God, Ghosts, & Aliens : Part Two

                                        ALIENS                

                I’ll admit I can be a little bat-shit crazy at times, but I’ve never been that guy on the street corner that  people look at and say, “didn’t that sign say the end of the world would be in the year 2000, now it’s 2012… whatever. Well give his crazy-ass some Arby’s and three dollars.” If the world does end with in my lifetime, I just hope it’s not by Aliens. I’m not ready for Aliens. I have enough to worry about as it is and Aliens would only complicate things even more than they already are. I would find myself complaining to someone two years after the Aliens show up and all I would hear is, “it could be worse, you could be on that ship with those Aliens!”

                My view about Aliens is a little indecisive. It’s like asking me to pick between Rachael McAdams or Natalie Portman as best actress ever, I could never decide. Ok, I believe there is life out there somewhere and maybe even alternate Universes if particles could actually change their charges. The fact is that, even if Aliens found a way to travel at the speed of light… they’d have to live like 4 lives to get here from the nearest star. So basically if they want to live long enough to get back from where ever the hell they’re coming from, they would have to warp through space, which I believe is only possible in Star Wars. CRAP! I think I just lost half of my readers somewhere, sorry… I promise there won’t be much thinking in any of my other blogs.

                There probably is life on another planet even in our solar system, maybe microbes or something. I just don’t necessarily believe that Aliens have come to earth and abducted people. My boyfriend Mike feels the complete opposite. At night we have to leave the door closed, not because of robbers breaking into the house or even because of the weird noise the toilet makes in the bathroom, it’s because he thinks aliens will walk through the door and take him while he is sleeping. If they ever do, I’d never know about it… I sleep like a rock. It didn’t use to be like this, when we first started seeing each other he would be able to sleep in my apartment without my door closed, locked, and dresser blocking any intruders. That soon changed after he watched the Fourth Kind. Thanks to Universal Pictures there is now some related reason I’m not allowed to have the ceiling fan on when I sleep because he wants to be able to hear the ship coming!

                It’s the film industries fault for so many people have such paranoia! The root of our problems is Stephen Spielberg; the man is connected to the government in some way and gets inside info on Alien things. I have to be honest; I’m not a fan of Spielberg. His movies are always EXTREMELY predictable and the aliens often look like a triceratops mixed with E.T. Why does he even show the Aliens in his movies, they end up looking ridiculous and all the credibility is lost in the end? I find myself saying, “People are running from those things? I’d be laughing in their faces… after all, they die with oxygen or water or something else extremely simple!” Don’t get me started on Transformers; at least this Director gives me awesome explosions! If anything Alien related in cinema or television has been a hit with me, it would be the X-Files. I love the X-Files. Molder was SOO hot; there is something about a guy whose sister got abducted by aliens than spends the rest of his life trying to prove they are real. Molder makes me all giddy, about as much as cute def guys.

                I was on a trip to see Avenged Sevenfold (heavy metal band) in Albuquerque, New Mexico so my friends and I stopped at Roswell on the way. After listening to me sing for about three hours, they were ready to sprint out of the car and get abducted to anywhere that glass-breaking screeching didn’t exist. We stopped by the alright museum the enormously small town had and experienced nothing. There wasn’t anything to see and I was not made a believer, if anything this town only validated my belief that Aliens do not exist. We did, however, go to this dinner shaped like a space ship and the burgers were out of this world.

                I wish I could tell of some person I know who has been abducted or even an event where I was like, “whoa, that was like a space rainbow” but I only know of earth rainbows. My grandfather is practically from another world, he is the only person I know that avidly protests any belief in the holocaust. He believes that we never got to the moon, that it was all filmed in a warehouse. He also believes that Aliens created the earth. I lived with my grandfather for quite a time in High School and he never liked how often I went to church events. Looking back, I do wish I would have actually wasted my time on something a little more productive than the local Baptist church. My grandfather’s idea is that Aliens created the Universe and everything in it, especially the Earth and also believed they helped the Egyptians build the pyramids. If you ask me, he watched a little too much of the History Channel. If it is all a government conspiracy and there really are aliens out there than I’ll totally jump on board, as long as all my rights to complain aren’t at stake. For now though, Aliens are much like the idea of God to me, I’ll believe it when I see some concrete evidence, like some video footage of Jesus turning one piece of bread into like 9 loaves, with no help from Mel Gibson!

God, Ghosts, & Aliens : Part One

GHOSTS

                It’s hard enough for me to understand how hair grows on the rough parts of my big toes, that being said I’m even much less inclined to explain God, Aliens, Ghosts, or even the ridiculously low prices at IKEA.

                If my blog ever gets read, even by 100 people, than the town of Baird, TX will have gotten more recognition than ever previously expected. This town is so small and conservative that only recently the prohibition acts were lifted from county law. Baird, TX, however, hasn’t always been so unadventurous. The town had a train station in the early 1900’s that made it a popular hub for people migrating west and landing in Texas. One of the stops in these olden times may have well been my Grandfathers old house. Back then it was small and hadn’t yet been added on to, but it did have extra rooms for out of town guests to stay in and many people had been rumored to have died there. That being said, it’s the oldest house still standing in Baird and the second oldest is right across the street. The house is right next to downtown, a street as long as a foot ball field with nothing but a few antique stores, a bank and the dentist.

                Once, past my bed-time when I was about eight years old I strolled down the large hallway to find some car keys. I had the great idea that I would take my Uncle’s keys to his van and try to run away to anywhere that pecan tree’s didn’t exist. The house was massive, especially for an eight year old boy. I was tucked in by my Uncle this night which especially made me feel bad for wanting to run away. Usually my uncle didn’t tuck us in and he always seemed to be a bit of a hard ass. He had bought me this huge stuffed raccoon that I named Racky. He was my size and I slept with him every night. My brother Josh was also in the same room so I had to be quiet enough as to not wake him. After I said my goodbyes to Racky, I proceeded to leave the room and step into the kitchen. As I was walking out it occurred to me that I wouldn’t have any food to eat when I left, and I certainly didn’t have any concept as to the worth of money. I ate some cookies and grabbed whatever would fit in a plastic grocery bag. As I stepped into the great room that consisted of the dinning/living room, I had this deep and profound feeling of loss for my twin brother. If anything would happen to him, it would be my fault for leaving. I don’t know why, I just kept going. At this point I wanted to see how far I could get; maybe I’d only make it to Clyde, the next town, or maybe Canada.

                The hallways always had a creepy feel to them because they were only lit by dim night lights. These hallways could test even the least frightful person. As I turned around the corner to walk through the hallway I saw a man clear as day in front of me. He only stared. It was like he knew who I was and didn’t like that I was running away. He was average in height for a man and had a semi tethered suit on with a bowler hat that was flat on the top. His face was serious and I wanted to cry or hide or call for help, but I was frozen. As I would move, so would he and it really started to creep me out. After we both stood there for a couple minutes I got more and more brave. Three minutes gave me the courage to try and sneak past him. If I could get to the front door than I believed he couldn’t get me, he was a ghost… so it’s not like he could leave the house, right? As I reached the middle ground of the hallway I suddenly noticed the Ghost had disappeared, or so I thought. I looked behind myself and there he was, standing and staring, seriously about to grab me. I took one step back and as I did he rushed over my body like he had run right through me. I screamed like a girl scout falling into a well. I didn’t think to look back and ran straight to my room and woke my brother up immediately. I only tried to run away once after this incident, also not a good ending. For about a year afterwards and almost every time I spent the night in my Grandfather’s house I would either experience something creepy or dream of my brother Josh dying in a tragic car accident and I’d wake up sobbing.  I don’t know why, I can’t explain it… it’s just what I experienced and every time I try to rationalize it I can only think about how real it felt and how vivid the memory is even after all these years.

Lesbian Step-Mom #3

Late one June night a Lesbian couple cast behind a veil of secrecy, decided to no longer hide their love from the rest of the world. These two champions, hard fisted… fanny-pack in hand would no longer allow themselves to keep extremely large collections of plastic trolls, faux-skin blankets with lions and machetes locked away in the bowels behind their vaginas. This night, a night with flannel shirts tied around their waists signaled freedom, it was a night my father would know true lesbian justice; a night my father or even I for that matter would never forget.

                My father and I haven’t always had the best relationship, and to be honest, it’s his fault. Regardless of our differences, my empathy goes out to any man who is dealt the harsh blow of a lesbian or gay lover who has lied to their straight counterpart. That being said, who doesn’t see this coming? Was my father blind or just lying to himself for their entire relationship? Woman or not, if you’re wearing flannel and listening to Michael Bolton, you’re gay. One might even wear a tie-died shirt underneath the flannel, just to show their rebellion against men. I’m not saying all lesbians are like this, just most I’ve seen. Lorene was perhaps the most stereotypical lesbian. She rarely used deodorant, wore tie-die and flannel together. Only wore jeans or cargo-shorts, always had a black or neon yellow fanny pack on, loved trips to home depot, and listened to power ballads. People, I don’t have to make this stuff up, god gave me enough material for many, many blogs. Lesbians are cool, despite all of the draw-backs; they are more widely accepted then gay men. Gay men get every card except the “make-out in public” card. This has been reserved for lesbians; every other gay-card goes to gay men: The power to raise property value, fashion sense, diplomacy, art work, teaching, and especially the military. Lesbians also share all of these traits, but it’s the gay men who always get credit. Hey, I’m not the one who makes the rules, I’m just pointing out the obvious. So be nicer to the over-weight soft-ball players with spiky hair and cut off jogging shorts standing next to you in line for that Angelina Jolie movie – they don’t get enough credit!

                It was unknown to me that Sherry had been standing outside our single-wide cram-packed trailer, listening to my parents fighting and my begging for them to stay together. Lorene showed up one night, under the influence of snorting extreme toxins (the vag). For those who aren’t aware, The Vag is extremely dangerous and explosive, use with caution, actually don’t use at all for it is very flammable from what I’ve heard, and by “heard” I obviously mean “Imagined.” My father and Lorene were fighting about everything he knew the whole time and how unfair it was for her to leave him alone with us. I remember begging them to stay together, why couldn’t sherry stay with us and sleep on the couch? I tried to mediate, desperately hoping they would stay together. To this they both laughed and it seemed it was the only thing they both could immediately agree against. I still don’t see the problem with it; it works for Mormons all the time.

                My younger brother Brandon was Lorene’s biological son, when he would visit Lorene we asked to go see her as well. After a while it seemed as though we had three families. Our immediate family consisted of my dad with his side and support, my mother and her side, and Lorene and Sherry. Lorene and Sherry didn’t really have a supportive family. Sherry’s children were about as stable as the attack on Hiroshima after dropping the Atomic bomb. I had seen Sherry before, the night Lorene was leaving with her things but never officially had the displeasure of shaking her hand. Her son was about 13 when I was 9. His name was Michael and apparently had a bit of a problem with his mother. One afternoon he locked himself in his room in their town-home. Sherry, determined to get into the room, grabbed a latter and proceeded to climb up to his two story window. Bad move. Michael immediately started throwing bricks at her, which, now that I’m a bit older I wonder why bricks would be in his room in the first place. It seems that it took a lot more than that to keep sherry from climbing up that window. Inside his room was a table top burner with a full pot of boiling water in it. Again, sherry was in a bad spot. Michael Myers then put on his scary mask and dumped the pot of boiling water on top of his mother’s head, scalding her and putting her in intensive care for a week. Now, one has to ask themselves how true could this story actually be, after all… it was my five year old brother cluing me in on everything. Regardless, with this information in hand, I was prepared to see a woman resembling Freddy Krueger when the encounter would actually take place.

                Sherry worked at an Arby’s on 1^st street directly across from the new K-Mart. Lorene took us there for lunch one afternoon so we could meet her. She was a thin, wide white woman, Irish looking, with an Arby’s cap on. She was polite and even gave us free Arby’s melts. Who says Lesbians aren’t nice? I don’t! One problem, I couldn’t touch her and after noticing the puss draining from the side of her head, an Arby’s melt didn’t seem too appetizing. Apparently some form of violence happened between her and another person. She had tons of make-up on, wrong shade, to cover up her burn marks that seemed to be only accented by the make-up. This was my perception growing up of un-educated people who decided to have children. Then and there I knew college was my only route, I could never end up like my father or Lorene, and especially not Sherry. I lost contact with Lorene over the years, even Brandon rarely sees his mother. She lives off of the government now; never actually working a day in her life now receives disability. The last time I saw her she was staying at a Ramada Inn, as I walked in I saw four empty pill bottles in a fanny-pack, an angel appeared to Loren and told her I was welcome to come in. Afterwards we shared a meaningful conversation about how she was being interviewed for the position of the chief of police for the Abilene police department.  

Intimate Relations with Ketchup

I’m not a full blown celebrity like Tori Spelling, but I imagine that if I were, many people from all around the world would have one question for me. It’s the same question I hear from the guy packing up my meat at the grocery store, my mother, or even my catholic priest when I was applying for that internship. When was it that you knew you were gay and do you ever think you could just try to like women? Immediately I’m inclined to find the nearest easy button and push it as if it were the buzzer to that taboo game.  It would sound loud enough that people would fall to the ground, dazed and confused. Once they awoke to me drawing on their forehead with a sharpie they would see the world in a new light and decide to live their life without asking another stupid question for as long as they live. At this moment an easy button is at least 10 years away with this world’s limited technology, so for now I’ll just have to hope that a massive need to read my blog gets around to at least people in a 100 mile radius of Austin and anyone who decides to telephone me. 

                If you read that last paragraph then you’ll know I’m about to try to explain my first sexual encounter. Problem, I’m not sure what age I was in that tent with, we’ll call him “Ketchup;” which is very close to the time an encounter I had with a boy named Michael in first grade, either of these could have been my first encounter. The first skin to skin contact I ever experienced was with another male, sorry Mom. Ketchup was a thin Mexican boy about two years older than I am. I’m not sure, but I think we could have been related by marriage at some point, perhaps a distant cousin or something. My mother never actually married his Uncle, but if I ever refer to my hill-billy years, it would ultimately consist of ages six to eight or nine.

After my mother divorced my father she found an almost equally counter-productive man to drop trough with. He was a Hispanic man blessed with an abundance of children, a good majority of which he would question any validity of matching DNA. I believe Ketchup was either a previous step son or real son somewhere down the line. Regardless Ketchup was always around. We played a lot together when I would leave for the weekends to visit my mother. When I arrived I would run to the back of the trailer and climb an insanely tall club house built around an old telephone poll in the middle of the barren waste land they called a back yard. This is where Ketchup would always be waiting and we would kiss for what seemed like the whole weekend. Yes, there were risks involved but we were in love and so excited that we eventually decided to adopt imaginary children in the shape of hard molded plastic. Eventually the weekend would come to a close and I’d have to explain to my children that I’d be leaving on a very important business trip and wouldn’t be back for a while; Barbie always took this the hardest. We lost contact for a while and the last time I saw her she was living out of her red corvette and had cut all her hair off. I feel partly responsible for her death, a truly violent end with a pitt bull landed her in a hole she’d been digging herself into for quite some time. My only regret is that I couldn’t get her to see she was only reliving my past mistakes. Ketchup and I vowed to do better, and this time we’d try our best with our own “real” children.

                     My mom called my twin and I about a week after my ninth birthday to finally wish us a happy birthday and make it up to us by going camping. I was thrilled to spend time with my mother. She had cool things at her house like cereal out of a box and duck tales. At home we bought off brand cereal in bags and my dad never subscribed to the specific Disney channel you needed to get all the shows that would prepare you for Grey’s Anatomy. Josh wasn’t too excited because we would be sharing the weekend with all the other Hispanic kids. I figure he was jealous that these new kids where getting more attention from my mother than we were getting. I, on the other hand, was blinded with lust and imagined the weekend with Ketchup, my intentions patently for us to see each other naked.

We arrived late to the largest man-made mud pit in the in United States, more formally known as Clyde Lake. Ketchup was nowhere to be found so I immediately forgot about him and tried to learn how to swim. After a near death experience subsequent to losing my life jacket I was rushed to a land of warmth and smoores. Late that night all the Mexicans showed up, my mother’s fiancé apparently didn’t want to force his children into a life of swimming and crime. Ketchup appeared from the dark abis, it was the perfect end to the day, as that “I’ve got friends in low places” song came on the portable radio. We sneaked off to the tent by ourselves and I told Ketchup what had happened to me. He was passionate, like I had just returned from battle or if I had just saved his favorite teddy from the jaws of “Damnit,” his puppy. We flung our clothes off in a hurry then slowly decided what to do with our bodies. We both had no clue what women and men did together naked and an even vaguer idea as to what two men could do together sexually. We decided that he would lay directly on top of me, time past as if we were in an awkward time caspsle as we just lay there, not talking for what seemed like an hour but in actual time was only about 5 minutes. We put our clothes back on and went outside to play, I didn’t see much of Ketchup after that. Our parents broke up and he started to gain a lot of weight. Later in High School I found out that he had stolen a number of merchandise from homes and stores. He was sent to Juvenile detention and even now extreme boredom couldn’t bring me to wonder what has happened to him since.

Never Let Me Go

This was my attempt to write a song and I thought I would share it on here on my blog. Mainly because, now looking back at it, it makes me laugh. I wrote it about a year ago.

White flowers push the sole of my feet
Walking in it's you i've come to meet.
Every step, faster than the next
Can't pin-point why, but you've got me hex'd

Heart pounds as my steps start to stride
Gettin ready for an amazing ride.
You don't need to whisper what i want to hear.
Catch me in your arms, nothin left to fear.

(Chorus)
Cause i can feel everything that you wanna to say
You'd tell me that your crazy, need me everyday.
See the love that's in my eyes and all the things i know
Hold on to me tight and never let me go. oh oh, never let me go.

I push, you pull back. Make me wanna stay.
Warm like a light that won't fade away.
Cant help but keep thinkin to myself
Anything from Heaven is what i've felt.

Well you wrote me on your calendar you've thrown away
Ink ran out, and knew 2080 wasn't made.
Then when 2 a.m. comes around, we'll still be up
I'll be lookin at what we have and know i'm loved.

Oh but i can see that you know and understand me
Couldn't live if, you knew I wasn't happy.
You're everything i need, everything i need.

Cause i can feel everything that you wanna to say
You'd tell me that your crazy, need me everyday.
See the love that's in my eyes and all the things i know
Hold on to me tight and never let me go. oh oh, never let me go

And when i'm 99 i'll know you'll still care
You'll wanna tell me you're glad you're still there.
See the love that's in my eyes and all the things i know
Hold on to me tight and never let me go, never let me go.

Lesbian Step-Mom #2

It’s all still a little hazy when it comes to my Dad and Lorene finally breaking it off. At night when my parents thought I was sleeping, I would press my ear against the paper-thin faux-wood paneling forcing myself to hear the bits and pieces of arguments and accusations that were coming from my Dad and Lorene’s bedroom. My Dad worked as a pizza delivery driver and once at work had discovered from a co-worker that Lorene had been seen at the only gay bar in town on a few occasions. If you’ve ever been to Abilene, TX you’ll know that there is a church on practically every corner. The air is thick with self-righteousness and constant hypocrisy. It’s a mystery how this bar ever survived in a town like Abilene, especially considering the fact that with a church on every corner, it didn’t take too long for gossip to spread around. To add to the confusion, it seemed as though this was a time in history when apparently anything was possible, Bill Clinton had just lied on oath about having sex with his intern. My dad didn’t have to convince himself that the sky was falling, he could feel it. On most occasions when they fought all I could remember is the day they got married. Lorene was certifiably insane at best, but she was basically a second mother to me and I couldn’t imagine a life without her. For as long as I can remember my dad would compare Lorene to my real mother. After a while I learned to make my own assumptions about people and diagnosed my father as “full of it”, I began to see the world for what it really was even at my young age. For the most part, however, Lorene was all I had really ever known. I rarely got to see my real mother because of the hostile relationship my father had with her.

 Lorene and my father married each other at the Church of Christ in the small town we periodically grew up in. It was a small wedding and I was only almost four years old so I barely remember anything but bits and pieces. However, two things stick out fairly well. First is the church. Walking in you saw the normal two isles of pews stained a heavy cherry wood color. These pews always had little pencils in the bible holders that I would use to graffiti the inside covers of hymnal books with unicorns and my own made-up super heroes.  Peering over the pews I could see a man marrying Lorene and my father, they each had their own rings and their own vows. My grandfather was also there, mostly because he had in all likely-hood, paid for the wedding and everything else involved. I could tell he was angry about something during the ceremony but never found out for sure what it was. The second thing I remember is their honey-moon. It was a ride home in a 1987 station wagon. All the excitement for getting married had worn off by then and the two were already picking at each other over a secret Lorene had to confess to my dad, one she had probably already confessed to my grandfather. I remember it was about another girl, a friend they both knew. I was young and later looked back on the situation when I played dolls with the girl next door to our yellow H.U.D. house. This was my idea of marriage; I had known that they were together as boyfriend and girlfriend at first and that now after getting married they had to stay together no matter what happened. Marriage was a car ride to church happy and a car ride home upset. We went back to my grandfather’s house afterwards; my dad took off his shoes and started watching the news. Years later I played with my friend’s Ken dolls next door and suddenly had a vague idea that Lorene was a lot like me.

Lesbian Step-Mom

     Lorene came to our family when I was only about 4 years old. She was our baby sitter at first and was an expert in the fine art of neglect. She gave my twin brother and I about as much attention as a person gives a traveling salesman or one of those people in the middle of the mall who sales sunglasses and fake jewelry. Lorene was about ten dyears younger than my father, she didn’t have a license, she hadn’t graduated high school and the closest thing to a job she ever had was selling ice cream from a shop for two weeks once. So needless to say, she was more than qualified to be our babysitter. Also I’m sure Mrs. Doubtfire was taken, so Lorene was possibly the only candidate left, qualified to be alone with two four year olds for 10 hours out of the day. It wasn’t all bad. In the beginning we had nap time almost any time she was annoyed or her daytime soap operas were on. She made us Roman Noodles and Mac & Cheese, and after a while she even stopped burning everything. Her work load, or should I say “my” work load, became more strenuous as my dad and her started getting more serious as a couple. At five years old we were vacuuming, doing dishes, folding clothes, and babysitting ourselves, I’m still hoping to get compensated for raising such a good twin brother, I think he turned out pretty well considering I started raising him when I was only 5 years old.

               Air Supply, Chicago, Kansas, White Snake, Queen, and many more power ballads were in the cards for 7 more years to come. One fun fact that should be known is that Michael Bolton started out doing power ballads. Thanks for that Lorene. Anyways, to say the least, this step mom was a little eccentric. For my father she was fun and exciting, youthful. My older brother Nicholas was born as my dad had just graduated from High School. He had to find a job soon to support his family and missed out on many of the things he thought he could have experienced. Lorene was his connection to this excitement he thought he had rightfully deserved. It was the early nineties by then and it seemed as if the drug-craze was just turned cool again after Reagan tried to stomp it out. The minute the government tries to outlaw something, there’s my dear old dad to say, “hey, fuck you man! I’ll do whatever the fuck I want! It’s the first amendment!” Power ballads and hard drugs, what a mix.

                    We moved out of my Grandfather’s house because my dad had found a job doing something counter-productive. It paid part of the bills, and I think my grandfather was just glad to have his house back. We moved to Clyde, Texas into a H.U.D. house. It was nice and we stayed there for about a year. I actually have some good memories and some not so good ones as well. The manual labor started and so did the soap operas. We had this couch from the 70’s I think, or it was so worn out it looked like it was from the 70’s. Joshua, my twin brother, and I would be forced to take naps, each of us on either side of this couch and at least pretend to be sleeping. With the T.V. right in front of us we caught on to a world of lies and pregnant women who’s baby’s daddy was a mystery for a whole season. People in the same dim lit rooms gave off lines that were systematic and predictable, and still, futile to resist. Lorene always liked me more than my brother Josh, and she absolutely despised my brother, Thomas. My Dad stopped by one morning for his lunch break and had with him three large, empty, refrigerator boxes. Nick, the oldest of all of us was making a house or news station or something else requiring skill and knowledge. Tom was also trying to do the same, but found his wasn’t as masterful as Nick’s was. Josh and I were younger and I’m sure he was playing with a lady bug. I however was rolling around in my box, just as a person would be on the inside of a tire or tin trash can as someone pushes them down a hill. I was dropped on my head a lot as a child. Nick and Tom got into an argument and began scuffling over an aluminum carpet rod… Nick had already become a master carpenter. The end result was Josh’s sliced eyeball and a horrified family. After a couple weeks maybe a month or so we move back into my grandfather house where my Uncle took care of us. My dad and Lorene were getting their shit together, or so it seemed.

                  Exhausted, as if we had just come out of Auschwitz, we were shipped back over to my Father and Lorene. Tom however was still living with my mother, when he was Six years old he had an argument with Loren and decided it was best if they broke up.  I was in the third grade the next year, this apparently was the year, that “I’m all out of love, I’m so lost without you” song made a come-back. We lived in a run-down trailer park, in a run-down trailer, next to run-down neighbors. I remember a woman who lived next door to us. I believe her name was Patty and she appeared to be a big carpet-muncher. I apologize if that isn’t the correct terminology, for I have not a clue what is in-between a woman’s legs and have no desire to ever learn, for all I know… it could be carpet. Patty was bragging because she had mastered the art of sucking out the entire inside of a dill pickle. I watched as she would bite off the tip of the pickle; wrap her tongue around the outside seed section and inside dill wall to make room for suction. She placed the pickle half-way down her throat and started to inhale, then presto, out came a white rabbit… or wait! No, it was a pickle with all the insides majically whist away, why couldn't I just have a normal childhood? Sometimes I would imagine children in other neighborhoods, where the houses had foundations and manicured lawns. Our front yard had only a very sturdy gate, useful against robbery and powerless against mice. These children in the burbs would get to see magicians and white rabbits. I, however, was stuck with Patty the pickle sucker. Patty at the time, was living with her soon to be husband, they had to wait to get married because thieir baby wasn’t born yet. A year later Lorene confessed to having intimate relations with her to my father… but who could blame Lorene, the lady could suck out the entire inside of a dill pickle