Pictographic Perplexity in Book One: The Not So Daily Briefs 2014

IF SUCCESFUL: THIS ENTRY MAY CONTAIN IMAGES THAT BREACH PRIVACY FOR SOME INDIVIDUALS… IF YOU PERSONALLY KNOW ANYONE IN THESE PICTURES- please tell me and forgive me

I don’t understand web design or Code Language. At all. Which is funny because when I worked for Best Buy- people would take one look at me and assume I was some master programmer. I suppose my appearance and my reality are incongruous. I really don’t understand programming… but I do understand why Prosebox uses an HTML photo post design. By using HTML coding, the site isn’t hosting the image; merely being an “instrument” by which the image is viewed. If Prosebox did have it’s own Photo Hosting program… this website would be far more complex. much more open to bugs and hacking, and likely… too expensive to merely exist in it’s current form.

Of course… that being said; I do kind of wish this site had its own photo hosting program. I feel this compulsion to do a pictographic entry detailing specific elements of my past but… it would be STUPID awkward to upload photos to facebook for that purpose… I can imagine certain individuals asking “Uhm… why did you put that picture up?” And… I wouldn’t have a good answer! So… let’s see if I can scour Google Images for what I need… some of this will be considerably easier than others!

Let us start with Baby Me… not baby really… but what I looked like when I started Elementary School. I’m the tiny chap on the far right with his elbow on his knee:

My first crushes were, of course, television characters. Oh, certainly I had a crush on the little blond girl in my Preschool class but to this day I can’t remember if her name was Alice or Alison. So.. that crush isn’t that worth focusing on. My initial TV crushes were as follows
Heather Hopper who played NIKKI on “Good Morning, Miss Bliss” (8 years older than me)
Jodie Sweetin from “Full House” (2 years older than me)
Marla Sokoloff (4 years older than me- same age as my wife)
Danielle Fishel from “Boy Meets World” (3 years older than me); and of course-
Tiffani Thiessen, better known as Tiffani Amber Thiessen from “Saved by The Bells” (a full 10 years older than me).

Then… I started noticing girls around school. As regular readers are sure to understand… I can be quite stubborn. I had a crush on the same girl for almost 4 years… never did anything… I figured Elementary School was far too young to start dating… but I certainly had the impulse!
IMAGE NOT FOUND because… as I expected… the non-celebrities will be almost impossible to find without specifically putting photos up myself. The young woman was named Theresa Labruzzi… and I find it interesting that the young woman has the same first name as my mother; but I can assure you that isn’t why I was drawn to her. It was because of her French and/or Italian features… olive skin, long jet black hair. Of course… one of my next door neighbors was considered to be the attractive girl of our school… but even back then, I wanted someone who was attractive AND interesting not just… conventionally attractive. THAT particular young woman was named Casey Manning… and while I can find images of her as a full fledged adult… they are pictures of a different woman. Casey was a blonde haired, blue eyed Little Miss contestant and those are certainly not the images that exist in the current ether.
At about 6th Grade… all of my friends had started dating. I had already been sexually assaulted by this point… though some would disagree with that assessment. Ooo… this will be like an I SPY game; if people are actually reading this entry they will discover something I’ve never quite volunteered.
So… 4th Grade, one of the best years of my life. A little black girl transfers into our school. No worries, I came from Davenport so while West Des Moines is whiter than a Klan meeting, I’d grown up with predominantly black neighbors before moving. This particular young woman had begun to develop far earlier and far faster than most expected… the teachers didn’t know what to do, she didn’t know what to do. She was a C cup at ten years old… truly an awkward situation. But it doesn’t excuse her actions. Apparently she like-liked me and didn’t know how to make her subtle come ons more obvious. It wouldn’t have worked anyway since I was friggin 10! But she had her friends trip me on the playground… than sat on me and (I kid you not) popped her boobs out of her shirt and rubbed them all up in my face. Again… most men would be like “Dude, sweet. 10 year old motorboating!” But… no. To me… I had been tripped, I had been attacked, I had been humiliated, I had been assaulted. But anyway.....
At about 6th Grade… all of my friends had started dating. I was seriously interested in a girl myself named Christi Setchell… hell, I had started having Nocturnal Emissions about those rare moments I’d meet her at the Public Pool!
IMAGE NOT FOUND blast it! I have a perfect shot on my computer but again… it would be super awkward to post it to Facebook. Anyway, I was starting to struggle with emotions + physical desire in regards to this woman. In fact, because they made me feel sexy (I was 12 and it was the mid 90s) I used to wear a pair of denim shorts to bed because they tended to help with my fantasies.
However, I didn’t end up with her. Instead, I trusted her friend to help me approach her… and that friend became Tiffany # 1- Tiffany Kemp.
This is an adult photo of her but seriously? Lose the baby and put glasses on this shot and this is what she looked like!

Of course, even though she was my first girlfriend… that didn’t really work out. She was a bit manipulative back then… and to this day, I simply assume she is lying about things… but I wasn’t entirely innocent, either. It was my first relationship of any kind and I had no idea how to get out of it. Do you simply tell someone “I don’t like you that way?” But that would hurt their feelings. Seriously… at 6th Grade… I was struggling with how to break up with someone without hurting their feelings. Obviously, an impossible task.
This led me to really reflect on what I wanted out of a relationship… I mean, dating was (apparently) super important… so who did I want to spend that time with?
It took me until 8th Grade to realize that I wanted to be with someone that had a lot going on upstairs. Intelligence had already become one of the most important values in my life… but lest we ever forget beauty. Tammy Holm filled those requirements with grace and strength. Of course… Tammy and I never came about. For years afterwards, I would look for her in crowds… and I never saw her again. We spent a year “dancing” around each other until I finally asked her out… and after asking her out- she said no and disappeared forever. She’s married now with a child. I found a picture from her wedding but seriously… I feel like a creeper… but that is who I am!

After that… there were some near misses… relationships that almost, maybe, but never would have happened… including with an affluent, conventionally attractive, athletic blonde girl. I should have known that would never have worked out for me… she was the type everyone wanted and, especially at that age, she enjoyed everyone wanting her.... if someone actually got to date her, than people might not clamor for her.

Of course, my girl in 9th Grade is almost impossible to find an image of. You see, while she was an amazing singer… Kris had a bunch of issues. Clearly, I mean… our story in general should prove that. But… as she became an adult, she met an attractive older man that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. But she had to convert to Islam. And not “American Islam” but full-on “Not Without My Daughter”/Husband Controls You Islam. So… yeah. A beautiful gift of song and an attractive woman lost to her own issues and her own “spiritual choices.”

Which brings us to the Honor Student. Brilliant, Beautiful, and half-Japanese… I’d been interested in this woman for at least two years before asking her out. Of course- things fell apart rather dramatically. She got WAY into the club scene and I thought 16 years old was a bit too early to be WAY into the club scene. I guess she proved me wrong… she now owns/operates 3 nightclubs on 3 continents.

That was a rough breakup… and the rebound relationship that lasted less than a week (because I so foolishly informed people about it) isn’t even worth posting a photo of. However… Buffy? The beautiful woman that should be made into an honest-to-goodness Saint? Here is a picture of the two of us at my wedding. Yes, it is my wedding day but still… she exudes beauty and grace, right?

Of course, back when Buffy and I were together I looked more like this… I mean, I was super skinny, had braces, and was working Theater Shows a lot… this is a picture of me in Full Dress Rehearsal for The Crucible.

But of course, during The Crucible, I was dating my tormentor. I truly wanted to find a photo of her to put up here… I have one on my DeskTop… but seriously… looking for an image on-line? A pit began to form in my stomach, I felt queasy and light headed… clearly, the emotional damage of what transpired between us is VERY much still with me. :(
However, also during The Crucible… I became even closer with Elizabeth. I have oodles of photos of her on my computer and I would desperately like to share them here. Largely to discover if any of my readers know her, if she’s still alive, if she is okay, any news about her whatsoever. But as I have encountered time and time again… she has zero Net Presence that I can find. A tragedy in all respects. A tragedy for my search and a tragedy for you readers. Elizabeth has (or at least had) a beauty that deserved to be seen!

Of course, my story in college is simpler while being more complex. I dated Emily pictured below… she is the one I am facing. And I’ll be honest, Emily is easily one of the most beautiful women I have ever dated. But… there were a LOT of reasons that relationship didn’t work out. On both sides!

And after that was Shannon. Now, Shannon and I never dated. Not really. But… I always wonder if that was a mistake. She and I were significantly attracted to each other… but Shannon was the type of girl (at that time) to follow her “Attraction” wherever it led… and a “good time” didn’t appeal to me… I wanted loyalty, a real relationship. But still? I still find myself second-guessing..... would I have been worse off just going for it or am I better off having never dove in?

Which, inevitably, leads us to Nancy and our wedding. July 2, 2011. I’ll admit… I don’t know if we’ll work out in the long run… the number of variables grows exponentially. But it would be nice if we did.

Last updated November 30, 2014