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October 7th, 2005

I just read this passage from David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day. Dave and I share a first name and two initials, and beyond the recommendations from friends and the book-buying public, I’ve been attracted to this bestseller by the notion contained in its title–perhaps another thing Davey Boy and I share. Whenever I’m called upon to explain my predilection toward writing, I explain that, “well, I don’t talk so good.” And now, once inside his covers, D.S. is on top of another major phenomenon in my life. One that–like many things I seem to accidentally enounter in these days of deliberate self-remaking–is uncannily well timed and appropriate. From “Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist”:

…I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of these things is dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilazations. The moment I took my first burning snootful, I understood that this was the drug for me. Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in this plastic jumpsuit? These are questions for insecure potheads. A speed enthusiast knows that everything he says or does is brilliant. The upswing is that, havingeliminated the need for both eating and sleeping, you have a full twenty-four hours a day to spread your charm and talent.

Boom, bang, bam, nailed!

It’s rainy today and, though I just started it, I hope to delve in and devour the entire book before tomorrow officially or unofficially begins. It’s a lazy reading day. Yesterday was a lazy reading day. The lazy reading days started the day before that. Who knows when they will end.

Tuesday night, God knows what I was doing, but I got restless and hopped on the bike late-ish, winding up at Applebee’s sometime during the nine o’clock hour. (I would have opted for the Hooters next door if they’re three-story sign hadn’t been tucked back from the road and obscured from my tunnel-like night vision.)

I wasn’t all that hungry. I’d eated or snacked and had food in the house. Maybe it was that I’d worked and there was a reward factor–a need–at play. Or, I’ve wondered, a more social than psychological need, perhaps. (The isolation, independence, and lack of distraction have been crucial and blessed components of this redress, but I wonder sometimes–especially as I jump on the bike off to some just slightly cooked up errand–if it might be just a little much, the loneliness and lack of support network and human interaction and those nice things. Or maybe it’s just the sex. I’m horny and went from Guatemalan prohibition, to a New York sexless drug cocoon, to a South Carolinian Me Monastary.) In any case, it was clear that my up and offing to the restaurant had a compulsive quality. A little scary. There’s always something only too eager to come rushing in to fill the void.

I’ll tell you, though, I ordered a small basket of riblets (good protein based, smaller portion choice), asked for baked beans instead of fries (fiber!), and opted, as I usually do, for non-caffienated, non-carbonated lemonade. For dessert, a hot blondie (shut-up!) under a scoop of vanilla (a perfect metaphor for my food as sex-substitute paticulars). Good damn, it was a perfect package for my paunch. Just fucking delicioso. And then idea!

If it’s not too late–if Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride had a 10pm or closethereto showing–I’ll extend the fun into the movie theater. And what do you know, there was a 10pm showing of Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. There was also a girl–young, and uncannily resemblant of my oldest niece, but possessing persuasive powers nonetheless–in that powerful ticket selling place with a club card to offer, a free one at that, which required only my name and birthday and gave points in return and a free popcorn on Tuesdays. And, hell, it was Tuesday night. I went for it. I also took a minute to explain, when she complimented me on my little old coin purse, how I’d stolen it from a dead lady whose apartment I had no legal business being in.

Of course, I was full, but I’d started the indulgence. And the indulgence was tipping into binge when I reasoned that you can’t get the salty without the sweet, and added a theater-sized bag of Peanut M&M’s to my free order and my nearly painfully bulging stomach. I hate to say the word. ‘Binge.’ It’s ugly. It doesn’t feel like it applies to me. I’m not like that nor am I one of those. Never thought I’d hear myself say in regards to myself. But here we are being honest, right? Here we are leaving no stone unturned. Here we are going for the fundamentals, not just abstinence. Because abstinence without a foundation is doomed to crumble. Or so my now-under-cobblement theory goes.

By the time I got home, it was midnight and my pace that day had been high-octane. I decided tomorrow, Wednesday, would be a rest and reading day. I was thinking about how self-reconstruction was a stressful job and about the pressures I was putting on myself to produce and perform in a broad range of areas, and how on top of that or part of that I was obsessed with things like checking my email every twenty minutes. Or even being at the computer at all with this minutia. Maybe I needed a breather, a step back. A re-exam of all my compulsions. I decided I would fast all day as well, allowing myself only water (and my anti-flamer meds), nothing more. I wanted to feel what it’s like to be hungry. Force myself to do that in the face of my eating when I wasn’t hungry. I wanted to feel what hunger feels like. Read and rest only; no food, no computer. My life lines! I was fearing that I might replace one addiction with another: an electronic one, a red meat one, an exercise one, a social one, anything. I needed to factor in my feelings about these things.

Wednesday the rain came to compliment perfectly my pensive abstinence. The day had a rainy day’s ambiance–lucky for a stay-at-home lazy day. And more insurance against my running out to Hamburger Joe’s for nutritive distraction and fleeting conversation with a too-old or too-young server. I worked on finished Passing For Thin, a coincidence due to my friendliness with its author, but it did lucky delivery, too. On page 141, FK writes “I knew how to be hungry.” That’s what I needed to do. Need to do.

I wrapped that one up and embarked on a new adventure: whitening strips! I’m cleaning up my act, focusing on myself inside and out. Six months of serious crackology was six months of poor performances in the personal hygience department. Time to erase the stains (metaphor anyone?). It felt a little prissy, pampery, but gotta keep up with the times! Everybody’s doing it. And I want to be sparkley white, too!

Waiting the half hour into the late night, I started in on my next book, an impulse buy at Books-A-Million, but one of which I am not ashamed at all: Why Do Men Have Nipples? It took on the answering of those medical questions people ask doctors at cocktail parties after they’ve downed their third martini. A lovely premise. And one which left me with a question of my own: so what exactly is spanish fly anyway. I talked about it in sixth grade like I was an expert, but when you press me (and you don’t), I’d be hard pressed (fortunately) to tell you (or anyone) just whether it was, is or will be a pill or an elixir, a vegetable or a mineral. I mean, I figured it was/is/will be an urban (and rural!) legend with no substance, but just what kind of no-substance would this potionpill be, what form had it taken in the medicine cabinet of quack backers? Praise-be the internet:

The “drug” Spanish fly is actually the dried, crushed body of the green blister beetle known as Cantharis Vesicatoria, or the Spanish fly. The drug has been used medically since antiquity as an irritant and diuretic; it was also considered an aphrodisiac. Spanish fly (or Cantharidin) doe not work as an aphrodisiac; research done in 1996 by the FDA shows that the drug has no so-called sexual effects.

– from Feminista! (who, in the same blurticle refer to a male adolescent fear of female sexuality veering out of control if not kept in check! Honey, that’s not fear, that’s hope. My Women’s Studies minor notwithstanding, I had to break the news. Honesty is the best poli…)

Here’s something I learned from the little medicali book of oddities: among the several kinds of amnesia identified, described and named by the community of doctors (that nice one up there on the hill, with all the Mansford mansions), the particular variety that I now have after my purported “simple assault” (always so easy) is called “Lacunar Amnesia.” For your reference.

Speaking of medicine and it’s issues, I got good news yesterday in the form of an email from my mother who said her biopsy and whatever other tests she had to determine the status of her recently self-discovered breast lump came back negative. (Hard for me to view negative results in a positive light, though I understand the science behind it.) I called…oh, wait, I entered this one yesterday. See yesterday, then. And just let me say that today I wonder if we really had that conversation. Hard to believe. And I wonder what effect it’s had on my poor dear mother. I worry about her and don’t want her to worry. And damn, we’re not used to this anymore. We haven’t had the drug conversation for 20 years! Have I shattered any son-conceptions? Hopes, dreams, or delusions? I love that lady. No hurt, no hurt, please.

Here’s the other weird drug conversation I had yesterday: Rich called! At 1:17pm. Said he was calling to, what?, see what’s up, how I’m doing, something along those lines. Maybe it was just to see if I was still out of town and if not whether I needed something. Maybe. But I’ll fall for it anyway. I like that he called. Anyway. He asked me what was new and what it was like down here. I told him I was getting my shit together, that at the end there things were getting out of control, here too, and that I ended up in a bad neighborhood one night and next thing I know I’m in the hospital getting my lip sewn shut, didn’t even know what happened. “Drugs?” he said. “Yeah,” I said, thinking that was clear. I asked him what was new over there, whether it was the same ol’. He said, “Drugs and police.”

Drugs and police. They go hand in hand, I s’pose.

Thursday it rained again. I took another day off. Or, was it? Reading is part of my program, but I’m struggling with my priorities. Hard to tell whether I’m demanding too much of myself too soon or not. In the bigger picture too, especially in the diet and exercise domain; I feel like I’m losing ground and improving at the same time. Maybe losing ground to gain ground. A loss leader. A shuffling off in order to get deep enough, the right place to start. Bringing me, for the first time, to actually consider buying a diet book. I paused in front of the magazine rack yesterday on a whim and happened to do so right in front of the latest issue of Men’s Health magazine. Again, that crazy serendipitous timing, of things being placed before me, in my path, for me to stumble over. If I’d had more success in my spiritual stabbings earlier in life, I might be inclined to believe all this is being divinely orchestrated. I won’t rule it out, but neither do I want to rely too much on that and lose my footing. What I’m getting at is that not only did I discover Men’s Health to be in general a quick compendium of latest scientific studies providing sound nutritional and mental and exericse (and sex, etc) advice and not bunk faddy (pun!) sensationalism, but that this particular issue’s feature was on addiction, and why some men can dabble and go while others dive headfirst and hard. It had a main biological and psychiatric break-down with side articles guest written on particulars including eating addiction (the new kid!) and a gambling ditty, which isn’t a personal vice but was written by a personal favorite, Frederick Barthelme. They know how to speak to me. The main thread was interspersed with quotes (presented like pull quotes) on drinking by characters from books written by the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, et al. Smart kids!

So I’m surprised to be wooed and enchanted by such a popular mainstream gender-based magazine with numbered sex tips and abs exercises and the shockingly short time it takes to do their full body workout advertised on the cover. But thusly smitten, I was primed to consider the “Abs diet” the mag is unscrupulously pushing. See, the book was co-written by the Editor-In-Chief. Conveneint, eh? And I’m skeptical about diet systems anyway, believing more in sound-principles. The no-gimmick way. The no shortcuts rule. But this one spoke to my need to snack during the day, appropriately made fun of the Atkins diet for its heart-stopping laissez-faireity on fat and then gave South Beach (a fad I know nothing about) some fair props with a caveat (turns me off when competitors mindlessly sling mud, so this counted as points also) , and allowed one eat-what-ever-you-want, dangling-carrot indulgence meal per week (could I really have a chocolate peanut butter milkshake again? Do I really want to live the rest of my life without a riblets, beans, and blondies night once in a while?). The diet was also in line with the upping protein and minimizing carbs angle that Atkins does seem to have right. And it includes exercises! Novel concept! And specific exercises! Guidance! Direction! That’s what I need right now–something to follow–and this one seems sensible. Sensible. Not a grapefruit diet. Think I’ll head back to Books-A-Million at some point and investigate further. It’s still hard to see myself as the kind of person who buys a diet book. But humble is good, even if humble pie isn’t. And, hey, if it doesn’t work out, having personally put the genre on trial, I’ll be better positioned to scoff at the lemmings and drones, the preachers and failures. (I don’t expect this to be the case. I’m not that cynical.)

Along with the magazine thumbing-through, I finished Coyotes Thursday. Here’s the timeline of my relationship to that book, which has dumped me back out at confused, at best, and prone to despondence at worst:
- enthralled at my original idea, sellable, perfectly suited to my temperament and abilities
- jacked at having found out the book is already written
- at halfway through the book: oh, but his crossing is only a chapter or two, the bulk being about the migrant workers experience in the US. My book would be just the cross. And getting to the crossing. From other countries. In a Department of Homeland Security era.
- at halfway through a drug addiction: forgot all about it
- at partway (half, fourth, eighth, seven-eighths?) a recovery, rememory of the possibility. Excited all over again!
- at end of book, Oh, we come full circle; he begins and ends the book with a crossing, the last one more harrowing and detailed. Is there room for my book. It still has an increased militarized context but is it different enough?

Today it’s Friday. Still raining, though not as hard and I think the moisture has loosened the tarheeling in my lungs. It’s still coming up. I coughed a couple teaspoons of that poppy seed dressing up this morning in the shower. Glad to get that cleaned out and I’m wondering how long it will take and if my loby pair will ever get back to their natural glistening pink or near pink. Maybe if it rains enough. And I shower enough. It’s raining enough to make it look like another read-focused day is slipping in. David Sedaris. Me Talk Pretty One Day. I hope it works out for me like it has for him. He talks pretty on paper. That’d be good enough for me.

But I’m at the computer today too, obviously. And I had a nice and long phone conversation with the FK this morning. I called to ask about her mammoth proposal, originally due to day but the agent is off to Paris and behind on manuscripts. Give her two weeks.

Toward the end of the convo, FK let loose a “baby” flipped as a subsitute personal pronoun in reference to me. Uh..

But she also had this goodness in response to the problem outlined in a leap-frog above. She suggested starting an exercise and proposal referencing our view of the event as shaped by that good book, but…cadavers instead of gum wrappers along the way. Etc. Good idea. I’ll do it. And then I have the hurdles of legalities, fines, and jailtime, trust with the coyotes, trust from the rest of the group, money to pay the ransom, fear of being captured for ransom, or just being robbed, or being left to die, and the hurdle of desert survival, not to mention selling the book and fucking writing it! Good lord. Is this why I will learn to fire an arm, Mr. Anti-Firearm?

Then I received this email from her. I like it.

I was just thinking what a strange word “ruthless” is.

I think I will be ruthful today.

Rice, ricotta cheese, almond extract.

And here’s a thought I had: with the tide of illegal Latino immigrants and the reproduction patterns of those already here as well as the legal and legitimate–hefty and hearty they are!–Latino population and so forth, the color and sound of this country is poised to change radically over the next decade in a decidedly spicey, darker direction–not so Wonderbready–and that country will inherit the global precary that Bush’s dalliance with Iraq will leave them as legacy. So ironic, given their largely non-involvment in the issue. A thought. Maybe overblown in its assumptions or forecasts of demographics or global issues down the road. Who knows?

Exies:
- 20 p’s
- 20 l-l’s

Food Footnotes:
- a 6-quesadilla kit
- light Haagen Dazs cherry fudge truffle

There. Now, let’s get back to little DS:

Speed heats the brain to a full boil, leaving the mouth to function as a fulminating exhaust pipe. I talked until my tongue bled, my jaw gave out, and my throat swelled up in protest.

There, there.

I’d been up for close to three days and had taken so much speed that I cold practically see the individual atoms pitching in to make up every folding chair.

The mind on meth does have a sharp and speedy Photoshop-like DPI extrapolation ability.

I cashed in a savings bond left to me by my grandmother and used the money to buy what I hoped would be enough speed to get me through the month. It was gone in ten days, and with it went my ability to do anything but roll on the floor and cry. … Speed’s breathtaking high is followed by a crushing, suicidal depression. You’re forced to pay tenfold for all the fun you thought you were having. It’s torturous and demeaning, yet all you can think is that you want more. … Thinking I must have dropped a grain or two, I vacuumed the entire apartment with a straw up my nose, sucking up dead skin cells, comet residue, and pulverized cat litter.

All so true. And that cat litter part, quite very literally in my case.

The shame was nothing I ever could have conveyed with thimbles or squirt guns filled with mayonnaise. A fistful of burning hair could not beginto represent the mess I had made of my life.

…Perhaps this was something that with hard work and determination I could overcome. Maybe I could sober up, get my personal life in order, and reevaluate my priorities. Chances were that I had no artistic talent whatsoever. If I were to face that fact, possibly I could move on with my life…

Entry Filed under: Lifin