Life

I'm slowly getting the hair figured out. Pure stupidity - or perhaps just not knowing... I was using the wrong end of the comb.

I got 3 bits of tobacco today, I got 50g of Navy Deluxe - which I had smoked once in Phoenix and remembered liking, I got 3oz of the Saint John's blend which has a real kick to it, and I got 3oz of the Elm Park blend which is smoother.

My pipe, the new one is developing an interesting look to it, as you may remember it was white clay. The clay around the stem has turned a dark brown and in some places a golden black. Then just before the bowl on top it is still almost pure white. My side of the bowl is a deep ashen brown, which lightens as you move around the front of the bowl. The bottom shows some signs of wear with some scrapes and a chip or two which I have no solid explanation for. The top quarter inch of the bowl just before it flattens out is a golden white. The top of the bowl near the fire pit =) is black of course, and there is a tobacco crust wrapped around the very edge of the inside of the bowl.

For the moment this is my favorite pipe, but who knows how long that will last? I move about them, switching up and smoking them as I feel. They are all old friends, and some of them were dad's old friends, a couple were my great grandfather's old friends - I have pictures of him smoking a pipe very much like the one I smoke now.

As enjoyable as the tobacco is, and the pure act of smoking the pipe - I love to watch the smoke itself as it swirls into the air it almost seems like its dancing. Twirls, rings, and waves - I find it to be incredibly relaxing and even beautiful to watch. I am still working out a way in my head to capture this on film. A flash would kill it, but its best seen in a room that is lit, but not overly lit like the sky. I think my best option is one of dad's old cameras with a light meter and the lens controlled manually holding the shutter open using the second hand on my pocket watch. I think that will be the best way. I will have to dig out a couple books and try to find a shutter cable (screws into the camera so you can take pictures from a bench using your thumb to control the shutter).

The Ergometer arrived today - as you very well know. I got it down the stairs still in the box by myself using my leg as a stop with the weight aimed down at me. Putting it together was fun, Pop would have criticized the instructions which were only good if you looked at the pictures real closely. For example 3 braces had to go together to form the support for the fan, and the instructions showed these as one unit. The two bars were different lengths and different bends by the brackets - forming different angles. You could have put them together about 6 different ways and 5 of them would have been wrong. Study the drawings and you'll get it right.


I remember when I was about 14 we got an ergometer so that my brother could train for the Saint John's crew team. I used to go down to the basement on Morningside Road and pull, just pull until my muscles were screaming - I actually had muscles back then. I'd listen to Rage Against the Machine's Evil Empire record and just PULL. At the time the erg was in the basement next to the boiler - away from the machine shop under this hanging 25W light bulb which burned your eyes if you looked directly into it. The Type B erg was much more industrial and Al had put a Nine Inch Nails sticker on it.

It later moved to the front porch which was a room, but had no real foundation - thus porch. Dad had found this training program which I can't find, but essentially the first time you got on you pulled as HARD as you could to pull 1000 meters - that was your 100% From that you could figure out what your 90%, 80%, etc was... and each day you would pull a different percent starting low and working your way up. You had one rest day - normally monday - and at the end of the week you would pull a 1000m at you 100%. I remember Al and Dad would come down as I was beginning to fail and cheer me on sometimes.

The mind is a funny thing when you're on an Erg. No matter how strong or tough you may be, that machine finds a way to beat you down - it is ALWAYS the boss. So your mind begins to tell you - "You dont have to pull an hour, half an hour is enough" or "You've done good - you can stop now" and you have to fight back and ignore the screaming pain in you joints and the horrible ache of your muscles and just keep pulling. I once found that if you imagined you were pulling away from a sinking ship - pulling for your life that you could keep going.

I used to be strong. Today I pulled for 5 minutes and felt like I was going to die after, I was literally spitting up blood, shaking, and could barely move.

Tomorrow (which is right now) but later in the day I will do it again. I might do it two or three times a day and work until I can pull 6 minutes, then 7, and you get it. I am tired of looking like a refugee. I am tired of having no stamina. I may HURT like hell all the time, and I may have to rub testosterone on my shoulders every day to keep what little muscle I have, but you know what? Hell and Death will not keep me from building myself back into a human being. Fuck it. That's what I say. Fuck the syndromes, fuck being in bed all the time. Fuck it all! "CRY HAVOC AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR!"


At some point in the last few weeks something changed in me (again). I had guys from the forum complimenting me - pictures of me from before Dad died. That's why I shaved my beard, to please them. And you know what I got complimented anyways. I will continue with the hair - I LIKE the slicked back look, but I am taking a special interest in learning to get it JUST so. Because I want it to look good. I want me to look good again. The doctors are doing there part and I have to do mine. The doctor says what dad used to say - exersize (I have now idea how to spell that) and so I will. I am going to get FIT and the Erg is going to be my instramint in doing so.

Start reading real books again, starting with "The Sailor's Odyssey" and just get my life back on track. I may be a captive in this body and in this basement a lot of the time, but I am going to do everything I can to make myself bigger and better while I am here. I want to be able to get my health under control and succeed at something for once in my life. I want to have something more to my name than my Saint John's diploma. I know for a fact that I can be somebody someday, and not just someone who offers Gay Teens good advice - which I do take some pride in. For what its worth, all the shit and death that has enveloped me over the years has made me more compassionate and maybe, just maybe a better person. Who knows who I would have been if things had gone the right way instead of so horribly fucking wrong.

Anyways I am done, I am done for now. I feel GOOD. I know that can slip away. Sam felt good told me it was the best he'd ever felt since he got away from those people, and then he killed himself. So I do get that just because I'm on top of a mountain one minute doesn't mean I wont fall off a cliff.

Someone I respect once told me to "Aim for the moon, because even if you miss you can reach the stars" - korny I know, but you know what for a long time I believed in that, and then it seemed that I burned up in the atmosphere. Well I'm going to get myself strong enough so I can take another shot.

What else have I got?