Friday – Greetings From Grimlord!
Nov. 20th, 2009 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
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Someone going by the moniker of "Grimlord" send me a friend request on MySpace this week. I have a profile on MySpace, but the only time I visit it anymore is when someone contacts me through it. I looked at the profile to see a death-metal musician with the usual death-metal musician graphics: gore, Satanic symbols, and the like. Death metal is not my thing and never has been. I don't even actually consider it to be music: it's just loud noises on electric guitars with shouting to accompany it. But I knew at once that Grimlord was not just a random underground musician trying to pad his friend list, for the request came with a message: "Hi! It's me, David!"
My first love from high school had found me. I accepted the friendship request.
I can understand why someone who plays death metal would go by "Grimlord" instead of "David." The name David means "beloved of God," and that's just got to be embarrassing when you hang out in the kind of crowd he does. I could see lots of other death-metal types in his top friends, but his #1 friend bore no resemblance to the other people in the list. Her moniker is "One Happy Girl" and her profile is that of a cheerful stay-at-home mom with a 3-year-old daughter and another baby on the way. I knew without reading further that this was his wife. She mostly seems to like country music. Her religion is "Christian – other." She describes her husband as the best thing that ever happened to her, and calls him warm, loving and supportive.
That means hasn't changed a bit, except for the fact that he is now covered in tattoos and for some reason has shaved off his fabulous mane of black locks. I remember the metal-headed, hard-rocking juvenile delinquent I went to prom with, who was just as sweet as could be when he didn't have an electric guitar in his hands or was not in the presence of other juvenile-delinquent boys. So what if he liked to blow things up his neighbors' mailboxes by stuffing them with 2 liter soft drink bottles containing a little bit of water and some chlorine crystals he'd pilfered from the maintenance shed of neighborhood swimming pool? He just enjoyed watching things explode because the "BOOM!" got his blood pumping. But he was soft hearted when it came to living things, and he had the warmest brown eyes that made me feel like I had stepped in front of fire on a cold winter night whenever I looked at them. He also liked to buy apples from the lunchroom cafeteria so he could smushed them up in such a way that they became apple sauce within the skin of the apple (it looked like a regular apple until you touched it and realized the interior part had been liquefied). Then he threw the apples at the windows of the school so that they splattered in spectacular patters that he referred to as "art." In a nutshell, the David I knew was kind to small animals and girls, but evil toward mailboxes and apples. For all the murder and mayhem he likes to sing about, he's not such a bad guy. Having met men who are respectful of property and have impeccable table manners but who are cruel toward women and weaker living things, I can promise you there are worse people to be around than Grimlord.
After I accepted the request I sent him a little message saying it was good to hear from him and asking how he's doing. He replied to say that his music makes him good money, but not enough to do it full time since it is, after all, "underground." He's toured the US with the two bands he plays in, and looking at touring Europe next summer (but the plans are not final). He says he's happy to see I'm married and have a good looking kid. He told me a little about his wife, and that the baby due in March will be a boy. He hopes I am doing well. He told me I was a major influence on his music thanked me for introducing him to the bands I listened to in high school but that his friends did not, like the Violent Femmes and The Smiths, since they broadened his musical influences and he can't hear them without thinking of me. That made me grin. That I have influenced the muse for a genre of music that I can't stand is one of those little things that reminds how quirky and fun life really is, particularly when you pay attention to its ironies.
It's been 20 years since I laid eyes on Grimlord. We broke up my senior year of high school when I was 18 and he still had a year of school to go. I was angry when he dumped me, but I also knew it was all my fault. I learned that year that you have to treat the people who love you good if you want them to continue to be the people who love you. Losing that boy was a life lesson I've never forgot. The spring before I met my husband, I called Grimlord aka David on the phone.
"Two years is a long time to hate someone," I said, "Can we get together and talk?"
He was excited to hear from me and agreed. I needed to apologize for making loving me the most painful thing he'd ever done, and I needed to make my apology to his face. We hung out for a few hours at his parents' house that night and talked. When I was ready to leave he walked me back to my car and we kissed one last time. I told him he was still the best kisser I'd ever met. His kisses were not so gentle that is felt mushy, but not so hard that they hurt. His kisses were firm and confident, and to this day they are the only style of kisses I can stand.
He remained the best kisser I'd ever known until that summer when I met a man who could kiss even better. Needless to say I'm still married to that other kisser, and we have a good-looking kid together.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
Someone going by the moniker of "Grimlord" send me a friend request on MySpace this week. I have a profile on MySpace, but the only time I visit it anymore is when someone contacts me through it. I looked at the profile to see a death-metal musician with the usual death-metal musician graphics: gore, Satanic symbols, and the like. Death metal is not my thing and never has been. I don't even actually consider it to be music: it's just loud noises on electric guitars with shouting to accompany it. But I knew at once that Grimlord was not just a random underground musician trying to pad his friend list, for the request came with a message: "Hi! It's me, David!"
My first love from high school had found me. I accepted the friendship request.
I can understand why someone who plays death metal would go by "Grimlord" instead of "David." The name David means "beloved of God," and that's just got to be embarrassing when you hang out in the kind of crowd he does. I could see lots of other death-metal types in his top friends, but his #1 friend bore no resemblance to the other people in the list. Her moniker is "One Happy Girl" and her profile is that of a cheerful stay-at-home mom with a 3-year-old daughter and another baby on the way. I knew without reading further that this was his wife. She mostly seems to like country music. Her religion is "Christian – other." She describes her husband as the best thing that ever happened to her, and calls him warm, loving and supportive.
That means hasn't changed a bit, except for the fact that he is now covered in tattoos and for some reason has shaved off his fabulous mane of black locks. I remember the metal-headed, hard-rocking juvenile delinquent I went to prom with, who was just as sweet as could be when he didn't have an electric guitar in his hands or was not in the presence of other juvenile-delinquent boys. So what if he liked to blow things up his neighbors' mailboxes by stuffing them with 2 liter soft drink bottles containing a little bit of water and some chlorine crystals he'd pilfered from the maintenance shed of neighborhood swimming pool? He just enjoyed watching things explode because the "BOOM!" got his blood pumping. But he was soft hearted when it came to living things, and he had the warmest brown eyes that made me feel like I had stepped in front of fire on a cold winter night whenever I looked at them. He also liked to buy apples from the lunchroom cafeteria so he could smushed them up in such a way that they became apple sauce within the skin of the apple (it looked like a regular apple until you touched it and realized the interior part had been liquefied). Then he threw the apples at the windows of the school so that they splattered in spectacular patters that he referred to as "art." In a nutshell, the David I knew was kind to small animals and girls, but evil toward mailboxes and apples. For all the murder and mayhem he likes to sing about, he's not such a bad guy. Having met men who are respectful of property and have impeccable table manners but who are cruel toward women and weaker living things, I can promise you there are worse people to be around than Grimlord.
After I accepted the request I sent him a little message saying it was good to hear from him and asking how he's doing. He replied to say that his music makes him good money, but not enough to do it full time since it is, after all, "underground." He's toured the US with the two bands he plays in, and looking at touring Europe next summer (but the plans are not final). He says he's happy to see I'm married and have a good looking kid. He told me a little about his wife, and that the baby due in March will be a boy. He hopes I am doing well. He told me I was a major influence on his music thanked me for introducing him to the bands I listened to in high school but that his friends did not, like the Violent Femmes and The Smiths, since they broadened his musical influences and he can't hear them without thinking of me. That made me grin. That I have influenced the muse for a genre of music that I can't stand is one of those little things that reminds how quirky and fun life really is, particularly when you pay attention to its ironies.
It's been 20 years since I laid eyes on Grimlord. We broke up my senior year of high school when I was 18 and he still had a year of school to go. I was angry when he dumped me, but I also knew it was all my fault. I learned that year that you have to treat the people who love you good if you want them to continue to be the people who love you. Losing that boy was a life lesson I've never forgot. The spring before I met my husband, I called Grimlord aka David on the phone.
"Two years is a long time to hate someone," I said, "Can we get together and talk?"
He was excited to hear from me and agreed. I needed to apologize for making loving me the most painful thing he'd ever done, and I needed to make my apology to his face. We hung out for a few hours at his parents' house that night and talked. When I was ready to leave he walked me back to my car and we kissed one last time. I told him he was still the best kisser I'd ever met. His kisses were not so gentle that is felt mushy, but not so hard that they hurt. His kisses were firm and confident, and to this day they are the only style of kisses I can stand.
He remained the best kisser I'd ever known until that summer when I met a man who could kiss even better. Needless to say I'm still married to that other kisser, and we have a good-looking kid together.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 06:08 pm (UTC)I'm glad you sought closure so long ago. That can be rare.
I'm glad you sound so happy with your husband now too:)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 06:41 pm (UTC)I suppose that by making amends with Grimlord, you disproved that theory, or he's not "the one". LoL
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 06:58 pm (UTC)I don't know if I'd friend an old flame...then again, I really don't have that many. Bryan? No way. Before that I'd never really had a boyfriend...
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-21 01:52 am (UTC)