One Year and a whole lot of fear

It takes the cake for the worst week of my life, watching my best friend in the world slowly and painfully die. That fucking dry mouth, it comes back to haunt me almost every time that I close my eyes. That feeling of helplessness and just praying that I could somehow slip peacefully away beside her. What else did I really have? I've tried to explain what she meant to me, to many people, but I don't think anyone can fully understand why it hurt so goddamn bad. She was my soul mate-my other half. My Mom has my Dad and Paul to look after. Christian has Laura and Sally. Marianne has Craig. My friends are all married or practically so and no one ever liked me in a mono y mono type of way, but it was all ok, because I had my Grandma. With my Grandma, I knew that we had a very special bond and no one could take that away, until the gods of age and time did. I didn't know what to do. It was like a part of me just died right along side her, so I ran away, basically. My life has been so hard and confusing for the past couple of years that there just didn't seem to be any reason to live, except for her. I knew that she would want me to do good things with my life and help people and see the beauty in everyday. Thus I tried like hell to be the person she saw in me and I am still trying.

Then, it happens out of the blue and you seem to find the one person who gets you for who you are. The one person that you spill out your life story to in the first couple of weeks. The one person that doesn't make you feel like you have to be anyone, but your neurotic, half-crazy self around. The one person who truly makes you a better person, but life is too complicated for simplistic happiness. Nothing ever makes sense and life just barrels on in pools of pain with droplets of happiness that are hard to find.

A while without style

I don't know what I am doing in my life. Does anyone? I think I am going crazy.

Because My Mom Told Me to Write

A good friend of mine wrote me an email, yesterday that asked the age or question: Why is life so unfair? Why, Gertrude, I don't know. Life is a shit storm. It will suck your guts out of every single orifice in your body, tie them into knots, blend them in a rusty old coffee grinder, mix them with sulpheric acid until they are the consistency of a YooHoo, before they pour them back into you...through every orifice available, of course.

This said-that's life. It happens to virtually all people. Thus, the question should not be "Why is life so unfair?" but "What can we do to make this unfair life a bit more bearable?" Do I like my life? Eh-it's ok, but there are a lot of aspects of my life that really piss me off. However, I might as well keep going and continue to try to find something that makes me happy. On the way, I might even help make someone else's life a little happier. That's what I am going to try to do.

My friend also has Lyme's Disease. A disease transmitted by a tiny tick that changes the health of your body forever. There is pain, fatigue, depression...This existence of this disease alone should be an answer to the question "Why is life so unfair?" It is random. If a tiny tick can change your life, why should you take anything seriously? You cannot control the shitty shit that happens to you, so why care so much about what other people think? Just live. Do what you want to do. Don't wait. Don't fear. Don't care.

Drive By Lifein'

In a travel station in Missouri, they sell barbecue pork and old men sit in the far back corner smoking cigarettes and talking about the weather. Their chat halts momentarily when the two yanks come in to use the bathroom and buy a few sticks of sugarfree chewing gum. The Missouri bathroom smells like the perfume I used to use when I was 13 and trying too hard to be normal. If I knew then that I, eleven years later, would smell that same scent in a dirty Missouri travel station, would I have bothered sneaking it from my Mom's dresser in the first place? If I knew when I was thirteen, by the age of 24, that I would have lived in Watford City, North Dakota; Packwood, Washington; Marble Falls, Texas; and on a seismic research vessel in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, would I have believed it? All of those years of dreaming and flipping through National Geographic magazines wondering if I would ever see the outskirts of Greenville, MI, I finally reached beyond the pages. My brother, Christian, is reading a book called Factory Girls about Chinese factory girls. He says the Chinese believe that a family's history begins when the first person leaves. Until then, you are living someone else's life. That seems pretty accurate to me.

In the past few months, I have neglected my blog, primarily because I was living at a summer camp in Texas. TOS was not devoid of drama in the least bit. If we called ourselves a family, we were quite the incestuous family. Of course I did not partake in incestuous behavior as my options were quite limited and even in my drunkest states, I was not going there. I had a lot of fun, blobbing, water sliding, rock climbing, surfing, and exploring a state I once vowed never to visit. I'm glad I broke my vow, because life, at least my life, is not about picking and choosing where to go. It's about adventure being thrust upon me and grasping it and going wherever the wind takes me. I refuse to let chances pass me by out of fear. I've made a lot of odd choices, like living with Biggy C in a trailer park or attempting to befriend a crazy homeless man in Ann Arbor, but out of the odd spewed rich stories. I've also had a lot of failures, like my Austin basketball group or that Ironman I met with or that Mississippi embarrassment, but in the end, who the fuck really cares. My failures all have one great likeness - they all began with a taken risk. If I don't continue to take risks and stuff money down homosexual men's pants, who will I become? Will I become part of my family? - someone living an ancient man's story? Thus, in three days I will pack my life into a thirty pound bag, board an airplane flying from Grand Rapids, MI to Houston, TX, then board a helicopter that will fly me onto a seismic research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. Life is a daring adventure, or nothing at all.

Reptiles Hatch in Human Form

So says a fifth grader when I pose the question: "What did you learn from reptiles class." I start to hand her a black reptile bead without really processing her answer, but the information swarms my hippocampus just before the bead drops. Reptiles do not hatch in human form, but in adult reptilian form or so says my lesson plan. However, I did not write the lesson. Who did? I suppose it was Deb, the mastermind behind the incredibly organized, intricately thought-out, Outdoor School. Who am I to pull back the black reptile bead from the girl with such a philosophical answer? Maybe we do become reptiles with age. Our skin begins to wrinkle and flake, our bones deteriorate, sense of taste becomes bland, and our body temperature become more and more difficult to regulate without exterior reinforcement. Perhaps we are morphing and not dying as Gertrude and I so often glorify. Immediately after someone dies, they turn shades of green and yellow like fall colors, becoming chameleons with the Earth.

I've been thinking about it, again. Maybe we all are. Aunt Barb called me for some reason a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps she sensed my thoughts of abandonment return. I miss my Grandma like hell.

Back and Forth tweedle de dum

I go back and forth in this life - from Greenville to Ann Arbor to Seattle to Portland to Austin, these are the scuff marks on my sneakers. I don't know where I'll end up. I can see myself shuffling the Earth for awhile longer and finally settling down right where I started. I am not saying Barry St, but perhaps the farm in Amsden. After all, that is my favorite place on Earth. Sure I've seen a lot of shit happen there - piss buckets and bricks to the side of the head, but in some sadistic, morbid, comforting way, I feel safe. It feels like home and warm pancakes fried in lard and tiny pizzas and potato soup with caraway seeds and a pot of tea on the stove. And so I will open my eyes to the rest of the world, but focus on the place I've always known as home.

A Spoonful of Cactus Jam

I bought some Prickly pear cactus jam from a nice country lady at the Oatmeal Festival in Oatmeal, TX. How did I end up in Oatmeal, TX? In my visions of life, I never once imagined a quick stop in Oatmeal, TX for a festival whose name is much more intriguing than the festivities. The best part of the Oatmeal Festival in Oatmeal, TX was the festival's mascot - a personified canister of 3 Minute Brand oats that looks exactly like the Twinkie Mascot. I bought a canister of 3 Minute Brand oats at the Marble Falls H.E.B store, but upon bringing it home I discovered that not only did it take just 2 minutes to cook, but 3 Minute Brand oatmeal is not even made in Oatmeal, TX. An entire festival celebrates this brand (although the festival had very little focus on oatmeal aside for merchandise purposes) and it is made in St. Louis, MO. I feel like I've been cheated. I did, however, make the best of my disappointing journey and bought a baggie of cookies from some old people and that jar of prickly pear jam previously mentioned.

It has been awhile since I have blogged. I have moved away from Washington and down to Marble Falls, TX. My life has been an endless stream of packing and unpacking for several years now and I am starting to enjoy it. When I left Washington, I left most of my possessions behind in search of a fresh start. Biggy C had my minivan and pretty much everything else that I owned. Christian gave me his Ford Focus station wagon and I packed it with one large camping back pack full of stuff, a bike, a sleeping bag, bedding, and my fishing pole. What more do you need in life? It's all good so far. I am enjoying my job and my co-workers, but the children arrive tomorrow. Training is over and the real test begins.