tyler james davis

I just got back from a teacher volleyball game where we lost the first 2 sets in blowouts because people couldn’t stay in their lanes, won the 3rd set because we worked together, and lost the 4th set because it was just a really close contest overall.

There’s a girl at my work that I have a hardcore crush on, and I like her more than I’ve liked any girl since threepointchic4 in high school, which was a goddamn decade ago. After a lot of gradual building up, I asked her out on a date, but never used the word “date,” so when she said “yes,” I don’t think she actually knew she was agreeing to a date, or at least that’s what I’m telling myself now. She asked if other people would go, and I said my roommates would go, but then she said she though it’d be a work-related thing, to which I said “oh, yeah, I’ll ask people” which is the way I expressed my feelings of “holy crap, this is horrible, no, everythign I thought would be gand would be horriblke.

Side note: i’m drinking how so any typoes i’m not gonna go back and fix becaus ei have to get my emotiojns out in semi-tranquility before theyjstu dissipate into the aier and go away forever. i’m poindingk on my keyboard betwen kyes and nothig is registereing ahd idgaf.

So, we’re at the game and she’s in yoga pants and we’re prepping for the serve, and I’m just lookiung at what’s around me, and I’m focused on digging the ball successfully, and she dones’t want ot go out of her lane and hut a bump on something that isn’t 105% verifiably hers, so we lose a couple points, not always because of her. But I’m looking at the hint of lower-butt crease that she has showi9ng via the yoga pants, and it’s tasteful and all, but it’s mocking me, because I’be never been past 1st base, and it’s beenb >4 years since I kissed a girl and 5 or 6 since I’ve seen boobs and I have never ever seen a vagina in person, so this is just a microcosm of all-of-the-things-that-I-fail-at in one package-of-a-person in front of me. Not that I’m about to go off the rails because this one girl doesn’t like me, bu7t it’s just another shovel full of dirt on top of the grave I’m being buried in as others frolic on the surface.

We lost the game, and I’m back at my house trying to do *something* to get the extra adrenaline out, which is the first 15 mibutes of an Insanity warmup, and I just keep thinking about her lipful smile and how she’ll half-go for a ball but then pause because she thinks the 6′ something” music teacher will go for it, so she just sort of pauses and lets him  get the dig, and I frown because I’m unlkcing the rest of my life, whereshe’s not there, and I am, and we’re just parallele people, and I have to live with the fact that all of my goddamn friends have girlfriends and fiances and wives and I’m here coming back to my house and eating a reheated cheesebutger and I have supercool records to play and super neat books ona  bookshelf and really cool frameed newspaper pages about dirigible-related events in history and there isn’t anyone that wants to visit and experience it all,,

I am so goddamn lonely.

I’m used to it and I tell myself that it’s just what I’m going to live with my whoel life, but ever goddamn time I’m in public and I see a girl that’s halfway in my league, I realize how far behind I am, like when I see a deadline that is supercose and not superfar, and I’m just tossed backinto a whirlpool of sadness that I don’t have a girl at all and I’ve never been intimate with a girl and how I have nothing comforting ot come back to after losing a teacher voleyball game. the other guys have a wife and a wife and a wife and a girlfriend of 3 years, and I have the cool things I hung on my walls and the newest news on reddit and that’s it.

I don’t know what it takes to achieve what I want. I’m trying and trying, and I’m getting nowhere and I have no small rewards to even show for it. Other people are in different situations, and I don’t even know the extent that they try and work, but it seems like it’s easier for them, and they’re getting so much more than I am.

1. Stopped making fun of other people on Twitter.

2. Stopped watching porn.

3. Started going to church again.

4. Going out to social events to interact with more people more often.

5. Pursued a girl that I liked so that I could have that kind of interaction with someone for the first time in my life.

6. Volunteered at some charity or community event to share my time to help others.

7. Stopped talking about my poetry that only 4 people in the whole world actually read and genuinely care about.

8. Made new close friends outside of the people I knew in high school that I also went to college with.

1. Bought new khaki dress pants that actually fit, so I’m not walking around looking like I’m wearing parachute pants with weird pleats that make me have a crotch bulge.

2. Bought new jeans so I don’t have to wear the same 2 pairs over and over.

3. Bought new hoodies/jackets so I’m not wearing old worn-out American Eagle hoodies that I got freshman year of college, and so I’m not wearing my DeSales hoodie all of the time that it’s not really cold, because that makes me look like I’m a college junior and not a 6th-year teacher.

4. Started drinking water and stopped drinking soda/juice so I’m not always whining about needing juice or soda when I’m out and about with others.

5. Stopped complaining about the things that I don’t like about myself and my life, because other people don’t want me to throw a pity party, so I just stopped being open like that.

6. Started working out so I could lose the ~20lbs I’ve put on over the past 10 years so that I look good in dress shirts and without a shirt.

7. Moved to Virginia so I could get a job that makes more money.

8. Saved up money so I could buy a house in the near future.

9. Stopped picking at my eyebrows for the first time in 11 years so that they can actually grow in the way eyebrows are supposed to so I actually have full eyebrows and not weird messy patches of hair.

10. Got teeth-whitening strips to turn my yellow teeth into not-yellow teeth.

11. Got haircuts that aren’t just regular buzz cuts, and stopped letting my hair grow to be Beatles-esque.

12. Started being on time to events instead of late, and took all precautions necessary to make that happen.

I’ve been complaining and deliberating this for the past couple of months, and it has eeked out through tweets and Facebook posts, but never as a whole coherent rant, which it what I normally need to let go of something and rest peacefully.

I’m living 2 counties south of DC in a suburban area that is rapidly growing. New schools are built every year, new people are moving down every day, and new swatches of transplants from other places in the country are realizing that something is just straight up eeeehhhh-feeling about this county.

I came here for the 2015-2016 school year because PA wasn’t hiring teachers. It pays super nice here (~48k last year), and it would be my ticket to an actual job that isn’t working for LEGIT 19k full time at a Catholic school.

I rented a house last year for $775 with a roommate, and this year I’m renting a house for $425 with 3 roommates. Now there’s only 2 roommates, so it’s $566. And we’re losing one of them next year, so it’s going up to $850. The year after that my roommate is going to Montana to be with her boyfriend, so I would be left with 0 roommates. That’s my situation for 2018-2019 school year.

At the old rate, I was “saving” $1000 a month, which is wonderful. Next next year, I don’t want to be hemorrhaging saved up money because I’m renting an apartment for $1200. I would rather spend that much on a mortgage on a house I can keep paying for and actually own. You cannot get a house for anything below $1500 here, and any apartment that doesn’t have a parking lot where crimes happen daily is around $1200. You get below that and you have shady places that are currently packed to the brim with all of the transplants from around the world who come here for the same opportunities I did.

There is a county to the south with lower housing prices, but you have to travel up I-95 in the mornings, along with everyone who works in DC, on a 50-minute commute. It’s a difference of maybe 10 miles, but the commute is amplified because we’re fitting too many people into too small of a place. There’s no other way to get from the county to the south to the county where my job is besides I-95, because a military base is straddling the counties, and extends from I-95 to the west about 20 miles. You could go around it, but that’s all back country roads that are even longer than waiting in traffic on the interstate. Even those back roads have lots of traffic due to the people that can use it as a shortcut clogging up intersections with stop signs and narrow roads that were made for tractors and occasional visitors.

I will have about $27k saved up by this time next year. That’s way less than the 20% down payment, so anything I do involves paying mortgage insurance, which sucks.

So I have 4 choices. I’m going to try to lay out the pros and cons of all of them.

2 of them involve staying at my current school, and 2 don’t.

1: Stay at my school, buy a house or condo for slightly above what I can comfortably afford, have a ~15 minute commute. Anything below $225k in my county is going to be in need of repairs and is a craphole. $225k is more than my recommended 36% of monthly income and 3x annual salary, but it would mean a short commute and being able to keep living in a familiar area. Money would be stretched really thin, but I don’t really spend money on frivolous things, so that may not be an issue. However, I really really fear being someone that ends up failing at homeownership, and don’t want to push my luck.

2: Stay at my school, buy a house for what I can comfortably afford, but have a 50 minute commute. In the county to the south, the dividing line between piece-of-crap house and nice place is around $200k. Once you get to $210 it’s more likely you’re seeing a house that’s move-in ready. These houses are more likely to have a little bit more land with them, and may not be connected to another house, unlike 99% of the $225k houses in my current county. The commute is a con, and so is being in a new area with shops and streets and places that I don’t know. I went through that last year and it was okay, but I’d rather not move to a new county again any time soon.

3: Work at a school in the county to my south, live in that county. This would cut down on the commute significantly. However, I would have to go through all of the trouble of finding a new job and adjusting to a new school. The pay is also SUPER WAY LESS than it is here, so it would be more trouble than just staying put and getting a houses or or there. This option isn’t likely at all.

4: Move to PA, work in PA. The pay is slightly less than it is here, but the lower house prices beat the pay:mortgage ratio of the place I’m at now. However, it requires 4 hour trips back to PA for interviews, and having to look at houses that aren’t within 1-day driving distances. I still have my PA teaching license, so I don’t have to do anything complicated to get that. As an extra however, it’s super hard to get an interview in PA. School district sites aren’t as user friendly, and they often want documents such as transcripts, letters of reference, and clearances mailed to them. They’ll post the opening on the 10th and want everything in by the 25th. And that’s all if there’s even an opening at that district. ALSO ALSO HOWEVER, I would have to get 18 credits of graduate classes within 6 years, which is even more stress and financial hardship on me, beyond just living on my own and taking care of my own house. On the plus side, I would know the area, be near friends, and get to see more than 2″ of snow a year.

SUMMARY: It’s gonna be hard to do this no matter where I go. I don’t really want a 50 minute commute, even if it means I get to pay less on a house, so I’m most likely going to go with option 1. Now it’s just a lot of waiting and fretting until next year comes and I really have to decide.

She was never my girlfriend, but I almost asked her out to semi-formal our freshman year and the day before the dance she said that she would have said “yes” if I would have asked her and if I had a suit and if she had a dress.

I got her carnations on 2/14 and she threw them away and didn’t talk to me for 3 years until she apologized in chem class as I walked down the risers in the room and we hugged while wearing backpacks, which is a really weird situation in which to hug someone that you really want to hug well.

We would see each other in the halls and take off our backpacks and drop everything else and hug for a few seconds and thank each other and go where we needed to while other people looked on semi-confused.

We would go on “””dates””” to Heisler’s to mini golf and drink milkshakes and eat popcorn chicken, hoping we wouldn’t see anyone we knew (while secretly hoping we would see everyone we knew.)

We would make mix CDs for each other with carefully curated songs and hand-drawn labels in marker with slices of song lyrics, and would present each other with the CDs during the notdates and we would talk about the music as we listed to the music on the ride to and from Heisler’s.

On one trip she taught me how to use T9 when texting, and when I went to pull out of my parking spot, I pulled forward and drove over one of those concrete Lincoln Logs which caused her to laugh a lot and knock her phone out of her lap and onto the floor mat of my 1996 Saturn SL2.

I dropped her off at her house and walked her to her door and we hugged for maybe 20 seconds, and I got back into my car. I got past Lake Side Beverages and almost at the sharp left over the railroad tracks, and her phone rang on the floor. I picked it up, and told her I’d drive the 45 seconds back to her house to drop it off.

I was excited to see her again, and she met me at the edge of the driveway and took the phone and gave me another hug and said “and a kiss” and kissed me on the cheek and there was a magnet in our heads that wouldn’t let us turn away and we kissed on the lips and she walked back and we quipped about how she should drop her phone in my car every time we go out.

When I got home I had some AIM messages waiting where she said she didn’t mean to kiss me and that I should know she likes someone else, as she told me during the mini-golf, and I said that was fine, and how I could forget about it, even though the image of her running back inside and crying to her mom that she kissed me is something that my brain always plays when I get too positive about myself.

The next year when we went to college I visited her one weekend and turned down vodka shots from roommates because I normally puked, but she did 4 shots.

A movie played on her TV, which was an excuse for us to sit on her bed and talk. At one point she got up to get something out from her closet, and I asked her if anyone ever told her how amazingly awesome her butt is, and so then we talked about her butt.

She asked if I wanted to feel it, so we set some rules about how long it would last, and how I would go about feeling it, and then she said “feel away, kid” and I closed my eyes and did.

She changed into pajama pants, and then into shorts to get my opinion on which one her butt looked best in. She wanted to turn the light off while changing, but I asked her not to, but then kept eye contact when she changed I guess to show trust.

She gave me an orange thong to keep and remember her by and I stuffed it in the pocket of my hoodie.

We would have notdates once or twice a year for the next 3 years, until we had the one where she asked if I was over her, and I said “yes” even though she’s now married and living in Florida and I’m here writing a ballad about it all.

I have a brick from Paesano’s, the pizza place on Center St where the Senior Center is now.

I have a brick from the St. Casmir’s church hall on Catawissa St. where a parking lot is now.

I have a brick from The Victoria Theatre, or “The Vic” as they called it, where the Geisinger building is now.

I have the DNA of the town stored under my bookshelves.

Every Wednesday in Lent we would process out the school and to another parish in town for Stations of the Cross.

We would walk through the streets in our baby blue polos and navy blue dress pants with girls in black/white/red jumpers.

My dad didn’t buy the shirts from Flynn and O’Hara, so my buttons were brown (not white) and the embroidery was bootlegingly off.

The Stations of the Cross booklets were held in our hands, and we walked two-by-two in a pack with our class.

I peeked up ahead on the whole walk down at my 8th grade crush, Bobbie Jo Wagner.

The sidewalk squares were off-kilter and cracking up over the tree roots, and changing in type every 12 ½ feet. We would shimmy past telephone poles.

We walked past my house and I pointed out my house and pointed out my cats and we waved at my cats.

I was the only boy in my class who wasn’t an altar server, which meant I didn’t have to worry about getting volunteered to serve at Stations,

but one time I did get picked, and I stood at the end of the pew, until someone told Father Medve that I wasn’t a server, so I sat back down.

The illustrations in the little booklet had a really neat art style, which may have been just because the booklets were from 1963.

There was a line about “mankind,” and we would always giggle because Mankind was the wrestler with Mr. Socko and the Mandible Claw.

There was another line about living “maybe another 10, 20, 30 or 40 years” and it made me think that it was a possibility I wouldn’t die at an old age like 84.

After the Stations they would have the Benediction, with a monstrance and the incense, and the Divine Praises in the back of the People’s Mass Book.

The Divine Praises called the Holy Spirit “the Paraclete,” as if a 12 year old kid knows what a paraclete is, or the significance of why we’re saying it.

We always coughed when the incense came out, and the teachers would tell us to stop because incense didn’t make you cough, but apparently it did if we were all coughing.

“We adore you, Oh Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

I think the message of the Stations, or at least the message I got from it, is that anything difficult can become routine, which makes it not as difficult any more.

For 5 weeks we read and think about Jesus’ torture and death, and every week the same thing happens, but we go through it again.

Within each station we’re standing and kneeling and standing, and we’re listening and responding, and it’s not a big deal after a while.

At the end of the Stations, the priest and servers are back up front, and Jesus is risen, and all is good, and all the previous 13 stations don’t matter now

because we got through them, and they sucked at the time when Jesus was getting whipped and when us kids were kneeling,

but we got through them. This taught us to not complain about little things, because if you pile up enough little things, they don’t become a big thing,

but instead are seen as a normal and expected and commonplace thing, which makes them less of an obstacle, because it happens so much to so many,

that treating it like a big deal seems so out of place. You might be in danger of falling into a hole,

The pomegranate I just ate has made me feel unstoppable. I got some juice spilled on this couch, I hope that it is washable.

I cut the pomegranate’s skin and started to break out the seeds. I put it down upon the plate, the dog then barked to state his needs.

Juice from my hands to the door knob, I wiped it off with this here cloth. I sat back down, but bumped the plate, juice on my pants, I took them off.

and dragged them to the cellar door to put them with the latest load. Now back upstairs I start again to stab the fruit, it did explode

and send more juice upon the floor and fall out of my sturdy grasp. My housemate then came in the room. The sight of this all made him gasp.

He clutched his heart and fell straight down onto the knife that I had used and placed right there soon to be cleaned. He stumbled back and seemed confused.

He backed up to the cellar door, left open when I went downstairs, and tumbled down all of the steps and fell under a pile of chairs.

My next door neighbor heard all this and screamed out like a lunatic. I ran downstairs to check his pulse and called you guys to get here quick.

from incubation in my room. Now on their own they will explore all of the world they’re ready for because they are far from my door.

The influence that I once had will now be shown to all the world as evidenced by what they do as their true traits are all unfurled.

But to get back to you again, I look at your eyes and I see one of those torties writing and scratching his back against a scratching post because he just needs that scratched just like how I need you.

I start to approach you and walk into your arms because you’re holding a pure black cat and I can see the nuclear fission happening deep within his eyes and his pink coral nose is stamping the monotony out of the air.

6

John’s swing set came down and came close to land and down there below all he saw was sand.

A quick look around showed that he traveled quite far. He traveled all night with his eyes on a star.

With the chains in his hands, his swing set came down close to a totally sand-covered town.

He tilted and leaned and came to a stop and looked at the town from the house he was atop.

John wiggled free, off the seat he slipped and started to wander this small town in Egypt.

The folks in the house that he landed upon were not in their house. It seems that they’ve gone

into the market to do some quick shopping. The cars all around were driving without stopping.

John got through the house and then to the street and saw people pass that he maybe might meet.

A man was sitting on a chair at a stand and a woman was showing off the bracelets in her hand.

The carpets were hung on the walls of the cart, and the stalls all had some kind of art.

John bought a few trinkets with coins from his pockets, but didn’t buy clothing to make some new outfits.

He stopped at a vendor to eat some kushari, and thanked the man working for giving it for free.

Now back at his swing set, John searched to go somewhere, and looked past the city and wanted to go there.

He swung just a bit to lift above rooftops and glided past many of Cairo’s outdoor shops.

He pulled on the chains just a little to ease up, and landed at the Great Pyramids of Giza.

The pyramids were old – very old, in fact. There were many places where they weren’t intact.

The sands and the wind and all parts of nature were making it certain that erosion would occur

and break it all down and blow it away to join all the sands, and that’s where it’d stay.

There was a small boy standing there just like John. His is name was Ziad and he would soon be gone

out giving a tour of the pyramids’ history and all the things around there that you might see.

Ziad had on clothes that were all shades of brown, some pants and a shirt so long like a gown,

keffiyeh was tied and set on his head in case some strong winds came from up ahead.

“I’ll say to you some things that I know about the land here and these places we’ll go,”

Ziad had said to the tour group that gathered, “and maybe your questions will all soon be answered.”

He talked about some archeology research and how all these people are still into their search

for more information and some clues about how this was all built without technology of now,

and all of the people and groups that are trying to save and protect this interest from dying,

how something five thousand and more years ago is still standing here, with more years to go.

“It’s because of this” said Ziad, then pointing, “that we can be building, and not disappointing

the people around us who want big skyscrapers, they know they can do that because of the makers

of pyramids and wonders all over the world had made all these grand plans and made them unfurl.”

John thought about Alfred, and what he was making, and how all of this was so very breathtaking,

and yet, at the same time, it’s taken for granted that people can build this, and they’re not enchanted

by five thousand year old towering structures, maybe because they’ve only seen pictures.

“There’s so many of these that are not still standing, but we can still try to, if you are demanding,

to keep past alive and to let them inspire for us to do things, anything we desire,”

Ziad said to them all from the front of the group. Then John kept on walking around in a loop,

and back to the town where they started the tour. He hopped on his swings and looked out there once more,

and swung just a bit to get up off the ground. John saw over rooftops and looked all around

and spotted the Sphinx sitting there in the sand, relaxing for years under no one’s command.

With all of this time past, the work of these people can stand there forever without any equal.

Attention can lead to results, and with focus, you’ll make something great and all people will notice.

We’ll spend just a little bit of our own time here affecting the future of those who dare come near.

“Pull the chains, feet out. Coming back, look out.

Don’t you just hate it when you step in a puddle and you get to your house and your cat wants to cuddle but you can’t ‘cause your socks and your shoes are all soggy so you shake both your socks like the tail of a doggy?

Sitting outside without shoes on your footsies or else you’d be stepping around being mushy, and I get that your friends will all come quickly calling, but now you must stay. Without socks, you’d be crawling.

So now you are missing all of their adventures. You feel like an old man who is wearing dentures who doesn’t leave his house or go any further and all of this is ‘cause you stepped in some water.

5

John’s swing set came down and broke through the clouds and down there below he saw very large crowds.

The people were gathered on streets of a city and from this high up, they looked itty bitty.

His swing set slowed and made a quick landing, and all around John were some tall men standing.

They had on some vests with bright orange stripes, and wearing thick hoodies of all different types.

“Excuse me, young man,” a man said to John, “You’re on our skyscraper, and we need you gone.

We need this thing built, and have a tight schedule. We work here all night, and it is essential

that these plans are followed. We have a strict deadline. This one will drastically change our whole skyline.”

John stepped off the swing and onto the I-beam, and gave a quick smile to show that he’s not mean,

and looked at the men on the skyscraper’s frame. He stuck out his hand and told them his name.

The men shook his hand and moved him to safety, away from the outside where platforms were shaky.

John stepped inside, to an unfinished level, where all of the walls were still made of metal.

“Why are you building this skyscraper so high? I hit it with my swing set as I tried to fly by.”

“I’m sorry for that, it wasn’t my intention, I’ll give you a tour if I have your attention.”

He’s Alfred the foreman and helped guide all the teams. He showed John the blueprints and what it all means.

“Five years ago, nothing was here, and now this high up, nothing comes near,

although five years from now, it won’t seem so neat, when there’s an even taller building built just down the street.”

The foreman looked sad and he looked at his plans, and sniffled a bit and put his head in his hands.

“It’s okay, Alfred, I think it’s impressive, even if the offices will be quite expensive,

since you have a goal, and it looks like you’ve got it, and just years ago, they would never have thought it,

that buildings could reach to the sky just like this one, or that anything like this could even be done.”

“I think you’re right, John. It’s good for the future. It’ll house lots of people and make the city seem cooler.

A business will come and move in and do things that are good for the city. Let’s see what it brings.”

The foreman named Alfred looked up and then smiled, and nodded and looked out the window a while.

“You better get home and out of this city. If you get caught in traffic, that would be a pity.”

So John went outside and got on his swing and started to move and started to swing.

The workers all started to get back to work, and sparks from their tools looked like a firework.

He looked down below at the quite busy street and all of the movement down below his feet.

The taxis were beeping and people were talking with phones to their ears as they weave around walking.

“Pull the chains, feet out. Coming back, look out.