Onward!

Snow started falling once I stepped out of my apartment building.  I knew why.  I had, at that very moment, decided to be fully serious about the ailment that I have (Relationship OCD) and put my 100% towards recovery.  "I'm there.  I've finally made it," I declared as I walked the wet, snow-kissed sidewalks and embraced the chilling air as it was a sign that magic in fact can happen.  The magic of nature and its brilliant coincidences that can so easily lend themselves to webs of destiny from the perspective of thinking beings.  But here's the rub.  We were made by the universe.  Actually, we are part of it.  So, if the universe, in a sense, created us with the ability to see meaning in our existence, then maybe there is a meaning: to make meaning.  While deep in thought, the faces of people passing by seemed to suggest unusual inquisitiveness.  The world was surreal.  I didn't belong.  Then it came clear to me.  I had traveled to the past.  

Because I let go of my inner demons, all of them, and exposed them in their underwear by laying them out for all to see and scold, I had just gained back the time I'd lost.  9 1/2 years I've struggled with OCD, particularly with romantic relationships but also familial and occasionally those of a plutonic nature, and though I know I will always have a hint of this condition, I believe by figuring out that all this anxiety and judgement has come from it, I have been granted an extended life.  In that very sense, I've gone back in time.  Because I will now live that much longer or maybe much, much more, having discovered the truth about myself.  The truth is this: I judge the people and things I love.  And with this OCD, the things that are most important to me are the things I obsesses about - the most.  Stress can kill you.  But I'm not gonna let it.  It's snowing!

High Doctor Stetson

Two doctors stand beside their boss, a well-respected surgeon at Clivemore Hospital, New Jersey and await instructions.  What the younger doctors don't know is that Dr. Stetson smoked marijuana this morning before his emergency beeper went off.  Shit happens.  And Dr. Stetson has to deal with this shit, head on.

"What did I just say?" the surgeon asks, faux-confidently.

And the female doctor repeats him: "Carefully, and patiently."  The measly little man standing between her and Dr. Stetson claims to be a doctor, but unknowingly makes the job-paranoid Yale-graduate queasy whenever he opens his mouth.  Concerned about her job, she wishes so much that she had the chance to impress Dr. Stetson without the sleaze breathing down her neck.

They continue to work, and the surgeon starts talking again.  "I had my first gunshot surgery when I was 15.  My dad was a doctor and he let me.  Mum's the word.  Everything went swimmingly. That's when I knew what I wanted to be.  Wait, what am I saying?"  The doctors stare at him, puzzled.  "Really, what did I just say?"  Dr. Stetson realizes that he never before has shared that piece of information with his co-workers, let alone these newbies he thinks of as interns.

At exactly the same instant, the two doctors answer like honors students, "Everything went swimmingly?"

The male doctor brushes the woman's shoulder with his boney fingers and coos, "We heard the same thing."

The strikingly attractive woman shakes him off and closes her eyes for a moment of sheer repulsion.

Stetson continues: "No, I mean, the whole thing, tell me, what did I just say?"

"Are you ok Doctor Stetson," the female doctor poses, anxiously.

"Do you want your job?" He firmly answers.

"...Y-yes Doctor.  I do so much and I have a lot to offer.  Last week, I saved f-f-five lives."

"She did, no, no it was six, remember?" The bony-fingered creep chimes in.

"That was a cat," she judgmentally corrects him, and returns to her frantic state, almost too quickly.  "I, I, I can send you my resume, or show it to you now even...if you're forgetting what else I've don-"

Stetson absentmindedly removes the bullet from the patient and drops it in his pocket as he stops her, lifting his hand up in her face.  "Then don't mention any of this.  We're good?"  After another pause, he adds, "Wait, what did I just say?"

Dr. Stetson digs in his pocket and finds the bullet, forgetting when and why he put it in there.  "I already took it out?" Dr. Stetson thinks to himself.  He holds it up in her face, dumbfounded by his memory and unaware that the intimidated doctor, about to piss in her pants, interpreters this action as a threat.

"Ohhhh.  Don't mention about when you were fiftee-Nothing. You said nothing, Dr. Stetson."  She beams, and happens to catch eyes with the sleaze's lustful eyes, now no more than an inch away.  He takes advantage of her smile and sends one back, not as much flirtatiously, but lovingly.  To the female doctor, his tragically crooked teeth alter his intent into being one of mere sexual desire.  She turns away slowly, and tries to focus on what's important: her job.  

"Good work today.  How did you get so good when you started SO late in your life."  She winks at her boss.

"What?" And Dr. Stetson is sincerely confused.  For a split second though, the man who was always such a goody two-shoes and had the habit of drowning in worry, is actually quite relieved by his ignorance concerning the unimportant drama of the moment.  "All that's important is this injured man's life," he thinks, then soon forgets what he stopped to think about.  Quickly, he becomes silently angry at his earlier self again for smoking, but realizes it's too late to dwell on his poor actions.  The woman speaks one last time before leaving the room, bravely admitting, "I'm in awe of you," while slapping away her stalker's hand before making its way around her shoulders.

Dr. Stetson whispers to himself, "I said nothing? Why on Earth would I say nothing?  What does that even mean?" His hand wanders again to his pocket to see if any other mysteries reside in the thick pocket of his hospital gown.  Sure enough, a grape tomato is nestled at the bottom.  "I don't even remember what I ate for breakfast," he laughs, then shrugs and eats the fruity vegetable after clumsily dipping it in rubbing alcohol and wiping it off.  "Awesome," he mumbles from behind his surgical mask.  "I think I'll do the same thing tomorrow."

THE END.

A Treehouse In The Clouds

I built a treehouse in the clouds this morning.  Daddy helped me.  He's a construction worker so he borrowed a crane and we used that to reach up to the clouds above the house.  They were low today.

My daddy is really good at making ladders.  By late afternoon, we had a ladder going from the kitchen all the way to the treehouse in the clouds.

"There's just one problem, Daddy," I nervously warned the man who was now dripping head to toe with cloud condensation.  From his spot a few rungs off the floor, he couldn't help but show his concern.  After all, I was the one who had the idea to build the treehouse.

"Shouldn't we call it a Cloud-House?  It's hardly in the trees anymore."

And Daddy smiled, then continued up the ladder.  He set up the roof so nothing could fall into the kitchen when mommy and daddy were cooking, and I quickly followed him up into the clouds for our first Cloud-House Picnic.

Jeff and the Subway

"Hey sir?  Sir?  Sorry to disturb, but I just wanted to tell you that you're a very attractive man," Benny Trenmore nervously compliments a man sitting across from him.  The two men happen to be opposite each other in a nearly vacant subway at 3am.  Benny's flashy scarf and giddy eyes radiate positive energy but the tangled sea-weedy mop on his head robs him of his credibility.

The other man, Jeffrey Magnum, has looked up but shown nothing but animosity.  His lip is slightly curled, suggesting disgust.  But the golden-skin and baby-blue eyes of the pretty boy continue to dazzle poor Benny.

"Like in a m-movie star way," Benny stumbles.  "Are you from something?  You do modeling at least, right?  You must.  What were you in?"

Silence.  Jeffrey continues to grimace at Benny as if war's been declared between them.  His athletic build has begun to intimidate rather than impress Benny Trenmore, who hopes the sweat stinging his eyes won't catch the light of the train car's fluorescent ceiling.

"I'm not even gay!  Pinky swear!"  Benny holds out his pinky and then stares at it in fear.  Throwing the guilty hand behind his back, Benny shakes his head and unfortunately, continues to elaborate:

"I don't mean any trouble.  I promise you.  And really, I don't have any feelings for you.  This is a macho, totally straight, man-to-man discussion, however one-sided it may be," Benny giggles nervously, "In two stops, I will be leaving this train and you can go on with your life.  I'm sorry."  Benny buries his face in his hands and starts cracking up due to embarrassment and sincere, ashamed amusement.  "What is my problem?  I'm so awkward.  I shouldn't even leave the apartment anymore."  Benny removes his hands and his eyes have that faint red glint to them that suggests tears are on their way or were very narrowly avoided.

Jeffrey stands up while the train is still in motion, but locks into every step.  Claiming a spot directly beside Benny, Jeffrey drops one arm around the anxious man, and calmly utters the single, comforting word: "Thanks."  Jeffrey exits the train.

From now on, Benny knows not to assume anyone's thoughts or actions before they're given a fighting chance.

Jonny, Clayton and the Hemoglobins

Clayton Buckman was seen as a disgusting young junior at Raven High, Virgina.  He ate pizza three times a day, got wasted every night and baked every morning.

His friends were anything but his actual friends.

They only hung out with Clayton so they could spill all the nasty stories about him to the school, even occasionally fabricating rumors about the poor boy, that spread like wild fire.

Clayton was completely oblivious of his "friends" devious disloyalty and lived every day in blind ignorance.

Clayton's "best" friend, Jonny, was the most popular boy in the school, a glorified senior. All the girls pined for him, freshmen, seniors and everyone in between.  The closeted boys whispered their "forbidden" desires for Jonny between class periods.

One night, at Jonny's house, Clayton saw Jonny's mother collapse on the floor and begin drowning in her own vomit.  She was a very robust woman who had increased size drastically since the last time Clayton came over, and this was curious since she had recently been prescribed diet pills.  Jon came running, screaming, "Mom!  What happened, are you ok?"

And he charged every which way in a hectic frenzy, then bolted into her bedroom to see if he could find any explanation for his mother's terrible state.  "It's the diet pills!  I knew it!  Mom I knew those were bad news! Did you take too many? Well, mom, did you?" he was almost squeaking, wrinkling up his nose, reminding Clayton of an angry chipmunk.  Though he knew Jon was far more scared than mad.

"Give me mouth to mouth!" Miss Abermath demanded between gargling, foaming gags.

"I can't, I can't, I don't know how," Jon admitted to her massive belly, hiding his face from his dying mother.

And then it hit Clayton hard.  For one reason or another, he was always good at CPR when he practiced with those dummies in health class.  He would often bring one of his greasy pizza slices to class and hide the fact that he enjoyed learning how to save the life of a plastic doll that smelled like a beach ball lathered with alcohol.

Would he actually touch his lips to the lips of big and grotesque, Margaret Abbermath? What would everyone say?  Not only do I stuff my face with slimey, stinky pizza, but I like to get down with fat moms?

But without a moment more of thought, Clayton placed his knees on either side of Miss Abbermath's waste-line, scooped mucus and saliva blocking oxygen from entering her body and lowered his mouth to hers.  The actual act of saving of Miss Abbermath's life was a little bit like a heavy night of drinking, in that he managed to black out the details of the next five minutes, and he thought about the girl he liked most in the school, Lisa Portly.  They almost slept together once when they first met, but they had decided to be friends for one reason or another.  She was the only girl he'd ever gotten that close with.  He racked his brain why that was again, and before he could come up with a real, convincing reason, Miss Abermath was shedding tears of gratitude, relief and exhaustion and hugging Clayton harder than either of his parents had ever held him. Before he knew it, and beyond Clayton's control, his pituitary gland and hypothalamic neurons were releasing copious amounts of endorphins into the his blood stream, the spinal chord and brain, and whether or not he realized it then, he was hooked...to something...to saving lives?  Maybe.  All he knew is he liked what he felt and he caught Jon's surprised yet immensely gratified stare, quickly looking away once the stare became awkward.

Jon was standing still, in a state of shock and wonder, resembling an ice sculpture with bloodless cheeks and hands.  "How did...I didn't know you could...thank you Clayton.  I don't know what to say.  How can I repay you?" and Jon approached the confused senior, who was still recovering from the hug, and kissed his stubbled cheek.

Clayton was a man of impulse.  Without a moment's thought, he knocked Jon off his feet and pinned him to the floor.  The sound of Jon's head whiplashimg against wood wasn't anywhere near pleasant.

"Don't you EVER say ANYTHING about this to ANYONE, do you understand me?" Clayton shrieked at Jon.

Jon nodded quickly while rapidly repeating "Yes" over and over until he was sure Clayton's rabid brain registered the sound waves.

"Good," Clayton answered cooly, smiling the way someone does for their Senior photos and released his tight grip on Jon's favorite Star Wars T-Shirt.

"There's not a morning that goes by that I don't thank Jon's mother for nearly overdosing that day, as weird as that sounds.  I would have never started on my path towards happiness," Clayton shares with me, confidently.  "I eat healthy now.  My Jon taught me how to love celery.  I have no problem with it now...as long as it's on pizza," Clayton beams, lifting up a lean slice of celery peanut butter desert pizza.  "Vegan chocolate!"

Jon excitedly declares. "Now that Clayton's a certified physical therapist and life guard, I never again have to worry about health.  My hubby takes care of me."

Apparantly, they had a chance to reexamine their opinion of each other on a school field trip to one of the biggest greenhouses ever built.  They were there for their botany class, which was required of students enrolled at Raven High.

"What made you change your mind about him?" I, Donald Hues, reporter for the Raven High newspaper, ask Clayton while the three of us sit at the Raven High Diner across from the school, a popular hang out spot for after-schoolers.

"Besides the confusion that he caused me, which clouded the truth for a few weeks afterwards, Jon won my heart that day in the greenhouse."

"What did he do?" I pry, already knowing the answer, but genuinely interested in hearing it from the man himself.

Clayton pauses and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath and sighing nostalgically.

"He approached me when I was flirting heavily with Lisa Portly.  She was with her friends and I was trying to impress her in front of them by listing all the types of flowers I knew.  I had a crush on her I guess.  Looking back, I don't see how," Clayton begins.

"Clayton and I were still at odds then, but I had respect for him and had refused to deceive him anymore as a faux-friend," Jon interjects.  "In fact, I made all my friends promise not to pick on him anymore.  Of course, being the most popular guy in school at the time, the word quickly got out and not another finger was laid on the poor pizza poppin' fella I would soon come to love with all my heart.  God, little did I know," and he lifts his finger to his chapped lips, lightly tickling them.

"Jon interrupted me during one of my bullshit speeches," Clayton laughs through his nose, simultaneously taking Jon's hand in his.

"He corrected me.  I was saying some shit about a Hemoglobin flower, which does not exist, to my knowledge anyway, and Jon kicked my ass with an exact explanation of the particular flower's name we were looking at, including the scientific title."  Clayton lowers his lips momentarily to their interlocked fingers and kisses them lovingly.  They catch eyes for a moment and chuckle together.

I starte to wonder if I could doze off while resting my head against the seductively comfortable cushion lining the Raven High restaurant's only wicker chair out on the patio, when Clayton continues: "Then he really caught me off guard," he throws his head back, now firmly holding both of Jon's hands, and nearly tipping over both of their chairs.

"Jon said I was the most heroic asshole he had ever met, and planted a kiss right on my lips before I could count to one and three quarters.  Bear in mind, this was in front of the girl I thought I wanted to marry one day, and her two best friends.

"That day was officially the end of my old life and the beginning of my new one, with my sweetheart.  I kissed the silly flower boy back.  I couldn't resist.  He impressed me and I felt the rush of endorphins that was so foreign to me when I saved Jon's mother that fateful Sunday.  I realized at that very moment, the endorphins were never for Miss Abbermath and hardly for the fact that I saved some old, obese woman.  Sorry hun," he cheats a loving grin towards Jon.  "The feeling was because of Jon.  I liked him from then on, but was too scared to admit it, even to myself.

"Lisa, her friends and other students around us who witnessed what had happened, all froze in shock, and watched me as I confessed to Jon, 'I didn't only save your life that day I performed CPR on your mom.  I saved mine too,' and I picked one of the flowers that Jon so gracefully provided a detail analysis of and placed it gently behind Jon's left ear in front of everyone on that side of the greenhouse.  We definitely weren't allowed to pick the flowers in the greenhouse, let alone touch them, but I didn't care.  I think I had to do detention the next day for that.  I didn't mind.  I was on cloud nine, but still in such a state of denial that I was unclear as to why I felt so damn good."

To this day, Jon receives a bouquet from Clayton of the same flower at the first of every month, and Jon refuses to call the orchids anything but Hemoglobins.

Clayton and Jon could not get married in Raven, Virginia because it is illegal for two men to be wedded to each other in that state, so they took a redeye to San Francisco only five years after Miss Abbermath's near overdose, and were happily married on a moment's whim.  They later moved to San Francisco and now own a house in the suburbs.

We are back in Raven, Virginia this morning, after the couple so graciously agreed to fly out here just to be featured in a story here at Raven High. I think we are all a lot more tolerable here of men who love men or women who love women, and it's because of Jon and Clayton.

Little did naive little Clayton, the closeted and former Raven High Student anticipate that "Hemoglobins", which were actually orchids, would end up being the school flower.  The nickname actually caught on fast after protesters for gay rights helped students see hemoglobin, which is actually the name for the blood cells that carry oxygen around the body, as as a symbol for what every person in the world has in common, regardless of their sexual orientation: blood pumping through their veins.  And the oxygen we all breathe together.

Jon gave up alcohol, but on occasion, the two love birds still light up a blunt and toast to Miss Abbermath and the diet pills that changed their lives.  

This is Donald Hues, senior at Raven High, signing off.  Let's keep on turning Virginia, and the rest of the world for that matter, into a more suitable place for love.  Oh, and GO HEMOGLOBINS!

When I Was A Boy

When I was a boy,
Boy was I trouble,
Trouble at home,
Home and out,

Out and beyond,

Beyond hope.

Hope they remember when,

When I was a boy.

Boy, was I trouble?

Trouble at home,

Home and out

Out and beyond...

Beyond hope.

Hope they remember when,

When I was a boy...

Gruff

Gruff is stinky.  He spends most of his time hiding from Big man.  Big man gives him good tasty things so Gruff knows he must obey.  He rarely ever gets washed by Big man and Gruff doesn't know how to clean himself.  That is way too hard for Gruff.  Gruff is not a dog.  He is not a cat.  He is something in between.  Here on Gruffdon, a planet thriving on the waste of Gruffs, there is not an animal more revered than Gruffs.  The smartest beings on Gruffdon, are Mattons, which are much like you humans, in intelligence, at least.  We have round bodies and we roll rather than walk.  We didn't have to discover the wheel here.  Every Matton is basically a living wheel.  I, myself, can't imagine another reality.  Or maybe I can, but I much prefer mine.
The excrement of Gruffs is not unpleasant like the excrement from Mattons.  Mattons' waste is similar to that of humans.  Gruffs are special among us all.  They expel liquids from two different rectums, mixing together and evaporating into a gas that we, Mattons live off of.  Like, your oxygen, we live on Nytrogen.  So, unfortunately we can not coexist in the same air space, unless converters are worn at all times.

Dear Death

The moon's not jealous in the daytime,
The sun's not jealous in the night,
The stars don't yearn for attention when clouds glow bright.
When trees bow to the rhythm of
Rain, kissing tar,
And the trilling of the crickets call for silence...

I'm not anxious to take over,
But you are.

Big Spoon

As the atoms of my body,
Vib-rat-ing against,
or rather,
with you,
together, progressing

e v e r
s o
s l i g h t l y,
toward complete disorder,

e
-n
--v
---e
---l
--o
-p
e

yours,

I am only more comfortable.