The Bedroom Under The Stairs

My life is unconventional.

In a slightly inebriated stroke of genius, I decided to remove my dresser and other knick-knacks and convert the closet under the stairs in to my new bedroom. Surprisingly enough, it's more spacious than sleeping in the old loft bed and more importantly, I have a little more privacy (something that I had taken completely for granted until I moved here).

I'm seeing more people coming into work wearing scarves and heavy jackets, shopping with more panic-stricken fervor than normal. I've hung up my halloween costume, it's becoming slightly difficult to turn my car engine over in the morning and I had to pull my electric blanket out of storage.

This can only mean that winter and the bedlam that is the holiday shopping season is here.

I have never really looked forward to the holidays before (any time of year when people die because hordes of unruly shoppers stampede like a herd of spooked wildebeest and crush them behind the glass door of a Wal-Mart is a season that I don't want to be a part of.) but never have I dreaded their arrival more than now. For the past six years I have always had a family to be with during the holidays; Pre-Thanksgiving dinner with my Mom and Patrick, Thanksgiving dinner with Kate's family, opening presents with Kate on Christmas Eve, opening presents with Mom and Patrick at midnight on Christmas morning, Christmas Day breakfast with Kate's family, lighting incendiaries and illegal fireworks and eating various delicious but unhealthy meat products with Kate's dad while watching a stroke-stricken Dick Clark try to power out a warm New Year's message on the countdown. This will be my first winter alone.

Its Thanksgiving. It's difficult to feel thankful for anything when so many bad things have happened. However, if there's one thing I've learned in these past 8 months, it would be to find happiness in the little things. I'm thankful for things that I take for granted like having a roof over my head. I'm thankful for my friends who have been there with me in my times of stress. I'm thankful that my mom, who's been fighting with her old job to get her retirement benefits and back pay, has finally settled things and has money again. I'm thankful for the Tom and Jerry marathon that I'm watching. I'm thankful for Butternut Squash Stuffing.

Breandan's Vegan Butternut Squash Stuffing

1 Butternut Squash

1 Box Unseasoned Vegan Cornbread Stuffing

1 Cup Tri-Colored Peppers Diced

3 Celery Stalks Diced

1 Cup Onion Diced

1/2 Cup Baby Portobello Mushrooms Sliced

1/2 Cup Pecan Halves

2 Tblsp. Dill Finely Minced

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Vegetable Broth

Follow directions on Stuffing Box for liquid measurements. Instead of butter or margarine, use olive oil.

Combine Vegetables and 1 tblsp. dill in large bowl. Mix by hand, adding vegetable broth until stuffing is desired consistency (a drier stuffing makes for a crisper top). Add sea salt and pepper to taste. Preheat oven to 350.

Using a large knife, split the Butternut Squash in half lengthwise. Using an ice cream scoop or grapefruit spoon, hollow out the center of the squash along it's entire length leaving about a 1/4 inch between the hollowed out part and the sides of the squash. Save the scooped out remnants as they can be stored in the freezer and be used to make butternut squash soup. Drizzle about a tblsp. olive oil in the carved out inside of the squash halves and sprinkle in the remaining dill.

Pack stuffing into the squash halves and place on large cookie sheet. Bake until peppers and onions become slightly opaque. Garnish with Dill sprig.

It would be so easy for me to get caught up in all the reasons why I hate the holidays but it would do me no good. If I had focused on all the reasons why I hate my current situation, I'd probably kill myself. It would do me no good. Instead, I've decided to cling to all the little, seemingly insignificant things that make me happy.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Taking back the rain

Since Kate and I split, the rain had been a painful mnemonic---we loved the rain together---but I have decided to reclaim it and make it my own again. It rained the other day. It hasn’t really rained much at all this year until then. That day I rigged a water proof cover for my camera out of a grocery bag and rubber bands and went for a walk through the nearby memorial park in an attempt to clear my head and ease my mind, which had been brutally attacking me the last couple weeks. As I walked through the fields to the mausoleum, the rain began falling harder. I took shelter in the mausoleum and walked through the marble halls. The walls were adorned with pictures, letters, and other trinkets as well as flowers, enough to make the walls look like a vast spring field. The only sound I heard was the pounding rain on the massive skylights of the mausoleum. Not a single living soul but me. It was the most peace and quiet I have had since I have been on my own. 

The rain didn't seem like it was going to let up so I made my way towards the exit and prepared to walk in the downpour. Almost simultaneously with my first step out of the mausoleum, the rain eased up a bit and I walked to my car in the soft, soul-warming rain that I have always loved. It was as if God was granting me my serenity for the day.

I drove over to Wildcat Canyon, one of the local regional parks, to continue my adventure in the rain. Before I even left the car, I simply just sat. I watched the rain create different shapes in the windshield, like you would clouds on an a clearer day, while I listened to it create a unique rhythm on the roof of my car.

 Again, almost in unison with the opening of my car door, the rain eased off to a slower tempo and I made my way to the creek. Seeing the creek full and flowing again and seeing the green overcome the drab brown that I have become accustomed to made me very happy. Everything was new again including my peace.

  I walked back to my car in my very damp clothes and drove back home.

I rarely go to Starbucks but I didn't have any hot chocolate in the cupboard so I made a stop. Just to keep myself from being too cliche, I ordered a hot white chocolate instead and went home. As I sat in my living room sipping my white chocolate, I began to realize how much I took having my own room for granted.

 I had always been able to retreat to my room and find my tranquility there. Having quiet and privacy had always been an overlooked privilege.

 Living in the living room is cheap---an easy solution to having to pay an enormous rent---but now I realize what that higher rent cost would really be paying for. I have never fully realized until now how much people yearn for solitude as much as they yearn for the company of others.

I long for the rain to fall again. The next time it falls, everything that made me love it will be mine again; The smell of the wet asphalt, the clean shine it gives everything, the way it looks when you tilt your head back, the way it tastes, the way it slides down your face and hangs from the tip of your nose, the way it feels against your skin as you hold somebody. That will all belong to me. Having the rain carry with it my ever coveted peace is more important to me than using it to hold a grudge.

An Unfortunate Year

I turned 25 this past August. It has been more than 6 months since I moved out on my own. Assuming the responsibility of my independence has been a costly burden to carry both financially and emotionally. It has been the most emotionally taxing time of this entire quarter-century.

El Sobrante is living up to my expectations of sucking any and all ambition like a supermassive black hole, fueling my propensity for melancholia. The sight of the hot, dry wind conjuring up dust devils and carrying them from the crisp, brown hillsides to the barely-paved or non-existent sidewalks is enough to make me feel like I live in a ghost town, but the sight of the ghosts that walk these dilapidated thoroughfares is what depresses me the most; The strung-out tweakers muttering nonsensical gibberish as they shamble from one random location to the next. I live amongst the dead.

I have been in financial dire straits since I've been on my own. I have barely been able to pay my bills and gone without a decent meal for over 2 months now.

We---Brian and I share food---rarely have more than spoiled meat, a few tortillas, and top ramen to keep us nourished. It's a miracle that I haven't gotten sick or lost any considerable amount of weight. Some of my bills have gone delinquent for the sake of me just being able to get a meal. In fact, because of bank overdraft fees, my paycheck's sole purpose is to bring my bank account out of a negative balance; I am paying to work.

The pain of my failed relationship makes itself known on a regular basis and it is an ongoing battle to fight it. There are countless things, seemingly random things, that will constantly spill out at me and remind me of her and evoke anger, misery, hope, regret, fear, anxiety, suicidal thoughts or occasionally, small bursts of elation; Certain songs (Don't Look Back In Anger by Oasis, Am 180 by Grandaddy, The Blue Wrath by I Monster, Willie Nelson performing Always On My Mind, Surrounded (or Spiraling) by Silversun Pickups, Sufjan Stevens, even my favorite band, Coheed and Cambria), bluegrass music (especially songs that emphasize the banjo and the mandolin), big red Chevy pick-up trucks, El Caminos, guns, pompadour hairstyles, red plaid jackets, spiral earrings, my own button up collared shirts and skinny jeans that she helped me pick out, the Albatross pub, watching Indiana Jones movies, cedar plank salmon, macaroni and cheese, Izze fruit sodas, pistachios, tuna salad sandwiches, white russians, clove cigarettes, the Walking with Dinosaurs live show, Native American artwork, found object artwork, Raley's grocery stores, the Albany bulb, San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Cliff House, Stinson Beach, Ocean Beach, Pinole Shoreline, Sedona Arizona, Hawaii, random animal bones in the sand, Rhodesian ridgebacks, wild turkeys, donkeys, happy couples, weddings, phone numbers starting with "691" or "236", the rain, the cold, even just hearing the name, Kate. My mind turns against me and reminds me in real life or in dreams---or rather, nightmares---why these things mean something to me and even worse, remind me that they probably no longer mean anything to her if they ever truly did.

I have tried to ease the pain with many things both good and bad. Unfortunately, more of the bad and destructive ones have eased my mental suffering than the good and constructive ones. A song comes to mind.

If the sea was whiskey

And I was a diving duck

I'd swim to the bottom

And I don't know if I'd come up

~Chris Thile~

However, lately I have been able to find refuge from the plagues of my mind in people, something which has lately been incredibly difficult for me. I find it hard to trust people and be vulnerable around them. Trust. In the cold, cruel wilderness, trust is hard to relinquish but may be the most crucial element for survival.

Brian has proven a reliable source of inspiration and comfort. He gives me advice whenever a red Chevy Silverado puts me in to a panic or when by pure happenstance I stumble across a photograph that makes me want to hurl myself from the balcony. 

I have also been spending more and more time taking walks through Tilden park, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. Learning how to be comfortable with myself more than anyone else is a lesson that has cost me a great deal of emotional stress. Solitude is where my mind ambushes me.

With nothing to distract it, my mind will begin feeling cooped up and will badger me ceaselessly to be let out. When it doesn't get what it wants, it will hold my ears shut as it curses me and dangles painful memories at the back of my eyes so closing them only makes them more vivid. With this filter, my vision is dark and narrow. I can only see things that directly relate to those distressing recollections. I can only hear short clips of sound from my past echoing on top of one another, the pummeling thump of my heart resonating like a pile driver with every agonizing beat, and the sound of the rushing torrent of blood coursing through the veins in my temples like gallons of water navigating the rusty pipes of some thin-walled tenement.

Underneath this bizarre veil, motivation comes in quick, blinding flashes and the only way to catch them is to keep my eyes open to everything. A good song (one that doesn't coax reminiscence), a good movie, a good meal, a good book,occasionally, pleasant weather, and spending time with new friends are the only few things that act as lightning rods, encouraging those divine flashes to emerge and strengthen the reflexes necessary for grasping them.

It is a nice day outside today.

Bumper stickers Berkeleyites have

I've been at Randy and Loc's house in Berkeley for three days now. This home is a really peaceful home compared to what I've lived in. There was always an unspoken tension at the apartment on Francisco. Living at home was intolerable due to the amount of conflict and unhappiness. Here, there is just harmony.

Randy and Loc have been together for about ten years. They act just like I would have expected a gay couple to act. Randy is very quiet yet firm. He likes to read science fiction novels while resting on the couch or in bed. Loc is the more boisterous of the two and he seems like he could be very "Diva". Loc is very creative using his skills as an artist and his knack for design to decorate the house. There are many paintings, pictures, and found-object art made by Loc decorating their two-story victorian. They both like to watch movies but have different tastes, it seems, when it comes to which movies they watch. They have a beautiful pitbull mix named Priscilla. She's a very playful and affectionate dog and is always striving for attention.

The room I'm sleeping in is the color of grape laffy taffy with a fuschia trim. There is a shelf where, behind pictures of Randy and Loc with their families and friends, there is a hardcover book with Madonna on the cover that has her name in hot pink letters at the top. There is an easel with a canvas where Loc has pictures of women in large, colorful dresses wearing arabesque masks and large headdresses. There are pencil markings on the canvas where the start of another painting is being outlined.

They live in a typical Berkeleyite home but they don't annoy me like typical Berkeleyites.People who have "Free Tibet" " "Meat is Murder" and "Dog is my Copilot" bumper stickers all over they're hybrid cars, mopeds, and fixed-gear bicycles. People with locks of matted hair or short-cropped tresses under paisley bandanas as they carry recyclable canvas grocery bags containing expensive organic and locally grown produce from the day's farmer's market.

 People who have opinions about everything and when that opinion is challenged, they have to picket, protest, riot, hold candlelit vigils, or write a letter to their congressman. People who think they're better than you because they graduated Cal or grew up in a rich family in the hills or wrote a novel or a vegan cookbook that changed the lives of nobody. Randy and Loc both exceed my expectations for what I have discerned as common Berkeleyite traits. I will enjoy my stay here.

My stay here will be unfortunately short-lived. I'll be moving in with Sean and Brian much sooner than expected due to Sean being able to evict his sister recently while his Dad is preparing to move to Placerville. Despite my antipathy for the common Berkeleyite, I really enjoy living in Berkeley and fully understand that not every Berkeley resident fits the mold I have constructed for them. I am hoping to experience more and more of this city while I still live in it.

Are we there yet?

I have never wanted so much for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to based on a true story. Nevermore have I wanted to erase bad memories.

It was pretty much inevitable from the time that Andy moved out that Adam and I were going to have to

move out. That day comes tomorrow. I've rented a U-Haul and Adam has secured us a storage unit to put furniture and boxes in until we move in to permanent digs. I'll be moving in with my friend and co-worker Randy and his partner Loc in their place

in Berkeley. I'll be living there until around August which is when I'll be moving in to Sean's apartment in El Sobrante. He and I and our friend Brian are going to split the rent at Sean's place.

Adam will be house-sitting at Andy's house for a couple weeks and then he'll be house sitting for our friends David and Mary so his situation is slightly more bleak. He'll be living on a couch for a few weeks but then after that, he doesn't really have anywhere squared away.

What exacerbates this whole annoying transition is the fact that neither Adam nor I are financially fit enough to improve our lives. Even if/when we get settled in more permanent homes, we'll still be broke, barely able to pay bills, barely able to keep food in the kitchen, and overall just unhappy. Unless we can find better paying jobs, we will remain this way. I'm hoping to change this within the next year.

Once I can get myself back in school I can start exercising plans for my future, I can start crawling out of this slump. I feel like a child in the backseat of a car during a road trip saying "How much longer?" "I gotta pee." I'm hungry" etc. Life is a mean Dad that wants you to pee in a gatorade bottle and eat that nasty Clif Bar because we still have a long way to go before we get to another rest stop and will be damned if he's going to let you put your wiener out of the car to take a leak. Dad's car. Dad's rules!!!

With no direction home, like a rolling stone

Les Claypool, although more recognized as a TV anthem composer and Primus frontman than he is recognized as an author, wrote a book called South of the Pumphouse. The book is loosely based on Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea only the setting of this slightly twisted tale is a little town called El Sobrante and other of it's surrounding areas in this section of the east bay.  El Sobrante is an unincorporated town policed by the county sherriff's office which is based 30 miles away. The town has no mayor and only one fire department (which is incredibly inconvenient when more than one basement meth lab explodes at a time). No writer that I know of has ever captured the character of a town so vibrantly than Claypool did. Granted, I can't imagine many (if any) people have even thought about writing about the town. Claypool describes the town as a haven for methamphetamine abusers (tweakers), wife-beaters, alcoholics, and blue collar nobodies. He couldn't be more accurate and even wrote a song while with Primus about the people of the town called Those Damned Blue-Collared Tweakers.

I used to live in El Sobrante for about 4 years. I bore witness to the many annoying quirks of this town while I was there including having to wait for my street to be opened up because of police barricades that were put up while federal officers raided a meth lab at the end of my block. The town is like a black hole; no matter how hard you try to escape it, it always seems to suck you back in. I will probably be living there with Sean sometime in the upcoming months. Sean has also experienced the annoying quirks of the town but all too recently.

   Sean lives with his dad, his brother, and his sister, Maureen and her husband and son in El Sobrante. About a week ago, I got a call from Sean at around 11PM saying that his tweaker-sister's husband, an MMA hopeful who weighs twice as Sean and has two strikes on his record, while tweaking out on meth, angrily accused Sean of stealing a pack of cigarettes. Sean had nothing to do with the vanishing prison currency and while explaining such to the angry tweaker, he was punched square in the face by his brother-in-law's boulder-like fist. 

He sustained a very swollen and black left eye and two large cuts on his lips from them being rapidly forced in to his incisors. Sean asked me if I still had a room for rent that he could stay in indefinitely. He had borrowed two month's rent from his brother and I was his last hope of getting out of the unstable environment. While living on the futon in my living room, Sean asked his dad to finally kick his deadbeat sister out of the house so that he could go back home without fearing for his life. All of this came at a really unexpected and nearly convenient time because Adam and I were down to our last week and last hope of getting the spare room filled. We hadn't been able to find anyone and with Sean offering to pay for two months, Adam and I were able to buy some time to arrange to move out on our own terms. Sean went back home today after his dad changed the locks and gave Maureen the boot.

So now I'm left in a bit of a jam: I am forced to move again. After the recent mess with my checking account, I missed two car payments. Because I haven't been able to fully recover yet from that debacle, I won't be able to afford the increase in rent that Adam and I are taking on to reduce the cost of the spare room. A coworker of mine, Randy, who has been a very supportive friend to me in the last few months, offered to let me stay on his couch rent free until Me, Sean, and our buddy, Brian are allowed to take over the rent at Sean's house. At least with that option I can try and pull my finances out of dire straights. So for at least two months, I'll have to box up my life again and put it away in storage.

   Of course, El Sobrante will live up to it's reputation as a black hole and pull me back in to it's dark matter. Even only living there 4 years was apparently enough to plant roots. I have a feeling like I might be homesick for my entire life.

   

Bombardment

This blog entry is dedicated to the memory of my dog, Mickey.

It's been a long time since I've made an entry in this blog. About three months. Not really a huge amount of time, but probably the most eventful quarter-year I've ever had.

For starters, my dog was murdered.

After John moved out of the house, Mom had a hard time paying her bills and the rent. I was sucked in to these money problems when my phone (which is still on a joint plan with my Mom) was repeatedly getting cut off due to my Mom not paying the bill. My brother convinced her to allow one of his friends to move in and help out with the rent. One night while my Mom was at her new boyfriend's house in Napa, my brother's roommate got shithoused drunk and got really pissed off with my brother. The roommate locked Patrick out of the house and proceded to pummel my old, innocent dog, Mickey. The police were called but the damage was done; Mickey was left to die in the house while the roommate made a hasty escape before the cops could show. The next morning, Mickey had to be put down.

I only found out about this because of a call I got at work from John's brother, Vince. He was wondering about what happened with Mickey and spoke of whether or not he needs to get the cops over to my Mom's house.

In the end, the police and the District Attorney's office were involved. They spent about two weeks just trying to find the roommate but eventually caught up to him. He was charged with two felonies and will be serving prison time. I hope this guy burns in hell.

I went back to Mexico this year. I hadn't been since I left the church three or four years ago. This time it was with a different church who used to go down with my church. We stayed with families who lived in the town. I have never felt such a strong connection with the people down there than I did this time. I don't know if it was the hospitality or if it was just me being around a nurturing group of people after being away from such groups for a while or if it was a combination of the two but I do know that I have never cried on the day we left and I have never wanted to stay there so badly in any of the previous years I went. I'll be writing a separate blog about the trip soon.

I made a lot of new friends on the trip including Valentin, who randomly invited me several times to go night fishing at the Berkeley marina and catch stingrays and sharks. One night I went there to meet him after work and came across him and his buddy trying to figure out how to haul up a 150-lb. stingray.

They ended up having to drag it from almost 3/4 of the length of the pier and dragged it up on shore. Aside from that really exciting moment, going out there at nighttime is so peaceful. Just sitting in my camping chair bundled up, listening to waves, waiting for a bite all made me incredibly relaxed amidst my troubles.

I got together a box of things that reminded me of Kate. That box contains:

-1 pair of plastic gag teeth

-1 piece of artwork made w/ izze soda caps and construction paper

-1 piece of artwork made with copper wire and marbles

-1 pair of sunglasses

-1 high school ID of Kate's

-1 copy of the Juno soundtrack

-1 copy of the book All About Us completely filled out

-1 hangman puzzle book with some pages filled out by us

-1 handmade tie made by Kate

-1 wooden frog

-1 scrapbook of us given to me for my birthday

-3 small plastic bags filled with confetti

-7 handmade stickers taken from encyclopedia pictures

399 PHOTOGRAPHS

I was originally intending to burn the contents of the box on an upcoming camping trip,but the angel on my shoulder aka my friend from photo class, Jessica Beach, told me that the better idea would be to tape up the box and stow it away for a while. When I asked her to take it for me, she agreed.

I randomly ran into Meaghan Yarnold, the sister of my old friend Patrick(Pappy) at a party that my friend, Morgan had. Since then we have randomly been hanging out for the last few weeks. The new late night hang out is Happy Donuts on San Pablo Ave. in Albany. The donut shop is open 24-hours and we've found ourselves there at 3am just talking about stuff we remembered about each other from all the years back.

It's been only three months since we've moved in to this apartment but Andy has already moved out to live with his girlfriend. I feel a bit abandoned and tossed aside about it but I wasn't completely surprised that this happened or how soon it happened. At least, not yet. Right now I'm too worried about finding a new roommate and being able to afford my rent since my rent would have to go up $75 just to make it fair to any perspective roommates. Especially after what happened with my checking account.

Apparently, someone obtained my checking information by hacking a gas pump ATM. They "hot carded" it which means they put that information on to a dummy card and just charged everything as a credit. The card was used in New York and bought someone a bunch of stuff from Champs Sports and McDonald's. Whoever was using it overdrew my checking account by nearly $400. Since then, I've had my money reimbursed to me but not before I missed my last car payment. Right now I am trying to refinance my car loan to get my car company off my back and to free up some money to help with rent and to feed myself.

These last three months have tested me greatly. There have been many times in these last months where I've wanted to kill myself just to end all of this hardship. I've had a lot of help-both with verbal support and monetary support-that have helped me to get through this. I've felt like a 16th-century British Navy Schooner being bombarded by a haggard-assed black pirate ship with Satan's blood being used to swab the deck and spiked cannonballs that released hot acid, flesh-eating swine flu, and Dane Cook (Dane Cook get's released like a damn Pokemon) when they crashed through the fragile wooden hull of my ship.

SO I WAS IN THIS CANNONBALL. *unnecessary amounts of laughter for something that obviously isn't a punch line* AND I CRASHED THROUGH THIS SHIP. *unnecessary interpretive gestures* And I was like "DUDE! DID SOMEBODY SEE THAT?!" *raise the "reverse rock fingers" as the crowd shits itself with excitement*

Now that things are starting to shape out a little better, I'm able to take a breath to vent a little bit. I can guarantee that I'm going to run to trouble again sometime later down the line. But I'm also becoming a lot more confident with myself and I'm able to respond like an adult to the trials of life.