23 February 2007

Humanity is a dying instinct...

...which is arguable, anyway, that we might instinctually be humane; I recently debated instinct vs learned behavior with Heather's aunt (whose name I cannot remember, forgive my swiss-cheese brain) and I suppose we agreed that the only real human instincts are suckling and cycling one's legs [to eventually evolve into walking, if possible].

Anyway.

The other night I came upon a woman, 50-ish, white, approximately 165lbs, lying in a snowbank in front of the Farm Store (I'm from Baltimore -- it will forever be the Farm Store) with her pants down, her bare skin burning on the ice. I argue that I am instinctually humane, that I am cellularly programmed (and not by any teaching, I assure you) to help all animals in distress, to act with compassion and to follow through on my duties as a human to be as comforting and kind as I can possibly muster. This particular compulsion frequently backfires and I lose friends, books, money, pride and time I could have spent scrubbing laundry or other mindless (and inarguably useless in comparison) tasks following my heart to keep my fellow animals, human and otherwise, safe from harm.

Anyway. Again.

The woman, whose name turns out to be Margie Something-Or-Other, is barely conscious. I gently shake her, I ask her what's wrong and she is incoherent, mumbling something about something while her eyes roll into whites and her toothless mouth is open and drooling. A young girl stands by, insisting that she's already called an ambulance, that she knows this woman, that this woman is the mother of her good friend. When I ask her the woman's name, she claims not to know; when I ask if she's called her friend, she says, "my friend don't care." She tells me that the woman has swallowed 15 OxyContin; she tells me that she's, "got liquor on her." I call an ambulance again -- bear in mind that this is occurring less than two blocks from a fire station -- fully explaining the situation and beg them to send an ambulance post haste; they insist that one is already on the way. I spend the next ten minutes wrestling this woman off of the snow bank and onto the concrete while I attempt to pull up her pants; she begins to cry, apologize and roll onto her back while I keep my hand firmly on her shoulder to prevent this lest she vomit (which one should never do on one's back), I soothe her and shush her like a baby and I get her to tell me her name and I refuse her repeated requests for a cigarette. All the while, a crowd of local adolescents and teenagers are gathering, all of whom know this woman but are numb to her situation, they see this kind of thing all the time, didn't she learn her lesson when Charlie OD'd last month?

I call an ambulance for the third time, getting pushy and more urgent: 15 OxyContin! Vodka! SOS! For real...the kids keep telling me not to touch her, that she's dirty, she's a junkie, she's got hepatitis; I tell them that no one ever got hepatitis from touching a winter coat (I cannot verify this fact, don't quote me) and I continue to soothe her, I urge her to stay awake until the paramedics arrive, laughing.

Laughing.

They know this woman, Margie R., who lives in the neighborhood and whose cousin -- Charlie -- died last month from an Oxy overdose; they've "helped" her before and they keep finding her in these situations, they keep "helping her" but "you can't help somebody that don't want to help thereselves." The only medic that's behaving, um, professionally is an African woman, presumably Margie's age, who helps me pull up her pants and asks me to dispose of the bottle of vodka she finds in Margie's pocket; the kids loudly sigh with disappointment as I drop the bottle in the trash. Go fish, I tell them, if you want it that badly...the medics, save for the African, all laugh and stand around, letting the woman do all the work.

What will happen to her? I ask; they tell me that she'll be taken to the hospital and given Narcan, be allowed to detox overnight and released in the morning. She has no insurance, so she can't stay at the hospital. Will she see a social worker? I ask; they say, "maybe, they're supposed to give her one but who knows what they do -- I told you, you can't help somebody that won't help thereselves."

The concept of resource knowledge and understanding is lost on these public servants and I begin to think that along with that course on restaurant etiquette that is such a popular suggestion for compulsory high school study, a course on human resources might be more useful in this age of inhumanity and the humor some seem to find in cyclic addiction and suffering. Margie could be the end of an era if those laughing teenagers were made better aware of their resources for the myriad problems I'm sure they already face and that will definitely, if they don't move out of the neighborhood (or aren't gentrified out, a more likely scenario) result in some pants-down, snowbank reclining in the not-so-distant future.

18 January 2007

Document

Yesterday I spent a grueling day with the women of my family and bringing the hyperactive 4-year-old along was just distracting enough that we didn't have to interact too terribly much. My mother and grandmother met me at 10am, we drove to Columbia to meet my sister for lunch, my grandmother bought me some birthday presents, I bought the boy some Schleich & Papo figurines at a 50% discount -- Foot Action outbid the hobby store, which sells, um, hobby stuff, for rent renewal and so ends a piece of my history, the hobby store where one could always buy, um, hobby stuff and was an excellent source of collectable European toys for Fergus but hey! There really aren't enough places to buy Jordans and Tims in Columbia mall, right?! It's obviously the smarter move -- and we drove back exhausted but gearing up for round two. On the way home I conjured verbal silence by putting Neko Case (shut up, Kitoria) on the iPod which prompted my grandmother to ask, briefly, about "this angelic voice" and to request a copy of her "record"!

When we got home, I bribed Fergus with a new toy while Granny and I set to cooking dinner and I set to interrogating her about our family's history, she being the only person that can give me any insight into any part of my genetic background. Brian pointed out that I am only one quarter anything, because I have no contact with three quarters of my family and no way of finding out anything about them. Let's see if I can splain a little....

~My grandmother was married, in June of 1951, to a man who would ultimately prove to be a paranoid schizophrenic and would never meet his first daughter -- my mother. His mother, upon learning that my grandmother was pregnant, implored my grandmother to "pray that this child is born dead," presumably because both of her own children were profoundly mentally ill. With less cynicism and more reason than one might imagine, this strikes me as a pretty valid wish, although had it come true I wouldn't be here today to regale you all with these bitter tales and memories. Consequently, I know nothing about my mother's paternal genetics. (1/4)
~Lo, the child was born [barely] breathing and grew up to marry a man that would disappear without a trace, never to reveal more than a ghost's trail of history about his family and upbringing. I know next to nothing about my father's family. (1/2)

My grandmother told me that in the early-to-middle '40s, her aunts worked for the US Department of Entomology, located at University of Maryland College Park, where they injected beetle grubs with "milky white disease"; these grubs would be placed in wooden crates, in a small amount of dirt, where they would remain for X-amount of days before dying at which time the dirt would be sifted out and the grubs dried out to be ground up and made into DDT. I cannot find any information anywhere about "milky white disease*," and when researching DDT it would seem that it was conceived as a synthetic compound and mass produced until its ultimate illegalization. Basically, I don't know what the woman is talking about and neither does she -- I suspect that when they worked in these labs, as less-than-high-school-educates, that they were given the layest of explanations with regard to what they were doing -- milky white disease*, indeed.

FUCK!!!! Check this out -- so surprising that the FDA lies! They lie lie lie; this is proof that DDT is still on the market and being sold under a different name and being called "safe." FUCK!

WHAT IS MILKY SPORE?
Milky Spore is a naturally occuring bacterium that affects Japanese Beetles at the grub stage of life. Milky Spore was first developed by the USDA in the 1930s to combat the Japanese Beetle but Milky Spore controls the June bug and Oriental beetles as well.

HOW DOES MILKY SPORE WORK?

When grubs are feeding, they injest the bacteria. The bacteria begins to multiply inside the gut of the grub killing it in about 14 days. Once the grubs begins to decompose, billions of new bacteria are released into the soil.

HOW FAST DOES THE SPORE WORK?

Milky Spore begins working upon application wherever grubs are feeding. Warm climates can achieve complete control in 2-3 years. Colder climates may require 3-5 years.

HOW LONG DOES IT LAST?

Once established in your lawn Milky Spore can last 15 to 20 years.

WILL FERTILIZERS AFFECT THE SPORE? HOW ABOUT CHEMICAL PESTICIDES?

Fertilizers and herbicides will not affect the Spore. Chemical grub controls do not harm the bacteria, however, the use of chemical controls willl slow the rate of spread of the bacteria. The use of chemical grub controls along with Milky Spore can be effective, but only spot spray with chemical control.

CAN MILKY SPORE BE USED IN THE GARDEN?

Yes. Milky Spore is harmless to food crops.

HOW MUCH MILKY SPORE DO I NEED?

Milky Spore is applied 10 pounds per acre. However, more can be applied for faster results.

HOW DO I APPLY MILKY SPORE?

Milky Spore is applied using a level teaspoon amount every three feet in rows three feet apart forming a grid-like pattern when. St. Gabriel Laboratories manufacturers a dispenser for easy application.

SHOULD CHILDREN AND PETS BE KEPT OFF THE TREATED LAWN?

No. Milky Spore is not a poison. It will not affect man, animals or contaminate well water.

CAN I CUT MY GRASS AFTER APPLICATION?

No. After application water the Milky Spore into the soil for about thirty minutes. After the spots have been watered in, the lawn may be mowed.

WILL FREEZING RUIN THE SPORE? WHAT ABOUT HEAVY RAIN?

No. Once applied, Milky Spore is not affected by environmental conditions.

I anticipate knocking on my door within 7-10 days...seriously, does anyone else see this as fucked up??????

Later Day, 15 February 2007

Blogging in a different forum...for $$$

I found this website called Helium that pays people to blog; after reading some of the entries I figured that if these people could get paid to blog then I might definitely be onto something. Here's what I submitted today as my test article; you'll notice that it's a greatly abbreviated version of what I talk about here a lot, but it was my first entry. www.helium.com , for anyone interested in joining.

I've also submitted an essay to the Sun Magazine; if they accept it it will appear in the August 2007 issue. I highly recommend (again, I know I've pushed this before) picking up a copy of this thing at Whole Foods or reading some excerpts online at www.sunmagazine.org ; we've had a subscription for a couple of years now and it never fails to brighten my day and humble me substantially upon arrival.

Okay, here goes my first "paid" entry:

I was raised in a home of extreme violence: My mother and stepfather were violent toward each other, my mother was violent toward me and later, my stepfather would become violent toward me as well. On more than one occasion, the two would join forces and impose beatings and punishments upon me that were, and continue to be, beyond my scope of comprehension; from where I stood, I started out as a normal child, perhaps a bit smaller than others, shy and not at all athletic but not initially rebellious or flippant or ornery. In addition to the near-constant violence, my stepfather had a penchant for pornography and philandering, neither of which were secrets in our home, and I grew up knowing and eventually practicing a sexuality far beyond my years. I lived, along with my sisters but more so than they for a reason that I can barely communicate to this day, in a state of constant fear and defense that I now understand to have been abnormal, detrimental and the ultimate cause of who I am today.

After lots of self-exploration and -hatred during my late teens and twenties, I settled down at 31 with the man who would first father my son and would later marry me; before we met, before I grew weary of squatting, running away from responsibility, using copious amounts of drugs, drifting from job to job and from one abusive relationship to another, I would have told you that the life I have now was unachievable, fantastic, undeserving of someone so damaged and traumatized and just plain worn out. I'd made no strides to rise above my childhood, I'd made no strides to "better" myself, I had no designs on living a so-called normal life. It stands to reason, then, that my current existence continually surprises me and awes me but it also frightens me and exposes to me all the perforations perpetrated on me, both by my family and later by my own self.

My son was born to a father of grief and a mother of trauma; my boyfriend (now my husband) lost his mother at a young age and was raised by a father ill-equipped to rear two small sons in the '70s when such a thing was still women's work and my story needs no elaboration, so it shouldn't have surprised us that we were stressed, even in the midst of the most blissful of times, in ways that forced us into rapid self-examination and exposed to us the raw truth of our damage and the urgency of our healing. Anyone who's ever had a rude awakening like ours can tell you that examination, ownership and the consequent and deliberate change of harmful compulsion is Sisyphean in magnitude; it is harder than losing weight or quitting smoking or running a marathon, for it requires not only discipline but knowledge and understanding of said reflex, which is not always obvious. Plus, it's wholly embarrassing to admit that as parents intent on extended breastfeeding, cloth-diapering, organic dieting and gentle discipline that the latter is more of a challenge than we could ever have imagined: We struggle, daily, to not raise our voices and to not strike our son. We are not always successful, and we are frequently ashamed.

I have not gelled with the alternative parenting community in the way that I had hoped; I am wired to believe that children want structure and guidance and, ahem, discipline to a certain degree by setting boundaries, honing a good danger voice when one's offspring is on the way to harm and by keeping them close by so as not to interfere with others' personal space. These are not popular sentiments among who might be my peers; most of the parents with whom I interact are content to allow their kids to run wildly around restaurants, to laugh at a tchotcke broken during reckless play in an inappropriate situation, to play the kids-will-be-kids game when theirs spill a bottle of nail polish on a friend's leather couch and refuse to pay for the cleaning and repair. I, for one, would be mortified to be told by a cafe employee that my son was being disruptive to the other patrons and would probably leave; I am also a career restaurant employee and am possibly hyper-sensitive to that particular scenario...regardless, I am harder on my son than my peers are on their children (or so it would seem) and because I am compelled toward violence (frequently, nurture morphs into nature and that damage is officially done) I am frequently unsure of my own reactions, I'm often embarrassed by mine or my son's behavior and I am confused by my embarrassment. It gets worse when my husband, who works a day job and is infrequently attendant at playgroups and story times, brings along his brash-yet-effective parenting methods to a weekend birthday party and I then feel angry with him for being too, um, himself and angry with myself for being angry with him. We have learned that along with the joys of parenting - and they are myriad, make no mistake - there is much pain and self-doubt and a distinct lack of perfection that we were certain we would possess.

Early, 15 February 2007

Document .374

I stayed in Ocean City for a few weeks following the Big Event but it took a bigger toll on me than previous incidents and I lost my focus, my luster, my motivation...I began showing up late for work, picking fights with my dad, picked up smoking and eventually walked out of my job (which I never regretted); I was afraid to confide in my father or my grandparents the trauma of that week and my father grew impatient with me and insisted that I find another job or go home. I'm sure that had I told him what had happened things would have been much different, that I would have been allowed to stay -- perhaps permanently -- but I couldn't, I was too afraid of my mother and stepfather to tell the truth so I packed my bags and went home.

The first thing I did was find a job; I applied at the dry cleaners just a few blocks from my house and got the job right away. It payed $3 per hour and my immediate supervisor turned out to be a distant cousin to my stepfather; this might have been beneficial if she hadn't been an extremely cranky, undeducated teenage mother whose husband was borderline retarded and smoked menthol 100s while carrying their infant son in his arms...in other words, she was unimpressed with our much-removed relationship and set out to school me on customer service with an iron fist and surprising success.

Candy was good at her job, which was to arrive daily at 4am sharp, hang and bag all items right off the press and tag them with their corresponding receipts. In the summer I'd start at 7am, which is when we unlocked the doors, and we'd be flooded with pick ups and drop offs and once I learned the ticket system and figured out that clanking, revolving hanging contraption that keeps the cleaning in order I felt that I was as efficient as I could be in such a rote job...not so, according to Candy. She was constantly opening my cash drawer, chastising me for not facing my money (a compulsion that I carry to this day but at the time did not realize the importance of): All money was to be facing the back of the shop, indicating money coming in -- if it faced the door, it was a curse on the prosperity of the business. I learned to thank a customer for his patronage, not to respond with "you're welcome" to his thanks ("No, thank you sir") and this was a customer-is-always-right business, unless it involved lost buttons or hooks and eyes or mangled cravats which were clearly stated in many places as "not our responsibility."

Aside from Candy, I worked with several other students from my high school and we mostly got along, but there was one kid with whom I couldn't mesh, wouldn't mesh; my inner sleeping feminist knew that this guy was bad news, a pox on women's egos, a predator of others' self-worth and a master of self-loathing: No one could be so evil and love themselves. Kevin made it a daily mission to make one of us cry, to be as cutting and unclever as possible in his communication with us ("You should reconsider those jeans -- your ass looks gigantic"), to "forget" to include us in the dinner order ("oh, I'm sorry -- were you hungry? Looks like you're going to have to go out in the rain and get your own dinner, huh?") and to be a general menace, mixing up clothes in the calendar bins -- Friday in Monday, Thursday in Tuesday -- just often enough and with enough venom that no one, not even the other guys, wanted to work with him.

Naturally, I had a huge crush on him. Which I squelched one day by punching him square in the face.

Later Day, 7 February 2007

Dissolution-worthy, for balance

It has become cliche within my particular demographic to say that high school and all the politics inherent to that particular institution-slash-time period sucked but sometimes cliches are golden truth and not always for the same reasons. Since I was only challenged academically -- that is, I was socially safe, for the most part: I was both freak and geek but also gregarious enough to hold my own and I was, for all intents and purposes, mysteriously popular -- when I refer to high school I am generally referring to a series of years, rather than the institution. And so I continue with the hell that was my homelife with my mother and PS and, increasingly so, without my father during the winter months.

I started spending summers at the beach with my dad, first going off to day camp around 12 or 13 then getting a work permit at 14 and taking my first tax-paying job at a bagel shop/deli run by a tyrannical monster of a woman called Laurie. The job was so heinous that it's not even worth describing -- and it wasn't my age, either: It truly stunk -- but the summer started off hopeful, nervously, with a new bike and responsibilities and solid solo time with my dad that was over way too quickly. That was the summer that I didn't take out my contact lenses -- I'm so old that extended-wear lenses weren't even a thing then -- for days on end and then one day I couldn't take them out, they were melded to my orbs and I had to visit an optometrist to have them peeled off. Ew. That was the summer that I had my first grown-up sort of date; I took the bus 47 blocks south on the 4th of July to watch the Ocean City fireworks on the beach with Don Something-or-Other and we kissed, sloppily, over fresh-squeezed lemonade and funnel cakes and I was home, more or less, by 11 o'clock. The first six or so weeks of the summer of 1986 were pretty average, with superficial summer romance and bike crashes and sunburns and a newfound love for "progressive" music. I wore my dad's old Levis, hung out at the skate park on my days off, listened to the Violent Femmes and the Cure on my Walkman, bought my first pair of Chuck Taylor hightops and my first bottle of Dep hair gel; the use of the last item would earmark the change, the time when my trust of others began to erode and my rage was conceived, if not to be completely birthed for almost two decades.

My mother, my sister, PS and his girls planned a family vacation to -- where else? -- Ocean City during the first week of August; accompanying them was PS's younger brother and his wife who were chummy with my mother and him around that time. My mother requested, reasonably, that I pack a bag and stay with them during their 10-day holiday; it was understood that I would continue to rise each morning at 4 to bike to work per my usual schedule -- only the geography of my pillow would be different. Plus, I got to spend good, quality time with my mom and stepfather...yippee.

My family pulled up to our trailer mid-Saturday; everyone piled out and piled in for a cold drink and a toilet break. My father was at work but aware of the situation; I phoned him to tell him that they'd arrived and that I'd be leaving. He told me to have fun and call when and if I needed to. He told me he loved me. My mother, who hadn't seen me in nearly two months, asked, "what the hell did you do to your hair? And why are you wearing jeans and those weird Chinese shoes in the middle of the summer?" My father was free and freeing when it came to my natural human processes and developments, so I was (stupidly) wholly unprepared for my mother to have a narrow and negative reaction to something so petty as a new aesthetic and I surely reacted defensively; this set in motion a very swift chain of passive-aggressive remarks that became, within the course of that same afternoon and evening, the first uber-violent event in my domestic life. It was the ultimate in child-abuse primers.

As a group of 8, we converged first on a local seafood restaurant then caravaned over to one of the countless mini-golf courses in town; all the while, my mother was unable to stifle her snide and contemptuous comments regarding my spiking hair and questionable choice of clothing. I, for the most part, limited my responses to eye-rolling and the occasional, "Mooooommmm, stop it!" until we ended our evening back at our rented condo where my mother grabbed a hairbrush and started violently combing the gel out of my hair, unsolicitedly. I grabbed her wrist and threw the brush to the floor; she, in turn, grabbed my wrist and emitted a low growling noise which signalled everyone, save for PS and my helpless Same Age trapped on the bottom bunk, to run for their rooms and lock the door.

Same Age, the Older One and my sister watched helplessly from different vantage points as my mother and PS took turns calling me a whore, a slut, a worthless piece of shit; these slurs were delivered venomously and in between various open-and-closed fist hits and punches to every organ and soft spot open for assault. Normally, PS would sit out the beatings, periodically muttering, "mother, that's enough -- you don't really want to hurt her, right?" but all the while he'd be filing his nails and smoking, not truly intervening but attempting to play a part; this was the first time he would become actively involved in the actual assault and it would be the first time I would be punched with a closed fist by a man at least twice my size. I remember trying to fight back but all my counter attempts were met with surprise and how-dare-yous and more violence, more anger...PS punched me just below my sternum, knocking the wind out of me, while my mother took a back hand bearing a large amethyst to the side of my head, drawing blood from my ear and instigating what would become a nasty bruise and permanent tinnitus (which I would later aggravate in rock clubs, which has resulted in a partial hearing loss that I'm not keen on seeking treatment for for reasons I cannot logically explain) in my left ear. The attacks went on for what seemed like hours; my baby sister was crying and Older One was trying, in her robotic fashion, to soothe her and Same Age was still helplessly trapped in the corner of that bottom bunk, sobbing and begging them to stop. The brother and his wife locked themselves in their bedroom; I just recently put these folks in the Dissolve Pile because it has suddenly occurred to me that any adult witnessing such an attack on a child is ethically and spiritually obligated to intervene, legally or physically or otherwise, not to shut the door and make jokes about it the next day, because it was anything but amusing.

Magically, mercifully, my mother "came to" and abruptly stopped. She was briefly silent; I was bleeding from my ear and leaking snot from my nose and hyperventilating in that hiccupy sobby way and everyone was breathing heavily. Even though the air conditioning was on I was perspiring from the adrenaline and it was then that I first experienced the standing-in-snow coldness that I still get from time to time and I began to shake, violently. As if a demon had left her body, my mother rushed to my side in maternal compassion and affection; PS descended the spiral stairs (this was a fancy beach condo and the assault took place in a loft above the living room, which was how my sisters were all trapped in witness) and lit a cigarette, muttering that my mother should just, "send the ungrateful little bitch back to her father where they both belong." My mother ignored him, attempting to comfort me with a combination of physical affection and apology but it had gone too far, it had been too intense, and I pushed her away and ran for my duffel bag and frantically stuffed it with my clothing and announced that I was leaving, I had bus fare and I was going home.

I wasn't allowed to leave. As suddenly as she'd gone from abuser to nurse she quickly morphed into a confusing combination of the two, insisting that I'd committed to spending the week with "my family" and that I was going to fulfill that commitment; furthermore, when we visited my grandmother the next day (my grandmother and her third husband retired to the Delaware shore; this would be the first summer that our family didn't bunk with them -- such an incident would surely not have happened in their home) I was to blame the bruising and my full-body soreness on a bike accident, which was feasable since it was my primary mode of transport at the time, second only to the bus. I was instructed to tell a similar story to my dad, and I did, I lied to both of them, two people whom I love so solidly to this day that I cannot imagine what made me feel unsafe enough to confide in them.

I'd like to imagine how different things might have been had they not stolen my trust so swiftly that without even knowing it, I was propelled into constant fear in a short 24-hour period. All the beatings at home, the academic punishments that I was so accustomed to: They seemed justified to me, I thought that's what happened to kids that did poorly in school. This time was different, filled with evil and poison and imparted a knowledge that I was, in no way, leading a normal life.

Early, 7 February 2007

Gonna try and enlighten y'all...

...in the way that I feel I've been recently affected. I'm also going to try cohesion, which is something I'm oddly having trouble with over the past few days; it would seem that two-point-five weeks of the shot isn't long enough to balance one completely, so I've entered into the fog that is PMS, although I will get no period. Ever again. Atrophied ovaries and whatnot.

I've touched before on being a bridge burner, I've proudly called myself a loner for most of my life and have been mostly satisfied with this title out of little more than an extreme fear of confrontation and conflict that naturally accompanies all relationships, romantic and not. In other words, if I become your friend and we conflict in some way, I am more likely to pull away from the relationship -- slowly or abruptly, depending on the situation and geography -- than I am to stick around and find an aggreable end. It's painfully immature, stunted and cowardly, if not sometimes completely valid and warranted, and it's my second-to-most-hated compulsion that I am determined to conquer, the first one being the Carrot Of Which We Will Not Speak.

Resolution Not Dissolution. Someone make me buttons. Or stickers. Or a t-shirt. Ain't too proud to beg....

There are a handful of folks who will never again get my attention, who have either shown me exactly who they are (ah, Ms. Angelou: When someone shows you who they are, you should believe them...), who have proven themselves intolerable in this particular camp and are permanently expelled; there are those who have inflicted physical, emotional or sexual violence on me, those whose mere prospective presence can propel me into a fit of anxiety and perspiration, and there are those with whom I have half-heartedly attempted resolution but have been stymied by my nasty flight compulsion.

Flight Not Fight. Not sticker/button/t-shirt-worthy at all. Begging.

I have been actively trying to not leave Brian every time we've had an argument in the past almost-six years. Go ahead: Ask him. He'll tell, and how; breaking your own heart by virtue of your own weakness and chipping away at someone else's love and trust is a fine art that I highly recommend not taking the 101 on -- if you're not already fucking up someone's life (or on the road to repairing your own damage), don't start. It's like smoking, I imagine: You'll never know if you're an addict or an habitual user until you try and stop, which is when the challenge comes in. Either way, give a holla to Sisyphus when you pass him on the hill because it's a struggle and a half.

So I have this friend, who may or may not read this blog, with whom I had an argument last week and it was painful: I lost sleep, I cried, I raged to a whole bunch of people and I came to a whole bunch of conclusions as to how it was all going to pan out and not one of them was resolution. Actually, all of them were dissolution, complete separation, emotional write-off, finito...I actually convinced myself for several days that I truly hated this person, that everything I thought about him was wrong and that he truly was what he portrays on the surface (which is not who he is at all, not in the very least, and I feel honored to have always been able to see through that shell and into his heart even though I frequently feel like I'm one of the few that can do so) and that he was disposable. I was on the cusp of a breakup, again.

Oh my darlin, oh my darlin,
How can you forget
All the love we had between us?
Now it's like we've never met.

Then he surprised me with a phone call, an olive branch, a meek-but-sincere plea for resolution that melted me and snapped me back to reality, which is that I deeply care for this person and I cannot afford to lose his friendship -- it is very, very dear to me. Make no mistake: I was angry, justifiably so, and I let him know and he let me let him know and he heard me, I'm sure, and he came to my home and ate my food and perused my library; we hugged and kissed many times and I was filled with so much joy over this revelation that I was high at the end and a strange thing came of this dual resolution: I was able, then, to truly love and appreciate everyone else that was present at the time -- so much so that I was full to bursting and had to take a whole sleeping pill to lay down my head, it was so overwhelming.

So I made a birthday resolution of resolution, at most costs, and dissolution at some. I highly recommend this path; it is fragrant and flat and made from that spongy playground material that's ecofriendly and absorbs all shock and there is enlightenment at every turn, not just at the end. I figure I've put in around a quarter-mile toward the rest of my life.