A Comedic Tragedy of Epic Proportions

Brothers and sisters I'm free at last. Tomorrow makes day 8 in Florida, and the day of my delightful exodus from the humidity and geckos that comprise the infrastructure of this fine state. I must admit my view has changed a bit now that I am out of Orlando and on the west coast, it's older here, they hate ohioans, less tourists, more fun. I can't say I really hate it anymore, but would I ever live here, never, just to make myself clearer; there is nothing that could make this state tolerable for more than a vacation. I would love to come back and see the flare and life that is Miami, how can I say no to the afro-cuban frenetic buzz.

Before driving through the southern tip of the state to get ourselves from east to west, my father and I stayed in Palm Bay, near Melbourne. The coolest thing I found was a neat wine bar filled with snobs and wine fascists. Needless to say I felt at home. I never thought I could meet people that snooty, and that the characters from the movie Sideways were so vile, yet somehow their personae were transmogrified into this little hamlet by the sea.

Back to where we are now, Fort Myers, home of the singles meat market cum restaurant, Cin/Cin. This whole damn swath of land shuts down at ten o'clock, we were told this is because death has her permanent residence here, someone needs to watch over the elderly. Back to Cin/Cin (pronounced "Chin - Chin in a Quintin Tarentino accent circa Four Rooms), my father and I had to eat, what does this place serve after 10, tapas. So tapas we ate.

The delicious spread came with a light and delicate hummus, server with sweet peppers and pear slices. I ordered a seared ahi with avocado and prosciutto, the came drizzled with olive oil and pepper bits, fucking the rockstar of the night. Howard got a sauteed onion and oyster mushroom pizza, topped with arugula and goat cheese. Generally it is served with parma ham, but hey it's not his gig but not too much was detracted from the meal. Oh right meat market.

This place is also the Kareoke bar of choice for the 20 something - 80 year old crowd. Cougars on the prowl for nubile cubs, Father Time looking to get some ass from a primadona cum-slut (hey we all have to eat, some of just like cock in the parking lot of a strip mall, again what ever pays the bills), and then there are the sad, cultural rejects, women so worn by life and the Florida sun that their leathery skin begs the envy of biker jackets everywhere. This is the creature to approach my father. "Care to dance?" she slurs, her hungry eyes mapping Howard's chiseled 51 year old archetype of beauty (I need to give him respect when I'm fifty I want to look like that). He shot he down gracefully, using me as an excuse to not be wrapped in her pathetic talons, "I'm hangin' with my son here' her eyes glance to me, raping me just a little, 'and I doubt my lovely significant other would appreciate me dancing with a beautiful lady such as yourself" I stifle a laugh with a smirk.

The night was us being eye raped by old women, I'm glad I was shielded by the pillar in the bar, I was saved most of the horrors. "You know you'd love to be with an older woman, we have so much to offer." Her gym sock tits press towards my face, I think to myself that teeth and a nice body are not on the menu being offered. I just smile and sip my drink, "I'm too gay to be your type, but you are such a sweety I bet." I think I channeled Nathan Lane. She bought it.

Thank fucking christ I am out of the sweaty crotch stain that is orlando; I do not lament leaving the behind Berta the Land Whale and her 6 little Porklings, Tino, Tyrone, Stevie, Jonhas, Billito, and Carl. I cna't say I miss the way people like her would walk in to the room, eying me suspiciously, I'm young, tan, and smile; what was really creepy is how she would like her flubbery lips; I could never tell if the gleam in her eye was lust or hunger, though for her would there be a difference.

Now I don't know if some of you are offended by the invective I spew forth towards the Criscosauruses that trundle down from the bible belt, nor do I really care. I just can't stand to see these people not taking care of thier bodies and knowing that my taxes, when I pay them, god knows I'm kind of fucked right now, will go to their coronaries and what not.

I cannot find a decent bar, or even a decent dive, there is so little to do,a nd god knows that I long for interaction with people my own age. I love my dad dearly, but if I have to play another game of "Car, truck, van, tuck, truck, car, car, truck, truck, van..." I will kill myself, though this game is only rivaled by the wonder of "Who can stick out their lip the longest." Honestly I don't know what to do with all the attention I am getting, I tend to not trust it, though I think it is genuine.

More hilariousness here, I am apparently queer a folk here. Being well dressed and semi-vegetarian make me and my dad very gay, or maybe it is because we are tan and in good shape, I have no clue. "You know what's lies at the end of the rainbow....queers, now quit day dreaming". A waitress asked us tonight how long we've been together, this is not the first time. In starbucks, the bastion of the tragically hip and damned, I order a coffee, put it under Howard, decide to get a second drink, under logically me, Parker; "Oh he's your partner" quips the Barrista/ Cashier. What response do I have to this, errr no, god no, OH GOD NO, sweety, I mean sweaty...my name is Parker, he ain't my partner, this ain't Arkansas."

Next Up tweakers, not much to say here, I think we all have been to Riverside. Yeah, tweakers. There is one pacing the hall right now, he could just be a red neck, but I don't grant the benefit of doubt too easily. That and he smells like plasticine jesuses, hail many full of grace, get me out of here.

Also all the cool people I have met have been from Atlanta, this leads me to believe that there is actually a touch of class there, and for Marco who I met in the hotel gym, I hope you find your bitches.

Understanding someone else's experiences is near impossible. I don't think I can truly bring to life the memory of Enid in my own words, let alone anyone else's. I can try. That is what a eulogy attempts; taking all the memories and experiences, the love, the pain, the joy, and having to blend it all together, summarizing a person is only a few minutes.

I can see her now, and everything I loved about her, everything that made her special to me, I could paint this picture of her in the most sweeping reds and vibrant teals, but still these memories are all my own, and it wouldn't do her justice.  The final picture I create only I can see.  

It is impossible to qualify just how much Enid touched people's lives, let alone my own; having a grandmother like this was not far from a miracle. Her unyielding love for me, I never really understood, until this year. It's the little things. Or the things that seemed so insignificant as a child, Enid practically raised me, loosing her is like loosing a mother. For months she would drive me to school down in Laguna Beach, then from there fight her way up to los angles to work, only to pick me up later that night.

160 miles a day. She always picked me up with a smile on her face. No questions asked, there never was a question, not a doubt in her mind. This is the love she had for me, and at the time it seemed such a small feat, then I made the drive.

I have lost not only a grandma, but one of my closest friends. From the day I reached up from the incubator and wrapped my tiny hand around her index finger, she says I pulled her in close, and from that point on we were friends. We had a bond no one could break. Only now do I understand the poignancy of her sacrifices for me, the commutes, the late nights writing my essays with me, helping raise me long after her children had grown up, again there is not a shred of doubt that her love was more than unconditional, selfless, and unquestioning. 

Cliché as it sounds, she really did teach me about the beauty of life, and showed me how to find it in others and the world around me. I would watch her appreciating the green of a leaf, or the sounds of birds. She would take me on walks when I would get fussy, we both knew they weren't just for me, but for us. On the walk the world would explode into brilliant color as she gave a glimpse into the beauty that colored her world.

She could pick up the drabbest pebble and breath life into it, give it a story and a family, and let me see the world as if I were the pebble. This is how I remember her, finding the radiant beauty in the simplest of things; she could just illuminate the soul of everything around her. I know that she has done this for each and everyone of us here. (Close)

The run up to yesterday started maybe from the chemo, totally from the cancer, partly from the fact we have a vintage car still running after 80 years that was beat to hell and back, mainly from...well... life. Doctor tells her that the reason for the infection is that she has a perforated intestine, this little shit hole (this is what he called it), has been leaking "poop juice" into her gut for a long time now causing infection and abscesses. Her options were to operate, probably forcing a colostomy, and other things, or die slowly and drugged up; without surgery she had a prognosis of valentines day or so. She elected the surgery. Really what it seems like to me is a case of nothing left to loose, and since the whole cancer thing started she has done nothing but fight, and laugh in the face of doctors who told her that she only had a little time left on the earth. Looks at the choices, painfully dead within a week, or 50% chance of walking out of the hospital alive; looking at the sheer probability, 0% < 50%, choice is made plain and simple.

As a side note some of you know the story of my birth and the miracles surrounding it; whether you believe in divinity, a higher power, or just some that is cosmically lager and more amazing that he cup of coffee that is currently steaming away on my desk, what they found is medically impossible. I'm not building up to a radiant white light shining from the incision they made sternum to groin, nor a golden calf, or a burning bush; though by all rights she should be dead, and should have been so many many many weeks or months ago. The list of internal what the fuck: 1 Hole in her intestine that had been leaking shit juice for god knows how long, the resulting infection or septis (and septicemia) gave her some blood poisoning, 2 quarts of pus in the cavity of her abdomen (this alone should have killed her, 3 abscesses (2 of which had eaten away at a good portion of her uterus, 40% of her liver is a tumor, her now extracted colon ravaged by cancer, the other abscess god only knows they didn't say. This is all on top of the breast cancer she already has.

By all rights her death should have been swift and violent, instead no one knew what the fuck until she got sick with the last round of chemo, and only in the past week was she really band enough o goto the hospital. The doctor's exact words, "She should be dead, I don't know what she is still alive, the pus alone would have killed a healthy adult...I'm not even talking about the cancer..." A fucking miracle, I don't know if I'd say that, nothing will be going into remission, yet she is allowed (given the strength? has the will?) to stay a while longer on this level of existence. She said that she has some still unfinished business here, but not much, she does however have bigger and greater responsibilities somewhere else. She knows it's her time, and shes getting ready, this wasn't said in religious rhetoric its delivery sane and lucid, no drugs, eyes clear; as my father said, "Kid you got the miracle of life, she get s few more days to make things right, then perhaps the miracle of death...." Is death miraculous I think so; not to sound too goth, but at times like this when the fire inside is still burning but the shell is fading fast, death is a beautiful thing. As the fire is set free, it does not die, the spark in the eyes will fade, they become glassy and still, but the essence that filled them, gazed out into the word moves on and with luck will be allowed to stay gone, with all lessons learned and lives touched, there are bigger and better things out there; this journey we make, 80-100 years long, is only the start. Enid knows this, and said it, "I have many other things to do, much of it isn't here."

I cannot control the death of another, of a person very close to me, most of the world knows my grandma is pretty sick and dying rather quickly; we all tell ourselves "It's just the Chemo.." at least I know a lie when I say it. For all the this lack of control, there's that word again, I cannot help but feel assured in the fact that there is not a single thing I can do outside of being present. For once in my life it is really easy to let go and let the universe do what it has to do. One kid's love won't cure cancer, sucks, but that's life, the life I want to dearly to control and change, except for now. What would be relieving and horrific would be a silent divine wind sweeping down and whisking away her body and soul to something greater; her face lit up in joy as she rides on the back of a river dragon to an afterlife fit for someone like her. I am, on some level, waiting for her death, once she's free from her shell, life will be better for her and for us; the death clock never ticks fast enough for

From: "Measurement of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in human plasma by gas chromatography/negative ion chemical ionization mass spectrometry." Papac DL, Folts RL , J.Anal. Toxicol., 14, 189-190 (1990)

In a volunteer given about 70 ug, the apparent plasma half-life of LSD is 5.1 hr. The peak plasma concentration of 1.9 ng/mL occurred 3 hr after administration.

From LSD My Problem Child, by Albert Hofmann, 1969

The concentration of LSD in the various organs attains maximum values 10 to 15 minutes after injection, then falls off swiftly. The small intestine, in which the concentration attains the maximum within two hours, constitutes an exception. The elimination of LSD is conducted for the most part (up to80%) through the intestine via liver and bile. Only 1 to 10 percent of the elimination product exists as unaltered LSD; the remainder is made upof various transformation products.

From Psychedelics Encyclopedia :

LSD is a very curious chemical. When given by injection, it disappears rapidly from the blood. It can be observed when tagged with Carbon 14 in all the tissues, particularly the liver, spleen, kidneys, and adrenal glands.The concentration found in the brain is lower than in any other organ-- being only about 0.01 percent of the administered dose. [...]

LSD is highly active when administered orally, absorbed through mucous membranes r through the skin, and is almost completely absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract. Concentrations in the organs reach peak values after only ten to fifteen minutes; then they decrease very rapidly.[...] Some 80 percent of ingested LSD is excreted via the liver, bile system and intestinal tract, with only about 8 percent appearing inuring. After two hours, only 1 to 10 percent is still present in the form of unchanged LSD; the rest consists of water soluble metabolites-- such as 2-oxo-2,3-dihydro-LSD -- which do not possess any LSD-type influence on the central nervous system.

Psychic effects of LSD reach their peak about one to three hours following ingestion, when much of the substance has disappeared from the body's major organs, including the brain, though measurable amounts persist in the blood and brain for about eight hours.

From the DEA Web Site :

LSD is absorbed easily from the gastrointestinal tract, and rapidly reaches a high concentration in the blood. It is circulated throughout the body and,subsequently, to the brain. LSD is metabolized in the liver and is excreted in the urine in about 24 hours.

From Pharmacotheon :

The drug is almost completely eliminated from the body before the peak effects begin,suggesting that it acts as a sort of catalyst, inducing neurochemical changes which subsequently result in the entheogenic experience. Only about 1-10% of injected LSD is excreted unaltered, the remainder as avariety of degradation products.

From Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered :

The half-life of LSD in blood plasma is about two hours.

 I dont really know what to say here, as many of you know I have a more public blog, though I guess theres nothing more public that a bunch of anonomyus assholes on the interent, but I digress. I'm sitting here almost 2am. in El Gran Santiago de Chile, I have maybe 2 weeks left here, and it just hit me how short of a time that really is.

Sure it could be the Piscola, or the beats of Soda Stereo, but damn what a depressing revelation this is. I didnt know just how happy I had become here untill recently. since moving into a new plac, I have friends and cool roomies, school has gotten better, and people talk to me. Im not considered a "gringo culiado", rather people approach me to see if I want to study in the USA. I blend in, I fit. Last night I was offered a place to stay for the next few months, this would give me a home to chill at in Concepcion.

 This same person, "pituto", has told me if I ever have tourble in Chile just call him, or email him, he knows people, Ive never been extended such an honor. I now have here conexciones, friends, homes, people I know, places to stay, I have it all, I probably have a job or two if I want it. Claro, I cant look a gift horse in the mouth, Im being regalado a flight home, es super cool. Sin embargo, estoy sentado acá andando bien bajo. Spangish aside, Im at a cross roads, without a choice, I have to go home. I cant blow off the opportunity I have.

 I want to come back, I know what freedoms I have here, that I dont have back home, that not to say I dont like where I am from, but I can just see shit getting worse. Conversly I miss all of you who know me and are reading this, Ive never wanted to see old friends as much as I do now. Im kinda exhausted, and decided not to go out for one of my final weekends here (next weekend Ill be in Argentina), that and every one left 30 minuntos ago, and 5 luca just aint worth the 4 hours of dancing.

There are so many things left for me to do, that I just cant do now that Im leaving early, its a real bummer. There is a chance that I will be saving up my money and comming back here next october, I might have some opportunities. With any luck I might be offored a job with the program in Concepcion

I dont know what more to say in some lame, I need to get this all off my chest blog, I do need to pick up some gifts, and what not for my amigos back home, o sea uds. los lectores. Jenny Im still looking for your cool dress, booze for some of you, it might arrive later (ill be having some friends who stay later bring it), otherwise the rest of the traveling I do this summer will bring more mierda por los demas que no van a recibir regalos al tiro.