But not before exclaiming, "This is why I broke-up with you!"

I was surprised when my cell phone rang because, after all, I can't recall having ever given anyone the number - not intentionally at least. I narrowed my eyes at it in hopes that my sheer level of annoyance would cause it to cease its vibrating and cower away in a corner somewhere. When it became clear that the phone was not going to make things easy, I flipped it open and proceeded to offer up a half-assed greeting to whoever was on the other side.
"This is Corey," an unfamiliar male voice announced, "you broke up with me three days ago."
Oh. Corey.
Truth be told, I did not actually know Corey by name. You see, last week I got drunk and decided it would be hilarious to send the same text message out to each member of my family. The idea had come from an episode of the television show 7th Heaven, in which one of the Camden's daughters is broken up with via text message. "M br8kn up w/u," the text read.
What I forgot was that my sister had terminated her old cell phone plan before she went away to Europe/Africa approximately a year and a half ago, and I had failed to update my phone's address book with her new phone number. Needless to say, with a number that was less than current, my sister never got my hilarious text message. Instead, it went to Corey.
Oh, Corey.
Dear, sweet, creepy Corey. Distraught over our break-up, he called my cell phone in a last ditch effort to save our relationship. In what can best be described as two and a half of the most awkward minutes of my life, I attempted to explain the hilarity of my mix-up to the voice on the other end of the phone. When he failed to laugh the way I felt he should and quickly proceeded to accuse me of stalking him, I hung up the phone.

Because apparently he believes an angry stomach is an indicator of a future contraction of an STD

He wouldn't stop talking about poop, and not just his own poop either.
"Did you feel that?" I asked him, in response to his excrement anecdotes.
"Feel what? My gut is rumbling."
"That's not your gut," I explained, "that is our friendship evolving. You just brought us to a whole new level."
"I think my gut is angry with me," he said, ignoring me completely.
"That is probably your body's way of telling you that you are going to get the scootes later."
"What is that?" He asked, "Some sort of STD?"
"No, it is diarrhea, but close."

but i don't think it bothers me

He acts like a baby when he is sick. This is probably why it baffles me that his whiny voice actually triggers my heart to melt just a little.
"I do not know why I am still sick," he tells me. "I have been doing everything right." It takes several minutes before I am able to get him to confess to washing his cold medication down with beer.
"What did you expect?" I sigh. "You are supposed to be drinking lots of fluids."
"But beer is a fluid," he argues.
"Water. You are supposed to be drinking lots of water." His forehead is warm and, despite the sweat that is soaking his sheets, he is shivering.
"I think I am dying," He groans.
"You are not dying," I assure him, running my hand across his back in slow circles. "You are just an idiot. I am going to get you a glass of water."
I shake my head at the disarray of his apartment. It is clear that four other males cohabit the space. As I walk back into his room, I catch sight of the panicked face he is making. Oh, god. There is going to be vomit. He vaults out of the bed and pushes his way past me. The sounds of his retching lets me know that he has made it to the bathroom in time. I take a minute to mentally prepare myself before I join him in an attempt to offer up a little bit of comfort.
There is what appears to be a clean washcloth sitting next to the bathroom sink and I quickly grab it, running it under the cold water before I crouch down next to him and wipe it tenderly across his forehead. "I am going to run you a bath," I tell him. "It is going to feel cold, but that is only because you have a fever." His head is resting against the porcelain of toilet, a brave move in a dwelling where the inhabitants rarely look before they aim, but I think I see him nod.
The bathtub is surprisingly clean and barely requires a wipe down before I start to fill it. His head is now resting on his forearm, on the edge of the toilet, and his eyes are closed. If I didn't know better, I would say he looked peaceful. As the tub finishes filling, I rub his head and tell him that I need him to take off his pants.
"You have been waiting years to say that," he accuses, as he rises to his feet.
"You caught me. I have spent the last seven years just waiting to catch you feverish, wreaking of vomit and completely helpless. Do you need my help, or can you get into the tub on your own?"
He smiles down at me and, without warning, pulls his pajama bottoms down around his ankles. "I better not catch you looking," he warns, stepping into the tub. "My virtue is at stake."
As he lowers himself down, I toss the washcloth at his head. "Cover your virtue with that," I instruct him and I exit the bathroom, in search of a clean towel, before he can respond.
It is another hour before I leave. Rubbing his stomach and tucking him into bed, I lean over his head and reach for the extra pillow that is scrunched up in between his mattress and the wall. "I just saw all the way down your shirt," he giggles.
"Wonderful," I sigh, deciding that he no longer needs an extra pillow. "Call me tomorrow morning so that I know you have not perished during the night." And with that, I leave him.
Sometimes I feel like I've entered into a sexless marriage that I didn't entirely agree to.

I love you too

There are few times in your life when the magnitude of a friendship is given the opportunity to overwhelm you. I’ve experienced three in my life. A shoulder to cry on in a time of crisis, a surprise I never saw coming, and this, an email:

Hi meegan,
Im just wondering if your free tomorrow(Friday), and if you are im wondering if you would like to help me move?
Let me know either way, if its a yes, ill give you head and if's its a no, you still get head but i may or may not try.
Talk to you later,
Rob

It may seem unimportant, silly even, hardly life changing. It is though. It is the small things that are most meaningful, not the grand gestures or the grand declarations. It’s the things that we realize we’ve taken for granted all along when they’re suddenly not there anymore.
I’ve taken you granted before, and I will surely take you for granted again, but I want you to know that right now I know exactly how lucky I am to have you in my life. Especially because of your false promises to perform oral sex on me even if I don’t help you move.

What a trip

I was amazed by perspective. Astounded how all these different objects came together to create this amazing 3-D image I was looking at. It blew me away. How could this be? How had I never realized before that looking at shit was this awesome?! It was then that I became aware of my bladder and noted that I had to pee. I sat my drink down on the lawn and wandered inside to the bathroom. While doing my thing on the toilet, I began to look around. Did you ever realize how neat toilet paper is? And tiles.. Tiles are great! Don't even get me started on wallpaper. I could have stared at the wallpaper for hours, and in all reality did.
"Your bathroom is so much fun," I told him when I got back. "You should totally go in there."
He was staring at the fence and didn't hear me at first. "My bathroom is not interesting, Meegan. It is just a bathroom," He said solemnly.
"No, I think it has something to do with the fact that our pupils are so dilated. It's the bright lights and the mirrors. It's everything," I explained. "What is this in my drink? Is that a bug? It looks like a monster," I said, handing it over to him for closer inspection.
"I think it is a moth," He told me, looking scared. "No, wait. It is an earwig," He finally decided.
"What would you do if I just kept drinking my drink anyway. Would you still be my friend?" I asked, completely serious.
"I would high five you," He told me.
"Why the hell would you high five me for eating a bug? That's gross."
"Well, what would you want me to do?" He asked, and I poured out my drink.
"Do you want to know why I just poured that out?" I asked, and he nodded in response. "I poured it out because I was worried that I might get to the point where ingesting an earwig might seem like a good idea." He nodded again and I could tell that he knew exactly what I meant.
"I was just thinking," he said quietly, "that if anybody inside looked out of that window, they would think I was having the worst party ever." We both dissolved into giggles. "It's true though!" he exclaimed. "Only I was also just thinking that I am having so much fun."
He was right. If anyone had looked out the kitchen window they would have felt sorry for him. Just two people, sitting on broken chairs, listening to awkward music on the radio, not even talking. "Do you see that tree?" he asked me. "I was just looking at it, and I was just seeing it. Like, I saw it."
"Wait a minute," I braced my arm on his shoulder, "let me get this straight. You were looking at the tree, and you saw the tree? No, that is impossible." I said, shaking my head. I was mocking him, but he didn't seem to realize that.
"Yeah. I was looking at the tree and then all of a sudden I saw this face. Do you see that face?" He pointed and we both looked up at the tree.
"No, I just see leaves," I told him honestly.
We sat in silence for several minutes as the Barenaked Ladies version of "Lover's in a Dangerous Time" played on the radio. I furrowed my brows and tried to figure out if I really saw people crossing the street, or if I was hallucinating.
"I always keep looking back at that wall, and then at you. And then you and the wall merge, and it blows my mind. And it anchors me. What do you keep looking at?"
"Nothing really. No, everything. It's like I want to look at everything, but I know there's not enough time so I want to remember every last detail of what I am looking at." If I'd been completely honest with him I would have also mentioned that I kept looking at my hands and feet to make sure I had the right number of toes and fingers. I counted over and over again and always came up with ten, but it still didn't look right. I was worried that all of a sudden I would look down and there would be six fingers on one hand.
We heard his parents saying goodbye to some of their friends, whom had come over to play poker, and he jumped up and raced towards the front yard to see what was going on.
"I wonder what is wrong," he said, concern written on his face.
"I don't think anything is wrong," I told him. "Don't people ever just leave your house because they are going home for the evening?" Evidently the answer to that question was 'no'.
"Do you ever look at the shadows and then think that they are coming alive? Like they're moving and then they become this person?" He asked, sitting back down beside me.
"No, you're on your own," I replied, but his attention was already somewhere else.
"Do you see that? In the bushes? I think it is my gray cat friend."
"Um, I think that is a raccoon." But it was too late because he'd already hopped up and rushed over to the hole in the fence.
"Cat friend," he called, every so often making clicking and cooing sounds in an attempt to lure whatever animal it was closer to him. "Have I told you about my gray cat friend, Meegan?" he asked, and then proceeded to tell me a story about his stinky room and his conversations with a cat. At one point in time, he told me that his gray cat friend was going out to pick up some "East Coast hunnies".
"Did you really just say that? Did you really just try to tell me that a) you had an actual conversation with a cat, and b) that the cat used the term 'East Coast Hunnies'?"
"Hey, they were his words, not mine. Get off my back."
As the evening wore down, it suddenly became apparent that I had not kept track of how much alcohol I'd been consuming. Later on I would have my own conversation with a toilet (while marveling at the wonders of the bathroom), though I did not vomit, before stumbling downstairs with the intention of falling asleep on the couch.
"Wait a minute. Where did the blankets go?" I asked him.
"They are on the couch," He replied.
"I am on the couch and there are no blankets here," I sighed.
"They are pink, Meegan, just look for pink blankets," he told me, sighing at what he perceived to be my stupidity.
"But there is no pink anywhere. Did you sister take the blankets? I had two here. One was purple. Do you see purple anywhere?"
"Just come sleep in my room. We're friends. We can keep the door open and you can keep your pants on."
"Jeez, thanks," I said, narrowing my eyes at him - which he completely missed in the darkness of the basement. "I am not sleeping in your bedroom. Did you not hear your sister ask me over and over again if I was your new girlfriend and if we were having a sleepover? If I sleep in your room she will conclude that I was lying." We both turned to look at his 11-year-old sister and her friend who had camped out on the floor just outside of his bedroom door. She seemed unconvinced when I'd told her earlier on that evening that I was going to sleep on the couch, and so she continued to ask me again every fifteen minutes until she and her friend finally passed out. "I am sleeping out here because they are sleeping out here to see where I will sleep. I do not need blankets anyway - and I don't need pillows either. I will just sleep out here like this. You just go to sleep now. And stop banging every girl you meet so that your family does not seem so shocked every time I explain to them that we are not sleeping together. "
"Okay," he said, looking slightly skeptical of my assurances, as if trying to determine if I was testing him in some way. After several more minutes, he disappeared into his room and I rolled over on to my stomach and prepared to settle in for the night.
As I lay there, on the couch, on the verge of unconsciousness, I felt something drop over me. It wasn't until I heard a whispered "Sweet dreams, Meegan." that I realized it was a blanket and that it was actually being tucked in around me. I woke-up this morning with a headache and morning breath that would have caused plants to wilt and die. I quietly gathered my things, and then stepped on his little sister (and her friend, just for good measure) as I tried to sneak quietly towards the stairs.

The Beautiful

I once knew this guy from somewhere in England. His name was Andrew, and he was my voyeuristic neighbors great-nephew. I was in the ninth grade when he came to Canada, and I have no idea how old he was. A lot of innocent flirting took place between the two of us. I thought he was unbelievably cute, and his British accent made my heart skip a beat. I took him to school with me one day so that he could get a feel for what the Canadian education system was like. The other kids bombarded him with questions, and eventually the teacher told me that she'd kick us out of the classroom if we continued to be such a huge distraction.
We ended up cutting out early, and I skipped the rest of my classes that day. We slowly made our way back to my house, the sun shining bright over our heads. Every so often there was a playful push, followed by an awkward silence. He introduced me to The Beautiful South, and gave me his CD's to listen to. He frequently wore a t-shirt with the bands name on it, and had confessed to me that he wore it so often because it was his favorite shirt.
I had nothing to offer him in return, and no CD's to share with him. I wanted desperately to have something that I could impress him with.
The morning, before he left, he knocked on my door. When I opened it I found him standing there, favorite shirt in hand, with his bags along side him. He gave me his shirt, his favorite shirt, and left me his address.
He told me to write him.
I never did.
It is days like these, when I am overcome with a strong desire to travel, that I think of Andrew. I wonder if I should ask my neighbors for his address again, and if he'd even remember who I am. I think of writing him a letter, telling him of the hours I spent listening to his CD's just so that I had one more thing that I could say to him the next day. I wonder if he enjoyed that summer as much as I did.
I miss that time.
I miss that innocents.