Sunday, October 21, 2012

Chapter 72 - October 16, 2012

I'd like to dedicate this week's blog to my good friend. We've known each other since grade school. He's been a great help through this tough period of my life. I'll include a photo of him and me from the grade school days.


Hi everybody. Welcome to another day in paradise. Well, this week has been full of surprises. I met another super mom. She was in my hospital outpatient center. She had the same car that my family has. She's been looking after her son. The poor guy's a mess. I don't know his condition, but after talking to her, it sounds like he's been the same way since birth. It was something like 22 years ago. So she's been looking after him for a long time. She knows all the ins and outs about taking care of someone in this condition. It's good to talk to someone like that. If you can't find someone like this, then there's always good support groups out there.

Another thing that happened to me this week was a new mental health nurse showed up. I was wondering what happened to the last one. I guess I shouldn't have told her my dog was talking back to me. It was all a joke. I was just kidding. I hope she didn't take me seriously. Anyway, the new one is pretty cool. She said it's normal for me to be a little depressed. She said, "Let's review why you may be unhappy. What's happened in the past 3 years?" I said, "Well, I had a brain bleed. I was rushed to the ER. I had an emergency brain operation. Two other operations. And then another operation. Then, went to see my daughter and wife far away. My wife sued me for divorce. I had another brain bleed. I had a brain operation. My daughter taken from me. All the houses are gone. Everything I owned is gone. I'm 50 and living with my parents. I had a series of seizures. Four of them. I went to the ER. My dog died. I've been through the rehabilitation 3 times. I've been on my back for 3 years. Other than that, everything's great! That's why I might be a little sad." Anyway, she pointed out that there are 2 reasons to be depressed. One is medical. You know, like your brain might be physically damaged. And the other is just plain old sadness from events. I guess I have the latter. Anyway, she's real cool. It helps a lot.

OK, let's talk about the past a bit. You know, when I get a little sad or to get me through the tough times, I just remember things from the past.

I remember this one time I was living in Paris. I went to one of many dinner parties I was to go to. I was sitting next to a girl, just started making small talk with her. I said to her, "What are you doing this weekend?" She said, "I'm going to London, to a party. I'm going to take Daddy's jet and go over to London. What are you doing this weekend?" I said, "Me? I'm doing my laundry." That separation of classes reminds me of another story. I was in New Guinea on a photo shoot. We were invited to a house to go for a swim. When we pulled up to the house, the first thing I noticed was there was a very tall fence all around the house. There was razor wire at the top of the fence. I thought, oh what a charming place. The owner of the house came out, she was huge. A big lady. Pasty white. She had 2 small children under her arms. They were equally pasty white. She said, "Would you like some tea and biscuits while you go for a swim." I said, "Sure." Then she went back into the house with her strange children. I went over to go for a swim. I said to our driver, "Hey come on in for a swim." he said, "Thank you but no, I can't go in there, their dogs will attack me." I said, "Come on. No Way." He said, "Yeah, those dogs are trained to attack anyone that's not white." I said, "Get out of here." He said, "No, look," and he walked over to the fence. The dogs came running out of the house as he approached the fence. They jumped up and tried to attack him. I freaked out. He got back in the car and said, "Now you go over." "No fucking way!" He said, "No really go over." So I went up to the fence and the dogs sat down and whimpered and then got up. They were gentle and happy to see me. I thought, this place is like the land that time forgot. Well, I went for a quick swim and went back to the hotel. I bought our driver a beer there. It was all very strange. But now I know what colonialism means.

I want to share with you guys why I love to travel so much. My parents were pretty much hippies in the day. My dad's an artist and my mom's a school teacher. Well, they took me out of school at the age of 11. They took my sister out of school as well. The reason why we left school was because we took a boat to England, lived there for a while. Lived in France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, India, New Guinea, and stayed a long time in Australia. I went to school in France and Australia. We then went to New Zealand, Hawaii, and back to America. I guess I got the travel bug from this time of my life. My sister, I think she doesn't like to travel. All this traveling happened when she was really young. To me it was like a big adventure. Anyway, I just thought I'd share that with you. There's lots of stories from this time of my life. But that's a whole other story.

This came to me out of the blue. My friend here was reading to me what I was saying. I wanted to include the following for this week:  Remember I talked about the fact that I ran across America. It was me and 11 other guys. We did a continuous relay across America. Anyway, a couple of things from this trip where triggered by the above stories.

I remember I was running through east St. Louis at 3:00 in the morning. I don't know if you've ever run through east St. Louis at 3:00 in the morning, but it's kind of scary. We had a police escort. She was equally scary. I think she was a he. Anyway, this she/male was there to protect me. I was running down the middle of the street. People were throwing shit at me, like beer cans, rocks, sticks. anything they could get a hold of. They were yelling at me. I thought what's the big deal why is everyone yelling at me? At one point, I looked at myself in a store window I realize now why people were yelling at me. You see, my school sweats were all white. They had the word RIT in big block letters. They looked like KKK. My sweats were also all white with a big white hood. Another time I was running at about 4:00 in the morning. I was in Appalachia. The van was waiting for me about 2 miles down the road. It was dark and this pick up truck pulled up behind me. It was like  something out of the movies. He had no lights on. Scared the hell out of me. pulled up behind me then pulled up next to me. He greeted me with a smile and a double barrelled shot gun cradled in his arm. It was pointing right at me. "We're just running across America." He said, "Well, we're out hunting squirrels," and he pulled away. I told everyone in the van. They just dismissed me. no one ever believes me but it's all true. One more story and then I'll call it quits. On the same run, we had a back up car. Well, the back up car needed some gas so I went to the gas station with the car and filled it up and went inside to pay for the gas. I got in line. Well, there was a guy trying to get in the front door so I opened it for him. I looked down, and in his waistband was a nickel plated revolver. I think he was about to rob the place. I looked at him, the gun and I looked over his shoulder. There was a squad car parked in an alley. I looked at him and the gun again, looked at the police car. The guy I was holding the door open for looked at what I was looking at. He saw the police car, closed his jacket and got in his car and left. I was a bit dazed and confused. I left too. Once again, no one believed me. I should have showed them my shorts. Then they would have believed me. OK, one more story

This happened when I was an assistant photographer. This story takes place in Acapulco, Mexico. We were on a photo shoot in Acapulco. They gave us 5 days to do a 4 page spread. This is when the magazines had a lot of money and a lot of time. Anyway, when we were in town, we met a guy who had an awesome house. He said, why don't you come over for dinner after you're done with your photo shoot. We all said cool. We'll come over for dinner. Well, the house was unreal. We had dinner outside. He was a great host, he and his high class hooker from Dallas. They were very gracious. Well, after dinner, we all went for a swim. We were ripped on tequila. We all thought it would be fun to jump in the pool naked. The pool was blue and gold. At the end of the pool were Greek columns with flames out of the top. The scene was like something out of the roman emperor Caligula's house. It was all a bit surreal. On top of it, we were served champagne and other things by the high class hooker. I thought, well, it's time to go home now. Oh, yeah, this is after one of the girls fell down the stairs naked and laughing. But on our way home, there were 2 cops in a squad car. They were sleeping. You know what that means? The Big Sleep. It was all surreal.

Anyway, I'll talk to you guys next week. Love, B. Nice

P.S. Remind me to tell you guys about Cancun. I had a huge sub water crocodile on my sundeck. Not good if you have a small child. Luckily, this was a long time ago. Remember, everything I say is true. They were all things that happened to me. No wonder why I have traumatic brain injury.


3 comments:

  1. Hello my friend, always good to read your feeds. Off to India tomorrow evening for a yoga retreat. Have signed up for your adventure. May the halloween gods and goddesses shine on you. Hope to hear you sit up again real soon. love always Sharon xxx

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  2. yeah my post posted - a revelation...... I mostly write them then they refuse to upload.......

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  3. Brian,
    you are my very personal and favorite story teller ! Period !!!
    xoxo
    Manon

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