Vice, Vice Baby

You know, a year ago this would have been a no-brainer. A year ago, I could have written an essay - a dissertation, even, on vice. More specifically, on my vices. Unfortunately (for the purposes of this space, anyway), my vices are slowly dissipating into history, like smoke from a bottle. It's taken a bit of adjusting to. In the last year, I've quit smoking, started eating right, getting regular exercise. I stopped drinking as much and pretty much stopped my minor recreational drug use (I'm far removed from my more serious drug use days). I mean, that's a steady list of vices right there, and I've dumped 'em all in less than a year.

For some reason, I feel almost embarrassed about it. The thing is, accepting those things as vices, as something wrong or bad or even immoral seems like a blow dealt to my youth. I feel as if once you start thinking about those things as behaviors you need to alter, you're evolving past the carefree attitudes of youth and making the slow, inexorable move towards true adulthood, where you spend more time watching your cholesterol level then you do enjoying yourself.

Except that I don't think that's really true. I'm under no illusions -- at 33 years old, I'm hardly an old man. It's not like I was suddenly faced with my own mortality. But at the same time, there comes a time when you really, truly start to realize that the path you are on... will have serious adverse effects on your life and the lives of those around you. Not today, perhaps. Not tomorrow or next year or in five years or ten. But... eventually.

Sometimes, the threat of that eventuality is enough.

So I've given up many of my vices. Of course, perhaps I've traded them in for new, more interesting ones. I no longer spend my money on cigarettes and cheap beer. Instead, I've developed a taste for expensive Scotch. I no longer sit on my ass all day andplay video games. Instead, I took up mountain biking, an expenisve endeavor in and of itself, not to mention an inherently dangerous one. As I write this, I've got a pair of shredded shins and a bruise that is quite literally the size of an egg.

I suppose I'll never give up everything -- someone once told me everyone needs at least a few vices, if for no other reason than to keep like interesting. I still play my music too loud. I still swear like a fucking sailor who stubbed his toe. I still spend money a little too freely.

But at least now, I'll be able to do those things for much longer.


ps - I know it's not October anymore, but fuck it. This came to me and seemed better served being posted here.

----------------
Now playing: Hatebreed - Healing To Suffer Again
via FoxyTunes

I Left My Soul There, Down By The Sea

We'd been in South Africa for a week, visiting my parents. We were scrabbling around a mountain path, a long, winding, twisting path that curled its way up and around. It was right by the ocean, wandering through air scented with salt and sand and seaweed and the earthy, thick smell of the mountains. It's a heady combination, especially for my sister and I, traveling far and long to be there; her from New York City, me from Boston. My parents, wind blowing through my mom's hair, wind... um... gently shifting my dad's graying afro, were smiling at the joy on our faces.

We came to a bridge. A long, steel-reinforced, wood-slatted, rope-railing bridge that swayed in the high wind. It connected the path we were on to another path on a smaller rock formation, and across an ocean inlet. I can't remember if we were on the Atlantic side or the Pacific side of Cape Town. The bridge was spectacular - my father rushed ahead so he could turn around and photograph us as we clambered across it. My mother, nervously smiling, gripped the railings with white knuckles, determined to enjoy herself.

My sister and I do not know fear when we are together. Separately, we have our weaknesses. Together, we don't understand fear. I think sometimes her own brazenness simply makes me stronger. We giggled and laughed and bumped and shoved each other as we stumbled along the bridge. My parents made it to the other side, and stopped, sitting on a rocky outcropping, taking drinks of water and watching our hijinks.

We paused, leaning against the high rope walls of the bridge, gazing out at the sea, breathing in the sweet, salty air. The smiles on our faces had never been bigger, the sights we saw never more beautiful. We were probably 25 feet above the water. Gulls aimlessly drifted above us. Smaller birds flitted beneath the lazily swaying bridge.

We looked down at the water. My sister smiled at me.

We looked over at my parents. I smiled at her.

We grabbed the railing, hauled ourselves up, and without a word, without a second thought, without a sideways glance... we leaped.

At the time, the fall felt like minutes. It was likely not even seconds. We smashed into the water, a frozen, salted blast that shocked my entire body. It hurt my ribs to breathe. My lungs could barely keep the breath in them as I sank beneath the choppy, frigid surface. I let myself sink as long as possible, then kicked once, twice, three times and exploded to the surface. I tread water desperately - the surf was much more intense than I'd thought. My sister crashed through, looking like a black-haired devil bursting through the broken glassy waters. She screamed in shock, joy, with raw energy. We clutched each other momentarily, and turned our faces to the sun, feeling that small trickle of heat.

My mother was in an absolute panic. My father was rolling his eyes.

They should have known better, should have suspected. My sister and I are of the sea. Some people like mountains, some people like sand, some people like forests. We live for the sea. We do not fear it, not its brutal chill, not its depths, not its currents. We were raised near it, and it's a part of us. We grinned, dancing on the edge of madness as our hearts pounded and muscles strained, as our cold-weakened legs kicking to keep us afloat, spitting out the briny water, eyes shining.

Finally, we swam in stuttering, muscle-burning strokes towards the rocky shore. We pulled ourselves up, teeth chattering, bodies clenched in shivers, cramping, feeling absolutely, gloriously happy. My mother fussed and slapped me on the arm, trying to look stern and failing. My father, as is his way, took a picture.

That evening, we gathered at one of my aunts' house, regaling our local cousins with our foolish tale of craziness. They laughed along with us, giving each other "what can you do? They've always been crazy" looks, slapping us on the back and tipping back bottles of Castle Lager. One of them asked us, "Where were you again?"

We told her.

The air in the room got thicker, and the bemused looks turned to looks of surprise, shock, fear, anxiousness. My cousins stared at us, bodies immobile, silent.

"What?!" I asked.

Nothing.

"You guys! WHAT?!" My sister demanded.

Another cousin finally replied.

"They... you... that's..."

He started over.

"Jesus, you two. They go shark-cage diving there. You know, with tourists and marine biologists and stuff. They choose it because there are so many sharks around."

*Gulp*


We do not know fear.

We are of the sea.

Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.

I'm trying desperately to think of a story about my mother, one that stands out above all the rest. It's surprisingly hard. My mother is a fascinating woman - she's a twin, one of seven children who grew up dirt poor in the Cape Town projects known as the Cape Flats. She never graduated high school, never went to college, got married at 21 and had her first of two kids at 22.

Except that to make that her story is to do her an unbelievable disservice. My mother also managed to become an associate at the architecture firm she worked at in Boston, and is an incredibly successful accounant in Cape Town now. She's turning 60 years old next week, and still looks 40. She's smart, loving... all the things you want in a mom. My mom went through a hell of a lot to get where she is today... hell, she went through a lot to get me here today.

Let's put it this way - after my mom had my sister, she had a miscarriage next. Doctors told her she was risking her life if she go pregnant again. And yet, here I am. My mother is almost overwhelming, she loves me so much.

I'm 33 years old, and she still grabs my hand when we cross the street. I'm completely serious.

Ah. Now I've got the story. It's a short one, but worth telling:

My parents moved back to South Africa in 1996, the summer before my senior year in college. It was probably the hardest time in our lives as a family - my sister moved to New York, I went to Wisconsin, and they were in Africa. It wasn't easy. Needless to say, a couple of years later, I went to visit them with Mrs. TK (who was not yet Mrs. TK). It is a brutal trip, the flight to South Africa. 22 hours from New York to Johannesburg, no stops except for a refuel in the Canaries - where you can't even get off the plane. Coupled with the fact that I am not what you'd call a small person, and the seats are designed for pygmy marmosets, it's not fun.

But one of my favorite things in the whole world is when I visit my family in South Africa, everyone comes to the airport to meet me. EVERYONE. Aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, you name it. And I've got a big-ass family, so there are, at times, around 40 people literally screaming when they see us come out of the tunnel. I feel like a rock star.

So Not-Yet-Mrs. TK and I get off the plane after this long, grueling, frustrating flight, and we've got to get our luggage first. The baggage claim area is clearly visible from the waiting area, but there is a rope and a gate separating them, and armed guards standing there between the two rooms. I mean, guards with machine guns. For real. We see everyone, and Not-Yet-Mrs. TK gawks at the number of screaming crazies (I think this was her first trip), and my mother... she just can't handle it.

So, with tears streaming down her smiling face, she busts through the gate, shoulders the armed guard aside, and wraps me in perhaps the biggest hug I've ever received. The guard looks absolutely stunned. Another armed guard walks over and firmly puts his hand on my mother's arm, and she shrugs him off without even looking at him. Finally, I look at him over my mother's head and whisper, "just give her a minute, OK?" They back off, and finally, once she's convinced that yes I really am there, she makes her way back through the gate.

My mother. She risks her life just to have me, and then breaks past armed men just to hug me.

She'll be here, for the first time in 10 years, in three days.

Three.

Days.

Happy Mother's Day.

Growing Pains

I don't know how many times over the past couple of years I've wondered: How did it come to this?

I've had a variety of unusual neighbors over the years. When I was a child, we moved fairly frequently, and usually across oceans. So I never really had a chance to get to know my neighbors, until our final move back to the States. And then our neighbors were a strange lot - we had a hippie couple on one side, and the wife tried to seduce my father once. Which is a whole OTHER tale, for another time. One the other side was an elderly Latvian couple who spoke limited English, and would peer curiously at our family of mixed-race crazies as we ran around like spastic lunatics.

[Quick anecdote: When I was in high school I did a mess of drugs. One day, when a friend and I were waaaaaay high on LSD, we saw them puttering about in their garden. My friend froze in fear, and urgently said to me, "Omigawd... your neighbors! They can see us!" To which I hissed, "QUIET! They're Latvian!" Cut to us desperately running away.]

OK, so you kinda had to be there.

Anyway.

I've lived in cities, in suburbs, in apartment buildings, dormitories, cockroach-infested studios, row-homes, you name it. I lived in safe communities and in... less safe ones. I've lived in concrete jungles and beach-side apartments. I've had every imaginable kind of neighbor.

So why am I so befuddled by the ones I have now?

The truth is, we have moved to a marvel of small-town living. We live on a dead-end street, at the end of which is a delightful town forest with hiking trails and a summer camp. The neighbors gaily wave hello to each other when taking out their trash. We talk to each other over breaks between raking leaves and mowing lawns (frequent topics of discussion: types of lawnmowers, good contractors we know, elementary schools and dogs). Girl scouts knock on our door when they're doing charity drives. I've never seen a police car. I've never heard any loud music (save my own). There are a remarkable number of minivans and SUV's.

In short, it is the Twilight Zone. Because the truth is, for all of the different places I have lived, all of the myriad neighbors I have had, I've never experienced anything like this. And it puzzles me. At first, we were actually suspicious - as if some day, this Mayberry-like facade would be torn away to display a Stepford-like cult, or perhaps we'd go over to a neighbors house, only to discover a giant hive in their basement, from where they and the rest of the Pod-people on our bucolic little street were hatched, where they polish their ray-guns and wait to take over the Earth.

It is particularly startling for a couple such as us - we are first time homeowners, the youngest adults on the street, and the only childless household. I tend to drive down the street with either hip-hop or hardcore music blaring from my windows. Our barbecues are not the tidy, cheery affairs that our neighbors have - instead it's 15-20 20- and30-somethings playing drunken Wiffleball, listening to Blackalicious and getting high in the garden shed. We are the black sheep. In fact, if one of my neighbors were to write for this blog, I suspect they would write about us!

Except that it doesn't work that way for the Pod People of Mayberry, MA. Because despite all of our decidedly un-Mayberry-like quirks, they still seem to like us (or perhaps it's just Mrs. TK that they like). They bring us vegetables from their garden, and offer to watch our pets when we're away. This is particularly jarring for me, because I am, and always have been, extremely uncomfortable around people who are outside of my bubble of companions.

But what is most disconcerting are the children. Our street is lousy with kids. They play in groups with each other, running up and down the sidewalks playing Tag, throwing acorns and playing basketball. They squeal with glee when the ice cream truck comes. And of course, the only thing that makes me more anxious than people? Children.

Because in truth, children completely befuddle me. I have no idea how to talk to them, or relate to them in general. I find myself speaking to them as if they were dogs - "good boy!" and making that kissing noise when I want them to come to me and "Fetch!" I am completely flummoxed at how to deal with them. Babies frequently start to cry when I hold them, and small children seem to fear me. I don't know if it's my size or demeanor or tone of voice or what, but all of these things combined make me even more anxious. And when I get anxious, I get irritated. And when I get irritated I get... well, sometimes unpleasant.

So. All of this leads me to three particular neighbors. Andrew (12), Francis (9) and Philip (7). Three brothers who live up the street, who are completely fascinated by me and Mrs. TK. Perhaps because we are younger than the other grown-ups, perhaps because our lifestyle is more rock 'n' roll than that of their parents. What initially brought us to their attention was our animals - as many know, Mrs. TK is a veterinarian and we are a traveling menagerie - three cats, two dogs and a guinea pig, and they are endlessly amused by our pets and her tales of animal chicanery.

So now they have become staples of our weekends. They come over and ring the doorbell and ask in their cute little-boy voices if their dog can play with our dog. Because we're also the only house on the street with a fenced-in yard. So we let them in, and they roll around and wrestle and generally make a ruckus with their puppy and our doggies. It's so goddamn adorable it makes me want to vomit. But what I really don't get is why they keep coming back. I mean, I'm completely un-fun with them. One time when they saw me throwing my dogshit over the fence, they stammered, "but... but we play back there sometimes." To which I deadpanned, "Well, watch your step kid." Another time I yelled at them for having acorn fights on my driveway since I'd just cleaned it off. I find myself being more gruff than usual with them, because I get frustrated that I don't know how to communicate with them. This makes me even more annoyed, because it leads me to the inevitable question: What's it going to be like when I have kids? These things keep me up at night.

But what's even more fascinating is that despite all my coarse language, my grouchy looks, my reprimands and my dour demeanor... they keep coming back. In fact, they've even gone so far as to play pranks on me, the little bastards. For a long time, I just didn't get it. My friends laughed at the fact that I'd become the grumpy old man, yelling at the kids to "git off mah damn property!". But then I eventually realized something... for whatever reason, these little whippersnappers like me, perhaps even because of my personality, and not in spite of it. And that, in turn, has made me start to like them.

I'm getting used to this quiet suburban existence. I'm getting used to the quiet nights and the banal conversations and the "oh-my-God-the-ICE-CREAM-MAN-IS-HERE!" squeals of joy. I'm getting used to mowing my lawn and raking my leaves and... God help me,I guess my neighbors, young and old, are helping me get used to growing up.

But I'll be damned if I'm turning my music down.

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a boy.

A boy who loved boyish things... he loved playing with action figures, and little league baseball. He loved his Mom and his Dad, and his sister... well... he didn't hate her, I suppose. He loved puppies (though he was never allowed to have one), and kittens (though he wasn't very good at caring for them), and snakes and bugs and playing in dirt.

He loved sledding in the wintertime, and mittens and hoods so big that they hid his eyes, even if it caused him to walk into the occasional tree. It made people laugh, so he figured that was fine.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved to make people laugh.

Once upon a time there was a teenager. A teenager who loved teenage things - some good, some bad. What were the good things? Well, he loved to play lacrosse, though he wasn't terribly good at it. He loved his English class, and it's stirring conversation. He loved his friends. He loved cheeseburgers and getting up in the middle of the night to climb onto the roof and look at the stars. He loved snow-days and sleeping late. He loved making people laugh.

Of course, there were the bad things he loved. He loved parties and staying out late. He loved arguing with his parents and Busch Lite and girls who squeezed his heart until it popped. He loved smoking and skipping school.

Once upon a time there was a teenager who loved to make people laugh.

Once upon a time there was a young man. A young man who loved the things a young man loves. He loved drinking legally. He loved having a place of his own, although he wasn't very good at taking care of it. He loved playing darts late at night, in smoky rooms, listening to music and waxing nostalgic. He even loved his work, although he didn't like getting up so early.

He loved his girlfriend (so much that it made him nervous).

He loved his freedom, he loved being able to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He loved his life, and making people laugh.

Once upon a time there was a man. A man who loved being a man. He loved his wife (who no longer made him nervous) and his house and finally having a dog. He loved his work, which was now less of a job and more of a calling.

But he still loved his darts in smoky rooms and his music and his waxing nostalgic. Until one night, late after work, he stood with friends in a dimly lit, smoke-filled room, playing what felt like his thousandth round of darts, drinking his thousandth cheap drink, and hearing the same story for the thousandth time.

Once upon a time there was a man. A man who loved many things, but decided there was room for one more. And that night, after leaving the smoke-filled room and going home, he lay in bed with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling that his wife had so meticulously painted. His wife, who lay next to him, with her head on his chest, listening to him breathe. They had a house and a dog. And a garden and a yard and a life linked to dozens of other lives, but with something still missing.

Some day there will be a boy... or a girl. And that child will do childish things, and will have a father who will make them laugh.

Some day, thought the man. And he laughed.