15 days and counting compressed into a single post with little to no chronological order

I remember now why I started travelling; I need to be fear less.

I rented a bike in San Diego for two days running from a dude who's an Ocean Beach legend and a pickup artist (more on him later - he may even get his own post. He told me that I seemed lost as we smoked a couple of bowls, and it was painful to know that he was right).

Anyway, I rode this cruiser bike everywhere. I locked it up outside a place that was called "Cocktails: Home of the Semi-Live" as I went in for water, directions, and Long Islands (my new favorite drink; I've been drinking again, but I've been trying to be good... but not too good). I asked the grandfatherly bartender, who had many of his bottom teeth missing and a nicotine-stained moustache, what the "Semi-Live" meant. He gestured absentmindedly at me and the others seated at the bar. I choked on my water as the laughter came. Semi-Live is a huge improvement.

I got back on my bike (not a bike-of-the-apocalypse but still a decent cruiser that only struggled up hills) and headed for downtown. I started wobbling on the side of the road and dropped the bike in the gutter - the wobbling wasn't from the Long Islands, since I'd only had two. No, it was because of a sign - the sign said Cancer Survivors Park. I started crying, just bawling complete with gasps and runny nose. Luckily, there was no one else at the park. I must've spent 10 minutes in the park, but I can't remember any of the signs except for a blank or defaced sign that had "LIVE FREE" scrawled across it in black sharpie. The rest of that day along the harbor progressed in shockingly sweet slow-motion.

This round of travel has been different from the last. First off, I didn't start it alone. I buddied up with the Brazilian girl whom I'd met in NY. She wasn't the same person I remembered (although I had only known her for a day in NY), but she pushed me in a lot of good ways. All the same, we were sick of each other after three days and stopped hooking up by unspoken agreement. She had me take so many repeat, touristy pictures of her that I was silently grateful when my camera fell from my shirt pocket into the receding Venice beach tide as I attempted to play with burrowing sand crabs. There was nothing wrong with either one of us, but let me just say that travel is a very quick way to find out whether or not you're compatible with someone.

That last part about travel and compatibility I got from speaking for over an hour with a middle-aged Hawaiian lady named Deborah, whom I met on the Amtrak to San Diego. She was going to a conference and had traveled around when she was my age, living in different countries before settling on the Big Island - she said that she'd finally found the perfect place. She also told me about a brain injury that she is still recovering from. She was in a bad accident where a semi-truck turned and took her car with it. For two years, she had difficulty with sensations, slight touches on her arm would cause her pain; background sounds could not be filtered out from everyday conversation; any bright light would give her intense migraines. She used to be deadly organized, but now she must write everything down and take it slow. She tells me that her accident was a blessing - I believe her, since she also has this secret, relaxed smile that doesn't stop at her eyes and that I've come to associate with happiness.

I've conquered my slight fear of heights at the Stratosphere in Vegas and various cliffs in the Grand Canyon south rim. Vegas brought back mostly good memories of my ex - what a cool lady. We'd gone to Vegas for her birthday and had visited to the Stratosphere but didn't got to the top. My Brazilian buddy and I went there for the free saltwater pool (it turns out that all casino pools are free as long as you look like you're meeting someone and ignore the desk person asking you for your room key). Anyway, I convinced her to go to the top with me. There are three rides on top - my favorite was a spinning swing set that dangled riders over the edge, above the night-time Vegas Strip. At the Grand Canyon, I jumped over rocks thousands of feet above the valley floor (after she stopped shouting, the Brazilian girl took a good picture of me leaning over one, which I'll post if I ever get my waterlogged camera working again).

We drove to the Grand Canyon with a wonderful pair of travelers from Paris. We managed to find a free unregistered campground outside of the park that a couchsurfer in Vegas had told us about. The Frenchman and I spoke of the sunrise versus the sunset. We agreed that sunrise is better than sunset because it's like a beautiful woman exposing herself for the day rather than clothing herself and turning off all of the lights. I quickly found that I had a crush on the French girl (the accent didn't hurt), but it was more than that. She was much more than "Semi-Live" and is in love with this world.

The french girl told me that when she sees a shooting star, she holds her breath and makes as many wishes as possible before she lets her breath out. I asked her if this was French tradition, but she said that it was her tradition. Later that night, as the Frenchman (a traveling musician) sang and played guitar, I looked at three stars in a row that reminded me of me and my two brothers as I peed on a pine tree that the French girl had described a giant night cat warrior (she also argues that clouds are alive and can be blue) ... and I saw my shooting star. I gasped, trying to muster all of my wishes in one breath. The ones that weren't important left my mind, and I ended up with only two wishes. I think of them and what they mean when I need to calm myself.

In terms of calming myself, I have mild social anxiety (doesn't everyone?). I dread social interactions but want to meet people all the same. This anxiety becomes severe when I let it remain and don't do anything except think about it. I've taken to talking to people at every opportunity, like asking five different people for directions when I'm not lost, sometimes stopping to look at them and waiting for them to say something.

I realized that one repeating uncertainty in my life has been eating away at the new confidence and courage that I've been trying to build. For the last few years, I've been wondering if I'm sexually attracted to men but have done nothing about it but worry. The logical part of me realizes that it's an incredibly silly part of my life to be torturing myself with. I've taken to wearing a grey fedora and putting a different flower in it each day. One day, I had this marvelous purple flower (with 34 petals, a number in the Fibonacci sequence) in my hat and someone at a bar yelled "Gay Pride!" as I walked past. I felt like a stupid closet faggot, but I still wear the grey fedora.

Finally, after years of pointless indecision, I decided to go to a gay bar called The Hole last. I asked many different people for directions, and some asked me what kind of place it was. It felt empowering to say that it was a gay bar. I eventually found it, and it turned out that it was the night of their wet underwear contest. The contestants had very nice bodies, but it just wasn't my cup of tea.

But he drink specials were amazing (your own mini-pitcher for $4) and everyone was friendly and accepting... and gay (I mean the never-used sense of being happy). I talked to a guy with nice blue eyes and realized that he was very cute, yet I wasn't attracted to him. He chided me for getting distracted by a passing girl's ass as we were talking. We kissed each other on the cheeks before I left, and it felt like hugging a brother.

I know that one night of going to a gay bar doesn't solve years of worry, but I also know that I'm straight or mostly straight for now. I shared a cab with a guy who tried to french kiss me; it was unpleasant but funny (I suppose douches come in all different flavors). I also think that, considering some of the other stuff I've gone through these past few months, it was laughable how I had to screw up my courage for days to go to a gay bar. I see more of these bars in my future (probably in Austin, TX) - if only for the cool crowd and drink specials. Whatever I find, I absolutely refuse to worry about it or be ashamed. I deserve better than that... but for now I want find a girl and fuck the shit out of her.

I had this feeling as I explored San Diego's Sunset Cliffs for their fabled caves. I finally found a big cave on a deserted stretch of beach. The cave had several shelves for sitting or fucking - one of the shelves was lined with unlit candles. My new fantasy is to have a girl in that cave. I want to go down on her, not knowing if the salt I taste is hers or from the waves in the background - and kiss, suck, and lick her until she is sopping wet and quivering and then thrust inside her roughly. I'll pump faster and faster until I fill her up - no condoms allowed (in my fantasy at least). *Wow deep breath as I writing this post in my hostel hall filled with various Europeans and trying to fight my surging hard-on.

Anyway, before I made it to that cave, I found a sun-bleached carcass on the cliffs (I don't think that it belonged to a human... maybe a dog?). I yanked a rib bone from it, which I will carve into some instrument or other once I find the inspiration. I clutched this bone as I wondered, dehydrated, for a few more miles along the cliffs, looking for some place to climb up. I finally found some rubble that terminated into a broken barbed-wire fence. I stumbled past it and found myself in a unmanned robotic vehicle testing area - I saw no men but did see a few ominously motionless Humvees. I threw the rib bone over several intact barbed-wire fences, since that meant that I would have to climb over and follow. I made it past protected Government property and rattlesnake warning signs before entering a Christian campus on what must have been orientation day (college seems like so long ago to me now). The people I asked for directions were too polite to mention the smelly bone dangling from sweaty, dirty, cut-up fingers.

All I will say about Los Angeles for now is that I keep getting drawn back to one neighborhood (this is the third time now in the last several months). Perhaps this is a sign, but I'm still far from finishing my travels.

In Vegas, a withered cocktail waitress mistook me and the Brazilian girl for a couple and gave us gaming advice. Apparently, you have to know when to take your money and run, but you also have to know when to put more money down and stick it out. She was sweet, but I didn't follow this inane advice, instead stretching out a $1 on the gaming machines and getting free drinks (a 3 drink maximum for me to hopefully avoid past drinking problems). The cigarette smoke, flashing lights, clanging noises, and rush of people all blur together there after about a day. It's stupid but oddly endearing how easily we throw away our money. Perhaps it has something to do with learning how to lose gracefully.

I've been timid in countless ways throughout my life and haven't dealt with these insecurities before. The one idea that I call to mind during these moments of doubt and darkness is that life is too short; we're all a few misguided heartbeats or shuddering breaths away from the Big Zero. We can spend this time however we wish. We can waste it, wallow in fear and curse ourselves for being cowards, or we can relax, take risks, and be happy. I still feel like shaking those passing people with shining eyes and relaxed smiles - "Hey - hey! How did you get to be like this? Can you let me borrow some, please?" But no one can give it to me but me. There shouldn't be pressure to have fun or be happy, since it's such a simple fact.

I've been picking up talismans from all the places I visit. In the Grand Canyon, I was drawn to this tile with a painting on it - it turned out to be the Warrior at the End of the Trail picture (the outline at the top of this post). Anyway, this guy with the spear has been traveling this one path for so long. He's exhausted and asleep on his horse, so he doesn't know that the trail ends in a cliff. But the horse knows (you can see its rear legs arching back) - so the horse stops, and it's the only thing holding that warrior up. The horse stops and it waits for its rider to awake and find a new path.

A Great Big Fib

While writing a letter to a pen pal who's not a fan of math, I started talking about the Fibonacci sequence, where the next number is arrived at by adding the previous two:

0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,.. and so on.

I was trying to tell her why I liked it so much, how it appears in nature and is connected t0 the golden ratio.

And then I started thinking about those first two seeds, the zero and 1 in the sequence. If we add zeroes to the beginning of the sequence, then we have:

...0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,2,3,5,8,... and so on.

Every part of the sequence is logical until we come across the first 1 in the sequence (namely, 0+0 = 0 so the zeroes are following the rule of the previous two terms adding up to create the next term).

But that first 1 comes from literally nothing (namely, how the fuck does 0+0 = 1?).

This makes me think of life. We can imagine those endless streams of zeroes before there was any type of life. We've also made progress in interpreting the building blocks (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, amino acids, proteins, DNA) and how they can combine to form life.

But life itself, that discontinuity between 0 and 1 - it's irrational, illogical, inconceivable! Consider that jump from non-life to life, how, once there is a singe life seed, it builds on itself and nothing to form strange, new patterns that keep growing with no end in sight.

I'll never be a mathematician, but this is beauty.

And it makes me wonder at how we can take parts of our life for granted (friends, family, love, a working mind... and so on) when we can't even decipher how we've come by those parts.

I just thought that was neat, but now it's time to start packing.

Rejoining the Human Race

Today is probably the first day that I haven't felt compelled to blog. This could a sign of healing or just a today phenomenon (as well as a sign that I need to focus more on my fiction). Perhaps with travel on the horizon (I'm flying to Vegas on Monday), I'm just looking forward to adventures that need to be recorded.

Before, I've had this suspicion that I've been missing out - now, it's a certainty but a hopeful one. The gerbil wheels in my head don't spin so frantically during the day as I try to place more trust in gut feelings. And when I do let those wheels run, it's at night as I'm drifting off to sleep, and there are far fewer squeaks and less of an impression of traveling in futile circles. I had forgotten that closure that can come with the end of each day. These drowsy but lucid thoughts take flight and soar along the updrafts of my dreams.

I had a dream a few days ago involving the St. Louis silver arch, except we weren't in St. Louis -the arch was much taller than in real life, and it also had this crosspiece, about sidewalk-width with a supporting wall on one side but open-air except for a thin banister on the other side. There were dozens if not hundreds of people all around my age at various points along the crosspiece. Some were hunched against the back wall, others were somewhat in the middle of the walkway, and still others were closer to the edge. I had my legs stretched out so that just my heels dangled over the edge. We were at least 100 stories up and I could see a broad avenue below and a bay beyond. Falling off the crosspiece meant game-over; you might have time for a scream and one, maybe two, final thoughts before splatting on the wider walkway below. Even if you somehow got a running start and made it to the bay beyond, the impact on the water would surely kill you.

Anyway, some of the other people near the ledge let their entire legs dangle carelessly over. I knew that if I were to summon the nerve to move closer to the ledge that I would find still more people hanging from it by their fingertips. And I if I joined them, then I would see still more people scaling down either leg of the arch, somehow finding handholds. And if I were to join these people climbing down the legs, then eventually, I'd see all the people down below walking. And if I were somehow able to make it all the way down, then I could squint over the bay and see still more people sailing across the waters to God knows where.

So perhaps all our lives are about rejoining the human race.

I know that I've been missing out, but before, I may have been looking in the wrong places, still huddled against the back wall of a silver arch's crosspiece, only looking at shadows and not at the impossible heights and expanse behind me. And the vertigo summoned by memories of this dream may just be the first thin layer of endless promise.

Two Doors (with plenty of lists and colons!)

In yesterday's post, I ended with the mention of a riddle. I think of it as the two door dilemma - I've adapted/personified it to involve an addicted gambler, named Dire Jim or DJ. This gambling man has taken out too many loans from unscrupulous characters. These loan sharks put DJ on the two doors list, which is a list of persons who'll never be able to pay back their advances. Instead of breaking DJ's fingers or knees or smacking him with a phonebook, the loans sharks have entered DJ into a two doors contest.

The two doors contest is a form of underworld gambling that involves high-rollers betting on someone's life. This contest is carried out in a luxurious cellar with two doors on the far wall from the cushioned steps. In front of one door is a man known only as McForgey, a stout, bald man with an iron-grey, handlebar moustache. In front of the other door is a tall, stick-thin lady with pale green eyes, who is named Willa. Unlike the two guardians, the two doors are identical. Behind one door, is a cramped corridor that leads into an alleyway. If DJ chooses this door, he can leave the cellar with all of his debts forgiven. Behind the other door is a closet space occupied by the Assassin holding a piece of piano wire. If DJ chooses this door, then he pays for his sizable debts with his life.

Allow me to lay down some details to help you suspend your disbelief:

1) Although the two doors dilemma is a common enough riddle, the loan sharks organizing this event have mild-mannered employees who function as plants and approach potential contestants with this riddle. In Dire Jim's case, a mature but still attractive woman had approached him at a bar and engaged him in a seemingly innocent conversation while slipping in the two doors question. After ascertaining that DJ didn't know the answer, she left the bar. DJ was bundled off to the cellar by two thugs 15 minutes later to decrease the probability that he'd have time to ask any other bar patron about the two doors riddle.

2) At first, it doesn't seem logical from a financial standpoint that the loan sharks would be willing to give DJ a 50-50 chance of leaving this contest alive and debt-free. In fact, whichever door DJ chooses, the loan sharks won't get a cent from him, since dead men are essentially creditless. But don't forget the group of high-rollers involved in this cellar event (they sit in the cellar now, against the back wall in leather chairs with seventeen massage settings and drink holders). The buy-in to take part in a game that involves someone's life is extravagant - extravagant to the point that DJ's sizable debts are at least an order of magnitude lower than the minimum bet. Thus, the loan sharks, who organize this event, are coming out well-ahead and can afford to be relatively generous with DJ's chances of survival.

3) The Assassin behind one of the doors isn't using a piano wire to be overly dramatic. Past events invloved a modified .22 caliber target pistol. The small caliber was to ensure that the bullet would not pass through a contestant's skull and maim or kill any of the high-roller patrons seated behind. However, there have been splatter issues in the past that've been bad for business. It was actually the Assassin's idea to switch to piano wire, since it's a relatively inexpensive, cleaner way to dispose of failed contestants. The Assassin also wears a hooded executioner's mask to preserve his identity - OK, maybe he's a tad bit dramatic, but he does his job well. Hell - masks for everybody! The high-rollers cover their faces in superbly-sculpted masks to avoid recognition and avoid connections to spheres of politics, religion, and entertainment.

The only unmasked persons in the room are DJ, with his hands tied behind his back to make for easy throttling should he choose the Assassin's door, and, for reasons unknown, the two guardians, Willa and McForgey.

The guardians don't speak as someone in the high-roller's seated area explains the rules of the game to DJ, who is to terrified to turn around and look at the speaker. The rules of the game are this:

1) DJ must choose a door (the speaker also tells him about the possible consequences of his choice)

2) Before choosing a door, DJ can ask only one of the guardians a single question.

3) Oh yeah, one of the guardians tells only truth, and the other tells only lies. DJ is not to know which one is the truthteller and which one is the liar.

Think one the nature of the guardians, on the idea of lies and truths. One guardian may as well be fiction and the other reality - but which one!?

[If you watched the Labyrinth clip in the last post where the girl has to choose between two doors, then let me dispel any potential confusion. The girl in that clip actually chose the right door; there is a popular misconception that she chose wrongly. No, she chose the right door - I did some quick IMDB research, and the reason she falls through the trap door after choosing the correct door is she says "it's a piece of cake" (you aren't supposed to say this in the Labyrinth because things will go badly).]

So without further ado, there are two ways that DJ can ask a single question to get out of the cellar clusterfuck:

1) He can ask one of the guardians "What door would the other guardian tell me to pick for my survival."

a) If he asks this question to the liar, then he is asking the liar what the truthteller will say. The liar knows the truthteller would give the correct door, so the liar will lie and tell DJ that the truthteller would give him the other door (that one that leads to death).

b) If he asks the truthteller, then he is asking the truthteller what the liar will say. The truthteller knows the liar will lie, so the truthteller will be truthful and tell DJ that the liar would give him the other door.

2) Or DJ can ask "What door would the other guardian tell me hides the Assassin?"

a) If the question is asked to the liar about the truthteller, then the liar will lie and give DJ the door that leads to safety.

b) If the question is asked to the truthteller, then the truthteller will faithfully tell him that the liar would give him the door that leads to safety.

In the first scenario, DJ would pick the opposite door as the guardian's answer. In the second scenario, he'd pick the same door as the guardian's answer - make sense?

Notice that for each scenario, it doesn't matter which guardian he asks, since each guardian will answer with the same door:

Truth exposes lies, and lying becomes a form of truth.

I was reminded of this two doors riddle when I woke up from my first surgery, the one that I got to remove my right testicle on the same day that I learned my lump was a tumor. It was evening when I awoke, still cheerful and dopey from the drugs, I told my Mom this riddle.

I've been trying to make sense of why I woke up with that riddle on my mind. Perhaps it was random, or maybe I felt that my life was at a turning point for better or for worse. This is what I believe so far:

Reality shapes fiction, and fiction twists reality. We can't replace reality with fiction and not suffer from delusions. We also can't abandon fiction for reality and still make sense of our existence. The two are not oppositely-driven entities; just as in the two doors dilemma, we must use them in conjunction to ask the right questions. It does not matter whether we state these questions in fiction or in reality. All that matters is having asked.

One a side note, it's been over two weeks since I've had a drink (minus the few drops of communion wine at church). I've been trying to be responsible, which I suppose is somewhat responsible - when the hell did that come about!? If all goes well, I'll be in Vegas on Monday. I've decided to try drinking responsibly there. If nothing else, it's a hell of a city to test myself in (only second to New Orleans in libation temptation, I'd say). Perhaps this is another turning point, for better or for worse - I'd ask you to wish my luck, but I've already been given enough of that.

Play

This is the first day where I'm drawing a blank. Do not be alarmed, dear friends, for there is so much out there not ourselves. Logically following, I will not be being myself today to fill in a blank. But what to be, what to be?

Yesterday I had the main character from one of my stories start writing me a letter in which I hope he reveals his unreachable dream and what he'd give up to realize it. So far, I've found out that he's extremely detail-oriented; he once panicked over a spelling test in 2nd grade - not because he wasn't a good speller but because his 2nd grade teacher, Ms. Phyllis, would always give them a list of 30 words to study and only use 10 of those words on the actual test. Gerald, this character, started freaking out in his quiet fashion when he realized that he had no surefire prediction for which 10 words Ms. Phyllis would choose. After his Mom asked him if worrying about what words would be on the test would change what words would be on the test, Gerald had a 2nd grade epiphany:

"Details come and go, and I notice more of them than most, I've noticed. But you can't force these details to fall into place - they're already in place, and worrying disrupts this game, obscures the details' true placement."

Gerald figured out Ms. Phyllis' spelling test method soon after letting go (She would always choose the 10 longest words, and if there were more than 10 words of equal length, then she'd invariably choose the ones with more vowels. Personally, I think that was a crappy trick to be playing on 2nd graders, but Gerald is more forgiving). Let's stop being Gerald for now and surf through some other details whose placement isn't isolated to his personal experience.

Such details may be found in the game of truth and dare, which Gerald had sadly never played. Think about the progression of this game from double-dog dares with a dash of truth on the playground to drinking games that let us choose among a question, a dare, or a beer that needed finishing should the first two prove too daunting. These games were all really just about truth: what would be said and what would be left unsaid - what we could bring ourselves to do in the presence of others.

And behind these truths were always stories of what may have been done before, what we thought of what was done before, and what these dealings said about us before, now, and after.

Now the blank of who I once was earlier this morning hasn't yet been filled, so let's expand these details from one game to all play. Why do we play? How is our play any different from dolphins blowing air rings or members of a wolf pack wrestling each other into submission? Research done on these species and many other mammals implies that play may be a low-risk way to try out new behaviors and explore possible social connections.

As humans, we have the ability to pretend play - a banana becomes a pistol in the game cops and robbers, empty tea cups are filled and dolls become flesh and blood in the game of house. Perhaps we have such a wide range of possible behaviors and social connections that our play has to take place on imaginary levels.

We never stop playing, and we are compulsive storytellers - stories can also be a type of play. We can be what we are not while remaining who we are. We can weave lies that reveal truth, with the best-told lies functioning like sonar, bouncing off terribly strange and beautiful shapes previously hidden.

As I fill in the last of my blank for the day, I'm reminded of Gerald and his details already in place. Forcing these details to form a picture hasn't worked for me in the past, but luring these details in with a story - well it reminds me of a riddle that involves two doors where one leads to Hell and one leads to Heaven. You can ask only one question for safe passage and these doors are guarded by fiction and reality - how will you choose? I'll offer a possible answer tomorrow. Play wisely, and be yourself today if that's whom you choose to be.

Shut Up, Crime!

(Quick update to yesterday's post - I called the hospital and told them that this communication delay was unacceptable and that I deserved a straightforward call today; I was able to convey without yelling that I was pissed. I didn't get a call back from the doctor himself, but a nurse called me within the next few hours to go over the ultrasound results. The SuperBall lump is indeed a varicocele; it's unlikely that I'll need surgery or not be able to have kids, and it's one more item on the list that we'll be monitoring over the next few years of check-ups. Thank you, that's all I needed to hear. Who would've thought that communicating your true feelings to someone can lead to better communication overall?

This reminds me of the meeting of minds that takes places on multiple levels when we experience a story. Again, I'll say more on that one later - I somehow managed to finalize a 40-page critical paper dealing with this topic and more in the first week of recovery after my February surgery - I was able to keep this vow of never missing a deadline under any circumstances during my previous, cancerous project period, which I'm very proud to have done. Anyway, I'm going to draw on this paper for my December residency lecture called "Do the Twist: How Storytelling Shapes the Unbroken Surface of Fiction and Reality." I'll probably be hashing out ideas in future posts; I promise that they're not all bullshit.)

As for my thoughts today - I'm still not sure who or what I want to be when I grow up (crap, have I grown up already - nah, I have about 5-20 years left to reach my prime). I can't remember wanting to be an astronaut or a firefighter or a transformer or whatever when I was a kid. The most suitable memory I have here is not my own; my Dad told me that when I was 5 or so, I was swinging this stick around frantically in our Maryland backyard by myself. When I saw him watching, I asked him if he'd get me a real sword. My Dad asked what I would do with a real sword, and I shrieked that I would fight evil.

And what have I done since? I'm still schooling and have worked a half dozen or so part-time jobs, but how has this helped anyone but myself? In recent, now-daily posts, I've portrayed myself as a young traveler who drank too much and decided to come home for a few weeks to help out with a family emergency. How noble... but really a huge motivating force behind that was not having my shit together, being miserable, and needing to regroup for a few weeks. I wonder if I'd made the same decision if I'd been having the time of my life and had made promising plans. My presence at home seems to be helping, but will it matter in the long-term? Family and friends come first, but what about this world and the evil that resides within it?

So this whole fighting evil agenda perplexes me. Being able to point out injustice doesn't necessarily lead to justice. We all want some less righteous noun to shake our heads at, whether it be a faceless corporation, a distant country, an ethnicity, a religious group, a sexual orientation, a political organization, a band, a television show, or, in the more advanced stages of this disease, everyone who is not us. Does this sometimes not-so-subtle method of finding ways to feel superior to others bring any more good into this world, or does it serve as a distraction to following through on definite deeds?

Either way, I think it's unavoidable. I find myself doing it with privileged people who don't know that they're privileged (says the kid with a doctor Dad, a big house to stay in rent-free, and no student debts to speak of). Hell, I even did it in yesterday's post when I said that "I've also had it with aquiescing to people who aren't as smart, talented, or thoughtful as me." I still mean it, but it's also another way to feel superior without taking action.

"All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing" (Edmund Burke, although I know nothing about him beyond this quote). To add to that, I believe that doing nothing when you come across an event that twists your gut with how wrong it is can be another form of evil.

I also question how you know when you're doing good or evil, since there's so much in-between. I saw a disturbing, endearing, and funny movie called Super that started me thinking. Perhaps I should don a costume and beat evildoers with a wrench too? This whole issue of "what is good?" and "what is evil?" can lead to esoteric arguments about how morality is a tool devised by society to keep us from thinking for ourselves - in other words, another form of inaction. Add to this that good has many definitions, some of which can be evil indeed. Perhaps Hitler truly believed he was a savior appointed by God to rid this world of lesser, evil races for the greater good.

I also watched parts of a documentary last night called Superheroes, which featured costumed citizens with limited martial arts skills who patrol city streets by night. At one point, a guy talks about the day in the life of a superhero (it went something like "you get up, eat breakfast, say bye to your girlfriend, go to work, say hi to your work friends, come home, eat dinner, and finally break the monotony by getting out here and looking for bad guys.") At this point, someone behind the camera asks the speaker if he has a girlfriend; the costumed man says that he was speaking of a girlfriend "metaphorically", although I think he meant to say "hypothetically."

The point of the documentary wasn't to make fun of tortured nerds; while they never get footage of costumed crusaders engaging in physical confrontations with "bad guys," there is plenty of footage showing these people handing out food, water, and bathroom supplies to homeless people and holding candlelight vigils for victims of violent crimes that occurred in crowded areas where no one had stepped forward to help.

I still don't know who or what I want to be, but I want to be good. And for that to happen I can't do nothing. I'm not sure where to start - I suspect that if "good" deeds start leading to a false sense of superiority, then it's time to take a step back and follow a different path. I'm scoffing at how easily I've been throwing around the words good and evil, but I believe that there are truly evil and undeniably good parts to this world. I want to find both, and I know there are people out there who'll help me do just that:

Oh, a sleeping drunkard

Up in Central Park,

And a lion-hunter

In the jungle dark,

And a Chinese dentist,

And a British queen -

All fit together

In the same machine.

Nice, nice, very nice;

Nice, nice, very nice;

Nice, nice, very nice;

So many different people

In the same device (Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut)

Had It

"Doctor doctor, give me the news, I got a bad case of -" not hearing back from you in a timely fashion.

Back in July, I wrote about getting ready for my first major check-up since February. I decided to tell my urologist about the lump on my SuperBall, and he told me to schedule an ultrasound. The lump is attached to the vein and not the testicle itself, which is a good sign. I got the ultrasound over three weeks ago at a hospital closer to home. I got a call from the other hospital on Monday July 27th as I was drunkenly cruising the Chicago lakefront. The caller told me that the other hospital hadn't faxed the results yet.

Long story short - I got the other hospital to fax the results on July 28th, and I've called the receiving hospital about ten times since. I did get a call back from a physician's assistant who said that everything was fine and negative - yeah, she was talking about my CT scan that I've already gone over with my urologist and not the more recent ultrasound - this somehow made the whole affair more frustrating. I've also been told repeatedly that after the faxing of results, there is a scanning process that can take up to a week to make it to the urologist, so that he can glance at it. Really? I worked in office supplies for a few months right next to a copy and print section, and although I didn't undergo rigorous training, it seems that you put a piece of paper on this machine that hums for a few seconds - boom, scanned! I know that the doctor is busy, but how can it take a week (actually over a week at this point) to get those scanned results to him?

I haven't been left completely in the dark - again, it's one of those repeated instances where I'm insanely grateful that my Dad is also a doctor. He was able to look up the ultrasound results, since it was done at his hospital. The results stated that my SuperBall lump was probably a varicocele, which is basically a varicose vein in my nut. This happens to approximately 1 in 7 young guys, mostly during puberty as there is increased blood flow to the testicles. In my case, this is probably due the recent trauma and compensation that my sac has undergone. All I got from my Dad was "varicocele" (understandable, since this isn't his area of expertise), and I've researched the rest on my own.

And this is what has been driving me crazy, the fact that I've had to give myself my own consultation. I'd like to hear from someone with more expertise. How certain is it that this lump is a varicocele? What are the chances (since there are some) of this leading to infertility? Will I need to get another surgery to remove this lump that seems to keep growing? Every time I call, I ask if there's something that I can do to "help expedite this process" (i.e. do you need me to drive down there and copy the results by hand if your scanner is broken and then run it up to the doctor?).

My Mom, who also works in healthcare, has told me that this non-communication is probably a good sign, that they'd be contacting me right away if there was potential trouble. Fine, but it still doesn't feel official until I hear back from someone. This remnant of uncertainty is starting to come back to the point that I've caught myself fiddling with the lump throughout the day; I don't need this uncertainty, since it's led to destructive decisions in the past.

And it comes back down to whether or not I respect myself enough to believe that I deserve an answer in a timely fashion. I've been cautious about demanding respect in the past, since I don't want to walk around with a chip on my shoulder. I don't want to be one of those pugnacious grown men who throws a tantrum every time something doesn't go his way, and who could probably really benefit from a royal ass kicking. No for basic respect, I'm thinking more along the lines of Stuart Smalley's daily affirmation.

People will take advantage of and walk all over you if you don't think you're good enough. This has been my expanding realization these past eight months. The realization is that I have fucking had it.

I've had it with devoting substantial time and energy to bullshit that I don't even care about. I've had it with being dependent on others for my happiness. I've had it with using drinking and drugs as an excuse to feel. I've had it with being willing to politely die in a corner so as not to cause any undue convenience.

I've also had it with acquiescing to people who aren't as smart, talented, and thoughtful as me. Yeah, I said it. I'm sick of being accommodating and understanding, especially when people haven't done shit to deserve it. I don't need permission to be upset. Actually, I'm pissed - time to make another call. That's my cheerful post for the day.