Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: Holiday Wishes and Junior Summer: After Joe’s

It’s 1AM and I just realized my Holiday Wish for today was more of an insult than an honest to god Holiday Wish and I want to be more positive. Plus, I still have more work to do before I can go to bed. So, I’m going to send some quick holiday cheer to Saul Colt because he’s a good guy and a hell of a publisher. James Patrick who’s Death Comes to Dillinger is currently in Previews, being offered by Silent Devil Productions, which means you know it must be good or else I would not be pimping it (implied negativity – nothing wrong with that, right?). Neil Kleid whose Jewish gangster graphic novel Brownsville is currently soliciting, as well, published by NBM (and he also got engaged yesterday – congrats). And Carla Speed McNeil – I never read Finder until she announced she'll be distributing the single issues for free online – here’s to being innovative and actually doing something about the state of the market while the rest of us sit around and say, “We gotta do something.” It’s inspiring, really.

I also want to say that the response to my new column idea has been huge. The comments are one thing but I've been seeing links pop up everywhere and I've gotten a ridiculous amount of emails. You know what, there's a lot of fed-up people who all agree it's time we start listening and putting our heads together. I think it's going to be a good year. I took a first stab at the FAQ and the first three ideas. I am absolutely IN LOVE with the third one which means it probably has the most holes. But that's where you all come in. I'm excited for this, I almost want to start this Friday but I'll wait until the Holidays are over.

Ok, story time…

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The day after Robin and I first hooked up (and here's her version of the story) I had the blind date from hell, my punishment for being such an ass. The day after that was Joe Sacco’s graduation party. Joe, whom I’ve talked about, was my scooter bound friend in college – he had MD and despite the fact that it made his life hell, he was always this cheery, funny as hell kid that was the first to joke about his affliction. He was a year older than me and was going off to Stanford for Grad School which I personally found amazing – this was a whole new city for him, no friends there and no family – and he’s trapped in a scooter. That’s some brave shit, right there.

A bunch of us pile into several cars and drive on out to Rhode Island where Joe lives. I get into a car with Sleazy Steve and I’m telling him about my night with Robin and the blind date – saying how I think I want to give this Robin thing a shot. He’s telling me I should be careful with her, she has a “reputation” and could be diseased.

Yes, I shit you not, he told me that – but we don’t call him Sleazy Steve (to his face, I might add) for nothing. At the same time he was telling Robin that I’m not the type to get serious and I’ll just lead her on until I’m done with her. Always a cock-blocker, that Sleazy Steve.

We get to Joe’s house and eat some burgers, offer our congrats and spend some time in his pool. Joe does go into his pool quite often but he claimed it was this big ordeal to do it and won’t be going in for his party – I felt a little guilty splashing around in his pool but how often do college kids get to go in one? Besides, there were plenty of people hanging out with him.

After speaking to several people about Robin and what I should do (and after ignoring Sleazy Steve’s advice, naturally), I called her almost immediately after returning home and asked her if she wanted to go out for ice-cream the next day.

It was pretty awkward, really. Here’s this girl that pursued me quite aggressively, finally got me to make my move only to have it followed by me going on a blind date the next day and not calling her for a couple of days afterwards. I know there are all these stupid “don’t call for x-days” rules but we had enough history to ignore those rules and come to terms with the fact that something’s finally happening.

So when I called her, she made had no qualms with informing me that she didn’t think I was going to call. She also had no problem with outright stating that she assumed my blind date didn’t go too well.

To say I was at a disadvantage is a bit of an understatement.

We went to Maggie Moos down on Newbery Street and were lucky to get the tea-cup seat. The tea-cup seat was the actual tea-cup from one of those old carnival rides – the ones were you grab the steering wheel, of sorts, in the middle to spin your tea-cup around. That damn seat is never empty – it’s the most sought after seat in Maggie Moos. We just happened to finish paying and got off the line the exact moment the tea-cup sitters were getting up and we swooped in for the seat. It sort of alleviated the tension, somewhat – any day you get the teacup seat is a special day and usually a sign of good things to come.

We ate our ice-cream – talked a bit. I told her about the blind date and made light of the whole thing, tried to remind her I was committed – I already had the baseball tickets – and I just needed to get it over with. She didn’t believe me, obviously, but I encouraged her to make fun of me and the situation.

After ice-cream we went to Urban Outfitters, window shopped for a bit before making our way back home. I dropped her off at her place and stopped upstairs for a little while. It wasn’t what you think, we were taking it slow at this point, and we just ended up eating Pizza Bites and playing some Sonic the Hedgehog. After an hour of hedgehog goodness I told her it was time for me to go and we decided to go see Austin Powers the next day.

The movie went well – that’s where the hand-holding and kissing started coming back in (taking it slow doesn’t mean that slow) and the following dates were all similar in tone and pace. About three weeks in we got into a bit of a tiff, I guess I in some way questioned her sexual past – obviously inspired by the shit Sleazy Steve was still feeding me which, as it turns out, was basically all untrue (goddamn Sleazy Steve – goddamn me for believing him) but didn’t mean it was easily ignorable. Let’s put it this way, there’s no easy way to ask a girl if she’s ever been tested for HIV. Especially not after you JUST finished fooling around.

I’m an asshole sometimes; you all know that by now.

It was more of an uncomfortable “I gotta go now” than an actual argument. The next time I saw her I brought flowers and we talked it out. Only years later I discovered she was going to break up with me – but the fact that I brought her flowers and acknowledged I fucked up before she told me I fucked up was worth giving it a second shot. I agreed to stop listening to Sleazy Steve, obviously, and she told me all the stuff that he was telling her. Goddamn Sleazy Steve. Plus I pick out really nice flowers, roses are for uncreative chumps.

Now here we are, seven years behind us and doing well. It all started the summer of Junior Year and it took a couple of years of good, hard work before we were able to pop it into cruise control. But that first summer, there were a couple of close calls.

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Holiday Wishes and Junior Summer: After Joe’s

Monday, December 19, 2005

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