My Real Memoir

Following the break-up with the girl I loved, my existential crisis escaped from the cellar, and began raging about the house again. Who was I? Why was I? These were the questions that drove existentialists to despair. Therefore, I’d styled myself an absurdist. If life had no meaning, I was free to focus on whatever made me happy, to wit: creativity and love (or a least an eye-pleasing counterfeit). Did I still believe it? No, but it had drowned out my metaphysical tinnitus for a time.

So, I began creating again. In a song about losing Kat, I wrote, “Life is just a game we play/To pass away the years/But people, they forget sometimes/And that’s why there are tears.” You don’t believe this, my crisis grumbled, but it had a certain tragic bravado, so I kept it. Years later, that song, “The Game,” would end up in a movie.

Ah, movies. Monty Python and the Holy Grail had just been released! Dateless, I saw it alone. And then again with Mark, an actor with whom I shared the gift of depression and a love of absurd humor. It was just the balm for our mutual existential crises. And it inspired me to begin writing a full-length musical satire for my street theatre group The Right Pithee Players.

Meanwhile, I went looking for love again. Which turned into a series of rather absurd One-Night-Onlies:

• Remedial Writer Girl was diminutive and sweetly-freckled. She made a living writing romance novels for teenagers with adult desires and third grade vocabularies. And yet she herself was terrified by romance. She pursed her lips and froze when I kissed her. And when I asked to see her again, she said, “No, I don’t do love.” I never learned why.
• Ghost Girl lived in the attic of a tilting Victorian house. Her “apartment” was a storage area full of covered furniture and musty books. And her face was whiter than the moon. When I suggested we go to dinner, she replied, “I should never have let you see this place,” and asked me to leave.
• Not-As-Pretty-By-Daylight Girl was the fruit of my sole singles-bar harvest. We exchanged phone numbers, and I picked her up two nights later. She didn’t look anything like she did at the bar. The minute we finished eating, she said, “You don’t look anything like you did at the bar,” and asked me to take her home. Apparently, I was Not-As-Pretty-By-Daylight Boy.
• Alternate-Universe-Girl called me, and said, “Hi, it’s ____, remember me? We met at ____’s house, and had a real connection.” I didn’t remember her, or ____’s house, but agreed to come over. She wasn’t remotely familiar, and our conversation was surreal. We made-out for a few minutes, and then I “big day tomorrow-ed” my way to the door, and passed through a wormhole back into my own universe.
• The moment Steamy-Romance-Girl came to my academy to inquire about dance classes, we started flirting. “Would you like—” I began. “Yes!” she replied. That evening, as we looked at the menu, she rubbed my thigh, and said, “I’ve already made my selection. Let’s go to my place.” While she was freshening up, I discovered every wall of her apartment was stacked with bodice-ripping paperbacks. And when she entered the bedroom, I realized I’d been cast in a reenactment. And tomorrow night, someone else would be playing my role.

Truth-Seeking-Missile Girl, Carla, was different. There was no big physical attraction, we just liked each other. So we tried being friends-with-benefits, but felt ridiculous and stopped. “Tell me all about you, Carla,” I said.

“Well, as lame as it sounds,” she replied, “I think I’m looking for the meaning of life.”

“Really?” I said,

“Me too.”

My Real Memoir is a series. To read the next one, click here.