Consolation Prize

Somewhere between the retching and the biting cold my innate instinct for shelter is still intact. I am out in the suburbs of Chicago, out in some little street where I know is a warm couch waiting for me nearby, but this horrid red bile keeps spewing from my mouth, a mixture of smoked ribs and vodka tonic, both of which will be quite distasteful to my palette for the next few weeks.

And only upon waking will it dawn on me what has transgressed in the previous nights blunder, with a mixture of both shame and reverie. Sometimes I think I might just be a tad to old for all this mess, but that's rather debatable. Dreams and realities have become so intermingled that it has been a little difficult to find out exactly where this little transition will take me, often referred to as the quarter-life crisis.

During recent talks with my parents, they have started to give me flack about my seemingly interminable single status. I can understand my mother's probable desire for some nice, fat grandkids that she can coo over. I really doubt that that would really be the solution to any of my problems.

I don't want a consolation prize life. I want it all. But that's only the ego talking. Not all people were meant to do anything outside of the herd. I don't know how willing I am to accept that just quite yet.

New Job

I started my first actual coaching job today, meaning that the kids jumped into the pool and got their swim on. It was a peculiar feeling, having control, the kids asking how many laps when I said we're doing sprints. When I asked if they needed a break, they shook their heads panting and eyed the far length of the pull poised for more. One kid told me he needed to sit out after he puked in the toilet while another shook my hand after practice and told me that he couldn't take the training and left the team. I was only doing what I had been taught myself, but it was odd to watch these kids work, trying to do the best that they could.

It was fun, a lot more fun than I've had in any job that I could remember, besides the first few months of being a maintenance guy for a country club back in Davis. I would rather be outside, than stuck in a cubicle any day. To get to the coaching gig, I had get certified and tested for a bunch of shit, but at least I'll know what to do in case I ever see a fat dude choking in a restaurant.

They told me that they went for a perfect losing season last year and hated their last coach so I really don't have anywhere to go but up unless I really fuck things up. It's hard trying to be the responsible adult who is to model behavior for teenagers. I know the job isn't all just about winning, but goddamn if it wouldn't be nice to have a few W's on the board. I asked the athletic director if it would be possible to have Saturday practices and he snickered and told me that even mandated Friday practices are lacking in participation. We'll really have to see how that works out.

I suppose as long as I'm still enjoying everything, things will be okay.

I talked to a high school friend today who was in the area and we got onto the topic of careers. He's going to med school soon and told me of the rigors of the next decade of his life. It was said with a touch of melancholy as we recounted friends who were doing well now, but in the end it was agreed that chasing after the dream was very much more worth it. There's only a few times in life you can play the "what if" game until finally realizing that you've never even taken a chance in your life.

My friend came up for the weekend. Nothing really planned, but since summer school has ended I really haven't been doing much work besides illustrations in prep for an upcoming show in september so it was a good respite. It was one of those weekends where events and faces are blurred, an endless stream of drinking and dining out with old acquaintances and new friends, clubs, bars, restaurants, parks, and lazy days on the couch. The weather was perfect and it was a good time for the most part. We talked about our lives since we had last seen each other, our new goals, girls we've hooked up with or are seeing, planned extravagant trips to places we had never been, talked about old conquests and I suppose that's how you know that you are still good friends because things don't really change despite lack of communications through periods of life.

He is the only friend I have left that still keeps in contact with my college girlfriend. He went to go visit her before he came up to see me and like every time we see each other, he'll update me on her life despite them being unwarranted. When he pulled up I was sitting outside with Emma, having a cigarette and on the phone with my new boss for a job i'm starting in the fall. He parks and steps out all smiles. I get off the phone and we hug. He then gives me the finger. 

"That's from Terri" he says with a grin.

"She's a thoughtful girl" I reply.

We had gotten dogs while we were dating and split custody, I got Emma.

"I told her that Emma was better behaved than her dog. She said that she doesn't believe and that it was probably because you beat your dog."

Spite isn't exactly the right word, but it is the first word that comes to mind.

"She said that there was no way that Emma was better than Toby because she was an awful dog when you guys picked her up from the pound."

I didn't really know what to say so I didn't say anything. He then goes on to tell me how she's about to have her second kid and that she's just bought a house with her husband. I don't tell him that I really could've done without all the information. I dunno, what was I suppose to say? I don't know how quite I feel about it, but I am definitely glad that I don't have two kids and a mortgage. It would not bode well with my current lifestyle, but who the hell really knows about these things.

Commitment scares the hell out of me, but I'm sure that will change someday. I just hate to imagine waking up married to someone when i'm 35 and realizing that maybe that I will never be happy again.

I have a few art shows coming up. I've been cutting down on my participation to art shows lately because of a self-regarded period of sucking with the larger scale pieces.

Current Devil's Hair Salon 3386 18th St SF

8/31 Dermafilia 3382 18th street sf http://www.dermafiliasf.com/events.html

9/9 Languages of Anxiety 446 Valencia street sf 

9/20 El Pancho Villa 598 Valencia St SF

10/20 El Cafe Tazo 3087 16th St SF

November The Artist Exchange 3169 16th St

I've been doing a lot of smaller illustrations and paintings. I probably won't be going big with the pieces for a little while, at least til october or november I imagine. All the shows are in the Mission District of San Francisco. Go check it out, get excited, buy some shit, say hello.

On a bright note, I will be the new head coach for boys varsity water polo at my old high school and am planning a trip out to thailand, vietnam, (cambodia?) and taiwan during the winter. Change could not come any sooner.

She was wearing her boys shorts and one of my older skate shirts, no bra.  She sat on the bed painting her nails and the scent of the nitrocellulose was whirled around the room by spinning of the overhead fan. We had sublet a room in Davis for the summer in a quaint little neighborhood in the south side of town. The heat was overbearing for most of the day and we would sit in our room content with each other's company while the day drifted by. 

I was writing a paper for Shakespeare's middle works and she was just sitting on the bed with a bunch of textbooks strewn about, painting her nails. it was the first time I had ever lived with a girl and we shared everything in that little room. She caught me staring at her and grew self-conscious. 

"Don't look at me, I can't concentrate while you stare at me while I do this" she said with a smile.

"I can't help it, I think you're beautiful."

She blushed and didn't answer, but continued painting. The fan whirling. The heat settling outside. The computer humming as I watched her in silent observation. She was meticulous about the task, her fingers deft in their movements, dip, stroke, stroke, dip, even and smooth. Her hair was tied in a loose ponytail and I can still see it clear today, her form bathed in the soft afternoon glow.

It wasn't all good times, there were the fights and arguments, but it still makes me smile when I think about that afternoon and subsequent moments during that summer. Watching movies late into the night, lazy weekends with breakfast in bed, the smell of her hair on the pillow, truly learning to know and love someone.

Like many other boys, my first natural reaction after a breakup was to go on a tear. I hooked up with a bunch of girls, cast aside any emotional development, and tried to forget everything by drowning out the pain. And besides being able to high five all the homies after every notch in the belt, a long stretch of my life was absolutely meaningless. I was too childish to live anyway else.

And sometimes I just wish that this all had never happened, but these feelings always subside.

And I continue to watch her sitting on the bed. These are the things I miss most after all this time. Sometimes beautiful things get broken, but I suppose that it isn't any reason to forget that they ever happened.

hiatus

Vice happens. They are the little tics you itch at when things seem to bother you, those little bastards which cling onto your arm and which will never seem to leave you alone. They are the leeches which will suck you dry, only until you realize they are there before you flick them off. And sometimes they come in hoards. Interminable furies which you cannot subdue. 

I've been at the card room a lot lately. I play texa's hold-em which was became quite popularized in my generation after its airplay on espn during my years throughout college, despite the fact that it is quite obviously not a sport. It's not hard to get get caught up in all that mess. It's quite easy to make money playing cards if you have the self-discipline, patience and will-power, but for the layman (your dear protagonist) it is merely a game of chance, sprinkled with bouts of brilliance, negated with defeats of historical proportions. 

I've never been quite good with money. I'll never let myself starve, but I've never been exactly thrifty about luxury expenses. It's what it is I suppose. But back to vices. I've let them take a chokehold on me lately. I drink too much, been hitting the indian peace pipe again, and gambling away money which I can't really deal much to part with. I suppose a lot of it has to do with loneliness and not being with people enough, but most of it has to do with me and my own lack discretion. 

Work has been subpar. I can't sleep at night and insomnia follows me deep into the morning breaths of dawn. I don't know what is wrong. I know what I have to do, the road lies ahead of me, I just have to bear through the journey, but I have been forestalling. Complacent to lie in the open. 

I wish life were easier, a "dummies guide to" for instance. It is so very hard to be happy. But being happy is very much arbitrary. Anyways, here are two pieces I've been working on for a group show in September, they're almost there.

I'd once again like to give a big shout out to all the people who've supported me at shows or bought one of my pieces. I love you all. 

When all things go to hell

When all things go to hell, I'll be ready. 

When everything goes to shit, 

the world is a bleak, muted, grey. 

When you fall off that fucking horse

the only choice is to get back on and keep riding.

When that bitch life rears his monstrous face 

you beat him into submission until he bleeds crimson red.

When all things go to hell, I'll get the guns, the pack, and the dog 

and we'll really have to see where the road takes us.

But today is beautiful. 

Just that Type of Night

We're sitting on the sidewalk outside of Walgreens in the Marina. The only thing I know for sure is that we came to get gatorade, but didn't quite make it inside the pharmacy. The reason we're sitting on the sidewalk is because the cops told us to, three squad cars to be exact. They also have our I.D.'s, probably checking for any outstanding warrants, and I hope to god that all my parking tickets have been paid. When my friend, let's call him Bobby, asks what we are getting detained for, they tell us to shut up. 

The night started innocently enough, a friend, let's call him Nate, flew in from Chicago and like any good friends would do, you take the guy out and have a few dozen drinks. We went to an all you can eat and drink shabu shabu out near Japan town and spend 2 hours reenacting Roman eating habits excluding the use of the vomitorium. After that we head downtown in cabs, but there is massive miscommunication and missed texts and a few people are lost in the melee. As we're standing in line for Bubble Lounge, Bobby tries to hop the barrier into the smoking section and immediately gets pulled aside by a large bouncer and told to leave. It was looking like it was going to be that type of night.

Bubble Lounge sucks as usual and I somehow lose everyone, I walk around a few times trying to look for a familiar face and when I don't, I get the hell out. I call Nate and find out he and Bobby are at a Mexican bar down the block hitting on a group of girls having a bachelorette party. I get in and make a beeline, the girls are from Redding, they are not very pretty. I know how I can fix this problem. I get a round of Redbull Vodkas. Nate is having what seems like an extremely intimate conversation with a early 30's blonde and besides that there's nothing much else going on, even though the girls from Redding are practically begging for attention. 

Being a horrible wingman, I tell Nate and Bobby that we should head out even though it's an hour til closing time. We grab a cab and head back to the Marina where we're crashing at a buddy's apartment. This is where things get a little hazy. For some reason the cab driver pulls the cab over halfway into our ride and tells us to get the hell out. We must have been spewing some hateful shit. The next thing I know, Bobby yells run and I pump my legs until I'm out of breath. And hopefully out of view from the cab we just ditched. As we traverse our way back, Nate turns to me and asks "What does it feel like to kick in a side view mirror?" I shrug and tell him he should just find out. 

We somehow finally make it back to the apartment not without first getting into two or three verbal altercations, but we get by okay because for the most part, kids in the Marina are pussies. There's nothing in the fridge besides water so that's when we decide to get some gatorade at Walgreens. We walk out the door of the apartment and immediately get pulled over. And that's how it happened. 

I turn to Bobby, "Where's Nate?" He shakes his head and says "I dunno." The cab driver who told us to get the hell out of his car is talking to the cops. We had set off a few car alarms making our way back to the apartment. There were probably 20 witnesses of our obscene tirade parade through Chestnut Street. The  odds  are pretty stacked against us. I prepare to spend the night in the drunk tank, but I suppose that we pretty much deserved it. When in doubt, just keep your mouth shut.

Nate comes from around the corner, cuffed, and escorted by two police officers. We still haven't gotten our I.D.s back and I am pretty parched. I hope they have Gatorade in jail. By some stroke of luck, a cop hands us back our I.D.s and tells us to get the hell out of there. "What about our friend?", "You would shut up if you know what is good for you" was the reply. Bobby goes to Walgreens anyways and gets us some drinks. We head back to the apartment and wonder what time we should pick Nate up from jail, the door bell rings. It's Nate. "What the fuck happened?" 

"I dunno."

"Did you get put in the back of the squardron?"

"Yeah, but they just let me go."

"You lucky son of a bitch."

And it was just that type of night. And in all honesty, it was kind of a good one.