She's been my best friend (arguably) for two decades at this point, and I still don't know specifically why knives are a terror to her. I noticed it first as we discovered our weirdly coincident attraction to action movies. Guns and explosions were nothing to her, but the silent blades of Crouching Tiger and Kill Bill drew gasps that shocked me at the time. Even now, I don't know the source, I only know that it's a thing for her.
The closest I've gotten is a story from her childhood in Jakarta. There was a man, of course, in a horse barn that she and her baby sister inhabited or frequented or ghosted in their unsupervised existence on that island. I have only gathered that he had a blade of some kind and the intent of drawing both blood and pleasure from one or both of them.
In the time I have known of this vaguely whispered occurence, I have finished the tale with Mary as the heroic savior of her little sister. Somehow, her tiny eight-year old self was already the kind of warrior who could best a full-grown, armed savage of a man. And, knowing the woman she has become, this is not so unbelievable.
But what is most likely, considering the violence of her recoil at the sight of any blade being raised, there is a more violent end. At the very least, this man has become a spectre that terrorizes her subconscious. Maybe the man himself never got the abject satisfaction he sought from those two girls, but, knowing them both, I can tell you that he left his scars on them nonetheless.
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Monday, February 12, 2018
Not Drinking
In the middle of my tour, I had an abnormal TB test. And, since it's the military, there is no "wait and see" about anything. It was straight to the full six-month long treatment referred to as INH. To this day, because of my general disregard for things affecting my body, I only know vaguely that it had to be rough on my liver because the exclamated point was that there could be no alcohol during the treatment. Also because it was the military, that was a memorable time span to survive sober.
So I stole a chance to cheat when I got a TDY assignment to New York City and my bag with the medicine was lost in transit. I'm pretty sure I knew better at the time, but I decided to nuzzle into my ignorance and say that any day I wasn't actually ingesting the INH poison I could imbibe as much as I pleased. And I pleased very much in that city. This was my first and, to this day, only experience of the Big City, and I hit every jazz club and pub I could in that two days alongside the alcoholic colleague that had scored the trip with me. I didn't know at the time, but we were both on benders of sorts albeit for very different reasons. My abject hedonism matched up quite nicely with his "just found out his newlywed wife was using her job as a hotel clerk to have nightly one night stands with everyone but him" sort of off-the-railsness.
For once, the ending is happy as far as these things can be. My liver has continued to test healthy, continued hedonism aside. And my alchy friend found a good one after his none-too-soon divorce and has a couple gorgeous kiddos and clear eyes to boot. I think that New York trip was an oasis for both of us that rerouted our lives in more ways than one.
So I stole a chance to cheat when I got a TDY assignment to New York City and my bag with the medicine was lost in transit. I'm pretty sure I knew better at the time, but I decided to nuzzle into my ignorance and say that any day I wasn't actually ingesting the INH poison I could imbibe as much as I pleased. And I pleased very much in that city. This was my first and, to this day, only experience of the Big City, and I hit every jazz club and pub I could in that two days alongside the alcoholic colleague that had scored the trip with me. I didn't know at the time, but we were both on benders of sorts albeit for very different reasons. My abject hedonism matched up quite nicely with his "just found out his newlywed wife was using her job as a hotel clerk to have nightly one night stands with everyone but him" sort of off-the-railsness.
For once, the ending is happy as far as these things can be. My liver has continued to test healthy, continued hedonism aside. And my alchy friend found a good one after his none-too-soon divorce and has a couple gorgeous kiddos and clear eyes to boot. I think that New York trip was an oasis for both of us that rerouted our lives in more ways than one.
Sunday, February 11, 2018
I can't wait
There is always a risk to deferring one's time. As a whole, we have consistently made the decision to do so, and it has cost us almost the entire energy we are allotted. Forty to Eighty hour weeks with the constant fear of the edge that is always so fucking close. One serious (or not so serious) illness; one accident or mistake; one unplanned pregnancy: only thing between most of us and ruin.
Millenials seem to have taken the stance that nothing matters and therefore consequences no longer exist. I suppose I still have the optimism of the 80's in my backdrop, because I can't get around the idea that some things matter very much. Beauty. The Unknown. Experience. And, of course, Love. When we are so occupied or so apathetic that the value of these things is lost, maybe it is time to say the risk and the consequences are too great.
Millenials seem to have taken the stance that nothing matters and therefore consequences no longer exist. I suppose I still have the optimism of the 80's in my backdrop, because I can't get around the idea that some things matter very much. Beauty. The Unknown. Experience. And, of course, Love. When we are so occupied or so apathetic that the value of these things is lost, maybe it is time to say the risk and the consequences are too great.
Friday, February 9, 2018
Trial
My brother knew he wanted to be a lawyer when he was twelve. We were home-schooled and my parents went for the super, high-tech "video school", which ended up giving my brother his inspiration. These were pre-recorded classrooms from an ultra-conservative school in Florida that we watched subject by subject, day by day. I remember very little except being out-of-my-mind jealous of the children that had experienced these classes in real time and with each other, but, for my brother, the videos changed his life. In particular, the government teacher he had for his sixth grade recorded lessons.
And he never wavered, except for his foundational political views of course. When he was twelve, it was all Reagonomics and holiness doctrine, but that quickly changed. Even in his teens, he was starting to experiment with Nihilism and borderline heresies, but Wheaton and then Carrel helped him settle into an edgy Liberal jaunt.
He is now a registered and active Democrat and a fucking poor civil rights' lawyer. The case that has occupied his decade revolves around health benefits being denied to Texan kiddos by the unwieldy bureaucracy and greed. That one is quite simply going no where. The process of appeals and circuits and endless self-referential documents will probably occupy the next decade at least.
In the wings has been a slam dunk of a racial discrimination case...had it been tried anywhere other than East Texas. We spoke today in the wake of the case being lost and he seemed near breaking when he summarized the opposition's winning remarks: "Talking about race is hard in East Texas because they don't mean anything by the hateful words they have learned to use." And what do you do when a full jury has lived here long enough to buy that executives in East Texas are just too ignorant to be held accountable for the ingrained injustices of the institutions they oversee? So a poor black man pulled through the maelstrom of habitual and generational bigotry will now probably die before he sees anything close to recompense. And my brother inches just that much closer to being proved right that nothing really matters.
And he never wavered, except for his foundational political views of course. When he was twelve, it was all Reagonomics and holiness doctrine, but that quickly changed. Even in his teens, he was starting to experiment with Nihilism and borderline heresies, but Wheaton and then Carrel helped him settle into an edgy Liberal jaunt.
He is now a registered and active Democrat and a fucking poor civil rights' lawyer. The case that has occupied his decade revolves around health benefits being denied to Texan kiddos by the unwieldy bureaucracy and greed. That one is quite simply going no where. The process of appeals and circuits and endless self-referential documents will probably occupy the next decade at least.
In the wings has been a slam dunk of a racial discrimination case...had it been tried anywhere other than East Texas. We spoke today in the wake of the case being lost and he seemed near breaking when he summarized the opposition's winning remarks: "Talking about race is hard in East Texas because they don't mean anything by the hateful words they have learned to use." And what do you do when a full jury has lived here long enough to buy that executives in East Texas are just too ignorant to be held accountable for the ingrained injustices of the institutions they oversee? So a poor black man pulled through the maelstrom of habitual and generational bigotry will now probably die before he sees anything close to recompense. And my brother inches just that much closer to being proved right that nothing really matters.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Numbered
8 billion is the one that wakes me up in the middle of the night and draws me to the post-apocalyptic genre. Plus 2 degrees Celsius is another. The 6th mass extinction. 1 percent holding the wealth equivalence of the bottom 50. 306 to 203 somehow trumping 66 million to 63. $450 for insurance that pays for 0.
It's the American Dream as long as you can forget to count.
It's the American Dream as long as you can forget to count.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Too gay to be Texan...
It was all embarrassment until the gratitude I learned when I found out he was gay.
I was 8, and I was in love for the first time. He had these huge blue eyes and a cleft in his chin that I was sure I would never get over. Fact is, I never did.
Every other girl was obviously in love with him too, so I knew I didn't have a chance. But, for the first time in my life, I decided I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try.
Speaking to him was way too much to ask of my pathologically shy self. But I could sew.
I drew out several designs, and finally settled on a tiny pillow with an embroidered "B + J" with an arrow-pierced heart.
There are countless moments lost to me, but I will never forget the adrenaline-pumped encounter I somehow gathered the courage to waylay him in the crowded church hallway and thrust my offering into his surprised hand.
We locked eyes for one excruciating glance and then it was past.
Nothing was said and no follow up from either of us was made, but I did hear from my aunt that he displayed the pillow in his room for Christmas.
His room being a shrine I knew I would never approach in my life.
We were in the church puppet team together, and the experience of touring the Navajo reservations with our group was an experience of canyons and unprecedented contact and unprecedented need.
Several years later, we spent a week performing for VBS in Port Arthur and I dressed daily as a mime. One afternoon, I felt a presence behind me and then felt a tug on my tufted costume tail. Looking around, I could only see his smile and sparkling eyes and I tried not to faint.
I thought I had left behind the cosmos he inhabited when I left for college, but a year later he descended upon my claimed city.
Excuses were made and meetings evaded until an afternoon lunch with our various college com-padres that somehow could not be avoided.
One I had considered a best friend since our first pre-college days in the woods, had heard my childhood stories of woe and shameful pillows. Being faced with the unexpected embodiment of my first affections, she took the path of betrayal for the sake of an inside laugh. "How goes the sewing these days, Jess?" And the blood rushing to my cheeks. The blood was in his cheeks too, but his embarrassed smile faded as the silence spread.
My first response when I heard he had come out was relief. The memory of feeling his little sister for so many years when I wanted something completely other settled into a tolerable realm.
It took several more years before I considered that epoch from him perspective. That he accepted my graceless pursuit with kindness for so many years. That he showed me empathy without the usual ulterior of desire.
I have never done this for another or experienced anything like it from anyone else.
Granted, he has left me with a predilection for the unrequited and for the sexually ambiguous. Still, I doubt I will ever experience such kindness as the gentle touch he brought to my young, sheltered love.
I was 8, and I was in love for the first time. He had these huge blue eyes and a cleft in his chin that I was sure I would never get over. Fact is, I never did.
Every other girl was obviously in love with him too, so I knew I didn't have a chance. But, for the first time in my life, I decided I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try.
Speaking to him was way too much to ask of my pathologically shy self. But I could sew.
I drew out several designs, and finally settled on a tiny pillow with an embroidered "B + J" with an arrow-pierced heart.
There are countless moments lost to me, but I will never forget the adrenaline-pumped encounter I somehow gathered the courage to waylay him in the crowded church hallway and thrust my offering into his surprised hand.
We locked eyes for one excruciating glance and then it was past.
Nothing was said and no follow up from either of us was made, but I did hear from my aunt that he displayed the pillow in his room for Christmas.
His room being a shrine I knew I would never approach in my life.
We were in the church puppet team together, and the experience of touring the Navajo reservations with our group was an experience of canyons and unprecedented contact and unprecedented need.
Several years later, we spent a week performing for VBS in Port Arthur and I dressed daily as a mime. One afternoon, I felt a presence behind me and then felt a tug on my tufted costume tail. Looking around, I could only see his smile and sparkling eyes and I tried not to faint.
I thought I had left behind the cosmos he inhabited when I left for college, but a year later he descended upon my claimed city.
Excuses were made and meetings evaded until an afternoon lunch with our various college com-padres that somehow could not be avoided.
One I had considered a best friend since our first pre-college days in the woods, had heard my childhood stories of woe and shameful pillows. Being faced with the unexpected embodiment of my first affections, she took the path of betrayal for the sake of an inside laugh. "How goes the sewing these days, Jess?" And the blood rushing to my cheeks. The blood was in his cheeks too, but his embarrassed smile faded as the silence spread.
My first response when I heard he had come out was relief. The memory of feeling his little sister for so many years when I wanted something completely other settled into a tolerable realm.
It took several more years before I considered that epoch from him perspective. That he accepted my graceless pursuit with kindness for so many years. That he showed me empathy without the usual ulterior of desire.
I have never done this for another or experienced anything like it from anyone else.
Granted, he has left me with a predilection for the unrequited and for the sexually ambiguous. Still, I doubt I will ever experience such kindness as the gentle touch he brought to my young, sheltered love.
Tomorrow
Sunday night is winding down, which means the panic of the week has me in its grasp. I rarely sleep Sunday nights as I loop around the things I spent the weekend trying to forget but now must imminently deal with. Around midnight I will wake up, or half wake up, to agonize about one of the many unsolvables lurking. Not least of which is the question of how Tom and I are actually going to make it this time. Barely three months in and he's already mired in a depression that often looks like rage and resentment. We may have decided to do this together, but the last few weeks have been worse than alone. Especially these Sunday nights as the optimism of Friday fades into the too soon of our Mondays.
There have been times in my life where Mondays ceased to exist and those now fuel my urge for escapism. The electronic-free oasis of the Boundary Waters. Poker House. College (although I didn't realize it was all Fridays at the time of course). It is both true that we were not meant to live in dread of our arbitrary "work" days and that we cannot exist in society if we don't play along. In my current case, actual lives other than my own depend on how well I play it. There is no one for me to call in sick to, and every "off" day bears the risk of threatening my parents' ability to avoid a nursing home at the end. No pressure though.
As bad as my patterns are with this already, I still have some corners of optimism I usually remember around Wednesday or so. I do believe that this mess will one day be relatively manageable and allow certain freedoms I have never known. Europe with money. Mountains and rivers with gear and time. Northern lights in the place my core keeps calling home. It will take a terrifying amount of luck and an undefined span of almost impossible work - but a maybe is better than the other options I've been looking at. Least, that's what I'm going to tell myself as I finish my last glass of wine and settle down to hoping for enough sleep to get through one of my Mondays.
There have been times in my life where Mondays ceased to exist and those now fuel my urge for escapism. The electronic-free oasis of the Boundary Waters. Poker House. College (although I didn't realize it was all Fridays at the time of course). It is both true that we were not meant to live in dread of our arbitrary "work" days and that we cannot exist in society if we don't play along. In my current case, actual lives other than my own depend on how well I play it. There is no one for me to call in sick to, and every "off" day bears the risk of threatening my parents' ability to avoid a nursing home at the end. No pressure though.
As bad as my patterns are with this already, I still have some corners of optimism I usually remember around Wednesday or so. I do believe that this mess will one day be relatively manageable and allow certain freedoms I have never known. Europe with money. Mountains and rivers with gear and time. Northern lights in the place my core keeps calling home. It will take a terrifying amount of luck and an undefined span of almost impossible work - but a maybe is better than the other options I've been looking at. Least, that's what I'm going to tell myself as I finish my last glass of wine and settle down to hoping for enough sleep to get through one of my Mondays.
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