Not Exactly

Several years ago, I rented a bedroom in a three-bedroom house near Ocean Beach with Albert, Michael, and Michael's husband, Paul.  When Paul took ill (his dying was relatively quick), I helped out as best I could, though I was under no obligation to.  I didn't do it well.  I was still a bit of a drunk party monster in his 20s, and would frequently hide in my room when not needed, getting tight and blowing clouds.


It wasn't exactly an improvement over caring for my Alzheimer's-afflicted grandmother when I was a teenager.  Then, I was pretty much the perfect little saint.  I never once lost patience with her or broke down, and mine was the name she never forgot.


I have been called good and all sorts of wonderful things besides.  But what stick out are the failures.


No matter how many blind men I've helped across the street, or spilled paraplegics I've helped get back into their chairs, or bleeding victims I've waved down a squad car for, I'll always think of the failures, like my inability to be the best caregiver for Paul.


Or like the man lying down at Turk and Taylor two days ago, his walker by his side.  Should I have stopped?  I didn't, as though I were like anyone else who would pass suffering by without a thought...

Election Day

Is coming up.  I always treat it like my own little holiday:  I get dressed to the nines, go to the polls with my researched crib sheet, turn in my ballot, put my little red sticker on, and go out on the town for drinks and dinner afterwards.

I wish everybody took their obligations to their country as "seriously."

Samadhi

It is Spring.  A monk stares at an apple tree for hours.  He stares until he has become a blossom, and the myriad blossoms on the tree have become the faces of a myriad Buddhas, each smiling silently as pink-white petals fall from their mouths.

Mother's Day

Let me tell you how wonderful my mother is.  Back when I was about four or five years old, I contracted the mumps.  What did she do?  After having spent the entire day at work, she came home and found me in this state.  So she spent the whole night up with my head on her lap.  The pain was so great, I couldn't even properly cry.  By the next morning (after she'd spent the whole night up), I could cry, and she went back to work for a whole other day of working her ass off to help my brother and I survive.

That's my mom.

Every Day

Seems like a test of every value I hold dear, every value without which I would happily die.  Reverence, humility, compassion, wisdom, respect, honesty, piety, disobedience to our vested authorities -- all of these feel weighed and their worth now decided on by those capable of positing pure mockeries of them.  My soul is being hammered at by the soulless, and one day it might crack.  I may be sanctimonious and naive, but my life refuses to be reduced to a simple formula for easy digestion by a factotum I've never met and has absolute control over my life or death.  It's been a daunting few years, to say the least.

What can I say?  You have to put a bullet in me to stop me from believing in the things that make life worth living.

Browsing With Cops

It took me a while to get it, but I finally did.  I mean, that's a rare one indeed who didn't grow up playing in the dirt like the rest of us.  You've got to wonder, who could fit that profile?  Do they even shit like a normal person?  Did they ever fight with their parents when they were kids?  What were they like on the school yard?


A librarian once told me, when I was surprised he couldn't give me a fact off the cuff (I though librarians were smart) -- he told me, "I don't know everything, but I know how to find anything out.  That's what librarians are for."  So I go to the library, for their wi-fi and a place to work that isn't my shitty apartment and isn't a precinct full of assholes (God bless 'em.)  Sure, the library's populated with ragamuffin scumbags whose socks stink up the place, but I have respect for the institution.


One dude is checking me out, all hateful, so I sit across from him.  Make sure to open my jacket so he sees my badge and holster.  Yeah, you made me.  So?  I'll ask you for your ID if I give a fuck about your priors.  The feeling's mutual, you know?


I open my Dell laptop and stare for a minute at the screen.  I click on Chrome, and it opens up to Google.  Now here's my problem:  the Internet has my answer, if I can just come up with right question...


Now, I'm looking for a pretty godawful piece of work.  If we had to judge, here's our scale:  the worst person in the world is God himself (we've seen what shitheads angels can be, right?), and the best person in the world is my wife.  Our perp is on one of the lower rungs.  Probably has a deep-seated fear that he is not in fact God, and he wants to be...

The Old Man

Death is of greatest consequence to those who cause it.  For them, it is a fearsome spectre to evade.  It is their chosen activity, to kill, and their lives are overcast by hellish skies raining red-gray threat.  Every shadow harbors doom; every hollow they encounter is a possible final resting-place.  Killers may never take their days for granted.  They may never assume tomorrow is a matter of course.