The Ever-Loving Virgin Prince
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Back On the Streets
Loyal lambs,
I returned home from my long time spent abroad feeling exhausted, and nearly broken. What I wanted was to sink swiftly into a long nap, the kind that ventured to the borderlines of coma territory.
I was unaware of just how much feces an ape could produce within 4 months.
I’d almost completely forgotten about my (semi-)loyal sidekick, Bobo the Virgin Chimp during the four months in which I’d been gone. I know it seems that it wouldn’t be possible, but between all the midnight showers with fire hoses, the forced nude photographs, my time spent standing on the “box of doom”, the Roman-style gladiator matches I fought with the prison guard dogs, and the constant abuse sessions of electric-shock to my genitals (which I admit, I started to develop an appreciation for), I’d completely forgotten about the ape in my charge. There was far too much distraction I suppose.
Fortunately, my trusty Virgincomputer had stayed on-line during my absence and continued to dispense food pellets to Bobo on a thrice-daily basis. It is merely unfortunate that this master of gigaflops, this mechanical monstrosity of pure scientific beauty, lacked the physical extremities with which to actually clean up and dispose of the simian’s waste, or even put down fresh newspaper. It took me three days to clean the mess, and even then, I spent another week sleeping in a hotel, and showering for the better part of those days, scrubbing away at my skin with a constantly-replaced supply of loofah sponges.
Immediately thereafter, I found myself getting very involved in the excitement of the then-upcoming Presidential election, myself, following very closely the news, and spreading word of everything I was constantly learning to everyone I knew. Not that anyone really listens, or pays attention to what’s going on in the world in general. It took a long time to even get people to listen about the problems of the partisan-built-and-controlled voting machines across the country, and my own mother didn’t even believe me, despite all the articles I sent her and evidence I showed her, up until her cousin also brought it up, and she watched a handful of documentaries on the subject. I think she honestly didn’t want to believe that elections could truly be rigged, here in America.
I suppose there are just some things a person needs to believe in. Without the ability to have faith, one is forced only into feeling despair.
Which is what I suppose I could say I was feeling very strongly about this time, four years ago, when it was proven clearly to all those who chose to look, that the American election could be stolen, and that the many safeguards placed in the Constitution DIDN’T keep the government safe from abuses of power, or perhaps they could have, IF the Constitution had actually been followed. Regardless of the answer, I had a bad stomach upset for about two weeks following voting day. For any sort of relief, I visited the college nurse’s office looking for remedies, or powdered my upper lip and the bottom of my nose with the crushed powder from my bottle of Rolaids, running up and down the cafeteria and the halls of the school, crying out loudly that I was George W. Bush.
I suppose perhaps I was attempting to laugh, to prevent the tears.
I remember at the general time, I was conversing with one of my friends, she being from Texas, about my concern about what was happening and my legitimate fears about the precedent the Supreme Court decision set. I do recall that I was worked up and perhaps on the lighter side of hysterical (seeing the principles of one’s country tossed aside within a matter of days will do that to a patriot), and she nonchalantly told me that I was being overly dramatic and that it really wasn’t a big deal.
Perhaps she was right, but then, her parents’ country of Iran (or Persia, as she liked to call it) is next on Bush’s war list. She really liked to visit there too.
It was funny. As the election fiasco hit, there was a nationwide student council conference going on right there in Florida. I really wanted to go and get right in the thick of it, be a part of the biggest American event in my lifetime (yes, it WAS bigger than 9/11, because 9/11 never would have happened with Gore in the Whitehouse, at least not to the extent it did), I petitioned our advisor endlessly, begging her to let us go. I wanted to go down to the Sunshine State and hang with protesters, and have the crap kicked out of me by belligerent Republicans, due to my difference of opinion from theirs, or yell in person at the Democrats that just didn’t get it, to stop picking on the Nader supporters. It’s funny how some people just won’t accept a difference of opinion, or, for that matter, a person’s right to it.
Alas, we’d missed the deadline to register for the Florida conference, and with that fact, my heart sank. There was no way, my advisor told me, that we were going to Florida. Instead, a month or two later, we were able to go to Washington D.C., which I must admit, lifted my spirits some. The famed District of Columbia is the single most impressive looking part of the country, the only part that looks like it was built with legitimate culture, filled with sculptures, statues, and monuments as far as the eye can see, and boasting a most enviable amount of diverse, massive museums, absolutely free of charge. Furthermore, I saw my first drag-queen hooker while I was there.
I always smile when I recall the time the student newspaper asked me to write an opinion piece on “Why I’m Voting For Gore”, to complete the vacant part of the page of the old Skyline College scandal-rag, the pro-Bush, and pro-Nader bits having already been written. I put thought and feeling into the piece, then turned it in to the pro-Nader guy (who was my contact on the paper’s staff), and when I next saw my column, the next week, it’d been trimmed down and hacked. Specifically, the paper’s staff had removed my comments about the issue of abortion, and the stakes of this battle to keep this the right of women, and they also printed the name of my alter-ego, not “The Virgin Prince” as being the writer (I chastised them for that repeatedly, up until they finally gave me a regular column).
But the thing that cracked me up, when reading my neutered prose, was that they had removed my line about “the forces of evil plotting and planning” and the need for Gore to be in office to combat them, as Bush was completely inept.
They thought I was joking.
I look back now; it was completely prophetic. Of course, now I think Bush is the anti-Christ
Back to the subject of this year, starting on November 2nd and continuing into the next two days, I did what any patriotic, conscientious American would do. I bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked like a chimney, and I drank until I was drunk, and made good effort to stay that way. I only paused for sleep, and then, only woke to continue drinking.
By the end of Thursday, I started to feel a sense of acceptance, and by Friday, was back on the path of good health and clean living, feeling firmly in my heart the desire to continue in the struggle against right-wing morons, my ambition to do so actually increased quite considerably. My former desire to escape to the relative safety of Canada dissipated into a need to kick up a little dirt back home, and continue in the quest to combat ignorance and fascism. You don’t win battles by running, and certainly not by staying away from the action.
Here I am now, smoke-free, no longer drinking like I once did, eating healthy (plenty of apples!), improving my cooking skills, and running throughout the work-week, faster probably than I ever have before. Do I run the risk of becoming even more virginal? Should I combat this risk with a well-placed tattoo? While I may have been flirting with at least a few females I know this past month or more, certainly, I’m free and clear of attachment to any particular females. My former amour, which I loved with all my heart, and for whom I fought and endured for more than a year, dumped me months ago.
Not that it matters, after two months without interest in me, she decided to write. The letter seemed bland and insincere, but it was just what I needed to get everything off my chest. As I was finishing up my thirteen page response (it wasn’t everything, just the most important things), it occurred to me that a year’s worth of silence translates to a hell of a lot of text. It was a bit embarrassing, I’ll admit, the sheer girth of my letter, as was the fact that the majority of it was written in anger, but I’ve gotta say, it feels really good having it all out in the open. After more than a year of putting up with her scorn, judgment, griping, anger, complaints, opinions, and infuriating self-righteousness, I’ve finally, FINALLY said my piece as well. It’s the best I’ve felt in a long time.
She responded a few hours later with, essentially, “I agree with everything you said, and I thought this was going to be worse.” Man, did I feel cheated.
There were two possible responses I’d been hoping for as I wrote my letter, reliving every uncomfortable moment of our relationship in the process. One, the best case scenario, that she’d read my letter, see how much she’d hurt me, and, assuming that there was any truth to her claims of newfound maturity and goodwill, give me some kind of apology, not necessarily a full apology, but some kind of apology, and we could work from there. Or two, the worst case scenario, that she’d read my letter, pick up on the pure anger of it, and still being the same, unchanged negativity-magnet she’s been, feel absolutely horrible. If she wasn’t going to be the bigger one of us for a change, I just wanted her to really hurt. Just for one day. I wanted for her to feel for just one day the way she made me feel for a year.
I wanted her to see how it feels when your pour your heart out for someone and just get a slap in the face in return.
But I got a happy, cheery cop-out in response, a letter in which I even doubt her sincerity. Not a “sorry”, not a “you bastard!”, just a “you’re right”. That bugs me the most.
Still, I’m much cheerier now than I was before, the weight off my shoulders. Despite my lack of employment, or money, my stress level is down far lower than it’s been in a long time, and that’s without drinking! So I warn you all, be careful who you open your heart to! I found out the hard way, the pain CAN outweigh the joy, and it took me more than a year of shabby treatment to realize it. All of you: you’re your own best protector (this mystery man needs to sleep SOMEtime), so make sure you keep your eyes open to just how you’re being treated, and never forget, you deserve respect and to be treated with dignity. We all do. “Are we not men?”
That goes for you ladies too. Make sure your men treat you right!
As for me, I remain the Virgin Prince, at least for a while longer.
But who needs a woman anyway when you’ve got access to government-built electrodes! Huzzah!
Be seeing you,
The Virgin Prince
I returned home from my long time spent abroad feeling exhausted, and nearly broken. What I wanted was to sink swiftly into a long nap, the kind that ventured to the borderlines of coma territory.
I was unaware of just how much feces an ape could produce within 4 months.
I’d almost completely forgotten about my (semi-)loyal sidekick, Bobo the Virgin Chimp during the four months in which I’d been gone. I know it seems that it wouldn’t be possible, but between all the midnight showers with fire hoses, the forced nude photographs, my time spent standing on the “box of doom”, the Roman-style gladiator matches I fought with the prison guard dogs, and the constant abuse sessions of electric-shock to my genitals (which I admit, I started to develop an appreciation for), I’d completely forgotten about the ape in my charge. There was far too much distraction I suppose.
Fortunately, my trusty Virgincomputer had stayed on-line during my absence and continued to dispense food pellets to Bobo on a thrice-daily basis. It is merely unfortunate that this master of gigaflops, this mechanical monstrosity of pure scientific beauty, lacked the physical extremities with which to actually clean up and dispose of the simian’s waste, or even put down fresh newspaper. It took me three days to clean the mess, and even then, I spent another week sleeping in a hotel, and showering for the better part of those days, scrubbing away at my skin with a constantly-replaced supply of loofah sponges.
Immediately thereafter, I found myself getting very involved in the excitement of the then-upcoming Presidential election, myself, following very closely the news, and spreading word of everything I was constantly learning to everyone I knew. Not that anyone really listens, or pays attention to what’s going on in the world in general. It took a long time to even get people to listen about the problems of the partisan-built-and-controlled voting machines across the country, and my own mother didn’t even believe me, despite all the articles I sent her and evidence I showed her, up until her cousin also brought it up, and she watched a handful of documentaries on the subject. I think she honestly didn’t want to believe that elections could truly be rigged, here in America.
I suppose there are just some things a person needs to believe in. Without the ability to have faith, one is forced only into feeling despair.
Which is what I suppose I could say I was feeling very strongly about this time, four years ago, when it was proven clearly to all those who chose to look, that the American election could be stolen, and that the many safeguards placed in the Constitution DIDN’T keep the government safe from abuses of power, or perhaps they could have, IF the Constitution had actually been followed. Regardless of the answer, I had a bad stomach upset for about two weeks following voting day. For any sort of relief, I visited the college nurse’s office looking for remedies, or powdered my upper lip and the bottom of my nose with the crushed powder from my bottle of Rolaids, running up and down the cafeteria and the halls of the school, crying out loudly that I was George W. Bush.
I suppose perhaps I was attempting to laugh, to prevent the tears.
I remember at the general time, I was conversing with one of my friends, she being from Texas, about my concern about what was happening and my legitimate fears about the precedent the Supreme Court decision set. I do recall that I was worked up and perhaps on the lighter side of hysterical (seeing the principles of one’s country tossed aside within a matter of days will do that to a patriot), and she nonchalantly told me that I was being overly dramatic and that it really wasn’t a big deal.
Perhaps she was right, but then, her parents’ country of Iran (or Persia, as she liked to call it) is next on Bush’s war list. She really liked to visit there too.
It was funny. As the election fiasco hit, there was a nationwide student council conference going on right there in Florida. I really wanted to go and get right in the thick of it, be a part of the biggest American event in my lifetime (yes, it WAS bigger than 9/11, because 9/11 never would have happened with Gore in the Whitehouse, at least not to the extent it did), I petitioned our advisor endlessly, begging her to let us go. I wanted to go down to the Sunshine State and hang with protesters, and have the crap kicked out of me by belligerent Republicans, due to my difference of opinion from theirs, or yell in person at the Democrats that just didn’t get it, to stop picking on the Nader supporters. It’s funny how some people just won’t accept a difference of opinion, or, for that matter, a person’s right to it.
Alas, we’d missed the deadline to register for the Florida conference, and with that fact, my heart sank. There was no way, my advisor told me, that we were going to Florida. Instead, a month or two later, we were able to go to Washington D.C., which I must admit, lifted my spirits some. The famed District of Columbia is the single most impressive looking part of the country, the only part that looks like it was built with legitimate culture, filled with sculptures, statues, and monuments as far as the eye can see, and boasting a most enviable amount of diverse, massive museums, absolutely free of charge. Furthermore, I saw my first drag-queen hooker while I was there.
I always smile when I recall the time the student newspaper asked me to write an opinion piece on “Why I’m Voting For Gore”, to complete the vacant part of the page of the old Skyline College scandal-rag, the pro-Bush, and pro-Nader bits having already been written. I put thought and feeling into the piece, then turned it in to the pro-Nader guy (who was my contact on the paper’s staff), and when I next saw my column, the next week, it’d been trimmed down and hacked. Specifically, the paper’s staff had removed my comments about the issue of abortion, and the stakes of this battle to keep this the right of women, and they also printed the name of my alter-ego, not “The Virgin Prince” as being the writer (I chastised them for that repeatedly, up until they finally gave me a regular column).
But the thing that cracked me up, when reading my neutered prose, was that they had removed my line about “the forces of evil plotting and planning” and the need for Gore to be in office to combat them, as Bush was completely inept.
They thought I was joking.
I look back now; it was completely prophetic. Of course, now I think Bush is the anti-Christ
Back to the subject of this year, starting on November 2nd and continuing into the next two days, I did what any patriotic, conscientious American would do. I bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked like a chimney, and I drank until I was drunk, and made good effort to stay that way. I only paused for sleep, and then, only woke to continue drinking.
By the end of Thursday, I started to feel a sense of acceptance, and by Friday, was back on the path of good health and clean living, feeling firmly in my heart the desire to continue in the struggle against right-wing morons, my ambition to do so actually increased quite considerably. My former desire to escape to the relative safety of Canada dissipated into a need to kick up a little dirt back home, and continue in the quest to combat ignorance and fascism. You don’t win battles by running, and certainly not by staying away from the action.
Here I am now, smoke-free, no longer drinking like I once did, eating healthy (plenty of apples!), improving my cooking skills, and running throughout the work-week, faster probably than I ever have before. Do I run the risk of becoming even more virginal? Should I combat this risk with a well-placed tattoo? While I may have been flirting with at least a few females I know this past month or more, certainly, I’m free and clear of attachment to any particular females. My former amour, which I loved with all my heart, and for whom I fought and endured for more than a year, dumped me months ago.
Not that it matters, after two months without interest in me, she decided to write. The letter seemed bland and insincere, but it was just what I needed to get everything off my chest. As I was finishing up my thirteen page response (it wasn’t everything, just the most important things), it occurred to me that a year’s worth of silence translates to a hell of a lot of text. It was a bit embarrassing, I’ll admit, the sheer girth of my letter, as was the fact that the majority of it was written in anger, but I’ve gotta say, it feels really good having it all out in the open. After more than a year of putting up with her scorn, judgment, griping, anger, complaints, opinions, and infuriating self-righteousness, I’ve finally, FINALLY said my piece as well. It’s the best I’ve felt in a long time.
She responded a few hours later with, essentially, “I agree with everything you said, and I thought this was going to be worse.” Man, did I feel cheated.
There were two possible responses I’d been hoping for as I wrote my letter, reliving every uncomfortable moment of our relationship in the process. One, the best case scenario, that she’d read my letter, see how much she’d hurt me, and, assuming that there was any truth to her claims of newfound maturity and goodwill, give me some kind of apology, not necessarily a full apology, but some kind of apology, and we could work from there. Or two, the worst case scenario, that she’d read my letter, pick up on the pure anger of it, and still being the same, unchanged negativity-magnet she’s been, feel absolutely horrible. If she wasn’t going to be the bigger one of us for a change, I just wanted her to really hurt. Just for one day. I wanted for her to feel for just one day the way she made me feel for a year.
I wanted her to see how it feels when your pour your heart out for someone and just get a slap in the face in return.
But I got a happy, cheery cop-out in response, a letter in which I even doubt her sincerity. Not a “sorry”, not a “you bastard!”, just a “you’re right”. That bugs me the most.
Still, I’m much cheerier now than I was before, the weight off my shoulders. Despite my lack of employment, or money, my stress level is down far lower than it’s been in a long time, and that’s without drinking! So I warn you all, be careful who you open your heart to! I found out the hard way, the pain CAN outweigh the joy, and it took me more than a year of shabby treatment to realize it. All of you: you’re your own best protector (this mystery man needs to sleep SOMEtime), so make sure you keep your eyes open to just how you’re being treated, and never forget, you deserve respect and to be treated with dignity. We all do. “Are we not men?”
That goes for you ladies too. Make sure your men treat you right!
As for me, I remain the Virgin Prince, at least for a while longer.
But who needs a woman anyway when you’ve got access to government-built electrodes! Huzzah!
The Virgin Prince
