Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

Jenifer told me while we were lying in bed last night that Kirk is weird and kind of creeps her out. I tried to pry and ascertain why she thinks that way, but the feel of her hair on my chest distracted me as she nestled into her favorite pillow, the crook of my arm. I’m thinking it may just be one of the subtle differences that women can detect in men. Something men can’t see in other men because they are blinded by friendship perhaps? We’ll find out soon enough I guess.

For one day, Jenifer and I were members of the upper crust, true sophisticates washing out the taint of our ring-around-the-blue-collar and simplistic collegiate lifestyle for an afternoon. The basic skinny is that today was the final showing of a great Impressionist exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. In hillbilly speak that means some high-falutin’ famous pictures were on display. The collection was absolutely amazing. The works are on some sort of tour and we had been kicking around the idea of going for the past few months but it took a deadline and some encouragement from Mrs. Lansing to finally motivate our asses. We got to dress up and be art-fags for a day, leaving Generica (that’s Generic America) with all its McDonald’s, Wal-Marts and malls behind for a few hours.

The Impressionist colors and scenes of life have always struck a power chord in me. I love the artists’ quirks, I love the museums and I loved getting to go with Jenifer. She’s one of the few people that I knew would value and appreciate the experience as much as I did. Other lovers have tolerated my off-kilter interests in the past but how many have taken the time to incorporate and embrace my oddities, learning about them out of love for me? Just her of course. I doubt I could have viewed the art with anyone else in the world and felt like it was being equally appreciated. Ours was not a snobbish grasp of the value and history of the pictures but an appreciation for the passion and intensity of the driving force behind the artists and the thrill of seeing so many quality works together. I love her so much, in part because I respect her as having an intelligence level equal to mine. I’ve met women smarter than me in certain ways and I’ve certainly met my share of stupid bimbo bitches with killer bodies but only Jenifer has a unique intelligence I identify with and love.

The vivid scenes highlighting trivialities of life and details that only artists are given the opportunity to capture captivated our minds for the afternoon. It’s rewarding to be touched by an experience but it’s hard to explain the depth of an afternoon with a mere smattering of insignificant recorded details. Let it suffice to say that today we expanded our souls in each other’s company, we got to have a date together, and I’ll remember the pleasant sunlit afternoon forever. Or at least until I get amnesia or Alzheimer’s.

Before we left I talked Jenifer into viewing the permanent children’s exhibit they have at the museum. We mostly goofed around in this one section called the “Shadow Room” where people can stand against this special wall and it burns a shadow impression of your body onto this big screen for a few minutes, kind of a like a police chalk outline in reverse. It was fun because we were the only near-adults in a room full of children and watching Jen laughing and playing around left me star struck yet again by her raw vitality. When my eyes briefly locked with her aqua soul gems I fell into them until she looked away taking a piece of my heart and severing our psychic umbilical cord. I value those silly moments and overly dramatic thoughts that are forever burning themselves into my brain despite the mysterious significance.

I could write whole sonnets on the power her eyes have over me. How the clear blue excites me sexually and withers my confidence. A long time ago I learned this neat trick about looking into a woman’s eyes, a trick that’s worked many times successfully. When I want to appear as if I’m looking deep into a girls eyes and glimpsing deep down into their soul, something that subconsciously drives women wild for some reason, I just stare at the reflection of light in the sheen of their eye. It gives off the appearance that I am staring through them, seeing inside their persona instead of creepily staring at them. When I try it with Jen however, I am always drawn into the obsidian pools as if they have their own gravitational force, black holes with such an intense power that it warps the universe to one point. Like Pavlov’s dog I still drool over her and describing the spirit of the mood between us would be like trying to describe God with a single name or word.

Kirk moved in with us last week which was a decidedly uneventful experience. I finally responded to Jenifer’s impassioned feelings and when Jim moved out I secreted the majority of my accumulated Playboy subscription amongst his belongings. It was more to show her respect than in response to her nagging; besides, enough time had passed where I could get rid of them without it being just in response to her pressures. I would have gotten rid of them sooner but it became such a big deal between us that if I had let her crappy attitude dictate my decision it would have set a bad precedent rooted in disrespect for both of us. Sometimes as the man I have to bite the bullet and fight for something I don’t really care about if I want to maintain my integrity and trust my decisions will be respected down the road when something comes up that I do care about. No woman wants a pushover for a boyfriend even when their natural instinct is to pussy whip them into being their bitch. It’s just one of the burdens of being attracted to strong intelligent women, every type has their idiosyncrasies I suppose. When it was finally my decision again (I think) to get rid of the Playboys it was no big deal anymore and ultimately unappreciated by Jenifer, but I won’t call attention to any of that. Marriage (oops), I mean dating, is sometimes a delicate diplomacy.

Life is just continuing as usual except we will soon have an entire summer at our disposal again. My visit with James has prompted the possibility of a trip to Colorado very soon. The excitement is sexually titillating.

The past weekend, in response to an ad I saw in the Dallas Observer, we all went to the Kennedy Memorial in downtown Dallas to be extras in a Public Enemy video shoot. It was cool but very tiring because we had to get there very early in the morning to be in it and Jenifer stayed up late with Jerry doing coke while I was at work. She didn’t really want to go down there with us but the clingy woman part of her didn’t want to be left out, so she was pretty much a Grumpasaurous Rex all day until she finally went and slept in the scorching car. It was cool because Dan and I got picked to be Nazis and we’re going to be an integral part of the video.

The premise has something to do with us (the Nazis) trying to assassinate the first black president (hence Dallas, i.e.: Kennedy) and Public Enemy foils the plot. We got to meet Chuck D with all his Muslim bodyguards giving us the evil eye because we were white AND we were strutting around with the Nazi armbands that the film crew said we couldn’t take off between takes. This didn’t go over too well with the crowd of Dallas black people who came down to be in the video since nobody ever told them we were part of the shoot, but Chuck D was cool and took a few minutes to talk to us and sign some autographs since we were fans. Flavor Flav wasn’t there, which was kind of a bummer, but I got some hands-on experience seeing how a music video is filmed. It kind of reminded me of being an extra on television which I haven’t done for a long while. I smoked some weed with members of the film crew and chilled out with Dan who bought a couple of 40’s at a 7-11 and got really drunk. All in all it was exhausting but fun and hopefully we’ll see the finished product on MTV in a few months. Public Enemy’s kind of fallen off the hip-hop radar lately, but back when “It Takes A Nation Of Millions…” and “Fear Of A Black Planet” came out they totally ruled the scene.