So you want to be a writer?

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

-Chales Bukowski

Discursion

I wanted to take a moment to discuss my writing process (and to find another way to put off the actual writing). It can be very difficult for me; but it makes no sense to me why it should be so.

Today, for instance: I decided some time yesterday that today should be devoted to

1. Writing (Catching up on my Nano book, blogging some-any-thing, scripting more Rotworld)
2. Laundry (I really have an awful lot of it and need to do more. Right now)
3. Drawing (Been working on the Rotworld storyboards, character designs for a web comic about the horrors of working at the W/D, and TQU - which you probably don't know about yet, but I don't want to spoil [spoilers coming soon]).

So, I put a load of laundry in the washing machine and I turned on some music (I started with Regina Spektor, but gradually moved over to Amanda Fucking Palmer. That album just finished and I haven't put anything else on my recently re-formatted PC. Maybe some Cash? Anyway...

Filled with dread, I took a seat before the cluttered, cramped, dirty drinking glass-infested space that is my writing desk. I logged onto Facebook, because - well, you've got to tell people you're writing, don't you? Then a quick Twitter and a couple more stumbles. Check out my RSS feeds.

Why am I putting this off? I asked the mess on my desk. The answer, of course, was fear. Fear that I'm not good enough, fear that I'll never finish by the "deadline," fear that I don't really like writing after all, and it's just something I say to people to make being a directionless bum sound more palatable.

Eventually, I found the keyboard and my fingers made there way into the story and Gan began seriously to flow. And it was good. It was fun. Writing a story for me... I know what story I want to tell, and it usually comes out, at least, similar to that; but I never really know what's going on until it happens. But still...

I went to Taco Bell for some Bean Burritos (no cheese, sub guacamole). I came back and sat down filled up with run-for-the-border goodness (which, of course is nothing like actual goodness); and...

I couldn't do it. I didn't want to. I didn't think I'd be able to. I didn't know how to start or where to begin. Picking up where I left off seemed like a horrible idea. I just completely fail as a writer and there's no fucking reason for me to keep doing this. There's no real creativity and imagination in me anyway. Fuck it.

So I diddled around on the internet some more, wrote a few comments on Facebook. Looked at some friends' MySpace changes. Finally, I looked at someone else's Nanowrimo stats and she (and her buddies) were writing. Getting it done. I tried again. I just put my fingers on the home rows and started fucking typing.

And it was great. The story moves itself along nicely, the characters seem to know what they want, even if I don't. The thing doesn't quite have a mind of its own yet; but it wants to go somewhere. It wants to be told.

Something new happened today. I wrote something that made me cry. Maybe I'm turning into an old woman. I don't know. I've only known these characters for a week - well, I've known one of them for over a decade; but not like this. I didn't know this about her, and - well, that was new.

I ran out of laundry detergent. My sister was going to the grocery store in a little bit, so I asked to go along. I decided to take a little nap until then, then write when I got back. We ended up going to Dragon Cafe with friends. It was nice. I always forget how much I like Edamame until you put Edamame in front of me and I start eating it.

And we came home and here I am again. Paralyzed. It seems that whenever I'm not writing, I cannot do it, I'm going to suck at it, no one's ever going to read it and if they do they're going to hate it so much they're going to come over to my house and take a dump on my front lawn. And then somehow -

when that miracle happens -

-when I start writing and I find the story and I begin to understand it again... Nothing else matters. It doesn't have to be written and I don't need to write it; but I get to - and it's fucking fun.

I'm a writer, a storyteller, because, on those rare, wonderful occasions when I'm writing, telling a story - I'm home. I'm doing what I was put here to do. And fuck you if you don't read it, or if you don't like it. And who the hell takes a crap on someone's front lawn anyway? What the fuck's wrong with you?

Now the trick is to start writing. . . . . .C'mon!

Reptile - Part 5 (Tripping the Light)

I met a woman once who thought that I was her soul mate. She knew within the first fifteen minutes of meeting me that I was - for certain - the love of her life. I hope she was wrong.

She was beautiful, wearing a bikini when we met - body that wouldn't quit. Long, straight brown hair, tanned and toned with crazy-bright blue eyes. Really, her only physical flaw was a noticeable but faint cesarean scar. So yeah, she was a mom. I don't really hold that against her. I can handle dating a mom.

But she was older than me by a bit - which was kind of new. She also a smoker; and I swore I would never date a smoker. She wasn't dumb, but she also wasn't a very good conversationalist. I could get good stuff out of her; but it was always tied in the middle of paparazzi fodder, MTV, which stars eating what, dating, ditching, dancing with which. If she had more imagination than your average vapid cheerleader, she kept it pretty well hidden.

I'm probably being too hard on her because I was still too screwed up over the Reptile to entertain the slightest notion. She was kind of fun. Her kid was pretty neat sometimes too. She painted with her fingers. Yeah, like fingerpaint. But with actual beauty and these weird, wild colors, and abstract... I don't know what. Some part of her was like this bizarre, younger Maude Lebowski. We didn't date long; but she encouraged my own art. Outside of Texas, hers were the only canvases I ever painted on myself. She probably threw away the drawings I left her. We drew sketches of each other. I did a charcoal portrait of the kid. Whether she actually believed we were destined to be together or she was just one of those insta-cling codependent types, I guess I'll never know; but she started talking life and...

more kids, and...

apartments or houses, and...

I got pretty freaked out pretty quick. Like the once great Richie Tozer, I took a powder. It's not a regret; but I definitely don't know whether it was a mistake. The lonely bachelor in me right now wants me to remind you what a smokin' hottie she was.

The Demon was a smokin' hottie too, though. She called herself artistic. I don't want to belittle craft-people; but she bought plaster statues and busts and painted them copper and added patina to make them look old. It was pretty good for what it was, but... not art.

Her talents lay in something else. That reptile coiled up underneath her skin. The way she used it, manipulated it - the way she used & manipulated those of us around her - that was her real talent. And we - no.

That's me trying to justify myself by identifying with others. I was hopelessly caught in its grip.

That first trip to Reno - when we were still just becoming friends, though - that was fun. We parked near Virginia Street, and hopped between a few of the Casinos. Circus Circus is the only name I remember. We watched an acrobatic show, some small bears. We had dinner in the buffet and played a few games. On the casino floor we played...

I think it was nickel slots; and enjoyed the freely flowing liquor that comes along with gambling in Nevada. On the trip back we stopped in Fernley (it lies about 20 miles out of Fallon, where we lived - on the road from Reno. We spent about an hour in one of the truck stops there (it's nicer than it sounds - they're like little Casino/ Restaurant/ Gas Stations), playing with one of those stuffed animal crane-machines. I honestly can't remember if we won anything; but we were out late.

When we got back to Fallon, and I dropped her off - I made the first bitch-move. Not the first one I've ever made; but the first one that really counted. She invited me in. We slept.

"I'm not interested in you," she said. "We're not going to sleep together." Nonetheless, I stayed the night. We even slept in the same bed. I assumed she was being coy. I made a move. I got shut down. Hard. With what I know now - I should've been more aggressive. It's what she was really looking for. Thanks Mom & Dad - I'm not that guy.

If I were, we would've hooked up that night and that would've been it. I might've been just some dude, and things would have turned out a lot better. I wouldn't have this story to tell.

Instead, we slept. She wore these stupid, pink footie pajamas. Later, I would enjoy holding her when she wore those - almost as much as I enjoyed peeling her out of them; but she was the first adult I ever met who wore them and they were pretty dumb. On "my side" of her bed, now with a pillow between us, I slept like a baby.

And in the morning I awoke to the sound of screaming.

What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.

Like most people, I usually watch movies and television shows I've already seen because I want to recapture some of what I felt the first (or 42nd) time I watched them; and I'm sure there was some of that when I decided to sit down to Groundhog Day last night for the god-knows-how-many'th time. But I read somewhere that - and I didn't bother to check on the veracity of this - the French view this film as a cinematic masterpiece of deep psychological meaning.

I always just thought it was funny.

Bill Murray was in great form, and everyone else in the cast (mostly delivering the same scene over and over again) did a wonderful job. Even Andie MacDowell.

I have friends who can't stand the movie because of the repetition; but I just think they're focusing on the wrong part of the film. It got 96% at Rotten Tomatoes. The movies I enjoy hardly ever get over 40% (and before you ask, no - it's not my intention to compare Pandorum or Blankman or even Lebowski to Groundhog Day - I know they're apples and coconuts). Pandorum got 32%, I enjoyed the hell out of that one. Inglorious Basterds only got 88% and that was a hell of a fun flick (did you know there was an Inglorious BastArds made in 1977? Me either). The Big Lebowski only got 78%? And Blankman with a paltry 13% (okay, yeah - I can see that).

---

An amazing delivery.

---

So I decided to try to watch the movie again with my brain switched on for a change. It makes me apprehensive to admit that I had to make the distinction; but there you go.

Okay. Spoilers Ahead!

The biggest thing I got out of it had more to do with the sameness of our (and by our I mean you and me and people in the western world in general) day-to-day grind. Phil Connor (Murray) doesn't have to be experiencing some magical time-loop - or, at least we don't. He could just be waking up to the banality of the daily grind. It's funnier in the movie - and easier to explain, strangely enough - to throw in the magic; but we all go through what Phil had to go through (to some degree) every day. Our minds are just really good at deleting the repetitive crap so we don't steal the groundhog and try to drive a truck into the ravine.

That deletion-machine aspect of our brains keeps us sane; but it's one of the reasons time seems to "speed up" the older we get. When time feels like it's getting away from us, when the month's already almost over (never mind the month, where's the Year gone?), no matter the lies we tell ourselves, we just aren't doing enough that's new and different every day. There's not enough going on for our minds to hold onto, so it all gets deleted and the spaces in between the good stuff seem shorter and shorter.

I used to think this was because of the relative comparison to the lengths of our lives (a year to a four year old is one quarter of his whole life; but to a 24 year old, considerably less so). I just don' t think that any longer.

When I was a kid, everything was "the first," or near enough to it that I was still working out what it was, what it meant, how it worked. It was all new and exciting and beautiful and wonderful and awesome. But as I get older, I find myself doing the same things every day.

Wake up later than I meant to, splash some water on my face, brush my teeth, go for a walk, exercise, clean-up, eat something, write (or come up with some excuse not to write), eat something else, get dressed, bike to work, change into work clothes, work, eat again, bike home, look at the internet, read a book, watch something on tv, go to bed later than I meant to. Wake up later than I meant to, splash some water on my face, brush my teeth, go for a walk, exercise, clean-up, eat... ad nauseum

Even when you throw in days off and trips out of town, they're either the same days off I had last week or the same trips I took last year, or - on those rare occasions - they're something different. Something to anchor to. Something memorable. Something that won't get deleted, maybe.

I imagine I'm not alone in this. Maybe my friends dislike the film because it feels truer than any of us would like to think?

So Phil Connors, in the movie, is given this gift, really. He gets the chance to see the rut for what it is. At first he runs wild with it (my first inclination when it occurs to me how dull and repetitive I've allowed my life to get), then he slowly succumbs to depression when he realizes he can't escape his fate, and finally stops trying to get out of the cycle and just starts living - taking an interest in the lives of the people around him, doing what he can to help those he can help (including himself) and (I imagine) comforting those he cannot.

So I feel a little bit weird right now. "You might be a redneck if an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger ever changed your life." What about Groundhog Day?

I think all these changes I've been making (and most of them for the better) have all been about getting out of this boring fucking repetitive bullshit "comfort zone" of a holding pattern my life has been in for the last decade or longer. I don't know if I have the courage to do more, though. The life I want to live is not a reasonable life. Deep inside this socially retarded cubicle monkey lurks the heart of a very unreasonable man.

Some part of me always wanted so desperately to take it to heart when my teachers told me to "seize the day," when my Lit teacher read Leaves of Grass, when "Gather ye rosebuds" or "Collige, virgo, rosas" (Gather, girl, the roses) were explained. I wanted to scream my name from the rooftop, or over the P.A. even. I wanted to tell every beautiful girl how amazing they were, every hero how they touched me, tell my parents thanks. I wanted to live a life of meaning and culture and joy and passion. But in the end, I was afraid.

I locked that glorious monster away deep inside me. He got out every once in a while. But as time goes on, as my days begin to melt into one another he grows smaller, weaker. The bars of his cage are almost too strong for him now.

I don't have the luxury of knowing that no one will remember what an ass I make of myself today if I try something new and fall on my face. But I do know that tomorrow is just going to be another today. Same shit on the radio, same people speaking the same meaningless garbage day-in-day-out.

Fuck it. I'm tired of screwing around here - killing myself every day with this trivial horse shit. I'm not ready, yet to just quite my job and blindly chase my passions without a plan; but the only way I'm going to get anything out of this same stupid day that keeps repeating itself over and over and over again is to do something with it.

I'm tired of being afraid all the time. I'm tired of wishing I'd said or done or even tried something. I'm tired of getting by; and I'm fucking tired of keeping this beautiful bastard locked up inside me.

Also,

I think I'm going to get into a lot of trouble.

Reptile - Part 4 (Come into my Parlour)

I enjoy listening to female vocalists, but I can't explain why. When I work out, I'd rather hear something loud and obnoxious, like Metallica or Beethoven. When I'm driving, I want anything fast. Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar is, in my opinion, one of the absolute best albums for driving fast. Elastica was great for that too. When I'm in a drinking mood, it's Great Big Sea all the way. When I'm just hanging out, or working, or thinking. When I just want to be alone with my thoughts

right

I prefer Regina Spektor, or Sarah McLachlan, or Alanis, or Natalie Merchant. Even though (or maybe because) Regina Spektor makes me think of K. Sarah McLachlan (for some ungodly reason) makes me think of J. Alanis makes me think of A. And Natalie Merchant makes me think of M.

I think I like female singers who remind me of women I've known. Friends and lovers and those I just longed for from a distance or the seat beside her. Maybe I make the connection on an emotional-memory level. Certainly, other music reminds me of other people.

I can't hear Mary Mac without thinking of driving to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I can't listen to Metallica's black album without waxing nostalgic about High School. Most 80's metal makes me think of my friend's house where we would crash every once in awhile and watch MTV (this was way back when MTV actually played music videos all day). Bolero makes me think of drinking with my dad. Savage Garden and Elastica both remind me of Japan. That's what music is for, though, I think. Stirring us, making us feel. Reminding us who we are and were.

Meredith Brooks makes me think of the Reptile, though. The sound of Shania Twain's voice pisses me off for exactly the same reason. Tanya Tucker too. That Two Sparrows song makes me want to shove screwdrivers in my ears.

But enough about that.

When I danced with the Demon, it was usually to country music. We listened to Nine Inch Nails and White Snake and Poison. She liked AC/DC, so I learned to listen to it. I liked Metallica, so she did too. I introduced her to Marilyn Manson. She loved it - though not until she'd given it time. She liked Elvis and I liked Cash; but at the clubs we danced to Country and Western. Just the slow stuff. I think we might have line-danced twice the whole time we were together.

I'm pretty sure her outfit was the only reason we made it to third place in a Twist contest at Dick Clark's American Bandstand. But we got third - a gift certificate, I think. I want there to have been a trophy, but I can't remember. It was a damn fine get-up, though. It always was.

---

She was wearing jeans a white button-down, cinched at the waist and pulled up to show off her stomach, when I went back two days later.

I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know why I went back. I certainly wasn't entertaining any conscious notion of the future. The animal draw

reptile

of her was undeniable, maybe; but - in my mind at least - she was gay. I was involved, seriously - if over an excruciating distance - with the first woman I'd ever actually been in love with. I was a respected leader in a local church. I was probably going to be engaged within the year. Married before my tour was up. I was going to be a pastor with the Assemblies of God - get my own Church. I'd pursue art and writing on the side; but - Well, the point was... I had a plan forming in my fevered little head; so what the hell was I doing at the Depot?

I can't come up with a good answer for that. Maybe I just wanted to spend time with her. Talking to K was difficult because of the distance, the phone costs, and the lack of physical proximity (distance, I know; but it's different. Closeness. When we were apart, we felt... apart. If you don't get it, I can't explain it).

Maybe I just needed someone to talk to. Some woman. There was D in the church; but - I don't know. She was hot; but she was one of the guys. I loved her like a sister, but I couldn't really talk to her.

I probably had a rum and coke. I wasn't drinking Scotch yet; and I didn't really enjoy beer until I started drinking it with my Demon in my lap, encouraging me to chug, chug, chug. Open your throat. And laughing.

The casino bar of the Depot was a big "L"-shaped thing, underneath or beside the staircase leading to the nightclub and facing the casino floor. It was fully stocked and dimly lit (even in the daylight with the desert sun streaming in through dirty windows), with a massive television screen mounted in back corner.

Usually there was sports on that screen during the day, music videos at night; and in the months to come, as my life became more and more entangled in hers, we'd sit at the end of the bar and eat breakfast together while we watched Dinosaurs.

We talked. All these conversations run together, so that all or none of them could have taken place at that bar or in the park or at the petting zoo or sitting on her friend's couch or playing pool. But first we just talked. I'm sure, with hindsight, that there must have been more than a little flirting going on; but it was - on my part, at least - the unconscious kind that comes about naturally, when I don't think I seriously have a chance. The kind that works, I guess.

Most nights it was dead. Just the two of us and maybe the bar-back from upstairs coming down to change a keg or stock the limes. She'd sit on a stool or on the beer cooler, and we'd talk. And talk.

I make a big deal now about the sex; and how it was only the sex that kept us together, but I argued then - as I must do now, I suppose - that we were actually quite good together when we weren't having sex. Just sitting alone in an empty building sharing stories with each other.

It hurts me to write that. I want there to have been nothing good between us other than immediate gratification. I don't like admitting that we had a relationship long before we found each other between the sheets. It was inevitable, our split - but not because we despised or even disliked each other.

One of the reasons our conversations were so engaging - so entertaining (for both of us, I hope even today) was because we were so different. Or, because we were so different and being together was an impossibility, so I spoke my mind.

I was making a friend here. A weird, broken and put-back-together, wild creature of a friend, but a friend. We talked about her move from Portland, her friend who had a stroke at 23 because of drugs, bar tending, life in the Navy, astrology, music, drinking, the merits of Johnny Cash and (in her eyes) his obvious inferiority to Elvis. Cartoons, Muppet's, television and radio and a thousand other things I'm sure I could have just as easily talked to K about. Over the course of a week or two, I probably spent every second or third night at the Depot, nursing a drink and chatting up the pretty girl behind the bar.

Of course, she made the first move. If a move it was. It was a coy, girly kind of move - a clever way of manipulating me into asking her out, maybe. She casually hinted that she hadn't had the chance to get out and see Reno. She'd only come to town, gotten the job at the casino, just before I'd met her; and she didn't have anyone to show her around, and no car to go by herself. Plus, who wants to go out alone, anyway?

I told her that I didn't know jack-squat about Reno, but I had a car and we could easily get lost in the city together. At least we'd both be lost with someone we knew. And so - whether the next night or the night after - I picked her up from her friend's house and we made our first trip to Reno.

Reptile - Part 3 (title here)

*

I don't know how to start again. A woman once told me to just put a little star at the top of the paper, so I wouldn't be looking at a blank page. It's nice. I understand the sentiment; but since that asterisk doesn't really cut it as a star, I think I'll start with Elvis Aaron Presley.

Elvis was a decent performer. He had a great voice and he knew what his audience liked. Most of Elvis's music was stuff I might've really enjoyed if it had been covered by Primus or maybe the Dead Milkmen. The only things I knew about Elvis's life were from an episode of the Twilight Zone (or maybe it was the Outer Limits) where an Elvis impersonator goes back in time and accidently kills his idol and has to take his place.

I met Elvis.

This was one of those things that definitely happened and may or may not be true, but the story - life, really - is better if you just believe it.

My friends and I were in Tennessee, driving the back woods somewhere,

lost

when we found a little Mom & Pop gas station on the side of the road. We stopped to ask for directions and get a fill-up. Someone got out of the car and went to start pumping gas when he came out of the little store.

He was about 6-foot, 6'2" maybe. He was lean with age, but you could see where the weight used to hang on his frame. His hair was graying black, and he still had those mutton-chop side burns.

"Hey now," he said, waving one hand at us and speaking in a low, country drawl, "we pump our own gas here. This is a full service station."

We stood just stood there a moment, mouths agape. We were in awe. None of us were really fans; but with all the "Elvis Lives!" bullshit everywhere, we all knew him well enough to recognize the man, the voice, that walk.

Here now, walking - no - striding toward us was a god. A Legend. I don't think anyone said anything other than to exchange a few banal pleasantries.

I wish I could tell you his name-tag said "Elvis," or "E.P." or even "Aaron." It didn't. But what it did say was 10,000 times better. Embroidered above the breast pocket in white and gold lettering, much too fine for the dirty blue cover-alls he was wearing was one word:

KING

We told him we were fans and wished him well. I can't remember whether or not he actually said "thank you very much," or we just thought he should have.

---

The Reptile was an Elvis fan. She didn't like that story - I think - because she couldn't comprehend how a man with all that talent, fame, & money could ever long for anything other than life in the spotlight. I always thought the drugs and the eating and the excess were symptomatic of Elvis's longing to return to the simplicity of his former life. It warmed my heart to think the man faked his own death to find contentment in a full-service gas station in the hills of Tennessee. I thought - and still think - his Momma would have been proud.

She thought it was stupid and didn't get how I could suspend my disbelief long enough to believe this cockamamy story (for the record, the Demon never used the word "cockamamy." I might've forgiven her anything if she'd said it just once. I bet K says it once every year or so). This was one of the fundamental differences between us that I didn't understand until years after we parted.

---

Demons were angels once - and they danced through Time and Space and Thought and for all the corrupting influence, the addiction, and the downward spiral, there is something magical about them. My Demon was no different.

She didn't weigh a hundred pounds when I met her. Attractive enough without being anything more than pretty. She wore her hair long and in this archaic style that - well, it certainly didn't belong in the real world - but it made her stand out, and she managed to pull it off.

"Not hot, but porn-star hot," someone said once about another woman, but it fits here. She carried herself like a diva though - an actual Diva - not some famous tart with too much money, too many demands, and no substance or truth. She seemed to belong. Something inside her

reptile

resonated with everyone around her. She commanded a room when she entered it. I'm beating a dead horse here to say that she was a flame and we were all just moths flitting around waiting to sacrifice ourselves for her.

I sat at her bar and cashed in my chips and she congratulated me. I have no idea what we talked about. The same idle small-talk that happens at every bar in the world, I'm sure. Just a lot of nothing.

The Arkansas Redneck came back down toward the end of the night to check on me. In his drunken bravado, he locked right on the Redhead behind the bar and fired the first salvo of what promised to be an epic pick-up. And she shot him down.

The Redneck (who was probably more of a Hillbilly, really) kept coming back for more. He wasn't goign to take "no" for an answer; but the Demon was ruthless, and in the end, he conceded defeat.

She let me have the beer, so I tipped her the money I would've paid for it, and a little more. I helped the Redneck (Hillbilly? Redbilly?) into his truck and drove us back to the base, after taking a little side-trip so he could get some strange at the nearest brothel.

Nothing was fucked yet. It would've ended there if that six-foot piece of shit hadn't opened his damn mouth when we got back to the barracks.

"She was totally into you," he said.

"She was a lesbian," I replied, dismissing him. The seed was planted though; and I went back the next night.

Reptile - Parts 1&2 (Prelude & Top o' the World)

I was told once that I would lose at life until I die in a fire if I didn't finish this, so here's the first two parts for those of you who've not read them...

(Originally posted in August, 2007)

I want to write about my demon. She's been a monkey on my back since I met her (over 10 years ago now); and I think my only options for getting rid of her are to talk it out or write it down.

I can't do the first (I love all you crazy people who read this bullshit - I just don't know how to talk to you); so I guess I'll have to do some writing. I'm hoping for some kind of catharsis. I need to let this go; and I haven't. My intent is that, by coming clean, I can clean it off. Heh - wash that bitch right out of my hair?

The story is a short one, really; but - for me at least - it was pretty jarring, so I've got a lot to say about it. I may end up attacking it in installments. We'll see. Like the hot dog companies, I'm going to try to keep my bullshit & rat content down to reasonable - non-toxic - levels. I might fail; but I'll say [Edit]after going back and reading over this again, that it's only about 1-2% fecal matter so far[/Edit].

Before I start into it though - I think it's pretty important to tell you something about K.

I'm only going to use initials here because - well - because I'm going to say some pretty fucked-up things aobut at least one of these people, and I'd like to avoid any threat of libel. Also, it just feels wrong to name names outright.

When I met K, I was just coming out of some really bad (not bad meaning bad; but bad meaning good - er... and bad) times. I'd just come from Boot Camp and A-School, where I'd made a real ass of myself and behaved generally in the way that Drunken Sailors were expected (if not supposed) to behave. Those who know stories from Memphis ought to know that they're all true - with one caveat.

The whole thing - the car wreck, E & K1, the drugs, Use-the-Force-Bowling, a moon as big as the sky (I'm talking Joe Vs. the Volcano Big), the drug-dogs, sneaking girls into the barracks and running Fire-Drills just to get them out without notice, all of it - all happened in the span of about two, maybe three months. I call it one of the best years of my life; but the sad addendum to the story is that nine or ten months of that year were spent studying and working, going to bed before 10 and waking before 5. Hitting clubs on Saturday Night, and not much else. That year was like this:

Boring, Boring, Mono, Boring, Boring, Boring, Kissed a Hot Army Chick (we called her a WAC), Boring, Boring, Porn, Boring, Graduation-Yay!, Boring Boring, Boring, Holy Shit! I am having the best fucking time of my life - Oh my GOD!, Boring, Boring, Graduation Part Two, time to go to California.

I didn't learn any of the important lessons in Memphis, and a great deal of what I did learn has really held me back, emotionally; but I definitely had my eyes opened.

That's how I arrived in California. Still hot on the excitement of a rockin' summer - itchin' for action and ready to get down to some serious womanizing and even more serious Drinking (notice the capital "D" - at the Coronado Naval Base, active-duty sailors were allowed to drink if they were 18 - so long as they did so at on-base clubs).

Somehow, instead of reliving that wicked, wicked time - I ended up at church. I...

I went to church. I found Jesus (he was hiding in the azaleas), and I spent the rest of the year comparing notes with my roomate about how hot the selection was at San Diego First Assembly. Mostly, I just made some friends. I bought an iguana. I confronted a huge glass elevator, white-knuckling it all the way to the top just so K wouldn't know I was scared of elevators. I went to the beach and met a Sea Lion. Two of the scariest moments of my life, by the way.

I had the hots for the church's youth leader - a tall, skinny blonde, who may not have been all that attractive, but was the first woman I'd met who didn't seem dependent upon my reaction to her and I fell for her instantly. I spent a lot of time hanging out with that church group. A lot of time helping the other "College-Age" kids volunteering for Youth functions. That's how I first met her.

K.

There aren't many names that start that way. I feel silly using initials now. Oh well. She was a kid. 15 or 16, I think. There wasn't anything there. There wasn't going to be anything there. She was off-limits - even in a strict no-sex zone like church.

But there was this trip to the beach. And this one time, at a pool party - where I just hoped she'd be there and she wasn't. I had a picture of her at one of those big stadium events - you know the ones...

Where too many Christians come together to hear someone speak about how we probably aren't being Christian enough, and then we all congratulate ourselves on what great Christians we're going to be. Usually spells doom and misery for the hard-core athiests and pagans in the community. Furvor dies off after a few weeks if everyone lucky.

The photo was taken from the other side of our group. I just used the zoom to snap the shot while she wasn't looking.

I can still see it. The skinny blonde was standing "in front" of her - closer in to the stadium. I think her brother (my friend - how I met her, and how I met her again years later) was in the shot. I'd intended to take the picture of the blonde - why can't I remember her name - but I saw K and my focus was shot.

She had one hand on her hip. I'm pretty sure she was wearing a blue and green flannel shirt, but the memory is tricky; and that might have been something she was wearing one of those times at the airport. No. I'm pretty sure it was that shirt in the picture. Her hair was long and straight. It was half pulled-up, like a loose I-don't-give-a-damn ponytail. I don't know what she was looking at - but... well, you get the point.

See what I mean about installments..? haven't even got to the build-up and I've got to stop for a bit and do some work. Probably more to come today.

REPTILE - PART 2 (Top o' the World)

A bunch of us were just hanging out for my friend's bachelor party. Horsin' around, playin' games, eating steak and sending him swimming in the intercoastal to find the Lost Sword. We ended up at the Gold Club.

It was weird being back there. Things have changed so much. I'm sure part of it was being there as a guest and not an employee (the first half-hour or so I was there, I couldn't get out of bouncer mode - I kept watching everything and everybody but the show, totally unable to relax); but the new management (I guess) has really cleaned things up nicely. Better (if not more) lighting, cleaner restrooms... They've moved away from the latex covered breasts and chosen instead to go with full covers, but that was for the best. It was a good show; and I think fun was had by all.

The fireplace was so small. In my head it was huge. I drew a portrait of one of the dancers after hours one night. She was sitting on the stone fireplace in her fuck-me boots and not much else - she had long straight hair too; but she was - I think - 1/2 Seminole. So bloody gorgeous you'd crawl through a half-mile of broken glass on your hands and knees just to...

Well, you get the idea. The whole place just seemed smaller, somehow. It was always larger-than-life when I worked there. At least - it was in my memory. The bars were huge, the dancers were beautiful, and the security-team (re: bouncers) was bad-ass. Skin-heads and prison guards and a psychotic ex-marine (slash-skinhead slash-prison guard). I can hold my own; but I was so out of place there. The pussycat of the bunch, maybe. Now the security guys (there were 2 plus a well-dressed manager) look like wimps.

I'm almost sure they're not - but there used to be guys in that club that I know I could not have taken in a fight. They're all gone. Now there are just guys. Now it's just another club. No different than Caesar's, or JR's or any of a dozen other joints.

Before I got back into the story, I thought it might be important - maybe only important to me - to address how drasticaly things can get warped in your mempory.

I left San Diego for my first duty station full of piss and vinegar and the righteousness of the Holy Spirit pumping through my veins. I left K and her church and her brother (and my iguana), and to be honest - out of laziness, and distraction, and then shame and fear - I didn't look back.

I met D - a half-Japanese/ half-Mexican hottie who was a youth-leader at the Assemblies of God church I ended up teaching at. We never slept together. Hell, we never even dated. She was a good Christian girl who (in hindsight) might've had a thing for me - and I definitely liked her; but the group dynamic was so weird that neither of us made a move. I met a man who became a very good friend and who might've been gay, or might've had a thing for D, or both. I guess he wasn't such a good friend after all - or, I guess I wasn't - judging by my ignorance. I met an exotic dancer named C - no shit, that was her real name - on stage, she was called Roxi. We dated for - like - a week. She was crazy.

She was a bitch too. I had a crazy-powerful crush on a girl in Admin for - god - months. She dominated my life for far too long. We went to dinner a couple of times. I took her to see Independence Day. I can't even remember her damn name now. She was so important then. M. I can't believe I couldn't remember that. I haven't thought of her since before my marriage. Holy crap, that makes me feel like a schmuck.

A year-and-a-half, maybe two-years into my tour in Nevada, the Powers That Be decided they were going to refurbish the barracks. New carpet, new plumbing, new paint & new furniture. This has almost no bearing on the story except that I had to pack up everything I owned and move into the "Transient Barracks" for a month.

In the bottom of my Sea Bag, in a little black book that said "Phone Numbers," or some shit, there was a number:

A (K's brother) - 555-I-CANT-BELIEVE-I-HAVEN'T-TALKED-TO-THESE-PEOPLE-IN-TWO-YEARS.

That's really the number. Check it out.

What the hell, huh? I called 'em. I really thought they weren't going to remember me. Or they'd be all pissed that I brushed 'em off like I did. But my old friend was happy to hear from me. I talked to him for awhile and he put his sister on. I talked to K for awhile, then with their mother. I called back two or three times when I was asked to come visit.

I should explain a little more. K's brother was the first person my roomate and I met in the church (who was our age). And he was the kind of guy who tried to include everyone - no matter what. You couldn't help but like the guy. A bunch of us would usually go somewhere to eat after church on Sundays, and then end up at his place. His mom was awesome. He got a lot of his "friendly, easy-going" from her. He had a kid brother who was my brother's age (holy crap I just realized how old that would make him now); and then, of course, there was K. I tried not to put her in that place in my mind (too young); but she definitely didn't detract from the experience of hanging out at A's house.

I don't remember how long I lived in San Diego - less than a year, I'm sure. But I ended up spending a lot of time with K's brother and his crew. I spent a lot of time watching his mother's extensive video collection.

Even after a year or two of silence, it wasn't that weird of him to ask me to be groomsman in his wedding when someone had to beg-out. Plans were made. I took a few days off before a weekend, rented a car, and drove back to San Diego.

I stayed at K's house. I slept on the couch; and during the day, she and I talked and drew and went to the park. She was taller now, thin - but filled out nicely. And she was still this amazing person who could just completely capture my attention with a few words. During her brother's wedding, my job was to escort her down the isle (she was a bride's maid).

The ride back to her house after the reception was at once way too uncomfortable and wonderfully incredible all at the same time. We were in her mother's car - along with all of the wedding presents. There was no room. She sat in my lap.

She was warm and light, and my hands didn't have anywhere to go, so they were around her waist and resting, folded in her lap. I could feel her heartbeat thorugh her back. I'm pretty sure that it was there - in the back of that car that I first realized that I could love her.

I've never had another moment like that with anyone else. I knew this girl. I knew who she was and who she wanted to be. I knew what she believed. I misunderstood one or two things about her; but she was the perfect woman for the man I was so desperately trying to be. I would've become that guy too, if she'd been by my side. I knew it then. It wasn't frightening, wasn't overwhelming. It just was. I not only could spend the rest of my life getting to know this person, I wanted to.

Over the course of the next six months or so, I spent every moment I could get away in San Diego. And when I wasn't down there, we were on the phone, we probably wrote two letters a week, each. Drawing pictures back and forth, and talking about our day, and missing one another.

I bought her a promise ring. That moment made it a little scary. To believe that this was the one. Not just to know it, but to believe it. It was exhilerating and wonderful and the tiniest bit frightening.

That little bit of fear, though - that killed it.

I miss K so much more than I have any right to. I don't go around every day - or even every week or every month pining for what won't ever be; but sometimes the most random shit makes me think of her.

Listening to Regina Spektor reminds me of her scent. I don't know why - but it does - and the scent makes me think of being near her - of her room - her art - watching TV on the floor of her living room - debating religion. Mostly, it makes me think of holding her in my arms. Of holding her hand in Mexico. Of her sitting in my lap one evening as we drove home in an over-packed car.

---

The six-foot Arkansas Redneck who lived in the room by mine asked me one night why I don't ever go out drinking with him. He'd taken a real shine to me, see - because I was kind of funny and a "real stand-up guy." He wanted me to have a beer with him. At that point in my life, I was over 21; but didn't drink. He said he knew that - but I wasn't an alkee or anything, so I should ocme out and have one beer with him.

I caved. We went to the Crow's Nest or the Dirty Bird or some shit like that. I can't remember the name. Just this little piece of shit hole in the wall that the permanent resident sailors liked to hang out in. We had a beer and shot some craps. Lost our asses. Then we went to the Dept - a combination night-club/ casino a few blocks from the Dirty Bird(?) in Fallon. The wallpaper in the club was this horrid red space-ship wallpaper - like you might see on some eleven-year-old's bedroom in hell. Ladies Night at the Depot was called "Pigs In Space" around the base.

We were up there in the nightclub part, but I wasn't drinking. I was just going along with it, enjoying the company and watching these people make total asses of themselves. But being sober makes that sort of thing tedious after an hour or so, so I went downstairs to the casino - where it was quiet. Where would my life be today if I'd just taken a damn shot?

Downstairs, I played some blackjack - I won, like 20-30 bucks; and took my chips to the bar; and there she was.

My Demon.

The Reptile. The monkey on my back. She was pale and frail, wrapped in a miniskirt and some kind of animal print, with long, red hair. If I'd known what she was going to do to me - If I'd understood what I was going to let her do to me - Id've run screaming that night and never looked back.

Instead, I bought another beer and sat at the bar listening to her tell some chick about how all men were evil and she (this chick who was so broken up over some dude who didn't treat her right) didn't need them anyway.

The first words I ever heard come out of the mouth of the woman who would become my ex-wife amounted to a militant-lesbian rant about the superiority of female companionship and how men amounted to not much more than a nuisance. I've only myself to blame for what came next.