The Tom Petty Debacle

I can't sleep because I'm amped up from too much coffee I sucked back while trying to stay awake during a focus group about pens, so I figured I might as well use this nervous energy to write something. The only spare topic that I have in my handy-dandy notebook* is The Tom Petty Debacle. Now, readers, I'm going to post this, but keep two things in mind.

1. It may read like a crystal meth addict** with AD/HD wrote this thing, but I'm not changing anything. It will be a stream of consciousness of goodness like Kerouac on "the crack," so you and I will just have to make do with what will more than likely be mixed results.
2. I know that I had an "I swear I'm not a sleaze" disclaimer for my last post, but I'm doing it again, damn it. I was wronged by a woman I loved, I had a real bad selfish phase, and I acted like a thoughtless, drunken child for a little too long. I'm all better now, but it would be a shame not to write about these days, right? I mean, it's therapeutic and cathartic for me, and it's, with any luck, damn interesting to you folks.

Cast of Characters With Names Changed to Protect the Innocent:

Abigale: I met her at a hair metal cover band show. She had a white tank top/wife beater thing on that had a small, subtle picture of a cassette tape nestled on her chest. We got to talking, and I shared with her my theory about dating as it relates to cassette tapes: I won't date a woman if her first album was in CD format, because that would make her far too young for me. We went on a date, she must not have had a first album in disc form, but regardless what media type that all-important first album was in, I never called her afterwards. We connected weeks later, she asked me if my not calling was due to the phone difficulties she was having, and rather than come clean, my passive ass found itself saying, "Yes. That must have been it." In the coming weeks we became more of friends/drinking buddies than anything else, I enjoyed her company quite a bit, but she was getting fond of me, believe it or not. One time she said her mom was like, "How's Dr. Kenneth?" I was weirded out, but rather than establish what we were doing, my, again, passive and perhaps a little needy ass kept things at status quo, which was probably as good as leading her on. I know, I was fucked up and immature. I swear I'm better now.

Delilah: This is the first woman I dated after my divorce for whom I had strong feelings. It was way too soon to like someone that much. I would feel weird when I'd open up to her, and then I'd clam up. She had some commitment issues at the time too, may still, and she'd shut down and get wicked distant, borderline cold, which was NOT good for me at the time. As tumultuous as our thing was, I was resolved to be in a committed, dating relationship with someone for the first time since my Devo, which is a hip way of saying divorce, as if divorce could ever be considered hip or anything other than shitty, awful, or awfully shitty.

I get a call from Abigale one day, and she has an extra ticket to Tom Petty with The Black Crowes opening at Alpine Valley, which is in Wisconsin and quite a drive. I remember getting that call while on my bicycle, and thinking, "All right, this is a road trip with a gal who really likes me, and she will probably see it as a bonding type of deal, which really isn't a good idea, cause she, to take a page out of Kevin Arnold's book, "like-likes" me while I merely "like" her. But, I've never seen Petty, and I really like The Crowes," so I said, "All right, American Girl!"

On the way down we got caught in horrible traffic, and we ended up missing ALL of The Black Crowes and we only saw like six Petty songs. Just before the end of his set, a biblical flipping storm*** hits, we exit the stadium the wrong way, have to walk all the way around the thing through the rain and mud, and by the time we get to the car there's literally**** not a dry spot on us. I was driving her car home, and it crapped out on an exit ramp. She's panicking and crying while I'm trying to tell her that we need to get it off the road before someone hits us. Finally, she puts down her phone, and steers it while I push, which is when a guy with a tow truck comes by and says, "Hey, I nearly hit you guys. Do you need a ride?" Turns out this cat works for an auto body place and was on his way home when he saw us, so he towed the car to his shop and drove us to a hotel. As a quick side note, I love the city, but on the whole people are, if you're a city slicker like me, embarrassingly, eye-opening nicer in small towns.

We both have to shower in the room, but since we have no dry clothes to put on afterwards, we both have to sleep in towels. Now, picture Dr. Kenneth doing his darndest to stay faithful to Delilah, but next to him is an emotional, nearly naked, good looking woman who is nuts about him. Plus, they had both managed to get pretty high from a too tightly rolled joint***** his roomie rolled. Also, I'm sure you'll know what I'm talking about here, but when you have a stressful, emotional day with someone of the opposite sex where there's some attraction, there is a certain exchange of pheromones and vibes that tend to make both parties pretty randy. Believe it or not, despite being painfully exited beneath my towel for hours upon hours, I did not lay a hand on her, except to console her, since she was crying from some sort of Tom Petty Debacle related melt down.

Here's the worst part: About a week later Delilah broke up with me, I said "what the hell," and slept with Abigale after too many quarter beers at The Horse Shoe. Part of the moronic, sick-fuck thought process of mine was that I was somehow entitled to, not only because I was reeling from the break up, but because I white knuckled and blue balled it through that TP Debacle night, when I really didn't need to, since Delilah already was no doubt ready to dump me by the TP night. So, in my mind, not now but at the time, I was thinking that sticking it to Abigale would be, in a sense, sticking to Delilah. Abigale thought our quarter beer lovin' meant we'd start dating, but of course, I wasn't ready or willing, which I knew before I slept with her. It's quite sad actually. Sad for her, and sad for me that I would do something so downright shitty, just because I was hurting from the divorce, and then rehurting from the Delilah deal.

Midway through this thing I thought about not posting it, and usually when I have that feeling I'm right, whether it's someone reading getting pissed or myself feeling equal parts ashamed and stupid. Well, I'm posting it, because I've been going with an on again off again emotionally naked, cathartic, therapeutic writing style for some time now, and I think my blog buddies who have been in it with me for some time know me to not be the turd I once was. I'm going to get back to posts about silly stuff like nude field goal kicking and Flashdance, because I feel drained after writing this thing. Fortunately, I'm Drained enough to sleep, finally, so I'm off to catch a quick couple of hours of sleep before work. Thanks for "listening" everyone. Good night.

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*Yes, I got the "handy-dandy notebook" from Steve on Blues Clues. I watched a lot of that stuff with my nephews. That guy did the least convincing running in place while the background moved, but I always gave him credit for being funny on such an F'd up show. Big ups, Steve.

**Just as I typed that sentence about typing like a crack head, I typed attic instead of addict. Yikes. Hey, when you were in junior high, did you ever ask girls to look down the front of their shirt and spell attic? "A titty I see (A-T-T-I-C)" I'm going to try it, but not in the work place this time. I'll leave that to Dyckerson, who, as an experiment, is going to try that gag on ten women at random next week. Best of luck to you, Dyckerson!

***The electrical storm before the crazy rain came down actually provided a beautiful backdrop during his surprisingly impressive set of the six songs I saw. It's something I'll never forget, much like The Tom Petty Debacle itself.

****One of my roomies is an editor and a real bright guy. He pointed out once that literally is overused, and often doesn't make sense the way people use it. For instance, "I was so hungry I was literally ready to eat my foot." No, not literally. If you meant that literally I'd call the funny farm on your ass cause you are a kook. Well, in reference to how wet we were, this time it's used correctly, because there honest to God wasn't a dry spot anywhere to be found, like we had just done fully clothed cannon balls into the neighbor's pool.

*****Sorry, mom, if you're reading. Yes, my mom reads sometimes and she's awesome. I'm more sorry about the overall content of this piece, but for some reason I'm sorry about the joint thing too. I swear I"m not a druggie, it's been over a year since I had the wacky tobacky, and I've never been a regular puffer.