SOME WERE FOXY AND SOME WERE WOLFLIKE; AND OTHERS HAD THE LONG, FOOLISH FACE OF SHEEP

After my last divorce, I stayed to myself for seven months. I went to work, to the grocery store, visited a few friends once in a while and that was it. I just stayed home. I had a lot of healing to do from the 12 year marriage to Sadistic Mama’s Boy. After this seven month period, I realized I was pretty lonely and I wanted to get out and about. An acquaintance of mine had been going to a club in town that catered to people more my age and she suggested I go with her. My friends said they thought I really needed to get out of the house so I ended up going. At first it was fun….lots of dancing and laughing and I made some friends. But after a while, I got into this vicious cycle. Partying every weekend. Staying out late Friday night, a little too much drinking, spending the next day sleeping, nursing a hangover and then starting all over again Saturday night. I made these friends….I called them my party friends. We almost never visited in each other’s homes, we always met down at the club. This went on for several months and my life started to feel pretty empty. I enjoyed dancing but I’m not much of a drinker. I stayed out so late that I would miss most of the next day and then I’d be in the club with my party friends again the next night. I stopped reading, cross stitching, etc. I’ve never been much for one night stands but I did date some while I was in this period of my life. I met most of these dates down at the club and I felt empty while dating these kind of guys. One night, I was at the club, I looked around and the people there….they were all having fun talking and laughing but their lives just looked pretty empty to me. It’s like they were professional partiers. I wanted more out of life. I just got up and walked out. I never looked back. And, of course, the party friends kept calling me, wanting me to come back down there but after they realized I wasn’t going to, the calls stopped. They were not interested really in doing things away from the club scene. I didn’t have a drinking problem but I haven’t had a drink since that time. I guess it was about a year after that I was lucky enough to meet The Editor. I was dating a guy (my name for him is Poolboy/Guitarman) at the time who wasn’t giving me what I needed out of a relationship. He was a professional musician and pool player and he was all about himself. I guess I should explain the definition of professional musician and pool player -- he was professional in the sense that he was trying to make a living out of his hobbies. He was good at pool and playing guitar but wouldn't we all be good at our hobbies if we didn't keep a job and our hobby was what we did all day, every day? He lived in an big ole diesel-pusher RV (yeah, down by the river, ha). Anyway, he was playing in a little coffee shop where The Editor used to hang out. The Editor and I would talk while Poolboy-Guitarman was performing. Or sometimes we would talk even if he wasn’t performing because PB-G didn’t give me much attention. He wasn’t interested in what made me happy. So The Editor and I became friends. PB-G ended up leaving me and leaving town, literally leaving in his home (which in hindsight is one of the best things that ever happened to me) and long story short…..The Editor and I started dating. Without a doubt, meeting The Editor is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

Back a while ago, The Editor and I were hanging out reading together. I was reading “Of Human Bondage” by W. Somerset Maugham. This was one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life. Mr. Maugham, in my opinion, was a brilliant writer and this book will stay with me the rest of my life. In one part of the book, the main character, Philip, went to a club and Mr. Maugham wrote about the club in such detail -- my eyebrows went up as I read this – it sounded so much like the club I used to go to. I thought of this part of the book today as I was coming out of a library that is located across the street from the club that I used to frequent and I had to look it up and put it on my blog. Keep in mind, Mr. Maugham wrote this book in 1915 but for me, he could have written it yesterday!

"He proposed that they should go to the Bal Bullier, and Phillip, feeling too tired to go to bed, willingly enough consented. They sat down at a table on the platform at the side, raised a little from the level of the floor so that they could watch the dancing, and drank a bock. Presently Flanagan saw a friend and with a wild shout leaped over the barrier on to the space where they were dancing. Philip watched the people. Bullier was not the resort of fashion. It was Thursday night and the place was crowded. There were a number of students of the various faculties, but most of the men were clerks or assistants in shops; they wore their every-day clothes, ready-made tweeds or queer tail-coats, and their hats, for they had brought them in with them, and when they danced there was no place to put them but their heads. Some of the women looked like servant-girls, and some were painted hussies, but for the most part they were shop-girls. They were poorly-dressed in cheap imitation of the fashions on the other side of the river. The hussies were got up to resemble the music-hall artiste or the dancer who enjoyed notoriety at the moment; their eyes were heavy with black and their cheeks impudently scarlet. The hall was lit by great white lights, low down, which emphasized the shadows on the faces; all the lines seemed to harden under it, and the colours were most crude. It was a sordid scene. Philip leaned over the rail, staring down, and he ceased to hear the music. They danced furiously. They danced round the room, slowly, talking very little, with all their attention given to the dance. The room was hot, and their faces shown with sweat. It seemed to Philip that they had thrown off the guard which people wear on their expression, the homage to convention, and he saw them now as they really were. In that moment of abandon they were strangely animal: some were foxy and some were wolflike; and others had the long, foolish face of sheep. Their skins were sallow from the unhealthy life they led and the poor food they ate. Their features were blunted by mean interests, and their little eyes were shifty and cunning. There was nothing of nobility in their bearing, and you felt that for all of them life was a long succession of petty concerns and sordid thoughts. The air was heavy with the musty smell of humanity. But they danced furiously as though impelled by some strange power within them, and it seemed to Philip that they were driven forward by a range for enjoyment. They were seeking desperately to escape from a world of horror. The desire for pleasure which Cronshaw said was the only motive of human action urged them blindly on, and the very vehemence of the desire seemed to rob it of all pleasure. They were hurried on by a great wind, helplessly, they knew not why and they knew not whither. Fate seemed to tower above them, and they danced as though everlasting darkness were beneath their feet. Their silence was vaguely alarming. It was as if life terrified them and robbed them of power of speech so that the shriek which was in their hearts died at their throats. Their eyes were haggard and grim; and notwithstanding the beastly lust that disfigured them, and the meanness of their faces, and the cruelty, notwithstanding the stupidness which was worst of all, the anguish of those fixed eyes made all that crowd terrible and pathetic. Philip loathed them, and yet his heart ached with the infinite pity which filled him.

He took his coat from the cloak-room and went out into the bitter coldness of the night."