Disclaimer: While I said this when I first posted this story, it bears repeating. This story is not about Doolies. It is fiction. Doolies is a beautiful and wonderful girlfriend. The narrator says what he says because it fit his character and moves the story forward. I won’t parse which statements are true (since, obviously, some of what he says I say often), but the girlfriend is made up, pretend, not Doolies. There. I’m glad I got that off my chest before the aforementioned gorgeous person beats me black and blue when she returns from China.

My girl looked good today. It’s sad but she doesn’t always look good. There are times where my girl doesn’t look so hot, times where I’m walking down the street with her arm wrapped around mine, and I’m thinking, boy, this girl of mine, she doesn’t make me feel special. I’ve gone out with girls where I’d walk into a restaurant and everybody would turn and stare. I know they weren’t looking at me—hell, I can barely look at me. I admit that I like that feeling, that, what the fuck is that guy doing with this beautiful creature, he doesn’t deserve her; it’s like his dick is huge or something. When my girl is on my arm, though, these same people aren’t saying that. I try to accept her for what she is, but it’s hard, you know.

But she looked good today and maybe if those same people saw her, they’d say things like that. It’s hard to know what people are going to say. Hell, I don’t even know what I’m going to say from one minute to the next. My girl looked good today, and the thing is, she won’t talk to me. Isn’t that how it always works: you want what you can’t have. Fate is a fucking bitch, if you ask me.

I’m a writer of sorts. I’ve been at it for about six months and I’m getting popular. I write on this blog thing, I’m sure since you’re reading this, you know all about blogs, and somehow found your way to mine. I named it wringinghair.com. With a name like that, you’d figure I would have long hair, but I don’t. I’m running out of hair, to tell you the truth. I usually do that: tell people the truth. That’s why I think people read this thing, these entries. I mean, hell, you’re reading this one right now, and I’m assuming you’re a person.

I started this on a whim. I write long correspondences with people. It’s what I’ve always done starting in college. I’ll sit down and start writing and stuff will come out, and some of it’s cute or funny, but most of it is just run-of-the-mill junk. Then I’d get a response and I’d pick apart the response, and respond to all the points that the other person made. The problem with doing that is the length. After a few responses and counter-responses, you start getting correspondences that take a long time to write. Eventually I’d get bored and wouldn’t respond for a while and then start anew, you know, with brand new words and points that would evolve again through this process. So, one of my friends who I’ve been corresponding with for years, a real stand-up guy, he wrote me a few months ago and told me about these blogs. He said I was wasting my words on such a small audience; that I should be broadcasting them to the world.

My girl didn’t at first take to the idea. She was afraid I’d talk about her. That wasn’t my intention, at least initially. At first, I didn’t care one way or the other about doing the blog. It was interesting, but I didn’t see the point. Then I started looking into it and reading other blogs, and I realized all those writers were hacks. Here I was a guy who had been practicing this type of writing his entire life, developing clever writing styles and all sorts of insights and brilliance, and nobody was acknowledging my skills. I figured that if there were an audience for the drivel that was out there, surely there’d be an audience for more refined drivel. I had it out with my girl, I said, listen, I’m going to do this whether you want me to or not, and I’m going to protect you, you know. I have this way of looking at my girl when I really want to convince her of something. It’s not the classic puppy-dog eyes, since that only works a few times and they begin to suspect manipulation. It’s more the, I know you think I’m manipulating you but you should know better, I mean, how long have we been going out, three years now, and if you don’t know me better than that, that I only look out for my own good after taking into account your good, then why are we still together, type of look. I’m not sure if your significant other has a look like that, but if they don’t, you should develop one. It’s the type of look that only one person can have in a relationship, and when used effectively, it’s a mean one, a trump card. So, I’m giving her this look, and she caves, we’re talking avalanche.

She starts talking about how she’s going to help me in the process, how we’ll do it together. She even says she’ll set it up by finding me the fonts and the pictures that’ll make it cool looking. I’m all for it. All I wanted to do was write the thing, I didn’t want to worry about how it looked. I never really was one for looks. I’m about the content not the dressing, but I figured she’d feel part of my team. That’s how I decided on the name. When she’s deep in thought, my girl I’m talking about, she sometimes wrings her hair, as if she’s trying to squeeze water from it, but it’s not wet or anything. Sometimes she takes large chunks of her hair and wrings it, other times it’s just a few hairs, but I catch her doing it all the time. So, I gave her free rein to do what she thought best for the looks of the site, and I’d do what I thought best for the content of the site. I like that saying, free rein. It’s like she was a horse that I bridled or something.

I wrote and people responded almost immediately. It’s not like papers or magazines where you have to advertise and distribute. It’s more of a viral thing. When one person sees your blog, they tell their friend who starts looking at it, who tells their friend, and before you know it, you’re paying lots of money for additional bandwidth so this guy in India can read what you wrote on the toilet that morning. But I think that that when they give you a box this big, you should shout from it as loud as possible, and I’m shouting. If you’ve ever had a box—and I’m not saying you deserve one or you’d even know what to do with one, all I’m saying is that if you had such a big box—you’d understand what I was talking about.

Now, the writing part isn’t difficult. It’s something that I do without thinking, like tying my shoes or fucking—I get down and dirty and do it, and worry about if after I’m finished. But even when I’m doing it, I need context, a hook. I’m talking about writing now, but even if I went back to my other example, I would need someone to do it with or at least a fantasy. With the correspondences, it was easy. I’d relay my life and then respond to the questions or comments of the other person. It’d be like a dialogue, where we’d feed off the other’s points. When I write a wringinghair.com entry, I write something every day to develop the audience. This is not something I do willy-nilly once or twice a month and expect people to have the patience to keep checking and hope for an update because they won’t (ever again surf to wringinghair.com, that is). And my life, while moderately interesting, is not interesting in a day-to-day sense. There are whole weeks where nothing happens, where the proverbial tumbleweed drifts by.

At times, I have no idea what I’m going to write. Sure, I could link to other blog or news sites, but everyone does that, and it becomes incestuous. How interesting is a hundred peoples’ thoughts on the same site, or their thoughts on sites that have linked to that site, or, even worse, their thoughts on sites that have linked to sites that have linked to that site. Do you see where I’m going with that? Ordinary bloggers end up patting each other on the back and regurgitating the same shit. The one thing I strive against is ordinariness. If you’ve come this far, I hope you realize that. It took me awhile, but after I sat down and thought about what I should write, it hit me like a load of bricks loosed into a tornado: I’m a clever son of a bitch. I should share that cleverness with the world.

The above is background. That’s what good writers do, they provide context before they dive right into what they really want to say. Had I jumped right in, you might have been confused, and that’s what I’m here for: to demystify things for you, explain them in easily digestible portions. I’m not saying that you have to agree with me or take on my views of the world or, in the best case, be my minion and help me in my quest for universal dominion, just because you read these words. I mean, it’d be a nice bonus and everything, and I’ve always thought about what I’d do with a couple-hundred followers, but it’s not required of anyone. This isn’t a church, it’s just a small window inside my brain.

Now we come to the thing. This is where the argument happened and what all the exposition was for. The thing is, I have a limited reservoir of clever thoughts. Some writers talk about their never-ending well of ideas, as if every time they think up new things and write, there are bound to be other things waiting in the wings, waiting to come out and surprise their readers and the writer herself (I use “herself” instead of “himself” because I’m respectful in that way. My girl doesn’t see it, but I try to reach out to everyone, including the weaker sex, and show them that I feel their pain and understand their centuries of struggle, and want to do my small part in improving their small lot in life). Because I only have a few clever thoughts every day, I have to savor them and use them sparingly.

This is where my girl comes back into the story. You know how they say you always hurt the ones you love. It’s hogwash. The thing is you can only hurt the ones you love. Trust me on this one. I hate many people, and I’ve tried to hurt them all. But the only people I end up hurting are those I love, a small, select group who weaseled their way into my life.

To be continued with a new, more interesting and indepth middle and ending....