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Thursday, Apr. 03, 2003 / 11:03 a.m. ~Looking For Extremes � Nostalgia, and Nothing About the WAR~ Life without a car radio. This morning I sang a medley of Van Halen songs. Which of course made me nostalgic for those glorious high school days. The days I took the bus so I could get there early and meet my friends outside to get wasted before school started. Different strains of the marijuana plant, different colors, the gold, the red, the Colombian, the whatever, the skanky �homegrown�, but always good enough to get a huge buzz, get totally paranoid about how we smelled, how we looked, how foggy our eyes were, and could we actually GO to school now? Which of course made me think of all the drugs I took back then, even one time taking a large amount of plain aspirin, which made me wonder if I was trying to kill myself, or just feel something. Adolescence is hard, and death in the family makes it harder, whether or not one recognizes that as the cause, or a cause, of anything. But yeah, Van Halen, the first album, the one I played and played and played and played, and then recorded on cassette and played, and played and played, in my car. No working cassette player in the car now, and I barely crank the turntable, but that album will always make me think of smoking that Gold Colombian one morning before Art class. Brian Akin knew we were stoned, and it only disappointed him. I found him at Classmates.com and wrote him a note, and he wrote back. Hmmm� I�m ovulating. Or close to it. This means I�m highly aware of my own skin, I�m nostalgic for sensations, for sensory pleasures, for sensual pleasures, I want touch. It�s temporary, thankfully, or I�d go crazy, act stupid or something. I think I�ve actually gained some perspective here in my old age (!), I finally think before I act� well, in really important situations. In life altering situations. I no longer pick up young men in bars or clubs. Whew. I know they�re still there, but I�m not. No, I�m all smart and everything now (tongue planted so firmly in cheek it hurts). I was also thinking, last night before sleep, about really cool experiences I�ve had in my life. And yes, �cool� is the best word. I�ve seen cliff divers in Acapulco, diving at night, waiting for the waves to come in, waiting for the precise moment before making their glorious swan dives, lean and muscular bodies, young boys selling gum to tourists, taxi drivers waiting to take people away, and arriving with more carloads to watch. Night ocean air, warm off the cliffs. Swimming in a cenote in the heart of the Yucatan, with Mindy, and an American ex-pat and her young Mexican lover. I love the picture she took of us there, my hair still wet, standing in nothing but a t-shirt over my swimsuit. Mindy looking like she�d eat him up, the young Mexican lover, both of us wondering how we could get one too, hearing tales of him fishing for her, cooking the fresh catch over an open fire on the beach. Standing under ancient conifers during a late Summer hailstorm in the mountains of Colorado. Receiving oral pleasures in a sauna after eating marijuana brownies (he wanted to tell everyone about that one, how expert he was, yet his jaw hurt for days � if he was so expert it would�ve happened faster�). Sailing in Winter. Sailing in Summer. Sailing in Spring. Sailing in Autumn. Practically living on a sailboat on a lake. The half hour or longer drive every time, looking at the treetops along the way, watching for wind, gauging wind. All about the wind, and the beer, and the drugs, and the marijuana, and the LSD, and shooting stars, and swimming naked. Living on a sailboat in the Caribbean for ten days, having semi-permanent sea legs, not being able to walk once on shore. Sleeping at night to the lullaby of the main sheet inside its housing, clanking metal against metal with the gentle rocking. Hot and moist all the time, and that turquoise water that defies description beyond calling it turquoise. Being robbed by Gypsy children outside the Coliseum in Rome. Staring at the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel so long my neck was sore for hours after. Hearing/seeing a live performance of Vivaldi�s �Quattro Stagioni� in that cathedral in Paris, the one with the AMAZING stained glass windows, the one in my book of cathedrals� St Chapel?? The beer museum in Brussels. On the Place. And the canals of Brugges. The frites avec mayonnaise� I wouldn�t say my life is flashing before my eyes, but I�m simply nostalgic for the times when I truly lived, when I dared, or risked, or challenged, or loved, or felt. When everything wasn�t the same, when I wasn�t afraid to try, when I wanted to see what was out there, and I did, when I associated with people who could enable experiences, or I made them happen on my own. I�ve slowed. Oh, the Gilroy Garlic Festival, twice, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and camping under redwood trees, collecting tiny redwood cones off the ground, driving the Pacific Coast Highway. Lying on the sidewalk in San Francisco, at night, and he told me I have beautiful hands, but he wanted her, not me. The Castro Street Fair, men holding hands, and balloons everywhere. Carmel, cold Carmel, when Clint Eastwood was mayor, mayor, right? Buying wool because it was cold. Glacier National Park in Montana, driving up to the top of the Continental Divide, but the fog so thick we could barely see the sign, or was it clouds? And buffalo, and Native peoples, and red rocks and a girl walking a bobcat on a purple leash, and eating bull testicles. When I think about my age, and how long I�ve been alive, regardless of whether any white hairs stand out on my head, or whether any wrinkles are beginning to show under my eyes, I think about where I�ve been, what I�ve done, I think about having lived. I�ve lived. I could die now and be happy. Except for leaving the girls behind, that�s nothing I want to do. I�ll fight to stay alive as long as they�re alive, but I�ve had a really full life. I started early, and I only stopped because of circumstances beyond my control. I�m a slave to the machine now, working for �the man�, because I have to support myself, it�s all about �the cheese� now. But when it wasn�t, when I was financially independent (yes, money can buy happiness!), anything could happen. I�m just nostalgic, that�s all. It�s a beautiful day, it�s not yet 10:00 in the cubicle, early, early, I�ve been writing this since I logged onto my PC, and now I stop to do some work, and I think I�ll listen to Moby�s �Move�, because it will make me wet. Not that I need to be, but I need to feel even more, I�m looking for extremes, like Anthony Bourdain! He and I are alike in that regard. Oh, if he weren�t married, and if he didn�t smoke� Cost of the War in Iraq
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