Monday, August 4, 2014

The Nurse that Made me Cry

My sixth journey into The McKittrick Hotel provided me with a treat that I will never forget.  I was in a dark forest maze following two nurses closely.  One nurse darted off into a window without glass that led into a room of The St. James Sanatorium filled with bathtubs.  The other nurse watched between the forest branches along with me as the other nurse contorted her body and, at one point, flipped upside down inside the window frame. Next to us stood a stuffed yak and a deteriorating and chained iron gate (this was a reference to the gate blocking the Manderlay castle as told in the intro to Hitchcock's 'Rebecca'). It was a mesmerizing little scene to watch but, in a flash, the nurse standing next to me started sprinting through the forest as the music became louder and more intense.  The music, the eery lighting, and the sight of the nurse dodging the dead tree branches everywhere as I ran after her like a ghost behind my white mask must have looked like a scene out of a dark movie.  I kept up the chase at almost a full sprint while darting through the forest maze trying not to allow a wayward branch to take my head off until I saw her standing still on the raised doorstep of a small rundown hut.  She beckoned to me as I stood in the trees staring at her.  So, along with my racing heart, I slowly walked up the stairs and entered her lair.

She immediately closed the door and the window.  I looked around this very small and intimate setting from behind my white mask and saw oddly shaped cuttings of pages from books hanging all over the walls and ceilings.  The nurse then got very close to me and stared deeply into my eyes.  I heard the sound of thunder outside the hut.  It startled me and the nurse took a step closer to me never once breaking eye contact nor did I notice her blink.  She removed my mask which left me feeling naked and victim to the emotion and intensity behind her eyes.  She then started preparing me hot tea after motioning to me to take a seat on a small chair across from a rocking chair.  She handed me the saucer and tea cup and, while I held it wide-eyed, she spoon fed me the tea for about 4 solid minutes and, again, her intense eyes never moved from looking deeply into mine as she slowly spooned the tea into my mouth over and over.  Already vulnerable without my mask, I felt like a sick and wounded soul she was caring for with each spoonful of tea that slide down my throat and with every single second her amazing eyes looked through me.

She then folded a napkin and put it on my lap and motioned for me to allow the saucer to remain their on my lap.  My hands were noticeably trembling as the psychology of the scene along with her gaze played through my spirit.  She noticed my trembling hands and grabbed onto one of them and held it tightly between her two hands.  She then leaned ever so close to my face (no more than a foot) and told me this story:

Once upon a time, there was a poor child,
With no father and no mother,
And everything was dead,
And no one was left in the whole world.
Everything was dead.
And the child went and searched day and night,
And since nobody was left on the earth,
He wanted to go up in to the heavens,
And the moon was looking at him so friendly,
And when he finally got to the moon,
The moon was a piece of rotten wood.
And then he went to the sun,
And when he got there,
The sun was a wilted sunflower.
And when he got to the stars,
They were little golden flies, stuck up there like the shrike sticks among the black thorn.
And when he wanted to go back down to Earth,
The Earth was an overturned piss-pot, And he was all alone.
And he sat down and he cried.
And he is there to this day.
All alone.”


As she told me this sad story, she never blinked.  Teardrops fell out of her eyes twice as she whispered the story to me and held my hand tightly..warmly.  I had thoughts of loneliness, abandonment, and even my own little boy.  The pain communicated with her eyes and with her tears falling caused my chin to start wobbling uncontrollably as I became overwhelmed with emotion.  I never made a sound but my eyes and trembling hands could not lie in regards to the intense effect her gaze, her story, and the moment in general was having on me.  She finished her story and kissed me ever so lightly to further put me at ease.

In a moment's notice she was then overcome by a force of some sort which had her slowly stretching her body out in the rocking chair.  Music slightly off in the distance became louder.  The sound of thunder became louder.  Then complete silence fell upon us.  She slowly got out of her chair, stood me up, and very slowly put my mask on as she gazed deeper still into my eyes.  She then put her lips so very close to my ear that I could feel them.  She whispered to me, "Blood Will Have Blood, They Say..."  She opened the door and I, in a completely bewildered state, walked down the stairs of the small hut and made my way back into the forest forever changed.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

My super-fantastic loss of my virginity story!

I have the f*cking best losing virginity story known to man. I promise. It doesn't involve watching the sun rise over the dashboard of a Honda Civic while hungover and in the arms of your awesome sauce teen lover. Ohh, the people that know me well know my story and it's actually funny and twistedly romantic enough to base a movie upon and I swear to dog that none of this was planned or expected ;)

I lost my virginity on the beach in Santa Barbara, CA.  Santa Barbara is one of the most gorgeous places in America rivaling even Hawaii and Key West.  However, Santa Barbara isn't an island so, to me, as far as the lower 48 states go, Santa Barbara is a special place of amazing and unmatched in its class as far as natural and even unnatural beauty goes (a quaint little town near the beach that maintain a sense of small town charm).  In short, its one of the most charming towns in the lower 48 that I've experienced and was the most gorgeous town I'd ever seen at the ripe age of 17.

So, on St. Patrick's Day in 1993, I got lucky on a lucky day.  Yup, March 17th, 1993.  I lost my virginity on the 17th when I was 17!  That's enough of a memory, right there, to set it apart.

During the act of sweet teenage love and lust, a maintenance man started pounding on the door and then opened the eff'ing door to our love shack in the middle of sweet, sweet, and confusing "WTF is going on" coitus (yes, I used that word 'coitus' to entertain you). The "love shack" I speak of was her HUGE muscle bound Father's corporate economy apt given to him to conduct business for a matter of months.  It was, literally, steps from the main Santa Barbara beach and we *cough* I took advantage of every wonderful opportunity it had to offer.

After the extreme banging on the door, my sweet and supple teen lover flew off me into the shower thinking it was her Dad that would simply kill me, drown me in the Pacific Ocean, and then slap the sex right off her face with his massive man hand to teach her a lesson in how not to be a harlot to a charming but ginger decorated Casanova. I, literally, scrambled to put my clothes on and failed miserably.  I put my shirt on backwards and turned the TV on to "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (f*cking awesome movie that further illustrates the awesomeness of the moment) just to look like I was doing nothing but waking up to a campy movie while my fair maiden showered and primped for the day out and about within one of the most beautiful places in America.  Meanwhile, inside, I was thinking I was a dead man or, at the very least, a crippled for life man.

The damn maintenance man opened the door with his master key while I sat on the couch in my backwards shirt and my lovely fair teen maiden was in the bathroom showering off her shame.   Maintenance big "O" blocker quickly cleared the f*cking clogged sink drain in 25 secs.  Ugh.

I still expected the person banging on the door yelling "maintenance" to be her Father of Harley riding doom.  I assure you that he did, in fact, come off as such a person.

That early evening, when he got home from work, he took me on a ride on his massive Harley down the Pacific Coast Highway mere hours after I had first gotten laid by his daughter.  Many moments I will never forget took place in such a short period of time. This moment was a majestic manly motorcycle Zen moment at sunset spent with the Father of whose daughter's sweet, sweet, succulent and perfect 17 yr old flesh I had "violated" just hours before.  In all honesty, we both had lust or love or whatever (they both get quite confused during these times of youth / uncertainty) during the act so I wasn't "violating" a thing. This was all chock full of young love and a sweet but oddly high-larry-ass experience I'll never ever forget.  It happened all as it should have.  Everyone I've ever known has told me how horrible and awkward their lost virginity experience was.  Mine was awkward only in a funny way when a mutha' f*ckin maintenance man burst into the room to fix a damn clogged sink disposal.  After it all, she said to me, "Wow, we are soooooo lucky that wasn't my Dad."  Then she said, "Man, that felt really really nice with you in my arms and I regret none of it as us both experiencing this as our first.  We need to do it again and we need to do it again soon!"  Ahh, young love!  Confusion, awkwardness, fun, education, and laughter shared between two people with little to no cares in the world.  I strive to bring that kind of fun into each and every new relationship I embark upon.  Life is too short, even in your 30's, to not treat someone you are interested in as that young, fun, lusty ass, awesome sauce person you'll hopefully be able to have many laughs and feel love towards.

Home School, New Skewls, New Souls, Old Souls, Old Skewls. Think outside the "Murica" bun...

Rough - Unedited....taken from an informal FB post that I didn't make so people wouldn't jump down my throat for my massive posts to that stupid ass brain numbing social site.  The point here?  Excuse my lack of proper grammar in some spots as this was meant to be pooped out on a FB wall where I expected no one to read it.  Few may read it here but it will be here for myself or others important in my life to reflect upon down the road.  Making a journal of your life is important and writing is a tool that gets that done.  I also have a massive audio journal of a lot of my adventures so the written word isn't the only way to experience a slice of cathartic cleansing.
 
This writing was made in response to my fear felt after enrolling my Son for his first year of actual school. I feared of no longer being able to whisk him away on an airplane at a moment's notice as I've done so many times since he was 3.75 ys old and someone suggested that I or his Mom home school him to which I had this long-winded response. 

I'm no professional in education and his Mom is too busy building her business so home school'ing is not an option. Ya know, I have NO issue waltz'ing into that damn school and telling them that "Aunt Ida" is dying in Detroit and he needs to be gone for 8 days. Not like he's going to miss trigonometry and he will learn more traveling the world with me than stuck sitting in a Texas classroom. The most disservice put upon American children and the American population, as a whole, these days is the odd dissuasion to travel and experiencing other cultures. I've met many young people from boxed in cultures / countries such as AU and New Zealand and part of their education is months to a solid year off to travel / travel as much of the world as possible. It's literally part of your expected "higher education." When I was in Sydney, AU, there were student travel agencies every 5th store front where I was staying newar the Central rail and bus depot adverting cheap trips everywhere around the world. I happened to be staying in near the main university in Sydney and I, instantly, was able to put the pieces together after meeting a young New Zealand born bloke shortly before my "down under" experience. People from AU and NZ get stir crazy living on those isolated islands. Yes, AU is a HUGE land but the towns are isolated and concentrated around the coast making it this microcosm, in a way, shut off thus giving each town it's own country type of feel.  It's hard to explain.

The Uncle of a friend I was staying with on The Sunshine Coast near Brisbane (after my stint in Sydney) sat down with me one night and told me of his tales of backpacking around the world with no particular location(s) other than to travel as far and to as many different places as possible. He was shocked to arrive in Houston, TX one night at the bus station (which is the worst and scariest place in Houston to land) expecting an easy place to pitch his tent on his backpack in some park to shelter his young self for the night. He asked the bus driver where a good place nearby to do that would be and the driver laughed at him saying he'd get killed or all his shit would be stolen. I think he ended up at the Y or some shit but the point here is that American culture is eff'ed in the A. Our young people aren't taught to explore at a young age and our culture breeds people meant to think "Murica is THE BEST" so why go anywhere else?  If you do actually go somewhere else and travel a bit, American's become complacent and continue to return to that place OVER AND OVER AND OVER without wanting to spread their wings further let alone take a chance on something different.  It drives me crazy. Xenophobia runs rampant in this country.

The higher education system in this country doesn't help matters by putting young people in horrid debt from stage one thus strapping them to a damn desk like a button pushing monkey until they are too damn old to care, have started a family, or other responsibilities that, on top of loan payments, prevent them from taking saaay a year, to travel as a young adult. This not only teaches them that "Murica" is far from the best but teaches them independence, utter confidence, and the fact that the world is out there for them to explore and many corners of it may be perfectly suited for them to live in and even start a family in one day. Only 30-35% of Americans own a passport while I consider it as important as a bank card. Xenophobia is far from sexy as it only puts a bulls eye on your back with the giant "I'm ignorant" label. The first time I crossed the ocean at the tail end of 2000. I was young and, I left the country for 2 weeks to hole up in a flat in London. I was poor (still in college debt), following a lovely lady in whom I was in lust / in some sorta love, and was thrust into a world of possibilities. A cheap bus pass and a metro ticket was all I needed along with a sense of adventure. The most challenging thing throughout the trip, other than being tasked with cooking the Xmas turkey for the young people whom had me in their flat, was finding a restaurant with food that didn't seem awkward to me. I dunno why but it just seemed scary walking into any old joint looking for food when every penny I had was sacred...I failed at most choices and had awful meals and found myself pissed off at "their food." I went to the market to get a turkey expecting a ButterBall wrapped turkey to be in freezer case with one of those plastic pop'up "I'm done you stupid ass American" rods shoved into it's chicken tit. No such thing. I found a 7-11 sized store with a bird and feathers hanging on the wall and was asked which one I wanted. I pointed to one and the butcher asked me if I wanted the clawed feet on or off. I said, "uhhhh, OFF!" He slapped that bird down, plucked some feathers off it, and I, in horror, watched as he took a massive meat cleaver and whacked the bird's feet and head off in front of me. The separate parts were bagged and thrown into a small plastic grocery bag that we, in America, get 20 of for our $40 in groceries off. I went back to the flat, and used some print outs from the net of how to cook a turkey, plucked the rest of the feathers and prepp'ed this THING for the oven half the size of my microwave at home. I lovingly did all I could to this bird using a basic recipe of butter and herbs before throwing it into an oven in which the temp control handle had no numbers left on it having been worn off. I watched that damn turkey for hours, in between make out session on the couch with the girl I traveled their to and whose Sister's flat I was staying at, to make sure we didn't end up with a flaming ball of dirt for Xmas dinner. Well, everything worked out fine, quite damn tasty, and I was sincerely thanked for paying for and putting much love into the meal that came out of the kitchen and into the girl whom had my heart. It was my thank you for the 2 week accommodation I was provided in an expensive town far from my own. In the end, I didn't like London. I hated the place and never found love for the place as I found it dirty, over-priced, and chock full of crap ass weather. However, that trip and the VALUABLE education simmered in me for a long time as I was no tourist on my first trip overseas. I actually lived in that city just as anyone would for over two weeks. I even stood on a bridge over the River Thames whacked out of my mind on absinthe with a lovely young girl in my arms and watched Big Ben sound off Midnight thus thrusting us into the year 2001. I learned that even one of the largest "center of the Earth" type cities on Earth was an alien like place akin to Mars to my suburban raised, in a Single Mom household (worth noting as no one was around to wipe my ass or do my laundry growing up...my hand was never held and I was always forced to be independent), ass. I was sheltered during my young years but left the house when I was 17 and never once looked back for support. My sense of independence trickled down into world travels and experiences far exceeding the education provided to me by "the system." In summation, I will work hard in this life to raise my Son to want to travel and realize that America isn't the only place on Earth and to make decisions in his life that make him want to break free of any bonds that tie him to any sort of microcosm of "perceived comfort and security." He's already been out of the country and in many places in our country (coast to coast in a 3 week period) all at the age of 4 so he's got a good start. He shows a good deal of fearlessness and is insanely well-socialized around both adults and kids. He's never shy around anyone and is eager to share things he's thinking with all whom he encounters. Last, he not easily impressed as he's learned and seen so much in this world already and I think that's a good start. He has old soul eyes just like his Dad and I think he will do just fine making many of the same dumb ass mistakes I have made but more of the good ones I did make. Most importantly, he will have a good soul and good heart. A sense of compassion is seen in him. No matter what he learns. A good soul and good heart are a start. He will always be surrounded by love and told that he is loved. I was raised that way and it has made all the differences. Hug a kid today. Hug someone today. Tell them you love them or, at least, value them and that there is a wonderful world out there for them to experience. Tell them to go and experience it, be happy, learn, laugh, and share it all. Don't waste your time here being ignorant or trying to be "normal" because, if there's one damn thing I know, I'll never ever figure out what "normal" is and I really don't want to.