Abroad With Billy Brylcreem

Back to the Billy Brylcreem days.

When we'd been together for maybe all of six months, we took a trip to Spain. Actually, I was already in Spain for work, and Billy Brylcreem flew over to join me on a month-long lovers' tour of the country.

The first thing we really wanted to do was get out into the countryside - I had been living in Seville, and while the city is pretty neat, in a cathedrals and flamenco and adventures-in-public-transit-that-leave-you-stranded-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-effing-Río-Guadalquivir-at-midnight-with-no-bridge-for-miles sort of way, we wanted to see toros and burros and real live wild chorizos and stuff. 

Unfortunately, our first stab at it involved absolutely no geographic research and, being Americans, we just assumed that in this (relative to the States) tiny little country, we could probably get wherever we needed to go on scooters. And, because we were touring on-the-cheap, we went with just one scooter between the two of us. Or, more technically, just one scooter beneath the two of us, wheezing like a 56 year old man in the middle of a massive infarction, struggling up cobblestone streets under our collective American weight and wobbling perilously in the tailwinds of passing trucks on the Spanish equivalent of freeways, which made me claw frantically at Billy Brylcreem from behind and shout helpful co-piloting tips such as "Oh fuck be careful!" and "Have you ever even DONE this before?" and "If we crash I will physically murder you, Billy!" directly into his ear.

(Pretty accurate.)

We endured a few harrowing segments of travel, including a brutal, neverending rainstorm sweeping up on us as we teetered along the shoulder of a superhighway, which blinded Billy Brylcreem and basically froze us both into likenesses of Pompeii casts, complete with huddled scooter-posture and twisted facial expressions of horror and dismay. After this ordeal, we stood shivering in the doorway of a half-demolished industrial building - the only available shelter from the fabled rain on the goddamn plain (they weren't kidding!) - both of us trying to regain some range of motion in our limbs while regrouping mentally. 

(Also entirely accurate.)

I may have said one or two very minorly critical things about Billy Brylcreem's scooting technique, because at some point Billy Brylcreem suggested that maybe I would like to fucking drive the fucking scooter. Of course I would have liked to. This was slightly complicated by the fact I had no idea how to operate the thing, but this did not stop me from snatching the keys defiantly from Billy and firing it up, intuitively revving it up to max throttle and then deftly releasing the clutch like a pro, if pros had no clue what they were doing, sending me on a short-lived, one-wheeled zig-zag path of terror and destruction directly into a ditch. So it was going to be Billy Brylcreem at the handlebars, or we were going to have to come up with a plan-B.

Plan-B was to trade the scooter up for a car. Thusly re-outfitted in a shiny blue Citroën, we decided to readjust our sights - now we could go anywhere! - and head through the mighty Pyrenees into France. Why not? What could go wrong?

(If only we'd had a cat-chauffeur. If only.)

I believe I mentioned earlier that we were traveling on a low-dollar budget, which is no small feat when you're fueling an automobile in Europe. So, because we were savvy travelers, we sighted in on Andorra - yeah, you know, that tiny little microstate in the mountains between Spain and France whose entire <200-square-mile economy exists because they are a tax haven. In terms of European petrol prices, this is kind of a big deal. So, a couple hours out, we evaluated where we were with our remaining tank and estimated we'd hit Andorra just as the needle hit "E."

And, pushing midnight and two notches below "E," we did finally roll into the icy mountaintop hamlet that is Andorra! It was all dimmed-down and adorable - warm little gingerbread lights in little frosty gingerbread windows in little hillside gingerbread cottages twinkling through the frigid fog, frosty cobbled streets glowing cold blue and empty and echo-ey under a huge Pyrenean moon. It was actually, and I am not being at all snarky, pretty magical, in a Narnia-on-sleep-deprivation way - and a huge relief, after a rather tense final hour of winding at a snail's-pace up a Tim Burton-esquely misty one-lane high-alpine highway sans guard rails, during which we had seen not one single other car, but Billy Brylcreem kept insisting he had seen such things as a wild boar and an old man in coveralls without a face at the edges of our headlights' reach, both things I refused to believe but by which I was a little creeped out nonetheless (because have you ever been stuck on a road-trip with someone who was possibly losing their shit? Creepy). And mostly, I was worried we were going to run out of gas, at which point Billy Brylcreem would blame me, solely because earlier, I'd pushed and campaigned stalwartly for us to just quit being pussies and make the run for Andorra, when Billy Brylcreem had suggested we stop and get maybe just a little gas at the last available station. (I mean jeesh, some people will go to great lengths to lay blame, I guess.)

The problem was, by the time we got to town, the one gas station in the country (actually, we were told, a couple miles outside of town) was closed, and there wasn't a single little gingerbread motel vacancy. There was one little gingerbread bar that let us hang out and drink hot tea until they closed, but then we were out on our asses in the freezing-cold, cruelly-damp gingerbread streets. 

(We're totally gingerscrewed!)

We had no choice: we skulked back to the rental car and prepared ourselves for a ruggedly miserable night. Mind you, we didn't have sleeping bags, or blankets, or anything practical for a night at altitude, because RainSpainPlainSpringtimeScooterTour. So we did what we could - which included putting on every last scrap of clothing, down to layering extra pairs of socks on our hands, and huddled together, and waited for the morning. We only had six dark hours we needed to survive, and then, by daylight, we would be able to find this mythical gas station. We could do this.

Sleep: fitful. Shivering: violent. Cursing: plentiful. Night: LONG.

Somewhere around the halfway mark, we both hit a breaking point. Brief negotiations ensued, after which we started up the car to blow just a little heat because otherwise we might fucking die, or at least lose toes, right here. After maybe ten minutes of idling, the ambient temperature had risen to a livable level. Being frugal, we shut off the ignition and huddled closer.

But an hour later, shit got unsurvivably cold again. As in, I wouldn't have thought too hard and long about pulling a Jack London move like cutting Billy Brylcreem open just to warm up my hands. So we started up the Citroën again, and this time we both fell asleep in the lulling temperature spike. At some point, Billy Brylcreem awoke with a jolt of panic, killed the engine again, and we curled into each other for a few more minutes of merciful sleep, slowly resurfacing to our hypothermic Andorran nightmare as the last vestiges of heat dissipated.

One LAST time, we promised ourselves. One last time, we promised each other. We have to make it to the gas station tomorrow. Fuck, we just have to make it to tomorrow. We fired up the Citroën. 

That shiny blue sonofabitch apparently overheard our bargaining and jumped in on the promise, because on startup number three, it purred and huffed marginally-engine-block-warmed-air for two whole minutes before choking. Coughing. Sneezing. Hacking. Death-rattling. And then silence. Silence in the darkness.

So this is how we die, we joked - freezing to death with dirty socks on our hands while parked right outside a tax-free outdoor gear shop?

(So wait... I thought Hell was supposed to be hot?)

***

The first rays of sun that morning were like the floating feathers of angels. The first cafe sign to light up was like a brilliant flash at the end of a tunnel. The first cup of hot coffee in my hands was like holding an enchanted kitten made of joy and caffeine and pure love. We had conquered the unconquerable! We were alive! We were such idiots, sure, but good stories aren't born of good judgment, so you're welcome for this one for your grandkids, Billy Brylcreem.

And while we still had to tackle the new issue of how to fuel the now-immobile Citroën (the gas station was a tiny operation that of course did not sell any sort of container in which we could transport gas back to the empty tank of the car), you know what? We were invincible. 

Everest? The South Pole? K2? Annapurna? Child's play. Survive a night in a subcompact on the harsh streets of Andorra, son, then talk to me.

I suggest you bring extra socks.

Billy Ballroom: Disciple of Dance

Admitted: I'm a little bit of a three-chord-punk girl grown up.

This means, in my current-stage grad-school-and-Husband-Watch-2013 iteration, I no longer have the purple hair, but the tattoos and the involuntary momentary swooning for any Billy with a skateboard and a guitar are (so far as I can tell) here to stay. Don't get me wrong - I don't actually try to date skaters any more because Reasons - but the ladyparts heart wants what it wants and I've come to accept it. And anyway, for the context of this story, when I first moved to Billy City I was in my twenties and unemployed and in a brief, wondrously fun but intensely unsustainable no-fucks-given stage of life. And so, one night out at a loud-and-rough show, I laid eyes on the frontman of a certain somewhat beloved Billy City punk band and the rest, as they say, is... ah, well, blog material.

This wasn't any ordinary punk god. I mean, yes, he thrashed around on a guitar with minimal skill but maximal panache; yes, he whipped a crowd into a frenzy quite handily with a mic; and yes, he was probably dressed in all black and was definitely no stranger to a tattoo shop. But by day, while most punk Billys tend to be delivering pizzas or laying around on your goddamn couch smoking all your weed, Billy Ballroom was a dance instructor.

A classical fucking ballroom dance instructor. And competition dancer. And choreographer.

 (Ever heard the term "pants-off dance-off?")

Oh, and also a felon twice over, but we'll get to that later. First:

The inaugural time we hung out, I picked him up from his band practice-space in an industrial, empty-at-night, railroad-switchyard-hobo-having part of the city (which involved walking down an honest-to-god rat-scuttling alley alone, knocking on graffiti-tagged steel doors till one opened and there was his bass player greeting me). From there, Billy Ballroom and I then drove to another warehouse that I'm not even sure why/whether he had keys for (don't tell me about creepy first dates. You don't even know creepy first dates.), where he switched on one shop-light (the dangling sort that mechanics have, with the cage around the bulb), pulled up his phone's iTunes, broke out a flask of Jim Beam to share, and then, over the course of a few hilarious, increasingly-buzzed  hours, taught me the entire Thriller dance. I mean literally, from the first beat down to the last step, until we could both make it through the song with minimal outtakes.

(Go ahead, re-read that if you need to and then try to tell me you wouldn't go out again with these moves. I'll wait.)

To this day, that ridiculous night with Billy Ballroom still ranks right up near the top billing for "Most WTF-ingly Fun First Date Ever," and after that, I was fairly hooked. It helped that Billy Ballroom and his crew were ultra-late-nighters, which was my own schedule at the time, and also that they all loved coming over to my little tiny half-of-a-duplex and drinking and drugging and messing around with my acoustic guitars till the sun came up and/or neighbors came knocking. And, even when I heard the story of his felony convictions (both related to a college-age incident where he (allegedly) took a golf club to the windows of a frat house as well as several pricey, likely-daddy-bought vehicles outside of said frat house), I honestly found it more endearingly in-character than problematic (what respectable skatepunk doesn't disdain him some frat boys? And what frat boys don't, at one point or another, deserve some shit like that?). After all, the deed was (allegedly) done with said douchebag frat boys' own golf clubs, which had (allegedly) been thrown at him and another friend while skating past. I really saw it as delicious, nine-iron-y irony.

Billy Ballroom endeared himself to me even further by taking an interest in my bookshelf. 

I'll admit, I like books more than the average kitten, and because by virtue of my semi-nomadic 20's I just wasn't able to keep all of them around, post-read, I've developed something of an All-Star traveling squad of favorites over my adult span. And, in the case of a work I know I'll end up drafting for the home-team and thus revisit at some point, I'm an underliner and dog-earer and highlighter, too, so my specific book copies are a bit of a personalized treasure to me.

Billy Ballroom paid particular attention to the small section of books I've cultivated dealing with religion - among them stuff by the Dalai Lama, Bertrand Russell, and Richard Dawkins (I'll give you one guess how Bible-oriented I am). When he asked if he could borrow one, I happily let him spirit it off in his bag (because hey, maybe a kindred soulless punk-rock spirit!). When he asked for another, I momentarily didn't remember that he had yet to return the first (and probably would have given him the benefit of the doubt anyway) and so he left with another selection. This happened maybe four times, and they were all books on atheism, freethinking, religion-free spirituality, the debunking of metaphysical beliefs, etc.

And then, Billy Ballroom went on tour, and fell off the radar. 

One day maybe a week after the band kicked off from Billy City, I glanced down at the shelf from which Billy Ballroom had been slowly siphoning my paperbacks, and noticed a new title there. 

It was definitely not mine. 

It was a book about youthful turbulence and the shining path to Christ and salvation. 

And it contained a note from Billy Ballroom, suggesting it might change my life.

(Oh. Oh sonofaDEITY!)

All of a sudden, like a religious awakening, it all became clear: 

Here I was thinking Billy Ballroom's interest in the subject philosophies was parallel to mine when it was actually exactly perpendicular! And proselytizing, at that! God. DAMMIT!

I also realized I was probably not going to get my beloved books back without having some sort of Christ talk. Which I considered, but then remembered that nothing Billy Ballroom had taken in his surreptitious switcheroo was out of print, and so Billy Ballroom fell quietly off my phone contacts-list.

Or perhaps he ascended to punk-god heaven, while I fell into (continued and unrepentant) sin, which I enjoy greatly to this day. 

Considering the reading material available in both destinations, I guess I'm not so sure I don't prefer the latter.

Meet Billy Boulangerie (or: Don't mind the Cryface)

Billy Boulangerie is a chef who loves him some pastries - both making them and, more to the point, eating them. He's been a steady character in the Susie Solo Chronicles for years now, and I have photos of his wild, Winfreyesque weight fluctuations to prove it. I mean the dude can seriously put away some croissants and creme brulee. And really, anything else made of sugar and fat.

(Billy Boulangerie could never have been faithful to me, because ice cream.)

The first time I met Billy Boulangerie, he was in town to visit my best girlfriend, Punchin' Judy (I have only ever been in three fistfights in my life, and all three were with a drunken Punchin' Judy). Judy and I worked at a bar together (we'll call it The Homebar), and she had met Billy Boulangerie on a Bahamian trip she had just returned from, and thought it would be a good idea to toss him into the fucked-up social mix that was our lives, back then.

The is a three-part story. There is a moral here. You know, for those of you (rather unlike the three people involved) who are about morals.


PROLOGUE

So, Judy and Billy Boulangerie and I all hang out one of the first nights he's here. Judy is working at first, so I take her Billy to a nearby restaurant to eat while we're waiting for her to get off her shift. Naturally, it takes me about one mug of beer and .06 seconds before I start asking him really uncensored, personal questions. He turns out to be one of those rare Billys that can instantly hang (you have to figure, anyone who's been around Judy for more than two minutes and is still standing (homegirl is formidably awesome) should be able to take a lot and dish it back - and Billy Boulangerie delivered). So we get along, in an offend-nearby-tables-with-children way. Also, I discover that either: 

a) he has a sort of unintentional-tic wink that has uncanny timing, or 

b) he's not above trying to score with Judy's girlfriends.

The night is short, I deliver him back to The Homebar where Judy is wrapping up, and part ways with them.

Now, let's get to the meat of the soap-opera.

PART ONE: SUSIE

Billy Boulangerie calls me the next day while I'm tending bar at another place I worked at the time (hey, undergrad life's a bitch and it takes a whole lot of drink-slinging to get through it with an intact mortgage and no student loans - done and done!). He's home alone, since Judy's working till fairly late, and bored, and knows nobody else in Fort Billy. I survey the scene, assess all four drinking patrons I have at the moment, and am thrilled at the prospect of someone *interesting* coming in to entertain me.

An hour and a half and about four double Crown-Rocks (him) later, I get off-shift and join him on the other side of the bar. I jokingly tell him about The Curse Of The Daybar, the punchline of which is passing out usually by 11 p.m., and we sort of start bonding.

At some point, we trade hats. This will be funny, we decide, to observe Judy's reaction when we walk into The Homebar together. This is because, though I love her to death and I know she loves me as well, well... we know each other too well. We've both indulged in slightly scandalous decisions. And we both know it because girlfriends talk about that shit. (Also, because one time when Billy Brylcreem was still on my scene, she took my phone after I was in bed and drunk-dialed him for an attempted booty-call).

Anyway, Billy Boulangerie and I move on to another downtown Fort Billy watering hole. There are mojitos. There is more bonding. There are a few missed calls from Judy, who is now off-shift and wondering where the hell we are. The last thing I clearly remember is ordering a Tanqueray-10 martini, dirty, up. I cannot for the life of me imagine why this particular series of words, completely unfamiliar in all my drinking history, comes out of my mouth.

(Young Sergeant Susie, a role-model and a Patriot.)

I wake up the following morning at home, in my own bed, and by all appearances I was fully-functional up to the end. Lights are off, the door is locked behind me (meaning nobody else had to drag me inside), I'm in pajamas, my teeth are brushed. I have several voicemails and missed calls on my phone, which is just outside my front door (helpfully delivered by a Homebar coworker on his way home).

The first is Billy Boulangerie, and he sounds very glum. There is a lot of sighing, unfinished sentence starts, and apologizing. His first words are: "I'm really not a bad person, I know what you must think..." and his ending statement is "I apologize for me... and for your own actions."

OK, I'm a little confused. Though I know I didn't succeed, my first thought is that I must have tried to hook up with him, to some extent? Jeezus, was I trying to make out right in front of Judy? (Would not put it past Drunk-Susie.) Was there a scene? There's a moment of panic, but I think about it, and I think about the Judy I know, and think about them scheming together, and I suddenly see the obvious, funny truth: 

It's been a setup all along!

Judy knows how patchy my late-night memory can be (let's just call it time-traveling), and this most certainly smells like a signature Judy piece of trickery. It's sort of funny, to think that that evil little slut has recruited Billy Boulangerie into a little gambit to make me think these things - probably to test what I do or don't tell her, and to laugh at my tortured conscience.

Yeah, Judy: foxy and creative-points to you, but I'm onto it. Good try.

The second message is just goddamn nonsensical. It's Billy Boulangerie again, hard to understand this time because he's laughing (or possibly stuffing petit fours into his face while talking?), saying something about how he should have known I'd instantly call Judy, apologizing again (presumably this time for participating in her mean little scam).

How lame, I think, that they couldn't even keep a straight face for an entire day after trying to plant the (probably easily-germinated) seeds of self-doubt. It would have been actually kind of a funny prank, had they kept their shit together.

PART TWO: JUDY
 
Judy is off work, and Susie and Billy Boulangerie are AWOL, even after repeated calls. She makes the following statement, verbatim, to another Homebar bartender: "I'm starting to think Susie is a little bit of a liability in this situation."

Those bastards finally show up, late and looking guilty as hell. Well, maybe not guilty, but fucking drunk, that's for sure. Why the hell did it take them so long? Why the hell is he wearing her hat? Judy knows the sordid details of Susie's ridiculous and occasionally-scandalous dating life and she starts to think about the potential for trouble. She's also probably stewing over her own as-yet-unexploded recent debacle with another best friend's long-term boyfriend.

(Guess who doesn't live in little ol' Fort Billy anymore? Oh hey, Judy.)

So Susie and Billy Boulangerie are here, and everyone hangs out for about a second before Susie swaggers unsteadily off to the bathroom. Judy secretly hopes, in her black little heart, that Susie passes out in there, and when nobody sees her again for awhile, her spirits rise. Ridicule will ensue, and Judy will be at the forefront of the torch-weilding mob of HomeBar villagers! Little does she know, Susie's Get-Horizontal-Immediately-In-An-Appropriate-Place-At-All-Costs circuit, which is for the most part an utter failure, has been miraculously tripped. Susie's brain, currently battered down to the reptilian nub by Tanq-10 and rum, has hit survival baseline and has forced her to blunder out the door and through downtown Fort Billy to put herself to bed, charging blindly forth without a moment to lose on social conventions like words of goodbye, the paying of her tab, or re-assuming possession of various personals strewn across the bar.
 
Judy has a cocktail or two with Billy Boulangerie, but Susie has obviously wrecked him before 10 p.m. and the babysitting of her VIP guest is a real damper on her further drinking plans. He agreeably volunteers to go home to bed, she drops him off and sees him pass out, and heads back out.

Back at The Homebar, Susie's phone is still on the bar, completely forgotten (along with numerous other expensive pieces of personal property) by Susie in her reeling beeline for home. As Judy talks to a bartending coworker, Susie's phone rings. Judy looks at it, and sees that it is Billy Boulangerie.

Who is supposed to be passed out, night over.

At this moment, she knows her suspicions have just been confirmed.

It's been a setup all along!

Billy Boulangerie and Susie are definitely trying to hook up behind her back. Why the fuck else would he go home, pretend to pass out, and then secretly try to rendezvous with her? That pair of untrustworthy, backstabbing bitches!

She instantly snatches up her own phone and, infuriated, calls Billy Boulangerie, to ask him some unexpected questions:

(Billy. You are in such. Deep. Shit.)

"Why are you calling Susie? I thought you were done for the night?? Were you just trying to see if she made it home OK? Did you want to HELP HER TO BED??"

Billy Boulangerie isn't owning up to anything, but Judy sees through his pitiful "I'm confused and drunk and I... who did I call...?" act. Those scheming assholes are not going to play her for a fool. She gives him the third degree, and when he comes out to talk to her in person, she ditches him in the middle of Fort Billy to go to a friend's party, promising that he'll find his shit outside her house in the morning.

She proceeds to drink her own self under the table (no small feat!) in fury at this betrayal... but really, she thinks to herself (in a louder and less internal monologue as the shots go down), she should have seen this coming from the moment Billy Boulangerie and Susie met.

PART THREE: BILLY BOULANGERIE
 

Billy Boulangerie is ragingly inebriated, after drinking free-of-charge with Susie for a few hours. Things are fuzzy and funny and he's having a great time with this chick (did he mention how wildly charming and hilariously witty Punchin' Judy's girlfriend is? He meant to). It's such a kick, in fact, that he forgets why he was supposed to leave the current bar after receiving that last call - don't remember who that was. Oh, well. Bartender!

Eventually, he and Susie go to The Homebar to meet Judy (Aha! He knew there was someone missing from this scene!) and Susie subsequently pulls a Houdini, disappearing for the remainder of the night as the rest of the show goes on. He continues pounding Crown and forgets she ever existed. Bartender!!

Suddenly, he finds himself in Judy's house, waking up alone. She has apparently taken his advice and continued partying without him. Vaguely troubled, he picks up his phone and calls Susie, who he remembers being out with earlier.

No answer.

Quite logically, he calls at least four or five more times, just to be sure, but still no answer. So, he goes ahead and leaves a message, assuming she's not answering because she's mad at something he did. Was he trying to hit on her? Hook up with her? Get her to make out with Judy? He's not sure, so he goes ahead and spreads a blanket apology for all things drink-related.

Shortly thereafter, he picks up his ringing phone to field a call from a ready-to-start-punching-things Judy. How on Earth does she know he called Susie just now? How does she know what did or didn't happen, when even he can't remember, and he was there?? He's dumbstruck and confused, and somewhere in the highly potent stew of cerebral fluid and Canadian whiskey in which his brain is currently swimming, he realizes the ugly truth:

It's been a setup all along!!
 
Judy must have known he's not good with temptation, commitment, and alcohol all mixed together! She must have prepped Susie and then set her loose to tempt him into betrayal! She must have received a rat-out call from Susie as soon as he'd called - the entire night while he thought he was getting along famously with Susie, making inroads with Judy's friends, those two horrible fucking girls must have been ensnaring him into a web of his own deceit, just to teach him a lesson!

Oh, cruel fate!

Oh, wicked karma!

It is at this time, when Judy informs him in the midst of her own betrayed ire, that he is pretty much dead to her and might as well walk the plank, so to speak, that he knows the awful truth... and he begins to weep.

I am not talking about a tear in his beer, here.

("To send this Ugly Cryface voicemail now, press one.")

I am talking about all-out sobbing, wandering through the streets of Fort Billy scorned, lashing out at fences and the sidewalk with his hopeless fists, plastered in tears of 70% Crown/30% agony at having been tricked by this horrifyingly clever duo... and, of course, dialing Susie and Judy again, for good measure. He is destroyed by anguish and lacrimal loss of control, ego ruined by having to admit that - as he concludes with sorrow - he has been duped by ladies he thought he could trust. Some classic bits from the resulting voicemail transcripts include a sentence about how "I should have known you'd rat me out (to Judy) as soon as I called" and "oh God, now I guess I deserve to know how this feels."

EPILOGUE

The following late morning, as if it were all just a bad dream, the three of us end up at  brunch together, where, in the sober light of day, we triangulate our separate-but-equally-ridiculous conspiracy theories.

There is much speakerphone replaying of Billy Boulangerie's voicemails, and coffee-spilling, choking-on-eggs laughter at the idea that we're all three just paranoid enough, potentially untrustworthy enough, and just plain goddamn drunk enough to have assumed the worst of each other.

The moral?

One should be so lucky to have friends like these.

Seriously. Friends like these.

Billy Bondo: a Face vs. Neck Case Study

I spent the last 4-day holiday weekend up in the mountains, visiting some friends and running around a ritzy high-elevation town I cannot afford for even one single minute (but yet, loving every single one of those out-of-budget minutes), spilling martinis at people (yes, intentional preposition choice) and probably talking exclusively in my outside-voice after 11 pm, because that's what we do best together, this particular crew and I.

But, in the interest of being a little more grown-up and productive and, y'know, experiencing the big bright beautiful world in fully-sentient Susie form, I curtailed myself pretty sharply one night so that I could haul my ass out of bed early enough to hit a fairly ambitious double-summit hike and add a couple new 14ers to my checklist. Possibly because this sort of self-imposed cutoff has, historically, been rarer than a heterosexual unicorn and so may have confused and frightened them, the rest of my friends set sail for Blackout Island without me, and so I was left to tackle the following day's pursuit solo. Surprise, surprise.

The peaks I had my sights on are accessible via a trailhead that requires a pretty burly 4WD vehicle to reach, or alternately, an additional three-mile approach hike on the barely-driven/barely-driveable "road." As my car, what with its highly-practical zero-clearance construction, ranks somewhere between "GirlyMan" and "Haha!" on the Rugged Scale, I got up extra-early, parked at the turnoff, and started to hike in.

(Except mine only does wheelies when I've gained excessive amounts of weight and/or have a Billy in the trunk.)

Somewhere halfway up the road, I heard the first of only two vehicles that would  pass me. Maybe ten minutes later, a young dude in an ancient Land Rover slowly picks his way past, waving as he bounces by.

Now, it's been a long-running, well-known fact among people who know me that Husband Watch 2013 (or whatever year - not sure when this kicked off, likely because I am too old and forgetful now to be bothered with details like that) is in full-swing when out in the wilderness - I like to think someday, I'll meet a dashing daredevil on the summit of some high-alpine scrambler and that'll be it. Boom. Co-pirates. But I wasn't really thinking much about HW'13 at this point, because that road was goddamn steep and rocky and had myriad river-crossings and I was tearing up it like a madwoman (i.e., huffing and puffing and flailing my hiking sticks about like carbon-fiber épées), intent on the actual trailhead.

(Me, master of the uphill grade.)

Another 30 minutes in and I can see the basin between my two target peaks - where the actual trail head should be. I also, rounding a switchback, come face to face with the gentleman in the Land Rover again, who has parked and is "coincidentally" just now donning his daypack.

We chatted for a minute, and he asked if I minded if he hiked in with me. He seemed normal enough, although his vehicle had seen better days (approximate content: 1 part side-panels, 1 part Bondo, 1 part laughably mismatched green paint, possibly of the craft-store variety, 1,823 parts suspiciously-suggestive-of-living-in-your-car accoutrements - I later found out that yes, he *was* living in the car, but only as part of a roadtripping move to some southwest canyon town for a new job as a river guide so actually, points to him for that). And he was actually in pretty decent shape and made good sentences - the very top two immediate screenout criteria for all HW'13 candidates. So, off we hiked. Turns out he was a former-local, had skinned-and-skied most of the neighboring mountains, and was a great resource for orienting myself to the names of the surrounding geography.

At the first summit - which we had to ourselves - I shared some food (not unlike feeding cute ground squirrels), our joking somehow ran off the tracks of normal "I don't really know you" polite-banter and veered toward how a summit would be the perfect place to get away with an anonymous murder (Ha! Hahah. ...Ha?) and then we parted ways, as I still wanted to bag peak 2, a more difficult adventure, and he was just in it for an easy day.

On my solo way down, lo and behold, there's the Bondo-mobile, with Billy Bondo sort of casually lurking around and waiting to see if I wanted a ride back down to where I had parked. Having walked *up* the whole thing (the key), and having just come down a pretty aggressive grade for a couple hours already, I accepted. We rode down, cracked some jokes, and then did the "nice-to-meet-you-you-too-good-luck-you-too" handshake thing when I got out of the Land Rover and closed the door behind me.

Once in my own car, I basically forgot about Billy Bondo. I mean, he was nice and all, but he was setting up shop several states away (if there's one thing I've learned from the Billy Builder saga, it is that long distances are an overwhelming FuckNo) and also, neckbeard. That's apparently really a thing.

But guess who didn't forget?

The next night, I got Facebooked by Billy Bondo, who sent an email frankly mentioning that he felt he "should have tried to kiss you, or at least lick your face." Waitwhat? Lick my face? I know that my humor is a little off-kilter and sometimes that leads people astray, and maybe this was his attempt at quirky, lighthearted self-deprecation or something. But lick my face? 

OK, I'm going to just let neckbeards go, but let me talk about face-licking for just one minute. 

One time, my sister and I, at some assuredly shitty age, got into a spit-fight in the back seat of the family car.  I think it started out with a "sucker-kiss" - you know, how Kid A will whip a sucker out of their mouth, whack it to Kid B's cheek, then back goes the sucker into Kid A's disgusting little laughing pie-hole while Kid B is left stunned, with a sticky spot on their face. Well, with my sister, something like this escalated into slapping with spit-laden fingers, then into all-out airborne hocking wads at each other, which then escalated into parental yelling (possibly accompanied by some degree of swerving), which then rapidly de-escalated into being subsequently trapped in the silent, hot car for another hour with nothing to clean off the globs of spit festooning us, which dried, and which fucking. Smelled. Awful. This exact memory. This is what I think of when I think of face licking.

(Now, neck licking, on the other hand? All for it. Unless there's a beard there.)

It was decided, amongst my friends while once again spilling martinis at each other later on (one of whom astutely pointed out that, for example, in Korean there is only one word for both blue and green, which are apparently not considered to be two distinct colors by Koreans even though Jeezus H. Christ, they obviously ARE), that perhaps Billy Bondo had maybe somehow culturally missed the finely-nuanced anatomical difference between the face and the neck, as evidenced by his similarly-misplaced beard, and therefore didn't know appropriate lick/non-lick zones.

Resultingly, I have devised the following helpful matrix to clarify the matter for any other similarly-confused Billys:

So what, exactly, does one say to "I should have tried to lick your face"? I went with the short, vague "lol" (sans punctuation really indicates Idon'tgiveashit), sort of attempting to both brush the e-mail content off and let him off the hook for a weird joke fallen flat, and hoped for the best. Not to be deterred, Billy Bondo immediately persisted: "You know you'd love a good hard face-licking."  

This is where the e-mail conversation ended.

This is where Husband Watch 2013 continues.

Billy Builder's Backstory

Billy Builder could, I guess technically, be called my first (unintentional) stab at online dating.

Rewind back to about age fourteen.

Yes, I said fourteen.

(High School Susie, on the prowl)

I went to a party with the one girlfriend I had who was older, Allison. You know you had your own Allison, too - she was kind of dumb and kind of cute and most importantly, she was old enough to drive and her parents gave her a car. So if there were Saturday night things to be done, you were going to be damn sure you called a seat in Allison's (invariably tiny) ride.

So on this particular weekend we cruised out to West Billyville, across the highway and the railroad tracks and a little bit of prairie, to where the streets aren't all paved because West Billyvillians kept voting down the necessary tax increases (even now, there are still no sidewalks in West Billyville), and pulled up to a little log house, Zimas-with-Jolly-Ranchers-in-the-bottom in-hand (oh just own it, you know you and your Allison drank those too!).

Inside there was a little party, with a few people I knew and a few I didn't. In the midst of talking about whatever teenage girls talk about with teenage boys (80% chance: pot and/or your stupid parents), I happened to glance over and there. He. Was.

(Enter Future Billy Builder, center stage)

Did I talk to him? Yes, for perhaps all of eleven likely-awkward words, only two of which I technically remember. But in under a dozen, I got his first and last name and gathered that he wasn't from Billyville Senior High. Where was he from? Don't know. How old was he? Don't know. Whose house was it? Don't know. Who did he know there? Don't know. Was he even invited? Don't know. Was he a felon or meth-cooker or otherwise unsavory character? Don't know. 

Didn't care. 

I committed the name to memory and secretly promised myself I'd see him again. 

Then, in no particular order, I:

-grew up
-graduated
-fell in and out of love(-ish) a couple times
-joined the military
-traveled the country
-went to college
-made new friends
-made new enemies
-tangled with the law
-survived some growing pains
-shed some skins
-reconnected with old friends
-got smarter
-got dumber
-got smarter in new ways
-adopted some dogs
-bought a home
-broke some hearts
-sampled a few careers
-excelled and failed, in stunning technicolor
-made some U-turns
-took some chances
-learned some gutpunch lessons
-hit some jackpots
-scraped through some lows
-caught some fortuitous updrafts
-shaped myself into some version of an adult

...and otherwise proceeded with Life As Usual, USA, without another encounter with or, in all honesty, another thought about Mister Billyvillian until my age had almost doubled.

OK, cut back to adult Susie. I'm in college, visiting my mom who now lives down south over spring break, and right there on Myspace (go ahead, date yourself if you're gonna date me - we all know you once tended a 'Space profile, too!), right at the top of my friend's page, suddenly appears a comment from someone whose picture I don't exactly recognize but whose name - those two little words - I most certainly do. And where does he live now? Across the country from my old hometown Billyville, and two states from where I'm now a student, but less than 30 minutes from my mom's latest abode.

I fire off a message to the effect of "Hey, I met you once and now I'm in town and you probably don't remember me but do you want to run away and rob banks and set things on fire and share ice cream and go skinny-dipping and skip the border and fall asleep naked and wake up smiling and maybe grow old together hang out, err something, sometime?" (which, from my end, was pregnant with the sort of butterflies you might get by crossing the feeling of uncontrolled levitation with the foreknowledge of an imminent car-crash). Within a few minutes he had responded, and by that afternoon we were facing off across a formica Chili's table over horribly-mixed, overpriced chain-restaurant drinks, which were, in a surreal and suburban and laughably-standardized way, absolutely perfect. 

For hours. 

Until.

It happened! By jove (and by Long Island Iced Tea number four), it happened!

By this point, the Mr. Billyvillian I had so carefully filed into the fire-and-flood-proof valuables-vault part of my otherwise comically threadbare memory that night a dozen years ago had also muddled his own way through a good stretch Life As Usual, USA, and had become Billy Builder - who has, since The Kiss, for better or worse, continued to resurface in a recurring role, alternately scripted as uplifting / heartbreaking / befuddling / infuriating / unnaturally natural / impossibly complicated / unpredictable-to-the-end, in the Susie Solo Chronicles.

(Meaningful? Stay tuned.)

Billy Big-Wall, In One Take

Billy Big-Wall was a coworker who, in addition to being a socially-smart geophysicist (waitwhat?) and kinda-brilliant/hilarious independent filmmaker (yes, please), was also a recent nationally-competitive collegiate steeple-chase runner (yes, please!) and a current avid climber (yes, PLEASE!).

Aaaand he happened to be, oh... let's just say the better part of a decade my junior.

I have rarely done the office-dalliance thing, and don't usually have a penchant for the young'uns, but I did green-light this one because he was surprisingly good at The Game, for his age, and also possibly because most of the time I was around him I was alarmingly drunk.

(Me, visiting Billy Big-Wall's cubicle after lunch)

A couple things to mitigate what, in this story, might appear to be irresponsible intra-office-dating, workplace drinking, and coug-ing (OK fine, guilty, guilty, and guilty, BUT):

a) Billy Big-Wall approached me. Blatantly.

b) Billy Big-Wall invariably ordered - and paid for - at least three rounds of lunch drinks for us both.

c) Billy Big-Wall wooed me with near-constant workplace email and phone snark, and after-hours stage-stealing George Michael karaoke singalongs where he also ordered - and paid for - at least three more rounds of drinks for us both.

d) Billy Big-Wall lived just a few blocks from my place in a trendy part of Billy City, so it was natural that I just went home with him from our neighborhood sushi joint the very first time we went out because [see items b and c].

The thing about Billy Big-Wall was, he was a secret and it was fun like high school.  We'd go out for lunch and then make out in his car in the office parking lot. We'd attack each other in the stairwells of our office high-rise for clandestine up-against-the-wall gropings. We'd stay up till four and then go to work smiling smugly at seven. I slept very little for a month, and changed my sheets a lot.

The other thing about Billy Big-Wall was, his vision of Co-Workin' It: The Susie Solo Story was a very short film, and it only took him one take to absolutely nail it (/pun). One day we were sexting while he was off on a work trip, and the next it was pretty much over, evaporated: like Brigadoon, if you lost a shirt of yours you really liked when Brigadoon disappeared and then Brigadoon never got it back to you even though you returned all the stuff of Brigadoon's that turned up at your place over the next few weeks, which is what happened when Billy Big-Wall left the set.

All the office-affair cliches - rushing off to dark conference rooms a minute apart, frantic hands on belt buckles and up stockingless thighs, speaking in barely-contained code around socially-clueless office-mates - ceased overnight. In fact, in a mostly-unspoken evolution, we just stopped talking at work at all (see what I did there?) and the old office reverted back to Boring Central Station, because turns out, work girlfriends won't even buy you one drink just for being the only single gal in a pencil skirt, let alone a whole slew of them every day.  In fact, most of the other (married) ladies toiling sexlessly on our conservative, not-very-fun floor of the office would have likely been horrified to learn the truth about the short-lived Billy-Susie merger(s).

(I beg to differ. Billy Big-Wall, hit it!)

I was bummed about it. I bitched to (non-work) girlfriends and my housemate about it. I sulked and went through mild DTs at my desk. And then, maybe two days later, I realized, hey - the young Billy Big-Walls of the world are really so very much fun because they're made of ephemeral, one-go-'round stuff: big routes to be on-sighted, midnight songs to be sung, one-take movies to be made.

And none of those things last.

Except maybe the movies.

Shit.