FiddlerFest and More…

   I tried really hard not to let myself get attached to Chrissy again like last time, but I did a horrible job at it. I wanted to be around her all the time and she was the type of girl that craved independence. She was also very impulsive. That may have been what attracted me to her, because it was a quality Jen had that I admired so much. The one difference between the two was that Chrissy was not grounded at all. With her impulsiveness there came a huge dose of irresponsibility. I did see it but thought I could sweep in and be her ‘White Knight’ In her mind she didn’t need one. She went through life believing things always work out, mostly because others always bailed her out.

  Everyone else saw it and warned me that Chrissy was just using me. I believed that everybody didn’t see what I saw. What the truth is was in between: She means well, but she wasn’t very good at it.

  I had gotten tickets to her favorite band, Dave Matthews. I bought 5 tickets, the maximum that would fit in a car. I figured it would be easy to find takers because it seemed everyone loved them or so I thought. Four of the tickets went fairly easily, it was Chrissy, Pat, Sean, and me. The last ticket, I couldn’t give away for the life of me. The day of the concert came and I was asking around work if anybody wanted to come. Ali, a girl that worked in the department next to mine, said she didn’t want to go, but her younger sister that worked with us loves him. I didn’t really know her sister Liz, but I was desperate. She was working downstairs. I went down and asked her and she was ecstatic! She had never gone to a concert before, either. She just needed to get off early. She went to her manager, and she told her no. Liz was crushed and I felt so bad for her. I felt even worse after I found out Liz lost her best friend recently in a car accident. Apparently this girl had a drug problem causing friction between the two. She stopped by Liz’s house and gave her a kitten as a peace offering. That same night she went off to a party with some ‘friends’ shot up a bunch of Heroine and wrecked her car. Liz was devastated by this. I knew there was nothing I could do about that, but the less important concert disappointment, I felt responsible for.

   A more immediate problem was this unwanted ticket. Calling Yolanda, she suggested I call Kelly.

  “Denver’s Ex-girlfriend?” or maybe it was Denver himself that suggested her. Either way, I called her out of the blue and she came.

  To make it up to Liz, I asked her what her favorite band was. She informed me it was Rod Stewart.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, remembering my previous Rod Stewart experience.

  She was not. She told me not to make fun, but she and her friend used to sing and dance to Rod Stewart before they went out for the night. It just so happened that he was having a concert on her birthday at the Beach Amphitheater where we lived. From the day I first offered her the ticket to Dave Matthews, I vowed I would be the best friend this girl ever had and would always be there if she needed me and I have been ever since. I’m sure after all these years, she’s come to terms with it all, but I made a promise and if I make a promise, I do my best to keep it.

  Azuree called me up out of the blue not to long after that. She told me to sit down before she told me her news. I lied and told her I did. She told me that she had joined the army. On the inside I was laughing, ‘didn’t Mary join the army too” I thought. Why do crazy girls join the army? She informed me that she was going to be trained to be a ‘rocket launcher repair person’. I was beside myself. This was honestly the funniest thing I had ever heard and couldn’t hide my amusement. She got upset. She was serious and called to tell me because she really wanted to see me at least once before she left for boot camp. I didn’t think it was a good idea, but agreed to see her before she left. She made me promise because she knew I didn’t break promises.

  I avoided it for the next month or so, but the week before she left she called to remind me. I went to her house, took her to a diner and we made small talk. When I drove her home, she made me stop a few houses before we got to her house. Her family hated me for what I put her through she informed me. She didn’t take the breakup of our two week relationship well and went into a depression. I apologized and told her I had no idea. She also revealed a few more choice comments her sister made about me. I referred her sister to a Minotaur and she just laughed hysterically followed by an “… I don’t know what that is.”

  She then told me that the worst part about joining the army was the fact that she wouldn’t be around for Halloween. I told her that Halloween was no big deal, but she told me that she had a plan to dress like a ‘harem girl’ for this Halloween so she could seduce me and make me ‘fall in love with her again’. I didn’t  know how to respond or make a connection, but it was because I first met her on Halloween and she remembered how great I thought she looked in her ‘Poison Ivy” costume.

  “Yeah, that sucks. Too bad. I’d better go now. Good luck in the army.” I thought: promise kept. And that’s the end of this cha

pter. I hugged her goodbye forever. But in Crazy Town, forever is never long enough.

  Speaking of promises kept… The guys living at “Fiddler’s Green” were planning on having a summer music festival at their house in the same vein as “Kerrypalooza” was years before. This was a great opportunity to invite Azure and her friends to meet all of my other friends to wash out the bad taste that Paul may have given them [Ed Note: See “Azure” March 13,2012]

  The party itself had a pretty good turnout. They called it “Fidder Fest ’98”. Four live bands jamming all day/night long. Denver and I split the cost of a keg of beer. Chrissy and I ran around videotaping it in the form of a news report, with her as a cameraperson and me running around with a microphone conducting lame interviews.

Azure and her friends Michele and Kelly came. Sue was ‘on call’ at work and couldn’t attend, so she said. I really tried to get her to come, but to no avail. They sat on a blanket in the yard. As I sat with them talking, Paul wandered nearby. I said “Hey Paul, you remember Michele… “

   He responded “No. I don’t” and acted as if he was going to introduce himself when Michele called him out on it.

  “Oh, you remember us, Paul!” and Paul’s eyes widened and he said “Uh oh…” and ran off. I got my revenge. It would have been better if Sue had come, but my point was made.

   A few friends of mine from work were in attendance. One of them was Esther, a sweet girl that started to have a thing for Alan. Alan had been focusing on school after he got out of the Marines. A bit of a homebody, he seldom ventured out of his room during parties. People went to him and he was one of those people that could command that kind of respect. He was polite, intelligent, and quite witty. It was just ‘one of those things’ where people would say,” I’m going to take a break from the party and go visit Al” as if his bedroom was a sanctuary in the house away from the party.

  Esther and I got along splendidly and she even convinced me to take ballroom dance lessons with her (I did not fare so well and got the nickname ‘spaghetti arms’), but Alan and her got along even better. Enough that she got Alan out and about doing stuff. So much so that a group of us even went out ‘Line Dancing’ at a country western bar with Esther and Alan.

  The only person who didn’t take a liking to Alan and Esther was our friend Valerie. Valerie was an opinionated Greek girl who was very vocal about the way she thinks things should be. You have to love her for it.

   Now, Valerie and Alan did like each other, but what seemed to be a miscommunication set any relationship back indefinitely. Alan didn’t have to tell me how he felt about Val, I knew. And I knew how Val felt about Alan. So when one evening we met up with Val and her sister, Kristina, in the city to catch a James Bond movie, things took a sad turn. After the movie we went to a diner. Everyone was done eating and waiting for Kristina to return from the rest room. Someone asked what was taking so long, and Alan cracked a joke about ‘the girl curve’. It was a run on joke we had going with Deana where, there is a period of time where a girl would be late, and then there was ‘the Deana Curve’ in which you could catch a ‘Lifetime Movie of the Week’ (3 to 4 hours). Anyway, Val made a quick snip at Alan thinking it was a sexist remark. Val had forgotten rather quickly, but Alan took offense that Val thought so little of him and took it really personal.

  Now, over a year later I thought Alan had gotten over it. Val started dating other guys, but always had other plans.

  For my birthday, Valerie had taken me to see Blade Runner at a special screening at Radio City Music Hall. On the train she explained that she wanted to let Alan focus on school and do everything he needed to do to ‘get his S@#% in order’ before they could get together. That was always the plan. At least it was her plan and now it’s in jeopardy because ‘of this trollop, Esther’.  I was a little shocked about how she thought this plan would work. She had been dating guys that seemed to be serious relationships, why couldn’t Alan? Her answers: Because Alan was supposed to focus on school and was she really supposed to just wait around for a few years while he did that. It sounded absurd, but also right. Val had a way of making things work and getting what she wanted. I gave her the only relationship advice I stood behind. ‘If you are not happy in a relationship, get out’ and ‘Don’t settle’. I also threw in a ‘don’t worry about, Esther, it won’t last’. She took most of that advice to heart. But didn’t believe me about Esther.

  She went to Matt for advice and got “Val, maybe he’s just not into you.”