Under the Bridge

This song came on my Pandora today and I left my chair where I was sitting and landed on the floor of the upstairs of my grandparent’s beach house. My cousin Johnny is playing this on cassette tape over and over again as I sit quietly and listen.  That’s where I go every single time this song comes on… good lord, baby face Anthony!

A virtual friend’s blog recently posed the question: What are your plans for Spring? Are you too trying to make sincere choices rather than float along? Tell me.

She was talking about not “floating along” in life. This post couldn’t be timelier. Last night I was upset by the fact that my good friend wasn’t at all excited (couldn’t even humor me) about a 3 mile death race that me and some college friends are doing in August. You have to picture though, this thing is epic in terms of having to scale walls, wade in murky unknown waters, traverse a huge dumping of tires, and army crawl under barbed wire! This thing is insane and it frankly makes me laugh. Maybe it makes me laugh because I can picture my friends and I doing this and it just makes me ecstatic. Regardless, I found myself questioning why I got so upset about why someone else wouldn’t revel in this with me and it eventually led me to conclude that I’m a person who finds the little excitements/celebrations in life because I have to, because life can at some points be boring. Instead of just giving up and thinking everything is mundane and becoming very cynical and at some points miserable, I choose to enjoy things to make my time spent better. If not, I’d be one meal away from being a zombie. Maybe it’s even a little form of defiance against the man for bringing me down. I try not to get swallowed up in it. Of course, there are days when I just want to crawl in a hole and hide, but I bet my number of good days outweigh that big time and I’m satisfied knowing that it’s because it’s something I’m helping myself feel.

This got me thinking even further into why I’m not enjoying life at a more extreme level. If I get my kicks out of the simplest of days, could you imagine how I would feel being out doing something completely enjoyable with my life?! I’m always jealous of people who are out of work and have nothing holding them down. Yeah, you have to come by money, but I would be working in awesome places all over. I wouldn’t let anything hold me down/back. I can say this because I’ve never done it, so it seems so easy and the definition of fine living.

I have always said I would stick out my job until I paid off my students loans, but honestly, living elsewhere I could be getting paid, have a place to stay and have enough money each month to send to my student loans! For me, I don’t see my current job as a step to my next job because I bet my next one won’t require more than a GED. I see this job as a means to an end for the most part and I stay because I love the people here and it allows me to get my bills paid and my kicks- travel, music, solidarity. Things might have to change sooner than later if I get up enough courage. I can’t let my life pass me by.

My Grand Canyon Adventure, March 2011

Thursday, March 24th, 2011 began my big Grand Canyon adventure! I flew out to Utah to road trip with my Couch Surfing friend Buckley down to the GC and then to Phoenix where I was to attend a conference until Wednesday morning.

I packed a suitcase full of all my professional clothes and a medium hiking pack with my hiking/camping gear. I also decided it was high time I bought a decent pair of hiking boots so I picked up a pair of Keen boots 2 days before which I wore nonstop hoping to break them in enough.

After having a mini panic attack on the plane, I remembered the time change in Chicago and felt at ease that I would make my second flight with plenty of time to SLC. I arrived 3 hours later to Buckley’s little blue car to take me away. I threw my bags in the back and jumped into the front seat. “How’s life?” Buckley always starts with the easy questions…

The last time I had visited Buckley and his wife Jewell they had just purchased a house and were in the beginning stages of renovating it. I remember the house being completely torn up and disheveled with wood planks, loose light fixtures and paint samples lining a long table in the living room. As we pulled up to the house, I could see the little lanterns with lit tea lights in them lining the wide, sturdy porch. I couldn’t believe my eyes coming into the home I had once seen as a wreck. It had turned into a magazine cover! Jewell is a QUITE the decorator!

A his and her bathroom...jealous.

The next morning Buckley and I headed out on our grand adventure. The car ride was close to 8 hours, but the conversation and music kept the trip lively so the time passed quickly. I was even able to score a pair of silver bear claw earrings with a turquoise center from an old Navajo woman in the middle of nowhere. I’m convinced they have underground villages!

My first look upon the Grand Canyon was hard to take in. There’s so much of it and it’s so vast, it’s hard to see the depth and magnitude. Of course, I closed my eyes…perhaps I could feel its omnipresence.

That night we spent in the campground with the temperature slowly dropping. We made dinner packets with all kinds of veggies and sausage. We didn't bring anything to season the stuff with, so we improvised by dousing it in wine…fancy. As they cooked in the coals we took in the night air and smoked some Amsterdam shag, some fine tobacco I must add, very smooth.

After dinner we decided to take a walk to find a better clearing to view the stars. The stars had never looked so beautiful anywhere else I’ve been. We lay down in the road, corpse pose style, and just took in the whole night. This evening was very, very special to me and awoke something in me that I think had been missing: courage to change my life to live the way I want to live it. Buckley is a very inspiring guy to be around and I thank him endlessly for the encouragement he’s given me to take heed and get my arse in gear! No wonder he’s a teacher!

The next morning we got up in time to await the sunrise over the canyon. I’ve never been more scared of falling off the edge of something in my whole life. There are no barriers between you and the endless abyss. The scene was breathtaking though so I scooted down on my behind to make sure I had more control.

On our drive back to camp to pack up and get ready for the big hike we came across some Elk crossing the road in the park! They were very good about watching the traffic and waiting for their turn to cross.

Thus began our hike. I took this picture to show where we started and have placed an arrow where we ended. 6.5 Hours, 12 Miles, 3,000 feet in elevation this would be accomplished. I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it.

But, I did! I made it all the way and I was alive at the end to tell about it and as frightening as I look, I’ve decided to post my post grand canyon video which shows me absolutely delirious and happy/sad?. You see, we remembered to bring the water, but only had small rations of food which made us go a little crazy in the end. Lesson: if you plan to do a day hike in the Grand Canyon, BRING LUNCH!

I moved on up....to the West Side

So, I guess there’s so much to blog about I just became overwhelmed and didn’t blog about anything. Besides, most people follow my facebook and whatnot. Just in case you missed those insta-updates, I’ll fill you in here:

The biggest thing-I moved outta Kenmore! I’m living on the west side now on Fargo Ave. I’m still getting used to being in a new space, but I’m liking it and I have BIG plans for the summer. I have a porch and a side yard and maybe a back yard? It’s there, I’m just not sure if it’s in use. I have dreams of box gardens and porch swings (hammocks?). I also have a big gorgeous living room to FINALLY use my sewing machine and get to creating! My small t.v. has been moved to my bedroom so now I have this big creative space with limited distractions-just my record player and my projects. It’s going to be a good winter/spring/summer, I can feel it.

The next big thing is the band I’m in. We have 2 guitar players, bass and drums. We think we rock but that’s because we’ve worked hard on this music- who knows, you might think so too! We made it to the second round in the Broadway Joes “Rage on the Stage”. We aren’t super ragey/angsty but we look cool with lasers and smoke too. We are playing a show this weekend for the Infringement Festival Fundraiser (Saturday 1/15/11 at Nietzsche’s-we go on at 12:20am) and one next weekend for the second round of Rage on the Stage (Saturday 1/22/11-I think it starts at 9pm). The best part about being in the band is I get a chance to hear my music redone by my band mates with all their added styling, it’s an amazing process to be a part of and I love hearing my music done differently!

I haven’t had time to read and I actually fell into a deep Lord of the Rings re-obsession and watched the movies repeatedly a couple weeks leading up to the move. I think I was trying to distract myself from the truth- that I was going to have to move and readjust. I made it through though and with only a few things left at my old apartment, I’m feeling more and more settled in at the new space.

Hopefully living on the west side will stimulate some blog posting such as, why do people walk in the middle of the road on the west side or is 5am Oasis karaoke appropriate?

One of my favorites...

Catch a boat to england, baby,

Maybe to spain,

Wherever I have gone,

Wherever I've been and gone,

Wherever I have gone

The blues are all the same.

Send out for whisky, baby,

Send out for gin,

Me and room service, honey,

Me and room service, babe,

Me and room service

Well, we're living a life of sin

When I'm not drinking, baby,

You are on my mind,

When I'm not sleeping, honey,

When I ain't sleeping, mama,

When I'm not sleeping

Well you know you'll fInd me crying.

Try another city, baby,

Another town,

Wherever I have gone,

Wherever I've been and gone,

Wherever I have gone

The blues come following down.

Living is a gamble, baby,

Loving's much the same,

Wherever I have played,

Wherever I throw them dice,

Wherever I have played

The blues have run the game.

Maybe tomorrow, honey,

Someplace down the line,

I'll wake up older,

So much older, mama,

Wake up older

And I'll just stop all my trying.

Catch a boat to england, baby,

Maybe to spain,

Wherever I have gone,

Wherever I've been and gone,

Wherever I have gone

The blues are all the same.

Video Store Greg

Being an Aquarius, I’m convinced that weird/funny/unbelievable things happen to me. I think I read this in a book once. Regardless, I think I should share a story to show you what I mean...

Video Store Greg

When I was a junior in college I had 4 jobs. I worked at the Dean’s office, I was a personal care aid for a physically handicapped peer, I was a public safety assistant and I worked at a video store. Oh yeah, and I was a full time student who participated in Musical Theater Club, String Band, Chamber Choir and other various extracurricular activities. I should mention I can’t even make it to the gym after work nowadays so I’m more in awe of the fact that I accomplished this in my younger years.

Anyways, every summer I would stay in Geneseo and work at the Dean’s office doing new student Orientation and also work nights at the video store. I worked alone in the very back of the video store which wasn't very big; there were only 5 or so shelves of movies, not counting the unmarked porn in the back. There was always this rank smell because the toilet had been clogged since before I started and was NEVER fixed the entire time I worked there. Needless to say, that bathroom door always remained shut. There was also one tiny “cellar-like” window in the back which made it deathly hot in the cramped space during the summer. There was a bucket in the middle of the store that collected drippings from the AC unit when on, but if it filled up too high it would splatter water all over the vhs casings. The bucket that caught the liquid was too heavy to lift and drain, so my choices were to sit and sweat or dump out the liquid a couple cupfuls at a time when needed.

Not many people came in over that summer since it was more of a student dominated town. The owner was never around so I would just let myself in, work (aka read a book or watch a movie) until 10:30pm and lock up before walking the block down Main Street to my apartment. The only real stream of customers were the dirty old men who would call first to find out if we rented porn and then would come in and hide in the corner feverishly looking through the “Pornfolio” filled with casings to choose from. Our shotty store NEVER had anything in stock so it would always be a back and forth, the old men whispering the titles, me having to type the ghastly words into the 1980’s super computer only to have it spit back, NOT AVAILABLE. It was always such a process that I was tipped (usually just a dollar) on more than one occasion for renting these out which always made me uncomfortable, not to mention I hated to rewind these tapes when they were returned.

It was another slow summer evening at the video store the night I met Greg. I had just received a call from my boyfriend at the time. He was very upset; a friend of his from high school had committed suicide. A customer had come in but I figured they would take some time looking for a video anyways so I continued to try and calm my boyfriend down. A customer came rushing to my counter and stood there staring at me snapping his gum in an annoying fashion. He was an older man, about 65, with bright white hair slicked back like Christopher Walken. He wore a tight white t-shirt and jeans and had the biggest whitest teeth I had ever seen. He looked really hyper and I couldn’t help but notice his stylized puma’s-black with gold trim. I asked him if he needed help and he just said, “I’m going to tell your boss you’re on the phone during work hours.”

*silence…*

*gum smacking*

“Uhhh, Alex, I have to go. I’ll call you back in a minute”.

After hanging up, I asked the man again if I could help him, irritated. He said, no, that he was just stopping by to take a look around, but that it wasn’t very nice to greet customers while talking on a cell phone. I told him the seriousness of the conversation I was having, but he didn’t seem to care. He introduced himself as Greg and began inquiring about my schooling. At that point I was doing Speech Language Pathology and I didn’t know if I wanted to do that as a career. He told me he worked for the state doing job placement and that he would bring me over some helpful literature on finding the perfect job fit. I had also been drinking a diet green tea so he asked me why I was drinking diet, I was thin. I told him I was hypoglycemic and needed to control my sugar. He told me he was almost diabetic too and that he had some literature on the topic he would bring for me. He left without renting anything.

About a half hour later Greg reappeared. The only thing that changed was his puma’s. This pair was bright blue. He handed me booklets of literature along with one of those mini scrolls you hang on your wall. It began something like, “Oh daughter of mine…” and had a picture of jesus on it. I asked him what this was and he just played it off, “Oh, that? That was just something I found laying around my house”. I accepted the gift- my first mistake. Greg ended up renting a movie and asking about my star sign. He was VERY into star signs. He then went into this tangent about his ex-girlfriend Karen and how one time he saved her life, she was choking on a chicken bone, and that she used to complain so much about her life and how she didn’t want to be with Greg anymore and, “KAREN! REMEMBER WHEN I SAVED YOUR LIFE AND YOU’RE BREAKING UP WITH ME? REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE CHOKING ON THAT CHICKEN BONE, AND I SAVED YOUR LIFE??”

*silence*

Greg left that night and I was left wondering about the crazy puma wearing Christopher Walken look alike.

Several days later Greg returned. This time he brought me an Aquarius sign mug along with some more scrolls. It was getting a little creepy, but I was too nice to just throw him out. I figured he was a lonely old man with no one to talk to so I humored him. Greg hung out for an hour or so while I politely made conversation about our mutual love for Tim Buckley.

Greg stopped by almost every day I was working for the next several weeks, always wearing a different style of puma’s. One weekend it was blazing hot so I was sitting outside the shop when he pulled up in his shiny silver car. He let me know that he was not going to rent a movie, that he in fact was going to see a movie that afternoon, but he had to drop something off for me. He kind of tossed it at me like it was no big deal. I opened the small white box to reveal a water sign necklace (my star sign). It was a little metal piece hanging from an adjustable chord. He told me the woman at the store asked him how big my neck was and he responded, “I don’t know, about THIS big” and he held his hands up shaking them a little like he was strangling my neck…

I thanked Greg for the gift and told him that he didn’t have to get me things. He just ignored me and acted like he never got me a gift. He hopped in his little silver car, windows down, techno music blasting, and took off.

Later, about a half hour before I usually closed for the night, Greg showed back up. He had both of his hands behind his back. He was smiling which made me slightly nervous. He told me to pick a hand. I picked the left to which he revealed a bottle of diet green tea. The other hand held the same. I thanked him and, feeling awkward, made a joke about how he was buying me a diet drink. He said that he knew I had to have diet because of my hypoglycemia, but he also didn’t want me to be offended if I took it as he thought I was fat or something. I told him I wouldn’t be offended because we were just friends anyways and I could care less if he thought I was fat…

*silence*

Greg immediately dashed into a story about the girl who worked at the diner across the street and how angry he was. Apparently he was bringing her gifts as well and when he asked why she wouldn’t accept them, she lied to him telling him that her boyfriend would be upset. He found out that she didn’t actually have a boyfriend and when he decided to confront her about it she brought her father in who then yelled at him to stay away from her. I asked how old the girl was that she brought her dad in to yell at him. Greg said she was 17. I told him that he wasn’t right to court her; he was what, 60 something? He didn’t find anything wrong with that. Things got very tense, very fast. I started to panic being that it was dark out and I was in a back room with one little window and no one else to help me if this crazy child molester tried to attack me and kill me and throw me in the dank bathroom that no one dared ever open and I would rot away forever, never found. I began nonchalantly cleaning/looking around for something to bash him over the head with if it came to blows. I settled on the tape dispenser. After envisioning how I would hit him with it, I decided it might not be enough. I decided I had to be threatening. I said, half joking, “You know I can take you down, right?” He just looked at me with a cocked head. After a few moments of silence I told him I was closing up and that he should go home. He said he wanted to rent a video and disappeared around the corner. He ended up renting American Psycho. I locked the door after him.

15 minutes later the phone rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was Greg. He had burned me a bunch of Tim Buckley CD’s and would drop them off the next night when I was working.

I panicked.

When walking home I went about 3 blocks passed my apartment, darted behind some houses and snuck through the back alleyway to get into my apartment. I was convinced Greg was following me. I sat in my living room, with the lights off because you could see right into our front windows from Main Street, contemplating my options. They were slim. I was obsessed with the idea that Greg was a convicted sex offender and I had to do whatever it took to find out and report him to the police before he attacked me. I didn’t have internet in my apartment that summer and had to use the computers in the old science building on campus to check my email. I tiptoed down my stairs and practically ran to the campus building. It was locked. I wouldn’t give up. I walked to the side of the building and noticed one of the windows was cocked, slightly open. It was one of those windows that swings open, hinges on both sides, horizontally, so when you actually push the window open there is about a foot of space above and a foot of space below the tilted window. I decided I could squeeze all 5’9, 140 pounds of me through that rectangular foot of space. The edge of the window also started at my eye level so I had to hoist myself up, get a leg through the window and then contort my body to get it through. All I could think was crazy psycho killer Greg was watching from somewhere not far behind and I had to contort like hell to get in that window.

I don’t know how it happened, but I got in. I frantically started typing on the computer knowing that the glowing blue light would give me away at any moment to campus cops. I couldn’t find his name….anywhere. I convinced myself he was lying about his name since his first name also made up half of his last name; no one has Greg in their name more than once. I started scouring the pictures of local sex offenders one by one until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.

The next day I woke up with dark, deep bruising on both of my inner thighs and across my chest from squeezing through the window. It literally hurt to walk. I had decided to let my little secret out, it was my only option. I told the women in my office what was happening and they immediately forced me to call my boss and tell him I didn’t feel safe going to work that night. He promised to make a stop by the video store that night to check in on me…I decided that wasn’t safe enough. I immediately called all the people in my humanities summer class and told them that I was having a cook out/study party at the video store and that everyone was invited.

About 10 people showed up that night. We were grilling on the sidewalk out front when Greg first drove by; unmistakable with his rave music blaring out his tiny silver car. He didn’t stop. 20 minutes later again, he made his second loop. After the third try he didn’t come back.

I quit the video store at the end of the week for fear of my own safety. My decision, though hard for my boss, was reaffirmed as the right decision when a couple months later I ran into Greg. I was eating dinner at the diner across the street from the video store when Greg walked in and sat at a booth facing me. He didn’t look up, I don’t even think he saw me sitting there, but my entire body went into shock and I sat there staring at him, hardly breathing. My friend, worried for me, paid the bill and guided me out the door.

To this day, I still don’t know if Greg was just a lonely old man or a killer. I’m glad I never found out.

And so we meet again, deactivation.

Sometimes I just feel like I want to completely disappear and no one would be able to find me or talk to me. That way I would never feel sad or annoyed or stressed out. Then again I would never feel loved or happy or accomplished. It’s the catch-22 of my life. The life of a (maybe) manic/depressive? More and more I find myself emulating my mother which frightens me, yet explains a lot.

All I know is I’m sadder than most these days and I just need some alone time to recoup. Don’t take it personally, facebook.