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.

I just want to write about cats, again.

Cotton is our neighbour’s cat.  And she’s a demon.  And I love her.  She’s grey, and has the fluffiness of a Persian, without any of that flat-faced indignation.  And she’s a ball of unadulterated rage. 

It would be safe to say that there’s something very wrong with her.  Or at least the aggression part of her brain has been painstakingly sharpened into a blade of charming malice.  Cotton will fight anything.  Dogs, trees, rocks. . .anything.  We come home to her engaging in tireless battle with the decorative stones in our front yard.  This is even more disconcerting, when you take into account that she is the same color as the stones, like she’s out to eradicate all imposters, regardless of creed or animal-status.

She seems to regard her fluffiness same way Napoleon felt about his height.   She jealously guards her fluffy fur by arming herself in prickly burrs.  Never pet her if you want to keep your hand in tact, and you must never, never pick her up by her middle.   Her once soft underbelly is just a minefield of fur and burrs.   

She has no sense of personal space.  Late one night, you’ll be in your house, wondering what to do with your life, and you’ll hear a soft jingling sound. You’ll continue analyzing and re-analyzing that awkward social-interaction you had weeks ago, without realizing the jingling is getting louder.  Finally, the jingling is a pounding at your door and lo, Cotton has infiltrated your house, giving you a look of bubbling ferocity, like she’s caught you burglaring her house.

Cotton comes and goes as she pleases.  Sometimes she’ll disappear for weeks, and we’ll worry she finally tried to fight the ocean or that she was crushed by a boulder, and then she’ll just appear on our second story porch, taunting the dog.

And sometimes, I see her stalking around the neighborhood covered in bright chalk.  I’m not sure why, but I guess that’s what demons do after they’ve successful terrorized a neighborhood.

The cat's out of the bag.

Big crowds of people make me skittish.  Skittish is probably not the right word, but I can’t think of anything that succinctly describes the flesh crawling feeling that potentially being jostled by strangers fills me with.  Skittish is the cat you want to pet, but runs away from you.   What I feel is the very specific urge to dig my nails into my flesh and rip my skin off.  Or that my skin is all hot and raw and each time someone touches me, or comes close to touching me, I’m set on fire.  It's like everyone is centipedes.  You know that sickly, prickly feeling when a centipede crawls across your bare flesh?  It's like everyone is a centipede and I can feel them under my skin, their clamouring thoughts crawling around the inside of my skull and across my eyeballs.

Stupidly enough, I often find myself in places that can’t help be densely populated.  For example, I’m writing this from LAX.  Albeit, a moderately quiet corner of LAX, but there are still enough people here to cause some serious trouble if a zombie outbreak occurred.  Despite being steely and grey, I don’t think this airport would be a very effect zombie shelter or container.  The tension is already high enough that we’re almost tearing out each other’s throats, and most everyone is sleep deprived enough to pass off as undead. 

Last Sunday found me at Bay to Breakers, in SF.  It’s a party spanning several miles, masquerading as a foot race.  I’m sure there are actual runners, but by the time we go there, public urination was the modus operandi.  I went with some friends.  And we entered a throng of sweat, glitter, and possibly urine soaked people. 

I have the best friends anyone could ever ask for. I’m sure if I had told them, “I don’t know how I’ll deal with large crowds,” they would have understood.  But. . .

Explaining that you have a food allergy is pretty easy.  Explaining dietary restrictions is easy.  Explaining that you’re not too sure how you’ll react to a massive crowd isn’t gluten sensitivity.    “I don’t know, depending on how I feel that day, I might be okay, or I might just want to curl up in a ball and try not to die,” isn’t something that usually comes up in polite conversation and will probably not get you invited to the next thing people are planning together.  And I want these people to like me and being around them is fun, usually regardless of the situation. 

 I don’t care too much for the half-dressed/naked throngs of people, though.   I must have gone from cautiously optimistic to bubbling homicide in about 45 minutes flat.   Oddly enough, being smashed up against some man’s flaccid, sunburnt penis is not nearly as traumatizing as some bleary drunk girl, hugging you and getting her sweaty body glitter all over you. 

I don’t know when this started.  I can’t think of one singular event that made me think, “No more of this.  Let’s stick to small crowds, preferably people you know.”  Was it the clubbing?  Was it the sweltering streets of Hong Kong and Manila?  Or maybe everyone has a quota of people they can rub up against without feeling like they’re about to cry, and I just reached mine early on? 

I’d like to think that these large, hive-mind organisms known as crowds are just friends waiting to be made. . .but maybe next time.  And maybe after several showers.  

On Making Conversation In Los Angeles

Let’s say you move to Los Angeles.  Maybe not Los Angeles city, but even just Los Angeles County.  Now that you're there, you might need to talk to people.  I know, big shock, but it might happen.  You’re stammering over small talk, the weather, their shoes.  I'm gonna go ahead and step in, and give you a tip that's going to make you ALL THE FRIENDS. 

No matter what their actual day job (or lack of employment) actually is, everyone is a writer.  Or in the film industry.  Or a musician.  Or a DJ.  Maybe you’ll run into an artist.  Or they know a writer, a film maker, a musician, a DJ or maybe an artist.  Or maybe all these fucking things at once.  So, ask them about their book.  Or what they’re working on.  Or anything.  All of a sudden, the focus shifts from you desperately trying to make conversation into a monologue about how it’s going, the dangers of writer’s block, and how dare that restaurant down the road refuse to make substitutions.  

Recap: If you’re ever stuck in a small room, struggling to make small take, just ask them how their book or script or next piece is going, and BANG! Awkward silence banished. 

This handy little trick even works via text message!  Maybe someone just keeps texting you about their political views, their opinion on that book they read when they were ten, or whatever.  And you want them to shut up.  Or at least start yammering on into a conversation you don’t need to be an active participant in.  Just throw the “How’s your book?” question at them, and they’ll be enveloped into a cloud of narcissism and guilt, indulgently floating away from you.  Leaving you to happily wonder if you’re ever going to find a rug that looks like a sunny side up egg or melting ice cream cone. 

There's going to be some changes around here. . .

I've got to wake up at 4am to get ready for an interview, and while I should be reviewing, I think I'm just going to mess around and go to bed.

What's different from the last time I blogged?  Let's see.

I resigned from a job.

I had a birthday.

I moved to Los Angeles.

Those are some pretty big changes, so I'd like to think my absence from writing is justified.  But that isn't true at all.  Some writers thrive in big changes, letting their laptop take up residence on packed suitcases.  I wish I were like those writers.  When the going gets tough, I don't turn to my craft.  I roll around on the floor.

Los Angeles is the way I remember it: big, loud and kind of dirty.  Like the person you used to invite to parties in college, but now that you're a little more settled in (and more importantly, don't want your significant other to know you slept with), you're a little wary of inviting back into your life.  Maybe they've straightened out, or maybe they'll tell your current squeeze about your old party trick.  You know, the one involving ping pong balls and beer cans?

Whistle While We Twerk

This is how I spent my weekend:

I also went to a swim meet and learned that wrestlers and swimmers treat food in totally different ways.  At wrestling tournaments there is so much food.  SO. MUCH.  And it isn't healthy.  If someone had deep fried paper and poured soy sauce all over it, I am sure I would have eaten it after weigh-in.

Swimmers have fruits, vegetables and whole grain muffins.  And they're not scarfing it down like they haven't eaten all week.

What the fuck.  It felt disappointing.

Let Me Culturally Appropriate Your Penis

Lately, I've taken to thinking the treadmills are like a two/four player fighting game.  And the only way to win at it, is to run faster and longer than everyone else.

So, when someone hops onto the treadmill next to me, it's like, "A CHALLENGER HAS APPEARED!" cheesy music and all.

And it's not even that I can run particularly fast or particularly long.  It's just running on a treadmill is pretty boring and I feel like this wears some people out, so lots of them tend to hop off sooner than they wanted to.  I'm winning at the treadmill only because I have a high tolerance for monotony and am button-mashing in my brain.  

In other news, I wrote an email to the developers of an app, Hula, regarding their cultural appropriation and cultural insensitivity, and how they were only further marginalizing a group that they actually meant to help, and they wrote me back a non-apology and pat on the head, saying they didn't mean to be offensive and are talking to community leaders.  The app is supposed to help people find free/affordable STD/STI testing and also help them share their status to, I guess, viable bang buddies.  

Huh.  

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that while educating yourself is good and building understanding and compassion is better, but I wrote that letter so you would rename your fucking app.  Like, literally.

Not only is it offensive (hula being an art form and form of non-written history; also see the banning of hula by colonizing missionaries), but you could have SO MUCH FUN with the name of an app that is meant to help find people find free/affordable STD/STI and HIV/AIDS testing.  Just flipping through Urban Dictionary for five minutes will give you at least 25 viable names.  This is just uncreative laziness.  It's named Hula because it helps you get "lei-d."  Huh.  

And I could see someone arguing that for the sake of sexual health becoming a more acceptable topic, it'd be okay to just go with the flow, but no.  Continuing to marginalize and appropriate culture isn't going to help foster an environment that encourages open communication.  

Furthermore, this only underlines the tired trope of native people being uncivilized and lazy.  "Oh, hey. Instead of talking about our sexual status and discussing our sexuality, barriers to sexual expression and sexual health, let's just fiddle with our phones before we bump uglies." 

I'm conflicted because I deeply want sexuality and sexual health to be discussed, but I don't want it to be at the expense of an ethnic/cultural group.  It shouldn't be.  

Whoa.  I didn't mean to get serious.