day 5

Rather than continue on in this nostalgic vein, I'm going to churn the Sludge a bit. I've had so many different kinds of blogs and websites, it'd be funny if it weren't so hilarious.

Day Five of a fate worse than death draws to a close. It's allergies. Unfortunately, for the past year I've been popping the 'Dryl every night as a sleep aid, and now that I have a legitimate need it fails me.

the hole in tina's jeans

It was maybe March of 1995. Jen's mom has come from Omaha to visit. I'm sitting in my bedroom, with Tina. We're probably smoking cigarettes. Jen and her mom are in the living room, having The Talk. Jen is telling her mom that she's a lesbian (or maybe bi) and that Tina is her girlfriend. Her mom won't like that.

Meanwhile, Tina is telling me a story I've already heard from Jen, but I pretend like I'm hearing it for the first time. She tells me about why she had to go to prison. She tells me about being in high school and being humiliated by classmates who think, rightly, that she's a dyke. She tells me about having sex with one of her female tormentors. She says it was consensual, but she describes it in a convoluted way that makes me think she forced herself on the girl. And that's what the girl tells the police - that she was raped.

Jen speaks to her mother of love, and it drives them further apart. Tina speaks to me of violence, and it's a bonding thing that brings us closer together. Then the four of us get into Jen's car and head for the House On The Rock for an afternoon of touristy fun.

Mom sits mutely beside me in the backseat, numbly glancing through some "So Your Kid's Gay" booklets Jen had provided her with. It would be funny except it's sad. She likes me, and had probably thought (or at least hoped) that Jen and I were a couple. Now she's gotten this heartbreaking news, and she probably wishes she could drive right back to Omaha instead of sitting in this car with her lesbian daughter and her daughter's girlfriend and her daughter's non-boyfriend.

Despite the drama, and despite the fact that I, like Mom, wish that Jen and I were a couple, I feel rather relaxed and content. On the equally silent drive back home, for no particular reason except fondness, I stop staring out the window long enough to reach forward into the front seat and put a finger through a hole in Tina's jeans, briefly exploring the soft skin of her thigh. She breaks the silence, goodnaturedly exclaiming "Did you put your finger in my hole?" I have to stifle a laugh because Jen and her mom hadn't seen what I'd done, and I wonder what they're thinking. Even more relaxed, I go back to staring at the passing Wisconsin landscape.

chris

We met in kindergarten at Southwest Elementary School in 1975. We were the dinosaurs that towered over playground puddle seas. We have an unhealthy amount of inside jokes between us, most of them dating from the 1980's.

when i first met jen

I first met Jen my senior year at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. She was a good friend of my sister's. I'm guessing it was a Sunday evening (when the cafeteria was closed) because the three of us were having pizza in Sis's room. Jen and I hit it off instantly. We were both aspiring (and, due to limited connections, frustrated) potheads. She was impressed by (or at least very interested in) the fact that I'd dropped acid twice. I don't know if we discussed it at that particular time, but we both loved Kerouac's On the Road. Later, on a roadtrip to Colorado, I discovered that a major contributor to her "lost faith" (in Christianity) had been a Wartburg class called "Literature of the Old and New Testament", a class that I too had taken and that had played a large role in my own loss of faith. Anyway, we talked and ate pizza and talked some more, and I'm sure Sis was probably sorry she had introduced us. It was the beginning of a three year friendship that had a profound effect on me.

the karate kid & raiders of the lost ark

TCM is playing The Karate Kid now. I must have seen that movie at least seven times in the theater in 1984. Both my sister and I loved it. We constantly quoted it. "Take a right, check it out..."

I remember sitting in our church basement and somebody brought up The Karate Kid. My dad motioned to my sister and I, saying "These two have seen it seven times", or something to that effect. I remember smiling that shy smile of mine that was part embarrassment and (in this particular instance) part pride. Pride because I loved the movie so much and was glad to be identified as someone who had seen it seven times.

When you're a kid, movies can have such an impact on you. Films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Karate Kid made me feel great. They were such a rush. I remember coming out of Raiders with Chris, running and kicking and jumping around the Capitol Mall parking lot, yearning for adventure and certain I could be the next Indiana Jones.

the beginning

I remember the farm we lived on when I was small. It wasn't our farm, we just rented the house on it. I was born in Jefferson City, Missouri in 1970. Soon we moved back to Oklahoma where my parents were from. My sister was born in Ponca City, and we also lived in Oklahoma City for a short while. But in 1972 we returned to Missouri and rented the white farmhouse where my earliest surviving memories originated.

early no one

Are we really gonna do this? Instead of laboring for cleverness, I choose a rambling unselfconscious narrative style reminiscent of early no one. I'm going to input all my memories and when the timer goes off that means you better find a goddamn chair. Duck duck goose. Red rover. Fucking Easy Bake - that's right!!! I said funny brownies on the ding.

Clearly this makes no sense, but when it's my memories, it'll be clear. Like the stuff about the hole. This blog is about the hole. All this pea sludge and udder slapping is just for kicks.

the hole we dug behind chris's house

This one time we dug a hole in the creek bank behind Chris's house using butter knives. I'm sure it was my idea. We spent a lot of time at that creek, bombing water spiders with rocks or building dams with rocks or skipping rocks over the surface. I really don't know what year this was - my wild guess is the summer of 1984. Which would have made us fourteen at the time. (Is anybody really fourteen? I don't remember ever being asked how old I was, and replying "fourteen".) We stayed up late and dug and dug until it was big enough for one of us to completely crawl inside. Then a day or two later it caved in. I doubt Chris's mom was too happy. They've always had problems with that creek bank slowly but surely eroding, making their small backyard smaller and smaller. And here we go and pull a stunt like this. And I'm quite sure it was my idea.

another goddamn blog???

Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, wept.

How many blogs does it take to get to the bleeding heart center of a good man's soul? As I peel another layer off this sweet red torpedo, you could light a candle for God's boy. I've heard that helps.