80s movies i grew up with

As a child I remember having a problem with the film All Dogs Go to Heaven. The main character Charlie, dies and goes to heaven. Not feeling the heaven-vibe, he steals a "life watch" that, while glowing can keep him alive forever. An angel tells him as he cast out of heaven back to earth (as a zombie?) that he can never return to heaven for his crime. I assumed that if he died again, he would go to hell, like every other viewer I'm assuming, but that didn't quite add up to the title's claim.

I recently returned from a family reunion for my mother's side of the family. This side of the family is small enough that I actually know the names of every family member, unlike my ultra stereotypical Mormon-with-lots-of-kids dad's side of the family. Even though there is just my mom and her older brother, we never seem to cross paths. The last time I remember seeing my two cousins Seth and Christopher, I was young enough to use my underwear's fly as a pocket for my army men- and my grandma made sure to point that out a few times.

We met in Grand Junction, CO because it was most accessible for everyone, and not because of the reputation of being a must-see travel destination. Christopher is married with two boys of his own. Seth is single and eccentric-borderline-weird (think me in five more years of not dating and apathetic social qualities). My uncle looks exactly like his dad ten years ago. My aunt doesn't speak words often, but does have the stare of a scoundrel whispering under their breath. My sister Leah was home on leave from the Marines, and she hates Obama. My brother is posterboy missionary to keep his life from floundering into a young adulthood situation where he might have to make a decision on his own. Sarah, my older sister is obsessed with documenting every moment for scrap booking, and she is married with one little girl. My mom is losing grip with reality. Dad is always whistling for some god damned reason. Grandma is ornery and holds grudges. Grandpa is about to tell us how long the doctors have predicted he will live.

I didn't have a problem with a glowing watch being able to keep a dog alive, I had a problem with what would happen to the dog if the watch were to stop working. I'm sure this movie helped teach kids how to deal with death of their pets, and emphasized loyalty or helping others in a cute animated way, but they really should'va touched on the alternative outcomes to a broken watch and sealed gate. If heaven is paradise destination and you're locked out, where do you go? If heaven's outcasts are forced to hell then I would never steal a life watch, but if there's some void or unknown alternative, I would heavily consider that.

While the three great grandchildren played and small talk was had, my grandpa took time to poll each of his children and their spouses, and his grandchildren and their spouses on whether or not he should go ahead with a chemotherapy treatment that had a small chance of adding just a few more months to his life, or just being content with the time he has had. You can ask your loved ones their decision, but how do you truly ask yourself that question? You see, his cancer is really far along, and he himself is quite old. I don't think he asked me because he knew my answer. At least that's what I kept telling myself on the car ride home.

At a fairly impressionable adolescent age I watched one of my dad's brothers die in my bed. I didn't know him well. My dad's dad was the youngest of 23 children, he had 10 children, the first two of his siblings had 10 children, a couple more had 6 kids, a few had 4, and I never really had a chance to meet  all these people except for a few close Utah relatives. So when my uncle came to live with us, I was surprised. It took months of vomit and sweat and moans, but it is inevitable that we all die. In Wyoming they don't have that great of hospitals so my uncle stayed with us while he went through treatments at the cancer institute in Salt Lake. I have several images of chemotherapy that I'll never be able to escape, and don't want my grandpa to go through. My uncle's hair sweating off his head in clumps. A grown ass man too weak hold the plastic receptical he was barfing his life into. And most horrific, the hard stare he made at each prescription pill knowing he was paying large amounts of money to poison himself and his cancer. Even though the treatment gave my uncle a few more months to say goodbye and get his affairs in order, inevitably he died. And that really sucked because he had a family that didn't know enough about him, I didn't know enough about him. I continued sleeping on the old couch my parents had uprooted me to until I saved enough money for a new bed. Sometimes I couldn't sleep because the couch sucked. One sleepless night, I accidentally bumped into his ghost.

The doctors told my uncle what to eat because would need a lot of nutrients to help the medicine beat his cancer and my parents made him stick to it. One night after my parents had gone to bed, my uncle shoved some cash into my hands and sent my sister and I to Wendy's for grease and sodium. We returned and stayed up hearing memories of growing up in Wyoming in a large dirt poor family, and rebelling against the area's conservative upbringing; what a great time we had. He payed dearly the next morning from the lack of rest and the meal, but as I held him steady over the toilet he told me it was worth it. I do thinks that I shouldn't all the time, but none of them are that worth it.

After he passed, I decided to walk to Wendy's at midnight. The funeral was on the Indian Reservation where his wife and kids lived, but not being Indian I couldn't attend. I've found that if you're looking for ghosts, you'll find them. Whether it be a lost love, missed opportunity, or a dead uncle, you will always see them when you look. On my walk through well-lit suburbia I thought about things like bone marrow and Indian culture not allowing white men to their uncle's funeral for retrubution of history's transgressions and how my other uncles felt right then.

A man exiting a Cheveron offered me a Bud Light and a smoke. My excuse for declining him was that I had basketball practice in the morning even though I had not made the team this year, lying felt ok because I was sure tired of telling everyone the truth when they asked at school. I guess I just didn't want to explain that no, I'm not Mormon but I don't drink; Such a drag. He understood my lie though, and began telling me stories his days playing high school baseball in a small town in Wyoming. Intrigued by his home, I asked what it was like to grow up in a rural area. He told me stories of when he, my dad, and my uncle would practice shooting. How the sheep would wander in front of them because sheep are dumb, and they would have to shoot them in the butt with their pellet guns to get them to move. He told me about the cat that watched their barn, that he and my uncle despised, but kept the mice in check. He told me about each of the boys having their own horse to break in, which my uncle wasn't very good at, but he was patient enough to help him.

Well, those are the stories I heard. He invited me to his trailer park to hang out with some friends. I had always looked down on this development and excused myself to get some sleep before my basketball practice. He understood this lie too. I kept walking. I went to the Wendy's I recently quit working at, climbed in the drive thru window, put a stained yellow shirt on over my tee, an apron over my pj's, and started working. The manager gave me a stern yelling. Something about minors who weren't employees working for free at 1 am on a school night could get him into a lot of trouble. But the thing is, he probably knew someone with cancer, and that sense of unity should have let us work peacefully together for a while.

I wish the movie Goonies would explain how the gang came about the motto "Goonies never say die". I really want to know. I imagine some really bad shit happened to them. One classmate they all had felt the pressures of adolescence on top of being beaten on from an alcoholic father, so he hung himself from the clothesline by the shed. The rest of the Goonies found him the next day. Probably a school counselor tried to help them talk through it, but ultimately they figured that shit out on their own. They're Goonies after all. They called a meeting and voted on a positive reinforcement motto that would serve as the club's fountain of youth. I wonder if the vote was unanimous though, or if everyone just went along a couple of more vocal Goonies who were terrified of death? These kids are pretty intense. Boobytraps, pirate riddles, fugitives, these kids can handle death, but you never know.

My grandpa went into the weekend with the intention of letting us know he's content with the life he's lived. He mentioned to my little sister that he would get a 21 gun salute at his funeral, and that would be neat he thought. He added that between his military pension, civilian pension, and life insurance policy, my grandmother would receive 4 grand a month. But he left weekend with a totally different perspective. I don't think I would've told him to throw in the towel, but I don't think I would've been able to push him toward chemo either. Its good that he didn't ask me. I don't want to be selfish and influence that decision either way, because what if it is the wrong decision? I feel guilty enough for hardly ever calling him. My family did though. I don't think they have what it takes to be Goonies.

I remember on my 8th birthday, my grandpa took me out to lunch. I chose McDonald's because I was a kid, and that is what kids want. The inside was jammed pack with people during the lunch rush, and after 10 minutes of not progressing in line, we opted for the drive thru. I wanted to get a Sprite to drink, but the McDonald's employee kept hearing "fries". My grandpa in an ideological slur that still exists telling the woman very sternly to learn the language of the land. He took me to Atlantis Burger, which had no line, and we ate a real American hamburger. I never cared much for french fries after that. I didn't return to a McDonald's until I was senior in high school.

I was going to be baptized that weekend. Friday night at about 6:30pm when Seinfeld came on Fox 13, my dad and both grandparents got into an argument over which side of the dishwasher would best fit their coffee pot (my grandparents don't believe coffee should be apart of the Word of Wisdom, they're adamant about the church being wrong on that). My grandparents got a hotel room, sat on the opposite side of the chapel at my baptism confirmation, and didn't speak to my dad for over five years. My grandma doesn't really let things go. I didn't really watch too much Seinfeld growing up because it reminded me of that night. Whats the deal with people getting so upset over how their dishes get washed? Call me crazy, but doesn't a dishwasher evenly wash both sides of the dishwasher?

I would still visit my grandparents. They came and visited me once or twice even, but always stayed in a hotel. They only came when my mom was "disappointed" in me. I failed 3rd term Spanish in 7th grade. I had been coasting along by rarely participating the first 2 terms, but at semester break I got switched to Mrs. Birdsall's class to accomidate my schedule. She was such a bitch. I was starting to go through a big growth spurt leaving my school uniforms at appropriate tease-that-kid lengths, but my family was poor and couldn't afford more until next school year. Mrs. Birdsall repeatedly called on me to answer questions, or talked to me in Spanish, and all my classmates would laugh at weak skills and clothing. She called me up to the front of the class and asked me how to say _____ and she would point at my pants, or my polo, or my old shoes. Whatever Birdsall, karma.

I did not want to go to that class. My mom fought me everyday to study. Until my grandpa visited to help me study. Spanish. That's when I first understood irony. I got a solid C for the 4th term. And the school did away with uniforms that summer. that was the last time my grandparents felt comfortable enough in their driving ability to come see me. And I egged Mrs. Birdsall's car during science the next year.

I walked to the same McDonald's I had last been to almost ten years later while I skipped seminary, because I was too tired for that game. I took my food and drink to the top of the Playplace. My basketball diet didn't include carbonation. The pop tickled and gave me severe hiccups. An obese manager yelled and told me to come down. I thought it was really funny that I had two fast food managers yell at me 10 hours apart about being too old/young to do something.

Whenever I ditched school it was usually to do something far more boring than the class I should've stayed in. Like I'm lame ass Cameron, without a Ferris Bueller for a friend. Laying in bed depressed into a coma because I'm a white kid from the suburbs. But on the positive side, I don't have to play third-wheel to two attractive friends being lovey dovey. Where do they get off? I don't see why they should be so happy in high school. I did feel a bit like Ferris when my seminary teacher got ahold of our family's real telephone phone number toward the end of the year, and my mom made me stay after school and make it all up. Well I guess, that too, is like Cameron to get caught. My catatonic Ferrari moment. The only other person in the makeup class with me, was the other kid who got cut from the basketball team this year.

I confessed that I was attending only to please my mother. His confession was that seminary would be good practice for a mission, and a 'mission was the only way to get a hot wife.' Verbatim that is what he told me. I remember regretting eating so much McDonald's over those few months, but not the seminary makeup. I'm glad I heard him say that. How is it no one looks at him and sees how deeply afraid he is? A secret is a disguise that keeps us scared. And those things are always changing, and that's okay too. I looked him up on Facebook, and he's not married yet, and maybe that's what scares him now. I can't remember what I was scared of most then, but right now in my life I'm most scared of the resolution following when someone close to me passes away.

Here I am writing about death in the most selfish format possible. I use the words "I" and "me" so much that it hurts your eyes.. on a blog, about me. And its not even like good memories I write about. No, just using vague references from 80s movies I grew up with, and I'm not even tying up the loose ends. And even for a blog it is terribly written. Like I'm the old lady in Edward Scissorhands telling her granddaughter the story of my fear made immortal by not dealing with it in the right way. I keep thinking I'm a really horrible person for not calling my grandfather and talking to him everyday. I keep thinking that it is really horrible of me to lie to my family and say that "yes, I have been calling quite often.". I keep thinking how horrible I will feel when he passes. I keep thinking about what the social sciences would say about the way I'm dealing with these things- probably that I've somehow managed to mix denial, anger, bargaining, and depression into one step. And then they'd laugh and say something like but I've seen worse.

A few days after we got home from the reunion, my two sister and one brother in law went to look at a bunch of dead people. There's a mummy exhibit at the Leonardo, and I love mummies. But I kept thinking about how the Egyptians went to such elaborate and time-consuming lengths to make sure they had a comfortable afterlife- before they were even dead. Talk about being scared of the unknown right? Then there was a room on mummified people from South America. These mummies were a thousand years older. They were babies, and women, and the cancerous. I got the impression that these m

ummies were outcasts. They could've climbed the mountains in search of a legend or shaman to heal them, but I doubt it. They had tumors, they were unwanted harlots, they were no longer allowed in the lives of the living for whatever reason. And walking through that exhibit that is how selfish I felt. I was the village.

But today, looking back on the last couple weeks, it's cool that this experience made me feel anything. I act like its the worst thing that I've neglected people in my life. Like a kind of nostalgic life story. Nostalgia is always more "bitter" than "sweet" and that's genuine. A genuine product of being dissatisfied while resolutions from the past and present are settled. Something real is always satisfying enough to show that you care. I know this blog is long, and complicated, and unorganized, but sometimes blogs should reflect life. I'm weird, and complicated, and disorganized-like most people. And sometimes I like to write about being open to that side of humanity where we all have a difficult time being open to feel things. Right? We usually just mutually consent to keep all this hidden from each other, and that's alright I suppose. But shouldn't the very notion the we all have these lingering thoughts of fears for ourselves and loved ones by our lonely mindsets, be the unifying bond that gives our lives together a sense of definition?

Hello, I'm writing again.

My words have always been unorganized, already discovered truths that edge on abyss cliche more than any sort creative talent; and yes, I am aware that talking about cliches is so, cliche, but writing is therapeutic. It is long, so sit as long as you're willing to sit still for. This is me. The following is just a part of everything. It can upsetting, but it isn't depressing. At the very least this, whatever it is, a journal entry maybe?, promises to get the correct use of your and you're right, but I might drive you crazy with run on sentences. After reading, I hope you leave with whatever you came up with while you were here.

Morning: I stopped by my parents house to pick up some laundry my brother had switched to their dryer for me. I'm the typical bachelor who lives out of his laundry basket. Never bothering to fold, hang, or manipulate in anyway. The air of the empty basement was calm and cool, the garments were warm like how I remembered my basement when I lived here. It was still unclear to me my incentive for the chore I was embarking on, as I started to fold my laundry. I thought of the Snuggle Bear ad when touching each towel, admiring the fleeting feelings each brought with touch. This basement had changed. Once my older sister's queendom, followed by my rule, and briefly my younger sister's occupyment I guess you could say, she was never really here like her older siblings. I became aware of a collapsed shelf from a bookshelf across the area. A series of hard covered children's books, each bound with a uniform cover, lethargic and red, and the numbered, had caused a bracket to bend, and the shelf to land on my mother's old rock n roll record collection from before she married my dad. The encyclopedia of how a child ought to be, stands atop the library riffraff of shouldnt-be's. Oh, and some Barbara Streisand. I got this cold chill, not from from the basement air, this chill was not calm. I knew my showtune and gospel jingle loving momma had a grown up in an exciting time for music, but she rarely spoke of it. I never pressed her on her youth, the road left to a new life, to be a dirt-poor single mother finishing nursing school and moving to suburbia for her daughter. But here. Right here in my hands was a relic to this half-life of hers. I  do enjoy the warm sound of vinyl, but I also wanted to learn a little more about my mom. I took a lot of them. Just took them and left.

I continued about my day as a zombie in a dizzying sense of disconnectedness in a daydream. You know you're in trouble when you daydream in your daydream. The words are well chosen, the ideas precisely conveyed, the images saturated with so much color it would be impossible  to remember it exactly as it happened, no matter how hard you tried. I went to class. I had a health screening to lower my health insurance premium. Good cholesterol is low, but other than that I'm healthy. I guess I should eat some relevant good cholesterol foods to live longer. Is that stuff 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter' the good cholesterol I wondered, because butter butter is the bad cholesterol. I don't know, I'm not crazy about butter. I'm upset with society.

I watched the debate until I couldn't see straight on the Internet. This election is making me physically ill. People have become pawns of rhetoric to the partisan politics closest to their ideology, and it has caused a black n white fallacy among us further dividing us as a society. Why are we completely ruthless with a computer screen between us? I'm ashamed to be a human right now, and will be relieved when we can all go back to not caring about issues for 3 years. Why should we vote? I ask myself. It is always about how the other guy is bad, not why you're guy is good. The phrase I hear is "lesser of two evils" Wtf man? Two evils? Alright, well I guess I'll take AIDS, the lesser of death choices, because cancer has the whole chemo thing, and I like my hair. But to hell with it, they're both dead. I won't politically rant here, because politics is not the human truth I'm trying to tackle conceptually in my mind, but rather why I have my mom's record collection. Regardless, real issues that bother me are what fueled me into this cloud. Why is Guantanamo still open? What about this failed drug war? People are dying in gruesome ways. Sending more troops to Afganistan? That's my little sister, she should be home. I come up with the simple solution to further divide us ideologically and end the war. Let's just reinstate the draft, overload them with warriors, and bring home the gold. And I will go fight the longest war we've ever participated in, go because I am patriotic. A patriot, here is me, fighting for one truth, here's 'them', fighting for another. We will all fight to win, just like we all vote to win. Who's truth is 'the truth'? Who decides that? I ask myself more rhetorical questions because that has gotten me somewhere before.

I see myself throwing a gun to the rancid ground beside my dying sister, the soldier, the only soldier. It is just her and myself. Bend down to listen for breathing, I have been trained well, as this is natural. While doing so, looking for the movement of her beaming blue eyes. It is natural to pass over them, but I tell myself "don't", instinctually. Look hard and make sure you see every detail. Even in the setting of war, I can tell the way the shakes have disappeared like we were sitting on the bench in the corner of the park catching up about how this town has changed since we were worry free children. Instinct has nothing to say about how the red lines creep out from the center. I am my own decision from here on out. I gently reach, but firmly grasp her shoulder to let her feel through her tainted gear that I am still here. She will know I have not left her, that I won't leave her, that I do not mind the filth, the blood, or tears that come. I can't bring myself to remove my hand, I take five steps to her right to welcome back training while investigating her pack. "What's inside? What is the importance of these things?" Relevant critical thinking, but I am back on my own as I hold back the battery acid vomit creeping up my throat, and simultaneously wipe this look off my face to show her I'm brave.

But I am not brave. I am cracked. I see bare feet from the two of us segregated in the shade, her side of the sandbox generic with copycat towers of her older brother's fortress lazily guarded with a plethora of green plastic army men I loaned her; and my side with the original blueprint fort, securely defended by sweating lego men, and a trench between us. She just wanted to share and be present with me. But I wanted to win. I did this to her, inevitably she was to become a marine from these play yard training exercises. When the heat got the best of us, but mostly her, she no longer wanted to share. I'd break my cherry, orange, or grape popscicle in half, the better half softening. She would bite dominantly into her unbroken blue treat to let me know she could win at something. I can no longer keep this deep inside, the seeping safe and warm and ok has begun to be lost, because I am cracked.

I put my fingers into the bits of gravel that have collected on the bottom of my little sister's pack. Packets of coagulant, surgical kit, and the first-aid support I would need. The support to block out every awful sound I would encounter. The exploding truths above, and around, and below me. I do not hear flashes. I do not see screaming. I smell nothing. I see less.

Only three years younger than I and she lay on a bed of foreign hell. I imagine her hands on the body of a newborn child. Drown in the river of subconscious next to her husband. They were never the most wonderful and inspiring sight she ever saw in her whole god damned life, and the tears streaming from her face, and realizing that her husband was still holding her, and that he was leaving her sight, remembering those things never happened yet, because she was lying in "trashcanistan" as she called it, waiting for her older brother to keep her alive, waiting for me.

I would chew my lips in determination, it would taste like the air in the house of our home schooled neighbors we would play with sometimes because they had a video game console. God, they were weird. The old cartridges froze pixels on screen after the console had overheated to exhaustion. Her demeanor had plateaued on exhausted the first day she stepped overseas, and this, this could be done. No Nintendo placebo effect needed, but blowing breath gently on her forehead was like I sighed confidence into her on the task at hand. Even if the gesture was for my lack of words, we will persevere. I grab the scalpel, and the clamps, and the gauze. Feel the quick sting of a bullet in my back. Followed with the surprise sensation, a ceramic bowl full ice cream against my neck, that was craftily snuck downstairs just for the two of us. The plentiful cookie chip serving to me and the vanilla rich to her. And conquering the brain freeze, empty thought spread, dripping down. Her eyes fall forward, my head falls back, death. And I'm standing on the bottom step of my parent's basement, and my mom 6 feet above, and she has very alive red lines in core of her swollen eyes. The red lines of a dead marine trapped in my head.

"Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Take my records?"
If I had taken the textured children's books, would I be on trial right now? I ponder whether or not those short stories were well written, if they followed Vonnegut's rules for effective short story telling- Not that they should, great writers break rules, but an encyclopedia's are formats. Before I could answer her, she went on to tell me about how my grandpa has terminal stomach cancer. She tells me various unimportant details, as I recall what rules would be applicable for those books, and which for the stolen albums.
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way they will feel it was not wasted.
There never was a solid piece of art constructed of hit after hit. Layer, or contrast, if only to be picked up years from now as though no time has passed.
2. Give the audience a character they can root for.
I have never been to a funeral. What would I say? I am sure they will ask me to speak. Important people speak at funerals.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
I am sickened with myself to the point that I am thinking of things that happen to me as short stories instead of dealing with them.
4. Every sentence must reveal character or advance action.
How will people see this event? How will the author write this? Seriously man, buckle down and concentrate on what is going on.
5. Start as close to the end as you can.
The end. I'm not good with endings.
6.  Be a Sadist. Make awful things happen to your characters to see what they are made of.
"I'm going down to visit them and discuss our options."
"That's heavy." Is all I could sputter.
She went on to talk some more. Talking about major life events can help people heal. It spreads out the weight, helps you maintain your buoyancy, and stop sinking She obviously needs some kind sharing right now. I know, that is a weak metaphor, my inner dialogue quickly thinking of new, less cliche replacements. Is that my fear at this moment?
7. Write to please just one person.
I don't think I should tell her that her eyes look like her dead daughter's eyes in my head, or that I vividly imagined the death in the first place. Now is not the time. No time is the time, you are dumb for still thinking about that. Pay attention.
"You know, you never expect your parents to live forever, but it is still"- she reaches for support on the stairway wall. "hard to deal with."
I am pretty sure my eyes will be red, and that I will need support from a structure when I talk about how my parents are going to die. But right now, I can only think about how dirty that wall looks in this narrowing stairway.
8. To hell with suspense. Audience should be able to finish the story if cockroaches eat the last few pages.
"So I'm not going to tell your sister. She's got enough on her plate, and she's really homesick already."
I stay silent. There is a pause. Is she going to make me do this? God mom, do I have to piece together a "it will be ok" speech from movies, and television, and remembering the good times? Why do you gotta bring me down mom? Don't you know I do that on my own? I eventually conclude that my life is more of a drama on the WB than a piece of art that could be cherished by an audience.

Evening: I guess I fell asleep at the wheel because I am home now, and I don't know how I got home. I shave myself with a dull razor at the very exact time I tell myself this is going to hurt because I have sensitive skin that has been aggravated by the changing weather. Is that intuition if it is a few seconds into the future? Contemplation of moving to a warmer home sets in, for my skin's sake. In Tucson, that's Arizona technically, but geographically Mexico almost, it was hot even as the season was changing here in Salt Lake. It was here that I saw two men beat in the door of Super 8 motel with baseball bats before they were shortly taken off in squad cars. This witness surfaced an inner prejudice I was not aware I had. I was disappointed in myself. Trying to distract myself of this I visited a coffee shop. It was more like a meccadom of hipster. Mason jars, vintage jukebox, vegan menu, oh my stars this was the place that trendy Salt Lake City was missing I thought. My barista was porcelain skinned like me. The red of her lips fiercer than the blue of my eyes. Her eyes were old, and she had a tattoo of an image on her forearm, what was that? I imagine her the front woman of a chill indie girls punk band that couldn't find a drummer, or an artist who was victim to often self-indulgent metaphors hindering her 'breakthrough'; either way, she was the kind of woman who lived only through the art. Then fierce crimson flowed down porcelain into my sink. I AM intuitive. More so on details than actual events, leading me to nowhere. I will not be able to use my intuition to my advantage, just one-to-many ah-ha I knew that was coming moments. I focused enough to clean up and lay in my clean bed.

Night: I lay in bed thinking about death. My dog is 15 years old I think. She is getting deaf, and losing teeth, and doesn't have much time left. I feed her baby aspirin and treats to suppress the guilt of not walking her enough, not taking her to dog parks ever, and for ignoring her when I could've been making memories. She was a rambunctious little shit as a puppy. She would bark at everything. And well, I will admit, I am a crappy owner. When I first got her I took her for a ride in my red wagon. The ones that every suburban family had in the 90s, fun for the kids and nostalgia for the parents. She loved the thrill of the ride, and I loved the sound the wheels made on each crack in the sidewalk; but  she was overly-anxious to get out and play with my siblings afterward. The purple leash tangled in the wagon wheel, I tripped, she yelped. My third grade body pinned her, breaking her leg. The purple leash the last thing I saw before that sound she made. I hated the color purple, add in the red of the wagon, and that is all I could see at school the following day while my puppy was  recovering at the vet. It was DARE to resist drugs week, the program's colors purple/red. I didn't know how to handle my guilt, how could it get worse? The last bell rang for a long time, sending me on a swift walk to judgement.

My little sheltie waiting for me at home in 'cercheif and rod in her leg. The horrible color combination faded from my young mind. I would protect her I vowed. She started puppyhood at the house once more. Her fur looked like cookie dough, textures on textures with no melting of the colors together. My show dog was unable to travel stairs during healing, I carried her like a good friend to the downstairs where she was to be spoiled with love from kids of my family. I dropped her. 6 stairs or something. 6 floors in my mind. Surgery would fix my dog again, but there was no way to fix how my 11 year old self felt.

Months past, my puppy was growing fast, she was the queen of the backyard. She loved me the same, and in time I stopped distancing myself from her. I, genuinely happy to see her, and I think she was happy to see me too. She went missing with signs of foul play. The gate was open, and I had a feeling there was foul play. This must have been my first intuition experience. The teenage boy kitty corner from us had quite the wrap sheet for vandalism and animal torture. Today, I have no doubt in my mind he is in prison somewhere. Probably his first charges were domestic assault after he beat his girlfriend to a bloody pulp like in those nighttime crime shows on network tv. I'm assuming he went on to get caught for child pornography or was involved in a dog fighting scheme. I have quite the imagination.

I was a live wire obligated to handle this situation. No authorities, no permission. I walked over to this young man, I still a child, and interrogated him on the whereabouts of my dog. He was wearing a purple shirt and jeans that could've belonged to Greg Ostertag. I never understood why the alternative fashion of the time was that of lurpy white men, but this was '98. He threatened to steal my basketball again, or throw sawdust in my eyes if I didn't piss off. I had stood up to him one July when he and the older neighborhood guys were blowing glass up in the street with fireworks. I had not forgotten the eye patch I had to wear all summer after an entire package of some "snaps" was flung into my face while I was protecting the battlegrounds were my basketball often roll. This threat was a cover to avoid my questions, but I so young, it worked. I was scared of him. He had a chain for his wallet, and a pump bb gun with a sawed-off end-probably just for looks, but maybe to hide in those ridiculous jeans.

My dad helped me avoid sure death by calling me home from the yard, I stomped dramatically across the asphalt unsure of who I was more upset with. We sat under the shade while my anger visibly shook me.  My dad trying to be fatherly and his fiery son down, but was being more silly. He would eat bugs to get the shock effect out of me. Just worms and grasshoppers. I noticed once a few summers later, that he was just dropping them to the side to appear as he was eating these creepy crawlies. I called him on it, and he ate them for real to prove he was cool. This night after I had cooled back down to be reasoned with, he compared the delinquent who stole my dog to Dennis Rodman from the household enemies the Chicago Bulls, this was an effective argument for my father. He recalled times where the "worm" would singlehandedly beat the Jazz, while Jordan rested on the bench, by getting into their heads with hard fouls or trash talk. If another player is playing dirty, you need to be twice as clean he explained. Then my dad was shot with a bb.

Late night: The people who saved my dog have special souls. I remember watching my dog through a window in a clinic on an overcast day because any raise of her heartbeat or movement could literally kill her. It was fate, or chance, or whatever that two vets happened upon her on the side of I-215 out by the airport. Her legs broken in multiple places from multiple impacts they said, her chart said her weight less than half that when she roamed my backyard. If I was not growing up fast enough, this was helping. This poor creature had pulled- no dragged herself along the highway with her two front legs to gather candy wrappers and other litter for nourishment. Unless this poor girl could up to 16 or 18 pound- I can't remember which exactly, she could not come home with our family.

I visited her twice. Staring longingly through the glass like into the huge salt water fish tank this couple had in their clinic. They spared me the talk, the talk of how the amount of energy, money, and luck to keep my dog alive was running out, they gave the talk to my mom instead, but I knew. The logical thing was to offer her some relief. The arrangements were made to have the couple put her down. The day came, but she was recovering quickly. Gained 4lbs and some visible strength. So we put it off for a few more days. Now my dog is grown up, rebuilt like the terminator in those legs I'm sure, but an example to me of not giving up even when she probably should have.

It wouldn't be until I was almost 24 laying in my bed thinking of really awful events that happened to my dog, that I considered the repercussions of making and breaking appointments with Death. I guess in my life there was never a 24-hour cancellation policy offered. I think about what it must've been like for my pet to lay there patiently watching the end of her life, a young dog lying on the shore as the tide comes in. And I fall asleep thinking about what my grandpa will do with the last 6 months of his life, this rented space until friday.

I will soon have to deal with death in my life for the first time. It will be a moment where I think I'll use the event to do something completely awesome, and not use my previous admissions to mean that I should give up, feel sorry, be scared, feel hopeless, be ashamed, have regret, or succumb to any feeling other than extreme gratitude that regardless of my mistakes, I am here, and I am alive, and I am lucky to encompass the capacity to care so deeply about a dog, or a person.

Who am I?

9/19/10

Infinity's Timeline

Each of our lives is filled with contradictions, soldiers and starlets, solid advice and sneering fun, cold facts and outrageous opinions. I share the beauty and the truth, the sweet and the nasty, because I know that genius lives in that slim margin of in-between. The slim margin where a prophet and a scoundrel meet, get drunk and learn a thing or two before the chairs start flying. I'm the one person that urges people in my life to get up early and daring them to stay out late, engrossing them with unforgettable stories and distracting the with amazing pictures that I hope they'll remember forever.

When my friends and family are lying on their deathbed- and yes, every single person must eventually bite the dust someday- these individuals who were closest to me will no doubt be visited by a lifetime of important memories: episodes of triumph and struggle; moments of deep compassion and spiritual clarity. Whether the setting of their deathbed is a poolside lounge chair in Palm Springs, an overcrowded hospital in Europe, a park bench in Brooklyn, or the edge of this very world; I want to be on the amazing highlight reel of memories that flash.

A human's memory is a tricky thing. We cram so many billions of sounds and sights and smells into these brains of ours that it's impossible to predict just what we'll remember in the end. Who am I? I am a gentle, yet passionate soul that just wants to be remembered.