Digital Demolition

Cory has been a good friend of mine for more than 20 years. I wouldn’t say that we’re close now – life does have a way of rending friends from one another without careful care – but each time I see him, it is a joyous and all-too-short encounter. I thought that one day I’d make an entire site dedicated to his stories, but now they’re just going to live here.

In his 20s to 30s, Cory was a bit irresponsible and a lot experimental. He walked an adventurous path with a great attitude and more courage than I could ever muster. No matter what the outcome, he was always up for more.

In Our College Days
Cory used to save his farts in jars. Yes, plural, making it all the more unusual gross. He inherited the most vile toxic emissions from his father. Words are incapable of describing how foul his farts could be and he took great pride in this. So he saved them, to share with unwitting friends, in jars in his bedroom. As if the practice itself wasn’t strange (weird, crazy?) enough, the results were hilarious (as long as you weren’t the victim, of course). He once unscrewed a cap for a friend to elicit the extreme inhalation disgust, then rapidly resealed the jar so he could spring it on someone else another day.

Encounter at Coit Tower
Not long after Cory moved to San Francisco, he was visiting Coit Tower at night (possibly Halloween or another fall holiday) with some friends. He was on acid, and probably some additional illicit drugs, as he’s always been an experimenter. (I’ve mentioned his tendency toward bad judgment, right?) Well, on this particular evening, Cory was walking around the Tower, admiring the views of the city from this lovely spot. All was going great until a strange girl came charging up with her boyfriend in tow and pointed at Cory and said something to the effect of “He’s the guy who tried to rape me!” Well, in addition to the statement itself being false, Cory had never before seen the girl or her boyfriend, and was incapable of such an act. He’s a really nice guy, with good intentions, and possibly one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever met. He’s also a raging homosexual. Not that he didn’t try a few girls back in the day, but by this time, he knew his love was for the boys.

His protestations of innocence, along with his slight frame, led to him getting a solid pounding at the hands of the boyfriend and the boyfriend’s friends. His only crime? Wrong place at the wrong time. (A crime that is probably the single most common in San Francisco.) His friends came along shortly and took him to the emergency room to get patched up. No serious harm done, except to his sense of security and a few bruises he didn’t earn.

I think that’s enough for today. I’ll post some more later.

A long time ago I was downloading nearly every free application for my iPhone. (I think the original goal – to fill up all nine screens of the phone to try to get Weather and Stocks to fall off the backside – failed.) The experiment left me with a lot of apps still to delete, but one is a keeper: iPet Cats.

It’s an easy enough game. Keep the virtual pet alive. Like tamagotchi for the iPhone. But here’s where I find the fun. If you go to the Search function and search for ANY likely cat name (I usually do “scooter” in honor of The Schmoo’s original name), you’ll find some dead ones. Feed the tombstone and the cat comes back to life. Hungry and sad, but alive. Magic! Keep petting and feeding and eventually the resurrected fake cat has the happy-smiling-sun icon of a happy healthy fake cat.

For every time you pet a cat (other than your own), you get three points. When you feed a cat, you give up one point. Ultimately, bringing back a dead cat results in you having nine additional points and the practice gives you oodles of karma points.

I think my real cats know I’m steppin’ out on them, though, because if I play the game in my living room, I immediately have real cats in my lap. (Yes, I quit playing the game when that happens. The irony of ignoring my real cats for the fake ones is not lost on me.) So, yeah, don’t tell the iPet folks about the loophole because saving fake dead cats is more fun than a Facebook poke.

Today, over at the Fluent Self, Havi asks the question, “where is the bridge?” I read her post and the comments right before my morning meditate-y thing. Even though I was trying to intention myself into calmness and strength, that bridge question lurked around the back of my head, like the monster that hides just beyond the treeline in the woods. (But not as scary – more like a mouse in the house, sneaking along the baseboard, just out of sight.)

I started to answer in a comment to her post and quickly realized that I was going to take up far too much room. So here we are. My bridge.

This version of my bridge is pretty damn new. We hastily built it within the last three weeks, out of recycled materials and combined purpose. It’s not exactly rickety, but it’s clearly not meant to last forever. It’s strong enough to carry us on our quick, unexpected move.

I don’t know what this bridge looks like, except that it is wide enough for Dave and I to walk side-by-side comfortably. It has intermittent spots with overstuffed chairs, soft blankets, classical music, and tissues. It starts at our current apartments (we have two, across the hall from one another) and vanishes into a fog. It’s not a cold fog, just a haze that obscures the other end. My bridge starts in a sad place, once filled with homey safety and now filled with fear and uncertainty. It ends at our Happy New Home. We have a vague idea of what might be there, but we haven’t fully seen it yet.

Dave doesn’t have time yet to start across the bridge, but he’s right there, ready to go. I’ve been foraging ahead – exploring – a little bit at a time. Finding those little comfort stations, having tiny breakdowns, giving myself permission to fall apart for a few minutes, but also to be scared and to go running back to Dave for hugs and support. I know I don’t have to cross this one alone. Together we are stronger.

I’m actually pretty happy with the bridge. I see that in creating the comfy rest stops, I’ve learned to start building the need for comfort and safety (and the ability to ask for them) into my life. It’s a surprise to see this progress when the last few weeks have been so chaotic. And I’ve been exploring this bridge, seeing glimpses of our Happy New Home, and considering exciting new possibilities (a garage! a garden! no bums! no sirens! the hilarity of cats sliding around on hardwood floors!).

So, yeah, that’s my bridge. At least for now. I suspect I’m secretly (even from myself) already building new bridges in new directions. New ones that will start once we’ve found the end to this one.

Sometimes when I’m doing the Dance of Shiva in the mirror, I feel like a fucked-up cheerleader. It’s hard to resist the temptation to snap into every position (three years of marching band in high school will do that to you). Most of the time when I start feeling really cheeky and flow-y, I throw myself off balance within moments.

I was a contrary child. Best way to get me to do something? Tell me not to do it. Before I left for college, mom told me to be careful and please please please not to try this one drug. Of course, that’s the first thing I looked for. If she said not to do it, it must be good, right? (It was definitely interesting, but I’ve gotta wonder if she was just recommending against it because that was the “right” thing to tell your kid or if she had actual experience. I suspect the former.)

That’s probably the reason I’m enjoying the Dance thingy. The right way to do it doesn’t really exist and even people who’ve been practicing for years can still throw themselves off balance. Being off balance has been my modus operandi forever. After I had the stroke, the doctor asked me if my balance was uneven. “More than before?” I asked. (Yeah, even under the worst situations, my odd sense of humor remains. I suppose it’ll die when I do.)

But when you start exploring all these get-yourself-back-after-a-tragedy methods, they talk about being grounded and being centered. After a little research on how our bodies work, I found that it’s a literal thing – our inner ear dictates our ability to judge where we are in relation to the planet and gravity and everything. Understanding your place in all of this madness and owning your own space is related to the reality of actual balancing in this world. And I’m off. Maybe you are, too.

Quite a few things I read have lately talked about being normal and how there is no normal. Every person has issues (stuff, stuck, triggers, whatever you want to call them) and no one feels normal. Ever. We’re struggling to fit into a nebulous place that doesn’t exist, except in our heads. (And probably our hearts, too, if you want to get all hippie about it.)

The more I consider this current thread of “there is no normal” and my observations about my off-balance-ness, the more I think that I’m heading the right way. Dave has this theory that when serendipitous things start happening, it’s the universe’s way of letting you know you’re on the right heading. I like to believe him.

You walk up the street quickly – but not too much so, your body a study in casual indifference. You’re dressed not too anything …. neither too nice nor too grubby. You look ahead … not too high and not too low. Your demeanor is a tribute to many years living in a city.

You look down when necessary to avoid a nasty chunk of sidewalk or the errant pile of poo, your injured ankle begging for attention, but you don’t look too long, lest you seem weak. Don’t limp. Don’t appear vulnerable.

At least it’s early – only a couple of hours after sundown. The real players aren’t up and about yet, only the rookies and the truly desperate. You can cruise by them before they realize someone has passed.

You listen to your internal narrator dictate the countless events that have led to your acute awareness now. You curse it as silently as it speaks, asking for some quiet in which to complete your journey. The slight scent of human urine enters your nostrils as you see a building “leaking” – you exhale quickly through your mouth – another survival method testament to your long existence in this environment.

You pass the street that acts as the border between the bad neighborhood and the good. You quicken your pace just a little. Here, it’s OK to look rushed – it’s less likely that you’re being cased. You can enter a store and not worry about the other clients. You overhear, “once this satanic government is gone, we can get married” from people in line and realize you’re actually not the most crazy one present. And that gives you comfort, even as you again silently tell your narrator to shut-the-fuck-up.

Home – the familiar stairs and signs and smells. The cost-you-a-thousand-dollars today cat greets you at you apartment door. He represents more than a week’s pay, but his presence is worth it. You really can’t put a price on that homey feeling. Of that furry greeting.

Home and safe, the internal narrator finally shuts up. You make a pizza. Watch some BBC. Calm down. It’s good to have a home. You take a few minutes to be grateful and then you can rest.