Marking Our New Territory With Drunken Stumbles

Let me cut to the chase now: I got wasted as fuck last night and it was soooo good.

 Fittingly, last night marked the end of my training and the eve of the true start of me as a worker bee at this establishment. Not only was I about to enter the ranks of routine, but we, "The Fab Four" were disbanding, and after yesterday we were no longer required to be up each others asses everyday as the FNGs (Fucking New Guys. Yea, they really say that here.). We were warned that our first steps alone in this world without each others hand to hold was going to be like that first day of junior high in that episode of Boy Meets World where Cory and Shawn don't realize until school begins to take place at an alarming rate around them that they no longer have every class together. It was said that we would scramble to find each other as we lost our footing, thinking we couldn't handle life without our fellow new hire buddies to surround us, but that eventually life would pick up and maybe we wouldn't even miss each other.

Bah. We had an easy way to deal with all that. At the end of our training the 4 of us just went out to this big surf party on top of a club and got so stinkin' shitty drunk, in that bonding-buddy-forever kind of way, and constructed enough moments of hilarity we were nearly required to find each other for recall the next morning. Despite the fact that we were no longer in each others spaces, we had a blast last night that forced us to seek each other out, laugh and retell our stories to the point of avoiding having to miss each other at all. And let me just say that getting me to remember all of last nights events was a group effort that took all day. 

Its silly to talk about the possibility of missing your friends when you all live on the same 2 floors of a hotel, but it is absolutely the reality that if you don't find reasons to see each other you may go days before re-running into your favorite clubmate/mates, unless you attach to each other at the hip bf style. Which is sort of what we do. Now. 

Day one on our own and we are already up each others asses again, spreading gossip, talking shit, laughing our heads off about the nights events and just overall loving life. The "Fab Four" (our boss came up with it not us) has been here for two weeks now and something is starting to click, we are getting enveloped into the pace of life at this place and to the pace of each other. I've gone out drinking a few times since I have been here, but last night was by far the first time that felt familiar, like I knew the pathway home, or at the very least, the path to the nearest Fujiichiban at 2 am. What makes home? Knowing where the drunk-folk food is at? Maybe. I mean, this is only temporary home, I still have home in the Northwest waiting for me, which is home in the bigger scheme.

But this for-now set up is gaining all the familiarity and warmth of a place that I want to be, and it probably isn't because of a late night noodle place or free drinks at the bar. I think it is because of a dose of karma that I am receiving on credit that led me to this fabulous set of ladies that make up some kind of cracked-out-coconut-style Sex and the City....Although, with the statuses between the  4 of us equaling zero sex for various reasons of perpetual singleness or the practice of that gross word "monogamy," a better suited title for the story of the 4 of us might be "Masturbation and Micronesia." 

I'll let you know when we buy the rights.

A little angst

Some days I don't miss it, I could be so busy that my body doesn't have the energy to yearn for that particular sweet pleasure. I am also doing an ok job of training myself to not think about first thing every morning, to wish for it before bed in all its hedonistic delight, and to forget about the sneaky excitement when it is done in the afternoon. Uhhhhh- right, not thinking about it. But sometimes, or maybe more honestly, often times, the power of desire is all consuming and my faculties are overwhelmed with a vicious need to get stoned. 

Substitute fucked for stoned and I feel pretty much the same way, but as of yet, I am not totally there with blogging about what I miss about sex. In reality I could write twice as much about that, but for now on that subject, I am leaving my intense sexual angst to swirl around on the inside, left to manifest in the few precious little moments that are handed down by god when my roommate stays at her boyfriends house, or when i am off for the afternoon and she is nowhere to be found....I will side track to say that the free nature of clubmates moving from room to room with doors typically remaining unlocked leaves for a slightly stressful session of angst relieving, and that- no no, I was talking about pot, not this.....

As far as my friend Marijuana goes, the yearning is not of the addicted smoker kind, because I was one of those in high school and the kind of addiction that comes from smoking cigarettes is a beast of its own. I read in some Legalize Marijuana literature that pot is about as addictive as caffeine, and my biased opinion is to agree. The careful balance of necessity and delight that exists with my morning cups of coffee is on par with how I feel about an evening bowl: they may not be basic essentials, but life is only better and more relaxing upon their inclusion. Not only to I love pot, but I work a job that nearly requires a weed unwind after a shift, and live on an island in an atmosphere that supports imbibing of the Bob Marley persuasion. The big drawback is the drug testing and the still mysteriously unmentioned results of mine. The consensus is that they are going to stay mum about the results of my test until I pull something that requires some extra ammo for them to get rid of me; basically, if they keep liking me I'm in the clear, but what that probably means is that I should stay damn careful about smoking for the duration of my contract.

So I'm fucked, and not in the good way. I mean sure, I could use break from pot, my intake during my first post college year probably accounted for more smoke in my lungs than all of college put together, but it also accounted for the biggest mellowing out my intense personality has ever made it through. Thank you ganj', and now it is gone. I recognize that there are bigger problems in the world than whether this girl gets to get high at any old time of the day, but it points to something more significant that I had a feeling would happen after being here for a little bit, and that is missing home. I miss Seattle already. I miss an evening with my friends, I miss sitting on a couch and lighting up a bowl and then getting lost in wherever your mind goes in that stoned little space you created until the night is over. Ah man, I miss everything smelling and sounding and tasting so good, and o fuck FEELING so good. Touch IS the best one, and right it is still good without M.J., but o shit isn't it rad with it? Ok, maybe I'm rambling a little here, and maybe I am crossing my physical pleasures a bit too much for the time, but man o man. 

Learning experience. Learning experience. Learning experience.

Dressing Like A Lady, and Everything Else That I Suck At

In situations that you partake in "for the experience" (and good lord am I tired of that phrase) the selfish westerner often reflects on the breadth of experiences around them in terms of what they learned about themselves. That, for better or worse is true of the experience that I am having right now, and the positive or negative nature of that self reflection vacillates everyday. The other night, for example, I was singing my own praises after cracking up a group of 4 on the 2nd floor for hours talking about my childhood as a Catholic, coming out to my family and reenacting the particularly heinous nuances of other clubmates and so forth. On the next day I felt worthless and stupid realizing that I don't know how to dress myself- like, at all, and suddenly the 9th cloud that I was floating on the night before was deflated and uninteresting. 

Admitting that I have zero body of knowledge when it comes to dressing like a girl has little to do with being gay, and more, I think, to do with pure laziness and a lack of visual creativity. I am also from Seattle, where the name of fashion is function, and it is appropriate to spend all night in a bar still wearing your cycling shoes. I have never been particularly over-the-top feminine, petite, cute, soft, or whatever other adjectives you might apply to dressy-tanks and short-shorts wearing girls, which I have been able to shrug off previously; and the type of self-learning that I expected to do here was not of this nature. But that is the learning part I suppose: expect the unexpected and laugh at yourself with your big revelation is just that you are a sucky dresser. 

I learned this due to the evening dress code here, that basically allows guys to dress more casually than women, and I had a mini freak out thinking that I wouldn't be allowed to dress as as casually as the boys. An emergency KMart trip, a borrowed strapless bra, and some overall female backstage support helped me get through my first couple of uncomfortable dress up nights here, but I have been living in a constant state of fear that I will run out of anything acceptable to wear. It is already getting better as I watch all the local lesbians stake claim over their long shorts, their pressed collared shirts, and their stud diamond earrings. Granted, locals hires walk around here with more ownership and leeway than off island hires, but if these ladies can rock the boy dress code, than I think that I can too. I'm loosening up a little and realizing I don't have to look uber femme to look presentably for dinner. 

But more learning comes in here, because as it turns out, even as far as presentable dyke attire goes I'm still pretty out in left field. Everything that I own contains a layer of permanent sweat, rain and grime from Seattle living, and all of the nice clothes I could have afforded this summer were washed down by $5 pints of beer, which left me a little too hippy for some of my acceptable nicer shirts. I wear the same two pairs of shorts from Target nearly every day, and my favorite t shirts number in the count-on-one-hand category. Like I said, it isn't about being gay, its about being a bad dresser, which is why I freaked and bought some lady clothes, because I don't have any of my usual community here to say yay or nay to boy-cut dress shirts and belts that go with large pairs of plaid pants. 

So I suck. Ok. Maybe I will learn and I wont suck when I come back, but that's probably a stretch, and I'm ok with it. I am figuring out though, the truth in things that I didn't believe in before: that there are occasions which rightfully call for a presentable appearance, that jewelry is not always superfluous and wasteful spending (although beer might be), that shoes do make an outfit, and that blow dryers are necessary, even in Micronesia.

 I'm working a job where I get to be a kid all day but I'm still learning to tweak all these little things to make me more adult, or at least cleaned up enough to look like one. 

O yea, other things I suck at....Or do too much

1. Talking shit. I can't stop. New places, new gossip, new conflicts- it is never ending. 

2. Eating. My relationship to my hips is always going to be a struggle.

3. Calling/Writing people back. Some of this isn't my fault, I really don't have time to do anything.

4. Reading the fine print (see last entry). 

5. Going to bed early.

6. Taking the time to write things down. There is just so much, and so little time.

7. Saving money. I left broke, and I will return broke. 

Stoner Tales

Even though I left Seattle on Tuesday afternoon and it is now Thursday evening, I haven't even been in Guam for 24 hours. I am damn exhausted....So much learning and listening today, including the hard reality that in Guam the guy Clubmates always lose weight and the girls gain it--well there goes my plan of losing 9 mo. of beer weight with 6 mo. of island living. Although, based on an unofficial pact, I have to stick to my commitment to lose the half rack hanging out on my hips like an unwanted crying child. I shall prevail.

We drove out (new clubmates and our assigned training leader) in the back of a PIC owned Toyota Tacoma (and yes I mean in the back, this isn't Washington) to Gun Beach to watch the sunset. I will spare this blog the boring details of beautiful soft sand and a slowly fading sun, because yea yea, that is the same anywhere. But I will say that I enjoyed it as much as possible and kicked myself for not bringing my camera, since my stay in Guam is contingent on my passing a drug test, and in this test a positive answer is not a good one. 

O yea, that's right, I took a piss test this morning, less than 48 hours after getting stoned with my regular party of imbibers after drinking away my last night in town. Surprise? Nope, it was in my contract, I just can't read anything longer than a page apparently. I am having a hard time deciding if they are actually going to fire me- one guy fromm Saipan was given a retest, and I keep hearing mixed reviews on how hard line the drug policy is. I'm thinking, it really comes down to whether they like you and how much they need you. Unfortunately for me, September is the slowest month of the year, so I might be quite disposable. 

I can't even guess what is about to happen. Of course, I drank enough water to piss h2o and rehydrate Mars to support the point of supporting life again, but does that really dilute the TCH that is SEETHING through my body? hmmm. Well, I'm either going to remember this as my first-night-freak out, or I'll be looking for a new job, bumming a couch with my brother's friends, and returning in a month or so. Right now I don't care which, because at this point I have no more control of the outcome, I'm just rolling with the punches. I'm learning that I come out alright if I take that course of action. 

Blinded By the bubbles: A microbrew addiction

Alcoholism, a sad an destructive disease when out of control, is thought presently to exist in individuals due to a predisposition. Yet no one can really argue that societal and familial circumstances such as: a lack of economic success, disillusionment through war, bad domestic and foreign policy, a downwardly mobile society, a lack of personal autonomy and freedoms, personal loss, and a general sense of doom probably don't help ease a society or individual from the escape of alcoholism. 

We grow up living with the cliches that surround "admitting is the first step" and staying "clean and sober," knowing about an alcoholics reality, but as members of the educated, liberal classes, the thought that our microbrews have a hand in our own personal over consumption, never stretches to anything more serious than how fat these hefty meals-in-a-pint are going to make us. Yep, we love out microbrews- I was ushered into that snobby culture at 17, when beer was previously $2 for 40 ounces and a shoulder tap away.  Pre 17, and good beer was judged not on its flavor but on its alcohol content, and something as strong as Steel Reserves was as classy as it got, because damn it got you drunk fast. All it took was one visit to a UW college house for a night of drinking at the beginning of my senior year, when those cultured-college-folk shook a pitying head at my reach for, what was it, maybe a half rack of Coors Light? A shadow of confusion on my part and then Duncan, the crusading liberator of my beer-quality-ignorance, simply pointed to that other QFC beer section, the shelf full of 22 and 24 ounce bottles of pure, bitter, microbrew goodness. In quantity you would never have called me an alcoholic, 1 or 2 of those powerful brews was all I ever needed, but a habit was formed that would be fostered by the 4 following years of tasting and falling for every amber, blond, ipa and pale ale that found itself in my reach.

 To that love of microbrews, and the deeply entrenched urban-liberal practice it is to indulge in those local treasures, add the drinking culture that surrounds any sports played beyond high school or college (hello..."my drinking team has a rugby problem????") and before you know it, one would never think that drinking 7 days a week, polishing off a 6 pack of Dead Guy with dinner, making plans to drink at 11 and lasting until the evening, spending money on beer instead of shoes, calling a hangover a regular Sunday morning, or Monday, or Tues..., is anything short of the absolute norm. 

Am I driving at the point that I am an alcoholic? No, not necessarily. Am I one of the heavier drinkers in my little world, quick to the bar counter, the pitcher, the group shots, the second, third and fourth helpings of beer, poured with a steadily trained hand to avoid too much head? Yes, yes I am. Have a been able to count a day where alcohol did not enter my system this summer or even this year? No. Is a night off still a night that included 2 or 3 shared 22 ounces of beer indulgence with dinner? Yes. 

It is a lot, and last night, a wall was hit. It wasn't just me that hit the wall, but also the company I found myself with at the K&K, a bar I've called home since I was sneaking in to pretend I knew about Stella, Hoegaarden, and Smithwicks at 19. The pithy beach scene they had set up inside was a stark and dismal contrast to the August rain outside, and all I could think was that it was a terrible joke to pretend that we were somewhere warm. Depressing. The three of us, over beers we couldn't drink (myself finally succumbing to just water), sank lower and lower toward the glasses that we couldn't finish, tired of the weather, tired of the bar, tired of drinking.  

We left the bar contemplating what we began to think was the reduction of our existence: a bottle, a pint, and memories that grew foggier with each sip. I don't know if any of us explicitly felt that we might call this a "problem," but if 1 or all of us was thinking it, no one was going to say it out loud. "The first step is admitting that you have a problem." In the state of self pity and passing depression that the 3 of us found ourselves in, and the inevitable rugby playing (or softball in 1/3 of our little party) and bar attending years of our 20s that we each had left to weigh our heavy moods against, no one would verbalize the word "problem." 

We walked home and talked about the weather.

In Dreams

I slept poorly last night, possibly a result of too much drinking and fried food, which has been a regular sleep-disrupting pattern of mine of late. I also had a horrendous headache, which may or may not have been drinking induced, but it kept me weaving in and out of consciousness through the sleeping hours and as a result, I woke after every snippet of a dream allowing myself to remember last nights dreams much more vividly than a typical seemingly dreamless slumber.

I dreamt about Samuel in a new way last night, and there was something so prophetic about the dream, it is hard to remind myself that dreams are a very rational, explainable set of images that randomly course through my living brain as a result of my subconscious. What mean is: does it always HAVE to be “just a dream?” Normally, I dream that Sam has come back, that he looks exactly as he did when he passed away, and that we all know he hasn’t come to stay- that he is about to have a brain hemorrhage again. Possibly the way anyone who has been through something traumatic dreams constantly of the trauma, I dream that I am constantly on the verge of re losing my precious brother.

In this dream there was Samuel not Sam- maybe a 6 or 7-year-old boy with the blondest of blond bed head, a little yellow pajama outfit, and sleep and pillow marks written all over his sweet young face. He was a beautiful, golden boy, and nothing could have made my heart swell more than to see him, except that he was sick. His body looked weak.

Beneath his left eye were the red dots that he came out of the hospital with when he had his first brain hemorrhage, and his eyes were tired and heavy. Sam was always the one that we worried about the most: the most close calls, the most emergencies, and here he was, visibly sick. At the same time that my heart was singing to see him there, it also hung heavy with dread.

My baby brother.

Unable to understand why he came to me, to us, at this age, and unable to know how long I had with his sick body, I threw myself into the moment, into the chance to hold him and love him as hard as I could make my body love; I embraced him, pulled him into my arms and held as if there had always been this many years between us, as it appeared there was now, and as if this was how I had always held my baby brother.

I just held my brother.

This child version of his body rested so peacefully into me, like the only thing he could have come back for was to lie in my arms. In his restful state he looked serene and I smelled his young hair and touched delicate, yet already long and slim fingers. As I held him I knew that there was no way he could or would stay, and I sensed, from the initial knowing look and tiny smirk that he gave me, that Sam not only knew he couldn’t stay, but knew some bigger secret. I could feel his frail body getting weaker and sicker by the minute, even in the peace and comfort of my embrace. Before I knew it, I was holding Samuel, a baby, in my arms, and Samuel the little boy was gone. As a dawning of understanding began to take hold of me in my dream, I rushed to talk to him, to hear him talk back to me, before he couldn’t anymore.

“Samuel I love you. I understand that you will always be near me, I know that you are always here. Please brother, talk to me when you are there, because I miss you so much every minute of every day….Tell me how to keep you close to me…..”

No longer a developed enough body to speak, I was still able to feel and understand his messages to me…..He was fine. Life is circular. He had to come back like this, but he couldn’t come back for good. Yes, sometimes it was scary for him too, but really, he was close by and good. Everything around him was good. He didn’t know what happened next anymore than the rest of us, but he was sure it was working out…..He had faith….

Most of his words and love I could feel rushing through me, messages of comfort, strength and love that I was awed to receive from my little brother, who in the end became my teacher.

As my brother aged further in reverse I began crying, and as tears fell from my face to my hands, the baby was gone and all that was left were stars, the earliest glimmers in a parent’s heart for a child they would one day love: Samuel. The tiny stars danced on my palms, some were bright with light, some like humble, strong little starfish, and I couldn’t tell whether their universal origins were from the sky or the sea- maybe both.

I held my brother and his most beautiful spirit in my hands.

“I understand Sam!” I sobbed to him, resisting the urge to hold onto him harder. “It is circular. No beginning or end. You are always here, always you. Like seasons. Like the rotation of the globe, always renewing……I don’t know if I will see you again in the seasons of this world starting over, or if it will be when I go to where you are… But Samuel, I will know you. I will know you the moment I see you again, because I know you now in my hands…You are my brother, there could never be a place or time in this universe where I will not know you immediately. You can go now brother, because I will know you again when I see you.”

Sam’s words. Not mine. I was able to understand them because the patient and generous spirit that I held let me. He could leave me now and I could let him, because I would and will know him when I meet him again, and even now, he’s just not-so-far-away.

They tease me now, telling me it was only a dream. But does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the truth? ----Dostoevsky

Coherent? Bah, I doubt it

My first incentive for starting a blog came from gay stuff- I like gay stuff, and I like to write about it. Prompted by a couple of friends that believe in me, probably more than I deserve, I dreamt of a place to write down the ever-entertaining turmoil of my delightful, mostly-dyke posse, from the couples who are hanging up their hats, to the singles taking off their pants. It is like free brain stimulation of the most egregiously WRONG kind for me: watching my friend's lives at work and stealing it all for a petty blog. 

 

But damn so much fun. 

Think of where it could all go, the bounty is astounding really. My first thought was to try, likely pitifully, to describe the lesbian aversion to labels, and to comment on the fact that our staunch "non-labels" more deeply engrain us with those forbidden labels, rules, and roles for one another. In THAT blog would contain some kind of example of a conversation, a "non promise" conversation, where two dykes feel each other out for their future compatibility, always referring to their future, imaginary children/careers/dogs/pairs of keens as the "ifs and when" and in "I know I wont be ready for years, BUT-" terms. Sneaking sideways glances at one another they would each emit a series of examples of what they want, thrown out into space side-by-side, and tested for durability against the other's dreams. No labels, no promises, just a conversation that will be read into by both women as a marker, and which will mean the world and be the plan for the duration of the relationship, and carrying even greater emotional significance at the onset of the break up. Maybe that isn't just lesbians, maybe that is just relationships in general, although my thought is that due to the intensity of our domesticate-plan-domesticate-plan-organize-settle-domesticate-talk-it-out-plan-organize-settle-socialization, this conversation between two women often becomes a beast of its own....Ok so that was the start of one idea....

Then, despite all my plans, in true lazy-assed-Kaisa form, I totally forgot or neglected to get with the program. Many, many ideas that seemed great while I was stoned, made their way into my waterproof notebook, but have yet to materialize into the essays that I dream for them to be. Finishing a writing project in general has recently seemed a hopeful endeavor. That was, until this god damn one-year marker of my beautiful brother's passing, where suddenly all that fucking angst and sadness is bubbling up inside me, and I'm stuck in this privacy-less hell called 9007 NE 58th st., desperately seeking an outlet. Hence, the blog. So maybe it will be some gay stuff, and some brother stuff, maybe some travel stuff, the occasional rant...ok, so the everyday rant....it's hard to say. In any case, I feel like my brain is cranking in all these different chambers, with 10,000 thoughts and perspectives that my undiagnosed adult add can't sort out. 

Maybe a blog can to it for me.