The Dress (Video by me; True Story of Stupid Romance) in Just another day in Paradise...

The following is an entry detailing a period in my life in which I was a bit too much the hopeless romantic. Stunning, I know, right? Anyway, it is copied and pasted from when I originally wrote it back on OpenDiary about 9 years ago or so. The video kind of sets up the story. Plus it’s a video of me so thus it’s amaaaaazing, right? Right.

“The Dress”

Memories.

They have a way of taking hold of you in the still of night or on a lazy fall day watching the raindrops tumble to the ground. Memories come flooding back, and you almost feel as if you could step through that ethereal portal of your thoughts and journey into this other world, into another life – what was your life – and experience it all once more.

Often imagining just how one slight change in action or comment might well alter everything from that point to now.

Yet nothing has changed.

The memories remain.

They stay with you. Haunting at times, beautiful at others, and always so close in view and yet so far from touch.

I want to touch them.

Feel them.

I can right now as I recollect.

What is to be crazy? To act out in such a manner one might well term it simply as an action lacking in normalcy? What behavior exhibits such thought to be construed as crazy?

Really, if you think over your life, each and every one of us has acted in such a manner. We have all been crazy. All of us done crazy things.

“So what is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?”

I was asked that recently.

And in many years of conversation, I have heard that question repeatedly.

Now, I’ve certainly given varying responses, which is likely at the heart of what crazy really is. Undefinable. Or perhaps it speaks to the fact I have taken part in numerous absurdities that it was difficult to consider one more outlandish than the next.

Though I think it’s simply that I didn’t think of the question deeply enough to give it the proper answer.

In my lifetime to this point, the craziest thing I have done is singular.

One act.

And if you so desire to hear it, so the story shall be told.

Perhaps it is for posterity’s sake I write this down. You know, I’m old and the such. coughs Our memory tends to go. Or rather it might well be the time of year. Halloween fast approaching. Or even still perhaps it is on my mind based on that question my friend posed to me.

What is the craziest thing I have done?

Honestly, I never once thought it was crazy then.

I wonder if that is how we all feel in the moment.

Remembering time.

People.

Places.

Feelings.

So much is different.

So much of these things have gone by.

And yet still I remain with the memories.

It was late October in 1999. Seven years ago just about. I was working about 35 hours a week. My shifts were at night and on the weekends as well as every holiday. My employer was a phone/data company. The department in which I worked serviced the United States Navy base here (technically in Belle Chase, LA) and so we had to be monitor their systems round the clock all year round.

At the time, I was also a full-time student at the University of New Orleans studying Psychology. I was having my best semester as a college student, and was pretty pleased with the direction of my life. I had plenty of friends, and while I was not involved at the time, I was pretty happy.

Saturday night in New Orleans lends itself to an all-night affair. Most people enjoy the nightlife, and I’m not really one of them. It just isn’t me.

This particular week I had been battling a pretty bad cold, and should have probably stayed home, but my best friend (Bryan) and my close friend Steve wanted to go out. So we decided we would.

Now, Steve at the time was going through relationship troubles, and was in the off stage of an on again off again deal. Bryan had just broken up with someone, though who escapes me. It isn’t really relevant.

We were a group of bitter guys (well, I’m more bittersweet, wink wink) at that point. So what we would normally do wasn’t good enough. A movie, dinner, playing games or tossing around the football on the lakefront wasn’t acceptable.

Bryan’s driving us around and Steve decides we should go down to Bourbon. The French Quarter is a beautiful place in many respects full of unique shops, fantastic restaurants and clubs with live music. Bourbon Street, however, in my own experience is so very much not a proper representation of that. You have daiquiri shops. You have strip clubs. And you have dance clubs. That’s it.

And then you have a whole lot of drunk people acting out. It’s a sight to see, but not one I would frequent.

We end up parking Bryan’s car in a garage attached to a hotel as parking spaces are at a premium downtown and in the French Quarter. So we had a long walk ahead of us, and that night was unseasonably cold for typical New Orleans weather. The wind was piercing and the chill biting.

I loved the weather.

Steve decided to start the night off right with a Daiquiri. I ordered a White Russian.

It was good.

Then we ended up in the Cat’s Meow, which is a Karaoke club. Pretty cool, excepting the fact you essentially fondle everyone you walk past because the place is so tightly packed full of people. Steve and Bryan head off to get some drinks, while I’m watching people sing karaoke and sing badly. Now, Bryan and Steve are both good looking guys. So when they get back, I’m all eager to get up their and sing.

They had none of that.

Steve steadfastly refused, and Bryan wasn’t about to sing no matter how much he may have wanted to see me do so.

Bah! I remember saying to them that if anyone should be self-conscious to go up there and sing it should be me, and I’m the only motherfucker willing to go sing!

We stayed there a while, enjoying the sights.

And by sights I mean the women. heh.

We all drank some more.

I had a couple Tequila Sunrise.

One moment will forever be crystalized in my mind. I was standing there watching this slovenly drunk guy be literally fed jello shots by this waitress. He was so blasted that he couldn’t really even stand up straight. He was propped against this railing and her. She was taking his money and paying for the shots herself because it was all he could do to fetch his wallet out of his pants.

Not really an inspiring visual to witness.

Steve knew this girl who worked nearby in the Quarter at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company as a waitress. (Yes, the restaurant is inspired by the movie Forrest Gump.) He figured she would be getting off work relatively soon, so let’s go pay her a visit.

It’s getting fairly late now, and I have work at 8am the next morning. I was scheduled to work until 9pm as I did every Sunday. A 13 hour shift.

At that point I prorbably should have gone, but I didn’t. We waited around for Kelly to get off of work. Sadly, Kelly is a bright girl, but unfortunately she’s also an alcoholic. I don’t mean in the figurative sense, either. Quite the literal one in fact.

She wanted us to go to a bar she knew, not surprisingly, and Steve was eager so we went.

I think there was always some degree of sexual tension between Kelly and Steve, though nothing ever happened between them.

We ended up at this dingy little bar. Ordered some food that was bicycled over to us, and then we ate. Just some french fries and poboys.

Then we drink.

Some more.

And more.

I’m not even really buzzed, which was annoying. I suppose I was curious at the feeling. I rarely ever drink.

Steve’s now blitzed and playing pool with Kelly.

And Bryan, well..

Bryan’s completely gone. Just absolutely toasted.

He’s slurring words telling me what the problem with women is. I’m not sure he even finished his thought on that one before he stumbled off to the bathroom.

The bartender was like, want another drink?

I said to myself I’m not wasting another cent on alcohol. So I had water.

So I sat there on a barstool simply watching people. It’s fascinating to do, though rather dull in such a setting as a bar.

The behavior is often so typical. Though you can read so much from body language. So many false displays.

In any event, after an appreciable passing of time, Steve wanders over and asks where Bryan went. I realize that he’s been gone a fair bit of time, and we walk to the bathroom to check on him.

Now, the bar is essentially half of a shotgun double apartment. And the bathroom is down this tiny corridor and it’s a single stall deal. Bryan’s obviously in the stall, and so Steve decides to be his usual charming and subtle self.

The way he chooses to announce our presence to Bryan is by kicking as hard as he can the closed door to the stall. Obviously when the door swings inward and hits the side it will make a loud noise and scare Bryan awake.

Well, Steve kicks the door and we heard a loud sound.

THUD!

Then this horrific moaning as the door did not move one bit.

Bryan had passed out leaning forward with his head propped against the stall door.

Steve kicked a drunk guy in the head as hard as he could.

Ahem.

A drunk friend I should say.

We tried mightily not to laugh at Bryan’s pain, but he had puked everywhere. It was awful. I realize at this point it’s about 4 in the morning and Steve is gone. Bryan’s gone. And I don’t even know where we parked.

It’s about 4:30 in the morning, and so I ended up having to find a phone and call my mother to come pick us up. Fortunately I don’t live but 10 minutes from the Quarter, but it took a while for this all to come together. We dropped Steve off at his house, which is only a short drive from my own, but Bryan lives way out in Kenner. A long drive ahead.

Steve had a blast.

Bryan, well, he was hanging out the passenger side of the front seat’s window trying to get air and moaning every so often to let us know he was still amongst the living.

After a good forty minute drive out to his house, I had to help essentially carry him to his door. He stopped every few feet to give back to the Earth in the most unpleasant of ways. Finally, I knocked and his dad came out to help him in.

Oddly enough his father didn’t seem so shocked at it all.

There was vomit down the outside of our van, too. That was gross.

At this point it’s around 6:30 am. By the time I get home I had enough time to go inside and pack up my stuff for work, fix some food real quick for the day, and leave for work.

Over the next week or so, I ended up feeling really bad. I had an infection, but I didn’t realize it.

The next part is fairly unappealing, so feel free to skip it.

An absess formed near my groin.

The infection spread to my scrotum which began to swell in size.

Ended up being rushed to the ER at Oschner Hospital.

I could barely walk. The pain was immeasurable.

I was expecting to be able to go home, but they had other plans. I was hooked up to an IV and they put a catheter in. Lord, that hurt. They transferred me to Charity Hospital as I had no medical insurance then. I was taken over in an ambulance which is a horrible ride. Those things are terribly small and very rough rides.

Charity is a training hospital. And so they parade around students showing them various cases. They asked me if they could see my condition. I’m a modest person in many respects, but I felt so horrible I didn’t care. It’s absurd to think about now, but yeah.

Anyway, I waited forever just laying there in agony until I was brought to a huge room with just bed after bed of patients. There must have been twenty or thirty patients in this room. I had not eaten in a long while.

It was a Friday.

The doctors were going for the weekend and had told my mother they planned to operate on Monday most likely to clear the infection out.

A nurse came by and would not leave me alone until I ate something. I refused, so she settled for a small bite of angel food cake.

I placated her and ate a tiny bit of the stuff. I didn’t want to.

Before the doctors left that night, they came around and checked on all the patients. These were residents still earning their stripes. Then following them up came a doctor with a lot of experience, I’m not sure but he may well have been head of the department.

All I recall is scenes cut out as if from a movie. The doctors huddled around. Him checking me.

He told me this would hurt.

Then he squeezed.

I nearly passed out from the pain.

And I promise you this, the hollywood movies do no such thing justice. Passing out from pain. The amount of pain it must require to lose consciousness from it must be truly unbearable, as I have not felt such agony ever before as that.

Immediately after he did that, he turned and spoke commandingly to the residents who watched over me.

I could tell my mother grew deeply concerned at what he was saying, but all I heard was him raise his voice and say emphatically that I needed to have surgery and now.

The operating room was immediately prepped and I was carted off.

Operating table space at Charity was always at a premium, and so my mother’s concerns intensified.

She didn’t let on to me about any of her concerns at the time, but later told me she knew I was dying. She could see it in me.

If they had left me there without that doctor checking on me, I would have died. Without question. The infection was spreading that rapidly.

The plan was to have a 45 minute surgery.

They would open up my scrotum, clear out as much of the infection as possible, then close the wound.

Well, the surgery lasted over an hour and a half.

They actually removed a portion of my scrotum.

There was much more infection in there than they thought, and so the doctors had to alter their plans. I was put under with a tube stuck down my throat. The reason being that my stomach had food in it. Yep. You guessed it. The angel food cake. If you’re put under anesthesia without an empty stomach and your body coughs up whatever you have inside your belly, you can choke on it and die. So they stuck a tube down my throat while I was awake.

I have a horrible gag reflex. It was awful.

The nurses told my mother I woke up swinging. grins

I was placed in the inttensive care unit. They gave me a morphine pump to tolerate the pain. Whenever I needed some, I was able to press a button to release some morphine into my system.

Unfortunately, I was prematurely moved out of the ICU because on Halloween night of 1999 there were five gunshot wound victims rushed in. Charity Hospital had the best trauma unit so they dealt with that sort of thing often. My mother wasn’t happy I was being moved out before I was ready.

I don’t remember much. Just pain.

Sadly, I don’t even remember Steve visiting me there. Not long ago we were discussing my hospital stay, and Steve mentioned how bad I looked, and I was like, how would you know? He was shocked. Said he visited me, that’s how. I honestly do not remember him doing so.

Bryan did. He came by and I recall giving him my button and telling him it was for my morphine pump.

I told him to press it to get me high. heh.

The most depressing aspect of it all was I was bedridden for weeks. Bedsores are awful. A physical therapist came by and timed me just standing up. My muscles were atrophying and just supporting my own weight became challenging.

The most horrific part?

I’ve experienced pain I thought unimagineable.

There was so much infection in the wound that they removed a part of the scrotum. They would take gauze and wet it in saline solution. A very cool water feeling. They would pack the scrotum with gauze all around my testicles. Then they would let the gauze dry.

It would dry onto the exposed scrotum and testicles.

Then the doctor would come by, and I hated this guy. He had no bedside manner or compassion. He would essentially pull the gauze off. Tearing away bloody skin, and green infection. The agony was so intense. Every time beforehand I would get a shot of Demerol. Even with that heavy painkiller, it still was the worst pain I have ever imagined.

He tried one time to do it without the shot because he was late and the nurse wasn’t ready, and he started and I literally screamed. I nearly passed out. It was … there are no words.

When the nurse would give me the shot of Demerol, she would always look at her watch.

Finally, I asked her why she did that as she was giving me a shot.

She replied that if she gave me the dosage of Demerol too quickly it would lower my heartrate too fast and I could die from it.

So I replied, “What are you talking to me for then? Look at your watch!”

Ah, humor in the worst of times.

I ended up keeping my job, but I had to drop out of school.

I never have gone back. (So my advice to you kids is never leave school, it’s hard to go back once you do. This PSA has been brought to you by the letter P for pain.)

After almost a two week hospital stay I was able to go home.

Still, I wouldn’t be back to work for weeks.

I was confined to my bed and I watch so many movies.. repeatedly.

It was a difficult time.

I couldn’t sit down either, and so playing on my computer, which would have passed the time well, wasn’t allowable.

However, I was on it briefly one day when I got a random message on ICQ (a similar chat program to MSN or AIM or Yahoo, but was more popular then).

This 19-year-old girl from Canada messaged me.

(The first in a long line of Canadian girls I have liked. heh. I love love love their accent. Shhh.)

“Hey, you live in New Orleans!”

Yes, yes I do.

“I love Cowboy Mouth.”

What? You’ve heard of Cowboy Mouth? I’m playing their CD right now!

It was such an odd way to meet someone. Her name was Jenny and she had grown up always wanting to see New Orleans.

She told me Cowboy Mouth was played regularly on a Detroit radio station, and that she lived right across the river from Detroit. Right across the Canadian-US border in Windsor, Ontario.

The odd thing was how similar we were. Both of us were huge comic book fans, and our favorite comic book even matched. The X-Men. Both of us wrote poetry, and would do so everyday with one another, sharing our creativity and criticisms. Our views on love were much the same. Even our home lives, coming from a family that struggled heavily financially and the chaos that involves were similar. Our music taste paralleled. We had a lot in common we soon discovered.

We would talk for hours everyday online.

About a variety of topics.

Just anything that came to mind.

Perhaps the thing I adored most about her was how curious she was. About everything. She wanted to know about me as much as I desired to know about her. It was so uncommon. We processed situations in much the same way. Very analytical. And she seemed as thoughtful as I consider myself to be.

So early on when I asked her what the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for her, I was shocked when she replied no one had ever bothered to do anything romantic for her.

We soon found out that neither of us attended our high school proms.

I didn’t because I saw no point if I had no one special to go with.

She did not attend because she did not have the only dress she would wear.

I knew she was a tomboy, so I was curious as to what dress is the only suitable one for Jenny to wear.

Jenny asked if I had ever seen the movie Ever After with Drew Barrymore.

I had not, but I was told it was a Cinderella remake.

Apparently in this movie, Drew Barrymore wears the only dress Jenny would consider wearing.

The topic did not come up again.

For the next couple months we spoke everyday. Hours spent from when she got home from school until when she went to bed. We even spoke on the phone once or twice via a calling card. (Ah, the old phone card days.. before cell phones and the such.)

I even got to know her younger sister Becky some. We would play backgammon online against one another.

Really, before then, I had never really experienced an internet friendship in which you like the person so much you truly consider anything more. It was apparent we both were attracted to the other. Her best friend got quite jealous of me from what she said. She was involved in a Joey-Dawson situation if you’ve ever seen Dawson’s Creek. She practically lived at his house, his parents loved her, and there was this odd tension between them that neither acted upon.

Jenny came into my life when I was pretty depressed.

It isn’t often that I get that way. Nor do I stay that way. But the pain, being homebound, and constantly not knowing whether I would get back into school or how my job would be was difficult to handle. I wasn’t self-sufficient. I hated that.

She was a glowing beacon of hope for someone mired in despair.

Jenny meant a lot to me at that point in time. Perhaps too much.

So her birthday was January 8th.

It’s early December.

I discovered Cowboy Mouth was playing New Year’s Eve here in New Orleans to celebrate the turning to the year 2000.

She wanted to fly down and go with me.

We both wanted it.

That couldn’t happen. And understandably so. Parents concern and all.

Well, my mother asks me what I would like for Christmas.

Each year we would try our best to get one thing each that we really wanted for Christmas.

So I started thinking.

Which is never a good thing.

How can I make this wonderful person’s birthday, Christmas, and memorable New Year’s even more special?

I should preface this by stating my mother was a gifted seamstress. She was able to raise three young boys on her own with no help from her family or my biological father even with all of her assorted medical problems because she could sew.

A more talented dressmaker I have never seen.

She’s made an entire carnival ball’s costumes and gowns, wedding dresses, prom dresses, evening gowns, leisure wear, debut dresses..

You name it and she can do it.

So what do you want for Christmas, Brian?

Well, uh, could you make this dress? Is it impossible?

....

Yeah. Crazy.

I spoke to Jenny’s sister and asked her how absurd or creepy might it be if I sent her sister the dress she never got to wear to prom.

Becky thought it was the sweetest thing ever, encouraged me to do it, but wanted it for herself. lol. Cute.

She even spoke to Jenny’s best friend Amanda who agreed that it was an amazing gift that anyone would be a fool not to love.

Right, so..

We rented the movie.

We paused it. Took polaroid pictures of the dress from every angle. Hunted fabric store after fabric store searching for the pattern for this one dress.

Finally, not finding one, my mother decided she would have to make one herself. An incredibly challenging task if you know anything about dressmaking.

The biggest question was how would she make a dress to someone she could not fit it to. That’s the whole key with dresses. You need to fit it to your client. Well, I ended up needing Jenny’s measurements, heh..

I got two of them from Becky and Amanda.

Now, I just needed her bust size. coughs

So, yeah, I asked her what her bust size was. Just flat out.

Figured it would be fine if I’d come off as a perv (don’t even make a comment, not any of you! shush!) instead of her thinking the real reason was for the dress. It worked. She had no idea.

The dress took weeks to finish.

I helped pick out the material. Helped design it.

Made a mix tape of songs. Wrote some.

I sent Jenny a package with all of this in it. I still have photos of the completed dress.

My mother said if someone had come to her asking her to make it, she’d have charged $300 for it easily.

I ended up getting robbed by the border. The tariff on sending that package was another $60.

It was such a costly endeavor, but one well worth it, I thought.

She would finally have someone show her she is appreciated.

I told her the only thing I wanted was just a picture of her wearing the dress. It actually fit her very well, except it was a little tight in the chest. Go figure, but that is an easy alteration.

Things didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.

Jenny got the gift shortly after her birthday, and then started avoiding me.

Apparently her best friend freaked out when I sent it. Really played up the psycho stalker card. In hindsight, it was psycho. Completely crazy. Foolish thing to do. I was comforted by Becky, who was pretty angry with how Jenny reacted toward me, but what can you do?

We still talked after that on occasion, but we were never the same as friends until I just stopped talking to her altogether.

Her situation with the best friend deteriorated. He had a girlfriend whom he told Jenny wasn’t as sexual as he wanted, and so he wanted to be sexual with Jenny on the side to make up for it.

That actually ended up happening.

It was sad to watch, and she went from one bad situation to another.

Sometimes you just have to walk away.

The only thing that troubles me to this day was I never did get to see her wear the dress.

A shame.

I used to be a very different person. Much more naive. Impressionable.

I think much more a true romantic.

With each fading memory, though, I find myself believing just a little less in people.

And so there you have it.

The story of the dress.

May you always find your smile.

Updated Notes:

Bryan and I did later sing Karaoke at Cats, but it was a year later, we both were involved in relationships, and, well, that’s a whole other story..

Doctors later confirmed that the infection I survived was in fact gangrene. (For serious? Yes. For serious.)

Here are the only photos I have of the actual dress. Back then I didn’t have a digital camera, and so we just took Polaroids of the dress. We knew they didn’t come out very well at all. It’s hard to see all of the details and everything that made the dress so beautiful, but we weren’t concerned. The idea was that I’d end up seeing Jenny wearing it, as she’d take some photos of herself in it, so I wasn’t overly worried about getting an actual camera and taking good pictures of it before we sent it away.

These were taken in my den in December of 1999 with a Polaroid camera so the quality sucks:

Original entry written October 3, 2006