Through the Window

Flying into Guatemala, clouds are being launched into the sky from the depths of the grey-blue Atlantic. They are pulling the sea up their wide columns. Upon reaching the troposphere, the thick columns mushroom out.

The sun is low and fresh. A yellow sun and growing in strength, second by second. Though the sun's energy is strong and magnificent, it is not the object of my eye.

Where am I?

I stepped into this room from a place that I knew—of squares and right angles—but it has now taken me to a strange and alien jungle, one not of trees and green and smells of earth and life.

I have seen 2,000 year old Sequoias, massive trees that are tall but not lanky. Here I am faced by a forest of things much older (or are they much younger?), and much more impressive. This cloud forest, one without definite origins, one that must have crept in during the night. I can sense the power of these creatures. I know their strength comes from the most powerful and timeless forces on our earth: the sun and the sea. Their great energy is evident in their size and the mass of their vaporous but somehow solid bodies. They stand on common ground, blue and grey, not green and brown.

I catch glimpses of the water below and it forms a vast floor. I can see it is feeding these giants. It is as shadowed and nuanced as most things are from six feet away. We are 29,994 further out, and it still looks as rich and detailed as a forest floor—one filled with tracks and detritus of the fallen, upon which plants still alive may grow stronger.

In this forest of clouds, with their powerful blue trunks and grey mushroom tops, if I were not in an aluminum tube looking through a piece of clear plastic, I'm quite sure I'd hear a quiet song on the air, deep and ancient.

The light fills all the gaps loudly, not tip-toeing, but blazing through breaches of the canopy, and if it makes it to the forest floor it does not stay there. Instead, reflecting off the water, its glittering light sears my eyes. Blinded, I look away. It is magnificent.  

Updates and Essays

It’s been a very long time since I have written here.

Many things have changed and I will not go into them now.

I have stopped climbing, and sold my rocking climbing gear out of necessity.

I’m barely getting by financially, but I am getting by.

I live in California now, and I’m living “temporarily” in a small room attached to a garage.

It would make a perfect writer’s hovel. The only factor that prevents it from being such a thing is my reticence to write. Therefore, it’s just an ordinary hovel, and not the much more romantic sounding writer’s hovel.

I’ve looked for employment—which says a lot about how my attitudes and philosophies have changed in itself—yet I have not been offered any gainful employment.

No longer do I frequent the beach daily, as I had when I was living and abiding in that magical, slightly dystopian place. In fact, I hardly go to the beach at all, any more.

World travel calls my name, but a pauper am I, and I cannot decide my course. The piece below I wrote as I imagined I might write many pieces were I to travel and respond to the inspiration I can sense palpably waiting for me.

To travel is to be inspired, and I recall fondly the first days I lived in the Creek or the Valley and how I was so willing to overlook the difficulties of my situation and be inspired by the grandeur.

Yet, I know that I have a tendency to recall fondly events and times that others will recall my complaining, so maybe I have a rose-colored past-view mirror (to mix some metaphors).

I’m dating a woman named Saya (rhymes with Maya), and that’s the glue that holds this disparate way of living together. Without her as a focal point, I’m sure I would have scattered with the wind on the path of least resistance.

So, I’m striving, and I’m now trying to be more forthright in directing my course, but it’s difficult. It’s a challenge to remain honest to myself about my true intentions for life and to be honest about where I am and whether it’s propelling me toward where I want to be.

Were I to Travel

I am among a step farming ruin preserved in the mountains in some south American country, Peru, perhaps. I am sitting in the corner of a room unused for millennia. I face the wall and place my palm against the cool stone. Walls are barriers, inhibitors. But I am more than just feeling this wall. This wall is conducting, uniting. I am reaching back, back through time, touching humanity, touching the work of a man, woman, or child who knew a different world.

This world is not static. This world changes. I am the traveler. I am the observer. I am the privileged one. They, the workers. They are the ones that live. They do not travel. They live and survive and make do, and though they do not have my wealth, they have the earth as a healthy mother. It provides for them, houses them, and nurses them into health with its bounty. The earth is their healer.

The earth I know is sick. I can feel the air sting my lungs when it’s overcast and humid—I guess that all the exhaust gets trapped under the clouds and becomes concentrated. I feel the air take health from my lungs. All it leaves in its place is discomfort, unease.

I have come from the site of infection, and I have brought some of the disease with me. I have ridden in the virus, as it flies the grey skies.

So I sit, and I reach back, and I ask, “oh brother, what would you have us do? What would you have done, were you me?” I long to converse with humanity, to hear its words spoken in one voice, loud and clear. I long to commune with the spirit of my kind, to ask it, “why do we go on living in the ways for which we did not bargain? Why do we remain as we were, and change so little?” It has taken so many small changes over time to bring about any great change. Where does one man’s capacity to have an epiphany and reverse his course go, when he is viewed in the larger context of humanity?

It is of no matter that I ask these things of my brother, for he will not reach back and touch me. His voice is mute. He has only left a testament to what he valued, and maybe that is not so different from what we value today, if I can be said to be part of “We” and we all value the same thing.

Even yet I wonder, would my brother have worked until he died, loved until there was no light, and stayed with those who bore him into his plight? I think that he might.

But if that is he, then who am I? Am I the same? Have I stayed with my family, gone where I should go, on the road paved by those I know? I would want to think I haven’t, but I might admit that I have. I think I have, but I’ve tried so hard to stray afield from the path that is easy and straight. I long for the winding road, the revealing path, the one that—through virtue of mystery—has so much more to offer through the power of revelation.

I long to round a bend in my path and to be shocked, elated, dumbstruck—by what I find, see, hear. That is my way of living. Am I addicted to cheap tricks? Am I the one who must find the least sure path, to declare my intention to not go down on the ship of steady dreams, common goals and expected outcomes?

By living this unsure life, am I able to strive for something great, even though I may not achieve it, something that I could not do in the ordinary life that is found on that long straight road?

Finding Edges

When I think about where I’ve been in the last year the most vivid memories are those that I experienced in the midst of physical exertion. 

Canyonlands

I’m in Canyonlands National Park. It’s a crevassed expanse of red and brown and tan banded sandstone. You might mistake it for an alien planet when you get in deep and you can’t see anything but the high walls and deep canyons—a landscape utterly unfamiliar.

I’m chasing a zealous Czech. What is he zealous for? Exertion.

Martin’s a former pro bicyclist, and an avid adventure racer. Right now though, he’s just kicking my ass. I’m running after him in zigs and zags. Around that boulder, through this narrows; the walls nearly touching both my shoulders, I hold my fingertips out as I enter the red, cool hallway, caressing the walls as I run through.  Martin ducks the low branches. I jump the stream as the path winds. We move like we are native. We are nimble, riding on our legs as they move powerfully beneath us.

The Czech will not tire. I am inspired. We’re in single-track now, the path too narrow for two to run abreast. We’re running on softer soil than the decomposing sandstone of a moment ago. It’s the fertile loam of a riparian zone which hugs and mirrors the small stream that runs through this desert, this runneled and channeled soft rock. We are animals frolicking. We are reveling in the youth and strength of our bodies.

Cresting a hill of monolithic rock, we stop short so as not to fall into the valley that comes sprawling to our feet. The stream has found its way around the rock we have climbed, and we see what we have been running in. The scene is laid out before us: the lush riparian green is complimented by the red rock. The effect is bold.  Our path leads into this valley. We strike out, down the hill, rejoining the single-track.

We are running, running, always running. Breathless at times, but always exuberant in the surreal landscape we encounter.  The bare, naked calico rock beckons. It begs us to explore its curves, undulating and breathing, enticing us. The rock holds the promise of revealing something, but that something is never quite revealed—the essence of sensuality. Our bodies rise and fall as we run, tracing the forms of the great rock. We are so small. We run on.

After Six

After Six, 5.7, five pitches (approximately 500 feet). Mike’s friend Thomas already ran some laps on the route, and he is telling us the conditions are good, and it’s been nice so far today. Mike and I are slipping into our shoes, and fastening our chalk bags around our waists.

I’ve never free-soloed before. I’m nervous, but I’m optimistic in my abilities—a feeling that almost passes for confidence. Thomas leads off. Mike gives him fifteen feet, and follows. I do likewise. We begin climbing.

Instead of feeling foreign or strange, it feels incredibly natural; free-soloing. With no rope, no harness, no gear, I move unfettered. A rhythm of movement develops and I can feel the way I am supposed to move over this rock, with this rock. Moving steadily, I’m aware of Mike and Thomas above me, but as I begin to concentrate more on the climbing I move into a mental space that blocks out most of the world.

We use an alternate start that is only 5.6 or 5.5, and we aren’t climbing anything harder than 5.6 the whole way. The terrain is easy, and that’s good because I’m nervous and awkward in my movements. I’m not focused enough to shut out everything; I scramble a bit just to keep up with them. They seem to be walking up the rock. I’m trying to climb it. I feel like the little brother. I tell myself that I can’t allow my pride to force me to climb faster than my ability, I tell myself about the danger of chasing them.  There are big ledges along the way at the bottoms of each pitch. Most of the time, a fall will be a serious injury, but probably not fatal. Regardless, the whole climb demands to be treated as a no-fall scenario. 

Thomas disappears, then Mike. They’re pulling over the lip, summiting. I’m close behind.

On top, the view is magnificent. Yosemite is majestic (one of the few places I’ve seen that requires the use of a word like ‘majestic’). It is one of those perfect days: temperature, breeze, light—all perfect. What do you want me to say? The light is bouncing off the thousand foot grey granite walls like they are mirrors—big, grey slabs of mirrors. That light is deep yellow and orange, and it’s shooting beams through breaks in the horizon of granite as you’d see in a painting, but this is real. The sky is blue, with clouds thick and full as they can only be in the rich air above the Sierras.

So, the sky is blue, and white clouds. The sun is a low afternoon sun that’s blazing in glory. These colors are absorbed and refracted by the rich grey of the tall granite. That granite is hung above a soft, green floor of coniferous trees in their summer best. All of this is spread out before me, for me. The sky comes to me as a soft cooling breeze. I have reached into the rock, placing my hands and feet into its faults. I have felt everything, seen everything. I feel very connected this place.

A Long Walk

I spent 6 hours on an air-conditioned bus. From Phoenix, AZ to Huntington Beach, California. By contrast to what I knew I was about to do, I felt ensconced in luxury. I had everything I needed on that bus; a comfortable place to sit that was mine, food and water, a bathroom in the back, and a book to read. My human needs were taken care of.

I got off the bus, shouldered my pack and walked six miles to the home of the family that allowed me to keep my belongings with them. There, I repacked my 50 litre pack to be as light and minimalist as possible. I knew I had a 25 mile urban hike ahead of me.  I took only the bare essentials, and left everything else behind. I was bringing clothes for a California Autumn, a poncho for rain protection, and a sleeping bag.

After 30 minutes I had repacked and set off on my hike. It was late in the afternoon, and I passed through the south-eastern neighborhoods of Los Angeles like a ghost; seeing everything, paid no attention by anyone. I walked north, into the night. I became weary and decided to pass the last five hours of darkness in a drainage canal under a bridge in a heavily industrial area. All night, lights and buzzers from the factories that peered into the canal kept me awake.

I slept fitfully.

I was awoken; discovered by a man in silhouette. I sensed he meant me harm. Everything felt off, though, and I couldn’t move properly. My heart started to pound, pumping adrenaline. Then I woke up, my pounding heart the throughline that connected the dream to reality (there’s always a throughline). Everything looked the same; I dreamt my dimly lit overpass in perfect accuracy. I searched the area to ensure I was alone. The rest of the night I felt haunted, though I was not visited.

In the morning twilight fog rolled up the canal, moving slowly, it was mysterious and foreboding. I had had enough hiding down there; I got up and packed quickly. Walking up the steep, ramped sides of the canal, I felt I was ascending to the world of the awake, and the living.

Traveling on foot early in the morning, I witnessed the workers streaming into the factories. Walking on, I came to the residential area of this city, and saw the children going to school. Again, I went unnoticed: just a stranger, no one’s interest.

My destination was a bike shop, where after walking 31 miles, I intended to purchase a bike and ride to Santa Monica, a 40 mile ride. I arrived on Tuesday, to find that the bike shop was open 6 days a week—even on Sunday!—but was closed on Tuesdays. Excellent.

 I bought some KFC (I could afford a high calorie meal by now, to speak nothing of my finances). Then I walked an additional 2 miles or so and found a quarry that seemed disused, again, it was in an industrial sector. By this time, having walked over 30 miles in a 24 hour period, I felt quite tired and my feet hurt.

The quarry was fenced off and appeared no longer to function.  I hopped the chain-link fence right next to the sign that promised $500 fines and criminal charges for doing things like hopping the chain-link fence.

I walked along a dirt road away from the industrial area and bedded down next to a felled tree limb, and above a steeply banked hill that fell away from the road at about a 30 degree grade.

Lying in my sleeping bag, I’d startle at any unusual sound, paranoid I’d be found out. I was suspicious of every movement, any unexplained noise. Then I woke to this sound: softly crunching gravel, the consistent sound that betrays the rubber of a wheel as it rolls. I looked down the road, expecting headlights, but there were none. Was I hearing things? The gravel glowed red, but only for an instant. Was my paranoia making me delusional? I thought it must be in my head, so I stared at the road like so many bewildered animals before they meet blunt trauma, trying to make sense of my confusion.

The truck began to crest the hill, 25 meters away, and I understood in an instant what had happened: there was a dip in the road as it approached me. The truck was traveling at engine-idle speed, and its lights were off. As it descended the dip, the driver had momentarily applied the brakes, and then the truck and its sound were hidden from me by the near crest of the road, which the truck was now surmounting. By the time I realized this, I was also simultaneously picking up the four corners of the poncho I use for a ground cloth (with everything I owned laid on top) and scurrying down the bank.

Barefoot, I was thankful the ground was covered in soft, dead leaves, though they made my footing insecure.

I scrambled behind a bush and a downed limb, and stopped about 20 feet below the road. I wanted to breathe deeply—to catch my breath. Instead, I held it. About 10 seconds had elapsed since I saw the truck cresting the hill.

Now I couldn’t hear the truck. Then I realized; it had stopped, about 5 meters from where I had been sleeping. The doors opened, and I heard faint voices, unintelligible.

My heart was racing. I had to breathe, but I dared not to move. I exhaled. My breath carried a prayer that they wouldn’t hear me. I couldn’t see them, and I prayed they weren’t looking for me; that they were only here coincidentally, on unrelated business.

They seemed to arrange something in the bed, maybe even dump something—I couldn’t tell. Then they got in the truck and backed away, as slowly as they came.

I waited a while longer to ensure they wouldn’t return, then I returned to the road. I barely slept that night. Instead, I passed the darkness in vigilance and found a park in the morning where I could snooze unnoticed until the bike shop opened.

Hi, My Name Is Los Angeles

Well, I thought, here I am. Might as well see what the fuss is all about. I was in Los Angeles. “City of Angels” is what they say, right?

I’d just come from Yosemite: Land of Hippies—furry girls, guys who wear flannel. It’s a good scene but it’s different. Whenever I told the hippies I wanted to go to L.A. I always got the same reaction: “Really? Have fun.” As if I’d just said I wanted to go to a concentration camp reenactment. Whatever, I thought. I intended to have fun.

Los Angeles beckoned to me, and I would heed its call. I didn’t know why I wanted to go. I didn’t know anything about the place. L.A. was just an idea, vague and ill-defined in my mind. I wanted to flesh it out, find out what those words—Los Angeles—really stood for.  And now here I was.

Actually, I wasn’t quite there. I’d overshot the mark and ended up in Orange County, just south of Los Angeles County. I’d gotten a ride with a co-worker from the park and wound up at her parent’s place in Huntington Beach.

Not one to be easily daunted, I determined the best way to get my sightseeing in would be to buy a bike and ride the L.A. coast. Google Maps told me to expect 60-80 miles depending on my route, and with some digressions I planned to take, I was expecting about 100 miles of travel on a fixed gear bicycle, all told.

I set out early in the morning and began to wind my way toward the coast. I expected smells of salty air to waft for miles, heralding my impending arrival at the sea’s edge. That was just a quaint, Ohio-boy notion, I discovered.  I knew I’d hit the coast when I saw the beach, and the sky expanding away from me. Somewhere far away it met an invisible horizon, and came shooting back to me on the waves of the Pacific Ocean. What a vast space, I thought. It was empty in the way a big box is empty, or a large canvass blank. The emptiness suggested possibility to me. Possibility—potential—always on my left side, I began riding north into the fabled city, a sea of a different kind of potential. 

I didn’t know what roads to take, or where my route would lead me. I knew I wanted to end up at the top of L.A. I was on the bottom. The biking was kind of boring, as biking is wont to be. Just pedaling, pedaling… all day. The scenery was good, the air was polluted and so were the views. But this was the experience.

The first day was uneventful. A stop at a taco truck, a walk down one of the city’s many fishing piers. I even went and watched a movie, just to have a comfortable chair and some cool air to breathe for a while.

That night, I bedded down beside a cemetery. I spent a lot of time in cemeteries as a part of a military funeral team in the Army. I feel pretty comfortable, pretty familiar, in a place like that. I wish I could say I was just another sleeping soul, lying with the others for a night. The truth is: I was restless, wary of being discovered, and uncomfortable. I kept thinking: they’re going to find me, though I didn’t know who “they” were.

I had only the clothes on my back; long pants, t-shirt, long sleeve thermal shirt. This wasn’t an oversight—I’d intended to travel light. I brought only a backpack and the barest of necessities. I was riding a bike, and a large pack would have marred that experience; impeded me. Avoidance of impediment. It’s a persistent thread that runs through the fiber of my being. It’s why I don’t wear underwear and the reason I prefer to boulder or free-solo instead of roped climbing. 

Huddling on my side to conserve my warmth, lying on the bare ground now, the dead stalks of grass poked my back and I would startle awake to the slightest sound.

Around 2:30 in the morning I awoke because I felt a presence near me. I looked around frantically. With an admixture of relief and apprehension, I saw a raccoon not two arm’s lengths away. At least it’s not a person, I told myself. On the other hand, my time in Yosemite taught me that raccoons aren’t your friend. I tried to scare him. I hissed and pantomimed throwing something at him. He stared at me, unfazed, daring me to do something more. I was lying next to a tree—the better to hide my lumpy silhouette. With insolence the raccoon circled to the other side to try to get to the backpack I was using for a pillow. He moved in that middle-of-the-night way. I hissed and growled at him, and to my relief he relented. I got the sense that it wasn’t because I had scared him, but because he wasn’t willing to put up with my childish antics. He didn’t come back that night, but he was successful in making sure I slept even less soundly until the pre-dawn hour I had determined I would rise (O’dark-thirty, they called it in the Army).

That next day, I took a couple of good pictures of a city steeped in industry and overcrowded with buildings. Beautiful in its own way, I was quite enjoying the experience. I ate donuts for breakfast and biked as close to the coast as I could. Often there was sandy beach on my left, concrete landscape on my right.

I found Los Angeles to be everything the hippies loathed: crowded, bustling, polluted, rough. It was a new chaos to me that acted as counterpoint to Yosemite’s supreme sense of order and its undeniable correctness of being. Yosemite exists, and you say ‘of course’. Los Angeles exists, and you say—what? I still wasn’t sure, so I biked on.

I found an answer later that day. I’d ridden upon concrete and asphalt to the top of a magnificent testament of human endeavor. In the second to last stop I made I found Santa Monica Original Muscle Beach (OMB) and its attendant community. There I found the rings, which I’ve described a little elsewhere and will not now describe. In the people that peopled this place I finally met the face of the city, or at least, what I wanted to believe was the face of the city, Los Angeles.

Beach culture—the idea lightly rattled in my mind, but had no supporting connections to anchor it to any solid idea. Here “beach culture” wasn’t an idea, it was a reality of people. These people were like the climbing culture, but maybe a little more careful of their tan lines. Still, they were accepting, and interesting, and focused on their health. They were awake and alive, and so was I! I recognized this immediately, and decided I had to stay and explore this idea to make sure I had not misread it.

I spent the next two days there. I slept on concrete at night, behind a building under construction. I slept poorly and the nights were cold. I spent them by myself. During the day, I would soak up as much sun as my skin could hold. My nose burned and swelled and my whole body became pink. I reveled in the pain because of where it came from.

I spent all my daily allotment of sunlight at the beach, and it was a complete validation of my initial impression. I’d found my tribe, my people. Or, as close as I might find (I don’t think I really belong to any one people). I felt belonging, and I resolved I would come back and stay as long as I felt like I belonged there.

Los Angeles, I think, the people.

Go-Go

It’s Saturday night and I’m racing through the streets on my bike. The sky is clear and the road is smooth. 25 miles per hour is fast when it’s your body that provides the locomotion. The air is chilly because it’s winter in Los Angeles. All the same, I’ve worked up a sweat and I’m just wearing a pair of jeans and a small backpack. Electronic music is vibrating my eardrums—it will be my soundtrack for this night, but I do not know this yet.  

A traffic light turns red and I come to a stop. Typically, I can balance on my bike at a dead stop. It’s called a track stand, and it only takes a little practice to execute. You just have to balance the bike so, and shift your weight between the two pedals. I can’t find balance; my legs are shaking. I’m not too tired. In fact, my body is humming. I’m nervous.

A couple of weeks ago I was at the beach, socializing and exercising. I’d made friends with a guy who said he worked as a bartender at a club in West Hollywood, and he told me his club was always looking to hire. “Just work on your abs, like, for two weeks,” he said, “Then just come in and apply.” I asked him what kind of job required me to have a nice abs. “I work at a gay bar, and they have go-go dancers on the weekends,” he replied.

At other points in my life I might have dismissed the notion, or I might have felt disgusted at the thought of dancing for men. Now? I felt matter-of-fact about the situation. He said I could make a couple hundred dollars for a few hours of easy work. I just had to dance in my underwear. It might be undignified, but hundreds of dollars, one or two nights, and no experience necessary? How could I say no? considering my present situation, I thought. Dignity can be a luxury, not something necessary to survival. I gave dignity up a while ago. “I’ll work on my abs,” I said.

I’m biking as fast as my heart and my lungs and my legs will allow me. I have the contradictory feeling of wanting to get there as fast as possible—to get it over with—and of wanting to pedal the opposite direction, to flee far away from what I have committed to.

It’s a scary thing, to think about putting yourself out there in front of a bunch of strangers. You are vulnerable: unclothed, there for their enjoyment. What if they disapprove? What if they jeer, or insult you? What if they find your body ugly? What recourse do you have? You’ve already admitted by virtue of your attire and actions that your purpose is to please them, and if you do not, then you have failed and that failure is evident for everyone to see. Failure, I am afraid of failure. But desperation mandates that I cannot fail. I need money, success.

I arrive at the club a little earlier than I expected, so I find a café nearby and sit at a table to gather myself. I play music loudly in my earphones to drown out the cacophony of sounds that is the West Hollywood party scene. This part of town is rich—in money, in indulgence, in lust, in gluttony. The boulevard blazes and twinkles, every light designed to arrest my attention and draw me in. Shiny cars pass in both directions, some stopping for the valet, others trolling for one of the good parking spots.

Finally, the appointed time arrives. My friend has arranged for me to meet the club’s manager, but my friend will not himself be here. I walk into the club at an early hour, and it is not crowded. I find the manager. My friend set up the meeting, but he didn’t tell me what to expect. I have made the assumption I would just be asking for a job, maybe taking off my shirt or dancing to a few short songs. You know, just to give them an idea of what they might be paying for. I’m wrong to assume those things.

The manager, Brian, asks if I wanted to dance. Although I feel chary, I say “Sure,” not wanting to appear difficult. “Okay, you’ll work for tips tonight and if you work out, you’ll get the flat rate if you dance again.” I know what tips were, but I don’t know what the flat rate is. I don’t ask.

Brian leads me out the back of the club and to a detached storage/dressing room, five feet by twenty, all cinder block and painted white. The door is locked from the inside. Brian takes out a key and unlocksthe door. Opening the door, he says “These are the girls.” The first person I see is a muscular man in his mid-twenties wearing nothing but a pair of bright yellow underwear, he smiles and greets me. Then as I squeezed into the narrow hallway of a room, I see a young, buxom woman in red lingerie. She is pretty. She also greets me, but she squeezes out of the room as Brian introduces me; “This is Curtis, he’s going to dance tonight.” Then Brian leaves. I am alone in a room with a man in his underwear.

Go-go dancer underwear is no ordinary underwear. It’s usually silky nylon and shiny and cut in a way to expose as much as possible. “Man panties” really is the best term I can think of to describe the stuff. I don’t own underwear in general, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have anything like what I needed now. “Can I barrow a pair of those?” I ask, pointing to his rolling luggage suitcase, overflowing with nylon in all different colors. “You don’t have any drawers, honey?” He asks, admonishing me. I explain I didn’t know I’d be dancing tonight; I’m new. He picks out a pair of man panties with a black waist band and covered in a blue and purple print, “Here, you can wear these.” I’m not afraid of nudity; the Army rid me of any of that fear a long time ago. I undress in front of him and put on the “drawers” he’s given to me. I feel uncomfortable. They cling to me, and they are trying to get into places I do not want them. I look in the mirror. Dear God, how far I have come from where I started, I think. I have a nice tan, a light golden brown from the waist up, and the knees down. My thighs are immaculate white. They’re going to love this, I think to myself.

I take a deep breath, open the door and walk across the alley back to the club. A bouncer lets me in and one of the other dancers shows me a stage that I can dance on. The club is picking up, and it is beginning to get crowded. It’s about 10:30, and I am go-go dancing. The DJ’s blasting electronic music like what I had been listening to on my ride here. I just start to dance as I would with my clothes on.

At first, I am by myself, in my own world, and trying to feel comfortable. I get my first dollar from a man who comes over and watches me for a moment, a mixed drink in hand, and then he pushes a dollar into my waist band. “You’ve got a gorgeous body,” he says. I thank him and keep dancing.

The rest of the evening comes on as a crescendo, a rush that swells into frenzy. The club gets packed, the music gets louder. Smoke and lasers fill the air, which itself becomes humid and warm as men and women dance to the beats, 144 of them per minute.

I am in the moment, and I am suspended in disbelief, alternately. At once I focus on the music, and I dance and express myself, something I love to do, and can do no matter where or what the circumstances (I’m more ready to make that assertion after this experience), and in another moment I leave my body on autopilot and contemplate the fact that I am now a go-go dancer. Never would have imagined it.

Men, old and young, walk to the base of my stage and leer at me for a moment, some ask my name or if this is my first time dancing. Then they slip some money into my waistband. Most want a hug, some want to grope. I am degraded.

There are also the women who have come to a gay club for a good time, or to accompany their gay friends. A few of them eye me, but more shyly than the men. They are intimidated, I gather, and when they were encouraged to approach me, or their friends give them a dollar to give to me, they are reticent to close the distance between us. I just smile at them. They probably think I am gay, anyway.

I dance for three hours. I am pouring sweat, having danced with enthusiasm and not taking a break unless I was told to. Half-way through the night, Brian has moved me to the indoor balcony and I have danced the remainder of the evening in a “cage” of flimsy steel bars, illuminated by blue LED lights on the ceiling. I leave the cage at 1:30 in the morning, go back to the hallway dressing room, and remove wads of dollar bills—and one twenty-dollar bill—from my underwear. I made $40 in three hours, I see. The regular dancers say I should make more, and that this night has been a slow night in terms of tips. $40 is good for broke, I think.  

I get dressed and go see Brian in the back office, which is actually a storage closet under the staircase in the kitchen. It is cramped and he barely has room to sit upright under the sloping ceiling. There is no room for me to enter. I stand at the door and he tells me I have done a great job, and he’ll get me paid the flat rate for tonight. I’ve found out earlier, from the other dancers, the flat rate is $75 or $140, depending on what shift you work. I’ll end up getting $75 for my “early” shift, the other shift going until 3 A.M.

I change the ones for a twenty with the bartender and ride home to the beach. I won’t get back until 4:30 in the morning, exhausted. I don’t even have time to contemplate my day before I fall into a sound, dreamless sleep.

Dreamchasing

I wanted to write about some parallels that I had noticed between my life and the fictional characters in a booked titled "Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Murakami, but I realized I would be too vague for that post to have any edifying effect.

Instead, I'm just going to <ramble> a little bit.

It's not set in stone, but generally the rule I have is to post twice a month on the blog. I feel like it's a good number of posts. Not too many that they all seem too similar, and enough time elapses in between for something interesting to happen.

Indeed, interesting things are happening, but I don't always feel at liberty to post them publicly. That's not to say you will never hear of them (maybe that's not what you want), but right now, I'm in more of a collecting mood. I see this time of my life as an exciting ride. I'm directing it, but loosely. Things are happening, and sometimes (literally, actually) I just participate in my life while I smile at the surreality of it all.

I write often, and I'm trying to write 1,000 words every day (at least 5 days a week). This type of exercise is helping me to become more comfortable using the written word as a medium of expression. It's the type of dedication and exercise I would have needed to maintain in order to achieve something with my visual art, something that I never did.

Thinking that I want to write, thinking that I want to be a writer, thinking that I am a writer, these are powerful thoughts that allow me to practice something that I love. Although it seems ridiculous, I have never before given myself permission to explore possibilities like being a writer. I would fantasize of the things I wanted to do, but unconsciously preclude them from ever happening because I wasn't what I needed to be to do them.

For instance, I've always wanted to be involved in movies. I used to (still do) fantasize about being an actor, a director, and a screenwriter, but because I've never been one of these things, I have always precluded the possibility of me being one of them. As obvious as it may seem to you, I have only recently realized that I must simply be these things. Sure, I must pay my dues, do my research, and go about it the right way, but ultimately I am that which I choose to be. The qualification of "successful" may not come, but if I want to write, act or model, I certainly can try.

As long as you don't wrap yourself up too much in what it is you want to achieve, and it's more about being happy with what you can be, I think there is some deep gratification to be found in chasing improbable dreams. I want to chase my dreams, as stupid as they might be, or improbable, or grand, or whatever.

I'm feeling very good about writing every day, even though I don't write good stories, and I don't really know what direction to take. The simple fact that I write is what feels good. Just do what you want to do. If it's harder to do because you can't do it on your own or with your own resources, I encourage you to find a way. That's what I am doing now, and that's the approach I intend to pursue.

</ramble>

A Treatise On My Personal Freedom

My day to day act of living—my life—is divorced in many ways from the cultural mores of the American culture in which I dwell. My priorities are not those of a large and populous group. I do not pursue prototypical goals in generically prescribed manners. I wish not to define myself such to fit into either a word or a group.

I understand where people are coming from (or why they hold their beliefs). Much in the same way a historian can trace the decline and fall of an empire or a civilization I can see and understand, but that does not make me a part of that world. Surely there is a point where I am invited into society and I must accept the invitation in order for full integration to be complete. Conversely, if I am born into a society, is it not my right to reject my place? At what point am I ever truly compelled to perform a work, a service, or a duty to anyone or any entity because I was born into a place? That sounds like slavery to me, but I am free.

Recognizing that I am free, I also allow that to reject a place in society but to dwell among it is to live at its collective charity. However, if I do so willingly, and the society allows me to, then the situation can hardly be criticized. I will exploit this society as long as it allows me to. At such a time that I am prevented or no longer allowed to use its benefits I would hold no ill will and would agree that it is a fair course. 

I think the constructive thought process of the unbiased observer would be to ask what would make a person desire to reject a culture and all its attendant and implied benefits. A less constructive thought process would seek to remedy the symptom of that desire, which is the parasitic nature of my existence within society.
I recognize that to overtly break laws or rules is to jeopardize my physical freedom. Therefore; I seek to preserve as much freedom for myself without compromising my values as much as possible. I do this through conformance, and it is a compromise I am willing to make within my value system. Yet I am determined never to lose my freedom of thought, and my freedom of action, or inaction. The locus of perception is within me. Therefore, the feelings of duty, responsibility or obligation all originate in my mind. Acknowledging this, it is within my power to control what I feel I must or must not do.