The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste

When I stopped smoking -- after a two packs a day for years -- I smoked Swisher Sweets and weed for a while, and then I just kinda stopped.

Once, when I was a teenager, I went on an archaeological trip to Mexico. I was never a swimmer. I took lessons, but I never quite learned how to swim. On this trip, I decided I was going to swim. I swam in every pool we ran across until I felt comfortable.

The very last day, we stopped at this underground lake that had been a holy place for the indigenous tribes. It was basically a flooded cave. I swam across to the other side and grabbed a stalactite. I started to swim back... and halfway across, out of nowhere, I started to get tired. Instead of just dealing with it as I would any other physical activity, suddenly my mind filled with the idea that there were many skeletons at the bottom of this ancient Mexican underground lake, and I would join them. I lost my shit and flailed around, convinced I would die. And when you're convinced of something, it's hard not to make it true.

Luckily, I was swimming with a friend, and he slugged me and dragged me to shore, and thus I am still alive. (There was another "friend" there, but he stood on the shore and laughed while this happened, but he was a douchebag anyway, so fuck that guy).

The point being...

On Nov. 13, I dumped my bike on my leg. When I stood up, my right ankle was bent at an unnatural angle. It was blown out. I could put zero weight on it.

Since then, by two week increments, my recovery has progressed: from boot and crutches with no weight on my ankle, to boot and crutches with weight on my ankle, to boot and cane, to boot and no cane, to Ace wrap and cane, to Ace wrap and no cane... at least around the lair.

I went to Arizona to visit my family. When I came back, I felt strong. I ran out of water for the coffee maker. This would not do. The nearest grocery store was about a mile away. I decided to walk there, with nothing but an Ace and boots -- no cane -- and see how it would go. Mind you, this is MONTHS after my accident.

I got there, no problem. Wandered around the store, finding my stuff? No problem. But on the way back...?

About halfway to my lair, I started to feel lightheaded. Not like I was going to pass out or anything, as I wasn't in any pain. But my ankle felt so weird and loose, it started to trigger a mental response. I felt the exact same way I did halfway back to shore across that underground lake in Mexico, like I was suddenly without a net, the worst could happen, and the worst would likely happen. Life yawned as an abyss underneath me. I was convinced my ankle was going to blow out, and I'd have to crawl back for blocks before I could call help. I know, it makes no sense, but that's how the mind worked.

I came to a bus stop. I sat on the bench for fifteen minutes, answering email on my iPhone. After a while of doing mundane tasks, I got my head back together, and simply walked the rest of the way without incident.

Yesterday, I did as little as possible. I wanted to recover, in all ways possible.

But I refuse to live in response to fear. Caution? Sure. Fear, no.

First thing, I got my ass out of bed and determined to walk to downtown Hollywood, maybe two or three miles. I took my cane, but I never used it. I walked the whole way there carrying an unused can in my hand. I got to Sunset and La Cienega, stopped at a coffee place and answered email. Then I walked back. Same thing -- cane in hand, but never touching the ground.

No problems. No flip-outs.

I think sometimes the mind needs a placebo, just something to let it know that an option is there, even if it's not needed, or even wanted. My cane sits next to me right now, a totem of potential, but unused. It's strange, but... whatever gets me walking, then running, then push-starting my motorcycle... Well, who cares how it happens, so long as it does?

Baby Hello Kitty Pt. 1

Dear Hello Kitty,

Do you ever want to crawl back in your mommy's womb? I know I do, Hello Kitty LMAO!!!

I want to curl into a fetal position and suck my thumb and dream of innocent things like love and sparkles and... ice cream sprinkles and of course you, Hello Kitty LOL! And never come out again, because the world is full of cruel meanies like my family, who make fun of me just because I love a cartoon character and I'm addicted to painkillers ;-) j/k lol brb!

But I thought that would be silly, for a bunch of silly-billy reasons. If I was in a womb, I wouldn't be able to watch Hello Kitty animation, play Hello Kitty video games or drink orange juice (which secretly has some tequila in it - shhh!) from my Hello Kitty sippy cup! What a boring life that would be. Boooo....

Then I found out there's a Hello Kitty maternity ward! In Taiwan (wherever that is)!!! Boy, those kooky Asians think of everything, huh LOL?

At first I thought, "Oh, those lucky Taiwanese babies will get to come out into the big, meanie world, but they'll be comforted because the first thing they see will be Hello Kitty's face, and they'll know there's someone out there who loves them unconditionally ROFL!" There are lotsa animals in the animal kingdom who fixate on the first face they see when they're born and love that face forever. So all of those Taiwan babies will love Hello Kitty more than their stupid mommies - just like me! From day one, they'll know that Hello Kitty is kinder and purer than any human ever, including mommies, which was something that took me years to figure out, even with therapy and medicine :-o! I won't be alone in the world anymore LOL!

But then I thought - the only thing better than being like those babies, is to actually be one of those babies, born in the Hello Kitty maternity ward! It seemed impossible. How would that happen? I'm too big now to climb back up my mommy's hoo-hah.

What's that, Hello Kitty? (Sometimes the squeaky voice in my head that I'm pretty sure is you... well, sometimes it's hard to make out, Hello Kitty. Especially - and luckily - when the voice gives me instructions that would get me sent to the principal's office, or jail forever LMAO!!!)

Can you repeat that, Hello Kitty...? OH! How do I know for an absolute fact I'm too big to climb back up my mommy's hoo-hah and go back to the womb?

Just trust me on this.

I SAID - just trust me on this.

Shudup n drap the fuking subjeck u gddamm mutherfukr.

Wait... I have another idea LOL! The problem is my body is too big! And it's all covered with burns and coyote bites and addiction! It's a bad body that can't go back in the womb.

But what about my soul, Hello Kitty?! What if my soul could be reborn in another body, this time in the Hello Kitty maternity ward so I can do it all over again, and this time do it right and with love and this time I won't black out in fifth grade and wake up with a dead cat wearing make-up in my bed with Hello Kitty bed spreads ROFLMAO!!!!!

Today is Christmas, Hello Kitty! (Merry Christmas, by the way!!!) It's a celebration of the birth of Jesus. Well... if Jesus can be reborn, so can I, right?

(What's that, Hello Kitty? I'm being sacriligious? I don't know what that is, but I think you'd better shut up LOL!!!)

Now all I have to do is figure out a way to clone myself so my soul can be reborn in Taiwan! This'll be the bestest adventure yet, Hello Kitty ROFL!!!

I'm Looking at You, Hello Kitty!

OMG this is like the coolest thing in the whole world EV-AH! I'm gonna get these right now so I can look at you all day, Hello Kitty! I'm going to look at you RIGHT IN YOUR FUCKING SOUL ROFL!!!

Even when I'm dead, I'll make sure it's in my will that the undertaker keeps them in my corpse eyes like coins for Charon so I can stare at you in Hello Kitty Heaven LOL!

Can you see me too, Hello Kitty? Of course you can! Can you see my thoughts as images? Can you see me LOVE?!

My New Toy LOL!!!!

Hoppy Easter, Part Three

Dear Hello Kitty,

Sorry it's taken me so long to finish this story, but I had to beat an addiction to painkillers because of it LMAO!!! Now it's almost like Easter was totally a bajillion years ago, but y'know what I say? WHAT-EVA!

Anyway... have you ever seen A Christmas Story? Of course you have, Hello Kitty! You've seen and done everything! Your face is on posters, keychains, pencil boxes, cartoons, books, backpacks, underwear, t-shirts and totally like a thousand million other things. All at the same time! That's a supernatural power called translocation, Hello Kitty, and you have it! Among other magical Hello Kitty powers. Is there anything you can't do?

In A Christmas Story, there's a scene where a bunch of dogs run into their house and eat the Christmas turkey and everyone's upset and they have to go to a Chinese restaurant for Christmas. After all the mean treatment I got because of my Hello Kitty eggs, I wanted to get back at my family. And A Christmas Story totally gave me the idea LOL!

There aren't any wild dogs in Arizona, Hello Kitty. But there sure are coyotes! They bark and howl all night by where my parents live. They have to keep their garbage in the garage until the last second, or else the coyotes will come and rip it up and eat their trash ROFL!!!

I thought: wouldn't it be funny to see the looks on my family's faces when a pack of wild coyotes run into the house and eat the Easter Ham?! Sure would LMAO!

But how to get the coyotes in there? At first, I thought of baiting them with pieces of the ham. But what if I used all the ham before the coyotes were even in the house? It would be funny to make my mommy lock herself in the bathroom and cry and smoke her secret stash of cigarettes because I fed all the ham to coyotes. But no... I wanted a big scene.

So I took some sliced turkey from the fridge when no one was looking LOL! I went out into the desert and threw slices of sliced turkey all over the place. I knew it wouldn't take long. And it totally didn't, Hello Kitty! First, I saw one coyote. Then I guess he told all his coyote friends, because soon there were a bunch of them. Like ten! And they followed me around everywhere, waiting to see when I was gonna drop another piece of turkey.

More coyotes came. And more. There were dozens! Who knew there were so many coyotes in the desert?! Anyway, since there were more coyotes, I thought I had to drop more turkey to keep them following me. But I dropped so much turkey that I ran out LOL!

What a bummer. All that work, and I didn't have anymore turkey to get them to follow me home and eat the ham. I was tired from wandering around the desert, anyway. I had no idea getting back at my family was gonna be so much work LOL! I was hot and thirsty. I just wanted to go home and drink OJ out of my Hello Kitty cup, the one with the silly sippy straw LMAO! (You know the one, Hello Kitty. YOU KNOW THE ONE, DON'T LIE).

But the coyotes kept following me! If only I knew they'd do that, I wouldn't have fed them so much turkey! Totally rad. They were gonna come home and eat the ham, anyway!

So I headed for my parents' house. And guess what, Hello Kitty? The coyotes followed. They barked and howled, and even more coyotes showed up! Now there were like almost fifty of them! That's a lotta hungry coyotes!

Boy, I found that out the hard way.

They kept getting closer and closer to me. They got close enough to sniff at me. First it was only a couple that were like totally brave. I thought that was cool. I love nature LOL!!! Then more coyotes got closer to sniff at me. And more and more. Soon, I was walking in the middle of a big, sniffing coyote crowd!

I held up my hands and said, "Sorry, guys! I'm all out of turkey!" But, you know what? Coyotes don't speak English! I don't know if they even speak Coyote! 'Cause if they did, why would they bark and howl and sniff instead of talking in this totally cool coyote language. DUH-HUH!!!!

Maybe they did speak English, and just didn't believe me. Before you know it, Hello Kitty, those coyotes were biting my clothes, looking for turkey. I think they smelled like the turkey juice in my pockets or something. I know -- EW, right?!

They liked that turkey juice smell so much, the coyotes started biting me on the pockets. But my pockets were part of my clothes, which are right next to my skin. So they were biting me, Hello Kitty! Those crazy coyotes didn't mean to, but they were biting my pants hard enough to make me scream and cry "OWWIE-OW-OW!" I tried running away. But, ya know what, Hello Kitty? Coyotes are faster than people LMAO!!!

They chased me and tackled me and I fell face-first into the sand. They were biting me on my pants and on my shirt and my shoes and my hair! They were biting me and biting me and biting me! No matter how much I cried and begged them to stop, they didn't care.

THE COYOTES KEPT BITING ME, HELLO KITTY!!!

Lucky for me, this nutty old golfing man was driving home in his golf cart when he saw the giant pile of coyotes attacking me. He ran at them with his golf clubs. He hit them and hit them. He yelled awful things at them. Swear words!!! Good thing, though. That wrinkly old weirdo's clubs and swear words chased off the coyotes before they forgot about the turkey juice and just ate me ROFLMAO!!!

Soooooo.... long story short, an ambulance came and took me to the hospital. They sewed up all my coyote bites. The doctor said I'd probably only have permanent scarring on ten to thirty percent of my body. Whew! I don't wanna look like Frankenstein's monster, Hello Kitty, not if I'm ever gonna find a girl who likes Hello Kitty as much as I do. (As IF!)

Later, my dad yelled at me for missing Easter ham dinner. That's what I call irony, Hello Kitty! I didn't like it when he yelled at me. I always hear you should kill people with kindness. I feel like one day I'm going to run my dad over with a bus made out of my kindness.

The doctors gave me some pills for the pain. I put them in my Hello Kitty Pez dispenser LOL! They were like the most awesome candy in the world. I ate them and ate them.

But when I got to the bottom of the Pez dispenser and didn't find anymore, I got really sad. Really really really sad LMAO!

Which is why it took me so long to finish telling you about my totally Hoppy Easter Hello Kitty! I LOVE YOU!!!

Hoppy Easter, Part Two

Dear Hello Kitty,

On Easter morning, my whole family decided it was time for an Easter egg hunt! It was a total disaster.

The night before, they made me make all the eggs. I got out the Paaz kit, filled a bunch of coffee cups with dye and vinegar and dunked eggs with the little bendy copper thing that comes with it. The kit comes with a little white crayon, which you can use to write messages on the eggs. Because eggs are white, too (I know -- nuh-der!) you can't see what's been written until the eggs are dunked and colored. That's the best part, because it's almost like making secret messages LMAO!!!

You'll never guess what I wrote on the eggs! "I (HEART) HELLO KITTY!" On ALL of them! Because I really do (HEART) Hello Kitty! But you already know that.

Anyway, everyone in my family got mad about that when the eggs came out and they saw what I wrote. They called me names. My cousin was going to throw an egg at me, but my uncle (his dad) grabbed his wrist before it could turn into an ugly scene. Like it wasn't ugly enough already.

Despite all the static I got, I went to bed that night with a head full of wonderful dreams of Hello Kitty faces on the eggs. Then, in my dream, the eggs hatched and you (Hello Kitty) came out of all of them! Weird, huh LOLLOLOL?!?! Because not even cartoon kitties come out of eggs, they come from cartoon cat live births -- EW!

I woke up the next morning when my mother shook me awake. She said it was time for an Easter egg hunt! She said they hid all the eggs, and whoever finds the most eggs gets a hundred bucks and a bag of chocolate candy! WOWWOWOW!!!

I hunted and hunted. I looked everywhere. I looked in closets and under couches and in cabinets and under the sink and outside and totally EVERYWHERE! But I still didn't find any eggs. After an hour of hunting, I noticed that no one else was looking for eggs. In fact, it looked like all they were doing was standing around and trying not to laugh.

I said, "What's so funny?" And my entire family started laughing at me! Laughing and laughing and laughing. When my dad caught his breath, he admitted that they didn't hide any eggs. They totally just wanted to watch me run around like an idiot and get upset.

I asked where all my "I (HEART) HELLO KITTY" eggs went. And they laughed some more... because they threw them in the garbage! Without even eating them! What a waste of good eggs, even if you don't love Hello Kitty like I do.

WHAT-EVA.

I admit, I wasn't too happy about all of this. I've heard that, when people make you mad, you're supposed to kill them with kindness.

One day I'm going to bash them all in the head with a hammer made out of my kindness. Then we'll see who's ROF and who's LMAO!!!

Kindness or not, I'm decided to get them back. All of them. And I already had something in mind.

Even though it turned into a totally total disaster LOL!!!

But I have to tell that story later...

Easter

Dear Hello Kitty,

I went to visit my parents for Easter in Arizona. It was a totally total disaster.

First, I got on the airplane and the attendant made an announcement. Someone on the plane had a bad allergy to peanuts, so bad that peanut could like totally kill them. So if one person couldn't have peanuts, NO ONE could have peanuts. We were gonna get pretzels instead. They were so allergic, they couldn't even smell or breathe or look at peanuts. I'm scared of lots of things, but even I'm not scared of peanuts. Then it would be pretty hard to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Hello Kitty! LOLLOLLOL!!!

I stood up and asked, "Who is it? Who's the peanut freak?" But no one answered, and a lot of people gave me looks and the attendant asked me to sit down. I sat down, but I wasn't happy. It made no sense. If I'm gonna be stuck on a plane with a sucktard peanut mutant, I wanna meet him/her/it. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I see people on crutches all the time. You should be proud of what makes you abnormal and ridiculous and pathetic and weird. You should get a t-shirt that says, "I'm totally scared of smelling peanuts! ROFL!" Or you could just hide behind the faceless authority of major airline personnel. Puh-LEEZE.

We got pretzels. There was a warning on the back: "Made in a factory where peanut products are packaged." Since when did the whole world revolve around peanut allergies? I tried to be helpful. I stood up and said: "Don't eat the pretzels either, peanut freak! They were made in the same factory! I bet they were even like totally made in the same WORLD, LOL!" The attendant asked me to sit down again, and told me there was a sky marshal on the plane.

What-EVA.

I got bored so I went into that pouch thing in front of me for the airplane magazine, which was like totally stupido (which means stupid in Spanish, I totally know these things Senorita Hello Kitty). I wanted to see what all was in there, so I dug around. And you know what I found, Hello Kitty? A half-eaten bag of peanuts! I guess whoever sat in the seat before me (or even before that -- ew!) left them there, which is gross. If you're not gonna eat all the peanuts, why don't you throw them out? Are you saving them for winter, like a bear or a chipmunk or a hungry shark? But even that doesn't make any sense, because you don't live on the plane! You'd have to buy another ticket and make sure you sat in the exact same seat to get your peanuts back. That's a lot of work for a few peanuts. People are sooooooo dumb.

Ordinarily I don't get all worked up over some peanuts, Hello Kitty. But there was a peanut freak on board. I wanted to save his (or her) life! So I stood up and held up the peanuts and yelled: "OMG! Peanuts! I found peanuts in my magazine pouch thing! And the bag's open!"

This guy in the back of the plane (who was totally going bald and stuff LOL!!!) stood up too and said, "No! Not peanuts! I'm allergic! They're gonna kill me!" And I'm like, "Ha-ha! Peanut freak! What, you can't even smell 'em or look at 'em? Mm-mm! I love peanuts!"

Long story short, Hello Kitty, I had to talk to some guys in uniforms when the plane landed. You're not supposed to yell on a plane and stuff, you could get into trouble. Even if you're trying to save some bald peanut freak's life.

They made me sit in a room and they looked through all of my luggage. Then they made me take all the stuff outta my pockets. What they found was: my keys, my Bedazzled cell phone with Hello Kitty's face on it, my wallet, my money and my Hello Kitty pen that can totally write in all different colors LOL!

They let me go after a while. I went looking for my dad, who was supposed to be there to pick me up. But I didn't see him ANYWHERE! I got confused and scared. So I did what I do anytime I get confused and scared, Hello Kitty.

I took off my shirt and sat on the floor and cried.

The same guys in uniforms came and got me. They searched me again and found a note in my wallet (pink with Hello Kitty O/C! ROFL!!!) with my dad's cell phone number. They called it. He had actually been in the airport the whole time! When I didn't get off the peanut freak plane with the rest of the peanut freaks, he thought my flight got delayed so he went to a bar and started drinking. He drank and drank and drank and drank and drank. You might think he was drunk, Hello Kitty, but that's not the case. He wasn't drinking BOOZE, he was drinking apple juice, and he drank so much apple juice that he was peeing for a like a million years when the uniform guys called for him over the speakers. The sound of my dad's apple juice pee was too loud for him to hear. Which is why I ended up without my shirt on and crying. I woulda been embarrassed if everyone in the whole world wasn't so STUPID.

Except you, Hello Kitty! OMGLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!