care, terrible-sounding Metallica was better than no Metallica at all. After playing the album dozens of times, a certain song on the album stuck out to me more than most. Entitled "Sweet Amber," the song seemed to be about a girl that was pretending to be a kind person, or something. Anyways, I thought the song was badass.

Aside #1: I was so obsessed with this album that I still remember that "Sweet Amber" was track number eight on "St. Anger." Despite the fact that you may not believe me, as I'm writing this, I am nowhere near an internet connection, nor do I have this album on my laptop or anywhere nearby.

The summer after the album was released, I was spending a weekend at my dad's house when he and the neighbors threw a sort of impromptu block party. Friends invited friends, and soon people that we had never met were showing up.

Aside #2: I know that saying that strangers were at this party makes it seem like things got out of control, but I assure you, they didn't. This was a party of adults, not college students.

I was hanging out with the group of kids that were around my age, sitting on our next-door neighbor's front porch. J.T., the large, greasy, bespectacled mouth-breather that was the son of the house's owner (and my best friend at the time), was petting one of his many dogs, talking to a boy named Richard that lived a few houses farther down the street. Sitting next to Richard was a skinny, brown eyed, brown-haired girl that I would later find out was his cousin. I was sitting in a wooden rocking chair adjacent to her side of the couch that she and her kin were on, trying not to stare at her. I was still, of course, at the age where I was completely unaware of how to flirt with girls, avoiding her glances and subsequent smiles by feigning a weirdly creepy fascination with another one of the house's smaller dogs that was sitting on my lap. The two sons of the neighbors on the other side of my dad's house, Cody and Austin, were sitting on a pair of fold-out lawn chairs, eating chips.

After a few minutes, the four other males on the porch decided to go into the house to get drinks, leaving Richard's cousin and I alone and sitting less than three feet away from one another. Anyone that has ever been remotely social at any point in their life knows that forced, awkward social interaction was inevitable at this point. So it happened. And it wasn't that bad. She was easy to talk to, and laughed at my jokes interjected into our polite preteen small-talk.

Aside #3: Looking back, I'm not sure if she was laughing at my shitty jokes or the fact that my voice was shaking as I was telling them. Either way, she found it charming, and I was obviously far too inexperienced to tell the difference.

I looked inside during a lull in our banter, and saw that the four boys had decided to sit in the living room and play Gamecube. Opting to not join them, the girl and I decided to walk over to my dad's house to get some food. On the short walk over, we continued to talk to one another, talking about unimportant and benign things. Though I was not good at reading most signals, I was picking up strong flirtatious vibes from her. She'd gone from laughing at my aforementioned "shitty jokes" to adorably giggling at even the most muted of my responses. I had an admirer, it seemed. This realization only propelled my interest for her, and she jumped from "cute girl" to "the girl I'll tell my friends about after the summer's over."

We entered my dad's backyard to find a large group of people milling around a grill, my dad's friend Bob making cheeseburgers for the crowd. We each requested one, and put our condiments on our respective patties while standing side-by-side in the warm garage. This was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me at this point in time, and I didn't know how to react. After anxiously eating while standing in the humid space, she grabbed me by the hand and lead me to her father's truck, parked outside my dad's house. She opened the back hatch, and we climbed in. Sitting indian-style next to each other, we both looked up at the still-darkening sky in silence.

"You're not like anyone I've met before," she said, still looking up.

I wish I could say that I swept her off of her feet and suavely shot back a witty retort that made her fall madly in love with me, but I did nothing of the sort. As far as I can recall, we sat there in silence after this admittance, too afraid to talk any more. Before I knew it, she was bustled into Richard's parent's van, leaving me with nothing but a bruised heart and her first name: Amber.

I never saw her again, or really ever talked to Richard as far as I remember. But to this day I can't even listen to Metallica without thinking of that sweet girl Amber that I met when I was a kid.

The Blow Job Story

In the summer between my 8th grade and 9th grade years, I began talking to a girl over Myspace that I had "met" through mutual friends, named Ashley. We had met up a few times, and started "dating," which entailed nothing beyond being dropped off at the mall together, or going to each others' house. She was a year older than me (entering the 10th grade at a different school; a big deal at the time), but no more experienced than I in the treacherous world of tween sexual experimentation. That is to say, kissing was a big deal, and going even further was not worth the hours-long erection you were forced to wear like a horrible badge of honor. You know, the one that lasts way longer than it should, forcing you to take a walk of shame to her parents' Jeep Liberty to drive you home with your hands jammed into your pockets like they don't know exactly what you're trying to hide?

Aside #1: I assume all semi-sexually active males and females have been on the respective sides of this at one point or another, and know exactly what I'm talking about, or can at least imagine the situation thanks to 80's teen comedies.

Anyways, to make a long story short, after two or three months, my still-growing libido was sick of only getting to "second base" with Ashley, and wanted to take things further. Orally further. I wanted her to give me a blowjob. I'd never gotten one before (much less had sex), and was, of course...curious.

At first, she was reluctant to do this, as she'd never gone past even "first base" with anyone before, much less "third." But after some softcore-style heavy petting on her bed, with clearly broken and laughably naive promises to "always be together" exchanged in-between sloppy kisses, I was able to begin to "shoulder pat" her down to my privates.

Aside #2: I also assume that all people that have been involved on either side of male oral sex knows what I'm talking about here, the "shoulder pat" being the general term for the sort of light push guys will give their ladies while kissing them, to say, "I'd like it if you went down there. I strongly suggest you do this." It's a dick move, but we've got to let you know what we want somehow, right?

After unzipping my pants and pulling them down to my ankles (I still had my shoes on, naturally), she began to unbutton the wiener-hole in the front of my boxers.

Aside #3: I don't know what else to call it, so sorry for being twelve. I've called it that my entire life.

Her hands were shaking as she unfastened the buttons, which meant that it took a ridiculously long time to open the gates (as it was). Once she finally did it, my once rock-hard erection had sort of shrunken into what looked like a depressed, peach-colored eel, apparently no longer amused by the female face in its vicinity.

Now, at this point in the story, I have to mention that once she saw what she had to work with, she didn't throw her hands in the air and give up, or even make a funny face. Oh no. She sure as shit tried her hardest to get me going again, and I give her massive amounts of credit for that.

But there was one problem. As I mentioned before, Ashley nor I had ever been on the respective giving or receiving ends of a blowjob before, and I think she had a minor misconception as to what it involved. Rather than "suck" my dick, she instead chose to literally "blow" it; like you would a balloon. Before I had a chance to react to the sharp pain that the gust of air being blown into my penis caused, I looked down to see her cheeks blown up as big as Dizzy Gillespie's.

Unfortunately, my knee-jerk reaction was to grab the hair atop her head, pull it off of my groin (which made a very interesting popping noise), while yelling "FUCKING OW!"

Needless to say, this was not a high point in our relationship. After "cleaning up," her parents decided that they'd had enough with our preteen shenanigans, and that it was time for them to drive me home. Awkward didn't even begin to describe the car ride. We were sitting in the back of her parents' Honda Civic, holding hands loosely over the middle seat, everything feeling slightly different now that we had crossed this threshold into the void. After dropping me off, she sent me a text message explaining that she was nervous, and sorry that she'd hurt me. We made vague plans to see each other in the coming few days, but our hearts must not have been in it anymore. I never saw or talked to her again. But I sure hope she learned how to suck dick.