The Counterfeiter

I know a man who wears fake clothes.  Well, the clothes are not fake because the cheap material is real, but the labels that the clothes hide behind are as a fake as the plastic flowers that sit on my desk. For almost a year I have been meeting this man for lunch and I had always been very impressed by his nice clothes. He often appeared to just walk right out from the pages of a fashion magazine. A few times when I glanced at the label on his clothes, sunglasses or hand bang I was surprised to see such exclusive names such as Dolce and Gabbana, Versace and Prada. “What is this man who works as a Waiter doing wearing such expensive clothes?” I always wondered. I never asked him this question, because as it turns out, I did not have to.

Not to long ago, one afternoon in the middle of our lunch together- this man confessed to me that he was a fake (for the sake of maintaining this man’s privacy I hope readers will not mind me referring to him as this man. I think we are all entitled to our privacy no matter how much the things we do and say deserve a wider audience). When we first met for lunch that day, I noticed that he was not looking good at all. His black shirt was not tucked in and his gray suit jacket was wrinkled. The hair on his head seemed to be out of line and the bruised bags under his eyes collected the water from the previous days rain. “I am a fake….I want you to know this,” he said in a serious tone while putting the noodles from the chicken soup into his mouth. “Everything on me….is completely….fake….it is time I come clean.”

I was surprised by his confession but not entirely clueless. I had read an article a few weeks before about how people who make certain choices that hide the truth can often feel like fakes. The article went on to describe the detrimental psychological repercussions of knowing that you are fake and explained how easy it was for a person to fool others but how impossible it is to fool yourself. After I read this article I did not think about it again until the afternoon that this man sat in front of me eating chicken noodle soup and confessing to me his fraud.

“Prada, Armani, Zegna, Gucci, John Varvatos, Dolce and Gabbana, Versace….I dream these names….I hang pictures of the clothes on my wall….spend hours loitering in the finest department stores…..I try the clothes on and weep….they look so good on me….they feel like a million dollars….but I cannot afford them….the fact that I cannot afford the man I want to be kills me…. keeps me up at night….I spend hours wondering up ways to steal the clothes….ways to make quick cash and buy them….but these are all just dreams….so I travel into the tenderloin….go to a little shop that sells the next best thing….all this stuff is fake…. my $65 Armani suit….these fucking $10 Prada glasses….my $18.99 Versace shoes….and the fucking $1.00 special Gucci socks…. all of it is fucking fake….I can not take it anymore!”

Now I had the answer to my question and it all made sense. As this forty year-old Waiter dressed in fake designer clothes sat in front of me with tears running down his face and noodles coming out of the side of his mouth all I could do was think about myself. I thought about my own preoccupation with clothes. I had always liked to dress nice and I remembered that as a child I often dreamed about growing into a man who wore fine suits everyday. As I got older this dream seemed to fade away and I became content wearing t-shirts and jeans. Sometimes I shop at Banana Republic because I like how the clothes fit me, but if I do not have the money to go clothes shopping I will happily go many years without even buying a pair of socks. I had never thought that deep down it could be a source of repressed sadness for me that midway through my life I am not able to afford any sort of designer clothes. I have done a good job convincing myself that I do not need these things- but as this man sat in front of me confessing his counterfeiting ways, I could help but see a part of myself in him.

“I have the entire world fooled,” he lamented on. “Everyone wonders how I can afford such expensive clothes….on a Waiters salary….they think I come from a wealthy family….am independently wealthy…. this makes me feel like less of a victim or failure….it gives me a sense of power and pride….knowing that other people think I can afford the most expensive labels around….but I know….I know….that these clothes are fake….even though others might be impressed….I cannot make myself believe….that these clothes are real!!!!no matter how hard I try to convince myself….I shiver every time I pass by a department store window with an Armani or John Varvatos display….or when I notice a person who is wearing the real thing….I feel like a complete….such a complete looser.”

He was talking so loud that some eyes in the restaurant looked over our way. My eyes also looked around the restaurant and wondered how many of these nicely dressed people were wearing fake things? How many of them look good on the outside but are feeling fake and uncomfortable on the inside? Even though this man sitting in front of me has tears running down his face- how many of these people have tears running down their souls? I tried to offer some advice, to be of help to this man but I found that I had little to say that could repair his soul. “It is okay Randall….you do not have to give me advice….I just needed to tell the truth to someone….this is all the help I need.”

A month passed before I saw this man again. I thought about him almost everyday and since his confession I had not been able to stop noticing other people wearing designer labels and wondering how many of them were fake. We met for lunch at our regular place but this time something was different. This man was dressed in “normal” clothes. A plain t-shirt, jeans and converse shoes. I was surprised. “I just got rid of them all….every fake label I owned….ended up in the trash,” he told me with a confidence within his words that I had not heard before. “It is much easier just being me….no matter how much I wish…. I was someone else,” he said. I could relate and told him that I understood. “Knowing that I was a fake….a counterfeit….ate away at my soul….even though now I know….I may not look as good….or successful….or stylish….I feel like I have been set free.” I felt glad for this man even though when he crossed his legs I noticed a Gucci symbol on his green socks. He had found a happy ending for himself and seemed to come to terms with who he really was. We had a nice lunch that afternoon and as we were leaving he put on a pair of sunglasses that I noticed had a Versace label on the side of them. “Hey, what is with the glasses?” I asked him, knowing full well that they were a fake. “These my friend….are the real thing,” he replied with what looked like a sinister smile and we walked out into the light of day.

The Shaking Man

Two years ago today I began this blog with nothing but a dream of being a Writer and a lot of reluctance. My wife actually talked me into starting this blog since I was only writing in notebooks which no one else could read. I decided “what the hell, I’ll give it a try.” I had no preconceptions about what it could be other than a place for me to write and maybe have the honor of receiving a few readers. Tonight I have been reading over some of my earlier entries and decided that I would like to re-post one of the very first pieces of writing I put up on this blog. It is about a young man, whom I have lost contact with over the years. I do not know if he exists any longer, but here is a valuable part of his story and mine….

I met a young man the other day who suffered from a very strange pathology. I am not sure that I had ever seen a thing like it before. He told me that he had been suffering for many years and had finally reached a point in his life where he was turning his pain into hope. Still, I felt like he had a long way to go. While I was talking with him I was able to see his malady first hand.

For no apparent reason he begins shaking. It could be a word, a thought or a particular kind of food that instigates the shaking. The fits can be from mild to severe, thankfully the one I noticed was mild. He refers to these shaking episodes as “redundant twitches”, meaning an electrical twitch that repeats itself over and over. He told me that these episodes could take place at any time, without a moments warning- so he has become agoraphobic.

I was invited over to his studio apartment to talk about a possible job as a ghost writer for a book that he wants to write. The premise for his book would be upon the ability of thought to create reality. I was a bit skeptical about this since I had always considered reality to be something that happens to someone. We live in-between chaos, subject to its every whim, with little power to influence this, I told him.

This is not true, we create reality by the way in which we think about it, he told me. For example, If I have negative thoughts about my body..these negative thoughts will translate into negative sensations in my body. This negative feeling in my body will cause me to experience my reality in an unpleasant way. Energy follows thought. I don’t know, I told him, but I am a good enough writer to write upon any subject- even if I do not believe what I am writing about. He offered me a cigarette.

In the corner of the room was a meditation alter. I asked him how often he meditated. He told me that he was a practitioner of Zazen meditation, which he did every morning for one hour at 5 a.m. I asked him if he was a Zen Buddhist to which he replied, I do not know.

After about an hour into our conversation, I noticed that he was beginning to shake. Excuse me he said but I feel an episode coming on. His hole body began to twitch and rattle. I was a bit frightened because to me it seemed as if he was going to have a seizure. His teeth began to shiver like a man caught in a cold snow storm. The….only…..thing……that…….seems…..to……calm…..me……down……is…….wine…..and…..heat, he said as if he had a stutter. I went into his small make-shift kitchen and poured him a glass of red wine. When I returned back into the front room he was gone. The front door was still open but there was no sign of him. I waited for awhile for his return, but he never returned.

I did not hear from him for a few days. I did not know what to think. When I did finally receive a phone call from him I found myself being a bit angry for what he had put me through. He apologized profusely and told me that he had panicked. He had gotten up to turn on the heater and felt a terrifying sensation in his body. His heart was racing and he thought he was going to die. All he could do was panic and run. He ran to the hospital a few blocks away where he waited for desperate help for hours until they told him they could not help him since he was without insurance.

I forgave him the moment I heard the sincere apology in the tone of his voice. I asked him if there was any medication that he could take for these strange episodes to which he replied….the purpose of my life is to learn how to live with my discomforts so I can discover something deeper about myself. Medication would only blind me to the true cause…I would rather suffer than live like a sedated victim. I understood this.

Would you still be interested in ghost writing my book? he asked. I told him for the right price I would be willing to do anything. Why don’t you come over this evening and we will discuss your fee, he said. I will be there at seven, I replied.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States

I have decided to run for President of the United States. Sure this may come as a surprise to some you, but I am serious. The idea came to me while I was driving home last week from a job interview that did not go so well. I was thinking about the current condition of the United States and how to re-build it from the ashes. Then a voice came into my head that said, “what this country needs is the most unlikely of political figures to wage a grass-roots campaign and rise up as a representative of the people to become President… and if anyone could be this person- it would be you.” Even though I was arrested for shop lifting when I was fifteen, cited for civil disobedience when I was twenty-one, caught having an affair when I was twenty-five and have not ever had a steady job or made much money in my life- I still think I would have a chance. I am tall, moderately handsome, articulate, creative, honest, well-read, open-minded and I have a very unique vision of what the United States can become. “You are right,” I said to the voice in my head, “it would be me, but I would have to get over my fear of flying first.”

I would run for the Presidential term beginning in 2016, at which time I will be forty-four years of age (a good age to be President I think). By waiting to run for the 2016 Presidential elections, I can wait it out a bit and see if the world really is going to end in the year 2012. If there is an apocalypse on the horizon- I do not want to waste my time studying, campaigning and raising money for a Presidential position that will no longer exist. So for now I am just getting the word out, materializing my vision, working with a therapist on resolving my fear of flying and getting in better physical condition so that when the time comes for me to run I will be ready.

I told my wife about my decision to run for the Presidency and the first thing she said to me was, “I think that is a terrible idea.”  When I asked her why, she simply said, “I do not like that idea at all.” I opened a bottle of French organic wine that I had bought for the occasion, and tried to explain to her my vision for a future America. She was not terribly interested. I told her the story about when I was sixteen and working with a Psychiatrist (who had me on all kinds of medications) twice a week. One day the Psychiatrist asked me what I really wanted to do with my life when I grew up. When I looked him in the eye and said that I wanted to become President of the United States, I saw tears of pride roll down his cheeks. “I knew that was what you were going to say,” he replied. My wife was still not buying my Presidential aspirations.

After finishing two bottles of French wine together I found out the real reason why my wife was unhappy with my decision to run for the Presidential office. She has no desire to be a first lady. I tried to tell her all the wonderful things she could do as a first lady- start inner city art programs, educate Americans on the difference between good art and bad art, make the showing of Fellini and Bunuel films mandatory in high schools and start video art programs in universities across the country. “You could help wake Americans from their money and status obsessed slumber and educate them in ways that would make them cultural citizens of the world!” I said to my wife but she was not interested. The only response I got from her was, “I am not going to be a first lady, never.”

This is a slight set back since I have no intention of divorcing my wife. Maybe I could have a stand in first lady or no first lady at all? Whatever the case maybe, I am determined to find a resolve to this issue. I cannot ignore the voice that I hear every night in my head, which says over and over “ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.” I see myself dressed in a finely tailored suit, hair back in a ponytail, walking into a room where numerous people are giving me a standing ovation. I wave, shake their hands and for the first time in my life feel like I have finally made it. After the long uphill climb, the years of suffering and disappointment, the anxiety, the economic struggles and indecision- I have finally found my place on top of the mountain. How can a man give up on a dream like this?

I already have twelve guaranteed votes and by the end of the week I know I will have twenty. People already believe in me and if I can continue to gather twenty votes a week for the next few years I will have a considerable backing. Even though I am currently unemployed, am having a terrible time finding a job and may not have enough money to pay rent next month- these twelve people who have already given me their votes are keeping me moving forward every day. I will stand on street corners, go back to school and get a master’s degree in Psychology or History, fly in airplanes, stop sleeping in until eleven every morning and do what ever it takes to make myself a dedicated servant of the people. It is for them (and the voice in my head) that I am determined to win the office of President of the United States in 2016.

One of my very popular x-high school students (I quit teaching high school last year) has already promised to be my Campaign Manager and I have another x-high school student whom I might be able to convince to run with me for the office of Vice-President. She is African-American, a woman (well at the moment she is seventeen but by 2016 she will be a woman) and very intelligent. These three attributes- black, female and smart always get the votes in America. So, I am confident with her on my side and with the grass-roots team we will be able to assemble, that I will have a good chance of becoming the first Jewish American President of the United States in 2016 (as long as there is not an apocalypse in 2012). Now, I just got to work on convincing the wife.

The Pains Of Puberty At The Age Of Thirty-Eight

“Better late than never,” my Bubi always used to say but I think “better never than late,” sometimes. Going through puberty at the age of thirty-eight is not easy on a grown man- it takes a toll on his body. The chest hairs growing through my flesh are painful and sore. The chronic pulsation in my muscles are driving me mad. When I was young I always wondered where my puberty was. My friends were growing hair on their chest and legs (and other regions) and their voices were changing like string sections in an orchestra. I instead maintained my childish ways and never had the satisfaction of knowing that I was growing into a man. Girls were attracted to me because I reminded them of a little boy. When most of my friends started to shave and get laid I was looking in the mirror at a bare, virginal face wondering what went wrong. Even though the discovery of a few miniscule hairs on my back helped me to feel more apart of the “growing trend”  little did I know then that I would have to wait until I was thirty-eight to become a full-grown man.

It started a few months ago with a scratch in my voice that I thought was a symptom of a coming cold. While in the middle of a conversation my voice crescendoed into a high-pitched squeak that made me sound like a car with bad brakes. This was embarrassing because I am man and most of my conversations are serious. When my voice squeaks I know I appear less confident about the things I say. People question me, think I am insecure and wonder if I know what I am talking about. I have to squeakely assure them that I do. The squeaks of puberty are manageable because realistically I am the first to admit that I know very little about anything. What is most difficult about puberty is the intensity of feeling that seems to be flowing around just beneath my soul.

To deal with this intensity of feeling I have been doing a host of unreasonable things. I run my bike into piles of leaves jeopardizing my life. I knock on strangers doors and then run away at high speeds. I play in the mud trying to get as dirty as I can and I climb trees so that I can feel on top of the world. The longing, the expectation and fear of disappointment that comes along with puberty is so intense that at times I feel like I am going to lose it completely. I cry, scream at walls and beg for attention from my wife by wearing cologne (something I never did before) and by acting sad and wounded. I wear tighter pants than I ever have in my life and I notice that the music I am listening to seems to embody a teenage angst. One of the advantages of going through puberty as an adult rather than as a young man is that now I have some control over my impulses, since I have learned to respond rather than to react.

In the adult onset of my puberty, I have been inspired to find out “who I am” behind the thick prison walls that have been erected all around me. I always believed the Descartian lie that says “I think, therefore I am.” I have spent my life thinking but have little clue about who I really am. Now that I am finally starting to grow the chest hairs, the feeling muscles and the self-approval that has eluded me until this date- I am having faith that I can break free from the prison walls that have impeded my emotional growth for so long. I now can see that becoming a man means that I need to reclaim the lost self that wandered off somewhere in childhood, so that I can live a life that is healthy and free from the repressed dysfunctional emotional stains that have been stuck on me for so long.

The squeaky voice, the chest hairs, the intensity of feeling and the persistent erection (that I need not go into) are all aspects of puberty that every young man must face. I imagine it is easier to go through this when one is young enough to not really understand what is going on. When young, a person has the reckless abandon, the naive idealism and the health to helplessly become a victim of biological impulses. They can follow these impulses and desires wherever they may lead, without worry for repercussions. But after three decades of feeling the harsh side effects of painful repercussions, my puberty has to be navigated with the skill of a master. So I am being judicious, wise and allowing myself to feel every hair that bursts onto my chest and every emotion that inflames my mind and soul- without losing myself in the pain. I could be mad that I am finally experiencing puberty at the unfair age of thirty-eight. Instead, I am riding my bike more and turning my attention to the fact that something deep in me is finally being expressed that was not ready to come out before. Even though this is hard and I envy those who go through puberty when young, finally I can cut the hairless umbilical cord of my youth, come out from behind the prison walls and inhabit the space of a fully realized man with a chest filled with hair.

In A Pile Of Leaves

I have a rather embarrassing confession to make, one that I hope you will not hold against me. I enjoy riding my bike into piles of leaves. I often ride my bike around town so that I can digest some fresh air into my lungs. On my twenty year old ten speed- I ride to the store, the park, the post office, the library, wherever I need to go. It’s a kind of two-wheeled meditation for me. When I am on my bike I return to a child like state of awe and wonder. I become a man on a magic carpet escaping from the quagmires of my marriage, the heavy expectations of my aging parents and the constant negative jabs of my self-destructive mind.

In the town where I live it is common practice to leave piles of leaves in the street. Every Monday there is a free city service that comes and picks up these leaves but all week they sit there, loitering in the streets. I often see children playing in the piles or squirrels picking through them searching for a few delectable treats. At times the dried leaves will blow back into the streets or back onto peoples lawns, which is a source of frustration for many who live in my town.

 

My life is not going as according to planned. I am almost forty years of age and unemployed. My marriage is in total disarray, my cat and I are no longer getting along and I have enough money in my bank account to keep food in my stomach and a roof over my head until the end of the month. It would be fair to assume that the head space I occupy has a tendency to get dark and distressed. While I was riding my bike around town last week after yet another fight with my wife- I had the sudden impulse to drive my bike directly into one of these piles of leaves. I don’t know why I did it, but I don’t think it was a botched suicide attempt. I managed not to crash and my bike sliced through the pile of leaves like a large cutting knife. From that day on I became fascinated with what could happen if I rode my bike into piles of leaves.

I started running my bike into piles of leaves every day. There is no better feeling than riding a bike fast through a pile of leaves especially when you are dealing with the weight of stress. Some of the piles were higher than two feet and they were hard, molded together by water and dirt. When I rode my bike into these it was like going over a small hill. Suddenly I found myself in the air, a man with a ten speed bike for wings, and I would land hard on the unforgiving ground. I often found myself with a scratch or two or a patch of blood someplace on my flesh- but the feeling of flying high gave me a rush that reminded me of how lucky I was to be alive.

If the pile of leaves looked really large (four feet or higher) I would pedal with as much speed as I could and go directly into it- hoping that I would be able to glide right through rather than go over it. It is the element of uncertainty or risk that I enjoy. It’s a healthy way for me to express my rage and it helps me to forgive the people that I am angry at- even though it is taking a physical toll on my bike, nerves, hands and knees.

Yesterday I had a terrible fight with my wife. Out fifth fight this week. Even though I was expressing myself openly and honestly, in the politest way I could- she still felt like I was not supporting her and once again got mad. I left the house feeling unfairly treated and got on my ten speed that was rusted from the previous nights hard rain. The brakes squeaked but all the piles of leaves where still out there on the street. I decided to find the largest pile in town and ride my bike directly into it.

It all happened so fast. It was as if some self destruct lever was pulled inside of me that suddenly set me off. I no longer cared. There was a family hard at work shoveling all the fallen fall leaves from their front yard. When I saw the pile I could not believe my eyes. It must have been over seven feet high- towering on the side of the street like a monolith pointing towards heaven. I peddled as hard as I could and felt the wind telling me to stop. Upon impact I must have been going twenty miles an hour but I had no idea what the outcome would be. For once in my life I had completely let go.

The pile of leaves was so condensed, so tightly packed that I heard a loud “shzippppp” sound as if I had just entered inside a zip locked bag. Less than half a second after impact my bike and I came to a complete unintended halt. As far as I could tell I was still seated on my bike but now I was shrouded in a separate reality constructed out of a foreign material. It took me a few seconds to realize that not only was I still alive, but like a skier trapped in snow- I was stuck in a pile of leaves.

Leaves marched into my nostrils and mouth like a million tiny soldiers running for shelter. I was having difficulty breathing and seeing. I was disoriented- unable to decipher which way was up or down, left or right. I thought to myself that I was not ready to die. I wanted a chance to fix things with my wife, to start a family and show the world that I could get a job and work my way out of my financial mess. I saw the headlines in the morning paper “Middle Aged Man Suffocates After Running His Bike Into A Pile Of Leaves.” This is not how I wanted to go- not the kind of legacy I wanted to leave behind. I would become a tragic clown/martyr to family and friends. a man who was never quite able to escape his demons and figure out how to successfully live his life. No, this was not the way. I wanted to change, to grow, to love, to forgive and to figure things out and find my way into that promised land that I often heard referred to as “living a happy life.” I was not going to die. Not yet at least.

I started to frantically move my arms around like a man trying to swim. I did my best to scream out for help but this caused me to ingest a pile of leaves. I coughed, which reminded me that I still had air. Then I heard it. Distant sounds of frantic digging and muffled shouts. I got more and more excited as the sounds got closer, and closer. I did all I could to let the rescue team know exactly where I was. “Here!! Here!! Here!!” I yelled which probably sounded more like, “Hrr!! Hrr!! Hrr!!.” Then, suddenly my fate shifted. I was met with the bright blue eyes of a ten-year old angel (eyes I will never forget) who was yelling “dad, dad!! he is over!! here I found him!!!” And then, once I realized that I had survived, that I was going to have another chance to rebuild my life on planet earth I was reminded that first I was going to have to explain to many people why I drove my bike into a large pile of leaves.

 

The Girl Of My Dreams.

Lately I have been horny. More so than is normal. Out of the corner of my wondering eye I watch women when they pass. Even though I do not suffer from a guilt complex- I notice my glances can contain elements of perversion. I wonder what these women would look like naked, I store that image in my mind and wish that I could see.

When one is unemployed there is a lot of spare time for wishful thinking and perverted explorations. If I had the money I may spend my time in strip clubs or massage parlors hanging out with the real thing. In fact, recently, more of my time is spent covered in trace elements of lust rather than absorbed in active job searching efforts. Nothing pacifies the mind away from a dwindling economic and professional reality like the pursuit of sex. I am only a completely happy man when this pursuit finds me in my dreams.

Last night, after a rough take-off I flew away into a deep, alcohol induced sleep. Through the retina of my dream lense, I saw a beautiful blond girl approaching me. Her perfect body made the hair on my sleeping arms stand up. She took me by the hand and with a careless whisper said “follow me.” I allowed her to escort me off into my fantastic dream.

I followed her around in her school, through a field and a high school football game. I made myself at home on her couch. We laughed together. When she walked into the kitchen I admired her rear end with the reverie of a man who has found exactly what he has been looking for. How lucky I was- an older man no longer in his prime, being sexually pursued by this young girl who was half my age. She performed all kinds of kinky magic tricks on me, the details of which have disappeared- but my erection, that has been with me since the morning, testifies to the fact that whatever happened between us- was fun.

When I woke up this morning I hung around in bed for an hour or so. I did not want to let the blankets go. I turned away from the light so that I could keep the dream projecting on my movie screen. I tried to hold my dream down. But despite my efforts it floated further and further away until it was nothing but an outline. All morning I slumbered around nostalgic for that dream I had left behind in sleep. Where could I find it? I wondered. In the afternoon, when I went on-line, you can only imagine how startled/surprised I was to find a girl who looked very familiar, requesting to add me as a friend on Facebook.

Immediately when I saw her Facebook picture I thought that it could be the girl in my dream. They both had long blond hair, they both had a similar wan complexion, they both were around the same age and they both had that look in their eye that triggered my lust. Not knowing for certain if this was the girl in my dream- I added her as a friend simply so I could search through her profile.

Her profile page was as vague as the memories that I have from last nights dream. An empty closet with nothing but a single picture, a birth date and a name- Brittney Amber, born 1989 (the year I graduated high school). I did find one other piece of intriguing information about her. Listed alongside her interests were two words in bold print- men and dreams.

I have always suspected that our dreams occur in another dimension, another time and space, which is just as real as the waking reality that we exist in. I have often heard it said that when we fall asleep our soul ascends out from our bodies and resumes its soul life in another realm. The dream I had last night left traces in my mind and on my skin- of a reality just as corporeal and tactile as the one I am writing in now. I am almost certain that I was there. If this is the case, then that allows me to conclude one thing………Britney is the girl in my dream.

I have sent Britney a message in which I asked her how she knows me, and why she added me as a friend. I told her about my dream and asked her if she remembers being in it. I am yet to hear from her and maybe I never will if she exists in that world where souls meet (but how do they have access to Facebook there?). For hours today I have stared at Britney’s Facebook photo studying here blue eyes, arched nose and mouth, longing to once again be with her. I have imagined her naked so many times that I can feel her breasts in my hands. All day today I have had a child like quality of excitement that comes with seeing someone whom you thought was long gone. “Could this really be her?” I have been asking myself hoping that the answer is “yes.” Could it be true, that the girl of my dreams has found me on Facebook?

Dear Readers

I just wanted to write you a note to explain why I pulled the entry “Tree Hugger” off of my blog. Lately I have been noticing that some of my blog entries are being copied and pasted to other sites- upon which “the copier” claims the entries as his/her own. I do not mind this so much and even find it a bit flattering- but I would like to keep “Tree Hugger” as my own.

One of my dear readers suggested that I turn the entry into a child’s book and I think that is good idea. Why not? Just need to find someone who can draw and then I will be up and running with the idea. So I hope you understand that I need to protect “Tree Hugger” as if it was a heirloom that I could never get back….just in case I choose to move forward with the child book idea.

I am grateful for all the wonderful comments that I received. Even though they now exist in that mysterious void into which we all return- I benefited from what you had to say greatly and the comments still linger in my slumbering mind. Thank you for your continual support of the stories I need to tell…. and stay tuned in for my next blog entry which is about how I have lost my English.

P.S. If you are a reader that I know, I would be more than happy to send you a copy of “Tree Hugger.” If you are interested feel free to drop me an email at mindmirror7@gmail.com with your address.

Free Bird?

I decided to open the bird-cage and let my two yellow parakeets fly freely around the room. After spending so much time confined in their cage I thought this would be a delectable treat. I did not want to help them out- but rather gave them the autonomy to come out by their own volition. As the long time, faithful and concerned owner of these two birds- I felt as if I fulfilled my duty by opening the cage door. The rest was up to them.

After opening the door to the bird-cage, I sat back down in my comfortable chair and continued to climb the steep hill of the book I was reading. I had just read the lines, “When I see I am nothing that is wisdom. When I see I am everything that is love. My life is a movement between these two-” when one of my birds began making a clanging sound in the cage. He was yanking the lever used to open and lock the cage, in an up and down motion with his beak (he normally did this when the cage door was locked in what I assumed was an attempt to open the door and fly free). I yelled out,”the cage is already open Dali (the bird’s name) and there is no need for such obnoxious behavior. Can’t you see that you can fly free!!”

I continued to read and occasionally looked up from my book to see if the birds were making their way out of the cage. They were not. Instead, they sat on one of the synthetic branches and in a dumbfounded state they stared out into the big wide open space as if they were looking into a black hole. “There is nothing to be afraid of!!” I yelled out a little frustrated at their resistance. Neither of my birds quite new what to do with this option to fly free- so they sat there, made some chirping sounds, poked at one another and refused to spread their wings.

I could see that the birds were curious about flying free but overwhelmed by the fact that they were going to have to do it on their own. No human finger to shuttle them out of the door. After a few hours of giving them the potential to be free- frustrated, I got up from my chair and shut the bird-cage door. I must admit that I said “stupid birds,” as I locked the cage. It was then that I wondered how often I had refused to fly out of my cage when the door was left wide open? The thought pestered me. “How many times had I been presented with an opportunity to love, to dance, to travel, to sing, to work, to let go, to grow- but was too afraid to flap my wings and fly?” I said out loud. How often am I more comfortable sitting in a chair with a book than I am stepping out my front door and trying to grab a hold of the sun?

Determined to finish the book I was reading by the end of the night I sat back down and buried my thoughts beneath someone else’s words. I had the house all to myself- minus the two birds and a whining black cat. My interest in breaking for dinner was minimal, so I ignored the biological alarm clock that was sounding off in the depths of my stomach. As I climbed my way towards the book’s ending- I kept glancing out the corner of my eyes at the birds who seemed happy in their cage. They were cleaning one another, eating and playing what looked like a game of bird tag. “Two dumb birds as happy as can be, locked away in their safe cage,” I thought to myself and then I continued to climb.

The Hangover

I am suffering from a bad hangover. A very bad hangover. Not even a shower seemed to help. It feels as if I have been stuffed with bags of sand and implanted with a metallic heart. My chest hurts. I am having difficulty breathing because of a pain in my back. Walking a straight line takes effort and my gut feels like it contains the remnants of a battlefield. All last night I wrestled with sleep trying to pin it down. Instead, I kept awakening with irregular heartbeats, pulsating ears and a parched mouth. I was nauseous and had images in my head of funerals and jumping over a cliff. A pin or nail seemed to be sticking out the side of my left temple- causing me an unbearable ache . My wife, snoring away by my side, was at peace in the womb of a deep inebriated sleep. I on the other hand was struggling….paying for my night of fun.

Even though I did not drink that much last night (three margaritas and two beers) I should understand by now that if I have more than one drink- all the ills of human kind are going to shower down upon me. One would think that after years of drinking and then spending nights and days in a kind of physical hell (that over the years has decreased the strength of my body and mind)- that I would sensibly abstain from having more than one glass of booze at a time. I have tried to invoke the powers of a healthy life style. I went on long meditation retreats and once did not speak for six weeks. I entertained a yoga practice everyday and ate raw food only- but still I needed a drink. This is no ordinary relationship.

I love drinking…and booze has been in my life for as long as I can remember. When I drink I am no longer stuck in human bondage. I am set free on a terrain that looks and feels like joy. My spirit is elevated beyond the constricting weight of my body and the unbearable lightness of my being puts a smile on my face. Even though I meditate for an hour a day nothing can come close to the power of now, the absence of mind that I feel after having a glass of wine or a beer. I never get so drunk as to lose control but I drink just enough to grow a pair of wings and fly away.

Since the day I was born I have grappled with a fear and trembling that has become more chronic as I age. This anxiety risks keeping me trapped in the safety zone of my home. Heavy thoughts that swim around in my head without traffic control are the substance of my disease. I work hard to disempower my thoughts and keep them from spilling over into the life I live- but at times it feels like a daunting task. Consuming alcohol is not only medicine for my spirit but it quiets down the negative temper of my feelings of impeding doom. For a brief period, while intoxicated I can be liberated from the insurrection that my thoughts wage against my heart, daily. The price I pay for indulging in booze is nothing compared with those few hours I spend in my bliss….or so I thought.

All morning I have been filling up on supplements. In the middle of the night I drank chlorophyl and ate sprouts for nutrients that I hoped would quiet my heart. I have read about how alcohol consumption depletes the body of vital minerals and vitamins causing sleep disturbances, irregular heart beats and a slew of other frightening symptoms. I was supposed to show up for my third “Meet The Author” day but instead I have chosen to stay in. When I am done writing this entry I will return to bed where I hope to find a few hours of sleep beneath my sheets. I can not help but to pity myself a bit and wish that this was not the fate that was upon me. I wish I could drink alcohol like so many others I know who consume it every day and have deep, beautiful sleep filled with dreams and a regular heartbeat. For years I was one of these lucky few consuming alcohol, coffee, cigarettes with no tormenting health effects. Then one day everything changed. Now that I have reached a certain age the only one of those vices that I have left is my booze- but I am afraid that soon this will have to go as well……and I will be left having to deal with myself.

Last night my wife and I bought an expensive bottle of tequila to keep around the house. For guests and fun. My plan was to put some of it in a flask and keep it upon my body at all times. I would douse the anxiety or negative thoughts whenever they arose like a man putting out a fire in his own head. I also planned on drinking the tequilla liberally in small amounts every day of the week….a night cap if you will. But now I am having to come to terms with one of the most difficult truths a man can face.

My body seems to no longer be as strong as my desire. My head is still foggy and my fingers hurt. I could swear I saw blood in my stools as I spent hours sitting on the toilet last night. The taste of alcohol is still in my throat. It all seems too extreme of a price to pay for a few hours of happiness. I want to say that I am going to hop on the wagon and never drink again. That I am done with that stage of my life. I want to say that I have learned my lesson and might be getting a bit too close to the edge. But I know that this is not true. I want to be able to drink, enjoy myself and then sleep like a baby… and I am determined to find a way. Even though I am going to get on the wagon and stay on board for a few days- I know that as soon as this hangover is gone and I have had a few day of rest- I will ask the driver to let me off so that I can enjoy a bottle of wine with my wife at dinner. For now I am going back to bed.

“Meet The Author”

I have decided to take my writing career to its next logical level. After much pondering and consideration- I feel this to be an important and decisive move in the right direction. Over the years I have noticed that most successful authors have “Meet The Author” events where fans turn out to meet the author in person and possibly have the good fortune to shake a hand and/or get a book signed. Since I lack a published book, an agent and a large fan base- I have decided to launch a grass roots effort to get my name and writings out into the world. I live close to a university, so there are a lot of undergraduate and graduate students who walk past my home everyday. I often sit at my window envying their youth and purpose. I figured I have nothing to lose by setting up my coffee table in my driveway, putting out some copies of various short stories I have written, some information about my literary blog and a sign that reads “Meet The Author.” I have always believed in self-reliance. If you build it- they will come.

Yesterday was my first day sitting in the driveway- behind a “Meet The Author” sign. I wore my black suit with a black t-shirt and black converse shoes. I don’t have glasses but I realize that this prop may allow me to look more literary (so I may go to Target and buy some cheap reading glasses later today). There was little wind yesterday and the clouds abstained from covering the sun that hung diligently in the sky. I sat behind my coffee table in a fold up chair that had been rusting away in my garage. I made sure that I was outside by 8 a.m so as to catch the morning rush. Hundreds of students passed me by, many curious about what I was doing, but none stopping to meet me in person. At around eleven a.m I came in for lunch.

I spent the rest of the afternoon outside. I did not read because I wanted to look welcoming and available to whomever wanted to meet me. Instead, I watched the birds hop from tree to tree and the squirrels hobble across the sprouting grass. I watched feral cats walk around in the suburban park that sits across the street from my house. All these perplexed creatures seemed to look at me with the same curiosity of the students. “What the hell is he doing?” they wondered as they tried to make sense of a man dressed in a black suit spending his day sitting in a driveway. I noticed the way the animals looked at me was different from the glances of humans. There was something considerate and compassionate in the animal stares. It was as if they were not only confused but also taking pity on an author that no one seemed to want to meet.

When my wife returned home from work at around three I had to move the coffee table so that she could get her car into the garage. After I explained to her what I was doing all she could do was laugh, turn around and walk inside. I heard her shout “what time do you want to eat dinner!” but I did not respond since I was in the middle of an important event. I placed the coffee table back in its original spot and continued to sit and wait. The light of day was slowly fading so that I could no longer see clearly the various animals in the park. The trees started to become vague outlines of themselves. Hundreds of students again passed me on their way back to where they had come from. Back to a life of studying, possibilities, ambitions, opportunities and microwaved dinners. Several students looked at me but again, no one stopped to meet the author. I was feeling a bit disillusioned and could swear I heard a female voice yell from a distance what sounded like the word “fool.”

Then, as night was almost finished coloring everything in with black and gray crayons- a medium-sized Asian man made his way up to my coffee table. He looked like he might be a graduate student since he was wearing glasses and had a few books under his arm. I was getting ready to pack everything up when he said to me in a kind of broken English “You are the author?” I turned towards him and for the first time that day I said, “Yes, I am.” “I love America Writers….you guys so funny and sad, kinda tragic,” he said. I thought of Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Faulkner. “My name is Randall Sokoloff and these are some things I have written,” I said pointing to the copies of my short stories on the table. He looked at them like he was investigating cellular activity through a microscope. Then he looked up at me and repeating one of the titles of my short stories, “The Man Who Swallowed His Wedding Ring, that is so silly,” and then he laughed and I laughed with him. “I take this one,” he said and I told him that he was welcome to take more than one. “Give some stories to your friends and tell them that they can come meet me in person this week!” Then he asked me the question that I had been waiting for all day, “would you mine signing story for me?” which I did with a hint of pride that I had not felt in a long time. We shook hands and he walked away with my short stories under hims arm. I immediately turned my head to see if my wife was looking out the window and had witnessed my victory. She was not there but my cat, who sat on the window ledge, had seen it all.

I will continue to sit out on my driveway at least until Saturday. Even if I only meet one person a day that is good enough for me. A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. My hope is that next year or by the time I turn forty-two I will actually have a novel published that I will be able to present to passers-by. For now the copied versions of my short stories and information about my blog will have to do. If you care to come and meet the author in person, I am on the corner of Oak and 14th. I will be sitting in my driveway from 8 a.m. until dark at least until Saturday. Just look for the park across the street, the animals perched in the trees, the man in an rusting folding chair wearing an all black suit and/or the sign that in large black ink says “Meet The Author.”

Even Black Cats Get Depresssed

My cat buries himself beneath the blankets on my bed. He stays there all day- dormant as a doormat. He is an older cat whose biological clock is ticking past fifteen years. As a result of lingering old age he his prone to spasms of senility and immobility but normally he is erect and jumping over fences.

I wonder if it is because of the wind today? Or maybe it is the changing seasons that are bringing him down? My cat is a black cat- could it be that he is feeling the negative stereotypes of evil and superstition that are attributed to black cats at this time of year? Whatever the reasons may be, my cat is depressed. As a concerned animal owner I have decided to leave him alone until Halloween, the wind or the changing seasons end. If at that time he is no better and still withdrawing beneath the blankets of my bed- I will call a Therapist.

Hiding From The Wind

The wind is blowing outside my window. It is maniacal and insistent. If I did not know better I would think that the wind was trying to break into my house. On windy days- I do not go outside. I hide in the catacombs of my imagination or between the pages of a book. Ever since I was young I have suffered from strange, unsettling phobias. My first phobia was of my father’s toes, my second phobia was of nipples and my newest phobia is of the wind.

I am afraid that I will be swept away by the wind, deposited in the sea, and then eaten by a giant whale or that the wind is going to get inside me and blow me up. I know these are irrational fears, and even more irrational in the mind of an adult. Rationality is supposed to set in by middle age but for me it seems to of turned away. My phobias remind me that a child is alive and well in my chest, a child who is just as afraid of the outside world as I was when young.

I have always felt hallow and thin. Often times when I walk I have the feeling that my feet are not quite touching the ground. I have fallen to the ground because of a sneeze. Walking in the rain often makes me feel as if I am carrying around a heavy weight on my head. As I let go of more and more of my pride and ego and allow myself to be humbled out- the more I feel at risk of simply blowing away.

On windy days, I shut windows and cover my head so that not even a slight breeze can enter my ears. There is something homunculus about the sound of wind that frightens me. Reminds me of a cresting wave, or a falling sky that I am to small to defend myself against. I am better off sitting in silent meditation- visualizing my self as a metal weight or a twenty ton stone- impossible to budge.

How Facebook Saved My Life

I used to be a very solitary man. I envied authors like J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon for their anonymity. “The Invisible Man,” by Ralph Ellison was my favorite novel because no one else was able to see the main protagonist. The French Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s dictum, “hell is other people,” rationalized my isolation and made me feel good about not having any friends. I spent my time on my own. I went to movies alone, dinner alone and spent the majority of my nights either walking the dark, windy and lonely streets of San Francisco or sitting in my small apartment, alone, drawing pictures with my mind while floating through the pages of a book.

For as long as I can remember I was alone. I disliked school because it forced me to be around other people. I played tennis and jogged because it allowed me to not have to be a member of a team. After school I rode my bike around and around the lonely cul-de-sac until the sunset. I talked to myself in mirrors like I was having an in depth conversation with someone else. When my mother would ask me how my day was I would always reply the same laconic way, “fine.” I went to my room, did my homework, listened to music and only came out when tempted by the smell of food. When my father took me on a rafting trip and we passed an older man sitting outside a log cabin in the middle of the woods, I asked my father “what is that?” My father responded in an uninterested tone, “That is a hermit son.” Much to my fathers consternation- I replied, “that is what I want to be when I grow up.”

Solitude does not suit an older man. As I was getting closer to the age of forty I had been feeling the weight of my solitude like a potential crucifixion or a head cold that would never go away. In the back of my mind lingered the awareness that I was living in a bubble without any community and something felt oddly wrong about this. For years and years I had existed in a spiritually satisfying solitude that never caused me to feel defective or psychologically unstable, but know as my biological clock was nearing the midway point of my life- being alone just felt wrong.

My wife (who does not read my writings, so I do not have to worry about her reading about me telling you that even though I had been married for a few years I still felt alone. My wife is very independent and engaged in her work, which was one of the qualities that initially attracted me to her, because I knew I would get a lot of alone time. I just never realized how much) suggested that I join Facebook. My first reaction was similar to the reaction I had when as a child my mother offered me an avocado or when my dad took me to visit his dying friend and the dying friend reached out his jaundiced arm to offer me a date. I was repulsed and wanted to have nothing to do with such dehumanizing social platforms. But my dreaded feeling of isolation continued to persist and I became desperate enough to try just about anything.

I joined Facebook with the caution of a cat taking food from a stranger. I did not jump right in but rather smelled things out and licked the edges. I took my time going on-line and submitting friend request and investigating profiles. I still spent my days and nights alone and considered a social gathering to consist of me wondering the streets of San Francisco alone at night and maybe stopping in at a few seedy bars. Facebook was a new level of social engagement for me. I wanted to make sure I did not expose myself too quick.

My wife continuously sent me suggestions for new friends. Everyday when I would go on-line there would be one or two new friends that my wife thought I should have. I was fascinated by the concept of adding a friend. All my life I had never really trusted friends.  Newton’s third law that states- that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction summarized the story of my friendships. Every friend I had ever had seemed to require a great amount of challenge and heartache. Making friends was a tumultuous effort and keeping them was even harder. Now, with Facebook all I had to do was request to add a friend and wait to see if my request was granted. I did not have to see them or talk to them. There was something liberating about this new form of friendship that drew me in. It seemed so easy to make and keep friends. Possibly Facebook could offer me the same appeal that I found in my wife- the ability to have a good relationship but still remain alone.

Looking back on the period of my life right before I joined Facebook, I realize that I was in a dark space. I have matured enough as a human being to be able to look at my past self and be truthful about what I see, even if I do not like it. I was on the verge of death. The word suicide was circulating through my mind at an illegal speed and the only thing that kept me from drinking Draino or climbing up a tall redwood tree and then jumping was that I lacked the courage to take my own life. My depression was affecting my health and I was drinking enough booze to keep reality far far away. I was a sinking ship inside and the notion that my solitude was the cause of all this was as distant from me as a falling star.

Facebook took a desperate man and made him a member of a community. It has allowed me to have more than one hundred friends (which, is more friends than I have had in my entire life) without suffering the tormenting symptoms of social anxiety that I normally suffer around people. My friendships are as easy to maintain as leaving a few status updates a day and commenting on a few of the status updates of my friends. Where once I dreaded getting out of bed in the morning now I look forward to joining my Facebook community. I get my yoghurt with nuts in it and pour myself a glass of apple juice. I then sit down at my computer and review Facebook in the same way that my father would read the newspaper in the mornings many years ago. I leave a status update first thing in the morning that I make sure makes me feel moderately good about myself  (even if it is untrue) and I then look forward to the comments I will receive later on in the day. Finally I feel apart of something greater than myself. Finally I feel alive.

I have connected with old friends that I have never thought I would talk to again. I have improved my communication with my wife by reading her status updates and leaving a comment while she does the same for me. The sense of dread that followed me around like a feeling of impending doom is gone. I laugh more and am more aware of what goes on in what used to be a narrow world. My friends are not a burden to me since it takes little effort to keep them in my life. It is safe to say that I have outgrown the dictum that “hell is other people” and replaced it with the knowledge that,” happiness is only real if it is shared.” I can safely say that I have grown into a happier man now that I know Facebook saved my life.

The Last Reader On Earth

“I know of no other advice than this: Go within and scale the depths of your being from which your very life springs forth.” -Rilke

For Richard Brautigan

1. Discovering A Lost Artifact

It’s a beautiful thing that he still reads. It is not often that I meet a person who is doing something no one else does. Sometimes, I think we have all become like ants marching in a rigid line. The word hope rambles into my mind when I meet someone radically different. I was less surprised to meet the old lady who grows flowers by candlelight in her hotel room than I was to meet Randall. I thought that readers were extinct until I had the pleasure of stumbling upon him in a park. I remember my legs being heavy like lead when I walked towards him with the hesitancy of a cat.

“Excuse me sir, but what are you doing,” I asked not sure if I was seeing something that was not there.

Randall looked up from his book and with a smile that indicated he was not disturbed by my question replied, “Sir? You are a curious young man…… I am doing something no man dares do before. I am reading………………………………….”

Sun got in the way of the final words coming from his mouth so I can’t write all of what it was he said. “Unbelievable,” is how I impulsively respond in a complete state of disbelief. I had never seen anyone reading before and I was shocked when Randall invited me to sit next to him.

“Have a seat next to me and stop staring like you just discovered a lost artifact,” Randall said.

2. Out Of Work

“My name is Randall, Randall Sokoloff,” he said to me with an out stretched hand that was looking to pull me in.

He was not wearing a shirt and the mid afternoon sun was showering down upon us. The grass was brown, tough and felt like a hairbrush under my legs. Ducks waddled around begging for spare crumbs. Geese floated gracefully through the lake alongside discarded beer cans. I introduced myself as Gio and shook Randall’s hand with a faintness that comes with not believing something you are seeing.

“I like coming to this park and reading,” Randall said just as casually as if he was talking about the blue sky.

Every man I knew was at work at this hour and the only reason I was free to be walking around, mid afternoon, in the park was because I had three hours off for sick leave.

“Wow,’ was the only interjection I could come up with to give meaning to the mystery my mind was trying to solve.

“You from around here?” Randall asked while rolling onto his side and arching his head with the help of his elbow and hand.

I told him that I did not live to far away.

“What are you doing off in the afternoon?” he asked.

I told him about the spell of vertigo that I had been suffering from for years and how it had gotten real bad at work because of the computer screens that swallow our eyes alive.

“Work now-a-days will keep you until you are on your death bed. You’re fortunate that you have an employer that gave you a break,” Randall said.

I could not help but wonder how it was that he had the afternoon off. When I was about to ask, Randall said, “I like to read to the ducks and anyone who will listen. Most people are terrified when I ask if they want to listen to me read but would you like me to read to you?”

3. The Story That Changed My Life

I felt like there was belt being tied tight around my throat and had trouble getting saliva down my drain- but I was curious.  A few deep breaths were what I needed to calm down. Something deep inside of me refused to let this opportunity go. I wanted to see something that I had never witnessed before in my life, a grown man reading from a book.

“Get comfortable. You ready to begin?” Randall asked.

I shook my head with trepidation just like I did the first time I agreed to board an airplane that would shoot me up into the heavens. Lying back down on his back and holding the book up towards the mid afternoon sky, Randall began to read:

It was after seven o’clock when he left the office, preceded by Lorenzo Daza. There was a full moon. The patio, idealized by anisette, floated at the bottom of an aquarium, and the cages covered with cloths looked like ghosts sleeping under the hot scent of new orange blossoms… … ….. ……… …….. ………… ……… .. …….. .. ………….. …. ………………….. …. ….. ………….. ……. …. …….. …. ………… …….. …………. ………… …….. ……… ….. …. ……….. ……. ……… ….. ………. ……. ……. …………. ….. … …. …. …… ……. ….. .. .. ……… …. ……… .. … …. …. …. …… ……….. ….. …. ………………. .. … …. ….. …… ………

He read on and on and on and on into the afternoon. I listened to this new language like a child who licks his first lollipop. I remember my tongue hanging out of place, arched against the roof of my mouth as I felt each word rub up and down my spine.  When Randall finished he told me that the story was made up by someone who’s name I can not remember but the title I will never forget, Love In A Time Of Cholera. The sensuality of the story, the degree to which the words inspired my eyes to open up wide was like seeing a rainbow for the first time. Even though I still do not understand what literature means, I held my breath and do not remember breathing again until Randall said, “this book is one of the greatest works of literature, ever.”

4. Twist My Arm

The sun was beginning to play hide and seek when Randall asked me if I wanted to come back to his place and rest my head in his book collection. Book collection!!! I shouted silently within myself. I felt like someone suddenly dropped a heavy object inside my mind. My stomach was standing at the edge of a cliff and nerves were trying to push it over. I could not believe that a person still had a book collection. For a moment I contemplated the trouble that I could get into if I said yes. I still had an hour or so until I needed to present my body back at work. I never before had seen books standing together in one place- let alone rest my head in one.

“Don’t worry, nothing will happen to you, I will just show you my books. I promise they will not bite.” I could tell that I would be safe with Randall- no matter how strange he seemed to me. He wanted me to see something he intuitively knew I had never seen before in my 31 years of life. My arm was twisted by fate- I decided to go.

5. Falling In Love With Words

Randall lived only a half a mile from the lake.  He was much taller than I thought and it seemed like he got taller with every step. He walked with a casual gentlemanly grace that I had only seen before in magazines. As we walked Randall made no effort to hide his book from any public person that may pass bye. He could tell that this rattled my nerves.

“Carrying a book is not a crime,” Randall said in response to the way I chewed on my fingernails.

“I know it is not a crime, but no one does it. It is really unusual behavior,” I said.

“So because no one does something, this is good enough reason not to do it?” Randall responded .

I have always believed that silence is the best ingredient when you are not sure what to say. The wind wrapped itself around us like cellophane and I did not quite feel as if I was walking on solid ground when I asked Randall the one question that I could not lift off my mind.

“Why do you still read?” I asked.

Randall laughed a bit as if he himself did not know. We turned a corner that had a sign that read Law Punishable by Public Drunkenness. Randall seemed to be using up too many brain cells before he responded to my question.

” I never had the intention to be a reader. No one in my family for generations had ever read. Then one day I found a page with some strange literary words on it.” He stopped and my ears swelled, eager to hear.

Then he continued, “I re-read and re-read and re-read that page until I became a man in love with words on a page. These words built a paradise in the depths of my being. I started finding words in the strangest of places, collecting them like love affairs, striving to get them all together in one place.”

6. The Book Collection

Randall’s apartment rests upon a sloping lot that runs all the way along a deserted block. The street is covered with overgrown grass and bushes and flowers and wine bottles and discarded boxes. We walked up some old cement stairs to the second floor where his apartment sat in a darkened corner of a snake like complex. When he unlocked his front door I felt a wave of hesitation rub up against my arm.

“After you,” Randall said.

The apartment was dark. The shades were all drawn, keeping the light of day away from the books. Randall was afraid the light could cause the words to fade away, I later learned. As Randall slightly opened a few plastic blinds, what was revealed to me through a shard of light sneaking its way into the darkness, would forever change my life.

At first I thought I would loose control of my arms and feet. When Randall asked me if I wanted coffee or wine his words brought me back to earth. I was standing dead center in a temple of books and was convinced that I had fallen through a Rabbit hole. Every wall was covered with living books- as living as my palpitating heart. It looked as if the walls were made out of books.

“Feel free to walk around,” Randall said as he went to pour us both a glass of wine.

I had never had a sip of alcohol during the day but I was held hostage by a shock that I needed alcohol to defuse. I was running low on free time and I knew that whatever I was to see, touch and/or hear- it had to happen quickly. I began rubbing my sweaty palms up and down the book spines just like I was petting a dog. Names and titles that I never heard of before jumped out at me and lit up my brain like a cigarette. I will never forget certain phrases like: Grapes Of Wrath, Sun Also Rises, The Magic Mountain and Trout Fishing In America.

I have never seen words like this gathered together,” I said in disbelief as Randall handed me a glass of red wine, sat down on the floor and handed me a book.

7. Resting My Head In The Pages Of A Book

“I don’t mind if you just open to any page and plop your head right down,” Randall said as he took a gulp of his wine.  “Go ahead, do it if you want.”

I read what was on the cover of the book. It said Tropic Of Cancer, by Henry Miller. I took a big sip of wine and a deep breath both at the same time and like I was squeezing between a woman’s legs I slowly made my way in.

“When I hold the words up closely to my head a feeling of awe and freedom is released in my soul. The smell is akin to enlightenment or drunkenness. This is why it is so tragic that no one reads any more,” Randall said as I inhaled the scent of language.

“Why?” I asked without taking my head out from the book.

“No one knows anymore what it is like to be truly free. To be alone with words on a page and smell them as they linger up into your brain. This gives definition to the life of mankind…that I am afraid has become an empty space,” he said with a passion that might of belonged to the red wine.

I did not really understand what he was talking about and maybe this is why I asked Randall, what I realize now, might of sounded fairly dumb.

“Why is it that anyone would want to be free?” I asked.

Randall giggled a little took a cup sized gulp of his wine and said, “You have to get back to work.”

8. Pulling Out

It took effort to pull my head out from the book. The pages smelled like ink and sex and I could swear I heard people screaming in French inside. Before I left, Randall pulled a particular book off of the shelf and handed it to me.

“Here take this,” Randall said as he reached out towards me.

I was hesitant. What if I lost the book or it ran away?

“Don’t worry I have so many books in storage that one less book will not even make a dent. I would rather you have it than it spend its days in darkness. When you are done come back and I will give you another,” he said pouring himself another glass of wine.

My hands felt like jelly. It was like touching God or breasts- something I had always thought I would never see. I did not know how to read literature and when I told Randall this he said “no worries, I did not either my first time. Just keep your head in between the pages. The book will teach you how.”

I read the hard cover. On The Road, by someone by the name of Jack Kerouac.

“It is a book that forever changed my life,” Randall said.

The book felt like it had blood running through it. I stuck it deep down into my bag, just to make certain that it would not leave a trail. I promised Randall that I would read it. Try at least. He showed me to the door and I remember not wanting to leave.

“The park where you met me today is good place to read,” Randall said. “No one would suspect that somebody would be reading a book there.”

I promised that I would return when I was done with the book. When I thanked him for the wine and book, my nervous words barely made it past my teeth. Randall smiled and opened the door for me. With a smile he said, “the pleasure is all mine Gio…it gets lonely being the last reader on earth.”

Midnight Shower Man

I like to take showers around midnight. The feeling of being naked and free before sleep calms my mind.  There is a sense of tranquility that is communicated to me through the act of taking a hot shower. I have often thought of showering around midnight as a kind relaxing prayer- a ritual that encourages the transmigration of my soul. It is a time to reflect upon all that has gone on during the course of the day and all I can do differently tomorrow. Every person must have a sanctuary that makes him or her feel like an actor on a stage- the shower happens to be mine.

However wonderful and enlightened all of this may sound to you- I can not claim that it is the real reason why I like to take showers around midnight. Instead, I like to shower at this hour simply because of one simple and routine object, a window. The window is a small square domestic window that sits about head level with me when I take a shower. However, this window is not any ordinary window to me. Instead, the window is my curtain and the shower is my stage. During the day I have to shower with the window closed because it looks out onto a busy street filled with pedestrians and noise. It is only at around midnight when the audience quiets down that I can open my curtain and be exposed to the world.

The street outside my bathroom window is a typical suburban street. Clean sidewalks, a maintained bus stop, freshly mowed lawns and a few signs that read “Please Do Not Let Your Dog Poop On This Lawn.” After midnight the street is somnolent and calm- not a sign in the air that a single person is out of bed. I like to rest my head on the window ledge and watch the tranquil world outside while the warm water rushes over me. “To be or not to be: that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take arms against a sea of troubles,” I recite out loud as I observe the stars in the sky, the colors of the various porch lights, the wind gently pushing along fallen leaves and the occasional passing car.

Yesterday, I got my big break. I was working in my front yard pulling weeds and planting when I suddenly felt a tap on my back (being unemployed has freed up a lot of time for me to do trivial domestic chores. I cannot afford to go out into the world so I entertain myself by planting flowers, sweeping the driveway, cleaning the house and watering the lawn). Standing before me was a girl in her early twenties. She wore running shorts that revealed her long legs and a tight tank top that exposed a good chunk of her breasts. She was sweating like she was in the middle of a run. On her tanned face sat a smile that made me feel slightly at ease when she asked me for my real name. For a brief moment I felt that magical feeling like I was living in a scene from a movie where an older man is out working in the fields, shirtless and lifts his sweaty and sun-baked head only to notice a beautiful young lady standing before him (on tip toes), eager to throw herself upon him. Unlike the movies- she did not throw herself upon me and I was a bit hesitant in my insecure response. I took a deep breath and said, “Why do you want to know?” She looked deep into my eyes and replied, “I am doing you a favor mister. If you do not tell me your real name everyone is going to keep on calling you the midnight shower man.”

I was shocked. No, humiliated would be more like it. I was exposed. Deep down I knew that I had gotten exactly what I wanted (a cute woman watching me while I performed), but I was surprised by how embarrassed I felt. I made up a fake name because I was worried that this information could get back to my wife. I tried to play the you got the wrong guy routine for a while but my bluff was already called. She told me that she knew my face like the cover of her favorite book because night after night her friends and her watched me standing there in the shower staring up into the stars while talking to myself. She tried to reassure me that her and her friends all thought I was very romantic and cute……… and that she was my biggest fan.

I have no plans to stop taking my midnight showers. Nor am I going to close my window now that I know that there are eyes out there in the darkness watching me. Instead, I will give them exactly what they want- a naked man, a naked romantic man taking a shower and reciting lines from Hamlet. This may seem like no big thing to you- but being unemployed and living in a small town where I do not know a single soul, has made me yearn for an ounce of fame. Even though I know the academy will never acknowledge this role- I am determined to play it out the best I can. Now when I shower I am sure to look good. I comb my hair and sometimes do pushups before, in order to make my muscles look more defined. I am aware of the angle that I use when resting my head on the window ledge so that I will look just right under the moonlight. Now, somewhere out there in the darkness I have an audience to whom I must perform. It is not the biggest role that a man can play, this is for sure- but I am a man who is broke and out of work and “Midnight Shower Man” at least has a few adoring fans. This is good enough for me.

Island Fever

1.

There is a small lake not too far from where I used to live. I often went to this lake, sat upon a bench beside the waterline and watched the afternoons float by. I would read from the collected works of Thoreau or observe the landscape, which was filled with birds, dogs, joggers, cyclists, strollers and lovers. My sitting became a kind of meditation, where I was able to distance myself from the bothersome thoughts that chronically invaded my mind through out the day. Over time, I became an ornament upon that bench. I spent every afternoon there. My present life was stuck in a quagmire, my future life uncertain and the only thing that made any sense to me was sitting on that bench and watching the world unfold.

One afternoon, for some unknown reason, I began to pay more attention to an island that sat in the middle of the lake. It was almost as if, on that particular day, the island had suddenly decided to float right before my eyes. I had never noticed the island before and still swear that it was not there before that afternoon. However, I have always been a man who is open to the miraculous possibilities in life, so I immediately started to observe the trees and tall grasses that grew all along the island shore. I watched the ducks and geese happily congregate on the summit of a small dirt hill. The island was the size of a tennis court or a lap pool and it was covered in blooming lilies and flowering wisteria trees that I assumed someone had planted there. Why I suddenly became preoccupied with this island I will never know and where the idea came from that it was upon that island that I needed to be- I do not pretend to  understand.

After much examination I concluded that it would not be difficult to make it over to the island shore. The only life swimming around in the small lake was a family of brown ducks and a dozen or so geese that stuck together like a tightly knit team. From what I could see, there were no large fish or predatorial creatures living deep within. The water appeared to be knee deep and maintained a continuous dynamic spirality in the way that is flowed. The only risk was communicated to me through rusting signs (that I had never noticed before) that read “SWIMMING IN THE LAKE IS FORBIDDEN TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND PUNISHABLE BY FINE.” For the past few months I had been spending so much time alone and isolated from the world that I no longer felt like the title “GENERAL PUBLIC” applied to me. I was different and estranged. I existed in some sort of foggy limbo in between “GENERAL” and “PUBLIC” that was hard to define. With an unquenchable desire to make it to those solitary island shores, one sunny September afternoon I put on my bathing suit, ignored the warnings and decided to wade my way across the lake.

The ducks did not mind my presence in the water. Neither did the wind, the sky, the muddy lake floor, the algae or the afternoon sun. I felt like a long lost member of the natural world who was gracefully being allowed to pass on through. At a certain point the water became so deep that I had to breaststroke my way across. Once I made it to land I suddenly felt like a man who had just been set free. There was an impulse in me to shout out loud- but I controlled my celebratory whim. I had finally left behind the mechanical, political, business, Disney world that I felt so detached from. I was now on another shore, where steel and concrete did not exist and the industrial revolution was yet to hit. The few geese that were perched up on the dirt hill quickly flew away as soon as they saw a human being. I smiled into the afternoon sky and thought about how I was now free to indulge in the primordial grandeur of the universe that was all around me.

I found a soft spot on top of the dirt hill upon which to sit. Nestled in between tall grasses, weeds and blooming lilies- I sat stoically composed in the lotus position. In that same spot I passed magical afternoon, upon magical afternoon in nothing but a bathing suit. I left the island only after the sun had set and the water had begun to grow cold. My wife was curious about what I was doing all day. My skin had become tanned and my hair bleached by the sun, but I kept my adventures all to myself and told her I was out looking for a job. Upon my boat made out of earth that was drifting through time- I watched the birds fly, the ducks quack, the flowers unfurl, the trees shimmer, the turbulent structure of clouds, and the sun slowly set. I felt the joy of a man who was living in the moment- navigating his way through distant seas far away from the declining human world. Day upon day I experienced feelings that gave my life a meaning and purpose that previously was not there. I was no longer looking at nature. Now I was finally living with her. The song of crickets, the fissures around the tree bark, the fossilized rocks, the inherent patterns in the plants all became apart of me.

2.

Summer came to an end and it was time for me to expend more energy in my search for a job. My savings was not immune to the ravages of time and I had worldly responsibilities that needed to be attended to- but I still found the time to sneak away to the lake. When no one was looking I would strip down into my bathing suit and breaststroke my way through the frigid water. Once on the island I would perch my shivering body upon the small hill of dirt that seemed to me to be frozen in time. I watched the last wrinkles of summer unfurl, break apart and get ironed out into the slumber of fall. I watched as the fall turned into ice-cold raindrops that left imprints in the sand. Everything on the island was influenced by the wind, rain and cold and as I sat there, still and silent upon my hump- I studied the ducks wading in the water and the many formations and patterns that were composed as the seasons changed. It was as if each event in the natural world was a poem, a painting, a drama and a celebration that was helping me to see something that was buried very deep down in my soul.

3.

In the depths of winter my island of sanity grew a bit confused. I was no longer experiencing the same peace and purpose that I had felt for so many months before. I noticed that as I interacted with the natural world I was growing impatient with what I saw. My frustration turned into accusations and before I knew it I was yelling at the ducks, messing up the natural patterns that I observed in the dirt and making fun of the annoying geese that seemed to me to be suffering from indecision. When I would be sitting in my office searching for a job I felt resistance when it was time to return to the island. Like a man who is putting off going for a run- I would often skip days. When I pushed myself to make it to the island I would be perched upon the dirt hill as restless as someone who had been contained for too long. I felt like a castaway miles from the shore. My attention would not remain focused on the things I saw or the sounds and smells that at one time were such a delight for me. Instead, I was upset by this nagging feeling that there was some place else that I was supposed to be, that there was this big world out there that I was not getting to see. Little did I know then that I was suffering from what psychologists often refer to as island fever. As the seasonal cycle ran its full course and summer returned, I realized that I was no longer comfortable hiding out, far away, on another shore.

It is ironic to me that on the day I decided would be my final day on the island- I was discovered by a park ranger. He was walking by as I was taking one final walk around the island shore. I was saying goodbye and trying to inscribe various patterns and plants that I had come to love into my memory bank. Upon hearing his yell I bent over and tried to hide behind a bush- but it was too late. “Hey you! What the hell are you doing over there?” I looked up and said “who me?” as if he was talking to someone else that could have been hanging out on that uninhabited island. Since I had already planned upon leaving for good that day I felt no need to put up a fight when he demanded “you are in violation of the law and need to get over here now!” I knew that it was my time, time to return for good to the human world of rules, recessions, battles, mechanization, injustice, toxicity and regulations- for good. However, now I was returning to the world with the knowledge that it was time for me to take responsibility for not only my life but also the life of everything else around me- even the park ranger.  I knew that somehow I was a part of the whole and not just an isolated part. I knew then that I would end up radically changing my life as a result of the impressions and realizations that island life had given me- but at that moment in time how I was going to do so was a mystery. With this deep insight in the front of my mind- I smiled, waved at the park ranger, put my foot into the lukewarm water and began swimming back to shore.

Ants In My Pants

1.

Outside my home, life is passing by. There are students on bikes with heavy backpacks filled with books. There are buses filled with pedestrians and cars filed with five-day-work-week commuters. Trucks, vans, government vehicles are all making their way through the intersection of life, that sits just outside my door. Inside my home, there are ants. Billions of ants that cannot be defeated no matter how hard I try. There are ants in the cupboard board, ants in the stove, ants in the bathtub, ants in the couch, ants in the bed and ants in my pants.

I have always been adamantly averse to killing any living thing. I preached to others the virtues of sparing a life- even if it was only a moth, mosquito, fly or spider. I have often heard myself compared to the Jains, who are members of an ancient Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence for all forms of living beings in this world. Whether you want to call it your karma or your luck I believed that if you took another living creatures life it would eventually reflect back upon your life in a negative way. Besides, I felt better when I let a fly, spider, mosquito or moth go free. I had the power to take its life but instead I made a more noble choice to let it be. Somehow this made me feel like I would be rewarded by the Gods who would appreciate me for all the lives that I had saved. Instead, what I have received for my virtuous acts is a home infested with little black ants.

I have been killing ants with the fervor of a Nazi. I have become convinced that all ants must die because they are polluting the sanctity of my home.  Not only is it unhygienic to live in a home with billions of black ants but it is also one of the most frustrating annoyances to constantly find then running across your arms and legs, through your hair and sometimes into your eyes and mouth. I find ants in my food and between my toes. They have made their way into my books, into my pillows and onto my toothbrushes- they are polluting my entire life, so I had no choice but to induce a full-blown fight.

I spend hours a day waging war against these annoying creatures. The ones that I can see with my naked eye are only a half of the entire gang that is infesting my home. They lodge in the ceiling and underneath the house- but it is my hope that by killing all the ants that I can see I will send a loud message to the other ants that are below ground and in the roof of my house that I am not fucking around.  I have spent over a hundred dollars on non-toxic ant spray, which I use excessively. I spray it like a hose, all through out the day, wherever I see ants congregating together. I whack them with brooms, flood them out with water, wipe them up with wet rags and have even thrown burning paper on a few. I like to watch them suffer, and when I am done with what can only be compared to waging genocide- I like to walk around and look at the piles and piles of dead ants. I know that this is a war that cannot be won- but at least I can do my part to get some sweet revenge.

2.

This morning I had a job interview. I put on one of my favorite suits and made sure that I looked just right. I shaved, put gel in my hair (something I never do) and I must say that when I looked in the mirror I did not look like a man that was living with billions of ants. I looked affluent, in an educated kind of way. I looked like I had a bank account filled with money and expensive food in my tummy. Instead I was going to a low level interview as a copy editor for a company that I had never heard of. I probably did not need to get as dressed up as I was, but since my bank account is empty- I was desperate to make a good impression. I met with a group of corporate looking people who call themselves “the board.” They put me in a single chair in front of their elongated table, behind which they all sat staring at me. They asked me a series of ridiculous questions like “why do I feel like I am the best candidate for the job?” and “what about my editing abilities makes me an effective copy editor?” I certainly did not reveal to them that I am dyslexic and have a terrible time spelling correctly but I did talk at length about my love for reading and my years of experience working as a writer and a high school English teacher.

Everything was going well until what felt like small, brief pinching sensations in my crouch began making me feel very uncomfortable. I had been noticing all morning that I was itching myself more than normal but I just assumed that was because of the starched suit I was wearing. I crossed and uncrossed my legs trying to nullify the slight pain that was starting to make its way down my legs. While I tried to maintain my composure and talk about why I thought I was the best candidate for the job- the pinching sensation intensified. It felt like I was being bitten in the strangest way. The sensation proceeded to very slowly move all the way down to the bottom of my legs and when I looked down at my shoes I could not believe what I saw, ants! My heart raced, I twitched, scratched and began to sweat. I cannot imagine what “the board” must of thought of me- but I tried to appear as confident as I could. I am hoping that they assumed that it was nervousness that caused me to twist and turn in such strange ways.

When the interview had ended, I shook all their hands and walked as quickly as I could to the bathroom, where I proceeded to take off my pants, shirt, socks, tie and shoes. I stripped down into my underwear in a bathroom stall and with tissues I wiped off the dozens of ants that were on my pants, legs, and socks and inside my shoes. I cursed the little creatures to hell before I squashed them and I even shed a few tears out of frustration rather than sorrow. “Why me?” I muttered to myself, but abstained from saying it out loud. When the bathroom was vacant I went out to use the sink and ran soapy water all over my legs, feet and chest. After what felt like hours of sanitation- I got dressed and returned home. In my car I still felt itchy all over my legs, which I prayed not to be more ants. I looked down on the floor of my car and found dozens of ants there to.

It was at this point that I decided I had lost. I threw my hands up in the air and declared “surrender” out loud. The war could not be won. The more ants that I killed the more that they multiplied. Karma had fucked me and there was nothing that could be done. I had to drive home resigned to the fact that there were ants crawling all over my legs and there was nothing I could do about it. The sensation drove me mad but all I could do was drive and breathe. For months I have been trying to avoid calling an extermination company into my home but I have decided that it is the only thing that can be done to bring my wife and I some relief. When I arrived home I took off my suit and stripped down into the nude. I noticed dozens of ants crawling around on my legs and between my toes, on the bedroom floor and when I got into the shower there were more. Under the hot water I washed away whatever sins and ants were left upon my burning body. I rinsed myself down with patchouli soap and watched the ants helplessly get funneled down the drain. The phone rang and I did not care. I heard the message on my answering machine, which was turned up much to loud. “Hello, this is Wendy from the board whom you just interviewed with. Someone found socks and a tie in our bathroom and I am almost certain that they belong to you. If these are indeed yours could you please contact me as soon as possible, I will hold them for you just in case. Thank you.”

Experienced Nanny For Hire

I have been running out of money. The way I spend it does not allow much time for money to stick around. I have been trying to be frugal- eating meals at home, quit drinking booze to save money, going to a library to get my books rather than a bookstore and riding my bike or walking so as not to spend money on gas. But still my money dissipates. I have no incoming source of money and this is what makes me nervous. Every time I write a check or swipe my debit card I know that I am chipping away from a rare marble that cannot be replaced. One day soon, there will be nothing left. The anxiety of this situation hospitalized me with ulceration in my intestine a week ago. The pain was almost as immense as having very little money. When I was released the Doctor told me that I had many issues that needed to be worked out, one of them being that I had to find a job.

The stress of being unemployed can drive a man like me to do crazy things. The stress can paralyze me and cause me to spend an entire day lounging around in a hammock or walking the suburban streets in a daze. The stress can also do the opposite and cause me to apply for a job as a Nanny. I have figured that I have one more month, give or take, until I run flat out of cash. How I am going to come across more money is a mystery to me. I have been known to run to the end of a rainbow just to make sure that there is not a pot of gold sitting there. I have also been known to apply for strange and demeaning jobs that most people think someone like me is much to educated and accomplished to get. Desperation is a motivating force that can drive a person to do things that they never saw themselves fit to do. When I saw the add in the paper for the “Experienced Nanny For Hire”- how could I resist?

In the town where I live there is not much paying work and most people have to commute for an hour plus a day to get to work. Since this commute is not something I am willing to do I jumped when I saw that this job was only a few miles down the street from where I live.  Immediately I wrote the lady an email telling her that not only did I live close by but also I had many years of Mannying experience. I received an email back later that day telling me that she was looking for a Nanny. When I told her that indeed I was the equivalent to a Nanny, our email exchange became quite strange.  I explained to her that the male version of a Nanny was a Manny but she claimed to never have heard of this before. She became suspicious of my intentions and wanted to know of my experience working as a “Manny.” Since I was making the entire thing up and was merely just trying to earn a couple of bucks, I used my creative abilities and made up an entire list of families that I had “Mannied” for in the past. She wanted references as well- so I made a few letters of recommendation and after I sent them to her she invited me over for an interview.

The job paid $1,600 a month for thirty hours a week of work. Even though a year ago today I was making $4, 800 a month- I figured that this was a good enough place to start. Any amount of change would help in a time of personal economic recession. I tried to remain positive and think about spending my days free from a boss, alone with the kids watching television and reading my books. I put on my best clothes and rode my bike to her house but because it is so hot where I live by the time I arrived I was dripping with sweat. The sweat marks under my arms and on the front of my shirt were not the best way to make a first impression. When she opened her front door she looked at me up and down a few times, passed judgment and then invited me in. Her first words to me were “it’s hot out, how about lemonade?” and then showed me into the kitchen. The home was a normal suburban style one story flat with sunflowers in the garden, van Gogh prints on the wall and IKEA furniture in every room. The children she told me were asleep but we could talk in the den. I told her about my experiences working as a public high school teacher and why I was currently unemployed. She asked me if I was willing to clean up shit, and all I could say was “no problem lady.” “Nannying, or Mannying is not easy work, even though you might think it would be. My children are animals when I am not at home,” she told me and I just smiled and said that was fine.

By the time the interview was done I was in a pool of sweat. I do not know if it was my nerves, the heat, my desperation for cash or all of the above. I put on the best act that I could and when she asked me for phone numbers of families that I had worked for before I gave them to her with a smile on my face. Of course all of the numbers are phone numbers that lead to myself my wife or my sister (all of them are in on helping me find a job and are willing to lie for me when she called). She told me that she had a few more people to interview and as I was riding my bike home I was certain that I would never get the Mannying job. The irony of our existence is that things never work out as we had planned, which makes life nothing but one big surprise. If you would of told me when I was in graduate school that ten years down the road I would be applying for a job as a Manny, I would of told you that was impossible. A week went by and she did not call my wife, my sister or myself. I began to think that my opportunity to work as a Manny was over. My self-esteem diminished but this morning I received a call. She asked me when I would be willing to start and I said that I would be over bright and early in the morning.

My Topless Angel

I was sitting at my desk when I first saw her. For a brief second I did not think it was true, but the closer I stared the more I wanted to believe that this could not be a figment of my imagination. She was riding on a pink cruiser, wearing an American flag bikini, a pink skateboard helmet and talking on a cell phone. I stood up from my desk and followed her with my eyes as much as I could through the window that sits just above my desk. I ran outside to see if I could not see more of her, but the moment that I made it to the street she was gone as quickly as she had appeared. My afternoon of typing up banal resumes and looking for jobs on the internet was suddenly stimulated to life by a brief sighting of a beautiful blond- what more could I have asked for? She could not of been a day over thirty, her hair caressed the air like paper floating through the wind and her body was sculpted like a fine work of art. I had difficulty returning to my desk that afternoon because I wanted to see more. My heart rate was speeded up and suddenly I felt a sexual feeling that I had gone so long without. When I finally returned to my desk to resume my dreary task of looking for work- I was almost depressed by the thought that my little bikini beauty queen was forever gone. Little did I know then that I would see her many times again.

The second sighting happened at my desk a few days later. I had almost forgotten about her because my brain had become so preoccupied by a need to earn cash. I had been without a job for over a month and my bank account was thinning out. The days filled with tormenting fights with my parents, wife and sister triggered by their questions and concerns about what I was going to do with my life, had left me tired and worn out. Sex was the furthest thing from my mind. It was a hot July afternoon and as I resentfully worked at my desk I just happened to lift my head and look through the window at the right time. She turned the corner on her pink cruiser, dressed in the same American flag bikini, wearing the same skateboard helmet, talking on the same cell phone with her blond her floating behind her like ripples in the sea. I suddenly felt myself become sexually stimulated as I noticed the definition in her tanned legs and the grace with which she peddled her bike. She appeared to be a young woman in perfect physical condition and the sight of her presence made me come alive. I again jumped up from my desk and ran outside with the hope that I would be able to see her one more time, but the moment that I got to my front doorstep she was already gone.

I could not believe that I was witnessing a phenomena that an older man like me could never even imagine in his craziest dreams. A young woman riding her bike around town in an American flag bikini? I had all but given up on extraordinary things such as this ever happening to me. My life had become a series of predictable events and the wonder and awe that fills a person  in their youth was all but gone from me. Now, I was constantly coming alive- looking forward to sitting down at my desk and looking for jobs. The only problem was that I spent little time on my computer looking for work and more time staring out my window. Days would pass and I would watch the world go by. My wife would become frustrated that I was not taking caring of myself. She wanted me to get up and go outside but I was more content sitting at my desk, waiting for what I had come to believe was my angel riding by.

After a few days of waiting without any luck, I had begun to lose hope. I had told no one about the girl and was beginning to think that possibly she was just a figment of my imagination. I am known for being a person who often confuses his dreams for reality and I was beginning to think that maybe this was true. My life had not been very fulfilling at that time and maybe I was manifesting the sexual stimulation that I was repressing deep within.  Then I saw her again, but this time something was different. It was late one night while I was working at my computer. Everything around was quiet since most people in my community were sound asleep. I heard the sound of shifting bike gears and I looked up and could not believe what I saw. Shimmering under the full moon light, my angel rode her pink cruiser- topless as the day she was born. Everything else was the same- the bike helmet, the long blond hair, the American flag bikini bottom and talking on a cell phone. Her breasts were like finely rounded water balloons sitting upon her chest. They jiggled lightly, slightly drooping as she rode. I could not see her nipples because of the darkness of night but the silhouette of her near perfect breasts were all I needed to see. She rode freely and without shame as if riding bare breasted late at night was not an unusual thing. My heart began to flutter in my chest as I realized that I suddenly felt just like I did the first time I fell in love.

The next day my mind was filled with an abundance of questions. “What is she thinking riding topless at night?” “Am I the only one that sees her on her bike?” “Is she real or just a figment of my imagination?” “Am I acting like an obsessive pervert?” “Would she ever return again?” Questions like these and more went on an on in my head all through out the day. I looked forward to the coming night where I hoped I would see her again. I just could not get over the fact that I had witnessed something so unbelievable that not even I could make up. I desperately wanted to see her again not only so that I could enjoy the sexual stimulation that comes with seeing a topless woman on a bike but also so that I could prove to myself that she was real. That afternoon I waited at my desk so as not to miss the possibility that she might ride by. I sent out a few emails, listened to classical music- but did nothing else but stare out my widow. Cars passed by making their way to their inevitable end. People of all ages rode past on their bikes enjoying the brief feeling of being free. Garbage men, lumber trucks, police cars and mini vans all came and went as I watched the monotonous cycle of daily life drive by my window. Not once, however, did I get to see my angel on a bike.

That evening I stayed up late. I sat on my front porch and waited. I was determined to see her topless once again, but by three in the morning I was to tired to stay awake. I repeated this cycle for many more days. Sat at my desk and watched the futile human world go by and spent my evenings up until three or four in the morning waiting for my topless angel to appear. She never came, and I noticed that I became a bit more depressed in her absence. I was questioning my sanity and wondering if any of what I had seen was real.

Then I began to dream about her during the night. It was always the same dream in which she would round the corner, topless and on her pink cruiser. She would catch me staring at her from my desk. Immediately she would stop her bike, take off her pink skateboard helmet and tuck the cell phone that she was talking on into the side of her American flag bikini bottom. She would stand there for a moment with her hair blowing in the wind and the moon shinning down upon her bare breasts. It was as if she was giving me permission to stare, which I did. She would move her body in various postures as if she was modeling just for me and in a state of bliss I watched for what felt like hours. She then put back on her helmet, blew me a kiss (which I could feel land on my face) and then got back on her bike and slowly rode away. I would panic because I did not want her to go. I would run out my front door desperate to see her some more. Sweat would be dripping from my face and it was at this point that I would always awake.

It has been over a week since I have seen or dreamed about my topless angel riding on her bike. I look for her day and night but she never comes. My dreams have returned to their boring state in which I am always projecting a fear and turning it into a ridiculous story. I have started to work again at my desk without bothering to look out my window. I have a job to find and despite the sexual fantasies that might await me outside, I need to get to work. Even though my life has started to get back to normal there has been one significant change that I have noticed. I have been filled with the youthful wonder and awe that I thought I had lost. When I go for walks or take a bike ride I am overwhelmed by all the beauty around me. I can perceive all the mysteries of life as they unfold and I rejoice in the fact that at any moment something completely unpredictable can occur. No longer am I stuck thinking that reality is always the same drudgery, day upon day- but now I seem to be watching the world continuously change. I feel freer than I once did, no longer bound in by the shackles of routine. Every moment is fresh- a new opportunity to be present in my life. Even if my topless angel was only a figment of my imagination- I cannot deny that something has shifted in me. I am no longer the same man that I was before I saw her. Every night before I fall asleep, I visualize my topless angel in my head. I try to see her clearly, in all her beauty. My hope is that after I am long asleep and all my troubles have faded away- I will get one more chance to watch her ride by.

The Magnetic Mattress

For months now various appendages of my body have been acting out. My nipple will twitch, my hands shake, my feet ache, my ears go cold and my legs will often tighten up in knots. All of my life I have lived with various physical ailments from respiratory difficulties to panic disorder. Various physicians and psychologists have categorized me as hypochondriacal. “It is all in your head,” they continually tell me but I have always known something that they don’t. It’s in my body. These symptoms that I manifest are no doubt the result of ways that I think, but growing up in a family where tension, anger and animosity were daily emotional experiences is the without a doubt the root cause of my disease. Up until recently my symptoms have been mostly psychosomatic, but now these strange twitches, spasms and shakes have constituted a new level of physical dis-ease for me.

I visit an acupuncturist (when I can afford to do so) who recommended that I get a magnetic mattress. She told me that the magnets would be beneficial in balancing out my body’s messed up energy, regenerating healthy cell growth and improving my circulation. Since I have nothing to loose at this point- I decided to give the mattress a try. My nipple has gotten to the point where it will twitch twenty-four hours a day. Recently while at a job interview it would not stop twitching and it caused me to break out in a cold sweat (and not get the job). I am told that if I sleep on the magnetic mattress my symptoms will not only improve but also possibly diminish altogether. The only problem is that I have to sleep on the floor.

After four years of sleeping together, my wife and I have become accustomed to the marital bed. Even though on many nights we fight and go to sleep on opposite corners of the bed- normally we like to snuggle ourselves to sleep. I curl my long lanky arms around her waist and cup one of her breasts in the palm of my hand. Normally I have difficulties sleeping but when I have my body pressed up close to hers, feeling like I am holding on to something tangible and concrete allows me to completely let go. In the mornings my arms are often still draped around her waist and I feel as if I have received a good nights sleep. Now that I have been using the mattress pad there has been little snuggling for us. My wife is mad that we are sleeping apart. She feels as if I have chosen the magnetic mattress over her, but as my symptoms subside she is realizing that maybe this is not the case.

It has been difficult for my wife to be married to a man that suffers from so many odd maladies. She often does not understand what is going on with me (a luxury of the healthy). I put the magnetic mattress down on the floor on my side of the bed, which keeps us far apart at night. Before trying to get to sleep I say goodnight only to be met with what sounds like a “good night” filled with frustration and pain. I trust that as my twitching nipple, spasming legs, shaking hands and cold ears return to some semblance of normalcy, my wife will understand more why I sleep on the floor.

I do not expect that magnetic mattress to save my life. Nor do I expect it to save my marriage, find me a job and help me to get a novel written and published. What I would like is for the magnetic mattress to give me a small amount of inner peace. I spend more hours of my waking day worrying about my various symptoms than I do thinking about anything else. I have had to increase the amount of alcohol that I drink just to deal with the turmoil created by negative thoughts. Not only am I at a point in my life where I need to be vigorous and strong but also my symptoms are putting into jeopardy everything that I find satisfying about being me. After a few weeks of sleeping on the magnetic mattress I have noticed certain symptoms start to abate- but a new problem has developed. I have developed a magnetic charge.

My acupuncturist warned me that a magnetic charge could occur. It is nothing to be to worried about but there is some cause for concern. If I am around any metallic object I will feel a certain magnetic pull. The pull is slight but a enough to cause me some discomfort. Whenever I am around loose change, cars, cell phones, computers or any other metallic object I feel what only can be compared to as a loss of gravity. My body absorbs a hot pressure that causes me to break out into a minor sweat and my feet feel as if they are being lifted off the floor. The hair on my arms and head stands up and lately I have noticed that my skin will turn bright red. It is difficult for me to do simple things like drive a car, use a computer, cook and open the refrigerator because not only will my fingers stick but the magnetic pull can cause me to drool (even as I write this it feels as if I am typing with weights on my fingers and I am drooling all over my shirt and desk). This is embarrassing and has not done much for my sexual appeal, but I have contacted my acupuncturist who tells me that as soon as my body habituates itself to the magnetic charge of the mattress- these new symptoms will abate. “Remain patient,” she says “and everything will get better in the end.” I believe her and continue to go about my life just as I normally would, despite my magnetic charge.

My plan is to purchase a queen sized magnetic mattress for the entire bed. They cost over a thousand dollars and at the moment I do not have the money to spend.  My hope is that in a few months, after I have benefited from the magnetic mattress, my wife will be willing to invest a good hunk of change. Since she makes more money than I it is not unusual that I have to ask her for financial help. Even though it is a source of contention between us- I assure her that one-day my economic situation may get better. For now I have been filling her mind with research on the magnetic mattress and assuring her that not only will it improve her quality of sleep but it will improve the cellular integrity of my sperm thus leading to a better chance of making babies. When I tell her that not only will our snuggles improve but so will our financial, social and sex life…she just looks at me with apprehension and says, “how the hell can a magnetic mattress do all of this?” “Look at me, I’m living proof!”I say trying to convince her, but she just shakes her head and walks away.

Fantasies Door

“Now, I’m very vulnerable to female beauty, as you know. Everybody’s defenseless against something, and that’s it for me. I see it and it blinds me to everything else.”
-Philip Roth from “The Dying Animal”

Last night I crossed the border. For weeks I have been living in a kind of small town celibacy. Since I moved here a month ago my normal sexual practices have been interrupted. Not that my sexual practices are anything unusual, but placed besides that of any ordinary man I would say that they may be surprising at best. You see, most men’s sexuality is a carnivorous kingdom of repressed fantasies and perversions. My sexuality is no different than any male friend I may have- the difference between me and other men is that I no longer harbor shame about my sexual indulgences. They are with me for life so I have learned to embrace them. To my surprise, since I moved out into the country my “normal” sexuality has become tempered by heat, marital difficulties, bugs in the bed, unemployment and boredom. Sex has not been much on my mind but it has been lurking slightly below the surface like a cold that is manifesting as a small scratch between my legs.

Because I live in a college town I cannot help but notice the scantily dressed young women everywhere. Even though I try not to stare at the abundance of legs (which have become a recent pre-occupation of mine), breasts and butts- these appendages of female anatomy are like a sweet potion that offers me the possibility of banishing everything that is plaguing me. What were a few weeks of abstinence from sexual feeling has slowly evolved into a slight sexual itch. I have caught myself staring at the behinds of women, searching for their underwear underneath. I have even found that I spend more time focusing on the breast flesh born from a tight tank top than maybe I should. All this hide and seek that I seem to be playing with my eyes has inflamed in me what can only be described as a lustful desire for female flesh. Even though I try to keep this repressed, to keep my attention focused on the books that I read, or the more important responsibilities in my life- it seems as if the female figure is stronger than my urge to resist.

I live not far from Nevada. One hundred and sixty miles at most. For the past week I have been visualizing the legalized sexual carnivals that are housed on the other side of the border. Last night I had a few drinks and a fury filled fight with my wife, so I decided to go. I had to drive my car through the mountainous regions of the Sierra Nevada’s and weather the torrential winds that threatened to tilt my car. A man who is consumed with sexual desire can make it across the most tempestuous of seas and skies and I was not about to let any heavy winds ruin my flight. I knew the promise that Nevada was filled with and I would not stop until I made it to the front door of my sexual fantasies. I was determined to see and touch a stranger’s naked flesh and the moment I crossed the Nevada border- I felt goose bumps colonizing my arms and neck.

I have been to brothels many times in the past (many years ago I was commissioned to write an essay on the brothels of Nevada for The New Yorker Magazine). I knew exactly where I was headed, Fantasies Door in Carson City, and along the way I decided to stop off and play the slot machine. It was early yet, and I still needed more to drink.  I stopped at the Coral Casino and found myself a comfortable corner to play in. I sat at a particular slot machine that I felt looked lucky and might be willing to pay me a moderate amount of change. I took advantage of the free drinks that were being offered me and began what would become an expensive rendezvous with a single slot machine.

Even though men are dominated by their sexual desires, they are even more dominated by money. I do not know what is more powerful- a naked woman or the opportunity to make a lot of cash. Some how a long my way I got lost. What was initially an impulsive journey into the arms of a naked whore had become an obsessive and inseparable night spent with a slot machine. In a heated frenzy stirred up by the desire to get back the money I had lost I had completely forgotten about my lustful desire for female flesh. I was drinking too much and I was overly committed to not leaving the casino with less money than I had come in with. Life has been difficult since I have been unemployed and the idea of earning a little extra cash made me naive enough to think that the more I put into the machine the better chances I had of getting money back. Cocktail waitresses kept me entertained (one even allowed me to rub my hand up and down her nylon covered leg) as I managed to loose all the cash that I had come in there with. Fortunately I was wise enough to leave my ATM in the car- but giving the slot machine $500 of my hard earned cash was not easy to walk away from.

It was after midnight when I decided to leave. The feeling of deep regret and indignation had wiped away my buzz and all I could feel was the acrimonious distillation of vodka and beer in my gut. For a moment I considered continuing on to Fantasies Door- but the idea of spending more money made me sick. I vomited a few times and wanted to hang myself on the closest telephone line but my desire to live and flourish was stronger than my compulsion to throw my life away. I got back in my car and decided to make the long journey back across the border to a home that was filled with troubles and disdain. My wife and I have a difficult time getting a long and when I go out and play and come home broke and in a depressive funk it only spreads our troubles out into another day.

Today, I cannot help but think that my actions last night were a mistake. I acted on a whim and threw myself into the winds of chance. I went where my desires lead me and ended up on the wrong side of chance. It was as if my penis was tied in a rope that was pulling me towards Nevada. Not only did I loose a few weeks worth of food, book and beer money but I also lost my feeling of integrity (what is a man without his integrity?). I was feeling good the past month keeping my sexual impulses under control. I felt more in charge of my will power and not as subjected to the fantasies fueled by females that have had so much power over me for so much of my life. I was slowly entering into a small town lifestyle of calm resignation that was beginning to signal for me the possibilities of suburban bliss. Girls could no longer nag at me, or so I liked to think, despite my wondering eye (and passion for bare legs). But my fight last night blew the roof off my self-control and left me spiraling out of control towards the object of my lust. Today I have spent a lot of time sitting in my hammock and staring at the sky. Even though I know that what is done is done and lamenting over the past will not undue what went wrong, I still can not help but think about what could of happened if I only made it to Fantasies Door.

The Wrong Way Brain

5.

I am always going the wrong way. Whether it is on a road, while walking in the city or within certain choices that I make for my own life- I seem to be moving in the wrong direction. I do not know if this is because of an inherent biological disorder, overprotective parents and/or the result of years of lust, drinking and smoking weed. Whatever the case may be- I cannot seem to find the right way. Yesterday while driving in my car, my father said to me, “Son, you are going the wrong way!” “Story of my life,” I sardonically replied. My response pissed my father off. He has been in denial of my wrong turns since the day he set me free.  “Well,” he responded with a palpable frustration, “If you know that you are going the wrong way only an idiot would not try and change directions.” “If only it was that easy,” I replied. “Well then son, maybe you just have a wrong way brain,” he replied. I let him have the last word and we were silent the rest of the way home.

4.
I have been trying to change directions for as long as I can remember. Still I seem to make wrong turns. I often find myself lost in big cities and I end up in places that I should not be. I have spent more time in strip clubs, whore houses and run down bars as a result of making wrong turns than I care to remember. I have found myself in near fatal head on collisions because of my continued inability to realize that I am traveling the wrong way down a one-way street. Recently, I have been getting lost around the neighborhood in which I live. In my attempt to find my way home I often end up further away than where I began. Last week when I found myself completely lost after having gone on an after dinner walk- I ended up in an area where there was a bat and owl nesting ground. The darkness and ominous sounds gave me an anxiety attack and because I did not have my cell phone with me I had to ask a police officer for a ride home. “What are you doing way out here?” he asked me in attempt to find out what was wrong (I was sweating and shaking). All I could say was, “I took a wrong turn somewhere along the way.”

3.
There are no classes offered to learn how to go the right way. Being able to go in the right direction is a skill that one acquires either in birth or over many years of the wrong experience. I would of thought that after thirty-eight years of going the wrong way I would have finally learned how to go the correct way. But the older I get the more complacent I seem to become- and going the wrong way is as simple as being dumb. It takes no thought, but instead it seems to be something that just happens to me. If I ride my bike, drive my car or go for a walk I am most certain to go the wrong way (this is why my wife bought me a GPS system, that I never use, for my birthday) but what bothers me most is that the choices that I make in my own personal life- always take me in the wrong directions.

2.
I have always felt most comfortable, doing the moonwalk. Even though I am sliding backwards when doing the moonwalk- somehow I feel like I am going the right way. There is something comforting about moving backwards. Recently (and not because of Michael Jackson’s death) I have been spending a lot of time around my home doing the moonwalk. In this particular time, where I have found myself unemployed, living in a new town with less than two grand to my name and debt coming out of my ears- I find the moonwalk to be comforting. It is like a meditation for me in which I feel like everything is going to work itself out. Lately, I have been known to do the moonwalk for hours at a time. I slip and slide all around my hard wood floors and take great pleasure in knowing that I am going the wrong way. I especially like to do this after I have had a few drinks. It annoys my wife when I do the moonwalk while drunk (because I knock things off the wall and sometimes I slip and fall and startle her) but I try to help her to understand that when I drink and do the moonwalk- I feel whimsical and free. I feel like everything that has gone wrong is suddenly going right.

1.
It’s not so easy to go in the right direction. After years of collisions, poor choices, mistakes and miserable situations I find it hard to believe that I will ever start taking the right way. As a child my movements where so strictly directed that once I was turned loose on my own as a young man- I had no idea which way to go. Unfortunately, I ended up in situations that did not help me find the right way- but from the times that I have spent in jail or working in a morgue, bagel shop, shoe store, restaurant, adult book store- I have learned one fundamental thing: Taking wrong turns will put an individual in a situation that they could never imagine with their logical mind. It is as if the moment you go the wrong way- you are faced with a series of events that you could of never imagined before. It makes life a bit more interesting and spontaneous to go the wrong way now and then- I just wish I could find a way to stop doing it all the damn time.

Legs

There are legs all around me. Legs on bikes, legs on feet, legs in chairs and legs in the grass. Everywhere I look- young legs, middle-aged legs and a few old aged legs. An abundance of legs. Legs in skirts, legs under dresses, legs in shorts and legs in tight pants. I have always been a legs man, a lover of legs, but this is too much. Since I moved to the country, where heat predominates most hours of the day and night, there is a twenty-four hour leg show going on and all I seem to think or dream about anymore is legs.

It is really only female legs that appeal to me, which is strange considering that I come from a long lineage of repressed homosexuals. Men’s legs fail to stimulate my sexual longings…..or any sexual feelings for that matter. Male legs are not only deeply hairy but the texture of their skin often times reminds me of sandpaper or snakeskin. Female legs, on the other hand, ignite my sexual cravings like water coming to a boil or a rocket ascending into outer space. Female legs have enough power over me to send me flying over my bicycle handle bars or tripping over my own two feet in public and at times to even rear end a few automobiles. My better judgment is arrested when I get a glimpse of these female appendages- and I am no more in control of myself than an undomesticated dog off a leash.

Tattooed legs, shaved legs, tanned legs, sculpted legs and freckled legs seem to follow me every time I step out my front door. They are on display by their owners like paintings hanging in a gallery. There is not a corner that I turn down, a park that I walk in or an establishment that I visit- that a pair of legs does not catch my attention. Even though most, if not all of these legs are hard to get legs, legs only for viewing, legs that I will never get to touch- I still receive a feeling of gratification upon beholding a pair of legs within my mind’s eyes. I stare hard enough to store the legs in my photographic memory catalogue and once home I can spend hours preoccupied in leg ruminations. In my mind I am able to visualize a veritable orgy composed of all the legs that I stored in my mental catalogue for that day. I swim with these legs, massage them, and rub them up and down my body until my incessant pleasure is interrupted by my need to eat, sleep or go to the bathroom.

I have been staying indoors more, so as not to be so preoccupied with legs. Often times my obsessive desire for the flesh can suspend the accomplishment of other goals that I may want to accomplish in my lifetime. God only knows that I have spent many years of my life preoccupied by sexual longings, when I could of spent that time productively- reading, studying to be a doctor, making money or working on my spiritual practice. Even more discouraging is the belief that I relied upon as a young man- the belief that as I grew older my sexual longings would diminish and have less control over me. Instead, I am an almost forty-year-old man just as preoccupied by legs as I was at the age of 16. The only difference is that at my age it is no longer cute to stare at legs- it is simply perverted.

Thick legs, skinny legs, short legs, long legs, round legs and square legs- I never discriminate.  All legs are welcome in my mental catalogue. Certain days, when my longing for legs is creating an overwhelming pressure in my chest, I take myself on leg tours. In town, there is a college (which, is not a far walk from my home) where there is always a feast of legs to be found. I bring binoculars, wear a sun hat, and put on my hiking boots and a backpack and head out for the day. I will walk around town and the campus for hours, staring at legs, until my own legs grow tired.

There is a certain oak tree covered knoll that I go and sit upon. The knoll is perfect because it allows me a covered spot to watch the student center without being noticed by anyone. I take out my binoculars and enjoy what feels like a major motion picture made up of nothing but legs. I watch them all and delight in the variety of legs like a committed connoisseur. I cannot say that there is a specific kind of leg that I find particularly attractive. Instead I relish in the multicultural leg environment that universities seem to be. After an afternoon spent out in the world staring at legs I return home exhausted by the amount of legs that I have lodged in my memory. I pour myself a glass of red wine, sit on my couch and spend hours alone remembering all the long legs, tanned legs, black legs, muscular legs, tattooed legs, white legs, thin legs, brown legs, small legs and every other kind of beautiful leg I admired that day.

One More Reason To Get Nothing Done.

1.
I am not an ambitious man. Under motivated is an adjective I have often heard used to describe me. I have a tendency to dream of fame and fortune but I do little to make my dreams a reality. I suffer from a particular kind of congenital laziness that seems to fill me with sloth and despair. Now do not get me wrong- I am a man who is happy to be alive. A bit addicted to my melancholy, sure (I am working on this in therapy) but I see the beauty in every moment that I am alive. Maybe this is my problem- too much attention paid to being alive and not enough motivation to get things done. If I could spend my days sitting in a chair doing nothing and have checks show up in the mail- I would choose this reality, but since this is not the case I feel the constant pressure to get things done.

Of course I do everything I can to resist this pressure. I drink beer, read novels, write short stories that no one reads, eat, ride my bike, meditate, go for walks, paint and recently I have one more reason to get nothing done. My wife hung a hammock in the back yard. It is a purple hammock made out of thick hemp string. When you rest in this hammock it embraces your body with the comfort of a womb. This hammock is a universe unto itself that makes you feel like you have everything you need. It sucks you in until you fall asleep and it will not let you go until you are forced to come out. The hammock is tied between two trees and has a constant gentle sway, induced by the wind funneling through the branches. While swaying in the hammock I am reminded of being gently rocked to sleep in the tranquility of my mothers arms. Since my wife hung the hammock a week ago it has been impossible for me to get anything done. No reading, writing, painting or looking for work. I spend my days dangling in space between two trees, swaying to and fro, dreaming and thinking- while the world seems to pass on by.

2.
I have been unemployed for two weeks. I left my job as a teacher when I lost interest. The problem with me is that I do not know what it is that I am interested in. I enjoy being drunk more than I enjoy being sober. I prefer sleep to the waking life and I almost always spend my waking days thinking about food, sleep and what it is that I have to do. This nagging drive to get things done, to be all that I can be will not leave me alone and the only defense I have is to do nothing at all. I do not know if this is an American affliction, my jewish upbringing with heavy expectations or my own inability to be present with myself. Whatever the culprit may be- it seems as if the hammock has become the only way for me to break free. I have tests to take, jobs to find, money to make and a marriage to save- but none of these things mean a thing to me when I am swinging free beneath the trees.

3.
Last night I decided to sleep in the hammock. My wife was a bit perturbed that I spend more time in the hammock than I do with her. Lately she has thrown upon me the Puritan work ethic of “a man has got to get things done, work by the sweat of his brow all the days of his life.” I brush this logic off and spend my days sleeping in the sun. “The world is on the brink of collapse and I just want to enjoy my self- free from worry. Just think how much better off the world would be if people were as unambitous as me,” I tell her.  Spending the night in the hammock seemed to represent for my wife a final turning away from our marriage and my responsibilities as a husband- but for me it just was the impulse of a man wanting to be free. I wanted to sleep in the quiet and ordered nature of my back yard, fall asleep to the flickering lights of the cosmos above- and none of this had anything to do with a desire not to be man or husband.

The night was warm and I needed no blankets. As I swayed in the serenity of the hammock I watched a sky filled with shooting stars. I imagined eternity and how insignificant I was in the larger scheme of things and for once felt no fear. My life’s ambitions seemed to fade away from me and I was able to sway back and forth between the trees and experience what it feels like to be free. Most of my days can be filled with terrible thoughts: You are almost forty years old and have no idea what you are going to do with your life, you need to write the great American novel now or never, you are getting old and you are running out of money and terrified that you can not afford the necessities of life and will never find a decent job or a publisher. Last night, for a brief moment in time I was free- I had mastered the fine art of doing nothing. Man, hammock and nature as one. I do not think I have ever slept so well.

4.
This morning I arrived back home from my walk to find the hammock gone. You can imagine my surprise and mortification- especially after spending a perfect evening in the hammock like I did the night before. There was no question in my mind that my wife had taken the hammock down. When I immediately confronted her dripping with the sweat that I accumulated from my walk, she said, “don’t even think about it.” “Don’t even think about what?” I asked with a defensive tone. Who was she to think that she was so superior that she could read my own mind? “Asking for the hammock back,” she replied while digging a hole for where she was going to plant a lavender bush. “I have hidden the hammock and will not tell you where it is until you have gotten a job.” “A job!” I said with the frustration of a man that does not feel recognized for all the work he does. I could not expect my wife to understand that doing nothing, in our modern world, was an art form that took work. I could also not expect her to understand that even though I made no money from my art and I live in a suburban neighborhood- that she was living with one of the greatest artists alive. Instead, I had to suck it up, remain humble and accept that my life had just changed when she looked me dead in the eyes and said, “that fucking hammock is just one more reason for you to get nothing done!”

Moving In With Bugs

1.
I have never lived with bugs before. At least not the kind of bugs I seem to be shacking up with now. This morning my wife opened a box and was startled to find a cockroach the size of her thumb inside. As if a surprise like this would not be enough for a delicate heart- the cockroach proceeded to spread its wings and fly away! When my wife came to me in a fit of exasperated panic and said “honey, the cockroaches fly,” all I could do was look at her and then ask my omniscient God….. “why?” Maybe it is my karma, or simply the way my deck of cards have been dealt- but flying cockroaches….common. Fifteen years ago my father and I stayed at a remote Mexican fishing village, where we spent our days fishing and drinking Pacifico beer. On the second night when both my father and I discovered flying cockroaches in our hotel room we packed our bags and left for an upscale hotel that was a moderate airplane ride away. I grew up in a family that detested bugs, did whatever they could to keep bugs astray- and now I have found myself in the nexus, sexus and plexus of a bug haven.

2.
My small home sits on a rose lined corner where a busy cross section funnels and filters cars, cyclists, skateboarders and buses like a large liver. From the outside, my home looks like a normal lower middle class home. My wife and I have done much work on the garden that surrounds our home and we have wind chimes and a sitting Buddha out front that helps give the appearance of tranquility.  However, if you dare to venture up a bit closer to our house you may get a quick glimpse of the various bug kingdoms that live within. On the doorway you may find a mass of ants or fallen moths, on the windows a slew of centipedes, in the garage an assortment of cockroaches and mice, and if you enter into our backyard you may behold the greatest spectacle of all- the bitchy black widows.

Upon renting our serene home in the country, the landlord failed to mention that we would be sharing the home with bugs. I have occasionally considered calling the landlord and cursing him to hell with regards to leaving this important detail out- but then I remember my spiritual vow of remaining loving, accepting and kind to all (this vow was not made with any particular religious denomination in mind. Instead, I made this vow simply to help myself along in my quest for inner peace). However, I must admit, that this vow has been difficult to keep considering the circumstances. Prior to moving into our home in the country I would abstain from killing bugs. I believed (and still believe) that all life is holy holy holy so I abstained from taking any form of life. Now I am a hypocrite and a murder. I cannot refrain myself from killing bugs. It is the only action that I can take in my defense. I indignantly spray ants and cockroaches until they curl up and die. I squash anything tendril legged that comes near my shoe. I swat flies and flying beetles with books or magazines and I have even managed to crush a few life threatening black widows with a large rock. And then when I am done, I am surprised to find that I have no shame. I go about my business with the satisfied feeling that I have made the world a little safer for all of us.

3.
My wife tells me that I need to make friends with nature and co-exist peacefully with all its slithering creatures. She also tells me that in the end nature will always win “so just let the poor bugs be.” What she fails to understand is that I am a man who grew up in a white walled and white-carpeted suburban mansion that had zero tolerance for the existence of any bug. My parents hired a bug specialist to keep bugs away and some of my most bleak childhood memories are of this “specialist” dressed in an orange jumpsuit taking away boxes, cages and traps filled with dead bugs. I never had to fear waking up in the middle of the night and crossing paths with a cockroach or going into my kitchen and stumbling upon a rat. When I recently admitted to my father that I moved into a place that is infested with bugs I listened to his bitter testimony of a long gone youth spent squashing cockroaches and chasing rats. It is almost as if he was saying good for you son, now you get to know what it is like to live with bugs. Maybe it will make you into more of a man. I found myself getting irritated with his passive implications and in my defense I wanted to say, it is not my fault that I have this aversion to bugs. It is because of the home that you chose to raise me in. However, since my new path to enlightenment demands that I be kind and loving towards all beings (except bugs) I listen to his stories and try hard to make him feel loved.

4.
It is difficult getting used to living with bugs. The strange sounds in the walls when I am trying to sleep, the awkward noises on my floor and window when I am trying to silently write or read, the strange antennas crawling out from my showerhead when I go to take a shower- all unnerve me. This is no easy feat for someone who already has fragile nerves. I have noticed that my consumption of alcohol has increased in order to mitigate the anxiety that comes along with sharing my home with creatures from the underworld. Last night while I was lying in bed what sounded like a tap dancer with claws frantically scratched its way around inside my walls. It would claw, tap, crawl and then stop to catch its breath before moving on. I looked at my wife and said “what the fuck is that?” but being more consumed by sleep than I (and less concerned), all she could say was “just let it be.” Even though every part of my body wanted to jolt out of bed and get the creature out of my walls- my mind just kept repeating let it be as I lye with the blanket pulled up to my chin listening to the varmint crawl. Eventually all three of us fell asleep and in the morning when I awoke it seemed as if the creature was gone.

Today the landlord has come to our home with some laborers to help take away a mass of cut wood that is littered all over our backyard.  “You pay the rent and I’ll get rid of the spiders,” he said to me with a confused smile on his face. Yesterday, my wife called him to ask what can be done about the black widows all over the backyard (who have my cat and I so scared that we refuse to venture “into the outback”). The landlord’s response was that he would get rid of the wood, branches and ivy (where he says black widows like to hide), which he thought should mitigate the amount spiders we come across. My wife and I have spent most of today in our front yard (while our landlord wages a holocaust in back) where we planted a variety of different kinds of summer flowers (all of which are known to be favorites of the deceased writer, Edger Allen Poe). I feel good planting in the sun, allowing my skin to tan as my hands get covered with the earth. There is nothing like digging in the dirt to take one’s mind away from all of the anxiety and unease that seems to come with life.  I can spend hours in the garden forgetting where I am in space and time, happy to be alive and mindful of every breath I take. And then I come inside for some water or lemonade and  suddenly I am confronted with a bug.

Being Michael Jackson

I am sitting here locked up in my small room listening to old Michael Jackson albums. I have put on my old Beat It jacket that no longer fits and “Rock With You,” plays on my old record player. I have used up an entire role of toilet paper with my tears. My feet are refusing to do a final moonwalk in the solitude of my room because they are so filled sadness (after all, Michael brought my feet to life). Michael Jackson is not a pop icon for me but rather he is like a dear old friend of mine that I never really got to know. He shaped my musical and aesthetic sensibilities in ways that not even I think I am willing to admit. He has had an effect upon the body and world in which I live in more ways than any of us can comprehend and in my current dark moment of mourning I am grieving the loss of an era. I want to get up and dance, but my body refuses to move- so I think I will just sit here and write.

As a young man I would sleep in my Michael Jackson Beat It jacket. My father nor my mother could relate to my obsession. The eighties were an era shaped by Michael Jackson and I was one of its major casualties. I suffered the weekly red neck beatings that were the result of dressing in tight black pants with white socks and penny loafers along with the Beat It jacket and my sparkling single white glove. I am not sure if I really imagined myself to be the Caucasian manifestation of Michael Jackson- but I was certainly a devotee to his cause. Everyday after school I danced in my bedroom mirror to the sounds of his music and I mastered the moonwalk so well that people at parties would pay me to do it. I grew up in the suburbs, a long way from the world of Michael Jackson- but in my small town, for a select few- I was as good as the real thing.

My Bar Mitzvah speech was dedicated to Michael Jackson. I wanted to acknowledge him in front of all my peers for the massive influence that he had upon a thirteen year old, soon to be man. I told the audience that I had never been the same young man since I saw the Thriller video. I never knew that man was capable of making such inspirational music or moving their bodies in such magical ways. Michael Jackson opened up the world of song and dance for me and I told all the ladies in the audience that even though I was only thirteen, Michael Jackson had taught me how to be comfortable in my pants. I ended my speech by saying “thank you Michael,” and it was at that point that my mother brought my Beat It jacket to the stage, which I proceeded to put on and then do a final short Michael Jackson dance off the stage. During the party that proceeded my Bar Mitzvah I danced with a Michael Jackson impersonator and did the moonwalk several times across the dance floor. Over the years I have not been able to live my Michael Jackson phase down with the multitude who where present at my Bar Mitzvah- but now as an older man, who rarely rocks the night away, I am not regretful that I was able to spend a lot of time beating it when I was young.

I have received numerous text messages from family members and friends all informing me that Michael Jackson is dead. It feels like a shock that the great majority of people are having a hard time coming to comprehend. I have resentment when most people talk about the Michael Jackson who was accused of molesting little children and dying his skin. I never chastised Michael for the things he was accused of doing but rather I always accepted him for the eccentric that he was. At parties I will occasionally acknowledge Michael in the few moves I make during a dance- and every so I often I have been known to be an aging man who likes to do the moonwalk across the kitchen floor. I can not deny the fact that Michael Jackson is a man that defined my youth. I used to dream about running away to his wonder land. Often times when walking down a side walk I could swear that I would see the pavement beneath my feet light up just like in Billy Jean. I grew up in Michael Jackson’s  shadow and now I sit in the dark, listening to old Michael Jackson records- knowing that with his death, a large part of my own youth is now….. officially gone.

“Free Packing”

I have been getting more massages lately. I prefer Asian massage simply because of the delicacy with which Asian women handle the human body. There is a softness in their touch that sends the person being massaged into a state of relaxation that I would say is akin to bliss. Massage is not for everyone. I myself was adverse to massage until the later age of thirty two. As a younger man I was always embarrassed to lie down with nothing but a towel between me and a strange masseuse. Body aches eventually drove me to overcome my insecurities and I actually found that I enjoyed being massaged, while wearing nothing but a towel. For a while, I was getting massaged once a week and eventually I became a connoisseur of various massage parlors. I settled upon a particular massage studio in Berkeley that specializes in table showers and deep tissue rubdowns. There is nothing more enjoyable than being nude on a massage table, while a stranger rubs your achy body with a warm sponge filled with the aroma of lavender soap. I frequented this massage parlor more than once a week until I discovered a new Asian massage parlor in downtown Oakland that was offering “free packing.”

I almost think it is human nature to get bored. The curse of being human is that we are always looking for the next best thing, never content with what we have. This is why I search various periodicals for new massage parlors that I have yet to find out about. I am excited by the prospects of finding something better than what I currently have. On a weekly basis I search for new massage parlors without much luck- so when I found this one massage parlor that was advertising its “Grand Opening” with “free packing”- my interest was sparked. “What the hell is free packing?” I kept thinking to myself all that night. I thought about calling the massage parlor and asking them personally, but I felt embarrassed by my lack of knowledge. You see, I need to be someone who appears to be all knowing all the time. Just the idea of being perceived as someone who does not have all the answers- sends my body into a minor panic response. I simply need to seem like I know what is going on- and this is why I had to find out what “free packing” was all by myself.

I Googled free packing/massage but nothing came up other than websites for moving companies. I went onto various massage message board websites and searched for info on “free packing.” I even left an add on Craig’s list asking anyone who knew what”free packing” is to respond to my email. I had various people reply with suggestions. Some thought that “free packing” was a new form of prostate massage, others thought that free packing could have something to do with inserting things into my rear end. One person wrote that whatever “free packing” was- it sounded like it would make it difficult for me to walk out of the massage parlor on my own. Even though these suggestions sounded feasible to me- no one new for certain what “free packing” could be. I returned to my usual massage parlor and asked my masseuse if she would be willing to give me “free packing,” but she laughed at me and told me that she had no idea what I was talking about.

Yesterday, I finally decided to find out for myself. I ripped out a copy of the massage parlor add, which offered a “Grand Opening Special Of Free Packing And One Hour Massage For Half The Price.” Since I have been doing a lot of heavy lifting and packing lately I was excited to not only get a half priced one hour massage but to have the new and unknown experience of “free packing.” The massage parlor was not far from my home and it sat on the corner of a dark and not very busy city street. Over the door hung a sign that said GRAND OPENING and in the window was a red neon sign that let potential costumers know that they were open for business. I put some cologne on under my arms since I had forgotten to apply deodorant and went into the massage parlor with the fake confidence of a man that appears to know exactly what he is doing.

A buzzer let me in through a gated door, which led me into the lobby of the massage parlor. Various Asian ladies sat scantily dressed on a red couch that sat in front of a big screen TV. They all watched me as I walked towards a man who sat behind a large mahogany desk. “You want thirty minute massage?” he yelled at me while I was still far away. I looked around at the Asian masseuses who sat staring at me from the couch and I noticed that they were all much more attractive than I had expected. “I would actually like what you advertised for your grand opening special,” I replied. “Oh… you want half off, hour massage?” the man said to me with a look of disappointment. I suppose he was hoping that I had not seen the add. “Okay we give you hour for thirty minute price, this our special recession price for you.” Just before it looked as if he was going to call over one of his girls, I said “I would also like to try the free packing.” Everything went silent for a moment and he looked at me with a glare that seemed to say, what the fuck are you talking about. He asked- “what you mean free packing?” I was confused. “What do you mean what do I mean free packing?” I said- returning the question with a statement so as to hide my not knowing. I pulled the advertisement out from my pocket and put it on his desk. “You see right there you are advertising free packing and I would like to have it,” I said with the confidence of a man who knows what he wants. I was dead serious but the man started laughing as he read the add. He said something in Vietnamese to all of the girls sitting on the couch, which then sent them into a fit of laughter. He held up the add and they laughed some more. What the hell? I thought. I had not a clue that I was the one that failed to detect one simple error- until the man looked at me with a smile, lit a cigarette and said…”sorry sir…..this is mistake….. because add supposed to say….. free parking….. which we have for you in back.”

The Hooker In A Tree

I never would of expected that I would rescue a hooker in a tree on my way home from work. I may fly or win the lottery and still believe it, but a hooker in a tree, who would of ever thought? The older I get the more I resign myself to the idea that truth really is stranger than fiction. On my way home from work I briefly stopped off at the nursery to look at plants. Lately, I have been doing as much as possible to reduce my stress levels and a friend of mine told me that looking at plants was a good way to relax. Teaching high school is a job that seems to leave me devoid of any energy after five p.m- so lately I have been trying to look at plants everyday.

As I walked back to my car with a new gardenia plant in my hand (occasionally I will buy a fragrant plant to surprise my wife with) I heard what I had initially thought was angel calling on me from above. Since I am certain that when I die, I will go to a place that is some what like heaven, I refrained from looking up because I was not yet ready for it to be my time to go. Instead, I continued forward pretending as if I did not hear the voice from above. “Stop, stop, please stop and come help me,” the voice persisted and when I finally did look up, I realized that if it was indeed an angel that was calling me- she sure looked like a hooker stuck in a tree.

She was wearing big black boots, both of which were braced against opposing branches. I could see the crotch of her pink underwear that was exposed by the wide opening in her mini skirt. I tried looking at her in the eyes but I had difficulty taking my eyes off her exposed bare thighs. “Hey, you…please help me get down. I am stuck in this fucking tree!” she pleaded as I stared up at her in disbelief. She was not more than fifteen feet away from the ground and when I asked her why she just did not jump down she told me that it was because she was terrified of heights.

I put my new gardenia down onto the pavement and asked her how she wanted me to get her down from the tree. “If you stand with your back against the tree I can climb down onto your shoulders.” If anyone would of told me an hour before that I would end my afternoon with a hooker standing on my shoulders I would of thought that you were nuts. The impossible became reality when I felt the heels of her boots  digging into my shoulder bones. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” she kept repeating as she struggled to slowly get her self out of the tree.

Once I was finally able to help the hooker get onto the ground, she struggled for a few moments to regain her composure. My body slightly ached because in her frantic attempts to find her way to the ground, she stepped all over my head, shoulders, hand, chest and thighs. At one point during her descent- my face rested comfortably in the warm embrace of her crotch as she had both her knees resting on my shoulders (I can only imagine the shock and disbelief that passers by must of felt). Her odor was not terribly disturbing but I could smell the scent of cigarettes and sex emanating from her flesh. Once she was able to get herself composed and firmly planted on the ground she threw her arms around me and repeatedly declared, “you saved my life!”

I have never had the opportunity to be a hero before. I have often thought that heroics alluded me because I simply do not have what it takes to be a hero. If “life is a fortuitous collaboration ascribable to the fact that one finds oneself in the right place at the right time” (from a passage I read in an essay on karma)- than it could be fair to say that I have never before found myself in a situation that I needed to act as a hero. Helping a desperate woman out of a tree hardly qualified as “the right place at the right time,” and as the hooker continued to passionately declare that I had saved her life- all I could do was take a deep breath and say, “lady I am no hero.”

Apparently, she had not climbed into the tree just for fun. She had a legitimate excuse for being perched up fifteen feet high between branches, leaves and a few vagrant squirrels. “Men ain’t got nothing better to do then to mess with us bitches. I was mindin my own buzness working my usual street, when two thugs got in my way and startin to makin me feel threatened for my life. When I tried to get away they be relentless so I saw this tree and I knew it was my only way to safety cause thugs don’t like to climb trees.” She informed me that she had been in the tree for hours, waiting for the coast to clear. There was a childlike lightness and play in her new found freedom and I was tempted to give in when she asked me if she could repay me with a quick blow job or a ten minute lay. I turned down her offer not because she was unattractive, nor because I am a man with strong moral sensibility. No, I turned her down simply because I was already late to meet my wife for our once a week dinner date.

The hooker dug deep down into her purse and brought out a five dollar bill, which she offered to me. “Please, at least let me offer you something for your brave service,” she said holding out the bill. I put my hands up and refused her generous offer and told her that I worked as a high school teacher, which was a job that payed me well enough. “You a teacher!” she said with a sudden burst of surprise. “I am,” I replied with a hint of pride. “Well than…you take this five dollars, you hear me! You need it much more than me,” she insisted. I know for certain that a hooker can make in a few hours what I make in a week, so I resigned myself to taking the handout without feeling much guilt (although I have been thinking about how unfortunate it is that a teacher needs money more than a hooker). I thanked her for rewarding me with a cash payment and she said, “shit, it is the least I can do for a handsome young man like yourself who was just kind enough to save my life.”

She gave me another hug. It was almost as if we were like two lovers who were about to forever go our separate ways. “You stay out of trees now, you hear,” I jokingly said to her. As we started to go our own separate ways a part of my brain (the part of my brain that never makes wise choices) told the other part of my brain (the part of my brain that always makes good choices) to quickly reconsider the kind offer of a free blow job. As I have grown older, I am proud to admit, that the side of my brain that makes the right choices has started to win out over the more reckless side of my brain- so I just stood there for a moment and watched the hooker walk away with what felt like a hero’s smile upon my middle aged face.

The Run Away Jury

I had the day off today, the only advantage of having to do jury duty. I tried to get out of it by writing the court a letter in which I told them about my deep belief in the philosophy of anarchy. I also put in my letter that I always favor those that are being persecuted by the law and that I feel like justice can never be served in a court of law because the entire legal system is broken. This seemed to have little effect upon the court because they demanded my presence with the threat of a fine and possible jail time if I did not show up. So much for scare tactics.

I woke up before the sun and tried to talk myself into looking forward to a new experience. I had never served on a jury before and a part of me was proud that my state trusted me enough to hold such a position of authority. I showered, did my morning meditation and put together the nicest outfit that I could find. I gave myself enough time before having to report for duty to read the local paper at my favorite cafe and eat two sunny side up eggs with toast. It was one of the more leisurley weekday mornings that I have had in quite a long time.

After going through the scrutiny of the court registrar (personal history, finger prints and other forms of invasive identity verifications) I made my way into a small room where I took one of the two oaths that I would take that day. A fat man (why are they always fat men?) began to brief the virginal jury on the case that they were about to rule over. An older couple was suing Google because Google’s camera car drove up their private driveway and the resulting pictures were posted to Google’s street view. My first impression was that this could be an interesting case because I had always been concerned with matters of privacy and anonymity. The more I was briefed however, the more my mind began to think that this was just a ridiculous case of a suburban couple, with too much money, who was pissed off that Google showed pictures of their front lawn on the internet. I had better things to do with my time. I began to dread the impending case and wished that I could have fallen into something more interesting like murder, prostitution or a first degree robbery case.

Granted, my attitude was not good upon walking onto the jury stand. It would even be fair to say that I was bored before the case began. In my stated of impatience and agitation I thought about my students who were having to settle for an underpaid substitute teacher. A saying of the Buddha’s came to my mind, “if you can learn to enjoy waiting then you do not have to wait to enjoy,” and I settled into the fact that I was going to have to spend my day in this banal and stuffy courtroom. With my fingers crossed behind my back I was sworn to tell the truth and nothing but the truth to the court for the second time that day. I was able to have a pad of yellow legal paper and a pen upon which I wrote poems while lawyers made opening arguments and the judge briefed the jury on the legal aspects of the case. “Who gives a crap…..” was all I could cynically think. Sitting beside me was a younger Hispanic man who seemed to share a similar disinterest as mine, and for at least two hours while we listened to various testimonies about privacy infringement  and the legal rights of Google earth, I noticed that he was drawing caricatures of the balding judge. By the time a lunch remission was about to begin, Johny and I seemed to be struggling to keep our eyes open.

The jury was sequestered into a small room without windows where we were given our boxed lunches. It was more like a lunch fit for lower employees than one meant for a kings and queens that we thought we were. I had known Johny for more than an hour when we began our first long discussion about how the court should have the dignity to feed us better after making us sit through such a boring case. The thought of going back into the courtroom for the rest of the afternoon weighed upon both of our shoulders like a heavy brick- and in a moment of wild inspiration I jokingly suggested that it could be fun to spend the rest of our afternoon hanging out in a strip club instead of a courtroom.

Twenty minutes later Johny and I were sneaking out of the courthouse. We traveled down a long corridor of empty, florescent lit halls and found a back door that led out onto a parking lot for police cars. We casually walked over to the cafe where I had had my leisurely breakfast and we order a lunch that was more fit for us kings. Over burgers and fries and two carrot juices Johny and I talked about immigrant rights, government control, anarchy and social revolutions. We shared similar interests and I was engaged in his stories about being a child soldier in El Salvador and coming to America on an academic scholarship twenty years ago. As we finished our carrot juices and began to leave for the afternoon of bliss spent in a strip club, Johny asked, “you think we can get busted for being runaway jury members?”

Tonight I have done my research and learned that walking out in the middle of jury duty is punishable by a $10,000 fine or a year in jail. I did not know this earlier when I tried to convinced Johny that we had nothing to loose by leaving a courtroom that fed us like undeserving pigs. Johny was not convinced by my conclusions and decided to go back to court after we had finished our lunch. I on the other hand decided to continue on with my plans. I after all work my ass off five days a week slaving away as an underpaid high school teacher who desperately wants to create social justice on planet earth. I deserved not to have to spend my afternoon off in some banal courtroom listening to a couple argue over Google earth. I deserved the afternoon that I would spend basking in the good fortune of an all nude strip club. Right?

Tonight, I am a bit concerned. All the lights of my home are off just in case the police come looking for me. I have received four phone calls from the court letting me know about the severity of the punishment that I face. I have never before been intimidated by legal threats and court ordered bribes (after all I am an authentic anarchists who has read Emma Goldman’s autobiography twice) but now that I am getting older I start to shake where once there was only a trace of fear. I see the damage my anarchist virtues may be doing to my future freedoms filled with dead end jobs because of a police record. What is this sense of responsibility that has suddenly overcome me like a quickly caught cold? Where once I would romanticize running and hiding from the law, now I am sitting in my home shaking in terrible fear, wondering if I should turn myself in for being a member of a one man run away jury.

$50.00 Cup Of Coffee

Jump to Comments

The rain has been pouring down for three days straight. I am wondering if melancholy is starting to kick in. I awoke at around 10:30 this morning but would have stayed in bed if I did not have to drive my wife to work. So like the responsible husband and man that I try to be, I climbed out from under the warm blankets and dressed.

When we opened the front door to leave, our cat came running in wet as a used mop and whining at the top of his lungs. He was obviously feeling neglected and angry because we had forgotten to let him in the night before. To be honest the past few days my cat has been perturbing me, so I did not really forget to let him in, I just hoped my wife would not remember. It was reciprocity for all the scratches on my arm and the flees in my bed.

I dropped my wife off and then began driving back home. The inside of the car was warm from the high heat and I was uncertain if I wanted to return to my cold and over one hundred year old wobbly home. So I decided to drive for a bit. I listened to the radio and watched the world go by in the warmth of the car. There is something very enjoyable about driving around on a rainy day.

I decided to stop and grab a small coffee. I rarely drink coffee- if ever. It makes my body shake unpleasantly and my heart race. So I try to stay away from the acidic liquid. However, this morning I was feeling the need to have the bitter taste of coffee in my dry mouth and the aromatic smells in my nose.

There was no parking to be found on the busy street- besides a yellow zone which sat empty right in front of the coffee shop. I decided that I would quickly park in the yellow zone, run in and out- no problem. I could not of been more incorrect.

I tipped the somnolent looking woman who served me my coffee a dollar and then put half and half with a bit of sugar in it. The smell was already awakening me to the pleasures of existing. I took a brief sip of my coffee and walked back outside.

There where two UPS trucks blocking me in. Behind my car was a police car with its lights flashing and behind the police car was a small meter maids truck. I rushed to my car pretending as if I was not the subject of this mass gathering. Once out of the rain I decided to wait patiently for the UPS trucks to move so that I could leave. I kept my mind focused on the scent of coffee.

Then an ugly man with nose hairs, covered in a black rain coat knocked on my window. It was a police officer. I opened my door frustrated by all this commotion. “What is wrong officer?” I asked stupidly revealing that I may have done something wrong. “Can I see your drivers license and registration?” he said with a seriousness that indicated that he may not be human but rather a clone. “What have I done?” I said with the innocence of a child. “We have a report that this car may be stolen.” “What?”

In the meantime one of the UPS drivers came up behind the police officer and said to me “hey man!! This spot is for commercial loading not for the convenience of people to get their coffee!! You need to never park her again. You have blocked up traffic because I have had to park in the street!!” I looked behind him and noticed that traffic was blocked up for as far as my eyes could see. People were honking their horns and trying to get around the UPS truck. “See what you have done!! Jerk!!!” And then he was gone.

Meanwhile I handed the officer the requested information and told him that I have owned this car for years. “We will see,” he said with a tone in his voice that suggested that I was already guilty. “Wait here, while I check out your information.” “Where am I going to go?” I said with a sarcastic tone in my voice. I remember thinking to myself with indignation, “the police are everywhere, they even watch you when you sleep. they are like phantoms!!”

There was another knock on my window, but this time it was a black meter maid who looked rather swollen in her cheeks. She wore a yellow rain coat with the hood over her head and handed me a green ticket which was already wet from the rain. “What is this for?” I asked with a hint of anger in my voice. “For parking in a NO PARKING spot.” “But I was loading some boxes into the coffee shop, I am the owner!!” I decided to lie. “Then why don’t you get commercial plates!” she said walking away and leaving me helpless. I am not normally prone to anger or disrespect but I lost control of myself in my moment of helplessness and yelled “bitch!!!”

It was bad timing, because as I yelled out the police officer was approaching my car. He looked startled and unsure of how to respond. “What did you call me?” he asked. I took a deep breath and said “I did not call you anything, I was talking to the ticket lady.” “What ticket lady?” he asked. “The one that just gave me this ticket,” and I held up the green ticket to show him what I was talking about. “Sir, that was placed on your window while you were inside getting coffee,” he said suspicious of what was going on. “What the hell are you talking about… she just gave me this ticket!!” I was frantic and did not know what to do. Was this officer of the law accusing me of being crazy, of seeing things? “Sir I suggest that you try to calm yourself down and sign this citation.”

“What citation?” “It is a fix it ticket.” “I thought I was being accused of possessing a stolen car?” “No we had the wrong vehicle, but your back left brake light is not working and you have thirty days to fix it,” he said with a hurried sound in his voice. I assumed he wanted to get out of the rain so I took my time. I read over the pink citation and noticed that I would not be charged any money if I proceeded to go through all these various steps to absolve the citation. “Sir you will be given a list of everything you need to know,” he said impatiently. I then signed on the dotted line and returned the clip board to him. I took another deep breath and could feel the residual anger and frustration in my chest. “You are lucky that I do not site you for your conduct towards an officer of the law,” he said staring me straight in the face. I decided to stay quiet. He ripped of a portion of the citation handed it back to me and said “I know you slandered me sir, happens all the time.” And then he returned to his bat mobile.

I sat in my car for a moment trying to register everything that had just happened. My coffee was cold and I felt like I was just the subject of a terrible prank. I waited for something to happen like someone who was suffering from post-traumatic stress. I listened to the rain pitter-paterring on the roof of my car. I then heard a loud honk and looked out the drivers side widow. There was the same meter maid driving down the other side of the street!! She looked at me waved and I could barley make out her lips saying “have a nice day, sir” with a malevolent smile on her face. I felt like I was going to be sick. I tried to yell out “wait!!” but it was I futile attempt. I looked down at the green parking ticket which said in black ink hand writing “your fifty dollar cup of coffee, sir!!”

Now I am back in my cold wobbly home. I am confused and forlorn. Once I am finished spell checking this post, I will get back in bed and try to sleep. Then maybe I will wake up and things will make sense.

The Drinker

I am drinking again. I should probably abstain from writing because I may say things that I regret and mis-spell words that I know how to spell, all to well. But what the hell- I always say things that I regret and I often mis-spell words that I know all to well. I am not a good speller nor am I a good keeper of secrets so I mine as well go ahead and write on. Is not alcoholic inebriation one of the better causes of literary fame? From the beginning of time authors like Homer, Hemingway, Joyce, Lessing and Fitzgerald have gotten away with writing things while drunk- and we now refer to these writings as literary classics! So I mine as well take a shot at literary fame while drinking. I certainly can not seem to achieve it while sober so allow me a minute to take another sip of my wine and then I will continue to write.

I have been drinking a half a bottle of wine to a bottle of wine on a nightly basis for more years than I care to remember. My love affair with wine and beer is frenetic and wild (and causes me to do things that I often later regret). Of course we have taken a few weeks apart now and then but my inability to exist without beer and wine in my life quickly drives me back into a week long binge followed by a nightly bottle of wine. I love booze. It is the only over the counter medication that brings forth the fruits from my vine. I achieve more inner peace after two glasses of wine than I have from five years of regular meditation. My mind seems defenseless against two glasses of wine or more- and drinking for me is fair retribution for the hell my mind puts me through on a daily basis. I don’t mean to be negative but when I drink I am able to achieve an objective distance from my sober mind that makes me wonder how I have not yet become a raging alcoholic. I suppose it is my need for control, or some semblance of sanity that I make myself stop right when I have had too much to drink…….but after twenty plus years of almost daily intoxication, it is a wonder that I still have a rational mind at all.

I have been meditating a lot on “what if?” scenarios the past few weeks. “What if clocks stopped functioning?” “What if the oceans suddenly dried up?” “What if my sister turned into my brother?” “What if vegetables could talk?” “What if I was 38 years old and financially independent?” I like to entertain these fantasies because it show me the expanse of possibilities that are out there. My normal anxiety ridden life is filled with all these possibilities, and I realize that when I get stuck in my anxiety I am unable to open the bird cage of my mind. “What if I was sober for longer than a month?” “What if I loved working?” “What if I had no fear?” “What if I was so generous that I gave away all the clothes I owned while walking down the street?”

Okay, I am getting a bit ahead of myself. I have far surpassed my ordinary faculties for imaging the impossible. This tells me I may have had one to many glasses of wine. I am often a very pragmatic almost middle aged male- but when I drink a particular screw becomes loose in my head. This may be why it is not such a good idea that I write now. Currently I am banging on my keyboard and typing with a hurried speed that is desperately trying to keep up with the thoughts that want to come pouring out of my head. But maybe I should hold back. Maybe I should not say everything that I want to say. I should just pick up my glass of wine and go sit outside and watch the sun set. In the morning I will be happier that I did so rather than finishing this blog entry and exposing all of my futile insecurities and transgressions to the world. “Just leave certain things that do not need to be said alone,” my grandpa always told me when I told him about the first blow job I received with a hair dryer. He maybe right….maybe I should know when enough is enough. I am overworked, tired and in a state of fragility- no great writing comes from this particular space. So, I am just going to pick up my glass of wine (refill it), go outside and watch the sunset- before I say anything else that I will later regret.

The Coolest Cat

I never thought that cats liked me even though I have always been a lover of them. Ever since I was a young boy I have had cats in my life. To this day I own two cats (one of which I won in a local pet lottery), both of which are black, both of which refuse to sit on my lap and scramble away when I come into play. I do not know if they simply dislike me- or if they are afraid of my tall and normally tense stature or if I have done something in particular to make them afraid of me. Granted swinging them around by their back feet or tugging on their tails and refusing to let go may not of been the wisest ways of befriending them when they were young- but cats have always been afraid of me. This is why tonight I was so surprised when three cats followed me home.

My daily exercise consists of an hour walk around my neighborhood. I am done with sweat and cardiovascular exercises and have resigned myself to a body less sculpted by rigorous workouts and more defined by a moderate walk. I do certain exercises to keep my minimal muscles toned, but other than a few push-ups and arm curls with some weighted green balls I own, walking is my main fat burner. I like to drift off in the mental space that walking takes me to even though at certain times, like today, my thoughts can become negative and relentless. I will try and focus on the wind, or various elements of the outside world….but sometimes I get so caught up in my thoughts that I can not recall where I have been. I get lost and find myself on some street that I have never seen before.

The three cats sat on a fence post and I was as surprised to see them as they were to see me. I could hear their purrs from many steps away so I approached them with the hope that they would not run away like every other cat seemed to do. In my head I repeated the word “love” so as to emit a gentle energy from my body that was attractive as opposed to repellent. As I reached out my hand one of the cats immediately took to it and rubbed its whiskers all around the base of my thumb. I was immensely excited by the lack of their immediate retreat so I stuck out my other hand and little did I know that the fun had just begun.

I pet them for what seemed like an hour. I rubbed my face against their cheeks, ran my hand under their chins and all along their spins. One of the cats drooled and they all purred with the madness of elation as I pet them them with the delicacy of a man who is in love. I was sure to be gentle with them and tell them how beautiful I thought they were as I ran my hands all across their fur. I was surprised that they were not in the least making a move to run away but instead reaching out their claws towards me as if to make me stay. With their shredded fur all over my hands, arms and shirt I decided that it was time to call it a day and when I started to make the move to walk away- in what looked like a synchronized unison the cats leaped from the fence and began to follow the shadows of my foot.

I must of walked for ten blocks before I realized that these cats had no intention to leave. At first I was a bit concerned about pulling them away from their home, but I resigned myself to letting them have free will and simply enjoyed the rare occurrence of being followed by three cats. They rubbed their heads against my shins and made movements in between my legs that a few times threatened to send my falling onto the ground. If cats could laugh they would of been laughing out loud with me as they followed me down many streets with what looked like smiles upon their feline faces. Pedestrians who would pass by would stop and stare and I noticed that from the windows of certain houses, faces would be looking out at me with looks of confusion, disbelief and delight. You would think that I had cat nip in my socks from the ravenous way these cats followed me but I had nothing but the delight of a man who was finally experiencing something extra-ordinary. Tears of joys occasionally made their way to my eyes as I walked along. I was overwhelmed by the surreal realization that I was actually worthy of being followed by cats, that cats liked me! For the first time in many years I felt like what I can only now refer to as…… the coolest cat on the block.

The Chronic Consumer

“The cost of something is the amount of life that you are willing to exchange in order to have that thing.” – Henry David Thoreau

I spend a lot of money. The irony is that I do not make much money. Off of my meager Teachers wage I seem to get by in a style that would not beget a king, but is better than most who suffer the wrath of poverty. I am no celebrity but neither am I a poor popper. I do not know if my spending habits arise from a deep emotional lack or if I simply enjoy the transaction process. Sometimes I think I may be closely aligned to the Pavlovian dogs who drool when they hear the meal time bell. Except for me it is not a noon time bell, but rather the feel of my fake gold debit card in my hand or punching the keys on that little machine that deducts my hard earned money away, away. My therapists (yes I have two now) seem to believe that my spending habits stem from a dis-satisfaction with the present moment of my life. Like most Americans, I have been conditioned to believe that things will get better if I spend some time each day as a consumer. But it is always the same story, I spend money on one thing and am gratified for a short allotted period of ti-me until the next day comes and I am looking for something brand new to buy.

Do not get me wrong, I am by no means a ravenous spender. My purchases are humble and thoughtful and often contribute to my own well being and peace of mind. I am also not an excessive spender, buying up property, stocks, vacation packages, children and costly material items. Rather, because I only make an income that is beneath three grand a month- I have to keep my purchases within the realms of what I can afford. I have been keeping a budget for the past few months and on average this is what I spend a month:

$500 on groceries mainly bought at Whole Foods (or what I prefer to call Whole Paycheck). I try only to purchase organic food and booze which can be pricey.

$400 on gas and other car expenses (I drive an old SAAB with over 200,000 miles on it so I am always having to attend to it).

$500 on eating out ( I do enjoy the Epicurean experience on a regular basis).

$200 on books and music (one way that I experience pleasure is by frequently visiting book and music shops).

$900 on rent and other survival necessities like electric bill, credit bill and phone bill.

$200 on drinking in bars.

$300 on miscellaneous things like clothes, cat supplies, bird supplies and vitamens.

$300 on Therapists

I no longer spend money on prostitutes, strippers, massage parlors and other erotic addictions so at least this is one way that I have managed to save money the past few years. However, before the month is up I am usually broke- or beyond broke lying in a ditch of moderate debt. Now, none of my purchases are what I would label as excessive or exploitative (I consider myself to be a mindful consumer) but I can see how they are addictive. For each thing I purchase I receive a small rush of adrenaline to my brain (it is a sensation akin to accomplishment). Yesterday, when I treated myself to a nice dinner (which I do on an almost nightly basis since there are good restaurants everywhere around where I live), a concert and a new ipod I felt that the rush of adrenaline was more gratifying, almost sensual in nature. I felt as If I had achieved something strangely satisfying- the ability to spend money on things which I do not really need. Is not this the American way?

My chronic consumerism has been concerning me lately. Not only do I feel like I am spending more money than I need to, but I enjoy the concept of “forget savings.” The idea that one should spend what they have today because who knows if they will be around tomorrow to enjoy it has permeated my spending habits and left me little cash to watch grow the flowers of interest. All my hard earned labor has been exchanged for momentary pleasures that leave me feeling empty and searching for more the following day. I have become a consuming animal not that far detached from my cat who spends his days searching for something to eat. There has got to be more to life than this constant need to go out and buy. Recently, I have felt like it is impossible to step out the front door of my home without spending twenty bucks! I watch my friends drop cash that they worked hard to earn on superfluous things that leave them to feeling unfulfilled the following day. Is our material conditioning nothing but an economic hamster wheel that has been set up to keep us working and the cogs of capitalism spinning? Have I been duped and brain washed by the very country that I have grown to love? Sucker.

My concern has grown so large that both of my therapists have recommended that I move to the country where there is less temptation to spend. I have seen the best minds of my generation get tied and tangled up in expenses and spending habits that have caused them to have to trade in their happiness for a fifty plus hour a week job. Chronic consumerism has become an epidemic that has already managed to define me. I am helpless in its clutches and the only way that I can see how to be set free is to move out of the city.

In a month my wife and I are moving to the country. We will hire movers and relocate our lives to the central valley of California, where not much goes on other  than the natural cycles of day to day life. We have rented a two bedroom home that will not cost us half of our paycheck a month and it is not surrounded by Whole Foods and five star restaurants. It will be a quieter life filled with bird sounds, barking dogs and late night walks (without the fear of being mugged). We plan on eating the great majority of our meals at home, spending less and enjoying our lives together more. I realize that this will be a difficult life style change to manifest since what I have become accustomed to is consumerist, cosmopolitan satisfaction. I am going to have to dust off my old poetry books, set up a chair in the back yard and be content just staring at the redwood and the things we will grow for food. Neither of us knows what we are going to do for work (there are so few jobs around where we will live)- but one thing will be certain, I will finally have the opportunity to heal from my chronic consumerism and find a new way to be in this world without needing to spend a single buck. But for now, my wife is waiting for me in the car, because I promised I would take her out for a nice lunch.

The Spiritual Materialist

I went to a Tibetan Fair. There were all sorts of Tibetan rugs, scarves, sweaters, ornaments and jewelry for sale. There was Tibetan music and “Save Tibet” booths, along with booths trying to bring attention to various imprisoned Tibetan activists. However, I was not there for any of these things. What I was looking for was enlightenment. I had been asking around about enlightenment. A co-worker told me to check out the Tibetan fair because they might sell it there. Since I was in desperate need of enlightenment I figured I had nothing to loose. I paid the $10 entry fee and was overwhelmed by the amount of people, vendors and music that sprawled all over the three acre park. With so many booths to choose from I started going up to various vendors to see what they were selling. Most seemed to offer material goods but I asked anyways if they sold enlightenment. The response was always the same “no” and the degree of the laughter depended upon how well the vendor understood me. There were also booths for acupuncture, massage and psychic readings. There where even meditation booths. Since I had nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon, and a pocket filled with three hundred dollars- I decided I would take my time and look around.

An acupuncturist told me that he did not sell enlightenment but that he could help me find it. I only let him put three small needles into me and after ten or so minutes of lying still on his table I had to ask him to please take out the needles because I was feeling anxious. I had a massage from an old Tibetan woman who told me that her hands could bring me close to enlightenment but she had none for sale. I gave her ten bucks for ten minutes- but half way through the massage I felt so uncomfortable being rubbed in public that I had to ask her to stop. “Maybe you try more meditation,” she told me as I thanked her for taking some of the stiffness out from my neck and upper back. I paid a psychic fifteen bucks because she told me that she could not sell me enlightenment but she may be able to guide me in the right direction. After fifteen minutes of her sitting still without saying a word she opened up a flood gate of prognostications, that made me feel a bit uncomfortable. She told me of my bad luck and the various ways that my impatience has caused me to make several bad decisions. She told me that soon I would make a career change and that the reason that I have so much stress and tension in my body and life is because I am not getting the recognition in my life that I feel I deserve. She also told me that I am smart and posses an analytical mind which causes me to be unhappy because I am angry at all the less intelligent people who get ahead in life while I remain behind. All of it was too much for me to take. I stopped her in mid sentence as she was saying, “you are getting older and you are afraid that……” I thanked her for her revelations but told her that I felt no closer to finding enlightenment than when I began. She smiled, shut her eyes and I went on my way.

I continued to travel around the fair looking at all the wide eyed Buddhists. In the background music played from the main stage but was muddled by the multiplicity of various voices that traveled through the fair. It felt like the entire city of Berkeley was making their way through those two acres of land. I had to squeeze my way up to booths that seemed like they could be potential sellers of enlightenment. “Do you sell enlightenment here?” I would shout so that the vendor would hear loud and clear what I was trying to say. People would look at me in disbelief as I was told again and again, “no, no enlightenment here.” The afternoon was ending and I could feel the heat being put off by the sun begin to decrease as the sun made way for the moon. Relentlessly, I traveled around from booth to booth determined to find the object of my search. If I could not find enlightenment here where else would I find it? Some vendors who could not sell me enlightenment offered me a good deal on items that may bring me close. I purchased some sandalwood prayer beads and a t-shirt with the “OM” symbol on it. I also purchased some incense and a new meditation cushion, but I knew when I bought these material goods that they were only steps to enlightenment, and not enlightenment itself. With bags containing my new purchases I asked old Tibetan women, sexy Tibetan women, young Tibetan men and older Tibetan men if they knew where I could purchase enlightenment. None did, except one. She pointed her decaying finger callused by such a long life at a lone booth that sat on the top of a hill. The woman without any teeth in her mouth and more wrinkles on her face that that of a redwood tree said, “Up there…he may find it for you.”

I walked toward that booth like a man making his way towards a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. A lone, middle aged Tibetan vendor stood contentedly behind a pile of beautiful Tibetan rugs that had intricate patterns hand woven into them. An array of colorful Tibetan scarves blew in the wind above his head. He stared eagerly at me and I could tell that his eyes had achieved some semblance of nirvana. “Do you sell enlightenment here?” I asked him like an eager pupil. Since he was a little hard of hearing I had to repeat my question. “Enlightenment, do you sell it here?” I asked again. He did not laugh like all the rest. Nor did he look at me with dumbfounded disdain. Instead he opened up the doors of communication by saying, “oooooooh enlightenment, you looking for it here?” “I have been looking for it everywhere,” I replied, feeling some sense of relief overcoming me. Maybe I had finally found a man who can sell it to me, I thought. “You know why you no find enlightenment?” he asked me. “Why?” I replied. “Because you look for it. You need to stop looking for enlightenment and then you will find that it is everywhere….all around you, all the time” I had a brief “aha!” moment, where time stood still and it felt as if I was the center of the universe. I listened to the sounds, smelled the scents and looked around me. For the first time in years  I was free from my desire to find something I did not have. Instead I simply let go and for a brief moment or two I felt something akin to enlightenment. “You not need what is in your bags or on your shelves, just remember the breathing,” the man said in a calm tone as I smiled at him and took a deep inhalation. “Thank you,” I told him, “you have helped me find exactly what I was looking for.” “And it’s even free,” he said and then let out a little laugh.

A Career In Meditation

I like spending a lot of time in stillness. I don’t mind people, but I prefer being left alone. The pleasures of my own mind far out weigh the experience of being around other human beings. I enjoy going on long mental walks, alone. I also enjoy just breathing and watching my own mind fill up with thoughts flashing across the movie screen of my consciousness. Somehow I am fully gratified by this simple experience in the same way that most others would be gratified by going to a movie. I will be honest- in my home there is a closet where I enjoy spending most of my time. I sit in meditation sometimes for hours at a time in darkness, just watching my breath and the thoughts that snake through my neurotic mind. After twenty minutes or so of calming my mind and heart down- I reach a state that some people refer to as PEACE. Everything becomes still. Thoughts stop menacing around in my mind. My cravings calm down and my breathing is so slow that not even a feather would move if you put it under my nose. My lust and ambitions dissolve and I no longer need to do anything or be anywhere. I am a man at peace- alone in the privacy of his own closet.

My wife is having difficulty dealing with the amount of time that I spend closed off from the material world. She thinks that it is abnormal behavior for a grown married man, who is almost 40 years old to be closeted off from the world for such long periods of time. “You should be more ambitious, pursuing a career- and out with friends,” she tells me. I should be devoted to work and wife and striving to achieve the American dream. I try to tell her that I am working on myself so that I can be a better husband, friend, lover and member of society. Most of my life I have struggled with chronic anxiety- and meditating in my closet is my one way to be free. She still thinks that there are better ways of doing this other than holding myself hostage in a closet. I could join a group or go back to school, she suggests but all I want to do is be left alone far from the light of day.

I think one of the reasons why my wife may have wanted to leave me for another man was because of the amount of time I was spending closed off in my closet. Even though I told her that I was practicing meditation (self growth) she saw it as a form of alienation and felt like I was not paying much attention to her. Over the course of many months my wife started getting involved in her own extra curricular activities and eventually was able to get her needs met elsewhere. I on the other hand was able to meet my own needs by sitting in the lotus position, focusing on my breath and being still in darkness. I needed little sexual fulfillment (even though I confess to smoking marijuana a few times in my closet) and I was content enough to simply be alone. My closet became a universe of its own- a reflection of my mind turned inside out.

Recently I have begun to notice that there are no careers in meditation. My wife can understand my need to spend long periods of time in my closet if I am working towards something specific. I asked if she would be more content with the time I spend alone if I was working towards a career in meditation. She told me that would make more practical sense to her. So during the day I have been looking around for careers in meditation, but there are none. There are careers and graduate degrees in everything from taxidermy to vivisection but there is nothing out there for working silently with your own mind. Human beings are a strange species- we value doing experiments on animals and then stuffing them when they die more than we value our own inner peace. I could be a Psychologists or a Psychic, I could be a Yoga Instructor or a Thai Chi Master- but none of these careers appeal too me. I simply want to find work in the field of meditation so that I can spend the majority of my time sitting alone in the darkness of my own closet. I want to teach others how to sit equally still so that I can feel like I am doing something to contribute to a more relaxed world free from all the paranoia. Until I am able to find a way to have a career in meditation I have promised my wife that I will spend less time hidden away in my closet (or else she may threaten to run away again into the arms of yet another man). For the time being I will continue to do things for money that the world (and my wife) thinks of as more pragmatic and maybe go out with a few friends now an then. I will pretend to be normal. This way I will get my wife off my back, but I can promise you dear reader- that when she is not looking I will sneak back into to the wonderful dark world where you will find me sitting alone.

The Man With Green Balls

I have two green balls. They are heavy and round and stuffed with sand. Each one is the size of a soft ball, but one of them has a permanent indentation, which causes it took look like it went through a kind of surgical procedure. I use these balls almost every day to keep myself strong and my posture erect. They weigh five pounds a piece and I was told that if I walk with them in my hands for sixty minutes a day my arms would get a gladiatorial kind of definition. So it has been about a month now that I have been carrying these balls around with me for an hour or so. I go for walks through the city in which I live and do curls with each arm as I walk. The general public stares at me because they are not quite sure what to make of a grown man dressed in civilian clothes walking around with large green balls, but I am past the stage where I care what people think. I know that I am doing something that is good for my health and I realize that there is a price to be paid to achieve a body that looks as if it was carved out of stone.

A month and a half or so ago I took off my jacket in front of a class I was teaching. I was wearing a t-shirt that had sleeves that revealed my slushy biceps. I did not know why my students were saying”ewwwww” and giggling at me all of a sudden until one of my students pointed out that my “flesh jiggled like jelly on my arms” when I took off my jacket. Humiliating. I had not realized that my muscles had become so flaccid until this public humiliation. That evening I returned home and stood in front of a mirror with my shirt off and realized that my months of beer drinking, reading and inactivity had turned my body into an undefined mass of weakened flesh. I immediately became self conscious and started doing as many push ups as I could, which was only three.

I am to young to go muscularly limp. I still have two years until I turn forty and there is no excuse for hanging blubber beneath my arm pits and having biceps that are as soft as a cotton swab. I am a skinny man and if you looked at me with my clothes on you would never know that I was so weak, but the following night (after the public humiliation) when I was naked in bed with my wife, who recently had an affair, I found out that I was loosing sex appeal. “You’re not taking care of your body anymore and your loosing all your muscle tone,” she said as I rolled away from her. “Is this why you had an affair with a younger man?” I asked, well aware of the answer. “It was just a fling. He was an attractive guy and I needed to put some passion back into my sex life since you have not been able to take care of that. Maybe if you develop muscle, it will make you better in bed.” I could not argue with her. For over a year I had been sexually disinterested and allowed not only my muscle but also my sexual passion to dwindle away.

I had not been in a sporting goods store for years but when I was told about the benefits of walking with green balls I immediately went and purchased them. I admit that walking with large green balls in my hands may be an abnormal thing to do, especially for a grown man. In our day and age of conformity and moral righteousness it is difficult to be abnormal or go against the grain without being noticed. I am mortified by the idea of joining a gym or taking an exercise class so instead I have quit drinking for a few months and started walking everyday with my green balls. Police officers stare at me (do they think I could be a terrorist?). People yell out their windows, “freak.” Heads turn everywhere. It is as if I am carrying a bomb or the ten commandments. I can not figure it out for the life of me- I mean they are just large five pound green balls! What is so unusual about green balls? Some brave souls stop me and ask me “what are those?” or “what are you doing with those green things?” Since I am open to meeting new people, I immediately put the balls into their hands and say “see for yourself.” The moment that they feel the weight of the balls in their hands they can understand the function that the balls serve. When I tell them my story and then let them feel my biceps they immediately ask, “where can I get balls like these?”

I have thought about making an exercise video called Walking With Green Balls. My marketing pitch would be “you can not only build arm muscle but you can also build friends, community and attract attention.” Over the past month I have met more people on walks and attracted more attention to myself than ever before. It is almost as if the green balls are people magnets. I do not know if this is the kind of attention that I want to receive, but for now I am okay with being the local freak since I am moving soon. City living is not all that it is cracked up to be. The shared consensus amongst people is that cities are a place for diversity and eccentricity- but if this were true why then is a man who likes to walk with green balls such an aberration? Why all the attention, when my only intention is simply to get in shape so that I can feel better about myself and please my scandalous wife in bed?

In a few months my wife and I are moving to the country. I have tired with city living and all its contradictions. I want clean air, flat land and cows. I want trees, simplicity and anonymity. I want to work on a farm and spend my days in the sun, away from freeways, pedestrians and police cars. My wife is excited about the move and so am I but I am also a little nervous about taking my walks in rural areas with the green balls. I am a tall man with dark skin……..and I fear that the green balls may attract the wrong kind of attention from some crazy hillbilly or rancher. I may have to find other ways of staying in shape- like push ups or an at home Yoga practice. Whatever the case may be, I feel like the green balls have given me back my strength (psychologically and physically). They have served a functional purpose. My arms now have some semblance of definition. My wife is comming on to me more often. I feel like I can face the world (and my students) again with dignity and without a fear of wearing t-shirts. Most importantly, when I now stand naked in front of the mirror- I can see something that may look like sex appeal.

The Parallel Parker

I have always been amazed by one particular ability of mine. I say this with hesitation because there are not many things about myself that amaze me. The fact that I am six foot five amazes me. The fact that my walls are lined with bookshelves filled with books that I have been incapable of finishing amazes me. The fact that I am thirty eight and still confused about what it is that I am going to be when I grow up amazes me. But none of these are talents (I apologize here for using but at the beginning of a sentence. The fact that I am a hypocrite also amazes me, since last Friday in my English class I told my students never to use the word but at the beginning of a sentence). They are more like physical attributes and behavioral characteristics that I have somehow inherited from my parents. However, my ability to parallel park in any spot, no matter how tight- this is a talent that I have developed all on my own.

Ever since I began parallel parking at the age of fifteen, I displayed a natural talent. I learned how to drive in my mothers Cadillac, which was more like an elongated boat rather than an automobile. Getting this vehicle into cramped spots was no easy task (my mothers inability to do so was demonstrated by the large amount of dents on her bumper). I practiced parallel parking in her car for hours at a time, never once indenting her bumper. When I took my drivers test the instructor was impressed by the fluidity with which I snuggled my vehicle in between two park cars. I remember him  saying to me that if I was this graceful at squeezing my way in and out of things that I was going to make a dam good lover to many lucky ladies. Once I received my drivers license I was able to impress my friends and potential lovers with what they began to call my stealth parallel parking abilities. I earned a reputation. For fun most teenagers ride dirt bikes, play sports, go to movies and drink beer….I parallel parked.

I have parallel parked in some of the tightest spots around the world. In piazzas in Italy, on the small cobble stoned streets of Spain, in the desert sand of Israel and in the market places of Thailand and Vietnam. I have parallel parked effortlessly and with mastery. It has taken me a long time to accept that my gift or my greatness is my ability to parallel park. I have always hoped that my greatness was more in the realm of the arts or humanities- but at some point in every mans life he has got to accept the deck of cards that he has been dealt. So I may not be the next Tolstoy or Picasso. I may not create a body of paintings that will be viewed in a modern museum of art or write a book that will be on the New York Times best sellers list but I am content knowing that I can parallel park as well as Picasso, Klee or De Kooning could paint. My greatness will not land me on the cover of a magazine or into the millionaires club but I, and only I- have the satisfaction of knowing that if there was an appreciation for parallel parking in this world…I would go down as one of the greatest parallel parkers that ever lived.

How Facebook Can Help Save Your Life.

I was once terribly disturbed by facebook. I did all I could to avoid it. Despite the fact that almost every individual around was digging deep into facebook- I held out an iron fist. After many months of a stern unwillingness to join the social arena I allowed my wife to convince me of facebooks many attributes and I decided to drop my fist and give it a try. Not long after my honeymoon with facebook had come to a delightful end I found myself obsessively pulled towards the website on an almost hourly basis. I was leaving at least five status updates a day and hearing from past lovers and friends that I had no desire to re-connect with (as much as I am happy to hear that they are alive and well). Facebook was becoming not only an obsession but also an affliction that I was struggling to control. I went out less, socialized with real, corporeal human beings less and began to feel more insecure when I was in public situations. I became so comfortable with hiding behind the facebook platform that my anxiety was easily triggered whenever I found myself in social situations. My habitual usage of facebook became so extreme that my therapist threatened me with and intervention unless I attended a weekly meeting for facebook addicts. It was at this point that I realized I was dealing with a serious addiction. I attended FBAA (Facebook Addiction Anonymous) meetings on a weekly basis and slowly began to sever my unhealthy relationship with the facebook world. I went through months of mourning, a week spent in the woods away from computer access and several detoxes until I was finally able to return to my normal self (which is quite abnormal) in a modern, living, social world- free from the facebook grip.

Months went by without taking a single glance at the facebook homepage. Even though I was tempted every time that I went on line to take a peak at my friends most recent updates I was able to abstain with a combination of a superhuman will and the resolve of a zen monk. I was committed to regaining my confidence by socializing with people in the flesh and by being more engaged in my professional pursuits. Even though I was around people all day I struggled to make friends, which I discovered was not as easy as pushing the “Add Friend” button. Through dozens of consultations with my therapist I learned how to become more comfortable with the sound of my voice, my tall stature and my style of dress (all of which have always been a source of distress for me). Despite the fact that I slowly felt more confident inside my own skin…I was constantly compelled to go back onto facebook and check in with all of my friends because I was feeling very lonely in the real world.

I became conflicted (more so than I already was) and frustrated. It was not as simple for me to communicate with other human beings with honesty and vulnerability as it was for me to do on facebook. Even though I had a strong moral resolve to abstain from my facebook addiction my inner turmoil was become more malignant. Not having a venue to express my deepest thoughts to friends was causing me to feel isolated and constricted. I felt the cloud of a familiar depression following me around wherever I would go and my desire to find the closest computer to log onto facebook with was becoming stronger and stronger. I was going in and out of an FBAA support group but I was well aware of the fact that I had no friends in the real world that I could update about how I was feeling. This resulted in a chronic introversion that left me ten pounds thinner and as tired, isolated and sickly as an old cat.

Then one Sunday, one beautiful Sunday afternoon- I happened upon a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. My gold came in the form of an article written in The New York Times about how having a large community of friends that you can be honest with and that listen to you in return, can extend your life by decades. The article concluded, that several long term research studies had concluded that people with a large friend network not only lived happier lives but also lived healthier and longer lives! I immediately thought about the 56 friends that I had left behind when I retreated from the facebook arena and decided that my current poor health was being caused by my isolation and lack of community. I took the article to my therapist and told her that I was convinced that if used properly and moderately, facebook could save my life.

Initially my therapist thought that my new theory was the ravings of a mad man. After a few consultations and another health scare she decided that there was nothing to loose by seeing if facebook could indeed make me well again. Even though it made perfect sense to me that someone with many friends on facebook  was gaining the same health benefits as someone with the same amount of friends in real life- my therapist remained skeptical but open to learning something new. I persuaded certain family members to support me in my transition into a new relationship with facebook and my sister, my blessed sister, committed to monitoring  facebook homepage in order to make sure that I was not leaving more than one update a day. A contracted was signed between my family, therapist and myself that if I was caught leaving more than one status update a day or spending more than twenty minutes a day on facebook- I would permanently and forever give facebook up.

It has been a month since I began my new relationship with facebook. I have devoted myself to spending my allotted twenty minutes a day on facebook judiciously recruiting new friends, leaving a very honest status update and reading my friends updates (and responding to some). Interestingly, I have noticed that my health has returned to a state of homeostasis and the cloud of depression that followed me around like a bad memory…has all but vanished. Normally, I try to sign onto facebook first thing in the morning or before going to bed for the night. If the study in The New York Times is indeed correct, than I am a living testament to the power of friends. My goal for this summer is to recruit over 200 new friends which I assume will only add to the quality and quantity of my life. It is only a matter of time until I have mastered myself enough that I will be able to spend more time on facebook without becoming addicted (it is my desire to get to a balanced state of being able to leave no more than three status updates a day). The other day my therapist told me that life was a series of trials and transformations. She congratulated me on my personal progress by recognizing that I had regained my confidence, optimism and energy. She is not quite willing to admit that my positive transformation is the result of more friends in my life, but whenever I meet with her now- I always end by saying…. “It really was facebook that saved my life.”

On Being Crazy

Today in the middle of class a student of mine told me that I was crazy. “Mr. R, your crazy,” he said. Just like that, in the middle of a lecture on Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.” I felt a bit embarrassed about being accused of this in front of my class. I replied with surprise, “what do you mean I am crazy?” “You know what I mean, your crazy,” he said once again looking me straight in the eye. “Why do you say that?” “I don’t know, I just know that you are crazy,” he concluded. He was not one to talk. This particular student has a reputation for being one of the crazier men on campus. He is missing his two front teeth from trying to bite through rocks (while high) and he has a huge scar across his neck, which is a testament to a failed suicide attempt. I could not just stand there in front of a classroom filled with 52 students and take this assault on my reputation. “What do you mean I am crazy, you’re the crazy one,” I said with a strong defensive tone. He stood his ground and simply replied, “I know I am crazy but YOU are the craziest.” The class laughed and all I could do before continuing with my lesson was say “great, so we are both crazy.”

For the rest of the afternoon the idea that I may be crazy has not left my mind. I have been reviewing my past and present behavior to see if there is any validation in my students judgemental claim. I have even gone so far as to ask a few of my co-workers the uncomfortable question, “do you think I am crazy.” Of course all of them told me what I wanted to hear: “no you are not at all crazy,” “I would not use the adjective crazy to describe you,” “definitely not crazy, maybe a little eccentric, but not crazy,” and of course “what! you are one of the saner people that I know.” Ever since I became an adult I have grown less and less trusting of an adults ability to tell the truth, so of course- I hardly believe any of the above claims. I could see in all of my co-workers eyes the truth wanting to come out but their inability to tell me how they really felt, that yes they agree with my student, that “yes, you are crazy,” only restores my belief that if you want the real truth about yourself, ask a teenager.

I don’t understand why it is such a big surprise to me that I am crazy. If I examine my past- it makes perfect sense that I would end up a little mentally unstable. I am the offspring of two Jewish parents who were filled with guilt and high expectations for their less than ambitious son. I let them down on almost a daily basis. They raised me on a golf course (in a suburban country club) where my worst fear was a golf ball hitting me in the head while sitting out by the pool. I had a maid who made my bed and cleaned my room every afternoon and a cook who prepared my meals. My father, who was an angry and violent man, terrorized me with his unstable emotions and always walked around our house naked. I was forced to go to a college that was $60,000 dollars a year and I had know idea what I was doing there. I joined a fraternity that made me eat live goldfish, dog feces and half dead frogs and stick my penis into prostitutes and other things that to this day I am still uncertain about what they were. After college, I developed a panic disorder that kept me confined to my apartment for years and by the age of thirty I was penniless and living in a transient motel. Now close to forty I am just starting to get my footing back. I live in an area where bullets rain down from the sky and sirens have replaced my childhood sounds of blue jays, swaying oak trees and golf swings. Why would I not be a little crazy?

Now that I think about it more, I am crazy. Okay, my student called my bluff today. I have never questioned the brutal honesty of teenagers before today because I have never been subjected to their sharp accusations. My defensiveness was an admission of guilt. Yes, I am guilty of craziness. Some may even agree that I have lost my mind. Maybe it is the transition from the first part of my life being filled with so much wealth and the second half being filled with so much struggle (it ain’t easy to be twenty five years old, living alone in a run down apartment and dropped into a kitchen without a clue on how to cook for yourself). The transition between the two may have jolted my nervous system into imbalance. Add upon that a sensitive disposition that not only feels but wants to end all the sufferings of the world- then yes…..you could call me crazy. And if that was not enough now add the threat of swine flu (I teach at an inner city high school made up of over fifty percent Mexicans- most of whom just arrived back from Mexico after their spring break) and yes, I may be loosing my mind. However, into today’s world, who isn’t guilty of insanity? The lifestyles that we live, the news stories that we bare witness to on a daily basis, the life and death struggles that frame our own existences…..is this not enough to jolt any nervous system into imbalance? As I was leaving my classroom today my student approached me and said “Mr. R, I hope I did not offend you by calling you crazy… I was just messing around.” I stood there in silence for a moment and then I looked at him and said, “I think everyone is a little crazy, don’t you?….and beside who the hell would not want to be crazy. It’s just another way of saying….. your are alive.”

P.s……..I apologize for any grammatical errors or poor sentence structures. Today…I am writing with tooth picks in my eyes (to keep them open) and a strong need to rest my crazy head.

Man In The Box

I am a man in the box. It is a box that I have made myself. It has its own logic and unique structure that took years to conform. It is a stubborn box that does not like to change its shape nor does it like it when I make certain revisions. My box has a very specific idea of the world and it is in this shape that it wants to stay. No matter how much I clean, fix, mend, adjust or renovate- my box always returns to its former state of disarray and disorder. My box is a universe unto itself. It has its own date and time and it does not care if it conflicts with yours or mine. It deviates from almost every norm and code and does not seem to care about such concepts as good or bad, right or wrong. I do know how it is that I have ended up in this box, but now that I am here I feel like I am always struggling to stay alive.

Within my box, I am perpetually alone. I can often hear the discordant sounds that can only be heard when the mind becomes silent. A wind chime that slow dances in the wind, the box settling into the agitated earth, a solitary bird call, a cats yawn or yell, a metallic bird flying overhead, distant voices alive and dead, siren sounds and occasionally I will hear a star falling.  When I am in a mad rush to get my box cleaned and ordered I can no longer hear these wondrous sounds but instead I am lead by anxious thoughts that will not let me just sit down and breathe. The thoughts torment me with the things that need to get done in order for me to become the man that I wish to be. These thought refuse to let me be just who I am and at times my thoughts will fill my mind with sexual fantasies that erect in me a load that I almost always have to release in the bathroom. As I clean my box, these thoughts knock away at me from the deepest rooms of my soul and my only defense is to continue cleaning until I can hear no more. I scrub, wipe, mop, sweep and dry until there is no more dust, dirt, grease mold, bacteria, stains, odors and lingering cobwebs left that I can find. I work my heart into a frenzy in order to free myself from my mind.

It is only when my box is clean and tidy and filled with the luscious odors of gardenias and lavender that I can be still and content. I can then once again hear the stars falling from the sky and my box settling into the agitated earth and now that everything is in its right place, everything is as it should be. Even though outside my box chaos and entropy may be lords inside feels fine. I sit quietly, sometimes in the lotus posture, besides my space heater and feel and listen to the calming expansions and contractions of my own breath. I become drunk on my own breath and sit as calmly and effortlessly as a man without a worry in the world would. It is in this state that I will often times remain for hours or days, content with who and where I am (without a single spark of desire that wishes to be someone else or somewhere else) and proud of the box that I have made.

Unfortunately, one can only sit still for so long before things begin to fall apart. I get back up, dust off my numb and pulsating legs (which I usually have to drink green algae and magnesium to relieve) and notice that my box is no longer as clean as it once was. The cobwebs, dust, dirt, odors, stains, mold and bacteria that were once long gone have returned with vengeance. I immediately return to work. I clean on my hands and knees and can no longer understand the peace that once was mine. I scrub with an effort of determination that wipes away all my joy but still the thoughts that emphasize words like failure, sick, poor, worry and death are relentless and refuse to let my body and soul be. I struggle against the forces that want to take from me what I once had and I end up turning my box into a living hell. In my distress I open windows, light candles, play Mozart and Bach on my record player and force myself to breathe deeply and bring my attention to the gentle notes emanating sounds from violin strings- but my box is shaking with fear and only a few stiff drinks will settle the trembling earth beneath my feet.

Sometimes I have a tendency to drink one to many. I knock into walls and fall onto the floor. My laughter returns from the void and I want to dance. I smoke cigarettes and talk to myself about philosophy, art and politics as if I was engaging three others in stimulating conversation. My thoughts are still and my soul is once again filled with lightness and joy and free to swim around in the swimming pool of inebriation. For hours I will wonder around my box drunk and in love with the world inside my front door.  I look at everything that I own with adoration and gratitude and I celebrate the life that I am living with song and dance. I dwell in my pleasant memories like a lone sailor quietly drifting out to sea and I remember faces from my past with a heart the beats with fond nostalgia. Free from my fears and the burden of daily responsibilities I relish away my time in a drunken revelry like a man who is living his final day to its fullest. When my time is up I will pass out wherever I maybe and in the morning awake with nothing to show for my hours of glory and celebration other than a clouded memory of fun, nausea, aching temples and a lingering thorn of shame and longing somewhere in my gut.

No matter where I go or what I do, in my box I always end up right back where I began. Day turns into night and night again turns into day and I am continuously left alone to deal with who I am. No matter how many distractions I may preoccupy myself with during the course of a day I always come back to the life I am living. My box is stubborn and will not twist or alter its shape no matter how much I change things around. Everyday, like a loyal servant, I clean and open the windows so that light can come into my box and shine against the freshly cleaned walls and floors. but I am always faced with inevitable night that fills my box with darkness. Since I have confronted the irreversible fact that I am stuck in this box, I am learning to become comfortable with these cycles that I have no control over. Even though my box refuses to move, shift, tilt, sway or stretch I can accept the things that are beyond my control. Within my box I can embrace the moments when I am still and at peace as equally as the moments when I am filled with fear and worry and driven into drunkenness. The more I embrace all of my experiences the more I see all of these cycles not as dualities that oppose and work against each other, but rather as textures filled with layers of love, fear, passion and dispassion. This is the continuum that I prefer to think of as life. Within my box I will continue to accept my experience as apart of this continuum and fill my box with love, hate, joy, anger, worry, sadness, bliss, terror and anything else that contributes to my experience of life. I will clean, scrub, care for, and tolerate my box until the day that it is time for me to pack my bags and find another place to live.

Genius and Daemon

Where do the words go? Do the ideas come before the words or do the words give birth to ideas? Whatever the case may be, I can not find either one of them. I have looked everywhere. Under my couch, bed, pillow, stove and refrigerator. I have looked on top of my bookshelves, behind them and even within the dust ridden pages that sit patiently on my bookshelf awaiting a time when they will once again corrupt my mind. I have cleaned out the insides of my car but still found nothing. This is as frustrating for me as when I loose my car keys and have no idea where I put them. I can remember the last time I held them in my hand but I have no idea where they are. It feels like yesterday that I just misplaced my words and ideas, but the irony of my search is that the more I look the harder they are to find.

It is true that the creative process is irrational. There is no sense to it only because the recipient of creativity can not depend upon it being there when he or she awakens in the morning. I remember a time, not to long ago, when words and ideas for stories would come to me as if brought by a divine delivery service. I would be out walking, working in the fields or sitting at a restaurant and I could hear and feel words and ideas for stories coming at me like a thunderous train of air. The ground beneath my feet would begin to shake when the train was not far away and I would run from wherever I was to find paper and a pen so that I could collect the delivery before it passed away. As I grew older and wiser I began carrying paper and pen with me wherever I went so that I would be better equipped to catch the ideas and words before they could escape and fall into the lap of the next available Writer. As some of you may know, the divine delivery service is impatient and does not care if you are in the middle of dinner with friends, on a nice leisurely walk or riding your bike along a tall cliff. You are a slave to its delivery times, and for someone like myself- the packages where coming quite frequently. I look back on this period of my life with fondness and realize that as an aspiring Writer this was my golden age, and age that seems to now be hiding from the sun.

The Greeks and Romans believed that creativity was a divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant unknowable source for some distant and unknowable reasons. Greeks called these divine attendant spirits of creativity Daemons. Socrates believed that he had a Daemon that spoke wisdom to him from afar. Romans referred to this disembodied creative spirit as a Genius. They believed that a Genius was a magical divine entity that literally lived in the walls of an artists studio and came out to help the artist shape the final art work. In our contemporary time we seem to put the emphasis of creativity all upon the artist (rather than see them as merely a vessel, a cup if you will) and rarely think of the artist as a normal individual with aches and pains just like all others. The only difference between the artist and everyone else, is that the artist receives deliveries from these divine attendant spirits. This may be why we look upon artists as depressive, struggling, idealists who drink too much and live not long enough- we fail to realize how much grief is caused when the delivery service stops showing up and they become normal human mortals again.

It is true, for months I have felt lighter, as if a part of my soul or spirit has stepped out for a stroll. I am not drinking more or becoming more self deprecating because of my loss, but I find myself searching a lot more than I did before. It is almost as if I lost something but I do not know what. Could it be that I am missing my Daemon or my Genius? Have my divine attendant spirits left me for another? This is another one of life’s big questions that I have no answer to, but I do know that I have spent days listening for that thunderous train of air. I will go for long walks or bike rides with my pen and paper in hand, awaiting the sensation of the ground shaking beneath my eager feet. I will sit in restaurants with friends trying to get lost in conversation, or deliberately put myself into preoccupying situations so that I can be surprised by the furious rumble that always used to unleash a tidal wave of words and ideas upon my soul- but I am always waiting in vain. Like a lover who waits everyday for the mail so as to know that their beloved is still alive, I dangle the pen in my hand, flip through the blank pages in my notebook and anticipate what seems to no longer be coming.

Some say that absence makes the heart grow fonder but I say that it can also make the mind mad. I am cleaning my house twice a day and checking spaces that I have checked numerous times before. I have starting talking to myself in public and wherever I am, I look around hoping that I will find something that no one else can see. I travel to the strangest places in my mind and spend hours driving around in my car like a man looking for a run away pet. Maybe the words and ideas that I have lost will come to me in the least expected of places, I tell myself as I search. My wife once told me when I was searching for a wallet that I could not find, you can never look to hard for something that you desperately want to find, and so with the determination of a man who believes that the best years of his writing career are still in front of him, everywhere I go I am searching for those words and ideas that once roamed so freely in the sanctity of my creative mind.

I have started an altar in the corner of my room. On it is an orange and a banana and the words Genius and Daemon writing in black ink and stuck in two small frames. Every morning when I wake up without my creativity I light a candle and sit in front of the altar. I say a few prayers, I make the offering of fruit and then I start to beg. I beg for Genius and/or Daemon to return to me. I beg for them not to leave me alone as an ordinary mortal in this world of mediocrity and nine to five work sentences. I make pledges that I will commit myself to my writing so that I can write books that will enlighten hundreds of thousands of minds. No longer will I neglect writing for days. No longer will I say that I am a Writer when I never re-write. I confess all of my writing sins and with my hands held in-between the palms of my hands, I cry a little and ask for forgiveness. When I am done with my holly supplications I blow out the candle, thank Genius and Daemon for their time and then shower and dress for the long day in-front of me. My hope is that today I will find a word or idea that will get a story rolling. Even better, I hope that I will hear that thunderous train of words and ideas approaching when I least expect it. If hope is what keeps a man alive than I will continue to hope and pray that today will be the day that my search will end and I can sit down and write the stories I was born to tell.

The Sex Life Of A Computer And A Man.

I have decided that I am having an unhealthy sexual relationship with my computer. As much as I want to deny this fact, I can not because it is truth. If I really contemplate the nature of this relationship I can tell that it has been going on for a really long time. Much longer than I would like to admit. Unlike most relationships, my sexual relationship has become more addictive as time has passed by. What once was a once a month or so sexual interaction, has become almost daily at this juncture in my life. The relationship is one sided, I do most of the work while the computer simply projects images of my sexual fantasies onto the screen. When I am finished having a sexual interaction with my computer I almost always feel a pound of guilt and shame, like I am doing something I should not be doing or should be doing with my wife rather than alone behind a locked door.

Tomorrow I have decided that the relationship will end. Today will be our final sexual interaction and then tomorrow I will block any sexual information or imagery from coming through my computer. I know that this is a rather sudden and harsh measure to take considering the duration of our sexual relationship, but I feel like this is something I must do. I will do it over lunch. I will take my computer with me to a very nice café and do it after I write a few emails and check my facebook account and blog. I found a sex blocking program on the internet that will take about five minutes to download onto my computer. As the program is downloading I will explain to my computer that I am a different kind of man now. I will tell it that I no longer want a life where I am pre-occupied with our sexual interactions. I want a life where I am in charge and focused upon my wife, work and personal growth. With all of my linguistic acumen I will try to get my computer to understand that the sex life we share is bringing me down and making me feel like a loser. It just is not healthy for a thirty eight year old male to be having such an obsessive sex life with his computer. I need real physical interaction rather than simulated sex and I only hope that my computer will be able to understand this conflict of interests.

I have a feeling that I already know how my computer is going to respond. It will malfunction for a while causing words to be typed in incorrect spaces and the screen to go out when I am in the middle of doing something important. In the past when my computer and I have been through similar situations it has always malfunctioned either to get my attention or to punish me for what I have done to it. It is annoying and I usually have to take my computer to a shop, spend lots of money to get it fixed- but I figure that if I can forever stop having sexual relations with my computer that it will be well worth the financial investment.

My therapist and I figured out that so much of my valuable time is taken up by having a sexual relationship with my computer. For a week I kept track of the time that I spent sexually engaged with my computer and the final results were shocking. I could spend this valuable time working on a novel, making a painting, sitting in meditation, walking in nature, making love to my wife- but instead I have been choosing sex with a computer. Even though I have tried this kind of break-up many times before with my computer, what will be different this time is that I realize how big a toll my sex life with a computer is taking on the rest of my life! The last time that I tried to break-up with my computer I was not armed with a therapist, self- awareness and a program to download onto my computer that will block anything sexual from coming through. This time, unlike times in the past, I am well prepared for the task at hand.

Deep down, I know that I have the talent needed to manifest my dreams. I just lack the work ethic. I am lazy and will come up with the most elaborate distractions to avoid doing the work that I need to do in order to manifest a dream or two. For a time longer that I care to admit I have been sexually using my computer as a device of distraction. Rather than sitting down at my computer and composing the novel that I desperately dream of beginning, I take off my clothes and sit naked in front of my computer instead. If you would of told me as a self obsessed teenager that I would still be doing this kind of stuff as an older man I would of taken boy scouts much more seriously and tried my hardest to make myself into an honest young man. But instead here I am some twenty or so years later still struggling with similar issues as I was when young. I do not suffer from the same degree of guilt and shame as I did when I was young (because I know that I am not a bad person) nor do I live in fear of hair growing out from the palm of my hands. Now I have a degree of extra confidence and I am able to express my needs without the fear of rejection. Even though ending this sexual relationship with my computer will be difficult, I have faith in my ability to end relationships that are no longer good for me. I have done this with many people before and I can’t see why now I should not be able to do this same thing with my computer.

My therapist tells me that ending the relationship will not be the hard part but staying away from sexual interactions with my computer over time and re-placing it with healthier interactions like emailing, facebook or blogging, will be the real challenge. I have already started a facebook account and I am now blogging more than I have in the past. I have been conditioned (a Pavlovian response) to get an erection every time that I sit down in front of my computer because I have had such a dominate sexual relationship with it in the past. In the future when this occurs, my therapists recommends that I take deep breaths, ignore my erection and over time I will not have sexual impulse-responses each and every time I sit in front of a computer screen. So starting tomorrow, my intention is set- no more sex with my computer. It is going to be a hard break-up, I know, but in the long run it will be best for both of us. My mother always told me that time will heal all wounds and strengthen the spirit and heart- for the first time in my life I am going to hope that my mom knew what she was talking about.

Transcendental Drinking

For more time than I care to think back upon, I have been seeking enlightenment. I have looked for it in more places than you could imagine. I have engaged in various pathways to personal liberation such as silent meditation retreats, aura balancing workshops, weekly psychoanalysis consultations, mantra gatherings, daily morning meditation sessions and on and on. At one time I even sold everything that I owned and lived in a shack in the country for three years. I have hundreds of books piled in the corners of my small apartment that focus upon themes such as inner peace, mindfulness, destroying fear, living in balance, the power of the now and meditation. In every available spiritual crevice I have stuck my head, still after all these years- nothing has brought me closer to enlightenment than two beers and a shot of whiskey.

It was Ben Franklin who said that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. If what Ben says is true than maybe he was on to something. It has been well documented that Ben Franklin read eastern philosophy and dabbled in the esoteric arts. Various historians say that Ben Franklin was interested in magic and others have written widely upon his interest in trying to transcend his reality through various spiritual modalities. One historical account that I was reading of Ben Franklin the other day, said that nothing was as effective as beer for Mr. Franklin to reach the desired state of enlightenment. This is why he is often referred to as the transcendental drinker.

Like Mr. Franklin, I consider myself to be a transcendental drinker. In all my many years of spiritual investigations, nothing has had the ability to center me like booze. Every day, through my various retinue of spiritual supplications, I strive to reach a state of being where I am free from anxiety, fear, worry and my chronic feelings of inadequacy. I do my daily mantras, breathing exercises, yoga postures and prayers- but still I am left with a lingering sense of the apprehension and negative emotions that I strive so hard to transcend. But when I drink (which is a daily practice of mine as well) within twenty minutes or after the second beer, my thoughts come to a halt, my fear is silenced and my normally guarded, anxious, angry and uptight personality is put away. Out will come a more outgoing me that has no problem talking freely with strangers. After a shot of whiskey to wash the final residue of my second beer away, I am fully grounded in the present moment without a worry in the world. The earth upon which I struggle on a daily basis is turned into a paradise and I am as close to being in the same state as any transcendent spiritual master I have ever read about. I become (for a few hours at least) what I would like to call- enlightened.

Living Underwater

It does not take a perceptive individual to be able to see that the world and everyone within this world is in great danger. From the toxins flying freely in the air to the life denying wars and corporate greed- antagonists of life such as global warming, violence, disease and recessions are here to stay for awhile. I had a Teacher once, many years ago, who taught me the fundamental law of life on earth. He taught that human beings are the microcosm of the larger world environment, which is the macrocosm. If the inner condition of human being is sick and run down the outer conditions of the world will be a direct reflection of this inner malaise. This theory works the other way around as well- if the outer world environment is ill so is our inner human environment. One is directly connected to the other, and the idea that our actions are separate from the larger world environment is simply misguided and the single reason why these current global problems are going to stick around for awhile.

I have tried to cultivate wisdom, love and good health within myself- with the expectation that somehow this will save the world from what seems to be her inevitable end (as we know it). But all of my attempts seem futile considering that all around me, I see things and people in a million little pieces of dis-repair. The skies are filled with smog, the news is filled with violence, war and economic recession on an hourly basis. The school in which I teach is filled with a poverty so overwhelming, that ants are currently eating away at the desks in  classroom.

Two weeks ago I read an article about the health benefits of spending time underwater. Not only does spending two minutes a day underwater improve your stress levels but it also induces a sense of over all well being that is said to cure high blood pressure, panic disorder, OCD, fibromyalgia, connective tissue disorders, arthritis, migraines, diabetes type one and various other bronchial and cardiac stress induced disease. Considering that I am a reflection of the world around me, it is only natural to understand why I experience a variety of health challenges. Like any individual who is determined to get well, I drink wine and beer on a nightly basis, do Yoga, masturbate at least twice a week, watch what I eat and take on any other life style changes that may add to my inner sense of well being. Oh, I also have been living, underwater.

All day long I look forward to the time that I will spend in my tub. When I make it home through the smog and grid lock traffic, I immediately run into the bathroom and start running the warm bath water before I have even put down my work day baggage. All day long between the screaming teenagers and the demanding administration, I have been dreaming about the time I will be spending underwater. The thought of being underwater pulls me forward like the most irresistible force of entropy. When I am finally home, and the bath tub is barley filled- I strip down into the nude, fill the tub with lavender salts and then plop right in.

My wife has been concerned because I have not been eating dinner lately since I am spending so much time in my tub (I do not like to eat at night because food in my system gives me cramps when I am underwater). On some days, I will spend up to six hours underwater. I will use a large straw as my underwater breathing device and I will lie still in the sanctity of my tub, until my skin becomes so water logged that I have no choice but to get out and go to bed. When I am underwater I feel like the outer world is washed away and my inner world is filled up with a sense of crystalline equanimity. I am a man at peace, desiring nothing and needing to go nowhere; like a holly Samana on a spiritual journey, I am able to dwell in the calm abode within myself. I have often thought that the reason why spending so much time living underwater is so helpful for me is because it reminds me of being in my mothers womb. My mother told me once that when I was born I resisted coming out with all my might (she could feel my little hands grabbing onto the sides of her uterus), and after twenty one hours of radical resistance the powers that be were able to yank me into a world that was not as wet and warm.

If I could live underwater I would. I would stay in my tub all day in the silence of the underwater world. Unfortunately, man can not make a living in the underwater world and he must come up for air once in awhile (so that he can afford the tub and the water in which he rests). So I live a divided life. Part of my day is spent in the world of human aspirations. I pass on my fragmented knowledge to the youth of America and in return receive enough money to be considered upper lower class Teacher with some cultural legitimacy. I am able to afford rent on a decent sized abode in the ghetto, the pets that I love and the wife that I adore. The world of human aspirations occupies half of my waking time, but when I am done with that transitory world- I say good bye to my wife, my work, my writing, my birds, my cats, my dog and I fill up my tub and enter into the underwater world. It is here, in the sanctity of my tub, that I am fully myself, fully at peace in the nude. I lie on my back looking up at the world through my clouded speedo goggles with a feeling of deep reassurance that what I am doing is not only good for me but also for the larger macrocosm, which is a direct reflection of a man who is living underwater.

The Man Who Pissed A Miracle

Three weeks ago I peed upon a large plot of dirt that was located behind my parents home. I was locked out and had to go. The large plot of dirt was the only piece of land on my parents property that was not touched by landscaping. My father had wanted to build a Japanese tea garden on the dirt plot but because of the recent economic recession he had decided to wait it out. I was in my parents neighborhood that day (I went to a job interview) and I decided to stop in. Not only was I hoping to borrow some money but I desperately needed to use the toilet. When I found no one at home- I had no choice but to pee on their small piece of land.

When nature calls it is difficult for man or woman to ignore the call. The twentieth century was filled with magnificent inventions that attempted to bypass natures call. Somehow humans thought that if they could be ingenious enough to trick nature then maybe they could be in control. I however have difficulty ignoring the call of the wild. I prefer to listen and respond when necessary. Possibly a great deal of my anxiety stems from the fact that I am too tuned into nature but this seems to be a disposition that I was born with. That day under the sun and in the quietude of my parents back yard, I peed without any thought about the personal violation I may have been committing. When I was finished watering the dirt I zipped up my pants and drove back to my home.

Today I returned to my parents home and was stunned by what I saw. In the very plot of dirt where I peed three weeks before grew a gorgeous lemon tree. My father and I stood in silence under the spring time sun staring at this lemon tree that had grown over four feet tall- in no time. Full grown lemons sat perched upon the end of its branches and a yellow hue highlighted the trees fluorescent leaves. For a few minutes all thoughts about my peeing in this spot three weeks before escaped me. I asked my father if he was sure that the gardeners did not plant this tree. He told me that he was cutting expenses for the time being and one of those expenses was the gardener. No one had worked on this land for months. My mother came out with a cup of iced tea in her hand and said “isn’t it amazing!!” I looked at my mom and said, “how could this be?” My father picked a lemon from the tree and handed it to me. It was the most beautiful lemon I had ever seen. I could smell it before it was in the palm of my hand. “Amazing,” was all I could say.

And then I remembered that three weeks before I had taken a piss in the same place where the lemon tree now stood. I questioned myself for a few minutes trying to convince myself that the tree must of been here before I peed. It was not. There was no way to explain what was before my eyes other than that my urine had given birth to this lemon tree. How this could be escapes my rational mind but I remember when I gave a urine sample to my doctor a few months ago he told me it was the most nutrient dense urine he had ever seen. “It almost reminds me of lemon juice,” he said. I thought nothing of this remark until today. As I stood besides the lemon tree with my mother and father I was shocked by the possible power of my pee. I wanted to tell them that I may know the reason why the tree is there. They may be upset that I peed upon their valuable land but when they found out what their son’s urine could achieve- all hurt feelings would possibly turn into an emotion of awe towards the holly man who was their son. Finally they would think that after 37 years of failure on earth- I had made something out of myself. As my mother stood there repeating, “incredible” over and over- I remained silent afraid that if I took the risk and told the truth as I saw it I would never be allowed to come home again. My father went inside and got his camera and for the rest of the day I pretended to be as surprised as they were about this strange lemon tree that grew from my pee.