Rock the Spot like Basquiat

Who Am I Kidding? Who Am I Fooling? When they be like “What’s Up, Beefcake?” and I say “Coolin.’”

Been working out a lot lately. Sort of a personal breakthrough, as until recently I was completely convinced that fitness was the work of the devil. Growing up with two older brothers and a father who were always in shape and “beefy,” made the rebel in me resist and use all my mite to stay skinnier than drummers in alt-rock bands.

But when I looked back at pictures and saw my unhealthily skinny arms swinging in all directions and ribs poking through my skin, it was realization time – what I’ve been resisting, has been proving nothing to anyone, and has only made me look worse, both physically and as a man whose supposed to be upstanding and somewhat self-respecting.

Just as it’s the most self-conscious who are the pickiest with members of the opposite sex, it’s the most self-dubious who resist self-improvement for no valid reason. It just always seemed like if I worked out, I was giving in to being like “the rest.” I’d be just another dude in the giant quarry of dudes, and once I hopped into that apparently juiced-up body of water, there would be no paddling out. But, I was young, then.

It’s crazy to say things like that, as if I’m an adult looking back at the days when I was young, dumb and full of ___, but I’m now elder enough to think back and realize the pitfalls. I don’t have all the answers. I never will. But it’s when you realize that, I think, that you become an adult. Every article or story I’d written for the newspaper or any publication since I was seventeen, I always ended with a lesson or solution – but in reality we’re ever-growing and evolving, and it’s selfish and self-righteous to think that you’ve got it all figured out.

My, how things change…

“One minute you’re a baby
And the next, you’re sexing
Without protection
And you’re holding a baby
Like, ‘Damn, I was just in your shoes.’”

Serenity Now

July 11, 2009

Serenity now, insanity later. Can’t help but wonder about Paris. Strange, but there’s no sign of nervousness in me, yet. Even thought of a wonderful opening introduction for those orientation icebreakers - “I am Daniel. I am from Miami. I, like most Americans, adore shotguns and baseballs. And (three interesting things about me are…) I’ve recorded two bluegrass ballads, I am a gloriously graceful tapdancer, and I wear a size 19 shoe.” The last tidbit should have the ladies a-flockin’.

Very recently realized that I lie a lot. But, my justification - I only tell lies if they will make people laugh. Otherwise, you’re just that crazy guy who lies about visiting Ontario and having a cousin who’s the EQ guy for The Strokes.

Current role model - Julian Casablancas…

Going back to lies and EQ guys…gotta make sure to surround myself with people who laugh at my jokes. It’s just lame times at boredom high when you’re sitting with people and being (in your head) uproariously hilarious, and no one laughs. So you’re stuck staring into blank eyes as you reference “Bananas” and “Even Stephens” and deliver comedy gold to deaf ears. Boar-ing.

Finally over the jetlag…sort of…but constipation still haunts me. Not sure if it’s the unnecessarily small toilets or the strict diet of omelets and sashimi, but it feels like a midget is chillin’ in my small intestines.

Speaking of…saw this Nazi-zombie movie in nyc called “Dead Snow.” In it, there’s a scene where a man is pooping in an out-house, his gal comes in and straddles him, they do their bidness, then he leaves and she stays to poop. That’s real love.

Caught my first fish today! It was a total accident, and I didn’t even feel it as it bit and struggled, but that mother effer is dead and gone now…and it’s all because of me!

Anyway, gotta go eat some bran and check my internet-mail. Can’t be wasting my time writing in this horribly masculine purple diary…but think there’s some real progress going on. At least smiling’s a lot easier to do. It’s like in Annie Hall, when Woody’s asked about his progress with his psychoanalyst, and he retorts - “I’ve been seeing him for fifteen years, but he says we’re right on the verge of a real breakthrough.” I guess it’s like that. Something is, at least…

Little Boots

July 19, 2009

Made out with a hooker who had the fancy taste of latex all over her tongue. A delicious affair, it was. Last night was also the second time in three nights that I embraced with a hooker in a sensual hug. Not sure if that’s customary, or if my chubby cheeks give me the appearance of a lovable feller, but we sure did enjoy ourselves. Afterward, though, a sudden feeling of guilt overcame me.

It just seemed a bit bit immoral to pay for the ol’ in-and-out. Though I’ll venture to say this - it’s something every man should try. Not climb Mt. Kiliminjaro, nor participate in a biathlon - but rather enjoy relations with a working girl. There’s something reassuring about it, in a way. It’s by no means an endorseable activity for older men, but for a young chap who’s got his affairs in order and just needs a roll-around in a foreign land, it’s just what the sex doctor ordered.

Went to a club last night. It was sleek, sexy and had this amazing DJ booth fifteen feet above the dancefloor. Really made me miss playing music for fools. Need to get a radio show in Paris and start stepping up my House savvy so I can make some parisiennes lose their boots on somebody’s dancefloor. Potential debut album title - “Lose Your Boots on Somebody’s Dancefloor.”

St. P

Went to a stripclub/whorehouse last night with Paul the moment his plane touched asphalt. Crazy stuff’s go on in this Land of the Mother. The crew was about five unmarried men and upwards of twenty-five strippers who were the eager-est of beavers.

Got a few private dances, a weird S&M attack which a stranger paid for, and a condom-laced blow job from a woman with a c-section scar. Teenage pregnancy is sexy. Anyway…I came as soon as Craig David’s “Seven Days” came on. Perfect!

Got a call after leaving the spot from ol’ Mike King. Said Daddy was in the hospital and no one knew what was wrong. Said it was something with his heart, or his nerves. Freaked out at first, but then remembered when mommy predicted exactly this – “we’re going to break up, and in a few days he’ll be in the hospital trying to score sympathy.”

Can’t say if daddy faked it entirely, but when we asked Mike the next day about the condition, he told us he was released. And also told us the doctors wouldn’t divulge the diagnosis because pops swore them to secrecy. Pretty sure that’s illegal, and three sorts of impossible.

When Mikey and mommy got in a tiff a few years back, Sophia pulled a similar move just to freak him out and get him grounded. In a family built on deceit and secrets, it seems almost second nature. Meanwhile, Mikey texted us about living it up over here while daddy’s all mucked up. Guilt-tripping us as if it was our P’s in that woman’s V for eighteen months.

Bull shit. He did it. He fucked up. Let him deal with the mess he made. Hospital visit = no sympathy points scored on this end.

Anywho, talked to mommy today and she sounds pretty positive. Explained change is much more than saying “sorry,” but rather following through on promises. It’s showing the transformation that makes the difference to a woman…

She took family pictures out of photo albums and sent them to daddy-o with frowns and tears of blood in red Sharpie, and included some horrific notes on the backs of the snapshots just for good measure. Khryst…

Had a teacher in high school who taught American History. Used to always discuss Ulysses Grant and the Gilded Age, and say “fat cats.” Every time, without fail, the class erupted in laughter.

…Went to a Russian bath today – basically a center where you go to the sauna and get angrily beaten with olive branches by Russian men, before jumping in a cold pool and feeling your testes shrivel up like a sandy senior citizen in the Miami heat. Either way, they say that America is very conservative with nudity and sex. But it became clear that that is entirely okay for me. Because, there is a strict limit to the amount of fat men’s wenis’s someone can see in one day. My number was surpassed by at least a solid sixty.

Death-Swirly

David King had been a cartoonist since eleventh grade calculus class. After giving up on mastering polynomials, he drew caricatures like the Paul Frank monkey, the archetypal forgetful elephant, and his favorite – daisies with personality disorders.

He got lost in his drawings, often getting criticized by girlfriends for not being able to decipher reality from his cartoon-world. Usually, David resorted to creating Betty Boop flipbooks in which she slowly undressed and…well, you understand. Loneliness subsided.

The passionate illustrator’s breakthrough came in 1999, when he drew an anti-milennial comic strip, which New Jersey’s own Marsupial’s Quarterly, quickly purchased for a generous $6.01. His friends and sister thought the cartoon to be a clever social commentary on a natural fear of change, but David intended it merely as a cute portrait of a tree frog.

After the MQ success, companies like Purgatorio’s Pizza and Mallifert’s Juxtaposition Inc. promptly commissioned David, to create logos. Never one to potentially pass up life-changing opportunities, David took the assignments and ran with them. Again, he struck gold.

Within months, he’d been referred to nearly every small business in the quad-county area and even won the moniker “Slick-Stick Herbowitz.” A nickname he never quite understood, as his surname was never Herbowitz, but he thought it most likely related to the incessant times he’d heard “jew-devil” yelled at him while working for “Catho-Cristy’s: A Hardcore Hub.”

By his mid-twenties, David was a local star. He’d reached the social echelons that the simpletons he grew up with could only fantasize about. While they were mining fields and sowing diamonds, Dave was rubbing shoulders with the elite. He was close friends with the curator of the Aberdeen Museum of Lithographs, tennis partners with acclaimed WTFB 99.9 talk-radio host Donatavius Waxx, and often dined with Princetown’s own “Prince of Pastel Stationery” Walden Hucksli. David had made it.

His bisexual sister had long since told him it was time to retire and really focus on him. Lord knew David had devoted himself entirely to his craft, which didn’t leave much room for distractions and the enjoyment of life’s pleasantries.

Still, David felt a wee-bit unfulfilled. There was just one accomplishment left…one whale still to be whaled, so to speak. David’s Goliath was an insertion in the most magnificent tome of all – the Mecca of transfixing studies of American mores and manners.

The New Yorker.

David had submitted upwards of seventeen classics to the ungrateful blobs of witty banter. And though he’d now resented and abhorred them enough to deliver to them a burlap sack filled with Molotov Shrimp Cocktails, David had something to prove.

Finally, Prince Hucksli secured for David a meeting with Johnta Juniper, the cartoon editor-at-large. On an unusually smoggy morning, David entered the offices of his once-sworn enemy, with a manila folder of cartoons in hand. He’d spent an entire week locked in his dungeon of solace – a tornado bunker beneath his cousin’s home in Pittsville, Massachusetts – with only a jar of dill pickles, a case of cherry soda, and the sexy elixir that got things goin’ when nothing else could – triple-distilled cognac.

The product of the week’s work was fifteen illustrations, which David was convinced were his absolute best yet. They had it all – biting sarcasm, furry and likeable marsupials (his trademark), and enough wit to knock Woody Allen off a carousel.

Still, the moment he was summoned by a secretary to enter Juniper’s office, David felt off. His confidence gone, his morale weary, he suddenly became very aware of the horrid stench emanating from his earwax. Juniper was on the phone when David walked in, and David carefully ducked his head from left to right, so as to mask the smell.

“Yes, the one with the kangaroo in the courtroom! Print it,” chirped Juniper. He wore a six-piece suit and a monocle, and David suddenly felt entirely underdressed in his two-piece and bifocals.

David sat, and Juniper immediately beckoned – “Well, bub? What’re ya wastin’ my minutes for?” Without a word, David slipped the pack of drawings across the oak table and watched patiently as Juniper glared at each one. Juniper was sweating now, slowly letting drips from his forehead fall onto the drawings.

“Get outta my face, ingrate. This is hot trash, and not the kind I chase on a late Wednesday,” shouted the large editor. He threw the stack of papers at David, stole the leather carry-all they were once packed in, and quickly shuffled out of the office.

Juniper was no doubt a pudgy man, the kind of kid in gym-class whose thighs squeakily rubbed together when he ran the mile. So, though he tried to stroll quickly and with a purpose, David quickly caught up to him in the hallway.

Nearly defeated, David swallowed and begged – “But, what was wrong with them? I understand, they might not all be prime material, but certainly worthy of back-of-the-book placement. Heck, at least getting some show in an e-issue!”

Juniper shook his head. “No, no, no. You just don’t comprende, boychick. You’re comics – they’re pretentious, but not nearly pretentious enough. Intelligent, but altogether far too simplistic. If we were aiming for a demographic of Ringling Brothers B-squad, you’d be published by yesterday, lad! But we’re trying to keep this joint upmarket. I want one reader to get it, and the other 6900 shlubs awestruck with uncertainty!”
By the end of the vicious monologue, the large editor’s brow was again sweating profusely, and he was wheezing like a sadist in synagogue. His pudgy legs continued to trek on, and he ducked into the employee lounge for his lunchtime nosh of a half-dozen skirt steak submarine’wiches.

Feeling as if Wile E. Coyote had just materialized and dropped an ACME anvil on his dreams, David resisted the urge to fall unconscious and instead stumbled into the little boy’s room. Once inside, he grabbed hold of a stall’s door to maintain his balance, and swung himself in the tiny receptacle room. He stared at the toilet, with eyes half-closed, dropped all of his prized drawings and shoved his own head inside the bowl.

What ensued was the most haunting and prolific swirly given in the bathrooms of The New Yorker Magazine, since 1999. David held himself under, until finally his feet stopped sloppily hopping around, and urine bubbles no longer floated to the bowl’s surface. David had committed suicide by way of the swirly – and lord knows he wouldn’t be the first cartoonist to do it, either.

Roughly six hours later, David was still alone in the toilet, dead. Alone – because the urban legend, that New Yorker staff tends to ingest vital organs before compromising their creative flow on a menial task like defecating, was likely true.

But alas, one of the magazine’s new cartoonists, Jaxon Pilstick, could participate no longer in the barbaric tradition, and jetted to the restroom after a 95-minute discussion with Juniper about Garfield. Neither had appreciated the futile feline, but rather debated about the character to be uproariously ironic.

Jaxon bounced through the door, and before he had unbuttoned the fly on his Banana Republic corduroys, he spotted David’s dead-legs. Frightened by the sighting, but channeling his investigative journalism background at the Boise State Bugle, Jaxon opened the stall door to find David – lifeless. Initially appalled, Pilstick was quickly stung by the creative bug.

He raised the pointer finger and thumb of both hands into a rectangle like the film directors of yore and visualized an animation, starring David. Instantly, the caption came to him, and he whispered – “Edwin’s mind was so salacious, not even the gutter would allow him to sublet.”

Gold!

F-Train

Left a note on the F-train today. Worked on it for the whole ride from Coney Island to 42nd street. It was the first time in a while that there was some genuine focus on a “project.” Don’t really have too many projects to work on nowadays. No job, no internship. Getting easy to feel like a space-waster, honestly. No hard work makes a human’s spine jerk. But at least it gets the mind working.

The note had a bunch of song-lyrics, and two passages that were written by myself – just freehand stream-of-consciousness stuff. Also threw in some graphs and drawings. The message was basically: “live free and be happy, but remember it all eventually ends. so, enjoy the little things before you’re left alone with no partner or possession.

It was all pretty similar to the Whatever Works plotline. Just do what you can to get by, while not encroaching on anyone else…do whatever works for you. Anyway, hoping whoever picked up that note so far took something from it. And even though it’d be grad if someone held onto it because it was just so gosh-darn insightful, hopefully they’ll leave it. Maybe it’ll remain a memento for the next riders, or for the city worker who cleans up the train at the end of its journey. Regardless, I hope it affects someone.

A new lesson (one that’s been an absolute struggle to grasp thus far) – that if you’re writing to affect people, recognition will always be back-seat. The journey should be for the feeling that overcame me as I hopped off the train. No one will know my name from that note, but perhaps they’ll smile one more time because of it. Or cry, one more time. At the end of the day, it’s the words that matter, not the name of the guy who wrote them.

It’s a breakthrough.

Leeboy, the Assassinator

The following is a collection of pages taken from the personal diary of Lee Harvey Oswald:

November 19, 1963 

Well, golly me. This day was as pretty as they come. The sun’s out and about, the flowers are a-blooming. Felt like I was six again, back when my brother wasn’t a woman and didn’t slice me with a potato-peeler every time we competed. Times were simple then, boy. Anyway, the morning hours were productive – I woke up an hour before the crack o’ dawn and sodomized Kibbles for about an hour. Just kidding(?)! I did pilates alongside the little rascal for the better part of that hour.

After a quick (golden) shower, Kibbles and I took our morning walk and discussed republicanism vs. federalism, and the potential remake of The Last Great Emperor. By noon I’d opened up the doors to Mr. Kavka’s muffin shop. I’ve had this job for sixteen days now, but it sure becomes more rewarding with every tiny red velvet cake that pops out of the oven. 

Kavka threw a bin of frosting at my skull today, shouting – “your brain is made of this sheet, eniweyz!” I suppose I deserved it though. I urinated on a patron’s keds after being asked what the weather looked like. Heck, you can see what it looks like on your color television, you jew-nosed rightwinger! Anyway, I’m checkin’ out, Delilah. Rise & shine at 8am tomorrow. Cleaning duties for mister Kakashka-brains!

☺

xoxo,
leeboy

November 20, 1963

Oh my my my, today sure was like a lump of sticks dipped in doggy-piss. For the first time in eleven years, I didn’t have time to take our Mr. Kibbles for his daylight routine. I’m sure you can picture how sad-faced the little fella was when I got home. He’d pooped EVERYWHERE – on my jars of pickled tomatoes, my 19th century ruble collection…even my commemorative Hemingway domino set! Alistair says it’s his inferiority complex. He wants my attention, so he gets it by dispensing his feces and making gosh-darn sure I’ll see it.

Anyways, the workday went pretty much the same as yesterday, save for a chance encounter with a devastatingly sexually active young man. But I’ll dish later!

Kavka didn’t show up to work today, it was rather curious. Professor Wintringham came by for his usual order or three dozen mini-muffins, and mentioned some peculier business about the ol’ boss-man skipping town after strangling a rodeo clown at a nightclub. Strange…I never was one for the nightclubs. Too many lights and wood panels.

So, I know you’re dying to hear about my potential new boy-toy. I’ll tease your appetite a little, for now. His name’s Chet and he works for the Central Investigative Agency. The government, Delilah! This fella’s of the respectable sort, not like that over-caffeinated cranberry-runner, Phil. Gosh I just feel like I’m growin’ up, ya know? Meeting real men, with real prospects. He said he wanted to spend some time with me, and I quote!, “very soon.” Those were his exact words! I feel like a sexy bull’s-eye in a onesie, and he’s going to shoot his arrows at me with his bow of man-love…

love you and miss you
until tomorrow, i’ll kiss you

(oh screw it)
MWA!
-leeboy

November 21, 1963

Things are really coming together for me, baby girl. I woke up at half-past four – too giddy to keep my eyelids closed. I dreamed about Chet the whole night. He was wearing a leopard-print banana-hammock and I was…anyway. Del, you’re naughty.

So I think all is forgiven and forgotten with little Kibbles. I petted his anus for about ninety minutes after eating my bran cereal, and it seemed, by the way his eyes roll back, well let’s just hope that I can make Chet feel that good. Delly! Sheesh!

Got to work about an hour late today, after which ensued what I’d consider to be the only speedhump of the day. Kavka came back to town after his brief panic. He explained the incident as a “brief brouhaha over a belle,” and fed me no further details. And when I giggled at the clever alliteration, Kavka just snapped his snack pack!

He strangled me and threw me face-first into a bowl of broken rectal thermometers that we’d been keeping in the back for a while but hadn’t gotten around to disposing of. After the sudden outburst, Kavka shouted that I was fired and if I’d ever dared to return, he’d cut my asshole “far wider than it already was and stuff the unabridged War & Peace up there.” Sounded sort of poetic, but I quickly shuffled out anyhow.

But luckily, before I’d even made it to the end of the block, I ran into my beau Chet. He was wearing a three-piece pinstriped blue number that I quickly imagine taking off using only my molars. Mee-ow! Chet briefly sympathized with my very recent retirement from Little Miss Muffin’s, and asked about my plans for tomorrow. I told him I was wide open (wink!) and he told me about a jubilant parade through town center for Mr. Sexident – the one and only Jack Fitzgerald.

Sounded festive, so I gleefully accepted the invite. Before we parted, Chet casually asked if he could call me his little patsy. What a guy. I really thought the government fellows were more candid. I’d never been called patsy before, but I’m assuming it was the eastern boy’s slang for “delicate devotee.” I’m gonna turn it in Dels, tomorrow’s a big day. Marks the first date with Chet, and the first day of the rest of my life.

Infinite adoration,
Leeboy <3

Pee-es. Chetty told me to meet him on the fifth floor in some building on Main Street. He said the view’s better up there. Although I think the folks with the view of me and Chetty are the ones to envy!

November 22, 1963

Wowee! Golly, gosh. Yikes and frights. I just can’t believe the loop I was thrown for today, Delly! I don’t think you’d believe it even if I told ya.

So I got up around usual time…with Kibbles licking on my bits ever so delicately. I’m usually not an opponent to such, but I wanted to save up all my juices for the big rendezvous. So I kicked him off, we jazz-ercised for a few, then went for our morning stroll. The neighborhood was buzzing over this whole JFK hoopla. I’ve never quite been a politico, but I’ve simply got to admit, Jack has recently raised my interest in the subject.

Nervous about being tardy for my saucy encounter, I left the house around eleven. Chet said he’d show up “around one,” but I liked to set romantic moods and make grand impressions on first dates. I got to the building around noon and brought a picnic basket, a roll of bologna and a checkerboard (in cased Chet needed to be eased into things with some flirtatious betting). There were boxes all about and a rifle set up at the window with one of them really hi-tech microscopes. I thought it was just Chet’s idea of blending symbolism with practicality – his “sex gun” and a ‘scope to see Jack better.

Anyway, I waited and waited, as the parade and crowd drew nearer. I heard louder screams and saw people walking slowly alongside Jack down Main Street. Chet was nowhere to be found by forty-past-one, and I was getting restless. So, I cracked open the white wine, got more comfy, slipped off my Docker’s and set up the microscope so I could at least take a look at El Presidente.

By the time the line of limo’s and police cars drove down the street, it was 2:15 in the p.m. and I’d given up on my government boy. So, I stared at Jack through the scope and began tugging away at myself. The exciting secrecy of it all made me flow pretty quickly, and right as I reached the verge of a glorious dénouement, KABLOOEY! Three quick gunshots and JFK’s melon was blown completely off! I’m usually obtuse to a sexy man’s appearance in any state, but necrophilia was a slope I’d not yet slipped down.

So, just as I pulled up my Hanes and tucked the ol’ peeper into the waistband, I was struck in the back of the brain and forced to the ground. Hoping still that I was Chet, I half-turned my head, but my assailant dug his knee into my gaping anus (which coincidentally finished the job that Jack could not). The man picked me up, spun me around, and as my slimy dead babies trickled down my belly, I saw Chet standing in front of me with another man. Well, needless to say, I fainted from shock, embarrassment, and the fear that this new lover had undoubtedly prepared for him a far more delicious parade-day picnic.

I awoke in a prison cell, with my face in a vomit-stained toilet. Apparently I’d fallen unconscious and gagged on my own tongue – a symptom, the guards told me, that’s often related to homicidal tendencies. My cell-mate’s a pretty bird with black locks named Jesse. He’s from San Salvador, I think. He doesn’t speak much of the “ingles.” Anyway, after asking him to rape me (hey, how many times am I gonna be in the slammer with a gorgeous guy?!), Jesse decided that we should get to know each other a bit first.

Still, I can’t lie – I really thought Chet was the one. It just felt nice to be paid attention to, y’know? I’m still not quite sure why I’m here, though. But I am getting to know Jesse pretty well, so there’s that. He’s a nice fellow, I guess we’ll take it slow and see how it all turns out.

Well it’s been a wild day, Delly, I’m going to turn in now. Might be tough though, all these jailbirds keep shrieking “Kennedy-killer.” I think I may know why Jesse’s here!

mucho amore
from san salvadore,

leeboy

Eighty-Five

Leaning his fedora-covered head against the wall, doing his best suave-guy impression, David giggled softly and asked, “Ever seen the movie Big? I’m on some…Tom Hanks shit. Wanna stay a little kid.”

Erica, who he’d met that morning, smiled and nodded. Before he even started said anything, David knew she’d understand. “Every hour’s like a tightrope. Clock n’ kill motivation, homie. That’s why I never rock a watch,” she bounced back at David, as she lifted her arms and showed off her bare wrists.

“What’s a deadline, when you’re living on your own time?” David suddenly felt like they were really getting into something, so he slowly bent and kneeled adjacent to Erica. He continued, “My dad says to be patient. But what the fuck is patience when my heart’s racing?”

Forgoing even a slight contemplation, Erica retorted, as if they’d been having this conversation for years. “Ever notice – the frustrations give them grey hairs?” Her voice was getting louder. She suddenly sounded vexed. “Ninety-nine percent of their life spent – chasing american nightmares?”

Closing his eyes, David visualized his father. He saw him alone, in an infinite white space. He looked beaten, defeated. A seemingly endless unhappy marriage, a six-year prison stay, and a decade of depressed-ridden turmoil behind him…there wasn’t any joy left in his father’s face. Even when he smiled, it was more out of habit than as an expression of actual emotion.

David finally admitted, “I’ll be a man eventually, when the kid in me is satisfied. I just can’t understand why cat’s be hurrying time.”

Erica slid over to where David was kneeling. He was looking down, as if suddenly aware that he was falling through time’s abyss. She grabbed his hand, kissed him on the forehead and heard him mutter “why ain’t life fair?”

It was a question, no matter how desperately she wanted to answer, she could not counter. And it would forever remain one that she never, ever would.

Strawberry Fields

You can run, you can run, but you can’t hide. Laying in bed on the second floor of our beautiful corner house in suburban New Jersey…it finally set in that we’d been running and running, but it was clearly impossible to hide forever.

Twenty-five hours of torment were coming to a screeching halt as my eyelashes were starting to flutter weakly and exhaustion was taking over me. It was the day after Halloween, and the “jig” was finally up.

The jig, in our case, wasn’t some parlor trick that involved playing cards or slight of hand, but one that was equally innocent. There was no harm, no foul, nor any victim to our jig, but the very recent backlash had me thinking otherwise.

I’d never considered giving it all up before. Forty-six years of life have come and gone, but nothing like this has fazed me yet. The only questions that remained were: if everything has been leading up to this, what was the point of it all? What’s left? Is it really worth living for?

It was yesterday, Halloween. I was coming home from school and my husband was home. He called me, breathless – “Sophia, they’re searching the house. They’re here…” It was the first time I’d heard my husband sound frantic.

Home was minutes away, and by the time I’d arrive I saw two-dozen men in FBI uniforms surrounding our home, wearing vests and masks as if I’d come with two dirty bombs in tow. They pulled their guns out…and I broke down. I’m an innocent woman. I’m an immigrant…

When I came back to consciousness, my husband was holding me in his arms in the driveway. The men had apparently swarmed the home, and told us to stay outside. It wasn’t until later that we’d found out they were there because my husband and I were accused of aiding and abetting the Russian mafia. I fainted again.

You can run, you can run, but you can’t hide.

On the first of November, my husband and I visited a lawyer, and another lawyer, and another. All three seemed to feel exactly the same way – we were going to jail. Both of us. For upwards of ten years. My youngest son was ten years old, then, and the next time I’d be seeing him would be at the age of twenty.

You can run, you can run, but you can’t hide.

We ran from the lawyer’s offices. Rich men in rich outfits with rich surroundings, they’d made a living on their clients respective downfalls by the exploitation of billable hours.

But laying in bed, that night, I had no energy for anger. No time to be pissed off at lawyers, or even at FBI agents who pulled their guns on a 46-year-old woman. I was angry with me. I looked at my husband one last time and closed my eyes. I didn’t think I could actually do anything real about it…but I’d had enough. For what it’s all been, and what it’s come to, there was nothing left to look to.

And as my eyes closed and I dove into death’s comfortable cousin – sleep – nothing existed. Nothing was real. Strawberry fields.

When people commit suicide, other people say things like “how could he leave his family behind? So selfish!”

The truth is – when you plan to leave this world, there’s no one that you’re leaving behind. The only idea that crosses your mind is your place – as if you’re sitting at life’s dinner table – and suddenly you excuse yourself. Forever. It’s simple. Just a speedy erase.

There is no thought to the reality you’d been living in all these years, because the proposed reality that lies before you is entirely unbearable.

I’d been running, we’d been running, but we didn’t hide…well enough.

Nicaraguan/New Mexican Wasteland

It was a dream that ended in typical dream fashion. I awoke in a frenzy and hopped up in bed, sweating cold bullets. The sun was already out and shining through the cracks of my blinds, preventing me from falling back to sleep and forgetting everything that just happened.

So I sat up for hours, waiting until I had to go to “work” – teaching rich people how to play tennis for exorbitant prices – enjoying the fact that I could breathe. For when I woke from the dream, I was paralyzed. Paralyzed in my mind, because for a second I was convinced it was real. It was so vivid. All I could do when I awoke was breathe in deeply, so as to assure myself that my fantasy was in fact not my reality.  

The dream’s setting was what I’d imagine a New Mexico suburb looks like, somehow displaced to a Central American country. The characters were a group of friends I’d had since high school – Jay, Josh, Daniel, and myself – and a mystery man. The mystery man didn’t appear until later, likely because his duty was not called upon until then.

We were stranded in a strip mall. Inside one of the stores, stood a group of our sworn “enemies,” and they were somehow preventing us from leaving this strip mall. So, instead of trying to figure out the cause of prevention, we decided pranking the enemies was a logical solution.

Walking around the parking lot, I saw Daniel pop out from behind a car, holding an inflatable bouquet of pink flowers. The bouquet was the size of a rhino, and flopped in the wind as he tried to get a hold of it. I’d seen the flowers before, I just couldn’t remember where.

Then, Jay came up with the idea to go buy more “props,” so a prank could be more easily planned. Somehow, leaving the strip mall to get props was possible, but leaving the strip mall for any other reason was not allowed. We all got in a car – what I remember now to be the car that I’d gotten into an accident in Costa Rica in – and drove away from the strip mall. 

Jay drove, I sat in the passenger seat, and the rest of the party sat in the back. As we pulled out, I turned to talk to someone in the back seat. Come to think of it, a guy named Alejandro Ruiz was there also. I was speaking with him about something…and all of the sudden, I turn to look out the windshield and see that we’re leaning over a ledge on the mountain we were driving on. In a split second, the car tips over the ledge and the car begins to fly towards a forest of trees from hundreds of feet up.

Everyone’s shouting and holding on for dear life…and the only thing that comes out of my mouth is “Is this it? Is this all I get?” The car continues to fly, and coincidentally I awoke right before impact.

Freudian psychology says that dreams are the ultimate passage to the unconscious. I don’t think there’s ever been a more clear message my unconscious has ever sent.

When I was sitting with a friend a few days ago, I told him that something was missing. He said that it was a void, and you know that you’re becoming an adult when you feel that void. Maybe it’s your childhood, maybe it’s your happiness, but as adults we search to fill that void, but perhaps never will.

In his book, Russell Brand told a story of how he was in bad shape and on the verge of death. He wrote that he wasn’t afraid of death itself, he just didn’t want to die because he hadn’t done anything yet.

It’s too early for me to die. I’ve still got a book to write, a movie to make, and a Natalie Portman to mate…with.

Simply put, I’ve got a lot of void-filling to do before I’m hurdling to my death in some Nicaraguan/New Mexican wasteland, wondering if “this is it.”