Ho Ho Home.

(first draft)

I was born and raised in San Francisco, in a home purchased new by my grandmother in the twenties. It was a neighborhood affair, what with my friends' parents being schoolmates of my father and the whole bit. I knew everyone on that block and it was a safe fun place to grow up. Street wiffle ball, skateboards and bike ramps - the general rule was go play outside till the streetlights come on. When one grows up in such an environment, it is hard to imagine calling any other place in the world home. Even after being shipped off to Santa Barbara for five years of college and two bonus years of screwing around being a gypsy artist cliché, I still called 43rd avenue home. So when my last year of screwing around found me the proud father of a newborn son, he myself and his mother packed it up and moved back to the old neighborhood to seek our fortune. Another son followed shortly thereafter, and we were now precisely .3 children away from being nuclear.

Now your milage may vary, but something about becoming part of a nuclear unit triggered in us a desire to create our own homestead, but housing prices in the city fairly clearly dictated that any homesteading would require some pioneering first. We searched from San Diego, to Costa Rica, to Oregon looking for a place where we could afford to set up shop, but the great real-estate bubble was getting its first aeration, and nowhere presented itself as doable. Some close friends of ours had moved to outside Crozet the year before, and after visiting them we decidedly liked the area. We had been paying $2700 a month for a 2 bedroom house in the avenues, with a lawn you could mow with pinking shears, so when they called saying that the 1865 3 bedroom farmhouse on 5 acres adjacent to their property was up for rent - and up for rent for $600, we threw caution to the wind and greased up the covered wagon.

It was New Year's eve 1999, and our nuclear unit plus three cats and a couple of friends loaded up a box truck and the mini van, drove down to the pacific ocean, watched the sunset and said goodbye to the city by the bay.  We arrived in mid January after an epic voyage. Immediately upon arriving to our very very cold house, and very slowly realizing that in order for it to get warm, we would have to feed this large black metal stove pieces of wood we did not have on hand, the "oh my, what have we done" vibe started to dawn on our very chilly urban un-countrified heads. After finding a wood man, whom I was positively convinced was speaking some sort of foreign language, this feeling grew, although at least we were warming. After traveling to the local IGA supermarket for provisions only to find that the person running the register already knew my name, family status, current address and place of origin - this having been in town for less that 36 hours - my illusions of calling Crozet my new home were fading fast. After a week of traveling around reading mailboxes and deciding that everyone was named either Shifflett, Morris or Pugh, the final nail came when I saw something completely alien to my urban self - I saw a woman pay for groceries with a check. While this may be punishable by verbal flogging in the hustley bustley city, apparently this was perfectly acceptable here in my new home. 

I gradually came to peace, and even deep appreciation, of my new planet over the next year and a half, but I didn't come here tonight to tell you abut that. I came here to talk about Christmas. I mean, thats really the litmus test isn't it? Where do you go for the holidays? Don't you go home for the holidays? I don't know, maybe its trite, but it seems a good a compass as any i think. I mean… anyway. Yes. Christmas.

So after about a year and a half came the nuclear explosion, when my wife decided that she was in love with a young woman that looked rather not unlike John Belushi. I know the heart wants what it wants, but here we had just left the gay capitol of the entire universe, a place where there are no doubt support groups for the pets of owners emerging from the closet, and now we were in rural Virginia, a place that hadn't quite completely worked out race relations, if the preponderance of colored lawn jockeys was any indication. The heart may want what it wants, but I definitely wished that that particular heart had had just a scoatch better timing. But what can you do?

We separated, and I decided to move to c-ville, closer to my employer, but a manageable distance for the hostage exchange-looking pick up and drop off of the offspring that would now occur weekly. After becoming rather dejected at the rather poor selections available I quite accidentally stumbled upon Rancho Notso Grande, my current residence in Belmont. The sign said "For Sale", not "For Rent", but I called the number anyway. After talking with the real estate lady and finding out the joint was only $90k, then running some numbers in my head, I arranged for a viewing. And after the viewing, it became abundantly clear why the asking price was so low. 

A woman named Margaret Goodson had lived there alone for nearly 50 years. One day, she had fallen and broken her hip in the kitchen. She was taken to the hospital where it was determined that she was both an alcoholic and senile. She went from the hospital to a home, and pretty much the house was left as is for the next 2 years, just as she had left it that day. I now know that in real estate deals, it is often noted that "appliances convey", meaning you get the fridge or washer or whatever. Well with this deal, everything conveyed. And, with the exception of clothes, family photos and jewelry i do mean *everything*. Plates, silverware, bedding, furniture, ceramic jesuses, two *gallons* of Canadian Mist Whiskey - all the flotsam and jetsam of an old woman's demented final years. And lest you miss the entirety of this vast conveyance, this house, being a duplex, even came with an aging alcoholic tenant upstairs. And just in case that was not quite enough, it even came with a kindly old feral dog that lived under an azalea bush in the yard. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and seeing that I had no furniture, plates or other daily accouterments, I did the deal. In the rain. Covered in flour. But that is another tale.

That was October, the holidays were right around the corner, and the holidays are, of course, what I really came here to tell you about. It didn't dawn on me until about December 23. I had bought the grossly over the top amount of presents that any competitive newly separated dad would hurl himself into chasms of debt to acquire, but other than that, my house was decidedly lacking in holiday cheer. I was cooking, or rather heating, whatever frozen thing any incompetent in the kitchen newly separated dad would normally prepare for the fruits of his loin when a crazy notion hit me. So me and the boys headed down to the only recently semi explored basement and sure enough, there they were. Like the three wiremen, there on a shelf sat three glorious boxes marked "Christmas", bearing untold gifts. We lugged them up to the house and began to unbox. One of the boxes contained an artificial tree, which we assembled with a fever of ironic glee. The next two contained all manner of bizarre 1950's decorations - little santa heads that fit over the door knobs, lights, fake wreathes, ornaments with Goodson Family portraits imprinted on them - everything and then some. It was just like the very common tradition of unboxing the family memories for the holidays and festooning the house with the accumulated holiday treasures that make a house a home. Except for the fact that in this case, it was someone else's family, that christmas was still one of the weirdest, yet most enjoyable christmases on record for the three cross boys. And while it took several years to erase imprint of the previous owner and fully place my stamp on Rancho Notso Grande, and though it may be hard for you to understand, in the Fellini movie that is my life, that is the moment when my house began to transform into my home.

I'ds of March

I'd rather not be writing this at all. I'd rather the words spontaneously slip from my lips in a sunny room into a single forgiving ear punctuated by the crunch of crisp linen. Naked, warm and free from fear. I'd rather let them slip away and spin with the swirling sunbeam particles and watch them effervesce and disappear forever. I'd breath and smile and watch them go, knowing that finally peace had arrived in the kingdom of my mind.

No, I'd rather not be writing this at all, certainly not all alone in the darkness of my eggplant chamber at 4 am. I'd rather not know that the room full of strange ears that would ultimately receive these words were a gum ball machine filled with suspicion, judgement, sympathy and excuses. I'd rather my words were more than a bag of quarters, and I'd rather each twist of the crank brought more than a colored sphere of some unknown, distant reaction - some cheap fleeting phantasmic confectionary that loses its flavor in a heartbeat.

I'd rather these words were worth more, but they're not. They are but the cheap I'ds of a mind at war with skeletons and angels, fools and heros, ghosts and flesh. And I, the battlefront on which these multitudes collide, well I'd rather be planting flowers in these trenches. I'd rather see honeysuckle growing on the barbed wire. I'd rather see the clouds lift and the sun break down on green serenity, where the motives are obvious, the subtext apparent, and the heart open fearlessly wide. 

I'd hoped that by saying the words out loud their power to wage war would be greatly diminished. I'd hoped that I could make them hilarious, and small… words you would want to take home and feed and pet and watch their stumbling silliness. But no one will want these words, these words will pass through a sunday night crowd and I will take the solo flight back to my eggplant chamber, still stuck with them fighting it out in the grey sack in my head.

I'd rather not share these words with you, but here we are, at war, and Im bringing you all into battle.

I'd wished I'd had something to say when thrust into the deathbed room of my yellow skeletal father, all alone, all of nine, but all I had was mute terror. Id rather have been a better father myself now that the roles are reversed and the fruits of my loin are ready to fly away somewhere else out out and ion their own life. I'd rather have stayed an athlete instead being seduced by the chemicals and games that lit my mind up like a bonfire, but let my body waste away. I'd rather be invisible, yet I'd rather not be ignored. I'd rather you just came with me to my apartment instead of staying in that house that was about to burst into flames taking all your skin and talent and your life with it. I'd rather the naked women I've created out of pigment would leap alive from their canvas prison, touch my hair, tell me thank you and then whisp away into abstract fields. I'd rather not see patterns everywhere, especially where there are none. I'd rather not automatically think you hate me. I'd rather sleep longer than two hours at a time, with the seizure dreams and the falling dreams and the dreams of isolation and immobility. I'd rather not wear your judgement like a heavy blanket that keeps the light that shines from within me dark. I'd rather trust more, and sometimes I'd wished I'd trusted less. I'd probably have not taken that sixth hit of acid if I knew it would have taught me not the beauty, but the true horror of the ego. I'd rather have passed the acid test.  I'd rather not have given you that first hit of weed if I knew that you would be the one person that would spin that into a 100 dollar a day heroin habit that would destroy your life. I'd rather be a witch doctor again. I'd rather you see me for who I am so you could tell me who that is. I'd rather reinvent my life. I'd rather not feel its too late. I'd rather be a fearless egomaniac like the rest of you, rather than running from my own self. I'd rather have the courage to leave you alone. I'd rather make you laugh. Id rather make you squirm. I'd rather I'd been more careful with my heart, or barring that, I wish I could throw it open to the whole world. I'd rather believe in some sort of god. I'd rather there were some sort of meaning. I'd rather have at least some of the answers, even just a handful. I'd rather believe there were answers, reasons, an explanation. I'd rather the paramedics and cops hadn't busted down my door yesterday just because do one misplaced phrase, one cry for love that was perceived as a death wish. For the record, I'd rather not be dead, I'd rather be alive. I have shit to do.8

But mostly, I'd rather I meant more to you. Mostly, I'd rather be loved.

But here I am again, wasting my time, trying to make my id's stick. Fuck you, and your teflon spirits. Slippery selfish bastards.

I'd not have read this tonight had it not been the only war I've ever fought, the war with myself. I'd like to think that having such words on the outside could make some sort of difference as they slip through these dusty couches, bounce of the dusty books and penetrate your dusty ears. I'd be inclined, though, to think that this is just one more pile of meaningless letters strung together like beads forming a necklace that no one can wear. These words need crisp linen and sunlight and familiar smells and forgiveness. Only then can they lay down their arms, and sift back into the dark corners to rest. Only then can the life I'd rather be leading grow out of the scarred trenches, its green vines and virulent blooms totally obscuring the ravaged landscape that lay before.

All in all, I'd rather not be at war. To be at war with oneself is a a fools errand, a mobius strip of circular logic. It never ends, it never relents, there can be no winner. If you win you lose. I want crisp linen, I want forgiveness, I want sunlight. I want you to hear me without pity. I want to find that place in you that overlaps the place in me me where there is no war. Where we are one. 

All and all, I'd rather be forgiven my battle, as I know that your battle is just the same. My forgiveness is absolute. Your darkest deepest late nite conflict is the part of you is that which makes you human. It is beautiful to me.We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. And me? I'd rather be looking at the stars. I'd rather look at them with you.

From Masturbation to Defenestration - A Love Story

Ah the beautiful mysteries of sex. Of all the possible permutations of human interactions, none has been so little understood, and yet so utterly compelling. We are compelled to embark on a journey of understanding, yet the paths we take are dictated by a kaleidoscope of nature, nurture, circumstance and chance. For some the paths are short, narrow, flat and paved and yet for others they are long winding and forked at every damn blind turn. I must confess that I myself fall into the latter camp.

As evidence of this, I offer my very first step on the path to personal sexual self discovery, which, like many, was masturbation. I was about twelve, laying in my bed, absentmindedly scratching a primal itch when something magical happened – my penis erupted with a mystery substance, which I only noticed after the waves of seretonin and dopamine had cleared my shuddering brain. Amazing, this. And being twelve, and largely ignorant, I came to the only conclusion one could – that this phenomena could only happen at nine o’clock at night. I had stumbled upon the magic hour, and oh how I could not wait for bed time the following night! Of course, at nine the following night, it worked again and thus my theory was proven. And so I was born as a sexual being, taking my first steps in a bizarrely misguided yet harmless direction. And so it went.

I was fourteen and her name was Cathy Page. She was a 16 year old half phillapina catholic school girl who lived in the neighborhood, and oh man… oh MAN did she get my motor running. In hind sight, red flags were everywhere, but the lust of a 14 year old boy can blind one such that it could make Ray Charles look like a sharpshooter. Her mother was a Philapina woman who had married an white Army guy, who had then promptly left her in single motherhood. This lead to a catholic post traumatic race and garment based over protection of her daughter that bordered on pathological. I, being a young punk rocker, always wore a bunch of surplus army stuff that I had modified to flaunt my budding ideology. This attire, and my courtship of her daughter developed in her a nervous tic, as if she were holding back some sort of PTSD infused venom that could explode at any minute. Still she was polite enough, though, and I returned the favor out of pure fear.

Being both from single mothers who worked 9-5, me and cathy always had a couple hours afterschool in which we were semi unattended. I say semi unattended because there dwelt at Cathy’s house an individual named “auntie”. Auntie was a severely mentally disabled woman who would wander the house in her muumuu making strange guttural noises and obsessing over the availability of breakfast cereal. It was fairly easy to lock auntie out of Cathy’s room, though the noises were somewhat distracting. We would be making out on Cathy’s bed when from behind the wall would come a ‘Muaaaaah! Cheerios! Cheerios!” Small obstacle though, cause I was making out with Cathy Page. Auntie could have set off a bomb and I wouldn’t have blinked.

It was Cathy’s idea to “go all the way”. I believed she had done so already, but I sure as hell hadn’t. I found the idea compelling, in an “oh jesus christ I am the luckiest kid alive” type manner. We planned to do it just as soon as I could get some condoms. Ah., but my friends, this was the time before the plague, before condoms were in bowls at restaurants and in classrooms and every damn place imaginable. No, no. One had to go to the drug store and ask the pharmacist! Oh yes. I lurked in many a Walgreens the next couple days, looking for a non judgmental looking male pharmacist who had at the moment not a customer in sight. My moment came, and I made the deal. It was on!

So it was time, and as we lay naked in her bed in the afternoon, I suddenly came… to the realization that I had no idea what I was doing. Like so many other times in my life though, I took a deep breath and took the plunge. I could go on to describe that first feeling that has come to define some of my best and worst decisions in life, but it is not germane, and I only have seven minutes, which as it turns out was longer than I lasted that dafternoon. Succinctly, I came. As it turns out Cathy, like so many of you mysterious humans of the female persuasion, had only one way that she could come. Seriously, what is it with you folk and your special secret techniques? Jesus. She would extricate my semi hard wet penis and gyrate upon it. I knowing nothing, assumed this was normal protocol for intercourse, (and carry that misconception all the way to college) and seeing a the sensation was not entirely unpleasant, I lay back and enjoyed Cathy’s moans and groans as they mingled with the far away cries requesting Captain Crunch. Life was weird, but good.

Well, good, that is until I heard a new sound, a scary sound – the sound of the big deadbolt on the front door clicking over. This could only mean one thing, Momma was home early. General panic ensued. I was trapped, and was forced to slip into Action Hero mode. I did the only sensible thing and leapt, stark naked out the back second story window into the back yard. It was a good five minutes before Cathy was able to sneak back to her room and throw me out my clothes… well most of them anyway. She had neglected to toss me my shoes and socks.

Without a way to contact her I found my self on the horns of a dilemma. I got dressed, snuck out the alley between the houses, across the street to the laundromat and called her house on the pay phone. It was my intention to call and ask if she could toss my shoes out the window, which she did. What I hadn’t considered though was that the door to the alley had locked behind me. Now my shoes were in the back yard, I was unshod in a cheesy laundromat, and cathy was inside trying to explain why she was taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon. Ah young love!

My friends, I had no choice but to steel my resolve, summon my most powerful jedi powers, and march straight up to her door shoeless. I knocked and was greeted by Momma. “Hello Mrs. Page, is Cathy home?” I said trying with all my might to create the most magnetic eye contact ever conceived, anything, anything to keep her from looking down. Fortunately for me, either the powers of fate, or perhaps my freshly died pink and black hair, allowed me to pull this off, and I was granted access without a hitch. I subtly retained my shoes and spent the rest of the afternoon being the polite innocent young suitor that any Momma would like.

I have since read many books on human sexuality, and to this day I have never found a chapter on “Naked and Airborne”. If you have any suggestions, just let me know.