Steellover

So I just got back in town a couple days ago, after cleaning out a multitude of stuff I had stored at my parents house.

It's amazing the amount of stuff people collect and save, things which may have been meaningful once but which have long since lost their importance.

For example, I found:

-Old college history notes, from several different classes.

-A box of old Star Wars figures.  Worthless, essentially, because they were "not in their original package."   Because they were TOYS that were intended to be played with- and they were!- as opposed to just collected and sitting on a shelf. But yet, they apparently sat in my closet for over 30 years.

-A couple term papers that I had apparently written in seventh and eighth grade, but that was so long ago I didn't even remember writing them.

-Some old school report cards. Turns out I got a C in physics?  That was actually my favorite class!  I guess I wasn't as good at physics as I wanted to be.

-A bunch of old legos.  Including this one really cool space ship I was proud of building back in the day.

-A box of football cards from the early 1990s.  None of them are really worth anything though.

-Some old model ships, old sailing ships, but the masts and rigging were all broken.  I have no place to display these old model kits now, or even back then.

- A couple old model airplanes, which used to hang above my bed.

- A bunch of old "Car and Driver" magazines because I liked cars.

- A couple rolls of those old weird looking pennies;you know; the ones that just say "One Cent-United States of America" on the back, like from the 1950s style.  My grandma had given me these, and I'd just stashed them.  According to those coin guide books, most of them are probably worth about... One Cent.

-Old soccer team photos from when I was like 13 or 14.

-A bunch of old "Metal Forces" magazines because I liked heavy metal music. (I still like some of that old stuff now and again, for example Iron Maiden.)

-Newspaper clippings from the last time the 49ers won the Super Bowl.  It's been over 30 years. Maybe they're due, though in all fairness, Lions, Vikings, and Browns fans have been waiting a lot longer than that. 

Just, mementos of a life lived long ago.  I could not hang on to all of it.  In the end, I kept one soccer team photo, some old books, a couple of the music magazines, and the rolls of old pennies, and I gave the football cards to a neighbor kid.  The legos will probably be donated, and the old Star Wars action figures will probably end up adorning my cabinets at work, just for laughs and grins.  The rest, well, I filled up an entire garbage bag and a recycle bin with stuff I just don't need to save anymore.

Sometimes you just have to learn to let go, and live your life in the present.  That was part of this whole trip; letting go. I will not forget the memories of that house though.  I spent probably the last night I'll ever spend in my old bedroom.  Just alone with the memories: Of running up and down the stairs, laughing, wrestling around with my brother, playing games with the family, sitting around the TV cheering on the 49ers, countless Christmases, Thanksgiving meals with all the extended family and cousins, and endless joy at all of them.  The neighbor kids bopping in and out, Dad grumbling and grousing around, Mom making us breakfast before school and nagging at us to get our shoes on.  And even in hard times, it was a sanctuary against the turmoil and trouble of the world.  I'll always hold on to that. 

But being there in the empty house, all alone, was a strange, forlorn and lonely experience. Now I know how Mom must have felt living there alone these past few years, with the laughter and banter of us kids, and of Dad, only an echoing memory.   I've already talked about this at length in previous posts, so I won't dwell on it anymore here.  But I will say it was refreshing to get back in town, back to the present day, with work, social events, and a fun weekend coming up.  Maybe I'll go snowboarding this Sunday. Looks like they got a bunch of new snow.  Mom has settled in to her new place, and she suddenly has far more social interaction, at the meals in the common area, than she ever did these last few years living alone.  I think this has helped lift her spirits.  She seems to be doing okay, so that is good.

I used to be a long distance runner, once upon a time, and honestly, I used to love it.

It started about the time my youth soccer career wound down, when I realized that out of something like 200 kids competing for maybe sixteen roster spots on the high school soccer team, I was in over my head as far as landing a spot. So I signed up for cross country in high school instead.  

I was never the fastest sprinter; lots of guys could beat me in a 50 yard dash, but over a mile or two, I could typically hold my own against, or even outrun, most of the other kids, many who didn't have the stamina to go an entire mile without stopping.  So I thought I would sign up.  Though, I quickly realized that as with the soccer club, these were the elite runners in the school.  Guys who could average under six minutes per mile over a three mile course. I wasn't ever in that league.  But a spot on the squad was ready for me, and I was happy to do it.

Running is a very individual sport. You are competing mainly against yourself, always trying to improve on your own course time.  The first year, I suffered from tendonitis in my ankles and shins, but the next year I improved; and my junior year for some reason was my fastest year (not sure why I was a step slower the following year but that's how it was.)  In the races, I would typically finish in the lower mid-pack, which was respectable, but certainly I was no "Kyle Larson On Foot."  But that was okay.  The races were held on this system of trails up in the hills of the San Francisco Bay Area, and it was a roughly three mile course.  Race day was kind of like a big celebratory event where you'd hang out up in the hills with your respective school, wait for your race, then go for it. The adrenaline would be with me for the first mile, but afterwards, after the first big uphill section, you'd settle into your stride and just keep the pace until the next big climb, a steep uphill sprint at around mile 2.2.  Coming down the back stretch, you always hoped you'd have enough gas to be able to sprint to the finish, and hopefully pick up a spot or two before crossing the start/finish line.  Sometimes I did, and I was in a few photo finishes for that coveted 24th place spot (out of maybe 40 racers.)  

But mostly, I was in my own head, listening to the rhythm of my breathing and my feet hitting the dirt, or the pavement if it was a practice run, thinking of school related stuff, music, or girls.  And by the way, there were a couple super athletic girls on that squad who I thought were HOT!  You really were, literally, chasing girls while doing cross country.  A couple of them were faster runners than I was, (Faster than a lot of the guys actually) which I honestly thought was pretty sexy back then.

The practice runs were fun; we'd go anywhere from three to up to ten miles on the hilly, paved bay area streets, and it was always an adventure. The summer after high school, I'd go running at night, just because I enjoyed it, and it beat running during the hot, humid summer days.  Running at night was more fun anyway.  The runner's high you'd get was better than any drug, this euphoric feeling that is indescribable.  I do kind of miss that.  So yeah, I loved running and it was one of the few things I enjoyed about my high school experience.  

I can't really keep it up these days though.  It is too hard on my knees and joints; the last time I tried to get back into any kind of distance running, I would get sore for up to a week afterwards, and at best, I was only a shell of my high school running prowess.   So these days, I stick to just mountain biking, hiking, and snow boarding; which are still great exercise, but a little easier on the old joints.  Anyway,  with that, I'll leave you with a Music Corner:

What better song encapsulates this post than this one:

I got a lot of flack for my love of Iron Maiden in high school; it got me derisively labeled a "hesher" or a geek, or at best, a Beavis and Butthead type, which this last description was probably closest to the truth, sadly.  There were not a lot of metalheads at that school, but nonetheless I found people to bond with over our love of running, rather than music.  This particular Maiden album had a distinctly "Brighter" sound than the five preceeding ones, in a way that was hard to explain.  I guess it was more melodic, less gritty, but still heavy, and still had that trademark Steve Harris bass line and dualing Murray/Smith guitar duo to keep it real.

So anyway, that's all I got for now.

When lately it seems like my whole world is dissolving, everyone I know seems to be struggling and my head is constantly spinning with no solace or comfort anywhere... I just decided to say, heck with it, lets talk about something positive and fun.

People assume soccer- European football- isn't popular in America.  The thing is, it IS!  But it's popularity is different here. In the U.S, Soccer is a recreational sport, but it just isn't as big of a professional, spectator sport, like in the rest of the world.  The rule of thumb is, if you are a great soccer player as an American kid, you grow up to be a great football or basketball player as an adult.

Almost every dude I knew played on an organized youth soccer league of some kind of other when they were a kid.    Probably like 70 or 80 percent of kids did in my old hometown, at one time or other.  In the town where I grew up, soccer was just as popular- perhaps more so!- than little league baseball.  That's where the term "Soccer Mom" got popularized.  My mom was a soccer mom for five years. 

The first couple years, I wasn't that good, and neither were the teams I was on.  The more I played and got a better feel for the game, had better coaches, teammates, and what not, the more I improved, and the more fun it became.  I've always felt that playing a team sport is really a valuable thing to do as a kid.  You learn a lot about teamwork, discipline, both winning and losing, and it's a shared experience, plus, it's a good way to get excercise.  I certainly wasn't the most athletic kid on the field, but even some of the pudgy, non-athletic kids out there had fun playing.   My parents never forced me, but there was probably a bit of peer pressure involved because, well, all the other kids played.    Plus, it was a fun thing to do.  Practice after school was fun, and I looked forward to the games each Saturday. Much more fun when you are on the field, having an actual hand in the success (or failure) of the team, as opposed to, for example, sitting in your chair screaming at the 49ers the next day (which I gotta be honest, I did plenty of as well.)  It was certainly a lot more fun though when our team won.

Which we started to do more of, my third year. I turned 12 that year, and the team I was on finished at around 4-5-1.  Not a winning season, but an improvement over the two previous one-win seasons for sure, and I certainly savored each of those wins.  I typically was a defense man, which was where I excelled; I didn't have the speed or the footwork to be a striker or wing, but I was generally good at slowing down or stopping opposing teams' attacking formations, although the best of the best, future star kids would still give me trouble.  Depending on whether the teams utilized a 4-2-4 or a 4-3-3 scheme, I was either labeled "Defensive End" or "Left (or Right) Fullback" and different coaches used different terms, but the position and skills were the same.

The next year though, we were undefeated. This was the best coach I ever had; he was really willing to pull you aside and individually work with you on techniques and help you fine-tune your game, which most amateur youth-league coaches didn't have the time for.  We finished the season 10-0, and some of those games were lop-sided, high scoring games. As a 7th grader, I was on top of the world, even though I can't say I was the star player. For the playoffs, the top three teams had a round-robin playoff format. Each team played the other two, and if any team lost both, they were eliminated, if there was a tie, then the championship came down to the top teams in regular season points (1 for tie, three for win; we were the top of the league with 30 points.)  We easily won both playoff matches, dispatching the first (3rd ranked) opponent 3-0, and then dominated, 5-0 over the second place team.

But then, for the championship, as it worked out, we had to face the second place team again, and that match was to take place the very next day.  We barely had time to celebrate beating them in the playoffs before we had to prepare for them again, this time with the stakes raised, for the big trophy.  

It did not go well. They were motivated by revenge, we were complacent, perhaps thinking it would be an easy match.  Even professional teams and college-level teams fall into this psychological trap, and we were mere kids; seventh and eighth graders.  NOBODY seemed to show up ready to play that day.  After the game ended- a 3-0 loss, I remember filing off the field, unable to face my teammates, or even my dad.  We all went out for pizza afterwards but it was like eating cardboard; I just had no appetite.  I was absolutely crushed.  I remember playing decently that day, but the whole team just seemed listless, guys were walking back down the field between plays, and the other team was just fired up and hitting on all cylendars. I came home, showed Dad my second-place medal, and hung it dejectedly in my room, where I brooded the rest of that afternoon... like a sullen and defeated seventh grader.

So it was wait till next year mode. The end of soccer season was always a little sad, like the holidays were over; NOW what do I do on Saturdays?  

Next year came, a new team, and this time it was a travelling team that played teams from other towns.  I was in eighth grade then. And right out of the gate, we won our first game 7-0.  Again, it was gonna be a good year.  It was especially fun going to other towns and winning on the road, and feeling like we were defending our home turf, that being the park where we practiced and held our home games on.  We finished 9-1 that year, and I remember a couple really exciting games that year.  The playoff format for that year was more of a typical semi-finals followed by a championship; they abandoned the round-robin tournament format for some reason (and to be honest that never made sense to me anyway.)  

Our playoff game, against a team who we had beaten 5-3 earlier that fall, was just an utter clusterfuck of a fubar from the start.  First of all, they told our team that kickoff would be at 3:30 on a Thursday afternoon, a school day, instead of a Saturday.  For whatever reason.  Except, they bumped up the kickoff time to 3:00- and didn't bother to notify our coaches or parents.  The other team were made aware of it before we were, and were thus, far more prepared and organized while we were just scrambling to get everyone to the field on time.  A lot of us kids who were in private schools didn't even get out of school until 3, so Mom had to grab my uniform, cleats, and shin guards, and take me directly to the game while I changed in the car. Public school kids got out earlier, at 2:30, but even some of those kids were rushed.  But again, because the other team was forewarned about the kickoff time change, they got a chance to warm up before hand.  We did not.  In fact  a few of us (including me) actually missed the first 10 minutes of the game, by which time we were already down 1-0.

We were completely unprepared and disorganized, and it showed.  Worse yet, they had been practicing, and had perfected, this new offensive strategy, some complicated crossing formation with the wings and midfielders, that utterly caught our defense unprepared- that included me.  Their offense was unstoppable, and even if we had been organized and prepared, we probably couldn't have figured it out to stop it in time. They just utterly destroyed us; it was a humiliating blowout. And a bitter end to the season, somehow this ending was even worse than the disappointment in the championship the year before.

That was also the end of my soccer career.  After 8th grade, most kids either went on to play for high school soccer teams, or focused on other high school sports (typically football or basketball.) I chose cross country, as the competition to make the 16 man high school soccer team roster (with typically up to 100 kids trying out) was pretty intense; you pretty had to be all-star caliber to make the cut, and sadly, by my own estimation, I knew I just wasn't quite there.  That's okay though. I liked doing the running thing.  Maybe I'll do a post about that sometime.  

But yet, those five years I played organized youth soccer were among my fonder memories- even the tough playoff losses, though bittersweet, were not without a certain fondness for the whole experience.

So anyway, if you've read this far and managed not to be bored, thanks for letting me share.  I've been dealing with a lot.  I wanted to get something more light-hearted out there to talk about.

All last spring and summer, the house was infested with these stink bugs. If you don't know what these are, they're like Box Elder bugs, except smaller, and they have a brown "X" on their backs.  But even worse, they smell like rotten cucumbers when you squash them.

If that sounds gross and creepy, well, it is.  These things were everywhere.  They would sneak in through tiny cracks in the back windows and the back sliding glass doors, but despite my efforts to seal up the cracks- they'd still get in.  I tried spraying for them outside, around the windows and door.  Didn't work; these things were immune to that particular bug spray.  So I tried laying duck tape, face up, next to the base of the windows and the door.  That... KINDA worked.  As in, it would trap roughly 40-50 percent of the stink bugs that snuck in, and after a couple weeks, the tape would be covered in dead stink bugs.  Fine but... what about the other 50-60 percent?  These would be crawling across the ceiling and windows, hanging out on the house plant, or, just randomly, you'd find one crawling on you, on the book you were reading, or even on your plate of food. ICK!!!  It got so bad that I ended up leaving the vacuum plugged in at all times, and every day, or even every couple hours when I was home, I'd use the hose to vacuum them up. But I always told myself, keep your hopes up, hang in there, because once it's winter, they'll die off; the cold weather will kill them.

It didn't. 

For one thing, it's been a fairly mild winter.  But even when temperatures dipped into the low 20s or upper teens, somehow, these things survived.  Like they are freezer proof or something.  To be fair, I don't get as MANY of them as before, but I still deal with them- I killed six of them yesterday, including one that had jumped onto my hand and was crawling on me, and another one that appeared on the cover of a book I was reading.

House ants and spiders suck, but they usually don't stink when you smash them.  Wasps suck, but they are mainly outdoor pests.  These things, however, are just the fucking WORST.  I have finally broken down and called an exterminator, who will be here in a couple days.  Hopefully that will at least turn the tide of battle.  (And as I write this, what should just buzz by overhead, but another one of those wretched stink bugs.  ARRGH!)

On another note, in a few weeks, I'm not sure when, I'll probably make what will be my last visit to my old childhood home, where I grew up and lived for over 19 years.  Almost every year since then, I've gone out and spent time there for Christmas, and for the last 12 or 13 years, I've visited with mom for a couple weeks every summer and hung out there.  But she's leaving it finally, to move to a smaller assisted living place. I do not disagree with her decision, in fact I probably would have insisted on it myself, sadly, because it's come to that.

In those long years- decades, since I grew up, moved on and lived my adult life, I've seen the old neighborhood slowly fade.  The old neighborhood kids are all gone, and even, in most cases, their families are as well.  A lot of the open spaces we played in are either fenced off now, or developed.  Tall trees now screen out the view of the valley and ranch below where we played as kids, which is too bad, as it was always relaxing to be able to look out over the valley and enjoy the view, which we can no longer do.  The town has changed a lot too, become way more fast-paced and less laid back, with Silicon Valley tech millionaires pushing out the blue collar and middle class professionals like us.  They are about to tear down our shopping mall, and the old high school and K-8 Schools I went to are no longer recognizable.  It feels like everything I knew there is dying or dead, but that's just me- it actually hasn't, so much as, it's just moved on.  Only memories are left now, but I'm grateful for those.

In a way, now I kind of envy the kids whose parents moved around a lot growing up, or who lived in different places. You don't get as attached to places, and don't get those nostalgia vibes like that, so you learn to adapt much easier, and so when it's time, it's easier to let go.  So... I'll go back, pack what's left of my stuff there (mostly stuff like old yearbooks, and old toys like legos and what not, that I'll probably end up donating.) and it will finally be the end.  The last real trip "home."  Even though it hasn't been "home" now, for decades.  But, I can't say I won't be sad to finally let go.  Mostly good memories there, of course over 19 years, it wasn't always sunshine and roses because when you're growing up, things happen.  But one thing should be said- none of the "Bad" memories there ever involved stink bug infestations.

So that's all I got.  Thanks for reading, see ya.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to go backwards in time- not just to re-live your own past, or to witness this or that historic event or era.  But on a more personal level, to go back to the house you grew up in, not only before you were born, but before the house itself even existed.  Before all your memories or your neighborhood, with both it's joys you experienced growing up there, as well as the frustrations, and all the sadness, and the bittersweet experience of seeing the it fade and change.  I most likely won't be seeing that place very many more times.  It hasn't been "Home," really, in decades, even though in dreams, it still is, and I can't help but think of it that way.

But go back a hundred years.  I am standing on a grassy hillside.  Below me, tucked in a small valley (which is not recognizable) is a small farmhouse and I can see the curve of a dirt road beyond that.  That is the only sign of human habitation I can see though.  There are no recognizable landmarks.  The hill above me with the water tank is covered with brush and scrub but no sign of the Australian trees that wouldn't be planted there until the 1950's, when they first punched the road in and terraced off a big section of the hill.  I could be standing where my parents house is, but I cannot tell, since that part of the subdivision wouldn't be built until 1970- 45 years from where I stand. And again, when that happens, the terrain would be dramatically re-sculpted, re-shaped by huge earth movers, and the valley below me unnaturally flattened out, and the cut and filled hillsides made steeper as the newly created roads and flattened lots gash through them. 

But now, there are only bare, wild hills, inter-spaced by groves of old-growth coastal live oaks.  I can somewhat determine where I am by the position of these trees, covering the slopes of the hills.  Yeah, this is probably the spot, or close to it anyway.  Hard to tell though. The flat area where the two streets intersect is simply not there, it's just one big gradual rolling hill slope. I climb up towards a small saddle, traversing a low, gentle ridgeline, and wander into the trees.  There, finally, I see it- the old, sprawling Grandmother Tree, that old spreading oak, covering nearly a half acre, ageless and unchanging. Yes, I know this spot. Generations of kids built platforms and forts on the branches of this tree, and under it.  They haven't done so yet, but perhaps the traces of the native Americans who camped under it, before the settlers, can still be found.  I come across some deer, grazing peacefully nearby, where a small spring emerges from the hillside.  They do not see me. I hear rustling in the distance and spot a coyote, perhaps stalking the deer.  Quail dart into the brush, a large redtail hawk soars overhead.  I sigh, a ghost on the wind, a ghost from the future drifting through the distant past, invisible and formless, yet feeling like one with the earth.  There are no houses, no roads, no people, save the small farmhouse I spotted back down in the valley somewhere behind me. I half wonder who lives there, and what they would think of the future, when their homesite becomes a vast bulldozer excavation site, and later, an unnaturally flat valley with houses looking down on it.

A landscape that is perfect, nearly untouched, wild, primitive.  Long before progress, before the peace, turmoil, joys and sadness that came to be when my house- Mom's house- and someone else's house not too long from now- stood there.

I didn't want to make this post whiny or cringe.  But... Today I began to envision just letting go of my troubles, and letting my Domme take control. Let Her be the focus of my energy, wants, fears, and desires. Just surrender it all, mind and body, all to Her. Let Her spank me, abuse me, degrade me, and let Her whip all my cares out of me, so there would only be Her.  But that's not very constructive, is it.  I do not know any female friends who are close enough or intimate enough to take this responsibility.  And if I did- lets face it, they wouldn't be close or intimate anymore, as they would probably dump me like a hot potato.  Instead, I'll go back to that place in my mind, a hundred years ago, enjoying the warm, grassy Bay Area hills, with their shady spreading oaks, untouched by the greed of developers, or the ambitions, joys, or sorrows of man.

Mom is out of the hospital and into a rehab clinic.  I was able to talk to her and she's sounding both mentally and physically tired, but in good spirits and they doctors say that she is making remarkable progress. 

I know intellectually that nobody lasts forever.  I try not thinking about it. I've taken it for granted that she will always be there, dispensing motherly advice, someone to share both joys and sorrows with. I always enjoy letting her know what I've been up to, what I've been doing, and the ins and outs of my romantic life and more casual social life. If she's not there, some day she won't be- I don't have many other people with that kind of relationship.

Sometimes, people who have not had many hardships growing up, can end up as selfish or entitled, or just not as resilient when bad things happen.  Others grow up, maybe children of divorce, with dysfunctional families, or struggling with poverty, or they may move around a lot, and live in a dozen places by the time they're 18.  While some of them have issues later in life, many of them are adaptable, hardy, resourceful and resilient from having to grow up fast.  I guess I was lucky, having lived in the same house until I was 18, and I was always able to go back and visit there. I was grateful for that.  It was like re-charging and reconnecting.  I don't know how many more times I'll be able to.  I was"Lucky" in that way, but maybe if my life had been more chaotic when I was young, maybe I would have been able to build up those walls, had more emotional stoicism, and been more resourceful and independent.  I was, quite honestly, kind of a punk when I was in my late teens/early 20s. I regret all of that now.  Another kid I knew, he was basically an emancipated minor at age 12, with his own apartment, and a father who would stop by, take him out to dinner, and be like "You need anything?  Here's two hundred bucks for food and clothes."  All the kids admired this guy because he always walked around with a ton of money and never had parental supervision.  The grass is always greener I guess.  He found his family, sense of belonging, and his moral compass all at the same time, when he joined the Marines. They gave him all that there. I always thought that was pretty cool. It's tough and brutal but man, they TEACH you stuff, and it's a brotherhood of honor and discipline.

Enough rambling.  I was able to get out and take a walk in the hills today. The sky shone blue for the first time in literally two weeks, though it was bitterly cold and windy, it felt good to tromp around in the Owyhee foothills.  Cleared my head, allowed me to really think about things.

Sometimes in dark times, you can look back at all the good times and be grateful. Be thankful you were able to experience such times, such simple joys, or such peace.  Thankful for the people who were there for you, who listened to you, who were your rock of strength.  Friends, and especially, family.  And thankful for all the fun times you were able to have for so long. 

Everything ends, I suppose. 

At least the good times were there, to remember and look back on, and be grateful for.

This week has been a blur.  I won't share my family troubles on an erotic-themed message board, but I've been sad, anxious, depressed, and lonely with nobody to really share it with.  Nobody to talk to or commiserate with.  I don't like emotionally dumping on my friends, and I apologize if that's what I seem to be doing here. Don't get me wrong, you people on this site are awesome, but I don't really know any of you in person.  And every day, it's been literally endless, foggy, grey skies, an unchanging thirty two degrees farenheit every day, like it so often is in this town in January. That doesnt help.

So, speaking of grateful, I was never a particularly big fan of the Grateful Dead.  I had tons of college buddies who were though, and I was subjected to countless hours of their music. Though at the time I thought most of it was, frankly, pretty boring, I find that SOME of it- not all of it but SOME of it, has kind of grown on me where, if nothing else, I can listen to it and it will bring back some happy nostalgia for those days.  Good times with fun friends when I was young.  But everything ends, I suppose.

The band's co-founding member passed away a couple weeks ago.  I believe that out of the six original members, only the drummer and the xylophone/percussionist are still left.  Even if you disliked everything the Dead ever recorded, you can still at least be thankful that their music brought so many people so much joy for so long.

In dark times...

All I can do is pray for sunshine daydreams.

I'll just leave you with this.  Next post will be more upbeat. I hope.

This will, I promise, NOT be just another generic New Years Resolution posts.  Not that I don't HAVE New Years Resolutions but.... those are boring, and you've probably heard it all before anyway.

I was out in California for New Years, visiting family. New Year's Eve routine:  Drink Champagne, watch the proceedings on TV to see how drunk Anderson Cooper gets (and place bets on whether he is actually still able to stand by midnight. This year he was, so I won.) Listen to boring washed up pop stars try to re-kindle their careers.  And so on.  Meanwhile it was pouring rain in California, much like it had been every day for the whole week I was there.

So the next day, New Years Day, I decided to take a walk in the redwoods.  If you've never taken a walk in a redwood forest after days and days of rain and fog, it's a surreal experience.  As I walked, the sky was dark and it alternated between fog and drizzle.  The forest, which even in the summer is generally fairly dark under impossibly tall trees, began to resemble how I picture Tolkien's Mirkwood.  It was almost eerie; you really could imagine Bigfoogs (or Bigfeet if you prefer), giant spiders, and all sorts of mythical and somewhat hostile monsters running around.  There were a few squirrels and presumably deer, though I didn't see the deer this time.  Nor did I see very many people.  Maybe they were either as hung over as Anderson Cooper, or maybe the prospect of hiking through a dark, gloomy forest wasn't their favorite idea of how to spend New Years Day, but it was mine. 

Even without bigfeet and other such creatures, the forest seemed to have a mystic power that was indescribable.  I felt more alive, more aroused somehow, hiking through it.  Streams flowed fast and full at nearly every bend in the trail. Mushrooms of all descriptions (with the exception of "Edible") popped up everywhere, bracketing the trees, popping up through the leaf-covered forest floor. The fog created an almost spectral gloom, and water dripped off the tree branches and leaves. Here and there, downed trees across the trail provided new obstacles to overcome.  It was primal, eternal, life giving and beautifully compelling.  I've been in that forest in the summer, when it's cool and refreshing but it's not even close to the same. It just feels so much more alive in the rainy, damp winters.

Anyway, now I'm out of the woods and back to reality.  Happy New Year to all you kinksters!

Obligatory Christmas post.  Made it through a dreary November, had a great Thanksgiving break, and now it's on to the holiday fun and getting into the Christmas spirit!

So with that... A lot of kids at one point, see some scary movie that traumatizes them in some way.  Usually it's some kind of slasher film or monster flick, but those never had that effect on me really; they just seemed cartoonish and predictable to me.  The one movie that did it for me, traumatized me and sent me spiraling into an existential crisis at the age of 7 was... the 1970 movie version of Dickens' classic "A Christmas Carol."  So, what was so scary about that?

Up till then, most of the Christmas shows I had seen had been happy, cartoony, fun shows like "A Charlie Brown Christmas," of "Frosty the Snowman" or that old classic: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, with such memorable characters as Yukon Cornelius, the Misfit Toys, and the Snow Bumble.  Most of you guys probably saw these when you were little, and I think they still show that old "Rudolph" one now and again, for a nostalgia trip.  At this time, I was really into "Star Wars" and got my monster fix from English-dubbed broadcasts of the Japanese classic "Ultra Man." 

But here was a film about a bitter, greedy old man, featuring his ghostly dead partner, two more Christmas ghosts, two starveling kids ("Want and Ignorance") and finally... The Grim Reaper.  No happy clay-mation reindeer, dancing snowmen, or Santa Claus here.  This was some seriously dark stuff to an 7 year old waiting for, and perhaps quickly outgrowing, Santa.  I'm assuming most of you are familiar with the basic story line.  Anyway, most stage adaptations end with the scene in the cemetery, with the Grim Reaper, representing the "Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come" pointing to an open grave with Scrooge's name inscribed on the headstone. At which time, he wakes up, mends his ways, and becomes a changed man.  However, in the film version I saw, it goes further than that. In this version, the Grim Reaper actually shoves Scrooge into the open grave, and you get to watch him descend into Hell.  Once in Hell, these demonic skeleton looking things seize him, and chain him to a post in an ice-cold cell for all eternity.  (After which, he wakes up, mends his ways, etc.)

Well, all this was pretty freaky to my kid brain.  I don't know why, but that had a huge effect on the little kid version of me.  Obviously I'm sure that was the intent; don't grow up to be that cranky, bitter callous old guy, and what not, but it had me really thinking about life, death, hell, eternity, and other things most 7 year olds don't really think about.  I did resolve though, to try to be a gracious and giving person and NOT fall into the trap of becoming old, amoral, cranky, bitter and callous, and hopefully I've succeeded.  On that note,this past weekend I managed to finish up my Christmas shopping early.  I've found as an adult, it's actually more fun to give people cool stuff, and hook them up with things that really make them happy, than it is to receive things, because the things that I want, are not the material things that you can buy.

"You're going to be late for school..." Mom says.  It's a quarter till 8.  I'm frantically getting dressed, and we head out the door.  Sometimes I'm driving my own car, but often Mom or Dad is driving us.  And on the way there, I'm thinking to myself, why do I have to do this all over again?  How long has it been now, 20 years, 30?  Do I really WANT to do this over again?  NO! What were the chain of misfortunes that led me to this?  They screwed up and lost the records, lost the transcripts, and/or my diploma was invalidated. It turns out I needed more credits after all. Or, I need more vocational training but need to go back and re-enroll to get it.  Or, some clerical error.  Or, who knows; Mom and Dad are making me do this just to get me out of the house. 

But it's always the same.  Go back...and repeat...my senior year... of high school.  

Sometimes, if I'm driving myself, I'll get part way there and realize, hey, it WAS 20,30 years ago, I've been done with that place for the last 30 years, there is no reason to go back, and so no; I really DONT need to do this.  I'll just head to the beach, head to the mountains, go shopping, maybe look for a real job. But other times, I make it there, get my class schedule, sit through first period, second period, third... and sometimes it's the current crop of kids, the kids of the 90's, 2000s, or whatever the current year is.  A true fresh start.  But sometimes it's the same snooty, mean-spirited and unlikeable assholes I remember back then.  The belligerent, racist kid who always picked fights with everyone.  That snarky lil' napolian type guy who always talked smack and ran away (or hid behind his bigger, tougher buddies) when confronted. The snooty kids with their fake, condescending, poke-a-stick-at-the-monkey, pretending to be nice while still mocking you, kind of interactions.  These were kids whose parents bought them cars for their 16th birthdays- girls usually got a VW convertible, guys got a sporty car- and who would go off on weekends up to their family ski cabin in Tahoe to party.  I was, needless to say, never invited to those Tahoe ski cabin parties, (My parents certainly did not own any such property) and I eventually bought my own car with my own money- which I had earned after a summer of working at my first job.

These were not good times.  I never really felt like I found my tribe there. I was young, maybe a bit socially awkward and isolated, until I ended up bonding with this group of alternative school kids I had met from my first job. These were the down-to-earth, genuine, interesting people I had never managed to find at the regular school. I was envious of them, I wanted to drop out and go to the alternative school, but my parents wouldn't let me. "They don't have good college prep or AP (advanced placement)  courses there," they said. But at least, meeting those guys was my saving grace.  And of course, afterwards, college was all the fun, socializing, personal growth, and friendships that I had missed out on in high school.

So then why don't I have more dreams about the FUN times in college? Maybe a part of me thinks, that somehow if I COULD do those high school years over, having the insights, wisdom, and experience that I have now, it would turn out better. I would be the cool, confident guy instead of the clueless socially awkward one.  But not only does it "not work that way" but even if I could- even if I was different- there would be no guarantee that  the same snooty, condescending people would not have changed, and that I still would have to deal with the same BS.  I might be better at coping with the BS, but that wouldn't guarantee it wouldn't still be there.

In any case, I don't want to go back. The past is dead and buried, I'm happy with my life now, and hopefully I'll dream something more pleasant tonight.  Anyway, thanks for reading. 

Oh. and PS:  The bot who was messaging me the other day, "Mistress Blout...." Well, as of yesterday evening, "Profile Does Not Exist."  I am frankly not surprised.  I do want to take the time here, to thank Villanelle and the staff for doing all they can at keeping these bots from cluttering up the site.