Sweaty Pits

I've been working on this letter to a friend for the past several weeks.....it evolved into something more:

05/30/2001 Wednesday

B

Picture: I’m shifting from neutral to 1st gear and turning left simultaneously. I’m now in 2nd, accelerating, not quite to 3rd yet when my left foot depresses the clutch, left hand steers to turn right (yes, putting the blinker on too), right hand pushes the gear shift up into neutral and right foot brakes to make a right turn. Now I’m about to start this process all over again and make the right turn when Randy starts to pass me his cell phone without warning or telling me what’s going on. He tries to hold to phone to my ear for me, but my head is moving around and I can’t hear a word you’re saying until I complete my turn and grab the phone. This is how accidents happen. Whoa…..do I live dangerously these days. =)

Married life

I had this juvenile impulsive urge to type, “What’s Up?” But then I thought about it and in these domesticated times—ha ha—I know that there’s not much going on with me. You? It’s a daily routine of sleeping (and my god I get to bed by midnight most nights), waking up, showering, breakfast (a la cereal), work work work, lunch (at home because of money), work work work until 6pm when I drive 1.5 miles back to home to go running with Randy for about 1-2 miles, come home, shower, eat like a fucking pig and plop down in front of the TV and/or computer. Gee, who knew this was what life was all about? I’ll go out dancing maybe 1 or two times a month; a drastic cutback from the 1-2 times per week. It’s not so much that I’m...


06/02/2001 Saturday

...any less enthusiastic about wanting to go and dance, but I’m tired of being surrounded by the same drugged out, muscle-perfected bodies each time. And the crowds…A sardine in a fishbowl is what it feels like. I got weighed in the doctor’s office yesterday morning and they confirmed my suspicions due to lack of regular exercise now. No one ever believes me when I say I’ve gained weight. They roll their eyes and remark about how think I am. Hehe….not anymore. I finally got a few people to have their eyes pop out of their heads. (Okay, so that was a little bit of added hyperbole for effect.) So tipping the scales is how the above routine of running got introduced into the daily schedule a couple weeks ago. So far, slight change and my body hurts all the time. Age. Yuck.

There are far too many stupid people in this world. I don’t know why I’m complaining. If they weren’t in the world, I wouldn’t have a job. I just spent five minutes repeatedly trying to explain to someone that they couldn’t receive any new messages in their voice mail because the mailbox was full. The guy didn’t get it. “It’s full?” he would say. “But I didn’t leave any messages.”

“Yes sir, but other people could have left the messages.”
“But how could it be full?”
“Like I said sir, others might have left you messages. If you just check your voice ma—“
“But how is that possible?” [side note: I hate when people cut me off when I’m explaining something. Click….ooops]

It’s very disrespectful. I give most everyone the benefit of the doubt at first, but when their courtesy level drops below acceptable, their customer service suffers for it.

Being the stuffed turkey that I am today, I can understand now how easy it is to get this way. I used to wonder, but it’s quite simple. No activity. Stillness. Sitting, staring into this computer box then going home, sitting, and staring into another picture box. Over time….bingo…pounds pounds pounds.


06/11/01 Monday
Connecting

There was this Sociologist dude—I think his name was Emile Durkheim, but I’m probably wrong—and he did one of the first extensive studies on why people commit suicide. One of his conclusions was that people are more likely to attempt suicide if they felt disconnected from their immediate society. Okay, so no big surprise perhaps, but a stunning discovery for his time nonetheless. Now I’m not suicidal, but I do feel extremely disconnected lately.

I’ve felt this way before. It has something to do with my individuality and being involved in a relationship. As I pour more of myself into the relationship, I feel not so connected to causes and ideas around me. It’s a trade off.


06/18/01 Monday

Another “pride” weekend finished. I can say, with some amount of pride, that I haven’t been to a pride festival in several years now. I haven’t had the stomach for it. How crappy is that? I spent yesterday on the beach in Laguna baking instead of walking around the commercialized booths and drugged out dance tent. There was this mystical lure to go out dancing Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but sci-fi at home on the telly, a quiet evening of drinking & playing pool in Riverside, and a mis-match of tennis rounded out my weekend instead. I often thought of completing this letter while I was involved in activities this weekend, but I also kind of like the idea that I’m continuing this on like one of the “old time” letters I used to write from Sacramento. Eventually though, I do have to send this string of thoughts.

I think I’m starting to get age spots on my hands. I used to notice them a lot on my great-grandmother’s hands. Granted, she had like 80 years on me, but I figure she was somewhat younger when the spots began. So I wonder if I put sun block on just the spots if the surrounding skin will then darken to the same color? An experiment for another day at the beach. Right now my skin must rest. Two days in the sun and I’m red now. When I brown up I can be put back into the oven. Skin cancer what?

Okay…so I just re-read everything up to this point and I’m being anal. I logged onto YAHOO so that I could make sure that the Emile Durkheim part was correct and that I spelled his name right. (I did) I also found some summaries on the net about him and it kinda relates to what I feel on some level:

“Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, introduced the concept of anomie in his book The Division of Labour in Society, published in 1893. He used anomie to describe a condition of deregulation that was occurring in society. This meant that rules on how people ought to behave with each other were breaking down and thus people did not know what to expect from one another. Anomie, simply defined, is a state where norms (expectations on behaviours) are confused, unclear or not present. It is normlessness, Durkheim felt, that led to deviant behaviour. In 1897, Durkheim used the term again in his study on Suicide, referring to a morally deregulated condition. Durkheim was preoccupied with the effects of social change….”

“…Anomie thus refers to a breakdown of social norms and it a condition where norms no longer control the activities of members in society. Individuals cannot find their place in society without clear rules to help guide them. Changing conditions as well as adjustment of life leads to dissatisfaction, conflict, and deviance. He observed that social periods of disruption (economic depression, for instance) brought about greater anomie and higher rates of crime, suicide, and deviance.”

--SOURCE, http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/durkheim/durk.htm

I guess what I feel most disconnected from is understanding why people are so cruel to each other and why we’ve just accepted that as a society. Not just in murders, crimes and other very visible type attacks, but in words, gestures and the silent affects [short “a” a---FECTS] that get communicated with a look. Inside I’ve always felt this way, ever since I was a child and the chides of other children would hit me. As I grew older and formed that “tough skin,” it didn’t change the fact that inside I still didn’t understand why people were so ugly. Being surrounded by ugliness it grows on your tough skin and makes it easier to be cynical and frustrated by inane, pointless, people. (haha…talk about ugliness) But as much as I joke and mock those that cross my path, there is never intent to cause pain or hurt someone and when I have it then returns some pain to me.


Perfect Circles

So no one is perfect. Shit, there goes another illusion. Next someone is going to come up and tell me that the tooth ferry isn’t real. So what are the alternatives? Turn off to popular mainstream culture and be part of some sub or counter-culture? Yeah, okay, fun for a while and by genetic design a part of what you and I will belong to as long as we live, but that isn’t really satisfying to me. Being locked into any one group or finding complete solace with one group has never suited me well. Being part of the mainstream is a part of me and always will be, but that can never be the complete picture either. I can no more live out the American dream and be happy than I could being a circuit queen traveling the country for the next hot party.

What I thought that I found were an eclectic group of friends to balance out a little moderation within several different scenes while still living enough in the mainstream to be happy. Enter in the human factor again, that no one is perfect and that applies to friends, friendship, relationships of any sort. Expectations… Unless we carry around an outward listing of all our personal expectations, we’re bound to have them trampled over. I guess for most of my life I’ve had very few really major expectations of people. I’ve tried not to get too trivial about them because I think that just complicates my relationships. Don’t lie, cheat, steal, blah blah blah…..pretty basic things for me. Nonetheless, I’ve learned that there are more expectations that are important to others, and regardless of what I may personally think of them, I should try and respect those expectations. I’ve not always been successful. When I haven’t been, I guess I make a judgment as to how serious I feel my action(s) has/have been. There’s the problem. No matter what I “size up” the situation to be, it’s the subjectivity of what I see and what the other person sees that makes and breaks the difference between something of, “Oops, sorry, my mistake.” And “You Mother Fucker!!!”

Huh? Yeah, the above is a snip-it of what is going on inside of my head at any given moment. That’s why I’m silent when there could be words spoken. I can’t always make sense of the thoughts and I don’t know why they appear at times like while driving to the gas station or sitting in front of the TV. Dreams are even more unrelenting with symbols, themes, ideas that jumble into pictures and then I’m supposed to deduce what the message is. (Assuming, of course, that there is a message to be read in the first place.)


High Society

This business of drugs is pretty crazy. I think my previous position atop the all-knowing pedestal of blissful ignorance might have been pretty fucking accurate. My blind citing of how doing drugs were somehow evil, maybe not so blind. WHACK! That was the 2x4 plank that I just swung at myself. The devil and the angel on each shoulder vying for some type of superior decision on this drug issue. Much like different Political Action Committees pumping members of Congress full of whatever they need to sway a vote on the issue itself.

I’ve now had the opportunity to watch the effects of drugs on myself and on those around me. I’ve been privy to parties of completely altered festivities where orgies abound (though have not partaken) and part of small, intimate gatherings of close friends where the heightened states have shared hurts, beliefs and soothing moments. I’ve experienced nature in alteration and the night club scene as well. Underground raves in warehouses that and mafia driven massive attendance events in sports arenas. I’ve witnessed the delicate business transactions of dealers and their “clients” as special favors are negotiated and later seeing that sometimes those commitments were more deeply entrenched than either party really wanted. I have not seen the hardcore territorial disputes or pissing contests supplying any particular markets, but have been a few rungs removed to know that it happens and that at any given moment the business of drugs could come knocking on my door. Man oh man oh man.

And the people? Nice, professional, middle management America up to top level executives. The flipside as well, young, clueless teens candy-flipping to oblivion blowing the allowance from mommy & daddy or the minimum wage from the local fast-food mart. No victims, as the Drug War propaganda would have us believe, only individuals making choices for their own lives, some more informed than others. As any other choices in one’s life, sometime there are those who are more prepared and can take a larger burden than others. Maybe drugs are a way of weeding out the weak in society. NO, I don’t really believe that, but there certainly is enough fodder out there to support that claim if made.

So these twelve stepping gurus have got something. They have a whole huge market for themselves. Sure, yes, they may want to help people and preach the evils of a druggies’ wayward ways, but ultimately it’s another business with a profit center and a need for people to support them. Not only that but they’ll introduce you to God and get you a sponsor and make you go to meetings so that you can find other zombies like you who are willing to be—or in need of being—led.

What have I settled on for myself? Drugs are fun, but they’re also distracting. I don’t mind the occasional something-special-to-do event where they may be involved, but that could probably be limited to every few months at the rate I’ve been going. That being my decision, I think I’m the most likely candidate for a profile on what the government should try and “go after” if they were serious about exposing drugs today. But they can’t because it would backfire on them. I’m an upstanding member of society who pays my taxes (mostly) and has a full 40-hr week job. I own a car, pay my bills (mostly) and live a fairly normal life. By in large, I believe this is the picture of a typical, light drug user. The more hardcore cases I truly believe are exceptions, not the rule. (But the rule is what is popular, vote catching, and a cause to rally behind because it’s the “right” thing to do.) Hooray!


Normal, and you’d never know

There are some crazy fucks out there. Underneath a thin veil of camouflage, people do some pretty disgusting and/or horrifying things. Okay…I don’t know that. I just made that up because it sounded good, like something that an uncensored Jerry Springer show might open up with.

The last time I was up at The Abbey, I walked through this once nice place to kick back and relax and got the strangest vibes from the people around there. Do you think there really are these secret societies out there? Do you belong to any? Things on the scale of “Eyes Wide Shut.” I don’t. Maybe I do but I’ve been so trained not to reveal that I do that I’ve hidden the fact even from myself and only when something triggers my memory, or certain times of the year, like the 5th Wednesday after the Summer solstice or some shit like that. Oops…I guess I’m out of the group now. I don’t really have too much more on this thought right now.


What does it all mean?

Do you know what stays in my mind from one of our conversations about Randy? The honesty with which you spoke in stating that if at any time in the future if the opportunity presented itself where you could get back together with him, you would try and do so, regardless of whether I was still dating him or not. I’ve always appreciated the honesty of knowing that, but also felt the action would be inappropriate.

Recently I’ve dealt with indiscretion in my relationship. Indiscretion between Randy & Mark. I guess I haven’t thought much about your words until recent events have brought it to mind again. Now the feelings I have toward Randy and the feelings I have toward Mark are separate issues relating to the same event. Regardless of the intents involved from either of them, the fact that they did anything makes the act wrong. The common courtesy if they actually had any real feelings to pursue between one another would have been for Randy to end the relationship with me and then pursue something with Mark. Regardless of this crappy piece of business that has been dealt with (is being dealt with) my thoughts to you are that any action of initiation for Randy should first have my relationship halted.

In lieu of that, it’s just wrong.

I remember too you saying that Randy has a hard time saying, “no.” Part of me wonders if you would use that you our advantage should an opportunity arise. You see, this is that part of me that tries not to be like the rest of the world. The part of me believes that people are basically good and that doesn’t understand when people go out of their way to hurt others. It’s the part of me that gives everyone on the cell phone the benefit of the doubt until they start treating me with disrespect. It’s the part of me that has basic, simple expectations of the world that hurting others isn’t acceptable when done on purpose. What does it all mean?

Some day maybe I’ll know. It’s all so much more than the plain & simple life that I’d like to lead. But here again, I don’t always like to lead it that way. Sometimes I step outside of the comfort box so that new experiences can be had. As long as I’m not hurting anyone, why not?


Just numbers

I’ve heard that age is just a number. I’ve heard that. I think it’s a lot more than that. It’s a whole bunch of minutes tied into the core of a person. I can hardly believe how many minutes I’ve accumulated. I’m glad I’ve accumulated some of those with you. There are memories that can’t soon be forgotten and I hope that if some day I’m completely senile and saying random things that the words that come out of my mouth are some of those memories from the earlier part of my life when I took the time to write letters like these ones. That would be some funny ass babbling to listen to.

j.r.me