Life continues to move forward at breakneck speeds.  It's very convenient being a skateboarder and feeling accustomed to moving fast and reacting quickly physically to quick changeups and force yourself to skate through the pressure.  The good news is that I haven't bailed on any hills I've bombed lately.

The tone was set a few weekends ago when Inbum dropped the needle on a record of ghoulish laughter from beyond the grave.  It was some echoing voodoo caca hoohoo haha's.  He was playing it over Vincent Price's monologue from Thriller, a normally pretty scary thing to listen to, but the absolute height of freaky creepiness to me that night.  "Why can't I stop dancing to this?" I asked myself, as I clutched my skull fearing that I might seriously be tripping out.

It was a good thing I was dressed as a superhero that night, as was my cousin, because we needed some sort of supernatural force field to deflect all the deep pressure of the dark Halloween night.  The Chicago White Sox had just swept the World Series and beat Houston TX in baseball.  Every night during the weeks building up had been lively.  I had been spending a good portion of the night hours prowling the streets like a werewolf with restless energy.  The night before, my cousin and I visted a haunted house, where we practiced our ninja skills by jumping into every horror filled, strobe lit room and spooking the monsters and scary clowns before they could scare us. 

Mars orbited very close to the earth that very night.  I pointed it out to my cousin Cheryl as we drove west.  At 11PM, it was 65 degrees above the horizon and glowed strongly, a very bright red. 

"That's your planet!" I told my cousin, an Aries.  "The god of war.  I can't believe we can see it this clearly!  And its Halloween"

We mused upon the sight as we felt the effects of the chocolates sink in.  She put on her mask and gloves, I strapped my guns to my thighs and checked to make sure I had a lighter.  Both of us reapplied our lipstick and searched in vain for eyedrops.  We got out of the car and strode confidently towards the door of the party.  We stopped abruptly.

"Oh shit, I forgot my phone!"

"I forgot my wallet!"

Fifteen minutes later we were still in the car a few blocks away from the party and no closer to being ready.  We drove up closer so that we were right in front of the party, and finally we made it through the door.

"What the hell kind of superheroes are we?!?"

As the night proceeded, we made our way through clowns of masked strangers and found refuge in the company of some dancing bunnies with manic energy.  Everything in that party quickly developed a coating of booze, including somehow my hands and cigarettes.  We boogied down on a white glowing dancefloor with built in transitions, a floor to wall quarterpipe where the corners should have been.  I had been sulking enviously watching the girl dressed as a roller chick because she had roller skates on and could skate the dancefloor.  The guns were an absolute necessity as we fielded several leers or evil eyes and pushes and shoves, all of which were quickly stunned by a quick shot by the water gun.  I put perfume in it before I left the house and found myself being obnoxiously trigger happy.

"Where the hell is my skateboard?" I wondered out loud, and I looked around.  I spotted an old flat nosed torpedo of an old school deck flipped onto its side at the edge of the dancefloor.  "Whose skateboard do you think that is?" I shouted in Chewie's face.  He was wearing a bloody pink tutu and Mickey mouse ears

"That's Jeremy's".

"Who's that? I wonder if he'd let me ride it."

He pointed to the pillar, where I had noticed a figure standing motionless watching for the past half hour. 

"Excuse me, dude? Can I ride your board?  I've been wishing for a skateboard all night!  This shit is bananas, there's no corners on the dancefloor!  Seriously, when does that ever happen?"

I handed over to him my spray painted black squirt guns to make it an even trade, and skated the dancefloor.

It was nice to be able to skate around the crazy party in my costume for a moment and regain my sense of balance.  That skateboard, a wide sturdy Santa Cruz reprint of a 1988 Jeff Kendall board, was a solace to me.  The pressure of the night was building, and already felt intense.  Outside the night was filled by the sound of sirens and most of the people at the party looked like strangers from some foreign city underneath their masks.  And the boomers were kicking.  We ate the second half of the chocolate. 

"What we are witnessing here is the force of gravity between two large planets.  How could things not feel very intense when large heavenly bodies swing close to each other?  It is a natural phenomenon that we are seeing made manifest by everybody acting all bizarre," I reasoned pedantically like a geek as my cousin and I moved to the next party in the car.  "Actually this is all very normal."

We pulled over to park on a dark empty street, and I stepped out to the curb to smoke a cigarette and regard the night sky.  Cheryl was looking for her phone or something in the car, and Jeremy sat in the backseat keeping her company.  I had dragged him along, when I stood in the doorway of the party and demanded to know if he wanted to hang out with a couple of superheroes for the night or what.  So I was trying to relax a little bit and was in mid-thought when I saw a figure walking fast in the dark towards me.  I sat very still and watched as a man emerged in the light, trying the handles of the doors and looking into the windows of all the cars parked on the street that I faced.

"What the hell are you doing?"  I couldn't stop myself from talking shit in the silence of the streetlamps.

He looked up and saw me staring at him.  He shot me this hard look from across the street, then kept walking.

"Don't be a jerkbag."

He glared at me intensely and I glared back.  He walked away, swiftly, not looking back.  I stubbed out my cigarette and jumped back in the car and locked my door.  "This shit is bananas."

We walked down Milwaukee Avenue, past car accidents and police cars all over the place.  I was trying to remember where I put my id, when I heard a voice stop me.

"Hey! Come over here!"

I looked over and a policeman in a vehicle called me over.  I felt that I had no choice but to go over there.  He looked me over.

"You know we're giving out tickets for jaywalking tonight."

"Oh shit.  I am so sorry officer.  I didn't realize I was jaywalking."

"You're not supposed to cross the street until the light says walk.  If you don't, then that's jaywalking."

"Ok."

"Next time I will give you a ticket."

"Well thanks."

I walked away with the pressure of a thousand emotions.  When another cop asked me across the block what the matter was, I stopped again. 

"That guy almost gave me a ticket for jaywalking! Are you serious? I try to follow most of the laws every day and this is just too much for me to bear tonight!  I just stopped a guy from breaking into cars; where were you guys?  It's Halloween and I am just seriously overwhelmed, so I am sorry that I jaywalked, but I have had so much on my mind, I've been through so much this week and everything is just crazy! I am sorry for jaywalking, what else can I say!!"

"So where's your boyfriend?  That guy was just trying to talk to you, forget about him."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but this was an emotional crescendo and I just went with what felt more natural, which wound up being the latter.  I started bawling.

"It should be illegal for you to ask me that!"  He let me go with no further questions.

As the night wore on, more images of ghosts and spirits swirled in my head.  I had to at least get off the street and away from the cops.  Far away from the noise and the light of the city, I huddled in a the sanctuary of a dark room listening to the voice of a boy whispering about the souls that haunt him, that continue to ride through life with him.  I told him a ghost story of my own.  It certainly felt like the eve of the beginning of the dark season of the year.

Ifelt the presence of certain ghosts, from Jim Morrison's voice singing
to me all day through the radio, in Walgreens and even on tv, and books
of his poetry falling off my shelves and into my hands, to Oscar
Wilde's plays making their way into my path.  I had visited both of
their graves earlier this year.

The ancient Celts count the first day of winter -the dark season, the end of the light season- as November 1st and bring it in with a festival called Samhain.  This was a time in which the realms of the living and the dead were blurred and chaotic forces would invade the world of order.  What a coincidence.  During this time, spirits of the dead and spirits yet to be born were said to walk amidst the material world.  Magic is most potent during this time of the autumn solstice.  In Norse mythology, it was a night said to be overrun by mischievous elves.  They were all most likely laughing at me. 

the pace of this place

Racing through hours and minutes that pass

I've seen twelve things in the time it takes

to catch one breath.

moments slip past in a flash

faster and faster

my eyes and my mind

slice like razors through time

cutting my path through its fabric.

(when I can hold them steady)

Let's Make Some Noise!

"If you see a police, do you have to stop stop?  Or can you just do the roll stop? Or do the slow down stop?  You don't really have to stop?  In France nobody stops."

- Corinne on stop sign etiquette

Our plan was to leave on Monday morning, because Cheryl was the only one in the car who was obliged to an employment schedule and she only had a couple of days to spare.  It was preceded by 5 straight nights of dancing to house music until dawn and afternoon skate sessions sweating out the hangovers, I had been living on a steady diet of beer, crepes, nutella, bread and cheese and ganja.  The harvest moon had brought a fevered pitch of hedonism - everyone we knew was in rare form, hooting and howling at the moon, cute boys were everywhere bringing us drinks and spinning us around on the dancefloor.  I had moved on to drinking whiskey and my head was so full of beats that I found myself boogying everywhere I went even during the day, dancing down the aisles singing at the grocery store, getting props from bums on the street.

The harvest moon is way more fabulous than I had ever known.  My friend in Japan emailed me about how people there have always stayed up all night to watch its glow, it being the most luminescent light the moon makes all year.  Then someone else told me that it is called the harvest moon because it was so bright that people could use its light to work in the fields and harvest the fields that grew under the sun all summer.  Wow.  So it's an ancient time of bringing in the fruit of your labors.  Then I remembered another thing about the month of September.  My favorite story from Hesiod's Theogony is about the birth of the muses, and their birthdays are nine days in September.

Zeus and Menosmene (the goddess of memory) had a torrid love affair which lasted for nine days.  During this time, she had a break from carrying the weight of all the world's memories on her shoulders.  Nine months later she bore nine daughters, each of whom were bestowed with a creative force.  They are: Euterpe (music), Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (love poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), Tersichore (dancing), Thalia(comedy), and Urania (astronomy).  As daughters of the king of all the gods and the goddess of memory, they evoke the most divine inspiration out of human artists to preserve for the rest of history.  When I found myself partying for nine days straight with people whose energy I found overwhelmingly inspiring, I was like, "what a coincidence!"

By Monday morning when we left for Ohio, my blood already felt stewed like the weird elixir for healing up muscle aches and pains and channeling energy my old roommate Gautam used to distill with herbs and alchohol.  Only these herbs came from British Columbia not China and they only stewed with the alchohol after I drank it in shots at the bar.  But it seemed to be a pretty good recipe for longevity anyways.  The rental car guys could sense the fragility of our mindstate and handled us very gently.

Corinne and I threw together our essentials.  Having lived mobile lives lately, we basically just zipped up the bags we've been living out of and grabbed our skateboards and some pillows.   Travelling light helps you to appreciate the small things in life.  All weekend before we left I marveled with morbid fascination at how little planning went into this journey.  As the sort of person who tries to arrange all movements and calculate the costs in advance, I found it shocking that Corinne and Cheryl were prefectly comfortable with the idea of just going to Ohio and crashing wherever.  We didn't even have car reservations.  I was mystified.  We had agreed over dinner at the Thai restaurant that the three of us had a reasonable amount of wits amongst us to figure out how to get around one we got there.

So we just prepared by boogying down and getting in shape, getting ready to skate and toning up our legs and stretching out.  We had smoked through the tightly packed past week with long pulling drags.  I had gotten an average of like three hours of sleep every night, just disco napping, and I'd given up the illusion that I might ever find personal time to catch up on my sleep.  Life has been too much fun for snoozing.  So it is nice to finally get a chance to just sit still in the car listening to music.  Corinne is so stoked about being at the wheel of her own vehicle after all the directions she's been taking from everyone since she's gotten here.  She handed me a couple of sheets of notes and a huge North American atlas, then wondered what R N D meant on the gearshift.  In France its 1 2 3 4 and R. Then she tried out the horn.

"In France you can't do this.  They put the horn over here," and she gestured to the side of the steering column, "Lets make some noise!" as she beeped out of the alley.

I said that its probably in everyone best interest to put the horn a bit out of reach in the hands of Parisian drivers.  I pictured the sound of all that reckless horn blowing.  In Chicago I noticed that most people normally have a disciplined hesitancy when it comes to honking their horns, avoiding it until it is absolutely necessary.

Cheryl has the whole backseat to herself, decked out with pillows and airplane blankets.  Its a break for her from driving the party train around and time massage some tiger balm and heal up from the shoulder collision she suffered at the skatepark.

As we cruised, I recalled the events that lead us to be currently hurtling down I-90.  Corinne knows exactly where she is going now, and I don't need to give her anymore directions or interpretations.

The Love Refugee

14 months ago she showed up solo at the greyhound station in Chicago and called up some friends she had met the summer before at the skatepark when she visited with her boyfriend.  They brought her over to my house and I very cornily brought out some bread and cheese and put on a French movie to watch as I tried to understand what she was talking about.

She got her story across and I managed to piece together the story somewhat.  She was from Paris, seriously dated a guy from Cleveland (?!) for a few years.  After arriving in Ohio ready to spend the summer with him, she found that he had changed his mind.  A terrible falling out happened, and she found herslf having to bat the hell out of town just a couple of days into her months long stay in the U.S.  Chicago was just the next closest town and she knew Jen from the skatepark, so that's where she headed next.  It was a very somber story and the only thing that she would ever talk about.  I was like "Get over it! Moving on is the best thing you can do!" and tried to change the subject to something more fun.

She was collapsed fatigued and jetlagged still on the couch and five minutes into L'Auberge Espagnole she was snoring with chipped hot pink nails and black mascara streaked with tears smudged over her eyes.  The heavily accented skater girl passed out on the couch was just as much of a marvel to me as the many oddities that cross my path, so I took it in stride and pulled a blanket over her.

For the next few months I checked in on her every once in a while.  When I hadn't heard from her in a while I'd ring her.

"I'm in Pennsylvania.  I'm with some friends and we're sleeping in somebody's mansion.  We did motor skis on the lake and did inner tubes," I remember her whispering into the phone one late night.

"Ummm... yeah, sure.  Well ok then. I was just calling to make sure that everything is ok. It's cool.  But how could you forget to invite me!?"

She would tell me about baseball games, fashion show, skate spots, beauty salons, people's parent's houses.  I'd been working a lot during those days and had a crazy busy schedule so all this talk about fun vacation time got on my nerves.

We kept in touch after she went home to France and a few months later when I found myself in Paris for a few weeks I called her.  She was the first person in France who understood what I was talking about.  We walked all over the city taking photos and skating, and two guys sang "ooh baby baby its a wild world" to us accompanied by guitars in the Metro.  I stayed at her parent's house outside the city for a weekend to recuperate from the flu I caught in Paris and was so grateful for the warm bed and holy shit the food.  It was a warm cushy oasis between planes and trains.  She was still talking about the ex, and I was still just trying to change the subject.  But when she's got something on her mind it rules her world.

"I hope he sees how happy I am and how much I have changed the next time I see him."

"Who cares what he thinks?"

"I've learned so much English and I skate so much better now."

"It's not healthy to keep thinking about him anyways."

"I wonder what he'll think if he ever sees me again."

"Will you just get over it?!"

"Will you come with me to Cleveland in September to pick up my stuff?  He never mailed my boxes to me.  We'll take a road trip and skate at all the parks I know."

"Well I guess I'll go skate and make sure you don't get lost.  And I've been meaning to slap that dude since that day I met you."

I wondered why she wasn't just jumping for joy that she had met so many new friends and got to know a city and party like a rockstar, instead of staying in Cleveland being someone's skater beeyatch.  And why hadn't she gotten a new boyfriend yet?  Guys were calling her up all the time and trying to hang out with "the French girl" before she left town.  Did she honestly expect to get back together with the guy who abandoned her in a foreign country like Theseus did to Ariadne on the island of Naxos?  I decided I wouldn't allow it.

The Rest Stop

When we got out of the car, we got hollered at five times as we slinked towards the bathroom.  "Mamacitas!" some creepy breath hissed in the corner by the doorway.  Cheryl hasn't eaten at McDonalds in three years and we're making her start again now.  Everyone at the rest stop stared at us with zero inhibitions and they all had potbellies.  We didn't even get into the "That's Your Boyfriend" game, we just put our heads down and ate as fast as we could.

The car was a mess just half an hour out of the city.  Mineral water, cds, makeup, pillows, notebooks and birth control pills flew around when I tried to find some lip balm.  I was alarmed by the amount of estrogen in the car, so I played Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville.

We were half an hour outside of Cleveland and the ex or any of his friends still hadn't called Corinne back.  She paced by some faraway picnic tables checking her voicemail again.  She was on the verge of tracking him down through his mother.  Cheryl and I stretched our sciatic nerves next to the car and waited for a word.

"Plan B is I hijack the driver's seat and we drive straight to New York.  Then we'll stop in Toronto and go shopping!  Then lets go to Louisville,"  I whispered to her.

Coco came back to the car in tears.  "His stupid friends hung up on me!  They wouldn't tell me where he lives!  They are always trying to keep me away from him!  They always tell him things and turn him away from me!"

Cheryl and I rolled our eyes.

"We decided that I am a pirate and I am taking over the car, Corinne," I said after a long silence.  "We're going to New York instead."

"That's not funny!!!"  She stormed into the drivers seat and we hit the road in silence.

oHIo

In Cleveland, Coco drove us straight into the middle of downtown.  It was 8:30 pm and she finally got a call back around the time we entered the city.  "Where do we go?" she asked into the phone.  Then she threw it into my lap like a hot potato.  I wasn't prepared for that.

"Um hello.  My name is Brenda Lee.  I'm just a passenger in Corinne's car. We drove to Cleveland, now we're here, we are trying to meet up with some dude that has Corinne's stuff.  Now we appear to be downtown.  So do you think we should skate around here or is it a bust?"

"I'm that dude."

"Oh."  I paused, drawing out the uncomfortable silence. "You are famous. You're the dude, huh?  You should meet us somewhere."

"Ok, go to the middle of the city, where all buildings are, the brick area, and park.  I'll call you when I get there."

"So just go to where the brick area is?"

"Yeah."

"Ok."

I wondered what he meant, while staring at all the terra cotta tiles on the buildings as we drove past all lit up.  We were driving towards a monumental building that looked like Chicago's Board of Trade at the end of the street.

Cheryl woke up and looked around.  "Where is everybody?  This town is dead!  Ghost Town!"

She was right.  There were no cars, buses or people anywhere and all the businesses were closed. 

Coco seemed to know what that dude meant by "brick area" and parked.  We got out and stretched our shoulders backs and hamstrings while Corinne took out her makeup bag. 

Corinne had said, "If you see a guy with tattoos, that's my ex!"  A guy with tattoos on the street.  Got it.

"Ooohhwee!  YeeeeHaawww!"

"Can you believe he  wanted to meet us in a safe rendezvous point?"

In mid-stretch, we noticed a guy slink up quietly out of the empty silence of the street.  She was putting on red lipstick and changing into a pink tank top.  It was him.

We looked up from touching our toes and just stared at him for one long moment.  We could instantly sense his discomfort.  He stopped too, but when no one said anything he proceeded past us and walked up to Corinne to hug her.

I lit a cigarette and gazed at the architecture.  Cleveland has a few blocks of tall office buildings that look finely statuesque in the streetlamps.  The street glowed like a movie set.  The building in front of us had greek columns, a pediment and caryatids of nine goddesses lit upwards from their feet, holding sheaths of wheat books and instruments on top of their upswept hair.  I tried to find my camera amongst the wreckage inside the car.  Finally Cheryl broke the silence,

"Hi, I'm Cheryl."

He jumped out with a handshake.

"I'm Jeff"

I introduced myself and shook his hand limply.

"We can go to a bar down the street," he suggested after we had nothing more to say.

As we walked down the street Cheryl smiled evilly.

"I just think you should know, I know karate."

I giggled quietly in the back, remembering how we planned this moment out over dinner last week.  I had suggested that we wear black suits, carry briefcases and pretend we don't speak English.  Or better yet, Corinne could tell him we were rockstars from the Philippines.  But upholding charades is way too tiring and he was being so meek that we eased off the menacing vibe.  I pulled my hat lower and we proceeded to the bar.

Partytime.

As we rolled into an empty bar with woodpaneling and Irish football flags draped all around I noticed a sign that said Happy Hour $2 Beers.  Alright then.  I ordered a Harp.

Cheryl and I huddled and wished we spoke Cebuano better so we could gossip amongst ourselves.  Corinne and Jeff were staring at each other talking non-stop and smiling.

"Look at her. We should slap her.  She's grinning ear to ear."

They were thoroughly engrossed with each other and she twisted her back to us so she couldn't see the faces we were making at her.  Her Bacardi and Cranberry was gone in three sips.

Cheryl and I amused ourselves by having a burping contest and lamented the lack of good looking young men.  She busted into their conversation after a minute.

"Hey where are all the cute boys in this town?"

"Yeah, just point us towards wherever they hang out!"

Jeff didn't even crack a smile.  "There are no cute boys in this town."

"Booooooooo," she said.

After a second they resumed their conversation.

"Well that didn't go anywhere."

The boredom was gaining on us and we watched the bartender stack some glasses.

"This sucks.  I wonder what they're talking about."

Cheryl leaned into their space again.

"Where can we go dance around here?"

"Tonight? It's a Monday night! ... so, nowhere."

"Ok then.  We are officially bored."

They resumed their conversation again as some terrible music from the light rock station droned.

"Look at that guy.  He's drumming his hands.  He likes this stuff!"

Finally Jeff took us to another bar when our beers were empty after consulting with his phone a few times.  We thanked him for the drinks.

Partytime!

The next bar was way cooler, outside and on a deck.  We all got carded by the bartender, who took the time to learn our ages and names.

"So what's your name?" Cheryl asked.

"Jude.  Like 'Hey Jude!'" and he sang it.

We sang it back to him and we ordered a round of beers.  Jeff had made some assurances that he had another friend coming by so we wouldn't be bored.  Corinne told us in the car that she asked if he had a girlfriend and he said yes.  So that's why he was acting so weird. 

Then she said, "He's being so nice to me, I can't believe it!"

"Did you ask him why he never shipped your stuff?"

"Well he was mad at me because of the time I broke his window."

"What? You broke his window?"

"Yeah. And then I broke a bottle when I threw it at his couch."

"Girl, am I hearing you correctly!?!"

"Then I called him from a sailboat at five in the morning after a party in Chicago and told him my life is so much better without him.  But he's not mad at me anymore!"

He told her he had to be home soon, but he stayed until the bar closed.  Jude brought out a bottle of Jameson and Jeff's friends showed up.  One of them was scared of us, but the other one warmed up to us instantly.  Dan listened sympathetically as I described the travails of life and we drank shaking our heads at the cost of insurance.  I asked him if we could crash at his house and he said yes.  With that settled, we carried on, met people from Kentucky and Florida, Cheryl spilled her drink, the local muscle meathead beat his chest, clinked glasses and partied.

We all walked out into the street.  After Jeff loaded the boxes of Corinne's stuff into the trunk we each hugged him and thanked him for all the beer.  The next thing I remember was taking long swigs of tap water, collapsing on the corner of a futon and the room was spinning so I curled into a downward fetal position and crashed out.

The Next Day

I awoke to the sounds of a shower wrapped in my soft airplane blanket next to Coco who was wrapped up in hers.  I was smiling before I even opened my eyes.  We had so much fun!  The pillows we brought came in handy - I was so glad to have my own drool stains under my face at that moment.  Dan tiptoed gently around and got ready for work, it was 7:30 in the morning.

"I've got all Aveda products," Dan said as I headed into the shower.

"Oooh!"

"My mom's a beautician.  So Jeff called me last night and was like "You gotta come out!  I need help!  These girls wanna dance!!!"  We collapsed into giggles.

A sweet botanic smell wafted around as we woke up.  Miraculously, my bag was neatly organized at the foot of the futon with my camera, cigarettes, hat and purse tucked away.  How did I manage to remember to put away my stuff last night?  While towelling my hair I chatted with Dan as he added me as his friendster.

"How the hell is a guy like you single?  You're so nice, I am shocked that you don't have a girlfriend!"

"You asked him that like 20 times last night already!" Corinne protested.

"I did?"

"Yeah, and stop bringing up bad memories of girlfriends.  You're making me sad.  It didn't turn out so well the last time," Dan said.

"She must have been crazy, or psycho then."

Dan let us take our time getting ready and called in late to work as he escorted us to the diner.  A skinny old hippie with beads in his hair waved to us as he passed us on the street.

"Watch out for all the weirdoes around here," he warned.

"Naww, we're the weirdoes!" Cheryl said as we all wrapped around Dan to thank him.  I forgot my notebook at his house so we planned to meet up later.  For now we would just eat and then go skate.

But as the day warmed up and we choked down our breakfasts the plan changed.  Our hangovers - building up for the past six days at that point - were beginning to creep into our brains and our bodies and the orange juice and bacon were not helping.

"I think I'm dying!"

We decided to go to the skate shop afterwards, got lost a few times and had to call Dan to help us.  We were quickly developing a real fondness for him every time he patiently answered our crazy questions.

"We don't know where we are! Where do we go? We're by a bridge!"

We skated at the skatepark in the hot afternoon sun which was a mistake, considering that my sweat felt fumey like alchohol was evaporating directly off of my skin.  After a while I lay down on my stomach on the bench and wrote my story.  The local skaters were weirded out by our presence, but in a good way.

Afterwards we went to a coffeeshop.  We got smoothies and sat around a table and checked out some surprisingly good local artwork.  Various instruments lay around, including 2 bongo drums, a cowbell, a mini piano and a big one, various percussion in every corner and a didgeridoo that I thik I misused.  A five year old boy totally kicked it to Cheryl after he saw her play a few notes on the piano.

She told him to finish his pastry before he could play it with her.  He flipped out his mini chair and sat down at the mini piano. "I like your song!" he told her.

He took her into a sunny nook and then crouched down as he made her a design on the Lite Brite.  When he went back to finish his croissant she came back to the table.

"Dude," she whispered, "that kid just stroked my arm with his finger."

"Whaaaat?"

"I didn't think he'd do that! He's five!"

He was totally making the effort to bond with Cheryl, calling out "NO!" when his mother asked him if he was ready to leave.

I made them pose for a picture out front and took a moment to look through the lens.

"Goodbye!" we sang as the boy's mother as two sisters dragged him down the sidewalk.

Cheryl came over to me.  "Dude, that kid put his hand directly on my ass when you took that picture!"

"Did he squeeze?"

"Yes!"

When we looked in the camera, her face indeed had a startled look of confusion.  An old hippie on the sidewalk lit my cigarette.

"I wish I had a picture of that kid's hand on your ass, girl!" he told us before we pushed away and skated some banks and hills that we found.

We met Dan after work and toured his office, the coolest place in Cleveland.  He took us to another bar where they had free food?  We were like "Free food? What?" and it turned out to be pizza.  Funds were running low all around from all the going out, so we were like "word!".  Jeff had mentioned that there was a bar in town with free beer the night before.  What the hell is going on in that town? The energy level was running low too, so we decided to not ask Dan if you could crash for another night and made plans to hit the road.  This whole time, Corinne was off in the clouds in some faraway place where she must have been thinking about Jeff. We consoled her, and I was secretly glad that he had a girlfriend because it intimated a finality to everything.

We skated one more time at night, under some flood lights, when all the kids of Cleveland come out to skate.  It was pretty crowded, but the strange thing was the silence.  None of the loud groaning and moaning and complaining and hooting and hollering that I am used to in a skatepark.  It was like a science fiction town where all the kids come out like zombies and skate without uttering a single word.  Then I thought about the UFO sightings in Ohio and was glad that we weren't the strangest visitors this state was said to have.  Finally after we were so tired and beat and cranky we decided to just head back.  We gave Dan another hug and more kisses and honked our way out of town.   

Home to Chicago

The Cebuano word for what I felt is "Kapoy".  It just means thoroughly worn out.  Cheryl was passed out in the backseat and I wrote in my journal and Coco steered us home.

After an hour or two, Cheryl spotted the cop behind us.  "Poulet!" she called.

Coco pulled over to the side of the road and we turned off the music.  The state trooper waddled up to my window.  My eyes were so blown out and cashed that I considered pretending that I was crying.  Allergic, I decided on, as I rolled down the window.

In a robot like voice he recited the following after looking all of us in the eyes:

"I'm gonna need your license and your registration I clocked you a few miles back going 85 miles and hour in a sixty five zone I will have to give you a ticket it will be a $100 fine of the violation and you can post a bond or you can give me your visa or your credit card."

Corinne reacted very slowly, pulling out her purse.

"I'm from France."

In Chicago, those three words got us into every bar we went to for free, plus rounds and rounds of free drinks.  In Indiana, the trooper did not even react.  She gave him her universal driver's license and a credit card and I pulled my hat over my face.  We were paused for an eternity in front of those bright headlights and flashing red and blue.  I was afraid of opening my mouth and getting us into more trouble.  After what seemed like forever, he let us go after swiping her card.

"What a jerk."

No one said anything and the air was so sad.  Cheryl rolled back over and went to sleep.  I changed the cd and put on Coco's radiohead album before I put away my notebook and reclined my chair to do the same.  As the music started and washed over the whole car I looked over and saw the tears start coming down her face as she stared directly forward.  I searched around, then handed her some tissues.  She cried even more and I almost started crying.  I gave her the whole pile of tissues and closed my eyes and crashed out.

I woke up as we headed into Chicago, coming from the south.  Chi-town! We're here!  Coco steered us through the last toll booth and I peered at her face.  We were listening to Snow Patrol now, and there were no tears in sight.  But I swear that there were some new lines near her eyes and her face was just a little bit more angled than it was a few days ago.  She didn't look like the same helpless waif that I met her as as she sat low with one hand on the wheel.  She looked lighter, and just a bit older too.  We dropped off Cheryl who was sleepwalking into her house and got home alright, we crashed completely.

And we have never again discussed her ex.      

Cheers

The plan I hatched to become a misanthrope and live out the rest of my life in solitude amongst the rustling bamboos  and croaking tree frogs derailed when I found myself having such a great time catching up with old friends.  It is hard to maintain the stance of a cranky curmudgeon when you can't stop smiling and your night is full of jameson shots music and beats; everywhere you turn there are people you've known for years, and there is so much to toast to - its all high fives and bumpy knuckles left and right.  It is even harder when you are doing this in high heels dancing around and wearing a scandalous terry cloth jumpsuit.  Renouncing humanity is not as easy as it sounds when  the people that you know are so much fun.  So it appears that I have a few more years before becoming anything that resembles a grumpy old jerk.  Salud! to the good friends that I saw on my birthday, and to my cousin for making it happen.  I've been lucky to know and be close to some of the most soulful people on the planet during these 26 years, and its because of all this time we've spent out there in this city seeking out good music and dancing.

Gifted at Making People Mad

I wish this website had a section in your profile titled 'what makes you really mad', because it would be interesting to see what people say vs. what they live up to.  Mine would read "phonies, hypocrisy and people who pick on people I love."  Its probably not that simple though - people who've checked "in a relationship" are on a different level, and their section might read anything from "having my birthday forgotten" to "when girls hit on my boyfriend" to whatever sort of craziness blooms in that relationship.   That's a different sort of mad altogether, not so topically substantial as things that affect a larger world, but with all the passion of railing against things beyond our control.   

I have enraged a few people in my life, and it has always been over something extremely stupid.  My dad almost disowned me when I was eighteen for writing a poem on the basement wall with an oil crayon.  This was extremely strange to me at the time, considering the fact that in the same weekend, the rest of the house had been painted in bright Simpsons colors (flourescent pink, electric blue, and mustard yellow) and adorned with Hawaiin print curtains and berzerk tracks of paint all over the ceiling, and I had nothing to do with any of that.  Caught up in the creative frenzy, I inscribed a poem in the wall that I hoped we could all learn from.  For months he brought up "my disrespect for personal property" in his blackest moods, which was a total joke to me, especially with the parrot painting over his head and the bamboo curtain swinging at his back.  It was so unfair.   

At the skatepark, I made a sworn enemy for life for accidently taking a dude out when we dropped into the bowl at the same time.  I just happened to be crouched low and wearing a helmet and aimed directly at his chest.  I was actually aiming for the the curve in the wall behind him.  It happens all the time, and an every day sort of occurence at the skatepark.  People crash into me, I crash into them, its not personal.  If it was, the skatepark would be a total kung fu hustle situation, and the personal vendettas would never end.  After the collision I jumped up in a panic and tried to pull him up too.  "Get up homey!"   

"GET THE FUCK OFF ME, you bitch!!!"  He couldn't quite breathe at the moment, but he could shout.  I climbed out of the pool holding back my tears and almost cried in the corner just for being yelled at.  When he staggered to his feet after a few minutes, the pool was lined with skaters waiting with wide eyes and baited breath.  It was a very dramatic moment.  You've never seen anyone more pissed off.  I had never made anyone who wasn't related to me that upset, and never even seen anyone get that sort of mad. 

This is the sort of mental dialogue and analysis that was going on in my head at that very moment: "breaking out into sobs is totally inappropriate right now - don't do it - no crying - why do I feel like crying? - did he just call me a bitch? - what do I do now? - must be stoic - warriors don't cry - must bite insides of cheeks - must make face cool down - he is gonna hate me for life - I wish he knocked me out instead - should I just go home? - stupid tears, stop crying - this is the worst day of my life - bite lip harder."

So I skated away with a clamped jaw and saved the crying until I went outside for a cigarette. 

Later on that night after the skate session I got drunk enough to sing "Living on a Prayer" with G at the karaoke bar.  I really didn't even want to sing the song at all, but felt as though I should be a good sport.  I felt extremely creeped out midway through, when in the middle of the song - embarrassingly as I was in mid-falsetto shriek - I felt an evil stare slice through me.  The guy I ran into was chainsmoking and giving me an intense, voodoo look of hatred.  He thought I was having tons of fun, and he was completely mistaken.  I had to keep singing though and finish the song - I couldn't drop the microphone and stare back at him.  Divas don't drop the mike!  That would be weird.

But I could tell from his eyes that I had made an enemy for life without even trying.

Once I almost got into a fight in the elevator at Trader Joes, after I looked backwards and flipped off a guy on the street who said "You can't ride that skateboard" as I skated past him.  It was New Years Eve, and I was trying to pick up some olives and bread before a dinner party.  I had already done my hair and put on makeup so I was this weird mixture of dressed up and dressed down in skate gear.  There were two guys in their thirties, tube sock and sweatpants wearing meatheads, and they got into the elevator with me after I had been waiting for it, pressing the call button like fifty times.  I was stuck.  I pulled my hat over my face and held my board at my side.

"I bet you can't ride that thing."  He started it, and I had been looking at the floor trying to avoid all this.

"I bet I can ride it way better than you.  Because you have to be in shape to balance on it."

"I'd be acting really tough too if I had a weapon in my hands like you."

"It's not a weapon, but I guess I could hit you with it, and I am sure that it would hurt."

Looking into those eyes was like staring into a blank wall, and every muscle in his faced was getting harder.  I wondered what would happen if he did have a skate board and it was a fair fight.  His friend totally had his back at first, but as he peered over the dude's shoulder he had time to absorb the details.  I made eye contact with him briefly before I locked eyes again with his buddy, who had all of his defenses up in his face.  I am five foot two and small boned, I had diamond earrings on with my jeans and skateshoes, a fur scarf, mascara, eyeliner and lipgloss.  My hair was braided so that I could have curly hair when I got home.  I was in the midst of getting ready for a New Years party. 

My perfume filled the elevator, emanating off my sweaty neck as the staredown continued.  They were so confused, and I watched them grow uncomfortable.

"Wait, how old are you?" the friend said.

"How old did you think I was?"

"I don't know... we thought you were younger... he didn't mean it... I'm sorry."  I was chagrined by the idea of a younger version of myself in a never ending staredown up and down all of the floors with these two knuckleheads. He pulled the other guy away as the doors finally opened.  He was glad to be getting pulled away, but I think he was still pretty mad.  The friend looked back a couple of times and soon they disappeared.  That did not just happen, I thought to myself, before a smile crept across my face and I had to hide it.

Another time, a woman who was shopping in the boutique that I worked in blistered at my refusal to negotiate the price of a handbag with her.  She wanted to exchange a coat for a purse, but the coat was used and out of season and it was just shady. I didn't like her attitude - she just came at me with unjustifiable rudeness.  We were head to head just above the counter. 

"Just sell it to me for a hundred dollars!!!!"

"I can't do it."

"I...have...never! heard of a business that treats people this way!  I know a lot of women who shop here! How are you going to feel when I tell them that you are the worst salesperson that I have ever met?"  She hissed it like a snake, dragging out each syllable.

"I am not the worst salesperson you have ever met.  There's no way.  And you know, you can't get something for nothing."  I chuckled silently at the last part as I sang it in my head.   

It grew worse.  She was working herself up, and I just remained calm and still, and my refusal to react enraged her.  I was tuning her out and looked her dead in the eyes, which started to water as she furiously freaked out.  I was on the verge of kicking her out when she just stomped out, throwing the purse to the ground.  "You can't just come in here and start throwing shit," I said to no one in particular as I picked up the purse and dusted it off.

I have the terrible habit of making things worse when people get mad at me.  I have the unfortunate tendency to giggle when I am nervous, which has led to some terrible situations filled with shame.  I have it under control now, but when I was younger my standard reaction to someone getting super emotional to me was a smile I tried to hide and a giggle that I'd bury in my hands.  It was nervousness and just impossible to surpress.  I got suspended in high school for giggling when I got caught smoking - I know I could have gotten out of it, but I had a nervous problem with authority which came out as a horrible smirk.  I remember the look on one boyfriend's face when he realized that I was smiling as he was on an angry tirade.  I was so disappointed in myself.  He got so mad that he couldn't even talk, and the apologies flowed endlessly from me.  "I'm so sorry, I wasn't laughing at you! I swear!  I just can't help laughing in times like this!  I should be crying, I know!"  I felt like a genius in How to Make a Bad Situation Worse.  Cat Stevens is right: it is a wild world, and it is hard to get by with a smile.

I am sure there are people who live their whole lives and dodge confrontations elegantly throughout them, like old ladies and nuns.  People who don't do what I do and giggle nervously in the face of a fully charged individual, but defuse them.  I wish I could inspire the opposite of anger, but it appears to be an uphill battle.  How do people do it?  When I was a little girl, I never made anyone seethe with anger with just a word or a glance; I guess that I just am not sure how to handle the very adult responsibility of bringing out emotions in people.  The worst part is that I examine my intentions on a daily basis and try to be mindful and conscious of people's feelings so much, that it makes me neurotic.  Doing so is worth it though, because I know that when I make people mad it wasn't because I was trying to.  Even when I am driving, biking or street skating: I will yield to people, do what I can not to cut anyone off, maneuver around - whatever it takes not to get in anyone's way.  I control everything that I can and try to look out as much as possible, but it appears that there is still no way to avoid making people mad.  The things that make a person blow up come out of left field sometimes.  It weirds me out that even though I long ago vowed to devote my life to perpetuating goodness in this world, I could still bring about the full extent of people's ire in ways I'd never dreamed of. 

My Dog: a Defense

English bulldogs are known to have mild temperaments and a very gentle demeanor. This fact has lead to often speculated questions as to what made Quasimodo the dog that we've come to know him as. I guess when you spend your formative years as the mascot for a junior high wrestling team, going by the name of Nelson, your environment is bound to take over your true nature completely. I often picture his baby puppy year, his clean pudgy fur being tossed about amongst mildewy rolled up mats, jock straps and used Gold's gym sweatshirts. He obviously would have been the center of attention - he has always absolutely dominated every room he's ever entered with his magnetism. I suspect these junior high aged boys of having gotten too carried away with their baby bulldog mascot. Even I have been accused of too ardently adoring this dog, and I have self-control.

Where I come from, the local junior high wrestling team was a notorious bastion of homoerotic cruel depravity; I feel so bad when I think of Quasi being subject to, as a baby, the boundless perversions of those asics-wearing sweaty jerks, all hormones high voices and braces. I have always suspected those fuckers of animal cruelty - to this day Quasi flinches when you hold any sort of broom or stick in your hand. He even barks at the maglight (even as he fondly chases its beam around).

We adopted him when he was one and a half years old. He had been hastily put on sale by his previous owner - the wrestling coach - who had a problem with his "constant barking at night". Quasi had been relegated to only living in their garage and apparently the whole family was too allergic to him to play with him. That was their story, but I think what actually happened was that his puppy adoribility wore off and suddenly they had an angry, abused, frustrated, full-grown dog with a snappy jaw on their hands so naturally they ran screaming and unloaded him. And gave him to us.

When he first joined our home we set up the basement for him, thinking he'd enjoy it like a little dog bachelor pad, with its wet bar, fireplace, full bathroom, photographic wall coverings of tropical jungles and easy access to the garden. The only thing about the basement is that you can hear the footsteps and doors of every floor all over the house. He couldn't stand feeling left out and only lasted a few hours down there, none of us had the heart to ignore his urgent howling at the door.

He made short work of the antique couches and rare persian rugs that me dad tried in futility to protect, covering them in brindle colored fur. Overnight, the brass studded leather of the furniture took on a chewed and worn patina that made them look centuries old overnight as he made himself comfortable. We stared at him, thoroughly entertained, as he cagily explored the baroque nooks and crannies of the house. What didn't get destroyed in that house as the four of us grew up got slimed by his drool and covered with fur when he entered the picture. My dad's authoritarian boundaries were once more overwhelmed, to our amusement, this time by Quasimodo's cuteness.

His personality began to reveal itself slowly and his odd quirks and idiosyncracies that define him emerged as he got used to his surroundings. Most famously, he bit my brother on the lip when he was trying to remove a pen from his mouth. Out of nowhere. I skidded on a small puddle of blood one night one I walked through the front door, saw my brother reclining with gauze on his face and the dog sulkily peering out from under a couch, chewing on a pen. We had a problem on our hands.

Luckily for Quasi, his problematic personality, violent outbursts and tendency to snap meshed quite well in that house, which was full of strong-willed teenagers during that time. We looked at him in awe; we all had it in us to react impulsively, emotionally, totally irrationally and recklessly, some of us wrote the book on territorialism; but who'd be so bold as to just go and bite someone? And then just sit there coolly and casually?

Any other dog owner would have marched that Nelson straight to the nearest dog clinic and shook their heads in contemptuous judgement as the euthanasia needle plunged into his fur. But the bells of fortune rang harmoniously for Quasi during this time - a number of coincidences conspired to keep him alive. We chose to look the other way, and actually welcomed him into our family with six sets of open arms. First of all, my brother has sustained far worse physical traumas in his time than a dog bite, so luckily the next day it was all water under the bridge. He couldn't have found a better household to be a rowdy dog in. Secondly, his greatest survival skill is his charming personality. He is so cute that it is impossible for anyone to stay mad at him, much less plan and execute his demise. Or properly discipline him. Third, the chaotic nature of the household that he entered allowed this charming personality to not only blend in, but to perfectly compliment his surroundings. If we were the type of household that would go around euthanizing those of us who were prone to behaving badly, we'd all be dead.

A few people have rudely commented throughout the years, upon being growled at by him, that if he was their dog he'd have been put to sleep a long time ago. I am not sure why they would think I care when everyone is happy with the current arrangement. It is an interesting observation when I hear it though. He's got a more finely honed bullshit detector than anyone I know - people that aren't right with themselves are never right with my dog, and the slightest hint of phoniness sets him off. He's very gentle and meek with kind souls, although he may demand that they take him for a drive in their car by getting into the passenger seat and stubbornly refusing to get out. But thats a sign that he likes someone.

By the end of the first month he occupied the couches and under the tables of the first floor. He liked small nooks and crannies, and chose the best hide and seek hiding spots that we used as kids as his lookout points. After a month and a half, he had worked his way upstairs and slept on a velvet pillow in the middle of the bed in the master bedroom. After a few years and a few too many flatulent nights, he wound up getting sent back downstairs. But his message was clear: this is no basement dog. He decided early on in his life that he'd never tolerate being locked in a garage and treated like some junkyard dog. He has always been at the forefront of any action in the house, breaks his usual lazy routine when anything exciting goes down, sits upright in a chair at the dinner table when guests come over, leads the tours through the garden like a brindled fat rolling lion.

He grew into his name, skulking about the house like a nomadic spirit. When you pull into the driveway he perches stoically in the windowsill like a sentinel, with great dignity. He urinates on rare exotic trees and shits by a pond with weeping willows and reeds. He gets bathed in a sunny rock garden amongst irises and lilies and rustling imported bamboos. His greatest pleasure is an enigmatic blue ball that mysteriously appeared in the backyard one day, with which he passionately consorts with on the grass for hours. He takes his yearly vacation to Lincoln Park, where he explores the alleys and parks of the city and commands crowds of pedestrians and strangers, whose attention he benevolently tolerates. He's got the karma of a boddhisattva.

As touchy as he is about things like personal space and eye contact with strangers, he has no problem with being dressed up like a doll. My mother, sister and I share the clotheshorse gene and have not been able to resist outfitting him in the cutest dog clothes in his size. So its a good thing he's so photogenic and loves to model for the camera. He has a denim vest with a matching motorcycle cap that makes him look like the Village People's short bodyguard. He's got all kinds of versions of the classic bulldog studded collar. The best was when we found in an old pile of doll clothes a pair of white shorts that someone squeezed him into. I got him a taffeta Christmas collar with bells that has saved many tense and awkward Christmas reunions with the sheer comic relief of the sound of a jangly lumbering little reindeer dog. Mostly though he prefers a simple bandana around his neck, a look adopted from my older brother, who also likes to decorate the white fur of his head with every flavor of kool-aid.

He's kept up with his fighting skills throughout the years and its nice to know that he's not so spoiled that he's gotten soft. He used to love to chase cars and faced down every car that passed the driveway, until the day he got hit by a car. We all had to admit through our tears that he'd brought it upon himself and acknowleged truthfully that he had been asking for it, but he took the impact like a soldier. Actually, more like a tank. My older brother did not take it like a tank at all; he carried him in a panic to the local vet and demanded immediate medical attention. It was a state of emergency. He is quite a sturdy dog - upon examination, he was found to be a little bit bruised but not at all broken.

Now he just sticks to challenging geese, raccoons, deer and cats. He absolutely despises little kids, another effect of his early miserable life as Nelson. They always want to pet him and kiss him, but as they soon become terrified and start running, I couldn't honestly call it a fair fight. He loves other dogs, the only species that he instantly warms up to. Last winter he lost an altercation with a skunk under the car which left him traumatized. He ran berzerk around the house, rubbing himself against every surface of the interior before he could be doused with tomato juice. Sometimes at night he escapes the house for solitary adventures and comes home panting and covered with feathers. He also, very cutely, attempts to hide the bones that he gets under a pile of blankets on the couch, acting upon his primal instincts. As dogs go, he's a formidable wrestling partner. At 75 pounds he has a lot of weight to throw around. What he lacks in height though he makes up for by trying to use his teeth and bite, a dirty cheating technique that I used myself when I was a little kid. I don't mess with him anymore; I'm a lover not a fighter, and I definitely lack a boy dog aggressive mentality. I would rather lounge with him, brush his hair, scratch his neck and sing along to him as we listen to old school soul music and r+b, Quasimodo's favorite rhythms.

Quasi demands attention and affection more effectively than anyone I have ever loved. He just sits on my feet and whimpers until I hug him. Then he splays out contentedly like a frog at my side until its time to do something else. No emotional blackmail, no passive aggressive poutiness, no dramatic antics or weird mind games. That shit is for cat people. When he needs a hug or a kiss, he just tells me. I always take time to make him feel like the most charming cute dog that he is. I'd never hold it against him for being needy, he taught me that it is a natural animal thing to want attention and to be loved.

There's something comforting in knowing that a creature you love so much can fend for itself and not be vulnerably subjected to the whims of anything else. He's a survivor and a tenacious scrapper, definitely not easily defeated. Once he even bit a Burr Ridge cop and got away with it. He's carved out a space in this world, which I'm lucky includes me and my family, that he protects loyally like Cerberus.

April / May / June 2005

I am living in a cabin on a coral reef cliff with the ocean lapping at the foot of my bed, surrounded by landscaped paths of broken coral bones and flowering tropical plants and banana trees. Roosters from nipa huts around me wake me up in the morning before I snorkel to rinse off a night's worth of sweat from my hair and my skin. I collect my thoughts in a rope hammock swaying between banyan trees and wave down to the sea kayaks and outrigger boats that stop to say hello every morning.
I am not from here, but I am fully Cebuana by blood, and feel oddly comfortable in these surroundings. I am on a steady diet of fish, mangoes, bananas and rice.
My life revolves around a diving schedule, and I spend the hours in between expunging nitrogen from my blood, writing, smoking, training, stargazing and dreaming. The view beneath the water of life in the ocean stuns me every day. My friends are the fisherman and little girls of Panagsama Beach.