Lou Ryan: He's no creep!

` This post was started in late July... for some reason, it has taken me a very long time to frickin' finish it!

` For once in my life I'm sure I know what it's like to feel safe, and I'm sure I know what it is to feel like I have a home. Well, actually, it's not the first time, since I vaguely remember that feeling from before I was in kindergarten about twenty years ago.
` However, for the first time, I'm sure, I do love someone. And that someone is Lou Ryan, with whom this summer I've done a photo shoot for his professional career:

` Yes! That's the kind of photo that commands at least a little bit of respect! Indeed; he is a man who commands at least a little bit of respect. He's a laid-back optimist, a hard worker, a good teacher, a fair player, and someone who really gives a damn.
` Also, he's cutely perverted.

` I first glimpsed him at the Sno-Isle Co-Op, shortly before I had moved out of Phil's apartment: I was trying not to feel guilty over the horniness that was driving me crazy when I happened to accidentally send some in his direction. His pointy eyes widened and I thought to myself, 'Oh my God that guy's, like, thirty!!!' and scurried away.
` On February seventh, just after I had moved into my new apartment, there was this guy playing a song on his guitar in lieu of a audition-type demonstration to the owner of Zippy's. (Which was successful.) It happened to be the same guy, so he started flirting with me.
` I freaked out, though at the same time, I was irritated at myself for that because he seemed nice. He introduced himself and gave me his phone number, and then offered to walk me home in the drizzly conditions. He gave the borrowed guitar back to the next-door guitar shop, picked up his own, newly-modified guitar and off we went. I was still hostile to him, though that was merely out of habit, not because of anything he did.
` There wasn't a thing I could think of about him that would justify my being rude to him, in fact, I could relate to most of the stuff I found out about him. We waited out back for the landlord to install my lock (which actually commenced only two months later!), and during this time we began discussing our quite-sex-obsessed natures.
` This of course, led to the explanation of this cryptic little post.

` From the start, I readily noticed that he didn't expect anything of me. He doesn't say 'why don't you...' or 'why not' or try to tell me to do anything to speak of. All of our plans are cooperative. I also don't feel like cringing when I'm around him. Amazing! I didn't know such a thing could work so well!

` Soon enough, I found that we had become like a team - for the first time I felt like I was responsible for the way someone regarded me. It is no wonder people tend to look up to him - a person like Lou... well... with all this being such a nice person, I just had to wind up unexpectedly in love with him....

` Yes you!!

` He was so excited that he went out of focal range! No, not really. But I did wind up moving in with him.

` Lou is also very ambitious: He wants to be a rock/blues star, and I think he can do it with the right opportunities. He also busts his ass all day, is very competent at his construction job, doesn't complain. When he first started out, he was complemented on his work and has even been told he wasn't expected to be as anal retentive (= meticulous) in detail. Not surprisingly, Mellow Man has even told Lou that he has worked unneccesarily long hours.
` In fact, the construction guys have been really nice to him because of all the hard work he's put in. Not too long into the job, one other guy managed to replace him on the lowest rung. It wasn't long after he started that someone was already replacing him as the guy on the lowest rung. And, after much valiant work, braving rat-pudding-filled insulation with only a bio-suit to protect him, markedly outperforming most of the workers and temp homeless guys, he's replaced the ever-forgetful Slacker Lead Guy.

` Although... considering that Slacker Lead Guy was quick to be distracted by matters other than labor, would always take a really long lunch break, leave the job early, show up late every day for work and with paychecks, it is no wonder this didn't take longer.
` Anyway, now that Lou has less of a labor-oriented job, it means that he no longer has to take a whole day off for Mutant Regeneration Mode, in which he temporarily turns into a strange creature....

` In fact, Mutant Regeneration Mode was the main reason he had to quite his archival job at the Monroe Fire Station! It paid off, though. Now he gets paid about five hundred bucks a week!

` As far as social situations go, he is just as competent: Lou easily earns high social status just by being himself - confident and easygoing, and he always seems to know what to do. People like that.
` Plus, he has a strange and offbeat sense of humor that tends to put people at ease. At least, if they understand the joke.
` However, a few people have been foolish enough to think that his coolness indicates that he is some kind of a pushover. They are surprised to find that he does have a limit at which point he will tell them to back off. Once, some guy even wanted to beat him up! Being a sensei, Lou cheerfully informed him that he stood no chance, and the guy thought better of it.
` In fact, around the time when I had taken the pictures, I took Lou along to meet the Denny's crowd (as mentioned here). As I've said before, everyone liked him except for this very anal-retentive girl I've called Pseudodyke.
` After Lou had left, she had said; "I really don't like that guy."
` Come again?

` "I just don't think someone that old should be hanging out with us. It's kinda weird."

` An insult!! (Besides, he's only 6½ years older than me!!)

` She then accused him for emitting creepiness vibes!

` Lou? Creepy?

` Er... ah... pish and pishaw!!

` Well, if that's the way she's gonna be, we just won't talk to her or include her in any of our incredibly, um... exciting... orgies, will we?

` In fact, at one time we did allow this one fifteen-year old girl who seemed to be really into him to spend the night... on an air mattress. (She always spends the night at other people's houses because her parents are disapproving of her pagan beliefs and bisexual tendencies.)
` Speaking of sleeping, when the weather is insanely hot, Lou sleeps with all of his skin exposed to the air, thereby leaving him vulnerable because of our lack of adequate mosquito protection!

` What else? Well, socially Lou has a lot of friends who are from and have gone to all different countries, and has traveled all over the world! Although, locally he was friends with Anna Faris, who's apparently really goofy and was often accused of having no personality of her own. (She's what I'd aspire to be!) Unfortunately, they've gotten out of touch.
` Don't believe me? Her old cell phone number was 206-771-6324. It doesn't work anymore, though.
` But if it did... we'd invite her to hot orgies!

` Us? Not wholesome? Hey, who's that at the door?

` Why, it's Mr. Wholesome himself, B-dizzle!

` "'Sup."

` Ironically, I was just over at his apartment, making him moan plaintively.... It was easy because he has tetanus and it took a lot of kneading to get some of those knots out! No, seriously, he stepped on a nail at the construction site with regular shoes on and - now that he's been painfully seizing up - he is currently en route to the ER for a tetanus shot.
` [UPDATE: There was no tetanus, apparently a recurring injury simply coincided with the incubation period of tetanus.]

` I'm actually pretty good at massaging, really, because Lou is such a knotty boy that he's given me adequate practice!
` Arm strength! Yeeha!
` In conclusion, I can confidently say that Lou is a really good guy. He is not, as some PseudoDykes might think, a creep. At all. Really! Just look at that cute face!!


` ...As extra-special proof of this, I shall cite the fact that even my mom thinks highly of him after spending plenty of time with us!