 Home  What's New  Feedback / Submit Reader Photos  PGDesigner  Cylindrix  Links  Personal |
|
Links: Watch Me Eat a Hot Dog www.glitch13.com Live New Orleans Yaddoshi's site Six Ten Split Fleshbot Offbeat |
Go to My Adventures Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6
|
||
In the street stood a man in peacock feathers and skin; he stood a while and then would spin. We all swarmed, stared, and then sweat, as police walked alongside hard metal nets. Minutes, hours, days later -- who knows? We find strangers yet friends in watering holes. Dreams of a previous devious life, became today and tomorrow remembered by an older man's sorrow. And all of these moments go by like a blink, so I kiss my life and my wife on the cheek. Permalink to this post. |
||
I stood in the subway line and talked to the Emily-Deschanel-Subway-Lady and discussed my plans for the storm. Tracey was staying at home. I was going to sleep at the office, and Tracey was going to ride it out at the house like she did for Gustav. Gustav was a Cat 4, and only weakened to Cat 2 just before landfall. Isaac is a pussy. And then Isaac slowed down. Strike that -- Isaac practically stopped over Louisiana and blew winds and dumped water for two days. Slowly, sluggishly, punishingly. Almost as if to prove to us that he was not some scrubby "One." After the storm, the water started to go down around my house a bit. 8 inches. I wanted to buy a paddle boat and pick Tracey up. She decided to stick it out. The next day, after the storm was gone, the water kept rising. Old men said things like, "This is the highest I have seen the water in 50 years." People who had raised their houses 5 feet after Katrina found themselves 5 more feet under water. My friend told me that his van was underwater, and he had parked it in the same place he did for Gustav. During Gustav, my house was only 1 foot away from flooding. I decided I had to pick Tracey up. I drove to Academy and bought a paddle boat. I drove to Springfield and stopped at a gas station to ask about highway 22. "Oh, it's underwater. You won't get one mile." "What about highway 63," I asked. "They just blocked it off," he said. I drove to the police department and asked them about highway 63 -- the last possible way in. "We just closed it," the cop said. I drove down the street in a blur. I called my mom, and she called the Sheriff's department. I drove to work and almost wrecked 5 times. I sat at work and waited for my mom to call me back. We had a commitment from the National Guard to pick Tracey up. They were going to bring her to the RiverStop. They were going to call when they were on their way. 15 minutes later I got a text message from Tracey, "I'm being rescued!" I ran to my truck and drove to the RiverStop. I cursed every slow driver. I drove 15 minutes and got to the River Stop. Tracey texted me, "The police said to go up to highway 63 and meet me at the Killian police department." All Interstate exits were closed, and I would have to backtrack to make it to highway 63, and the police had told me that highway 63 was closed. "Highway 63 is closed," I texted to her. "The police say to go to highway 63," she texted back. I turned around and back-tracked. I tried calling her, and every two seconds I was cut off. She was being carried on a boat, on a truck, through the swamp. I finally got her on the phone with a clear signal. "Tracey," I said, "The police told me that highway 63 is closed. They told me that the rescuers were going to bring you to RiverStop. highway 63 is an hour away from me, and it's closed." I heard arguing, breaking up of the signal on the other end, and crying. "Oh my God, John," she cried and her voice rose to a crescendo, "These aren't cops...." And the phone hung up. I partially ran off the road, ran into oncoming traffic, my heart shot muskets into my ribs. I screamed a terrified simian scream, punched the window, and called my mom. "Call the Sherriff's office! The people that picked Tracey up aren't cops" My signal died. I spun all over the road and texted "Call cops NOW NOW NOW" Fear upon fear upon fear. My mom called the police and told them that Tracey was kidnapped. Ten minutes later I finally talked to Tracey again, and what I thought I heard was just an unfortunate illusion caused by breaking cell signals and fear. She was OK. But this adventure still has 4 more hours of bullshit. An 18 wheeler overturned 100 yards in front of me on the Interstate. I stood there, waiting for them to move it for over an hour, while my wife sat there in a disaster area police department with our dogs in carriers. My wonderful mom and her awesome neighbor driving all over the place, going from one pickup point to the other, being jerked around by this clusterfuck of cops and national guard mismanagement. They almost got arrested trying to brave the mythical highway 63 we were TOLD to use by the national guard. Now, home is not home. All of the little bits of love I have for that swamp are tainted by that fear of losing my wife. That terror I felt when I heard, "These aren't cops..." Epilogue: Home is still home. After blowing off the stench, filling the house with A/C and power, home is home again. Permalink to this post. |
||
"Don't let them cut me off, Chrissy!" I shouted. "Chrissy, get me another beer." I struggled against the hands, and they pushed harder. Was I on my back? Distantly, I could hear myself babbling: "My brother used to play drums and percussion in a lot of musicals. He did Princess and the Pea. My favorites were Jesus Christ Superstar and Oliver!" "Oliver, Oliver, never before has a boy wanted more," I sang. I could hear the laughing of those around me. "Chrissy? Where's my beer?" My vision cleared. I was on my back in a hospital bed. Oh crap, how embarrassing. "Hey," I said to the nurse, "Don't tell my wife I was asking for Chrissy when I woke up." And it all came back to me. I was in the hospital for hernia surgery. Shortly after arrival, I was told to take off all of my clothes and don the iconic Assless Gown. I cursed myself for never practicing the tying of knots behind my back. A while later it was time for my IV. The nurse first gave me a shot of local anaesthetic at the target site, which burned quite a bit. Afterwords it was numb; the insertion of the IV needle elicited no sensation at all. However, after she hooked up the drip, I felt numbing cold creep up my arm from the inside. I imagined myriad movie moments when a character's arm was rapidly frozen in a blue special effect. "Am I going to be moved, or is the surgery going to be in here?" I asked. "It will be in another room. In fact, you will move yourself onto the operating table." This seemed really weird to me. I couldn't imagine walking down the hall to the operating room with the saline bag and stand. A few minutes went by, with this preparation and that. I saw a big air bubble lazily traveling toward my vein. "Uh, nurse," I said, "This is kind of freaking me out. There's an air bubble about to go into my arm." "That's normal," she said, "That's just something you see dramatized on TV. It would take an entire tube full of air to have a really bad effect." "What happens to that air bubble after it gets into my bloodstream?" "Your body just squishes it and it gets absorbed. You must be really nervous, I can feel how sweaty your hands are. You'll feel better after we give you your first anaesthetic. It'll be like having a few drinks to calm your nerves." Another nurse came in. "OK," she said, "I am going to give you your zero calorie cocktail." I was dreading another shot, but there was a side receptacle on the IV which allowed her to empty the syringe directly into the IV stream. Makes sense. I felt the effects very quickly. The anaesthesiologist came in and briefed me on what was going to happen. I explained to him that I was very afraid of hospitals, and particularly anaesthesia. I explained to him how Jacob's Ladder had forever burned the fear of hospitals into my mind. I asked him if it was such a good idea that I walk to the operating room as drunk as I felt. He looked at me confusedly. I explained to him the earlier conversation about moving to the operating room. "No," he laughed, "We are going to wheel you in there, put the tables next to one another, and you'll lift yourself to the operating table. "Can you imagine that?" He mimed walking down the hallway with a saline bag and opening up the operating room, "Hey guys, here I am, let's do this!" Everyone laughed at this. So, they wheeled me, drunk, to the operating room. I lifted myself onto the operating table. They put a mask over my face. I counted my breaths...One...Two (The gas burned my lungs slightly)...Three...Four...Five... My vision was black, but I could still hear everyone chatting in the bar around me. I could feel several sets of hands holding me back, so I figured I must be pretty drunk. "Don't let them cut me off, Chrissy!" I shouted. "Chrissy, get me another beer." (You know the rest of that part.) I was in the recovery room with my mom and Tracey. "I feel like a million bucks!" I said, "I could do this every week." It was true. I was pumped up to be alive. I was on a saline drip, and I had to stay there long enough to urinate so they could verify all of my parts were in working order. After about an hour I was ready. I had the nurse help me stand up. She gave me a jug. "Should I do it here or in the bathroom?" I asked. "That's up to you," she said. "I think I'll go to the bathroom." Everyone but Tracey cleared out. I felt like I was ready. Then the world spun. My heart raced. I grasped the edge of the hospital bed. I felt exactly the same way one does after way too many beers. I was on the edge of puking. I looked at the floor. Blood was dripping onto the floor. Reality set in, and I no longer felt like a superhero. Tracey called for the nurse. The nurse helped me back into the bed, she re-dressed my incision, and I decided to wait another hour before getting up again. But, here I am, back home and in one piece. Not so bad for being cut open six hours ago. Permalink to this post. |
||
Anyway. It was a nice, two story place with hardwood floors. This place was just a block away from a cool bar called "Parlay's," a nice grocery store, a neat little coffee shop with good breakfast, and a convenient gas station. We were just a quick hop off of the Interstate, and it was a reasonably quick jaunt over to the Quarter or Metairie. It was a bit expensive though, so after a couple of years I decided to get a cheaper place in Metairie. Well, I also decided to move out because my girlfriend left me (and her sister, who was living with us), and I was now in this huge place by myself. It took a few weeks to pack up all of my stuff since I am a bit of a pack rat. I had a bunch of stuff in the attic, and I put that off for last because I just hate crawling around in the heat and insulation. A couple of days before moving day I decided I finally had to go up there. I had never actually crawled up there, as I had just sort of scooted all of the boxes up there from the ladder. Unfortunately a bunch of them had been scooted pretty far back, so I had to climb up there to get them. I was really surprised by how roomy the attic was. It really seemed much larger than the room below it. I tend to be a pretty bad judge of relative scale, so I just blew it off. I started hauling boxes down the ladder, one at a time. As I got to the last few boxes waaaay back in the back, I became confused. They were really far back there, and I didn't remember putting anything that far back. I opened one of the boxes and realized that none of the stuff was mine. "Wow!" I thought, "The previous renters must have left this box here. There was a ton of cool loot in this box. There were nice rock glasses, some wine bottle openers, and a really really nice flask. I stuck the flask in my back pocket and dug through the box a little more. The light in the attic was extremely dim, and my body was casting a shadow over the box, making it difficult to see the contents. I shifted my body and moved my leg to take my shadow off of the box. My foot punctured a hole in the thin floor/ceiling between the boards, and my leg slipped into the hole. My entire body lurched over, and my leg fell through the hole all the way to my groin. I shouted in pain. A woman below me screamed in terror. I was in agony and totally confused. My girlfriend and her sister had moved out weeks ago. I was alone in the apartment. How was there a woman below me screaming? She kept screaming. I adjusted my weight, and my thigh tore a bigger hole in the ceiling. I was able to see below me. This wasn't my apartment. I was looking into my neighbors apartment. I experienced another few seconds of confusion while my neighbor screamed. Then it dawned on me. Our duplex shared an attic. I had inadvertently crossed over into her attic, rummaged through her shit, stolen her flask, and shoved my leg through her ceiling. No wonder she was screaming. "Holy shit," I said, "I'm sorry...I'll pay for the hole. I didn't know I was in your attic." I pulled my leg out of the hole just as her husband came in -- ready to kill someone. "It's me, John, from next door," I said as I pulled my leg up and surreptitiously snuck the flask out of my pocket and back into their box. Permalink to this post. |
||
Jennifer Gomez and I used to live in Lakeview in the bottom half of a house apartment. Our bed was in the living room, and the television was about 3 feet to the left of the bed. While it wasn't very classy, it was pretty convenient and we used to lay in bed and watch movies all of the time. One night we were watching Leaving Las Vegas. We were both laying on our right sides facing the television, and she was curled up in front of me. Our television was about 40 inches or so and had a somewhat crappy picture. There is this one scene where Nicolas cage is laying on the bed suffering from severe alcohol-related difficulties (narrows it down, I know) The camera starts off about 10 feet from his face, and his face was at the center of the screen. "Wow," I thought, "With this crappy picture and at this distance, his face looks sort of horrific. Kind of demonic." The camera grew closer, and rather than fading the effect in fact increased. As the camera drew closer his face became even more horrible and frightening. I knew my imagination was playing tricks on me. But it got worse. This was a long and drawn out scene. The camera lazily crept towards his face. And with each second the face became more hideous and terrible. It wasn't exactly demonic, or like anything I had ever seen. The face was a distorted mask of humanity. It evoked the same reaction that one experiences when viewing horrific genetic deformities in children. But it also seemed to exude malevolence. I couldn't lie to myself any longer. I was getting frightened. My heart began to pound in my chest. And still the camera pulled closer. At this point the crappy picture on my television could not be blamed for any sort of illusion. This mask, this horror of Nicolas Cage filled the entire screen and there was no room for interpretation. I was looking into the face of -- something. I don't know what. It is one of the most frightening things I have ever seen. My heart felt like it was going to burst. I was paralyzed. Was I going insane? That was the only thing that made sense. I had to be hallucinating. I must be lying in a position that was causing some weird pooling of blood into a visual center or something. Realizing that my mind was just filling in the blanks, and that there were just dots of light on the screen made me feel better. My brain was just being creative is all. My heart slowed marginally. "Jawn?" Jennifer asked. She had a thick Puerto Rican accent and "John" sounded like "Jawn." "Hmm?" I asked. I couldn't really speak without my voice cracking, so I figured I'd just grunt until I got my breath back. "Do you see that?" she asked. My heart pounded and sped up. My throat constricted. "It's horrible," she said. And that is one of the most frightening things that has ever happened to me. I have seen this movie several times since then, and while I can see wispy hints of the face from before, I have never seen anything quite as horrible as I saw that night. In fact, a shot from the exact scene is attached to this post (on the first page of a Google Image Search for "Nicolas Cage Leaving Las Vegas) Permalink to this post. |
Go to My Adventures Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Philosophy |
My Weight Loss Program |
Computer Stuph |
Misc Stuff |
Dream Page |
My Adventures |
Media Reviews |
Poker |
People |
Hardcrawler |
Toilets |
Gods of F*!@ING Rock! |
Starcraft II |
Video Games |
Random People |
Live Show Reviews |
John's Guide to Being a Metrosexual |
My MAME Project |
The Coolest Men on Earth |
Hottest Hotties of Hollywood |
My Taiwan Adventure
My Hong Kong Hijinks