Monday, October 11, 2004
Upshift
I love digging through my memories for little bits and pieces that held special meaning for me. I love woolgathering, then rolling it out for others to read. Well, when they like it I do.
My parents belonged to a Fundamentalist church years back that nearly got itself declared a "Cult". I decided that it was NOT, as it claimed, the One True Church which could guarantee salvation. It was in my early teens, when I was willing to rebel against damn near anything anyway, so this was fuel for my fire. When the other kids showed up for church in dark pants, dress shoes, white shirt and tie, I came in gold wide-wale hiphugger bell bottoms, dayglo green socks over what we called Desert Boots, also known as Chukkas, a forest-green military style shirt and gold, blue, red and green paisley tie. Since long hair was verboten, and I wanted LONG hair, I glued it flat to my head with about a quarter-pound of Dippity-Do.
Some of the poor brainwashed children were convinced God was gonna wham me with a lightning bolt one day. God didn't.
I wasn't sure about God for a long time after that. I lived for surfing anyway, and if there was one Holy Place I could find, it was out in the ocean. Paddle past the breaking waves, out at the very edge of the deep, and it was another world, with its own rules, its own beauties and uglinesses. Sometimes it seemed as I grew to understand it better, the ocean was a living being, perhaps with a consciousness I couldn't fully understand. But I could learn the rules. I knew where the tourist-drowning rip currents were, and used them to rush me out past the waves. I knew to ALWAYS look for sharks. Most people who were bitten said they never saw it coming. I never got bitten, but I saw more than one shark looking me over, and very gingerly departed the area. I paddled out one morning with my faithful surfing companion Eric, in fog so thick you couldn't see ten feet away, and as we were calling each others' names and trying to find each other, a pod of bottlenose dolphins was suddenly all around me, rolling on their sides to look at me, squeaking in their strange dolphin language. A baby came up and bumped my board. His mother bumped HIM, gently, and pushed him a short distance away. It was between wave sets anyway, so I stopped paddling, sat up on my board, and tried to imitate their squeaks, which REALLY got them chattering. We had a couple of minutes of communing, then Eric's voice came from not so far away, and in a flash, they were all gone, popping back up somewhere in the fog.
"Did you SEE them, Eric?"
"See what?"
"Never mind. Here comes some waves."
Eric is a Baptist Minister now. I have no idea how that fits into this story.
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I hung out once upon a time in the same AOL Message Board as the Grand Mystic of Bloggers, BigHo. We compared definitions of Animal Husbandry, mostly sheep, sometimes expanding into wild creatures. He feels that an impaled squirrel is appropriate attire, so long as your schlong doesn't protrude past the head. (Not to worry on my account, as long as the squirrel isn't, say, under six inches butt-to-tooth.)side note: I made the mistake of setting this blog up while talking to Julie. She knows my password. I may have to take care of that situation very soon. Play with your own damn blog, woman.
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During my Board days, a young lad whom we castigated for being a dork gave us all the following reply, restoring our faith that there will ALWAYS be ditch-diggers available:
U get mad when I take what u guys r saying personally and then u
turn around and do the same thing. And I said chit and azz originally. Thats not cussing at all. But Im done with u, be a child.
The boy INSPIRED me, I tell ya, and while he didn't understand word one of my reply, it seemed to make sense and give pleasure to the mentally functional members of the board:
Youngun', this board is for grownups to have grownup fun. Young folks are welcome, we'll even tone it down for them sometimes, but the point here is to be funny. I've said it before and got 10 tons of argument, but humor is based on PAIN. If you don't think anything in here is funny, get out, live, gain some experience about what life is and isn't, then come back in and you'll be taken seriously.
Son, you got to get OUT of that little coccoon of havin' Mommy and Daddy take care of you. You got to get on the STREETS, you got to be pounded on, lied to, cheated on, messed up, messed over, you got to see things that aren't right, things that shake your life views to pieces so you gotta rebuild from the ground up, you gotta nearly get killed a couple times, bleed, hurt, find out half your friends will walk away from you in a hot second if you're not filling some need of theirs, you gotta pay your way and sometimes sweat having too much way and not enough pay, you need to love HELL out of somebody and find out they don't love you back, you got to cry sometimes and you got to NOT cry when you need to BAD, you got to find out that when life just slaps you FLAT you get up, dust yourself off, smile at how strong you are so life can slap you flat AGAIN! And WHEN you have been there, done that,when you understand that it's all one big joke and you're NOT going to survive in the end because NOBODY DOES, when you quit taking yourself seriously, then you find you can laugh often and easy. There's dues to pay first, though, and you ain't paid 'em.
Arnie
~sermonizing again
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I can't believe I'm saying this, but people, this is a JOKE I wrote. Do NOT try this at home, work, anywhere else, ok?
HOW TO WASH YOUR OWN BRAIN
Rather than being alleged, it has often and loudly been stated that I have a filthy mind. My supervisor introduces me to new employees as the "Shop Pervert".
My mother, the few and minor examples of how my brain works she's seen, blames my father. He grins. Guiltily.
I can keep a room's undivided attention (any room, any group of people from a Board of Directors to a crew of gravediggers) with my description of doggy-style with an obese lover.
Enough set up.
There are times when your brain is simply TOO dirty to go on.
Head for the local drug store.
Find the enema bags. You need one with a long tube, a serious insertion nozzle, and a big bag, preferably with a threaded cap.
Now for a thorough cleansing, you need the Special Mix. Forget those flakes who use coffee, water, prepared mixes.
Now. Alcohol is a necessity. Pour in a miniature bottle of Wild Turkey 101.
Next, half a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide. Two tablespoons of Witch Hazel.
Crush and add four aspirin, tylenol, whatever.
Add a dropper of kerosene, two of Woolite.
Get one of those square batteries, very carefully insert two wires through the bag, attach to the battery posts.
Now you're ready. Place the bag flat on the floor in front of the toilet. Make sure the seat's down. Stand on the toilet.
If you smoke, better burn one before you go any further.
Ready?
Three deep breaths. Bend forward. You know where the nozzle goes.
Darn. I apologize. Forgot to tell you to lubricate that thing first. Bet that hurt!
JUMP!
Try to land both feet squarely on the bag.
You'll experience a RUSH of sensations.
There will be bubbling. There will be pain and euphoria mixed. There will be fire.
There will be liquids spraying out your nose, ears and mouth. Don't worry. It's all part of the cleansing process.
The bleeding out your tear ducts will stop in about 3 days. It's not a true coma. You'll wake up in two hours. The rainbow effect in your vision is temporary. The roaring in your ears, too. Your brain will swell slightly, but the new holes in your sinus cavities will drain off excess fluids, so the swelling won't last.
If you can walk, fill a cooler with ice and stick your head in it for an hour.
Don't smoke. Oh GOD don't smoke.
You'll find your mind all fresh and clean, ready for reloading. Enjoy.
Well, the Founder died, and after the smoke settled, his successor began making moves to align the church more closesly with other Christian beliefs, which got him out from under the cult classification. Immediately, the church splintered into smaller groups, some sticking with the old, hardcore beliefs, others taking what they wanted or believed true. My mother stayed with the main body, although she was bothered by some of the changes in doctrine and teaching. She and her closest friends in the group often held private meetings where they hashed out what they though was right and wrong about the changes, and as time went on, her attendance dropped off as well. Interestingly, the newly-appointed pastor of the church's wife quit altogether and started attending Baptist services.
By the time of her death, Mom decided that it didn't matter much which church you attended; what mattered was whether you did everything out of love. "Love," she told me, "Is the ONLY thing that matters."
Plus, you left in the part about the squirrel being under six inches, butt to tooth, and that was mine. Plagiarist.
I miss your momma. She rocked.
Make a great Christmas present, come to think of it. Enter the new year with cheeks a'glowin'.
If I change the length that the squirrel has to be, people will think I'm lying anyway, so why bother?
I may fix it anyway. I may not.
Angie, long-ago girlfriend and current friend, told me how she came over once crying to my mother because my brother had popped her in the butt with his BB gun.
Mom went into my room, got out my Spittin' Image Model 1894 BB gun, which had about 5 times the power of the little Daisy Cub my brother was using, and said, "Well, honey, go shoot him back."
Fortunately for brother, she hit denim 4 times, flesh once. He had to pop the BB out of his epidermis with the tip of a pocketknife. Fortunately, he'd seen Grandma pop one out of my butt the same way years before. Yes, he'd put it there.
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