…the almost right word

One of the most influential skateboarders of all time is “re-emering,” claims the NYTimes. Serving the final months of a four year jail sentence in a half-way house, Jay Adams is hoping to attend the upcoming X Games in Los Angeles, California.

Adams was a member of the Z-Boys, the skateboarding rebels sponsored by Zephyr Skateboards in the mid-1970s. You’ve probably heard of him from the movie, Lords of Dogtown, or the documentary by his pal, Stacy Peralta, Dogtown and Z-Boys. He has been called “the original seed,” “the soul” of the Dogtown movement — he was spontaneous, creative, and ruthless. Adams said, in an interview via mail while he was in prison, “I believed we paved the road people are going down right now. Somebody’s always gotta be the first ones. We just got a li’l bit radical and rowdy before anybody else.”

He was originally arrested in 2005, after being caught in a Hawaii-California drug deal. Adams is now 47 years old and still struggling with the aftereffects of a nearly life-long drug addiction. Since his release, he has been the facilities manager at an indoor skate-park in Southern California. He literally cannot escape his passion for the sport: “I love skateboarding, always have and always will…I get the same feeling now as I did when I was a seven-year-old boy.”

Scenes from Dogtown and Z-Boys show Adams as a punk-kid, always pushing the boundaries and questioning authority. He was, and remains today, a revolutionary.

this is the second in a series of posts i am writing about my relationship experiences…more to come.

there is a quote from carrie on sex and the city (that i somehow cannot find) concerning relationship red flags and the ease at which we, as women, ignore them (perhaps men do too?). i have identified with this quote all too well. it often appears that i am capable of ignoring so much in a relationship, i.e. my own happiness.

we met in college. i stayed with him way too long. when i finally gathered the courage to end it, i went back for more.

i knew before we even got involved that it would be a bad idea. i had seen a good friend experience horrible things with him — endless arguing and emotional abuse. somehow, i convinced myself that things would be different between he and i, things would be better, we would make more sense. it took me a long time to admit that the relationship was unhealthy. it first had to cost me a few friendships. then, it had to cost me any sense of financial stability (he had no job and i was almost entirely supporting him). we were codependent, to say the least.

he screamed at me almost every night — i would wake up, at some point, and realize that he had all of the blankets. when i attempted to pull some away from him, and cover myself, he would yell at me, call me names. every time, i swore to myself that i’d end it in the morning. it continued like that for almost a year. once, he gave me an unexpected gift — a beautiful orchid. hours later, when the arguing began, he used the gift as ammunition. he was an addict, and i fell, effortlessly, into his addictions.

i saw all the red flags, i just chose to ignore them. the emotional abuse worsened over time. it was as if he had no concept of me as a human being. he never knew how to respect me.

what am i trying to do with this post? i want to write honestly. i want to be true to myself and my past. i don’t want to gloss over my errors in judgment or the way these experiences affected me. i want to delve into the world of emotional abuse without naming people, without painting a picture of myself as some helpless, love-struck fool. emotional abuse is hard to recognize — people yell and argue, people slam doors out of anger, but there is a line whereupon it becomes abuse and, for the abused individual, it becomes self-destructive. i want to address this line, this vague notion of abuse that is not manifested physically. emotional abuse can be even more dangerous, more consuming. it can be easy to ignore. it can become so familiar that you seek it out. perhaps, on some level, you believe you deserve it.

i must have believed this. why else would i have subjected myself to such treatment for so long?

one night, after we had broken up (we were still seeing one another for an ongoing bout of the unhealthiest break-up sex known to humankind), he called to come over. i finally stood up for myself — i told him no. later that night, while changing in my room, i was startled when i noticed someone at my window. he was watching me, waiting for me to notice him and let him in. i did. that was the last time we saw one another.

one might expect an act of “closure.” we never had one and i’m okay with that. i have vague memories of missed calls and unanswered text messages — i was finally able to ignore his attempts to reach me. i don’t mean to imply that i “learned my lesson.” sometimes you have to repeat bad habits before you realize that they’re just that.

from the age of eleven to twenty, i spent my summers at a sleep-away camp. i literally fell in love with this place. i always felt the safest and most comfortable during those summers. i knew that, one day, i would have to give it up — we all have to grow up eventually. but i never wanted to leave.

this past week, i went back to this camp. it had been six years since i was last there. we had a reunion — all the kids that i grew up with, the kids who are my age, came back to celebrate…to remember the summer we all spent together, ten years ago, when we were sixteen. the same summer of my first kiss. to me, this was the most significant reunion that i’ll ever have. high school was never that important to me, especially when compared to camp. camp was magical.

turns out, it still is. for all the kids that still spend their summers there, camp is still magical. i couldn’t help but wonder…what it would be like to return, to get a job there and spend my summer running around in flip flops, smiling and happy? i am one of the most nostalgic, sentimental people i know. i admit this easily. doesn’t it make perfect sense that i would yearn to be back at camp? my happiest memories are of that place.

nevertheless, i believe there is a line that we are forced to draw in this whole “growing up” process — i’m just still trying to figure out where my line is, where i have to draw it. would it be “unproductive” of me to go back to camp? would it be stepping back, falling behind? am i doomed to struggle with my heavy sense of nostalgia for the rest of my life?

this is the first in a series of posts i will write about my relationship experiences…more to come.

i keep rewriting this post. i save it, publish it, and then click unpublish hours later. it’s not that i’m hesitant to share it, it’s that i’m hesitant about the message it will send.

he was not, and is not, the love of my life. he was, however, my first love. and for that, i will always love him — not in the i-would-do-anything-to-get-back-together-with-him sort of way. our relationship worked when we were young. i do not believe we are meant to relive it. i do not wish to. i consider him one of my true best friends and i always will, no matter the geographical distance between us.

we met at sixteen, at sleep-away camp. we bonded over ginsberg. he was my first kiss — on the basketball courts, at night, laying and looking up at the stars.

i loved his bedroom. i remember that vividly. he had two picasso prints on his wall. they have since become my favorite picasso’s — they always make me think of him. we would laze in his room, listening to tapes of jack kerouac and old grateful dead records. we would go out with friends, smoking on a dark, vacant, midnight golf course. we’d laugh and take pictures. he made me laugh a lot.

when we broke up, i was pretty heartbroken for a sixteen year old. somehow, through all the adolescent drama and misconceptions, we worked through the bullshit to become good friends. i don’t want to imply that it was easy — it never is. but i knew that i wanted him in my life, especially as a friend.

when i left for south america in 2003, my feelings for him had resurfaced (for various reasons, that i won’t divulge here). during that year in chile, he met someone. i remember speaking to him on the telephone, waiting, hoping for a clue that we were on the same page. instead, he told me about her. i admit, i was extremely disappointed and jealous. even after i returned from chile, those feelings did not dissolve quickly. it took time. eventually, i mended. eventually, i saw how wonderful his new relationship was (and still is), how much sense it made.

still, during the years prior to santa fe, i lost it every time we spoke on the phone. somehow, he seemed to draw out all the honesty that i tried to keep buried. i always cried. i didn’t cry because i still had feelings for him, i cried because he knows me in a real way, a way that few people actually do.

i’ve saved his letters, pictures of us, poems he wrote me, the index card he painted with watercolors one afternoon. in my nostalgia, i will revel in that moment, on the camp basketball courts. i will always have a love for him.

not a bad first, eh?

*bam*, you remember a snippet from a dream.
i just realized…

last night, i was in santa cruz.
on campus, at ucsc.
walking through the moist trees.
crossing the cowell parking lot
to the stevenson parking lot.
i was headed to the coffeehouse.
i was happy and safe.

i actually dream about being there again quite often. i have to just give in — i left too soon, too abruptly. i wasn’t ready. eventually, i’ll need to go back. and it will be wonderful.

1. francesca lia block — this afternoon, i finished reading one of her most recent novels, quakeland. it was, by far, one of her more unusual books. her first novel, weetzie bat, was published in 1989 while she was a student at berkeley. weetzie bat rocked my world. and i’d bet money (yes, the benjamins themselves) that if i read it again today, it would still rock my world. block has a remarkable imagination, and her writing is exceptional. she creates a world in which l.a. is not the smog-filled, traffic-injected, ugly city that i remember, but a great land of dreamsicles and fairies. quakeland was a surprise. and still wonderful. if you’re new to her work, start with dangerous angels: a collection of the weetzie bat books.

•••••••••••••••••••

2. miranda july — this afternoon, i stumbled upon a rather entertaining link — no one belongs here more than you. the title alone attracted me. the entertaining, artistic promotional site behind the link further lured me. i love anyone who creates something new from something we hardly consider in our daily lives. miranda july has certainly done this here. and yes, perhaps i’ll check out the book as a result. i originally discovered july when i heard about ‘me and you and everyone we know,’ in which she acted, but also wrote and directed. fun fact: she’s also a banana slug, which means i have to love her (even if she never graduated).

* in honor of my quickly approaching jaunt to the city that will always be home to me; written with laura veirs’ (no, she’s not an l.a. resident) “chimney sweeping man” playing in my ears, thank you un.

when i was in my late teens, my grandfather died. i was never terribly close with him. i remember we played hide and seek when i was a kid. i remember i used to fit beneath the coffee tables in my grandparents’ apartment. the tables were covered to the floor in long, cream-colored table cloths which left no trace of my secret presence beneath them. when he died, i thought a lot about those games of hide and seek.

we drove up to the bay area for his funeral. he was being buried in my grandmother’s “pink palace” — the name she had given to a freezing, pink-marbled mausoleum in which she had purchased two spaces, one for his coffin and one for hers. we sat in the front row of the service, in the reception room of the pink palace. and when my mom began to cry, she literally wailed. she shook uncontrollably and bellowed horrible, sad cries. i sat by her side, arm around her back, waiting for calm.

she was presented with an american flag, for her father’s service in the army. she kept the flag on her dresser for some time. i remember noticing it whenever i visited. and years later, when her mother, my grandmother died, my mom packed the flag in her suitcase for a trip back to the bay area. she no longer wanted the flag, no longer needed the memory of her father so present in her life — she gave it to her brother.

when her eyes tear, she reminds me of him, of my grandfather. he cried easily. i never knew if it was his age, the dementia, or his endearing humanity. today, when my mother’s eyes tear, i see him. and sometimes, it’s like i’m back at the funeral, sitting by her side, holding her hand. while she cries.

1. birthday # 26
2. a 5 day trip to l.a.
3. renting a car in l.a.
4. driving a prius
5. driving in l.a. (yes, even with the traffic — it’s home, what can i say?)
6. a camp reunion — ten years (yes, i went to camp and i’m one of those ‘camp nerds’)
7. first time at camp since 2002 when i was fired (another story, for another time)
8. catching up with friends i’ve missed
9. spending time with my dog
10. follow your heart

i still call the san fernando valley “home.” it’s been nearly ten years since i last lived there for any period of time longer than three months. specifically, my room at my father’s house is the “home” i am referencing. its walls are still covered with a collage of high school photographs. now don’t get me wrong, i was never the type to like high school. i may have appeared social and comfortable, a happy teenager. but i was angsty, just like most teenagers. and i hated high school, just like most teenagers. nevertheless, i always have that nostalgic ability to look backwards and smile. so the pictures have stayed on the walls there. in fact, they’re right beside the tons of books that i left behind — i’ll get them some other time, i always tell myself. when will i stop considering my room at my father’s house to be “home?”

the theme for the month is “home,” thus this post. there’ll be more musings on “home” to come. for now, however, a quote from the latest a.r.w. read…

“i’d like to stay here by myself,” she said, “rent a room on one of these islands and just write.” i told her she should, but she shook her head. “i wouldn’t last a week,” she said. “i’m not good at being alone. but you, on the other hand,” and here she tilted her head and crossed her arms, “i think you’d be fine.”

i have never, to the best of my knowledge, had any fear of solitude, and so i shrugged in assent and said, by way of explanation, “when i was a child, there were eight of us, eight cousins, all in the same compound — a single boundary wall surrounded the plot of land my grandfather left to his sons, you see — and we had between us as many as three dogs and, for a time, a duck.” she laughed, and then said, “so being alone was a luxury, huh?” i nodded. “you give off this strong sense of home,” she said……”it’s nice. it makes you feel solid.” i was pleased — even though i was not sure i fully understood — and said thank you for want of anything better to say. then, hesitantly because i did not wish to be too forward, i asked, “and you, do you feel solid?”

she considered this and said, with what i thought was a trace of sadness in her voice, “sometimes, but no, not really.”

–the reluctant fundamentalist, moshin hamid

in my dream, last night, i had returned to college. i wandered around a foreign campus, lost and bewildered. i asked for directions. i walked past classes, in session with students ferociously note-taking. i’m pretty sure that miranda bailey, a character on grey’s anatomy (of course), was in my dream. she was instructing me to take some lab results somewhere, but i just got lost. i’m not sure how lab results and college fit together — i certainly was not in med school.

but when i woke, and began to sip my morning cup of coffee, i felt satiated.

in less than an hour i will go look at a house for rent. i have yet to actually do this in santa fe. when i first moved here, i was lucky enough to have a beautiful, modern studio waiting for me (more or less). and when i was ready to leave the cottage-in-the-woods, everything worked out seamlessly and i wound up here, in a cozy cabin. perhaps i sometimes feel it’s too cozy.

so, back to craigslist i go, right?

the last time i “house-hunted,” i was living in berkeley, calif., horribly depressed, completely without confidence and hardly capable of having a conversation without wanting to burst into tears. let’s just say, it was a very inactive effort on my part, to find a new place to live. a friend of mine basically did all the hard work, and i benefited with hardwood floors, big windows and lot’s of space. of course, the depression just got worse and eventually i decided that oakland was not the place for me. i packed up my little toyota echo and drove to l.a., to home. i recuperated. i sat in my father’s house and watched television with my dog. i caught up with old friends. i felt like a teenager again, home for winter break.

two months later, i packed up my echo again and came out to santa fe (my mother lives here). it was the best decision i have ever made (that and going to santiago, chile).

so, today it begins. a search for a new house (possibly). i just want to see what’s out there, see if i can’t find something perfect and comfortable. who knows, maybe it’ll be another good decision i will look back on.

okay, i too have an opinion on the hills. of course i do! first of all, let me admit that i have seen many episodes, if not most of them. they are, for the most part, entertaining in a kind of mindless, let-me-laugh-at-you-not-with-you sorta way. and yes, i grew up in the l.a. area and thus find places and things familiar, etc.

but please. this show is too much. and the cover of rolling stone is even more too much! i am seriously beginning to despise these girls, especially heidi (the one pictured on the left with the most ridiculous look on her face, and the most ridiculous outfit. i do realize that they all have a ridiculous look on their faces, and ridiculous outfits, but hers is, by far, the most ridiculous). and then, to read the article! my gods! (that’s a battlestar galactica reference, f.y.i.)

heidi and her boyfriend were interviewed for the article. the idiot boyfriend states that he’d like to be mayor and then governor…eventually hinting that yes, presidency is in his sights too.

if this guy gains any political clout, i will, without a doubt, move to a foreign country. that’s a promise. and i am well aware that many share my opinion, it’s nothing original. but it’s certainly valid.