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2000-08-07 | 03:15:49

so, vietnam.

my second boyfriend ever. circa 28 years of age. like i said, late bloomer.

i'd like to apologize up front to anyone who might find me using the word "vietnam" as a nickname for a past relationship to be offensive. it's just so damn fitting, you see.

the nickname came to me when i realized that my relationship in question had been my own personal vietnam.

yeah, i was in the shit. a two and a half year tour of duty to be exact.

so, when we last left off in my "reflections on ex-boyfriends" series, i was still a technical virgin. as in i had never had anyone's manhood inside my womanhood. wow! euphemisms can be grosser than the plain talk!

oh yeah, one important tidbit left missing from my kevin entry. near the end of our relationship, he bestowed upon me this jewel: "you know, i always thought i didn't want to get married because i just hadn't met the right girl. but you're the kind of girl i'd want to marry, and i still don't want to get married."

*dry cough*

ok, so back to vietnam. ok, well kevin dumped me...even though i had to say the fateful words, "do you want to break up?" so there i am. newly single after three and a half years. my first relationship over. feeling somewhat confused. feeling unwanted. wondering why i had held out on going "all the way." all that work to save myself for marriage and the tactic didn't work. the bargaining chip my mom had encouraged me to use since i was in training bras had been left on the table. all bets off. whoa. 28 and never been...well, you know.

there was this guy at work who i had always had a crush on. we'll call him "vietnam." he was a graphic designer. an artist in every sense of the word. he had crazy hair. i mean, crazy. a pompadour about three inches high. actually, it reminded me of my college crush robert's hair. i don't know what's up with me and pompadours. so yeah, crazy. funny as hell. thoughts bordering on stage-worthy comedy issued from his lips. incredibly talented. could draw people's likenesses with eerie, yet flattering, accuracy. flaky. irresponsible. no self-esteem whatsoever. evidently had it surgically removed at birth. handsome. VERY handsome. MAJOR chemistry. MAJOR.

the only catch? already married. *sigh* but wait! what's this?! trouble at home? wife has moved out?!

i remember the exact moment he and i realized that the two of us dating was a possibility. it was after work in the office one night. we were talking with our boss. small talk. my boss asked me about my break-up. vietnam said, "you broke up with kevin?" i nodded and smiled at him. our eyes locked over the cubicle walls. you could almost here the cogs turning in our respective heads..."hey, i'm single, he/she is single...whoa!"

he invited me to a festival of animation. he said, "you know, like, if you want. i don't know if you'd be interested or not. whatever. you know, let me know." i was charged with nervous energy. holy shit! was he asking me out? we were interrupted at this key juncture by a co-worker asking about some dumb project. couldn't she feel the throbbing, kinetic vibe swirling about us? duh! pfffft!

so we go on our date. talk about the ultimate evening. one of those almost-scripted-perfection dealies. we saw the festival of animation and then wandered around the nearby downtown. there was this cool hotel nearby. the mission inn. a local landmark. i think cary grant had stayed there. or princess grace. somebody like that. you know, someone of the grant/kelly ilk. nixon got married there. it's an architectural mishmash, but in a good way. dramatic. gothic meets mission meets cool. at night it is spooky, glamourous, mysterious. dare i say, romantic?

vietnam and i wandered the halls, joking and flirting. he pretended to be groucho marx, flipping up his imaginary tux tails and spinning around on his heel. he opened doors that looked like they were off-limits. he was always good about opening doors even if they looked like you'd be breaking the rules by doing so. he was all about breaking rules.

we ended up in a darkened banquet hall. we were shadows to each other. perfect place for a first kiss...but no. then out to the garden to sit by a fountain in the dark. perfect place for a first kiss...but no.

then we went to a bar. lake alice, it's called. the loud music made us lean close to talk. funny how that works. you'd think bars were doing that on purpose. he walked me to my car. we kissed. under the sickish green fluorescent lights of the parking structure. then we made out in the car. for a long-ass time. a long-ass time. a security guard tapped us out of our wrestling match. i think he expected me to go home with him. vietnam, not the security guard. he told me that his mom was taking care of the kids that night.

um, yeah. kids. plural. a teenage girl and a one-year-old boy. the daughter was from a previous marriage that had left him a widow.

so, i didn't go home with him. but we didn't stop dating from then on. two weeks into it, he was talking about marriage. ok, and he was still married to someone else! but it was music to my ears! someone wanted to marry me! cool! what a feeling after being dumped because someone didn't want to marry me! yay! did i want to get married? um, sure! ok! so, you need to get divorced still, and i'll be an instant mom, with major credit debt? umm...let me think...OK!

so the boy knew romance. he sent me roses. drew two portraits of me. i was more buxom in one of the drawings than in real life. ahahaha! artistic license.

we were totally in love! he tripped hard that i was a technical virgin. felt way too much responsibility in being my first. but he was equal to the task. after two months of dating, i gave it up to my love to the musical strains of the cranberries. i told him, "i lost my cherry listening to the cranberries." ha! i can't believe i just told you that. i'm not gonna have any stories left for my grandchildren.

so. i can't remember when the trauma began. shortly after the sex. so shortly after the sex, i became convinced that god was punishing me for being a bad girl and having premarital sex. with a married man, for all intents and purposes. i remember a tearful fight in denny's. ok, that's something that should never happen to anybody.

the ex-wife was always jerking him around. ordering him to jump. he'd say "how high? should i buy a trampoline?" he felt guilty. their baby son was losing his family. she was a drama queen and master manipulator. she was actually nice to me, though. she liked how i got along with her little tyke. i loved that boy somethun' fierce. we were as thick as thieves. i taught him to say "tastes like chicken" when he was sipping his juice. ahaha! we crawled into bed and pretended to snore. ahaha! awwwwwww, shit.

but the daughter was another story. besides the typical hormones and rebellion of teenagedom, she was extra bitter. first, she had lost her mom when she was toddler. then her dad, angry at the world and irresponsible by nature, left her for his mom to raise while he dated...and dated...and dated. then the second wife was jealous of her and treated her like shit. then me. i didn't have popsicle's chance in hell.

oh, we had our moments of bonding. i tried to make her feel loved, but she felt like we were nothing more than roommates. you know, the whole "you're not my real mom!" afterschool special ish.

oh yeah, did i mention i moved in with them? about six months into it all. we wanted to spend more time together and he needed help with his mortgage. it was fun playing house for awhile, even though i had to clean out the litter box. phew! my mom and dad were appalled. about me moving in, not about the litter box. they put on brave smiles and hoped for the best.

he and i got engaged. we picked out the ring together at montgomery wards. because his credit card worked there. i don't know why it strikes me so funny that my ring came from there. kinda white trash. low-budge. i still have the ring. he wouldn't take it back. but he did tell his friends that i still had it, so that they'd think me a bitch. whatevah. it's in my closet. i don't know what to do with it. ebay?

the proposal lacked what you'd call romance. are you sitting down? on a relatively soft surface?

he proposed to me in the drive- thru of a "in and out burger" restaurant. for real, dogg. for real. oh, i made him get down on one knee. he had to get out of the car. then he proposed. then we drove up to pick up our burgers. he told the guy we had just gotten engaged. the guy just looked blankly at us. probably couldn't believe someone had been so lame as to offer someone a drive-thru proposal...or that someone had been lame enough to accept such a proposal. we didn't even get free fries. now that's lame.

a couple months later my nagging doubts became waking-up-in-a-cold-sweat doubts. it was a lot for a girl on her second relationship to handle. a teenage girl who hated my guts on principle. the feeling that another woman (the ex-wife) could alter my life by moving her son to another state. realizing that the man i was gaga over slipped through the grasp of responsibilities with disturbing regularity and a shrug of the shoulders.

first, i quit wearing the ring. i didn't feel right about getting all the fun buzz of being engaged when there was such a bad buzz in my gut. then i moved out. i remember my mom and sister coming over to help me get the last of my stuff.

i hugged the kids goodbye. the daughter asked me not to leave her dad. my parents breathed a semi-sigh of relief. it was like i was getting shipped home from the front lines on medical leave.

he and i kept dating. he lost his house and moved to be closer to a job in los angeles. we had fun weekends. i did birthday parties for the kids and made sure christmas brought a boatload of treats for each.

but still, my head was telling me that this was wrong. it was taking so much life out of me.

i went in for a physical and my doctor asked me how i was. i said, "fine," and started to cry. "ok, that's not good, lori, when you ask someone how they are and they start crying," the doc replied.

one weekend i didn't drive the hour to see him. i stayed home to think things through. i remember sitting at the laundromat writing a pro and con list of why i should stay with him and why i should leave. the little boy was at the top of the "pro" list. i wanted to be a part of his life. the daughter was at the top of the "con" list. sounds mean, but that's reality. she actually saved my life by being such a pain in my hindquarters. she made me run from a burning building. i owe her.

i took the chickenshit route and told him over the phone that it was over. he coaxed and tried to persuade. he said think about it for awhile. please. i did. two weeks later, he was pissed. wanting the guillotine to drop, so that he could get on with things.

i think we had two flails at getting back together. one last romp, as it were. like i said, major chemistry. but it was not to be.

he and i still keep in touch. we e-mail updates on a quarterly basis. he is married now. met an older lady who shared his love of halloween. they were married on the holiday in costume. that's so him.

the teen now has a daughter of her own. i would've been a 33-year-old grandma when the baby was born. the little boy's in counseling. vietnam is making great bank and owns a modest little pad in the mountains. he seems content. i'm very glad.

i don't regret vietnam. it was a roller coaster that altered me in good ways and bad. it was the best of times. it was the worst of times. no, i don't regret vietnam, but i'm glad to be back in the states.

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