75 Part 3

5 and I didn’t talk much on the phone. Between her mother not liking me and 5’s generally anti-social, no… anti-vulnerable demeanor, there really wasn’t much time to talk and equally as little to talk about during those rare conversations. Funny thing was, 4 and I talked all the time and were quickly becoming great friends. That’s why it was 4 who found out first about 1. I even asked her opinion regarding how to handle the whole revelation to 5. Ultimately, that revelation wasn’t too dramatic. 4 ended up just telling her, and as unemotional (outwardly of course) as she was, she broke up with me without much fanfare and went back to her local life.

In the meantime, I continued to speak to 4 on a regular basis and also had a few more encounters with 1, and her friend… 2. 2 wasn’t anything spectacular from either a relationship or a memorable-experience perspective… she wasn’t really much more than a random big tittied friend of 1’s that she brought over for a late night tent rendezvous… 1 wasn’t too proprietary with my lovin’ so it wasn’t long before she was eagerly assisting in the placement of my cock in 2’s dripping wet and anticipatingly puffy little teen romper room. That happened maybe once or twice before I lost contact with 1 as she moved away, and subsequently 2 with the loss of our instigator.

Soon after, I started my junior year of high school and got back to the normal social circles, or lack thereof, of my previous 2 years.

I alienated myself a bit during my sophomore year; I was a mid-pubescent, highly emotional, highly intelligent little punk. I dyed my hair all sorts of colors, took a bunch of advanced placement courses, which I subsequently failed due to a severe lack of interest in homework, and moped around campus as the resident pseudo-antisocial… of course, loving every bit of the attention that I received from girls who braded my long red and green hair, teachers deeply concerned by my dark poetry and reclusive behavior (I made the Columbine kids look like little bitches), and fellow students who were just plain confused by my seeming lack of need for the typical social reassurances that they all sought from each other.

Three years of home schooling and an additional year of private Christian school during the formative tweener years will do that to you. Especially when it’s my oppressive-yet-so-needy mother that’s doing the home schooling.

One group of friends had always been there in one form or another. We were all misfits who didn’t really fit in with preppy kids, didn’t fit in with the band geeks and had far too much angst to fit in with the average nondescript student. We all had a high emotional intelligence and all shared some “dramatic” struggle with our parents. In our shared struggle, we found friendship. We often congregated around 25’s house… she did, after all, have the coolest parents… Every one of us called her parents “mom” and “dad”… and mom and dad referred to each of us as their little orphan children...

3 was one of those misfits. I love 3. She is and probably always has been the biggest pain in my ass in terms of expectations and neediness (both emotionally and logistically) and has alternately been the greatest reward in terms of challenging my behavior and allowing me the opportunity to take control of something, lose control of something (or myself for that matter), and has offered me some of the greatest opportunities to learn about friendship and leadership.

3 is a lesbian. I made her that way. Well, I made her that way with the help of her mother, her father, her step father, the boyfriend that beat her, and that stupid little prick that tried to rape her in the ass that year… man I’d love to bend him over a give him a little taste of that lovin… can anyone say “donkey punch?”… fucker.

3 and I were the misfits of that group of misfits and as such had our own little world within the one we created with the other outcasts… we both cared even less for the mainstream than the others and had no problem spending time alone or together, just the two of us, as an alternative to any action that may require some level of social “behavior” on our part. My mom wasn’t much of a fan of 3… she was “too big for her britches” as my mother so eloquently, albeit datedly, put it. I’m pretty sure it was a fatefully overlooked note which mentioned my 14 year old penis and inadvertently found its way into the laundry bin my freshman year that was the impetus for the judgment. Because of course, there was certainly no chance that I had done anything to prompt the transcription of that little flirt missive. It was all that red headed harlot’s fault. You know what they say… red in the head… fire in the hole.

Our first encounter was entertaining… in a terrifically embarrassing to a 16 year old girl and still joked about 15 years later sort of way… Our high school was situated in the Sierra Nevada mountain range south of Yosemite, with a 3000 acre ranch and nature trails on site… students were carted in from up to an hour and a half away and there were many after school activities; sports programs, academic clubs and the occasional slaughter or castration of livestock which warranted the associated “late buses” to accommodate them. With all that land and the multitude of “valid” reasons to delay the inevitable reengagement with parental supervision… 3 and I easily arranged our rendezvous at the nature trail behind the baseball diamond one fall day after class.

We eagerly snuck along the trail until satisfied that we were sufficiently lost to the students and teachers who had remained after school for less hedonistic extracurricular activities. Convinced of our seclusion, our verbal flirtations quickly digressed to pseudo-erotic petting and fondling. I wasn’t much for waiting to get to the point and always was impatiently frustrated by the feigned innocence of the typical teen vestal. As willing as she was, 3 didn’t let her sisters down, gently deflecting my hands and searching fingers to keep them from within reach of her fire water. Finally, when my kisses and snuggles, tickles and verbal assurances of propriety had sufficiently quelled all fears of ulterior motive, my manipulations bore fruit, cantaloupes in fact, and I was allowed access to the freckled, peach-white flesh hidden beneath her blouse yet still locked in her iron-underwire maiden, and the ultra-fine tabby curls that managed to escape past the timidly open zipper, still above a tightly guarded kitten refusing to peek further from jeans so inconveniently locked to innocent hips. After several unsuccessful attempts at further denim access, my efforts were refocused to the wonderfully large and more readily accessible fruits tightly bound to 3’s body.

Now, I’m not saying that I was a master locksmith at 15, but I was on the other hand, no slouch, and at 30 something, the one handed lock-pick is second nature. I’m also not saying that every 16 year old girl is completely unaware of how a bra should fit properly, but I am on the other hand, saying that there have definitely been plenty of 30 somethings, that in my experience, still either have no clue, or naively believe that by lying to themselves about their measurements, they are somehow going to increase their self esteem.

So, maybe it was just my primitive safe-cracking technique, or maybe it was because I failed to bring my bolt cutters along for the hike… but try as I might, the buckles of that straight jacket were impassable. Luckily, I was not easily thwarted from my quest.

One hand, two hands, I struggled for an eternity; fingertips numb and bleeding in determination.

Ultimately it was four hands which found success… and what a resounding success it was… 3’s breasts burst from beneath her bra with such pent pressure and reverberating intensity that both of us fearfully leapt for cover, dodging any stray wire buckles that may have been dislodged and flung through the air. I mean, this was what I wanted for Christmas, but I had no idea that I really could shoot my eye out.

3’s humiliation and my surprise at the energetic release did much to subdue our initial quest. It was like climbing a mountain and being too tired to enjoy the view from the summit. After all the hard work, we gave up, sheepishly avoiding eye contact, and redressed along the trail back to campus. Arriving at our respective buses, we eyed each other timidly from a distance, finding our only comfort in the fact that our teen sex drives were far too strong to allow a lone embarrassing moment to preclude us from years of future sexual exploration and education.

75 Part 2

So that’s how the rest of my summer played out… ½ bailed on the group… citing “relationship differences”… in other words, she was pissed at my choice… and 4 and 5 (as the best friends that they were… and more importantly, with 4 as the pushover, low self esteem, devoutly loyal friend that she was)… they continued to spend the summer with me finding ways in which we could avoid adult oversight and explore our friendship… with me and 5 occasionally sneaking the opportunity to explore each other… in a low risk, low penetration, “christian” sort of way… of course.

5’s mom HATED me. It didn’t matter that I was a good little christian boy. I think it was the purple hair more than anything. I hadn’t even given her any real reason to hate me… at least not yet… that didn’t happen until about 2 years later when I stopped by 5's place on the way to my girlfiend 4’s after work… when 5 answered her mother’s phone call… while straddling me, bleeding all over my stomach… and her bed… as her forever-lost hymen bled… and I looked up at her and said… “ask your mom how she likes me now.”

But like I said… that was all much later.

In the meantime, we kept close to 4… she was the only one of us with a drivers license and a vehicle… 5 lived about 30 minutes from where I was staying that summer, and we needed transportation… 4 kept close to us, begrudgingly the chauffeur... because secretly, she was still in love… and I was loving every second of it.

Problem with 5 was that she was so closed emotionally and hid herself behind all that sarcasm… always… as much as I loved that angst, as the insecure mama’s boy that I was, I needed the vulnerable moments to show me I was actually loved… I wanted to not have to work at it all the time... as 75 would put it... I was (am?) a sponge... and I needed someone to run me under their tap pretty often...

So as the summer came to end, 5 and I did what every fleeting summer couple does… we promised it wouldn’t subside… we promised to visit often… we promised to make it work… over the 300 mile divide.

I probably waited 2 days (if that) after returning home to call up 1 and go roll around in her waterbed listening to dark side of the moon… it was at most another week later that 1 called me as my dad was leaving to go into town for the afternoon… I invited her to my place that time…

she hurried over, and we proceeded to flirt and tease as 15 year olds do…

it was a good 5 minutes before I started finding excuses to put jelly beans in her belly button, then her lap, her shirt… and another 5 minutes before we were dry humping on my “USA sleep team” flag-styled comforter on my twin bed… my pet iguana Spike and gold leaf monogrammed “Students Bible: New American Standard Version” watching every move… 5 minutes later when the clothes had come off… and, shaking in excitement and fear, 5 seconds and 5 strokes later before I sheepishly pulled out and came on 1’s stomach… leaving half of my too-easily acquired first-prize inside her in my failed effort to last 4 seconds and 4 strokes longer than I really had…

Great… good showing… and now I hafta tell 5.

Give and take

You gave me a name
But with your immaturity you took my identity

You gave me a father
But with your arrogance you took his authority

You gave me a religion
But with your bias you took my enlightenment

You gave me a sibling
But with your divisiveness you took my brother

You gave me an education
But with your school you took my society

You gave me beauty
But with your insecurity you took my pride

You gave me a house
But with your shelter you took my home

You gave me emotion
But with your neediness you took my masculinity

You gave me gifts
But with your accounting you took my receptiveness

You gave me authority
But with your weakness you took my ability to exercise it

I gave me power
And now I’m taking all my shit back

75 Part 1

75 used to be an important number. Somehow, 75 had implicit value in its greatness, in its scale, and being associated with 75 made me feel special. I mean shit, how many others are there out there that had cleared an easy 75 prior to clearing 30? There was this odd attachment to 75… I am a child of the 70’s…

So one of the cool things… from the perspective of the overtly confident and discretely insecure… was that I “could name all 75”… so that means of course I’m better than you… not a dickhead like you… just ask that last bitch… you know, the one who’s name you don’t remember.

But ultimately, it was more about the journey, the stories, the learning… nah, who am I kidding?! That’s just what I tell myself to feel better… actually… more accurately… that’s what I tell other people so they feel better about me… not to say that the journey and the stories weren’t a huge part of it, its just that, well, I don’t wanna admit how much value I assigned to myself… just because of the 75.

You see, I think I remember the stories now more than I remember the 75. Shit, I probably really only remember like 25… at least since I shredded that fucking list… jeez… wouldn’t want to get caught with that… then I’d REALLY look like a tool.

In the beginning…

1 was alright, at least I learned a few things… I mean, when your 15, 1 can teach you a lot. 1 happened to be best friends with, hmmm, I guess she was something like 25… but anyway… I really wished she had been 1, well, at least at the time… now I know she really didn’t even deserve to be 25, cuz shit, she really was only good for her lip service. Like an internet service provider. Figure that one out.
Of course, thats not really fair to 25, I loved her pretty deeply, I guess I'm still just a little bitter about how it all went down. But we'll get to the story of that relationship later, including my role in promoting its demise.

Anyway, back to 1…

So here I was, 15, and living in a tent. Yup, living in a tent. Partially of my own desire… I can admit that, although, what 15 wouldn’t want to live in a tent by a pond? I was weird like that. I guess the stranger part about all that was that I was living in a tent by a pond on my own property, well, my parents… ok, my dad’s… no, wait… my adopted father… my brother’s dad… my mom’s second (of four)… we’ll get to that later… when we start talking about 60 through 70.

Fuck, side-tracked again.

15. Living in a tent. By a pond. Eating bullfrogs. I would actually go out on this raft with a bb gun at night and flashlight in my mouth and shoot bullfrogs. Then I’d roast them over a campfire and eat them. I did this for weeks on end. God I love rednecks. I killed and ate fish too, it's good to have a little variety in one's diet, you know.
So… 25 and 1 would sneak out at night and come visit me in the tent, by the pond, on the property. That’s actually how I met 1.

People do weird shit when they're 15, at least I did. This one time, I scored a condom... I actually think I scored it from my dad's end table... not sure what I needed it for since I was still at 0 but anyway, I took it. Then, out there in that tent by the pond (alone) I tried it out... had to see how these damn things work... be prepared... and god knows I had to do the educating... since my whacko jesus freak of a mother made me sit outside by the door of health class during sex ed in high school... yah, THAT helped out the social life... really slowed down my deviant behavior too... speaking of which, lets get back to the 75... so I try this thing out... and did a good job of filling it up too... well, at least the reservior tip. Of course, I've got jesus freak parents, and I'm living in a tent by a pond so now I gotta think of somewhere to put this damn thing... in all of its leaky glory... not sure why I didn't just dig a hole out there by that pond and bury it... but I didn't... I decided to roll it back up instead, and stuff it back in its wrapper and then subsequently back into my wallet... for later disposal. At school?

Of course as an experimental teen's luck would have it... 25 and 1 went rummaging through my tent that night and found my wallet... and what was in it... they never really confronted me about it... but I knew they had found it... you could tell from the akward "yuck I shouldn't have done that" way that 25 looked at me. That's the reason I think that 25 never really believed that 1 was actually 1. Oh well, better that she believe that I was out there gettin laid than to know I was really just rubbin one out into a condom and stickin it my wallet.

Then one night, actually the last night… in the tent… by the pond… on the property, 1 came to visit without 25. First time I ever learned how quick that internet service provider could be (of course this was 1 doing the download, not 25. That was something like 24 later.)

Lasted all of like 20 seconds… ok so maybe that’s exaggerating… but who really gives a shit, we all exaggerate. Yes, all of us.

Next day, I left and moved away for the summer. Didn’t even really say good bye to 1.

Mind you, I was still at 0 at this point. Internet downloads don’t count. Figure that one out yet?

That summer, I hung out with my churchy family. Cuz I… was a churchy boy. Started going to churchy things, and playing with churchy toys. Whoever said you can’t find a few good sluts at church?

That’s when I met 4 and 5. Ended up marrying 4… mainly cuz 5 took so long to put out… emotionally speaking of course.

So I’m up there meeting 4 and 5, and their friend, she doesn’t have a number but if you want, you can think of her as ½. Since I was still at 0. And a good dry hump’s gotta count for something.

I met 4 and 5 at church youth group and they subsequently introduced me to ½ on the youth group water ski trip. I went on the trip to help drive my uncle’s ski boat and teach people how to ski… ok, I went on the trip to hang with 4 and 5 and show off what an awesome water skier I was and try and get some action. We all got super sunburned that weekend. Had fun. Went home.

I called ½, 4 and 5 after the trip (separately) and ended up hangin with each of them, had a good make out session with 4 at my grandpa’s when she drove up with her 18 month old niece she was babysitting. Guys, if you’re ever looking for an “in” with a 16 (whether or not she ends up being your 4… or your wife for that matter)… teach her 18 month old niece to say “bitch”… for some reason teenagers find that funny… the next day, I went creek walking with 5, ½, and ½’s brother… got “lost” up the creek with 5 and had a good little kiss and feel behind a boulder, that, and the incessant and not so discrete rubbing of the equipment through the swim suits while “swimming” together in the deeper pools of water… day after that, I ended up going to a birthday party with ½ as her “date”.

That’s when I got the dry hump… actually it wasn’t even dry… it was a pool party and we ended up in the bathroom at this house together for a good make out session and wet swimsuit rubbin. Good times. Somehow or another, 5 called ½ at the party… which is weird because this was all before the advent of the cell phone leash system. Either way, 5 found out that I was there.

Following week I’m at church again, first the main service, then the “bible study” for adults and “youth group” for kids… youth group was at some building across the street from the church… so I head out for some good kumbaya with the other tweenies... never made it though... 4, 5 and ½ accosted me at the intersection and redirected me to the closed library next door… things weren’t lookin too good at this point.

Instead of the pounding that I probably deserved, they really just yelled and scowled for a bit and then told me I had to choose one of them… really? I chose 5… she did have the biggest titties, after all. That counts for something… even makes you overlook that funny ear that pokes out a little too much. She was such a smartass too. Gotta love that. Sarcastic bitch.

stay low so you don't get hit by lightning

A took this picture a couple of years ago on a camping trip in the high Sierras with my then-seven year old son. The tree was at the summit of a rugged climb through house-sized granite boulders and was split down the middle by a bolt (or many bolts) of lightning. We made the climb in a building thunderstorm that was nearing full electric glory by the time we reached the peak. "Stay low so you don't get hit by lightning" is what I told my son as I lay on the ground beside him and took the shot from a prone position looking into the storm. I painted this picture of the image on a rainy day back home while my son sat next to me expressing himself on a separate canvas. The name is a reflection of the way I have to parent in order to stay out of the target zone and counteract the bitter selfishness of my son's mother... so as not to highlight the fundemental disagreement with who she is and what she stands for... to hide the secret mission of re-programming my son to truly understand his mother and what she takes from him... without ever saying it... or even implying it... to allow him to find it on his own... to hide my true intentions of being the parent that she is incapable of being herself... of finding a way to correct in 2 months of every year what she destroys in the other 10... of creating in my son the best man that is possible... all while adamantly, albeit discretely, not allowing her to destroy him... or me... in the process... to keep on living... growing... even after you've been hit by lightning.

Losin my marbles...

There was this bowl of a million marbles. The marbles were important. Some you would even call quite valuable. The problem was, those marbles needed to be put into a different bowl for them to realize their true potential.

Then there were these hands. Now mind you, hands can be quite effective tools… and these hands… well… you’d have to feel them to know.

Diligent in their task, the hands worked day in and day out; at the detriment to their health; at the detriment to their sanity. These hands moved all of the marbles. Even while others kept putting new marbles in. The task seemed endless, in fact, it was. No matter how great the amount of marbles that were moved at once, no matter how persistent the effort, the marbles kept coming.

You see, there was this assumption. And we all know what happens when you assume. You would think, as the hands did, that after gently and carefully and completely placing the marbles into their new bowl; the new bowl would now assume full responsibility for the safety and protection of those marbles. You would think, as the hands did, that there would not be a need to revisit the marbles in the new bowl on multiple occasions to ensure their safety had not been compromised. Especially considering that the safety of the marbles was to the great benefit of the new bowl. For the marbles, with their inherent value, added great value to the new bowl. But alas, it seems that shiny new bowls feel that their own beauty is enough and that the marbles should want to stay with them strictly because they are. And why not? They were highly skilled hands that had taken responsibility for those marbles and guided them there.

When some of the marbles realized that the new bowl was not being as attentive as the old bowl and they were being treated far less respectfully that they had been treated by those dexterous hands… they began to leave. The new bowl was angry that the marbles were leaving. It did not want to lose its value. And even as the bowl hated to admit it, it knew that its value was determined by those marbles and little more. What the shiny new bowl hated even more to admit, was that those marbles were leaving because of it. The bowl looked back at the old bowl and the path that had been taken to move those marbles from the old bowl to the new bowl. The new bowl looked hard. It didn’t want to miss anything. How else would the new bowl assign blame and responsibility to something other than itself?

The shiny new bowl could see that a couple marbles had been dropped in transit.

Ah ha! A scapegoat! Blame! It could not be better! And so it was, without consideration of the task that had been attempted nor the timeframe in which it had been accomplished, that the hands, the facilitators of the process, the tools by which future processes shall be accomplished were blamed for the inadequacies of the shiny new bowl. Because of course… it’s shiny, it’s new.

So the bowl set out to blame the hands for its own inadequacies. It called the hands into a private place, at a private time. The bowl even brought along a bigger, shinier, newer bowl to help blame the hands. To “find out how the hands could better manage their time”. The bowl forgot something though. The bowl forgot that the very same hands that it was trying to blame were also the hands that helped to shape and mold that bowl. They were the same hands that polished the bowl on a daily basis to ensure that it always remained shiny and new.

The hands, on the other hand, were smart. Perhaps too smart.

The hands came to the private place, at the private time.

Upon their arrival, the shiny new bowls saw that the hands had brought something with them; gripped tightly in their angry and defensively clenched fists. These hands were prepared. And what’s worse… they were right. So the hands grabbed those bowls, and they shook them, they rearranged them, they set them straight… they put them in their place.

And the hands were happy. Stupid fucking bowls.