by Laurelin

The old woman cupped my hand in hers. Narrowing her eyes and making a clicking noise in the back of her throat she looked up and smiled warmly. “You are untrusting in love,” she said. “Why? What is there to worry about, you have had two great heartbreaks in your life and they are over, it’s time to put the past behind you. I look in your eyes and see such warmth, too bad you cannot speak with your eyes.” She lets my hand go and it falls into my lap. I guess that lady gets paid to say those things, but at 2 AM in New York City it suddenly seems so real, and I walk back through Times Square to my hotel wondering about what she said. Was she right? Was I totally untrusting?

I went on a date the other night with a bartender from a trendy bar downtown. He wasn’t anything like me, and while once that would have really frightened me, now it seems really appealing, challenging, intriguing. I had a great time, and at the end of the night back home at my apartment I found myself smiling stupidly, wishing my roommate was home so I could talk her ear off about it. I never heard from that guy again, and it was a bit unsettling for a few days. What did I do wrong? This was so typical.

After a few days of not hearing back I moved on; not everyone gets an explanation as to why something doesn’t work out. I couldn’t help but laugh at myself a little bit — here I was wondering why everything seemed to click when it didn’t really. Who does that? “You do that,” my roommate points out. “You do that all the time. Have a great time and then freak out and run away and never tell the guy why. That’s like, your favorite thing to do!” I think about it and I can’t help but laugh, at myself, at the poor guys I have dated in the past five months, and at the whole situation in general. She’s right, I have an inability to tell the truth when it comes to wanting to end something before it really starts; I just slither back to my bar scene life and immerse myself in work. One can always trust the reliability of a 45 hour work week. Does that make me untrusting? Easily bored? Non committal?

I have always considered trust in relationships to be something that is created over time once you find someone who doesn’t drive you nuts. All of a sudden I realize that I’m looking at the cell phone you left on my nightstand when you were rushing to work and I roll over and go back to bed – instead of flipping through your texts. I’m left alone in your apartment and your computer is right there with your e-mail up on the screen, and I sign out and into mine without even a second glance. You want to go out with your friends to the strip club with an eight ball of cocaine in your pocket? Sure, have a good time. I trust you. See? I can be trusting.

That old lady was wrong. I have trust in a lot of things. I trust that my friends will get me through anything. I trust that I’m a good judge of character, and that even if something doesn’t work out that I chose that person or that path because I saw something good in it, because I thought that it would make me a better person. I trust that I will not always do the right thing but that I will know the difference between the two, and that I will do better next time, be stronger and able to learn from my mistakes. I might be untrusting in love, but that is only because a lot of times the way it’s ended up for me has left me feeling like I trusted something that wasn’t real, or that was only real for a little while and that is devastating. I was never mislead, nor was I ever misleading to anyone I ever called mine. If I mislead you, you were never mine, nor I yours.

Untrusting in love seems normal to me to an extent; it’s good to be cautious with your heart after you have spent so long learning to trust yourself. I’ll open up when the time is right. For now, the only trust I need is from the bartender shaking my martini or muddling my mojito. It’s almost summer time, and I smell some really poor life choices on the horizon. If there’s one thing I can trust in, it’s that.

[..]

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World…

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see links below – then continue reading after the jump…)

[..]

by Fred Topel

I go back a long way with the writer/directors of the fourth American Pie movie. I saw their first film Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle months before it was out and interviewed them for a screenwriting magazine that is long defunct. In fact, we met at the Newsroom Café outside of New Line Cinema, which is also now defunct, absorbed by Warner Brothers.

Fresh out of college, the writing duo was ambitious and enthusiastic about entering the comedy landscape. Back in 2004, the R-rated comedy was just making a comeback with Old School, and Wedding Crashers and The Hangover were years away. As ‘80s children and comedy junkies, they wanted to give this generation the comedies that would play every night in dorm rooms across the nation.

We got to catch up every time they wrote a new Harold and Kumar movie, one of which they directed. Now they’ve been handed the reigns of American Reunion. They decided to bring back every single actor from the first American Pie, including those who were not included in American Wedding. They also ignored the four straight to video movies under the American Pie brand.

In Reunion, Jim (Jason Biggs) go back to their high school reunion and see what’s become of their classmates, and clash with the current high school seniors. A virginal 18-year-old is throwing herself at the happily married Jim, and he still ends up caught naked in the kitchen, and later practicing dominatrix role play with Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). These days, the guys have grown up themselves, with marriages and children of their own. They still like to tell dirty jokes though about penises and MILFs.

Read our exclusive interview with Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg on SuicideGirls.com.

Casanova Suicide in Nostalgia

• INTO: Surfing the web, drinking, partying with friends, sleepovers, pillow fights, cats, long drives (especially at night), living life and smiling every day – all day.
• NOT INTO: Fighting, politics, hangovers, doing dishes, small yappy dogs.
• MAKES ME HAPPY: My friends, my family, my kitten, shopping, eating junk food all day while sitting on the computer blogging about how much fun last night was…even if I can’t remember it.
• MAKES ME SAD: Saying goodbye, sad movies, finding out my milk has expired, pulling my iPod out only to find it’s dead.
• HOBBIES: I make jewelry, vintage shop, blog about living richly for cheap, surf the web for various reasons, and I also collect masks.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: My Computer, my kitten, my credit card, Vans Era’s, sunglasses.
• I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Sitting on the computer or partying. If I’m not doing one of those two things, something is probably wrong with me LOL.

Get to know Casanova better over at SuicideGirls.com!