No heroes, no villains, only survivors.

Baby, I promise I didn't come crawling back to you because all the things I usually would have filled my time with have been taken away from me.  Baby, I promise this time I'll stay. Baby, you believe me, right?

I'm trying to ignore that my last post is still the thing I am struggling through aka "What does it mean to live creatively?"  Maybe I don't write anymore because it forces me to confront how little I've actually accomplished and/or how little I have to say?  Naaaaah.  That can't be it. Maybe if I focus my writing?  On what though?  Does it matter?  Is writing even part of my version of "living creatively?"

What story do I have to tell?  What experiences can I share?  What's relatable?  Is trying to work through my decade long writer's block just another distraction from dealing with what is front of me? Is trying to organize and make my creativity productive actually stifling it?  Maybe.  Maybe the goal is just getting through this.

Yeah, yeah. I get it. Bad things are happening.  Bad things are happening, and I care a lot about those bad things.  But, being oversaturated with grief, feels a lot like not caring at all.

I stopped to stare at my phone for like five minutes just now and just scrolled through more of the same: Covid19, Covid19, Covid19, funny animal video.  Whenever things get too heavy, I fidget with my phone.

It feels surreal to know that huge swathes of humanity are being extinguished, and we still have all the funny dog videos at our disposal. It's surreal to drive on the freeway and see marquees telling me to wash my hands and stay away from people, alongside Disneyland ads.  Is this how the world ends?  Just feeling out of place and dissatisfied?

I checked my phone again and watched an ad about a blanket.  It was better than sitting with those feelings, I guess.

This morning, I did half a yoga class before my connection was so spotty that I gave up.  An hour later, I joined up with another yoga group--not fitness yoga, but spiritual yoga--and chanted and meditated as a group.  Instead of feeling connected to either experience, I felt like a fraud, a spiritual tourist.  Sometimes saffron is just orangey-red.  Sometimes the machine has to chose who to save, before the wave hits.  Sometimes you  need to make it procedural and matter of fact, so that when the choice is in front of you, the part of you that is part of the machine, makes THAT choice.

Oh wow, that's still bothering me. So it goes and goes and goes.

I check emails, I check emails, I check emails.  I watch hundreds of Youtube videos. I add a inspirational quote to my bullet journal.  I work on my handstands.  I imagine how it would look like if I snapped my wrists.  I move through some asanas. I vow to be better.  I vow to be better.  Maybe I'll get tired on my own bullshit. My hands are flakey from all the alcohol spray.

Hey, I'm sorry.  I'll try to be better. Hey, I'm already feeling better.

Welp.

Here we are again.  You would think I would get the hang of it by now?  Idk, idk.

I got a fortune from a fortune cookie that said "live creatively."  And I mean, if there was any time to live creatively, for me, especially, it would be now.

Instead, I am completely at a loss for what that even means.  What does that even mean?

I guess, I need to approach this the way I would have approached work.  First, define what we're trying to explore. What does it mean to live and what does "creative" mean to me?

I guess, a life would be one that I would earn money and still have enough time to do things that I enjoy i.e. maybe climb?  A life where I also have time.

And creatively?  What the fuck that does that even mean?  Maybe live off a skillset that doesn't turn me into a ball of anxiety?  Maybe have the courage to live life?  HOW THE FUCK DO I EVEN?

Motherfucking shit.

I suck at remembering to write.

Every Day Adventure

There this white man, long haired but balding, in a baseball cap, on the train. His gray-white hair and pink scalp peak out from his cap.  His sentences are drawn out and snarling, speaking the way I imagine an elderly crocodile would speak.

The train is packed and the smell and the people and he occupies two seats.

There's a man who legit looks like Jesus eating a loaf of bread. A fucking loaf of bread.

Am I going to miss this?

Forget all that I said, maybe distraction works best.

I was planning on writing something introspective and maybe contemplating whether or not I was having a psychotic break from reality, but then I remembered that life has always been weird and terrible and amazing and exciting.

For example one friend is interviewing for a television show.
And another had a lot of money mysteriously deposited into her account.

Oh, and I did go ghost hunting in an abandoned medical facility, but let the people I was with go first and they were chased out by a swarm of bees.  After that, I decided it was a good time to pick up my car from the shop. 

Haunted

I stumbled upon the realization while ghost hunting, wandering around abandoned hospitals--I feel haunted.  Not in that moment, but in my daily life.

I feel like so much of my most basic personality, the bits of me that make me feel most like myself, hinge on confidence.  The confidence that I am being myself as hard as a I can and that no matter what happens I will manage. 

I mean, I still feel like myself, but I also feel like I'm always watching myself too--always peeking around the next corner trying to see the blurry faces of strangers just before they're in my line of sight.  It's a weird feeling.  It's not the feeling of loneliness which is this weird gnawing grey thing, vague and insubstantial thing that could be easily distracted and mitigated.  This is something very specific, a noticeable lack.  Like there's this hole in the world and like a hole everything rushes to fill it, but it still drains away.  

I have always been very fortunate.  It's cliche to say this, but it's probably the most accurate word, but I've been blessed.  I've always managed somehow and I've managed to become kind.  I've met wonderful people and continue to go on wonderful adventures.  I have learned to appreciate kindness and the difficulty of being kind.  I have seen my goals and taken steps towards them--for me there are no more "what-ifs."  It hasn't been easy and I won't lie, there have been very dark moments.  But that's what they were--moments.  There was no disconnect with myself; the person I was awake was the person I was asleep.

But now, my dreams are so angry.  And I have differently dark moments.  They're dark the way lava is dark.  But also bright and violent and burning.

What do I do with this?  Is this something I can bring to a priest or witch or whatever?  I feel like I can't talk to my friends, how do you explain that you're being haunted by yourself?  I feel whole, I mean if I'm not myself, who else can I be?  But now it feels like there's someone else here with me too.  

Hit the floor

Today, I collapsed.

Like literally.  I stepped out of bed, stood up and fell to the floor.

And as I lay on the floor, the blackness of a migraine starting at the far corners of my eyes, I thought, "Today, just isn't happening."

On Blood And Guts And The Ultimate Fragility And Vanity Of Man.

The title has nothing to do with this entry.  Or maybe it does. 

I think the point of sibling teasing is to get ready for other people.  I think in order to realistically deal with people, we need to have cracks, to already be a little bit damaged.   Like, “These are the people who are supposed to love me.  And they keep harassing me.  If I can put up with this, I can definitely put up with strangers making fun of me.”  I don’t mean bullying, which is conscious maliciousness, but just the every day grim, slow soul staining meanness that some people don’t even know they’re being a part of.

Anyway, the sibling teasing shouldn’t be wholly malicious, something a few minutes of alone time and the promise of pizza, can shake off.  Anything more than that isn't teasing, and falls more in the painful realm of bullying.

Daniel graduated from sixth grade today, the end of grade school.  It’s a metaphorical change, and a physical change.  To help him get ready, I’ve been incorporating the words penis, testicles and vagina into my daily speak, so often he doesn’t even blush anymore.  We’ve been trying to get him to swear, but so far he’s resisted.  Pubic hair is mentioned to him with curiosity and regularity.  (So, buddy.  Any of those pubes coming in yet?)  And on a more fatalistic note, Daniel is our last chance at getting a childhood right.

But sometimes I worry.  Have I taken it too far?  Has threatening to steal his eyebrows while he sleeps and fashion fashionable eyebrow wigs out of them, too much?  Will he have a fear of small furry caterpillars, as he ages?  Will he look back at his childhood and only see torment and misery?  Does he know that we never did anything out of pure meanness, and that it was just light-hearted, and if we were ever too mean, that it was careless and we regret it?

Children are pliable and resilient.  But, weird things set people off.  Example, I can speak Ilocano fairly well, but I rarely ever do, since I was told by Brother 1 and 2 (Daniel being brother 3), that when I spoke Ilocano, I sounded funny.   Of course I sound funny.  It’s a different language and I barely have anyone to speak with.  It wasn't spiteful, just a casual observation, but it was big enough to make me stop speaking it, all together. 

I’d like to hope that Daniel will fondly remember the shrill shouts and whistles every time he went on stage.  I hope he doesn’t resent all the frantic waving and gesturing every time he performed, or the orgy of cameras flashing for his attention.  That he never has to tell a therapist of the burning shame of being the only sixth grader with a giant portrait of himself, grinning to greet him as he received his certificate, or that instead of leis he was adorned with Mardi Gras beads, a pool floatie and an inflatable crown.  I hope he was a little bit proud that he was the only one whose family wore shirts and stickers proclaiming themselves to be #TeamDaniel.

That when the sea of mad hormones comes rushing into the city of his brain, the deluge of teenage-hood rears its ugly head, that he doesn’t hate us too much.  That my overenthusiastic affection didn’t hurt him.  That it didn’t make his scared of life.  And that maybe he had a little bit of fun.  

Trying to even out those cat posts. . .

I am worried our dog Tita hates me.  She came to us named, and we tried to change her name to Ichigo and Mowgli, but when it came down to it, her name on all her paperwork is Tita Dog.  It is more a description of what she is to us (sister dog), than an actual name.  (Yes, I know Tita also means aunt, but in the context of being in Hawaii, it also means sister.  Not to be confused with a titah, which Tita might also be, but we’re her family and can’t notice that kind of thing.)

I sing her songs, tell her what a great job she does at eating and laying around, laugh when she farts, hug her a lot  and cuddle with her.  I let her know how jowly she looks, and how much we love her jowls.   She’s a good, even-tempered dog.  Although she is very barky, she gets along with children, not fussing when they pretend to ride her or use her as a pillow.

Often, Tita presents me with her butt, and looks over her shoulder, as if to say, “Yes, you may pet it.  It is a great honor petting my butt, you know.  I shall allow you to do so, because you are my esteemed human.”

She often lies down wherever I am, not begging for attention, but sighing heavily from time to time.  I used to think this meant, “OH!  My life is so hard!” or “OH! I will just lay over here not being pet while you look at whatever you’re looking at, which is not me.  And do whatever you’re doing, which is not me, as well.”  Sometimes, when we’re in the kitchen, she’ll lay directly in my way, “Oh, if only I had thumbs so I may help you!  But alas, I do not.  I will lie here and focus all my energy on growing thumbs.  Don’t mind me.  Unless you want to feed me.”

Then, I read somewhere that dogs don’t actually like to be pet or hugged or sang at. 

Without her being able to verbally agree to her treatment, we can’t figure out if she actually likes us and thinks she’s part of the family, or if she loathes us and it just putting up with everything because we provide her with shelter and food.  But I can’t stop treating her this way, because what if she likes it and DOES feel like part of our family and stopping would mean ostracizing her?  “Oh, that’s our dog.  Don’t rub her our call to her.  We don’t know if she consents to that type of treatment, and we’re just ignoring her because we love her and want her to be happy.” 

When she presents her butt for rubs, is it because she likes her butt being rubbed, or is it because it is the place that burns the least when I put my filthy meat hands on her?   All those goofy sighs now have a more insidious meaning, “When will I be free from this torment?  Is sweet death my only release?”  Are my songs detailing her great ability to find a place to poop or generally about how great and good-looking she is, torturing her?

I’m worried that the personality that we’ve projected onto Tita (goofy, sweet, a little simple and prone to mild bouts of depression), is completely wrong, and we’re projecting something that upsets her/completely non-descriptive of her actual personality.

I don’t know.  But, II find comfort in reminding myself that she’s never tried to wriggle out of my arms while I hugged her (then again, she could just be putting up with it since we feed her), and that every time she’s escaped, she’s always come back home.  

Parasailing and Sharks. Shark-sailing.

I wish horoscopes were more specific.  Something along the lines of “Don’t go parasailing today.  You will board the ferry-zodiac wrong, slicing your leg off on the propeller.  Mothers will clutch their children to their chests and men will vomit at the sight of the frothy red water.”  That’s some speculative fortune-telling I could really get behind.  However, if that had been my horoscope today, it would have been wrong. 

Today I went parasailing.  I won’t go into how beautiful Maui is, because everyone knows this, and it gets tiresome describing deep greens and blues.  Also, it makes people hate you. 

Anyway, this isn’t about Maui.  This is about parasailing and sharks.

I didn’t see any sharks, but it would have been awesome if I had.  I like sharks.  I know they’re potentially dangerous, but lots of things are potentially dangerous.   Life is dangerous.  Being in the water, at all, is dangerous.  

Anyway, my mental image of sharks is usually one of dopey gloominess.  Yes, I’ve got sharp teeth, but so do those fucking orcas everyone loves so much.  Why doesn’t anybody love me?!

So, while I was treated like a human kite, I imagined all sorts of sharks.  Giddy sharks, impersonating dolphins, leaping out of the water.  Lazy doe-eyed sharks, circling my shadow.  Parasailing is a lot quieter than you would think, and in this space sharks yelled for my attention. 

Those jet-skis slicing through sapphire water, leaving bubbling foam in their wake?  Super sharks speeding around, frenzied by the anticipation of fresh meat.  Those were sharks that woke up early, drank black coffee and were constantly checking their smartphones. 

I had to pee and the harness was digging into the fleshiest part of my thigh.  The boat pulling me along jolted, causing my harness to swing.  The sharks paused, waiting to see what would happen.

I imagined a new species of polka-dotted sharks with beady eyes.  I thought about baby whale sharks, pink and happy-faced.  A tiger shark was swimming sheepishly back to Kihei, a little embarrassed she had gotten lost. 

The parasail made a false descent, letting me dip my legs in the chilly water, the sharks snapped and snarled, frustrated and confused, as I ascended back into the air. 

Covered by an overcast sky, surrounded by heavy grey clouds and warm air filling my lungs, I imagined my descent and my final shark encounter.   It would mean certain pain and doom for me, but what an image!  A tourist, on his honeymoon (before the experience he had been playfully teasing his new wife about dumping her into the water, she laughed as she slapped at his arm, the physical contact left them feeling mutually electric), would describe it to reporters as such:  I went to Maui for my honeymoon, and I saw a gigantic (fucking gigantic, bigger than a car!) great white leap out of the air and devour a lady while she descended from parasailing.  My wife sobbed into my chest as I watched the woman’s twisted body crumple and listened to her gargled screams.  The boat jerked as the enormous shark tugged at her still harnessed body.  It wrenched off her remains and dragged them into the deep, dark grey-blue water.  Afterwards, the water was so still, so flat, so clear, you could hardly believe it had happened at all.  

Five Days (A Warm Up)

This happened about a year and a half ago, early January, when I still worked on Saturdays.   After work, I stopped by the gym, and right before I stepped into the shower, my youngest brother, Daniel, called.

“Hey man, you coming home soon?”
“Yeah, just getting showered.  Do you need anything?”

“No, no.  Just shower and come home.”

“Okay.”

Showering at the gym is a somber affair, bare feet on mosaic tile, and standing aside for the hot water to get started.  It wasn’t uncommon for Daniel to call, so I didn’t think much of it.  While toweling off, I got another phone call.
“Hey, man, you should come home.  Dad is acting all weird and drunk but he didn’t drink anything.”

And I remember thinking, “Oh, he’s had a stroke.”

It turns out my dad had his stroke WHILE driving the car, with my mom and youngest brother as passengers.  He suddenly began driving erratically, and decided to go all the way to the farthest lane, a lane he had no business in. My mom, sensing what was going on, ordered him to pull over.  Instead of pulling over, he REVERSED the car.  No one was hurt, but my dad was quickly promoted to worst driver in the family.

When they got home that afternoon, pulled the whole, “No, no, I’m fine.  Just tired. . .what’s. . .what going on?” act and it wasn’t until the following day he was admitted to the hospital , where they proclaimed, “Yes, it was, in fact, a stroke.”  He spent the following night at the hospital, under observation.  Monday night, he came home, and we thought that was that.

It was three am when I heard the repetitive thunking sound outside my bedroom window.  Not the awkward thunking of a skull against a headboard when a couple hasn’t quite coordinated their sex life, but something more malicious. It went on for minutes, and there was some muffled talking, maybe some yelling, then silence.  Because I have the survival instinct of someone in a horror movie, I definitely wanted to know what was going on.  Craning my neck to look out my window, I saw nothing but the empty lot next to our house.

I thought maybe my parents’ room would have had a better view. 

A few months earlier, my mom had a complete hip replacement.  After the surgery, she hadn’t been able to walk for three months and there was a huge wound on her side from where the doctor opened her up, chiseled away at the bone, and inserted a metal ball-and-joint.  She told me somewhere in the middle of the operation, the anesthesia began to wear out, and she awoke to the sound of her bones cracking before a vigilant nurse decided to put her under again.

As a result of the surgery, my mom slept in a complicated way, pillows and limbs making shadowy, unnatural structures.  There were various pill bottles at her bedside, like silent gnomes praying to some terrible god.  Nevertheless, I clambered onto the wooden bed frame and tried to look outside.  She woke up.  

“What’re you doing?”
“There’s someone outside!  I think I’m gonna go out to look.”

“What?!  Just go to bed.  We can look in the morning.”
“Okay.”

I hopped off, and went back to my room, waited about 15 minutes and went outside.

It was dark, and the neighborhood was still asleep.  I walked onto the road, the cold asphalt hurt my bare feet.  My dad’s car was a mess of dirt and broken glass.  A rock had been smashed through the mirrors, and it looked like the same person had tried to do the same to all the windows.

Not wanting to be the only victim in the oncoming tragic slaying, I went to grab brother #2.  Groggy and confused we walked back to the street.  Looking around we viewed the damage, but figured there was nothing we could to until the sun came out.  It was 3:45am, and trashed front yards could keep. 

Suddenly, a white van down slowly on our street, it turned on the cul-de-sac, then slowed down in front of our house.  Its slowly turning wheels were our heartbeats.  Illuminated by the light of our garage, Gabriel and I must have shared one of those brother-sister psychic moments, “When it comes down to it, will we be able to kill someone?”

A woman, portly and bespectacled, someone you would see at church, stepped out.  “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, my son did all of this.”

The story she told was this:  She had been recently hospitalized for a broken leg, and had to get corrective surgery.  During that time, her adult son hadn’t been taking his medications.  She was hospitalized for a few days, and when she came home earlier that evening, he had already gone missing.  He had apparently been terrorizing the entire neighborhood.  They were already working with the police, and they would happily take care of the damage to the car, and don’t tell your dad, we wouldn’t want any more stress to happen to him.  By the way, in addition to damaging the car, my son also stole some stuff.

All through this exposition, the son in question paced back and forth, griping a stone.

Unloaded from the van were things I hadn’t noticed missing, Daniel’s bike, some toys, baby Jesus from the ornamental manager scene in from our front yard.  Baby Jesus was basically a plaster picture mounted upon a stake.  At about four in the morning, a woman and her under-medicated stood in front of me, armed with what was basically a vampire slayer.  “He must have known that Jesus will bring him through this trial.”  A gem of helpfulness emerged from Gabriel, “He can keep him, if he wants.

As they had an impromptu prayer circle in our front yard, Gabriel and I decided we should probably take down their license plate number, in case we all ended up dead in the morning.  When they finally drove away, we squinted into the darkness, but couldn’t make anything out.

The next day wasn’t spectacular; I arranged to have the following day off, to get the car repaired.  On the phone, the woman was cordial and I was blessed many times.

The car was fixed without a hitch, and I used it to pick Daniel up from grade school.  While we drove down the beach road leading to our house, I saw a naked man hanging onto a fence, his skin a deep and smooth and even brown.  He was yelling at the sky.

“Hey, Daniel, did you see the naked man?”

“What naked man?  There wasn’t a naked man.  You’re a liar.”
“There was definitely a naked man.  Want me to turn around?”

“Fine, turn around.”

We drove by in silence, and this time, the naked man on the fence was on the passenger side.  The sunlight shone off his buttocks as he yelled obscenities. 

“There’s totally a naked man!”
“I told you so!”

And now, we were headed the opposite way from home.  Once again, we had to turn around.  By now the man was growing a crowd.  I pulled off to the side, and called the police.

“Hi, I’m in Waiehu. . .”
“Is this about the naked man?”

I had just begun to describe our location, when three squad cars arrived, and the operator breathed a sigh of relief when I relayed this.  I could hear the police trying to coax the man off the fence. 

While we were still parked by the side of the road, Gabriel pulled up next to us, “Did you see the naked man?”

That night, I saw lights in the creek behind our house.   Probably drugs, I figured.  But I was tired and it was only Wednesday.