Get to know your fellow board members....

[M Sparks]

i think you could rock some gold eyeshadow!!!!

"could?"

[TomAz]

sparky why haven't you answered my question yet?

[Errant]

So you liked The Runaways? Was she a believable Joan Jett?

[Rosemont17]

Well, so far, all the "favorite" or "best" questions have been answered with multiple answers. I've never been able to name a "favorite" anything. Humans have so many different moods and needs and psychological states, no single thing can satisfy us better than others. So favorite image is even trickier. Our lives are full of images whether our eyes are open or they are in our heads. I'm sure my favorite image was some fleeting moment in my life that was never captured.

But, I did try to think of paintings/artwork I love. I was always really into Escher, so I thought I would post one. But I found this.



So, that's my favorite image. Right now. Ask again in 5 minutes.



Sadly, I don't listen to music as intently as I did in my youth. I love to experience live music, but recorded music is usually listened to in the car, or on crappy headphones while at the gym.

I do remember laying in the dark about 5 years ago with my wife with a few candles burning, listening to the (at the time) new Cure album for the first time- the self titled one. I now think it's not very good, but it seemed really intense. I can picture some other moments like that, laying in a dark place with someone special, listening to an album beginning to end. So I guess that's my answer, even though I haven't done it in ages.



OK, I wrote this late last night. It was very therapeutic, but I didn't post it. But I'm clear headed now, and I am well aware I come off as a fool in most of it, so here goes. It's looooong...

I met Amanda my sophomore year in college. She was a freshman. I don't even know how I met her, she just suddenly was in my life and latched onto me. She confounded me right away. I had never much luck with women. They seemed to fall into two camps...women who I was infatuated with but who only wanted to be friends, and women who were in love with me and I had no interest in. But Amanda was the biggest flirt I had ever met, and she wanted to be friends. To a 19 year old, this is a dangerous combination. I could see that she teased all the guys, not just me. But then she would come over and curl up on the couch with me and watch old movies. We bonded really quick. But I never knew how to make a move.
*
I lived in an apartment-style dorm, as I mentioned. There was a bedroom with three of us- I slept in a loft- and a living room. We had a sofa-bed in the living room. One Friday, she got drunk at our place and asked to stay the night on the sofa bed. Then she asked me to stay with her. I gladly shared the bed, but she was so drunk, it certainly wasn't the time to take advantage. I was really falling for her and didn't want to blow it. The next morning, she just...stayed. All day. She stayed Saturday night. Maybe Sunday. She just kind of started living there for a bit. All the time, I've never even kissed her. Then, she started having me come over to her dorm while she studied. (I was a Comm major, not much to study.) I would fall asleep in her single bed, and would wake up with her next to me.
*
What the fuck? Right? I mean, I had very little experience, but I was pretty sure this wasn't normal. But I was totally falling in love with her. We were connecting on every level except sexually. Finally, sick of not being able to tell her how I felt, I wrote her a long letter. I don't really remember what it said, but I told her I was in love with her at the end. We were having a low key party in our room, none of us were really drinking. I gave her the letter and asked her to read it. She climbed up in my loft and read it, and then came back down. She didn't say anything, just pulled me onto my roommates bed, and we started kissing. The lights were off, but people kept coming in and out to use the bathroom, so we moved back up into the loft, which was slightly more private. We were still just making out, but somehow, she wound up totally naked under the blankets. By now, everyone had left. One of my roommates came in, turned on the lights, and went into the bathroom. I don't know if he was trying to spoil the mood or just oblivious. Amanda pulled back the blankets to show me her body. All of my previous sexual experiences involved fumbling in dark cars or by the flickering light of a TV. This was the first time I had seen a naked woman, head to toe, in the light, inches away. And lying in my bed. She was not perfect by societal norms, still carrying some baby fat, but was pretty stunning nonetheless. Finally, the lights went out, my roommate went to bed, and we began again. The narrowness and height of the bed, and closeness to the ceiling made it difficult to get too wild, but it was a pretty intense night. We did not, however, "go all the way". I figured there was time enough for that, hopefully at a time where we weren't surrounded by sleeping roommates in a twin bed 5 feet off the ground.

The next day…everything went back to the way it was. Maybe not immediately, but by the end of the weekend. I was back in the friend-only zone. I figured she just wasn't excited by our encounter (though she was a good "faker" if this was the case), and would have accepted it had she told me. But instead, we continued down the path of becoming more and more emotionally intimate, while all the while, she moved from flirting with everyone, to dating everyone. I was a 19 year old cuckold.

During this time, she fell somewhat ill. It turned out to be something very treatable, but scary when you are that young. I would drive her to her parents house in Phoenix, and take a nap in her bed while her mom took her to the doctor. She would come back and curl up with me and cry. I think I was the only person at school who knew she was sick. Another time, we went to Tucson for the day where she grew up, and she took me to all the places that were important to her. At one point, on Valentines Day, we actually went on a "date"…something we had never really done…and it ended with a kiss that I still measure all other kisses against. We were so close, but other than that night, she was always clear that we were just friends.

I had come to accept that, and began to look for other women. BUT…because we were so close, everyone assumed we were a couple. I really started to resent her, but couldn’t make the "break up". One of her patented moves was to go out, get really drunk, do who knows what (or who knows who), and then ask me to come home with her. She had another male friend who kind of looked at her as a little sister and tried to protect her. One night, he knocked on my door. "Amanda needs you. She's wasted." I told him to just drop her off at home. "I already tried. She won't stop saying your name, I can't get her out of the car unless you come with." So I grabbed my stuff and left. I remember she was dressed really slutty, and when we got back to her room, she started undressing. She was wearing sheer lingerie. I was half turned on and half sickened. I hated that she would dress this way for some random guy, but not someone she loved. (And yes, she did tell me she loved me all the time.) As soon as she passed out, I went out in the hall and knocked on her neighbors door. The girls next door were really cool, and I was developing a crush on one of them. We sat out in the hall and talked, and I tried to explain why this woman I slept with 3 or 4 nights a week was not my girlfriend.

Up until this point, our relationship was pretty warped, but loving. But some time after this, she asked me to come over for the usual late night study. When I got there, her neighbors were in the hall, and the one I liked smiled big at me. We were chatting, when Amanda went in her room, and came back with some kind of sexy nightie on a hanger. "Check out what I just bought. Marc's going to get a treat tonight!" And then she pulled me inside. I was more mad than excited. WAS I going to get a "treat"? She did put it on, and I guess she technically did it "for me", but the rest of the evening was business as usual. I was seething, knowing she just did that to sabotage my chances with the neighbor. I don't know why I didn't leave…I guess a horny college guy never walks away from a girl in lingerie just in case. But the next day, she came to my place and we had a huge fight. I threw her out and she stood out in the courtyard yelling. She started screaming "Someday I'm going to marry you Marc Sparks! You'll see! I'm going to marry you!"

I finally got it. She was an 18 year old girl, out on her own for the first time, ready to go wild. I mean, I think she was still 17 the day I met her. And…she falls in love right out of the gate. She wanted time to explore. She didn't want to blow it with me while we were young. She wanted to keep me close until she was ready to be serious. I should have felt the same way, but I guess I fell too hard to care. I was OK with all that. BUT, I was not OK with having her try to prevent me from seeing other women. I tried to keep her more distant the rest of the school year, and that summer, I only went to visit her once. (I took summer school classes and she went back to Phoenix.) At the same time, there was a girl named Nina who I had been having a similarly frustrating relationship with since High School. She was also a year younger, but had worked full time the year after HS to save money for college. She told me she wanted to come to my school at least partially to be with me. I was excited. I liked Nina a lot, but- and this is kind of sick- I was hoping she would help me break the cycle I was in with Amanda. I had a longer history with Nina, if not nearly as deep. I knew that if we began to see each other again, Amanda wouldn't be able to sabotage it as easily.

When school started, Nina had my room and phone number, but she hadn't been assigned a room yet. I spent the week before school started waiting for a call or a knock. But when it finally came, it was Amanda. It turned out Nina got an offer from her dad to pay for her schooling if she moved back east with him. She never told me this, I found out later from a friend of hers, and I never saw her again.

Soon, Amanda and I were back in our old patterns, but somehow, I found a girlfriend anyway, named Stacey. I didn't really love her, but we fell into a healthy sexual relationship, and I pushed Amanda out of my life. I would have been happy to be friends, but I didn't feel she could behave. How do you tell your girlfriend that you best friend needs you to come sleep with her?

I stayed with Stacey for 11 months…during that time, I moved out of the dorms and into a studio apartment. We broke up, and I finished up my last semester in college pretty much alone. After Graduation, I was working in a record store, and Amanda showed up one day. She acted like the past 14 or 15 months hadn't happened. It felt good to talk to her, it felt right. We were both 2 years older. Maybe she had grown up and finished her wild time. I had never really had mine, but at least I had been in a good sexual relationship. She asked if she could come over and we could make dinner. We had a great time all evening, everything felt good, whether it was going to turn back into friendship or something more. As it got later and later, she asked if she could stay the night. I was hesitant, but I had been really lonely, and sharing a bed sounded great. She cuddled up with me and it felt right holding her. And then she whispered "Why did you leave me? You hurt me so much"

I couldn't stand it. She still couldn't see how any of this was her fault. She just wanted to keep me off to the side away from everyone so she could take what she needed until she was ready to take it all. The next morning, I dropped her off at her dorm, and I never saw her again.

About a year ago, I found her on Facebook, totally accidentally. I was just surfing through graduates from my school. It took me a while, but I finally sent her a friend request and asked if she wanted to catch up. She said yes, and sent me some of the basics, but we never really talked. I posted some old pictures and tagged her in them…she commented and didn't remove the tags, and we kind of joked around. Then, I moved down to Phoenix. I really live pretty close to her, and I've wondered/worried what would happen if we ran into each other. Maybe she feels the same way, because she has stopped interacting with me on FB. I really would like to have a serious talk with her, but I don't know what good could come of it.

I just went to her page. Someone else has posted a few pictures from college. I looked at one of them for a long time. Love sucks, sometimes.



Aside from saying terrible things to strangers online, I can't think of anything truly cruel I've ever done, at least not on purpose. I suspect the answer is somewhere in the untold details of the story above.

good share! it all works out if you are in a good place...

[M Sparks]

sparky why haven't you answered my question yet?

Because I want to have a good answer, and I haven't been inspired to come up with one.

So you liked The Runaways? Was she a believable Joan Jett?

The movie was fun, started dragging towards the end. It was mostly about Cherrie Currie, and Fanning was pretty great. The girl who played Joan Jett was decent- I was kind of worried about her, but she pulled it off. They were all pretty good...too bad Maeby from Arrested Development didn't have anything to do. She played a fictional bass player, since Jackie Fox didn't sign off on the movie, plus they had a bunch of different bass players anyway.

[TomAz]

I don't give a damn bout my bad reputation.

[Rosemont17]

ill wait for dvd for the runaways and ill look forward to it... another guilty pleasure all girl band..the donnas. their first cd only...

[M Sparks]

good share! it all works out if you are in a good place...

Huh? Nothing worked out in that story, we just made each other miserable.

Yes, our lives turned out great without each other. All lives have a million possible outcomes.

[Rosemont17]

thats what i meant... you made each other miserable but its a necessary process to get to a place where it works out.. so thats a good thing in the end... the journey is what makes it rough.. trust me i know!

[TomAz]

dreck.

[M Sparks]

thats what i meant... you made each other miserable but its a necessary process to get to a place where it works out.. so thats a good thing in the end... the journey is what makes it rough.. trust me i know!

By that logic, if you are happy the day you die, everything that ever happened was good, and if you were sad the day you die, then everything that ever happened was bad.

[Rosemont17]

to each their own sparks.... now i regret saying anything.. 4get it homieclaus....

[M Sparks]

I just don't believe that the events of our lives are interconnected in that way, and certainly not in a linear fashion. They shape who we are, but that doesn't mean one leads to another. That story ended, and ended badly. It may have been a positive influence in my life (and on other people's lives), or it may have been negative. There's really no way to know.

But as you say, to each his own. Nothing wrong with sparking debate about the nature of existence. However, WTF is up with "homieclaus"?

[Courtney]

Aw Sparks that Amanda story is sad, and sort of reminds me of a relationship I was in a long time ago. I suspect that her perspective is very different from yours.

[Courtney]

Sparks, can you tell us a little about your current job and where you hope it will lead you?

[M Sparks]

Aw Sparks that Amanda story is sad, and sort of reminds me of a relationship I was in a long time ago. I suspect that her perspective is very different from yours.

I'm sure. Everyone's perspectives on everything is different.

EDIT- That sounded smart-ass. I am aware that I hurt her as well, which I alluded to in MPs question.

Sparks, can you tell us a little about your current job and where you hope it will lead you?

I own a business, which I am currently trying to reboot, as I've moved it from Flagstaff to Gilbert. I do video production for businesses, government agencies, non-profits...anything but personal stuff. Actually, I'm pretty broke right now, so I would probably take personal stuff too.

Just to give you an idea, right now I am working on a short documentary about a charity that will be shown at a fundraiser in a couple of weeks. The idea is to help people emotionally connect with the people who the charity helps. This is the 4th year I've done this, so it must work for them. I used to do a lot of local TV commercials, and still have a few clients in Flagstaff who have me drive up to shoot their commercials, but I haven't gotten the right connections down here yet. Web video is growing, as is training and orientation films for larger companies.

I hope it will lead me back into profitability so I don't have to go back to having a real job. Actually, I am always profitable, but last year was bad. I love being my own boss, but the bills need to be paid. I was just inducted into a business networking group, and already have a meeting with a potential client next week.

[TomAz]

Sparky,

I filled out my census form but don't remember if I put it in the mail or not and now I can't find it. Will I go to jail again?

T

[M Sparks]

Sparky,

I filled out my census form but don't remember if I put it in the mail or not and now I can't find it. Will I go to jail again?

T

"Again"?

Someone will knock on your door or call you and you'll have to do it with them. The price you pay for not taking your civic duty seriously is having un/underemployed people bother you in your home. It says so in the constitution.

By the way, I love that you signed this.

I bummed everybody out with my emoness. Someone ask me something fun, and I'll try to get Tom's other question knocked out in the meantime.

[daxton]

I'm too bummed to ask anything.

[daxton]

Alright. Feeling better. Sparks, you mentioned you haven't traveled overseas. Name 3 places you really wanna visit outside of the states and tell us why you wanna.

[rskapcat]

Marc...thoughts on pancakes?

This may end up being a semi-serious question, but...are you and Tree child-free (human, that is) by choice?

[TomAz]

related question - sparky do you suffer from erectile dysfunction?

[Errant]

Fond childhood memory? Like, what was the most fun thing you did as a kid?

[shakermaker113]

please post a picture of your favorite simpsons character.

[M Sparks]

sparky - you can pick 5 musicians from any era, dead or alive, to have dinner with. They are guaranteed to be interested in talking to you and not snooty or aloof. Which 5 do you pick and why?

I'm picking based on who would make interesting dinner conversation,rather than my favorite musicians.

Jello Biafra- The danger would be there that he would monopolize the conversation trying to shove his point of view in everyone's faces. But I think he wouldn't be as focused on preaching if he was with a small group of people. The man can really tell a funny story when he wants too, such as on "Night Of The Living Rednecks" and when he talks about running for Mayor of San Francisco on one of his spoken word albums. (I think it's "I Blow Minds For A Living".)

Mark Mothersbaugh- Since I am somewhat involved in advertising and marketing, I actually would want to talk to him not as much about Devo, but about their work as Mutato Muzika, which worked on a lot of marketing and advertising projects for big companies. He claims that they were inserting subliminal messages into music for commercials...not messages about the product, but actual subversive messages. I'd either like to know more about it, or know if it was complete bullshit.

Ella Fitzgerald- This is a weird one. I think she would have a lot of different interesting stories about different eras. She was a child through the depression, a young star in the big-band/jazz era, lived through the civil rights movement, met a thousand other interesting people, starred in movies...she would never run out of stories. You could also put Pearl Bailey in this chair, who I actually met as a child and I remember being in awe of how big her personality was. But Ella had a more accomplished career.

Siouxsie Sioux- Once, a friend of mine was at the Monte Vista Lounge (a notoriously dim and dingy dive bar) in Flagstaff and thought to herself "That's either a professional dominatrix in the corner or Siouxsie Sioux." As it turned out, Siouxsie was shooting a video in town ("O Baby"...it's a dull song with a terrible vid, can't even find it on Youtube.) The Cure is my favorite band, but you know Robert Smith probably couldn't carry on a conversation. Siouxsie is probably full of great stories about Robert and that scene. She was also there with the Sex Pistols and would be able to tell some stories without the ego and bluster John Lydon would bring to the table. (Although, I bet Steve Jones would be a good choice, just to play music geek with.) I admit, she's a bit of an arbitrary pick...I felt like the table needed another woman, a European, and someone who lived the post-punk era.

FIFTH SEAT PLACEHOLDER-Frank Zappa or Tom Waits- I put them together, because I'm not particularly a fan of their music or even all that familiar with it (I know way more Waits than Zappa), but I know they would both be fascinating conversationalists. I may come back and fill in someone more well thought out, but either one of these would be a worthy pick.

[M Sparks]

Name 3 places you really wanna visit outside of the states and tell us why you wanna.

London. I've never been to a really huge, bustling city- LA is the biggest, but LA isn't like an east coast CITY...a "metropolis". London feels like it would have more for me than New York.

Switzerland. Tree actually got to travel all over the world when she was a teenager...she lived in Saudi Arabia, and saw a good chunk of the world in a 2 year period. Switzerland is the only place she's been that she wants to visit again.

Tokyo. I would actually be very nervous to do this. It seems like it's TOO foreign. In most countries, you can read and sound things out if you don't speak the language. However, I have a close friend who spent quite a bit of time there for work, and has said it's very welcoming to English speakers. She actually lived in the same hotel as in Lost In Translation. It just seems like it would be such a trip. (A figurative trip as well as a real one.) There would be such a huge amount of crazy things to look at, although I'm sure the excitement of that wears off once you get used to the culture.

Marc...thoughts on pancakes?

While I am not a massive pancake fan, I am certainly in favor of them. I don't eat eggs...at least not by themselves. This makes it difficult to eat breakfast out, so Pancakes are sometimes my only option. I am rarely excited by them though. Sorry.

If it's an option, I go for Buckwheat.

This may end up being a semi-serious question, but...are you and Tree child-free (human, that is) by choice?

Yes and no, mostly yes. We intended to have children when we married, but we knew we didn't want to struggle just for the sake of having them. We didn't want to be even more broke than we were, and didn't want to have to have them in Daycare all the time. When I started my business in 2004, we began to think about it...Since I would be doing most of my work from home, we wouldn't need full time daycare. However, we never "tried" or anything...there has always been some kind of birth control in effect. In 2006, we took a very long vacation and realized we liked our lifestyle where we could do whatever we wanted as long as our careers allowed it. We've now come to a point where we both have very active social lives and activities, both together and apart...sometimes we realize that we are both heading off in different directions for more than a day and that we have to have someone take care of the dogs. You can't just put extra food in the bowl for a child.

One part of me always wanted a child so I could release at least one more educated, moral, decent human being into the world. I now see plenty of decent people who came from horrible homes, and decent people who have horrible kids despite their efforts to raise them right. It's the worlds most high-stakes crap shoot.

related question - sparky do you suffer from erectile dysfunction?

Yeah, I can't keep it down.

[canexplain]

Good story about your loves. Tnx for sharing it with us.

My question:

Why do you live in AZ and are there any plans of ever moving to another state?

[M Sparks]

Why do you live in AZ and are there any plans of ever moving to another state?

I've only lived in 4 cities, 3 in AZ. I was born in Toledo, OH...moved to Lake Havasu City as a toddler, then moved to Flagstaff to go to school and wound up staying there for 20 years. (Technically, I lived in Parks for the last 8 years, which was about 13 miles from Flagstaff.)

As I mentioned yesterday,we intended to move to Portland up until about 6 months ago, but moved south to Gilbert for Tree's job. We stayed in AZ for financial reasons and family.

Sorry there's nothing interesting to say about that.

[frozen pilgrim]

sparky, old boy- have you ever played any team sports? if so, what/when/why?

[TomAz]

I've only lived in 4 cities, 3 in AZ. I was born in Toledo, OH...moved to Lake Havasu City as a toddler, then moved to Flagstaff to go to school and wound up staying there for 20 years. (Technically, I lived in Parks for the last 8 years, which was about 13 miles from Flagstaff.)

As I mentioned yesterday,we intended to move to Portland up until about 6 months ago, but moved south to Gilbert for Tree's job. We stayed in AZ for financial reasons and family.

Sorry there's nothing interesting to say about that.

I think what ron meant to ask was, why don't you live in Colorado?