A bumper full of K

Friday, February 3, 2012

Early morning.

Worked last night and then went out with Demitri. Had fun, laughed. Did some K—always the right thing to do.

Blessings.

Also got my finances settled out, more or less—for both the week, --thru to next week, when I get another paycheck and then-on into the rest of the month.

Good stuff.

I am hovering, just barely, but hovering all the same over the life that I want.

School.

Financial security.

Challenging, interesting work.

Friends.

Family

Health

I return to ME.

The (almost) New Year's Letter

Saturday, January 28, 2012
The New Year’s Letter (no-longer-that-new-but-better-late-than-never-right?)
Just got through watching The Karate Kid, version 2.0 w/Jackie Chan & Jaden Smith. Such a great movie, really. Funny and moving and touching and got me all riled up
The same could be said of another film by the same name came out some 20—almost 30 years ago! Hell, where did all the years go? Oh that’s right, they are under me.
Another cycle is complete.
This past year was pretty shitty truth be told. I could elaborate about the sickness and the mental breakdown and the lies and the thefts and the lawsuits and the friendships poisoned and tears wept, but really why bother. It was what it was, and no sense in wallowing in it.
It was a Year Spent in Bed, to put it quite plainly. More than any other, I fled the world and ostrich-like hid my head in the proverbial sand.
But guess what? Those blinders didn’t keep the wolves at bay. Hiding under the covers didn’t deflect the anxiety monsters under the bed, and for a while there, especially around the holidays, I really felt like I was being eaten up and chiseled away so that I didn’t know who I was anymore, what I stood for, where I was going—all that stuff.
In sum, at 36 years of age, I pretty much went through a “normal” mid-life crisis, taking stock of the water under the bridge and plotting a new course to the next roadway.
In this next year I will return to classes—some few which I want under my belt to make my application to AFI—American Film Institute—MFA program for next Fall that much stronger. And some classes I just want to take for the fun of it. I have always wanted to learn to blow glass, for example, and in March I have the opportunity to do it.
Work-wise—I am still part-timing it at Wolfgang Puck’s Catering, but as of next week, I will be returning to volunteering at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center regularly supervising their evening Cybercenter.
I also plan on taking my flagging into a higher level, professionally choreographing routines for special events in southern California.
Lastly, I intend to set up some Service Dog Awareness workshops at local business centers and medical facilities to disseminate some of my knowledge about the laws pertaining to service dogs and the rights of the people whom they assist.
This indeed, may lead to a short-term career goal as an ADA Compliance and Enforcement Officer for L.A. County.
In closing, I wish to alert you about my upcoming surgery in several weeks—a colonoscopy and endoscopic exam to determine What’s Going-on In My Innards. Early scans a few months ago detected some polyps and possible cancerous masses, but until they get inside, my doctors won’t know how many things they’ll have to extract or even if they’ll have to extract them. My icky parts may well be benign, and they could just hang out –er—rather , in-side my bowels, like so many floaters. Ha!
Life’s full of adventures! And at least I’m not bored.
I bid you all a very happy and healthy New Year filled with love and excitement.
Danny

Deli thoughts

Perhaps this sounds weird, but when I die, I want my remains (scraps is all they are, in my mind) taken out in the middle of the woods and left for the scavengers to consume.

Probably my favorite noise in nature is an excited coyote yipping to her pack when she discovers a truly fragrant bit of roadkill.

She will roll in it.
Stuff herself to the point of bursting.
Puke it up.
Roll in that, then eat it again.
Maybe puke up some for her pups back in the den.

The crows and buzzards and jays will pick the rest of me clean. Worms and bacteria will scour my bones neat and dry.

Along the way, a robin will stop to pick at the maggots, and another coyote will pounce on the robin, scarf, regurgitate, howl, and scarf some more.

A generation will pass, and along comes a plucky ten-year old.
Scabby knees, sweaty face.
His glasses keep slipping down his nose as he grubs through the thickets upon which a suburb has encroached.
He spots a gleaming piece of ivory. What is this? A tooth! Perhaps there is more...
Upon further, furtive, frightened investigation he uncovers first the lower jaw--later the entire skull--of a human being!
Yuck!
Wait--C-O-O-L!
He rushes home and tells his mom (she will call the Sheriff's Department--they in turn, will call The News) while the kid races around the cul-de-sac gathering The Gang to search for more bones.

My verdigris-encrusted remnants are collected by the County coroner's office and shipped off to the lab for dental identification.

The kid is on the local 5:00 o'clock news. He is a HERO! Picture in the paper the next day.
No family members come forward to claim the bones.

The Sheriff gives him the skull!
Awesome.
He'll hang onto that skull for the next ten years before loaning it to his first-year Anatomy professor at college, who "misplaces" it in the permanent collection.

Sometime along the way, the ID tag becomes smeared.
My name fades.
I am tagged and replaced with a numeric counterpart.
The tag falls off.
Finally, I am just The Skull, brittle, yellow. The lower jaw is missing.
I am loaned out to a class of third-graders. They caress me and pass me around. Oohs & Ahs.
Dirty fingers. A booger is scraped in my left eye socket.
The teacher places me on the high shelf above her desk--presumably out of reach. She is wrong, and I slip from the awkward fingers of a 10 year old girl to smash on the hard, hard, floor.
I go, "Crash!"

The little girl starts to cry, but a boy says, "Don't be such a baby! It's just some dumb old skull!"
They will get married at 22.

I am a socializing agent.
Haloed.
Immortal.
Food.

स्त्रव्बेर्री Festival

I had a great day today with my dogs. The sun was shining. We went to the Strawberry Parade, and I watched the 2nd season of TRUE BLOOD--one of my favorite vampire HBO TV shows with my brother and sister-in-law.

"Normal Drama"

Saturday, March 20, 2010

"Normal Drama"
Here is an interesting situation where I finally feel like I am knee-deep in “normalcy,” which is to say, that I am caught up in family. Not scary, crazy family, just family-family, and yet it is something of a rollercoaster ride nonetheless.
Most poignantly, this family finds itself enjoying (?) a cycle of life and death. A new baby was brought into the fold last week, while someday soon (we believe) one of the patriarchs is sure to slip away. Elise gave birth to her second son, Julian, and Rita’s step-father, Ross, is riddled with cancer and last night fell down and could not get up.
In between all of this, my mother was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and Rita was in a ski accident and is still hobbling around with a leg-brace.
Tyler is being picked on at school, and Andy just passed his driving test, while Dylan and his girlfriend, Nicole, are on involuntary hiatus because her asshole dad has grounded her from seeing him for the past week.
Rob and I both have cars at the same mechanic’s shop, as the “new” car he bought for Andy has blown a head gasket, and my transmission is getting replaced.
Autumn is a twitter with a new love interest and just marked her 42nd birthday, while I cut my hair and am letting the gray grow in naturally (sigh.)
Last, but not least, the lot of us are smothered in dogs and chickens and sheep, e-i-e-i-Oh!
It’s nice to be back in the fold.
Dan
2:13:22 AM

Fall begins with Autumn

October 4, 2009 4:07 AM
Yesterday had many of the hallmarks of what could have been a very bad day.
I discovered upon waking and heading to the gym with my brother, my car’s alternator had gone kaput--probably caused by the unnecessary removal of an A/C fixture by the former owner/mechanic--which in turn caused the serpentine belt to slide off track and burn. In sum, my car is “broken.” Curses!
I managed to keep my composure and decided philosophically, “At least the car got me here and didn’t break down in the middle of nowhere.”
I released a measure of that distress at the gym, but afterwards I was confronted by another mini-crisis--my sister, and the terrible shape she is in, which by far exceeded any of the states of breakdown I had witnessed before.
However, I remember my feelings of guilt after I had attempted suicide in 2000 and the looks of dismay and tears my friends and family displayed with which I was doubly burdened, so I chose to remain cheerful and kind and laughed with her and the kids.
The evening tugged at my efforts to keep the spirits of the family strong amidst adolescent quarreling, but I willed-to-power an engine of frivolity and took the boys to see “Zombie Land,” a kitschy cult-horror comedy, best seen in the company of rowdy friends at a cinema packed with raucous college students.
Thus bolstered, we laughed and joked all the way home, whereupon I heaped my bounty of canned spray-streamers and silly rubber wigs on the boys, who commenced to chase me and the dogs all over the yard.
So, a potentially bad day was turned into a very good day because I deemed it necessary. Go me!
Hence, October begins with Autumn, and I am very glad to be here for her.
I’m glad to be here for everyone, actually--myself included. These times of sorrow have gotten too serious, indeed, and we all need to laugh more and often.
Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.

Dan

Tucson has passed

On August 7th, 2009, my best friend, Tucson, passed away in my arms.
We have been joined for 13 years, working, playing, advocating, and FUN-draising together.
I have contemplated the meaning of Friendship since my 2nd year in college, reading essays written by Aristotle, Kant, Hobbes, Hume, and Huisinga among others.
There are many types of friends: drinking buddies, merchants, sexual partners, spouses, children.
Most rare is the friendship based purely on the simple notion that the friendship exists for and of itself. That is the kind Tucson and I developed. We were friends for no other reason but to be each others’ friend.
In my senior year at UCLA, during one of my classes, the question arose: “What is your favorite thing to do? i.e. What is your passion?
My answer was curt, clean, and immediate: I loved spending time with my dog.
I called him my dog, because society dictates that a dog must belong to an owner, but that was not the relationship we had. He was not a surrogate child, and I was quick to correct those who presumed to call him “my kid” or that I was “his dad.”
He was never broken to accept me as the Alpha-male in our pack-of-two. He did his own thing, and I did mine, and miraculously, we just happened to be traveling the same path in life.
He was my guide, my reason for being, the pillar on which I leaned, and our relationship was 100% reciprocal. How many people can say that of anyone?
He was a gentleman to the end, never complaining about the arthritis and hip dysplasia which wracked his body with obvious pain, and on his final night, he restlessly paced the apartment, looking for a place to quietly hide and unobtrusively begin his final journey. Not finding that place, he waited patiently for me to awake, by which time he trembled as I took him in my arms and told him, “It’s okay. You will always be with me. I’ll be okay. You can rest.” His panting slowed, he smiled at me, and then the light faded from his golden-brown eyes.
Tucson touched so many lives, I cannot enumerate them all. From the lonely hordes of students at UCLA to the “Sick & Sad” children at Keystone Ski & Ride School to the mentally retarded clients of Residential Resources in Maine. His gentle demeanor, his benevolent hand-licks; I reckon he blessed all those who met him.
He was my eyes, my ears, my anchor. Never a day went by that he didn’t encourage me to smile.
He was a chaser of squirrels, a bather in fountains, no lawn was groomed so neatly as those imprinted by his somersaults.
He was my better half, and I floated on the coattails of his popularity.
When we arrived at UCLA, he was the sole dog on campus, but by the time we graduated, he left a legacy of half-a-dozen other dogs, smiling and supporting students and professors alike.
At Los Angeles City College, he taught a cadre of students how to meditate and dance, and at the Spadefoot Co-op, he ameliorated many tense situations between the residents.
He was awarded his own degree, cap, and tassel at UCLA and granted a hero’s cheers skiing in the vanguard at Vail.
He comforted the homeless in Santa Monica and raised smiles to the lips of many New Yorkers, grieving at the remains of the Twin Towers.
He was my friend, my brother, my soul mate, my spiritual reflection.
I have no address to which cards of consolation may be sent. His cremains will be scattered privately and without cut-flowers, but if you wish, I know he would be pleased by memorial donations to P.A.W.S, San Francisco or P.A.W.S., Los Angeles; the two organizations for which we donated many hours of our time and from which we received vital medical care and food over the past six years.* www.pawssf.org www.pawsla.org
Attached you will find some photos of Tucson, which I hope will make you smile.
He was very good at that--making people smile.
Even through my tears, I find the trace of a smile.
Dan
* P.A.W.S. stands for Pets Are Wonderful Support. It is a charity which helps people with life-threatening illnesses take care of their pets.