My Diseased Mind » Even in His Youth

Best. Halloween. Ever.

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:04:33 +0000

This Halloween, we’re taking the baby out to trick-or-treat for the first time. This will most likely be a horrifying experience for her, spent clinging to my in order to avoid strangers and tugging endlessly at a witch hat she has no interest in wearing. On the bright side, we get candy for hauling her around the neighborhood. The witch costume is cute, but every time I see it on her, I can’t help but think of another Halloween.

When I was 5, my sister (then 2) and I were in our rooms inventorying our respective hauls from trick-or-treating. The rewards for vampirism and witchdom had been high that year, and the typical system something of counting, count 1, eat 3, was taxing my young pancreas. I don’t really know if it was temporary, sugar-induced deafness from the candy, or that I just didn’t care, but it suddenly occurred to me that my sister was screaming hysterically in the next room. She had been doing so for about 5 or 10 minutes.

Being somewhat curious, but mostly fed up with the noise, I went in to investigate. My mother was standing in my sister’s room wearing a ratty old pink bathrobe and panty hose over her head, giving her a pig noise. Her bottom jaw jutted out, and she spoke only in grunts and gestures. My sister was glued to the opposite wall, screaming her head off, her witch makeup running down her cheeks. In the nearly 30 years since then, I’ve never heard a person scream like that. Even though I recognized her, I was still a little skeeved out. Mom really sold it.

My sister sucked her thumb until she was 8. I never considered the connection until today.

Death in the Digital Age

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:36:40 +0000

A friend of mine from school died this morning. I learned that something was amiss this morning on Facebook, when the status messages of mutual friends were consistently somber. A quick exchange of messages revealed the details–she was in an accident and suffered a number of serious injuries, she was in a coma, had suffered brain death, and that the decision had been made to pull the plug. Being familiar with the location of the accident, I quickly located the street on which she crashed in Google Maps, and “drove” down the road in street view. Alternating between personal and detached, it was almost too fast and convenient.

Rachel was a part of my closest circle of friends, spanning junior high and about half of high school. We were a living John Hughes movie, or at least thought we were. Through the miracle of the internet, I’m in some form of contact with nearly all of them, although very little of it is direct. I had just reconnected with Rachel through Facebook about 3-4 months ago after 16 years. After dealing with her fair share of drama and unpleasantness, she seemed really grounded and happy. A psychology degree was imminent. Things seemed to be going right. A few months later, she’s the first one of us to go. It’s scary, depressing, and an overall stomach punch.

At the end of the day, I find myself wondering if all of the technological ‘help’ was a good or bad thing. Everything happened so quickly, and it was extremely impersonal. Overall I think that it was good though, if for no other reason than the fact that the internet allowed me to connect with her during the last few months of her life, to satisfy my nagging curiosity, and to remember her as happy.

Apologies to Mom

Mon, 12 May 2008 22:16:03 +0000

As a belated Mothers’ Day gift, I’m posting 10 apologies to my mom, on a blog she doesn’t see. Sure it’s pointless, but that’s kind of how this thing works.

1. I apologize for the fact that when you had me do dishes, I threw away some of the silverware that your grandmother gave you if it was too gunked up.

2. I apologize for the time that I ‘cooked’ the charge from a Roman candle in a pot on your gas stove. I probably should have known better by then. For what it’s worth, I regretted it for a number of reasons, most notably the harm I did to my hearing.

3. I apologize for the trips to the emergency room. I have no idea why I felt like drinking bleach or eating baby aspirin were such great ideas.

4. I apologize for telling the doctor that you gave me poison, and we had to wait outside for me to throw up, when in fact I was the one who consumed poisonous berries, and that the ipecac syrup you gave me wasn’t actually poison.

5. I apologize for torpedoing your Avon career by rubbing Crisco into the curtains belonging to a little old lady during one of your sales calls. In my defense, I really think she just wanted someone to talk to, and had no intention of actually buying anything.

6. Although it’s not my fault, I apologize for the unhealthy interest that my friends have taken in you over the years, culminating in Joboo’s professions of his undying love for you. I really can’t stop vomiting enough.

7. I apologize for one time that I beat up my sister. She deserved it the other times.

8. I apologize for the excuses I made to get out of school. The Boy is using them now, and they’re pretty ridiculous. Why did you ever let me stay home?

9. I apologize for the time that I locked myself in a closet, and screamed until I fell asleep. I appreciate that you remembered the mirror on the other side of the door before my grandfather took an axe to it.

10. I apologize for the stolen orange cone in my bedroom, with the bottle of tequila underneath it. You never did think to look under there, right? Uh, right?

I Was An Elementary School Drunkard

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:51:18 +0000

It’s been amply demonstrated in the past that my dad was a father of the century candidate. Granted, he did finish near the bottom with Marvin Gaye Sr. and Bing Crosby, but the participation ribbon holds a place of honor in his trophy case. As you can no doubt surmise from the title, this blog entry covers my formative years, hanging with Drew Barrymore. Oh, right; this blog entry is about a time that my dad inexplicably avoided going to jail.

On this particular night, mom was (clearly) out of town with my sister. Dad, after apparently suffering a traumatic brain injury, decides to go out drinking with his son. The problem is, the son was still 7 years old at the time. It turns out that in Texas in the early 80s, this is not a problem. Hell, the beer joint we hit sold candy and had video games. So while Dad was getting lit, I was eating Kit Kats and playing Space Invaders. Everything was grand.

As the evening progressed, Dad made big plans. He and a friend decided that they had some drunk driving to do, and before I knew it, I was riding bitch on the second most ill-advised drive of all time (first place), oblivious to anything but my sudden lack of Kit Kats and Space Invaders. Dad had snagged a bottle of homemade wine from the house, and he and his buddy were actually passing the bottle back and forth while Dad drove us around. What can I say? It was a simpler time.

Evenutally, the bottle started making stops at me on its way across the truck. I was encouraged to drink. In hindsight, I guess it was one of those, “Hey, let’s get the cat high” situations. We’ve all done it; there’s really no reason to judge. While the immediate effect of the wine was to make me think that everything was funny, it wasn’t long before I tipped over, lying on the seat of the truck, praying for death. Turns out I was a lightweight in 2nd grade. You show me a man who says Kit Kats can’t do backflips, and I’ll punch him in the face. Dad’s friend began to enthusiastically discuss his skill at barbecuing goat, which oddly enough wasn’t helping matters. This night marks the first time of many that I have actively prayed for death.

Mercifully, the night ended, which marks the beginning of the consequences for Dad. Mom returned, and strangely, was supremely pissed. Throw in the fact that the bottle of wine we drained was actually a gift for her, and Dad was summarily shitlisted. For weeks afterward, my spelling sentences included at least one statement of my love of getting drunk on grape wine on Saturdays with my dad. It’s amazing that I didn’t become a foster child.

It’s Possible That I’m Beavis

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 04:27:55 +0000

When I was a kid, I really liked fire. Ok, I still do, but as far as the cops are concerned, I never said that. What’s germane to the topic at hand is that I once really liked fire. For the most part, we got along famously.

This all very nearly changed when I was in 7th grade. My sister and I were unsupervised, as usual. Note that I’m not bitter about this; it was an ideal situation for me. Had the internet been readily available to me at that time, I might have learned what a clit was in a more timely manner. Sorry Cathy.

On this day I was experimenting with the innards of a Roman Candle. Salvador was there doing his usual report card victory tour, which involved staying at friends’ houses until his dad was no longer so pissed that he’d beat the hell out of him. He was fortunate enough to witness the lunacy. I had disassembled the Roman Candle and had placed one of its donut-shaped powder charges into a pot. The pot was then covered and placed on a gas stove burner on high. We were sitting at the kitchen table to observe the proceedings from a “safe” distance.

The thing is, nothing happened. After about 15 minutes (ok, 3), we gingerly made our way to the stove and turned it off. Safety first. 10 minutes (ok, 3) of cooling later, we figured it was safe to look. Again we shuffled over to the pot, and very slowly lifted the lid. Have you ever seen Backdraft? It was like that, minus the flames. The air rushed into the pot and ignited the powder. This resulted in a very loud explosion 2 feet from our heads. My hearing was barely saved by the fact that I was staring into the pot. My eyes were saved by the lack of pyrotechnics.

Having been blown back to the table, we shook out the cobwebs and began the cleanup. The pot had a black char mark on the bottom. It had somehow escaped dent-free. In fact, Mom still uses that pot today, and it still has the mark. It was in the sink when Mom walked in, half full of bleach:

Mom: What was that?
Me(dazed): Nothing.
Mom: The big booming noise. In the kitchen.
Me: Didn’t hear it.
Mom: Is it safe to assume that it won’t happen again?
Me: Yep.
Mom: Good.

It turns out that she had been sitting in her boyfriend’s truck in front of the house when the explosion took place. I think she was happier not knowing what I’d done, allowing her the fantasy that I wasn’t a complete dumbass. She knows now.

This Dog Don’t Hunt

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 02:35:51 +0000

Living in the Texas Hill Country, the changing leaves and brisk 80-degree afternoons signal a shift in our attentions. The days of weekly(hah!) lawn mowing, lazy summer afternoons watching baseball, weekends at the Gulf coast, and barbecue have given way to the days of raking, football, weekends at kids’ soccer games, and hunting.

However, as you rascally title readers may have inferred, I don’t hunt. It’s not that I have some deep-seated love for animals or the sanctity of life. I’m like every other red-blooded Texan in that regard. In the immortal words of Denis Leary, meat tastes like murder, and murder tastes pretty goddamn good. I have no compunction about eating an animal, whether it be cow, deer, rabbit, squid, lamb, dolphin, or baby seal. I just won’t shoot ‘em.

When I was five, my dad came home from work one day and asked me I’d like to go with him to kill a deer he’d found caught in a fence. Considering that attention from my dad usually ranged from exasperation to rarely-concealed rage, this was a pretty sweet deal. I broke land speed records enroute to the truck. A short drive later, we encountered the unfortunate beast. It was a medium-sized doe stuck in a barbed-wire fence. As soon as she caught sight of my dad, she started kicking furiously. It seems that word gets around. Dad headed over to the tool box in the bed of his truck. I knew that he kept a pistol in there, and didn’t give it a second thought.

Only he came back with a hammer. Yeah, a hammer. A few brief moments of struggling and screaming (the deer, not me) later, Dad was tossing the carcass over his shoulder and carrying it back to the truck. On the way home, I didn’t say a word. Back at the house, he hung it up in the garage and began to clean it. Mom, who was a little perturbed, watched as I took it all in. It was then that I made my only comment on the matter:

“Now you’re just being mean to it.”

Mom was satisfied that he hadn’t completely transformed me into a serial killer. Dad was satisfied that mom was done yelling at him, and hey, free deer. I had brought peace to the household. That’s right; I’m the chosen one.

Well, It Was Some Kind Of Education

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 03:27:07 +0000

In 8th grade, I had Coach S. for history. He was sometimes out on days that had major sporting events (a fairly common occurrence in a Texas junior high) scheduled, in order to prepare, or whatever they had to do. We had a substitute who was not unfamiliar to us. For some ridiculous reason, she decided she was going to teach us, and proceeded to deliver a lecture on American History (pre-Reconstruction). We were all a little skeptical, and a little cheesed off, because a substitute means an hour of paid vacation for the students. She was violating the order of things, committing a sin against nature. Alfredo was ready; he knew what he had to do. The first time she asked if we had any questions, his hand shot up. The whole class did a kind of synchronized double-take. When called upon, he very clearly and he very loudly, asked, “What’s a clit?”

Boom, Alfredo’s on his way to the office, but his head was high. He’d done a noble thing, and preserved a way of life. There would be no history learned that day, no dangerous precedents set. The substitute was broken, and spent the rest of the class sitting at the desk, glaring at us.

She never did tell us what a clit is.

Jump For a Buck

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:40:38 +0000

Jump For a Buck was my high school’s exercise in prostitution. It was also a way to raise money for our cheerleading program. The premise was simple: spot a cheerleader in her uniform, usually on a varsity football game day, and give her a dollar. She was then obliged to perform your favorite jump. I’m honestly still not sure that there is another cheerleading jump besides the classic “Jump Up In the Air and Spread Your Legs While Grabbing For Your Toes.” If so, I’m probably not ready for it.

My sophomore year, I had the privilege of sharing a Latin class with the head cheerleader. For 10 glorious weeks, our Fridays were punctuated by a series of titillating, or rather crotchillating, jumps. It typically began with a buzz along the left side of the classroom. It was there that one of us began the collection. Within 10 minutes, we could expect to have between 10 and 15 bucks available for cheerleader rental. Lunch? Hell no! We can have lunch after the season!

Now I’m not saying that this was the best idea ever, but I do know that if I had been planning on bringing a gun to school, I would NOT have done it on Jump For a Buck day. In essence, Jump For a Buck made the school a safer place for 10 days out of the school year. Makes you think, huh?