13% [chapter 14]

FIRESTARTER


And so it was that your love affair with crystal meth was rekindled like a house of cards on fire and smoldered until it was just a carbon fluke. It became a saving grace because you no longer cared. You could be spun up and in league with projects, theories and ideas for days, weeks, always. You never succumbed to bouts of loneliness because you were too busy cleaning, repairing or organizing some minute shit into the tiniest of enclaves. You bonded with meth, paint brushes and power tools instead of most women and men, on and off, for like, the next fucking decade.


But you don't demonize the drug for being there when you weren't there for yourself. It filled in a space. It occupied a time when you felt empty and heavy and gross and lost. Like good ideas unrealized. Like decent jobs laid off. Like old people crying because they can't remember their children's names. Like analog synths and tube amps trending on ebay. Original movies that need not be remade. Black mayonnaise. Kodachrome color. Super 8. Gone off. Long gone. Then insultingly regurgitated. Retro. Chic. Limp. Stripmined. Razed. It sucked to see history being co-opted by those who could afford to jack up your rent and take take take with an air of careless ease and entitlement. But nowhere near as painful as it was for more than 50 million Native Americans.


Ever so conveniently, your drug supply was now showing up in the form of giant fist sized boulders via your new boyfriend, Evan. Again, you were so low you would have done anyone that night you met him while getting drunk at Zeitgeist. Well, that is to say, you would have done anyone that Actually Managed To Turn You On, which was a complete rarity. Certainly, you never would have guessed that he'd still be hanging out with you the next day. But you also don't blame him for finding such melodramatic humor in watching the sharp arc of your orbit toward this fiendishly pathological habit you both shared over the next few years in close proximity.


Not the healthiest relationship ever, but at least you did feel some flashes of gushy love and deep compassion for him on more than one occassion. So much so, it still surprises you to think on all those amber impacted memories. Which is why you prefer To Not Think About Them. It's easier to concentrate on, and not cry about, what went wrong.


Evan was quirky and pretty fucking hot in his own weird way. Politically aware and musically inclined, he had a curious enthusiasm that was inspiring. Shaved blond head. Bright blue eyes. Hairless bulldog chest. Could keep it up for as long as it was required. Not afraid to go down on a woman. And not totally clueless once he arrived. Which must be honorably mentioned, for that rare oral sex equality that his willingness never belied.
Think: Giovanni Ribisi, tweaked. Uhhhmmgrrrr...right?


Initially, Evan said he loved that you made comix, music and art. But the second he had to take a back seat to the pencil and the Sharpie marker or the Korg Monotribe and the mixing board for a full afternoon or two, he felt neglected sexually. Only 6 weeks into your relationship, he cheated on you. Good to get that outta the way so quick, your favorite dog trick. But you saw it coming BEFORE it happened this time.


The moment you laid eyes on his sunglassed face that morning at your door, your head clearly said knowingly, "the next time you see him, everything is going to be different." He didn't show up that night like he said he would. Hours stewed slowly by. You sat at your drawing board but drew nothing. Just sat there. Randomly, you dug out an old copy of Nirvana's acoustic Lead Belly cover "In the Pines" and listened to it. Over and over and over. Doing line after line after line. Getting progressively angrier, more depressed and crying onto the sketchbook pages that remained mockingly unmarked and white. He finally showed up the next day all teary-eyed, telling you he got really drunk, fucked another woman, and spent the night. Yup. You already knew that. Then you turned around and started drawing again finally.


Sloppily, he offered to bring you some more drugs. He only spoke to your shrugging back. Yeah, ok. You thought this is the best kind of crack whore you could ever hope to be. "Alright, bitch. Bring it!" you snapped as he departed sheepishly. The truer gift was this voice of warning in your head because it was, once again, correct. And you had to celebrate the fact that you could still hear it under so much drug addled sleepless duress.


You soon forgave Evan for fucking someone else. So he cheated on you some more over the years. You knew it every time, yet let it go unconfronted as you had ceased caring what he did with his own dick by then. At least he was still talking to you like a human being, and that was of the utmost importance. You could accept all kinds of sexual deviance up the yin yang, so long as you weren't being spoken to like a dumbass.


He once said, "Every man has a stable. Every Single One."


How can any one woman believe that she means anything substantial to a man, when she's up against the bottomless sexual questing of one entire objectified and furthermore, self-objectifying gender? Unless he sees her as an equal human being, treats her the way he treats his best bro friends and not as a conquest or a trophy to make other men jealous, then it is impossible to ever be anything other than eventual sworn enemies. And Evan agreed. He was understanding, thoughtful and decent. Yet his dick still wandered from one "willing slit" (his definition) to his ex's address constantly. It didn't seem to matter how honest or in love or open you were with him. You would never be enough. So yes, caring became a commodity. Every year, you had a little less and less trust in love's truthfulness left.


Evan called himself a writer but the only writing of his that you ever read were the letters he prolifically wrote to you during those years. Then you read all the letters from his former girlfriends that he wanted to share with you for some strange tweaked out reason. This only made you realize the total futility of your presence in his life. Here were their similar reactions to all the same stories he told them just as he had told you. All the same songs on a mix tape sent to someone else. You saw yourself as simply another name that would be said to the next woman down the line. Erased was any sense of being different from any other interesting cunt he had loved fucking previously. It lost all it's uniqueness, the biological him combined with you; as if on some molecular level, the mixture of 2 specific people could create a sort of atom bomb of social change that found its genesis inside an explosive relationship, affecting all else around it. Like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, like Yoko Ono and John Lennon, like Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, like Mileva Maric and Alfred Einstein. That looks great written on paper to you for Valentine's Day in his blood, but loses all it's meaning when repeated like spam to every woman who ever bared her breasts to him.


Yes, you were a sucker for that soulmate myth. What woman isn't during a large portion of her child bearing years? It feeds into the operatic fantasies while trapped in that ongoing battle with your own hormonal body; that fight to the death between the womb's attempt to breed and the brain's raging need for independence, respect and liberty.


So how the hell would you know How To Have a Good Healthy Relationship? Your success to failure ratio is a solid 0:100%! Good job! By Jove! But you do know that being in a relationship IS A Job. So get yer head outta the stove and go make me some turkey pot pie, Ho!


Oh, and let's not forget to mention that ravenous animal living between your legs whose impetus to eat fuck and kill only increases exponentially when on amphetamines. Isn't it nice to think that a soulmate would still be there after the 8 ball is all done? Not leave you to wipe up the mess of those liquidy communal expressions of lust that are stuck and crusting over as you come down on your own? Better not come down then. Perhaps the destruction of monogymy's soulmate myth really was for the level best.


It is what it is.


Adopted as a toddler, Evan had managed to locate his biological mother after years of searching for her. You felt it neccessary to warn him that she might not be happy to hear from him. But he waved your pragmatic suggestion aside, and beamed with excitement. Their relationship was initially rebuked by his mother who had never informed her husband
or children of Evan's existence. Evan was crushed. His mother eventually came around, but their relationship remained tentative and strained. He probably felt it was easier to place that disappointment on you, instead of facing the truth of this difficult situation that fell so horrifically short of his long held fantasy filled expectations. You didn't blame him for being upset, but many pointless arguments ensued. You stuck to your guns, saying he was lucky to be raised by people that did love him instead of being treated like shit by his own flesh and blood.


You know someone is not listening to a single word you say when they tell you, "I am so sick of listening to you." No longer could you stand the feel of his skin against you in bed; all gropey, moist, disconnected, overfriendly and available to so many other women and men --yet so unjustifiably mad at you for fucking someone other than him once. Once.


You wanted to take a breather from "the stuff", as Evan so deftly called it. But he just kept bringing it over anyway and chopping that shit up right in front of your face. And when that voice in your head came back and said, "don't ever have children with this man because he will molest them," you were pretty much done. What a horribly cruel joke your life might have become -- it's likely you would've ended up in prison because if anyone, including your husband, ever raped your daughter or son, you would have castrated them.


Evan professed so strongly to be against the antiquated idea of marriage, yet he so quickly married the last woman he was cheating on you with. His opinion must have been as solid as catsick. Oh well. To each his own bowl of hell.


In fact, all of your former boyfriends got married almost immediately after the disaster of you occurred in their lives. Is that a compliment or an insult? Who gives a fuck. Probably had absolutely nothing to do with your narcissistic butt. But, like clockwork, they all contacted you down the road, having contracted that 7 year itch, post wife and kids. They wanted to relive the sexual exploits of their younger days with that crazy bitch that was into sucking dick, anal sex, other women, yadda yadda yadda, it was all ok, except putting them in diapers and playing with their poo. There was a reason you didn't want children. And you certainly did not get off on a man who fantasized about being a baby. More often than not, you'd end up being the man in every situation anyway and you hated that. But hearing from your ex-boyfriends again under this topic of discussion did nothing except depress the fuck outta you. These existential trainwrecks are neither here nor there, ultimately. So why go there? It was for these kinds of thoughts, specifically, that you turned to drugs to annihilate. Into ridiculousness. Black and white. Hard shorts cuts. Like a French movie. Absurd. The choices you made in life were yours to make. No regrets. Only pinched off torpid turds.


You still wanted to be good for something other than just sex. Other than just a jerk.


Long after the end of Evan, you kept his letters bound by a string. A more definitive fate would later bind them together forever better. Along with all the other remnants of all the men, all the women, all the leftover shrouds of hope, of fear, of failed careers, of love rage sex and dope -- Fire.


Disappearred. Up in smoke.


All those years of us being close for nothing but a ghost.




*u can call me ph!*

nude krampus and bleeding eyes descending a staircase #2

this might cheer you up Lance.... 
but it also might not. 
i dunno. 
i tried. 

after all that stressing out, i finally just said aloud "i need some time off." yesterday, on my 3rd day of the only paid vacation i've had since 2000, i wondered why my stomach wasn't churning...for more than a whole day, no pain!!! then it occurred to me that This Is What Being Relaxed Feels Like.... FUCK!! so normal people must feel like THIS all the time.....DAMN.... no wonder everyone thinks i'm crazy.  so much of my time is spent in the turmoil of avarice...and just to stop myself from saying something i might regret on my last day at work, i randomly opened The Book That Has Changed My Life, "When Things Fall Apart" by Pema Chodron, 

and read "OPINIONS: When we hold on to our opinions with aggression, no matter how valid our cause, we are simply adding more aggression to the planet, and violence and pain increase. Cultivating nonaggression is cultivating peace."  and the sentence that was like a kick in the stomach and brought me instantly to Ouch-This-Much-Compassion-For-Self-Hurts tears, "Never give up on yourself." once, again - exactly what i needed to think about all day. it has already made a huge difference in that the attention paid to Nonaggressive Thoughts actually gave me a full 3 days of painfree living. it's a truly Great book, in the best sense of the word. that might be why i've never read it cover to cover and have only ever read the pages i open randomly in times of peril. 

it continues to serve me well...  

after watching a documentary about Delia Derbyshire, i was inspired to do something with the massive pile of tapes with piano recordings on them. in the process, i experienced a tactility that reminded me of editing super 8 film, but a Digital Tactility~never thought i'd see the day... so i made a new song, but can't really call it a song since it was more like an exercise in exorcism as there is also a large pile of things written on paper since 2010, and in order to put it behind me and throw them in the Ever-Increasing-Pile-O'-Things-To-Toss-Tosser!, i wanted to choose the best one and DO something creative with it so that all of that horribleness wouldn't have been in vain. 

so i did. some unexpected stuff came right the hell outta me. 

not sure how other people feel when they make things that end up scaring them, but it is most certainly an odd experience that i cannot say i like or dislike, as it almost becomes Someone Else's Work that you are looking at after completion.  [there is no easy way to say this, but...] the reason the music i make is so varied, as well as my general eclecticism, is probably due to the fact that there are a lot of us living in here. although we are a lot closer, aware of each other, communicate far more frequently out in the open, and are far kinder to one other than ever before...it's almost funny to me now, having actually met the alters and discussing this, that i used to think i was Not Lucky Enough to have my brain fracture into several different people in order to deal with the war that was declared on me by my mother and father, starting  when i was 19 months old until i was 19. then of course the post trauma ghost war that officially ended in 2013.

it was a good day, when i realized at sunrise, walking home down capp street after seeing my parents for the last time, trying to hold in the bliss fueled tears, that 

The War Was Finally Over. 

it's important to have things to look forward to, it helps curb the depression, so in an effort to reduce current uncertainties about where & when & what to do with myself(ves) when i move out of bleakhaus, out of sf, out of california altogether, i've been intentionally attempting to contact certain helpful entities during lucid dreaming and ask What Would You Have Me Do? but i have yet to actually have a lucid dream -- and it's been over a month of waiting for lucidity to happen....  while listening to a new Kate Bush song tonight, suddenly the word "horses" in her lyric reminded me of last night's insanely colorful episode in which i was lucid for a mere 30 seconds but went back in to dreaming without waking up. so, once again, for the 8 billionth time, i say Thank You Kate Bush, for without your work being in this world, i would probably not still be alive -- Hounds of Love, and specifically The Ninth Wave kept me going during a particularly crisis filled period from 1984-86 and it's still difficult for me to listen to that album without becoming overwhelmed with gratitude that you exist, that Dan Wilbur in high school told me about you, that the album came out when it did, and that i bought the tape immediately upon it's arrival in new jersey.  The Sensual World : same thing for 1989-91 in Massachusetts, but all for a crisis of uplifting because for a person who is accustomed to living in darkness, sometimes the light can be too much even though it feels fucking amazing & great to be in the light instead of lost & alone in the dark. (((0)))