Captain’s Log

I had to dig deep, but I can recall having one good Christmas.

I must have been either 3 or 4 years old. We were living in Orange County, down by Disneyland. My mom was still married to her first husband … that was a happy time. I remember learning how to make cookies (for Santa) and oatmeal (for the reindeer) on Christmas Eve … 20 or 21 years ago … in my Alf onesey pajamas. I know it was a good Christmas because what I remember about it was all the attention I got … but it wasn’t really focused on me … it was focused on Christmas itself. Trying to put that somber cheer into the house by decorating a tree, making cookies and oatmeal for Santa and his reindeer, home movies on the new tape recorder … I don’t even remember being asked what I wanted for Christmas. It didn’t matter, it wasn’t about wanting … it was about that mystical experience that I can only poorly label as finding warmth in the coldest part of the year. Everything might have been bleak, but there was still comfort to be found in home and family, and enjoyment can always take the silliest of forms … like bringing a dead tree into the house and putting shiney stuff on it. It wasn’t about the tree, or gifts, or snow, or even Santa … it was about making the best of the worst, it was about creating a warm little spark when nature itself seemed bent on making the world dark and dreary and cold. It was … home. Probably the only real home I’ve ever known.

It’s funny how my experiences have crafted my knowledge. The past sets the stage for the present. With only one good Christmas, and a very poorly remembered one that happened a lifetime ago, it’s no wonder I have no interest in the holiday.

Every Christmas after that all I can remember is the tangled mess of family politics and everyone obsessing over what to buy or getting what they wanted.

Tomorrow is Christmas. Maybe I can try to create that special warmth in the darkness in the new appartment this year. Unfortunately, it’s looking like it’ll be pretty lonely. At least I won’t have the family politics to navigate.

My mind was all a jumble. None of this was supposed to happen. It was all her doing. She knew my weaknesses as she knew everyone elses. She knew I couldn’t resist a soul in need any more than I could resist an opportunity to be a part of a good story. She was playing me, stealing my spirit away one friend at a time. I had had enough. Time to do something about it all. And so I called upon the one power I was certain would be anethema to her, and prayed that my strengths were still more potent than her weaknesses … and more importantly, on the ineptitude of my friends in my particular branch of faith.

She wanted to bind us all to her. So be it. That was exactly what I would set about … my way. The way that scares them (Rachel, Pink Bunny, B.J.)

I planted my seeds with care. I stroked her ego when I could do so without endagering my soul. I played up the role which she had so erroneously tried to force me into. It was close to the end … all of us who were closely involved could sense it … but none more than the two of us. She knew I was feinting, and I’m certain to this day that she, nor anyone else, did not know what I was up to.

I threw together a day in advance, unlike my normal fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants method, and prayed that it would fail horribly. I think I secretly prayed that it would botch so badly that it would end me.

This time I had everyone help me, as though they were some kind of acolytes. Everything was working horribly at the saturday market, which put my mind at ease. The laxidaisical demeanor of those involved was crucial to my plan, and pained me terribly.

Alright … time to purchase the foci. Continuing my act, I put all thoughts of planning from my mind … for if I knew that I was planning it all to fail, the ritual would be impotent. There must be sacrifice, and I must go to the slaughter. Wooden bowl? Check. Come on, there are hippies everywhere! Laugh it up, people, laugh it up. I never once laughed with them. Laughter was not in me. Sage? Sure! Check. Metal chalice? Just make sure there are no markings of any kind on any of it, guys! Oh, a seriel number … is that the best we can come up with? It’ll have to do. Check! I *will* make this ritual work in one days time or … I don’t know what. Candles … white ones. Get them. I had tried to drown myself days ago, but none of them knew it. Fate wouldn’t even give me that simple release. My whole demeanor must have been very dark, serious, and brooding. Perfect. Onward, then! Much to do!

I don’t remember much of anything from those days, especially not right before the ritual. The drive back … I couldn’t tell you the first thing about it, except that I was answered questions about the coming ritual vaguely and cryptically, unable to pry myself from my focus. I must build up enough energy (wa, karma, chi, whatever you want to call it) to make this work. Everyone remember to eat a full meal beforehand, I don’t want anyone passing out or getting hurt. I think I was clutching the first aid kits that I had lifted from my boat, still in Jantzen Beach then. Somewhere deep inside I was concerned … terribly worried … but I had to push it from my mind.

That night I found the right vow … these days I can’t remember anything about it. I know everyone thought it was long. They have no idea. My frame of mind would not work with this spell … I was too evil … too controling … too fearful and confused. Impure. The spell was one of primordial bonding, a spell to help us realize that we were all in truth the same person. I would never be strong enough to make it work with my spirit in such a weakened and damaged condition. I had to clear my head. First I commited the vow to memory, then, leaving Dan and Jeff to the rest of they’re night, set about cleansing my soul of all it’s thick fallacies. I reduced myself as near to nothing as I could, before even beginning the ritual, and in emptiness, found oneness. The night air and sky is perfect for that. Thank the Lady it wasn’t completely overcast. A good omen.

We all met in the playground at the park behind some place Dan and Jeff used to live. It was perfect. Somehow the energies of the night were working in my favor. Then I saw them, and my hopes (but not my resolution) were dashed. She’s actually playing in the swingset … how fitting. Perfectly antagonistic! WHEEEE she cried. Fucking whee. “A fucking playground? How does he expect us to take this seriously?” she yelled across the park and into the suburban beyond. Deep inside I was grinning with a wicked satisfaction. Double double toil and trouble … fire burn and cauldron bubble. Something wicked awaits you in the deep places, you faerie fuck. Outwardly and inwardly (but not that DEEP inward place where I was grinning, and not the deeper STILL inward place where I was empty and everything) I let out a groan. She was fucking it all up. Ender caught on quickest, Jeff and Dan were there and they had a feeling something wasn’t right with me. Good, we’re still in touch. Jason and Ben came next, with Mindi and Rachel last. Ah Mindi, my darling, I’m counting on you … I eyed the first aid kits, knowing without knowing. That little voice inside … this kind of magic doesn’t work on HER kind … she is not of OUR realm … I shoved it out of my mind as quickly as I could, replacing it with visions of the stars above and the molten earth below.

I bade each of them take a candle from the bowl, leaving myself with two. As I was leading this ritual, it was my place to carry the One candle. I then arranged us in the fated order … with those closest to me close to me, and those most entwined in her grasp on the opposing end of the circle (Circles have no end? Right you are! And how naive.) I would then lead the way from our realm into the deep places, instructing everyone to follow in such an order that the circle would unwind itself and reform perfectly upon reaching our destination (if indeed I made it that far.) This meant the order was as such: Michael, Jeffrey, Ender, Jason, Ben, Rachel, Mindi, Dan (and thus back to Michael.)

Everything went exactly as it was supposed to. We unraveled, we left behind the trappings of day to day life and went out of our well lit safety-zones (each of us had our own, and I am no exception) and off into the darkness.

Every time I would pass by this one particular spot on that road, I knew I had crossed (at least partway) into Somewhere Else. I felt it the very first time I ever walked down that road, and this time was no exception. As soon as I felt that chill run up my spine and those strange whispers in my mind (which coincidentally was simulatneous to my noticing the cacophany of frogs groaning into the Wisteria Night) I knew I might just have the strength after all. Shadows danced as only still shadows may dance upon the trees and gravel offshoots that some called driveways. The air was still and teeming with life. “Make it stop.” I heard loud and clear, as though someone had yelled it straight into my brain. The frogs might have all just hard heart attacks, they silenced so quickly. Damn her … damn them. Don’t they know I can’t resist them? Don’t they know they’ve been killing me? She knew. I don’t think they did. Every undisciplined curse that erupted from the lips of the mouths which were attached to bare feet etched a painful line into my unknown soul. “This could have been thought through a little better,” I heard muttered with intent for my ears. Bittersweet, this love. How foul kindness can be. Control yourselves, you undisciplined cads! If any of you had the slightest idea what I am about to get us all into, perhaps this might actually work … then we’d all be in real trouble. As it stands, two people in mortal peril is a high enough price to pay, let’s not add to it.

I kicked the door in and lead us all inside. Glancing back, I saw that Rachel had to be lifted inside (the steps leading up to the door had all but rotted away) but I wasn’t sure by who. No doubt Ender was involved in that. I bade Mindi set the medkits (dutifully carrying them ^.^) just before the entrance to the room … their very presence a testament to the doom that awaited.

The circle collected itself in the dark room, and I had to walk everyone through each step. As soon as my mouth opened, however, I was no longer myself. I was the magic.

It started before I left for Oregon. Somehow the seeds of travel and adventure were planted in my very soul, and there they lied, gestating and feeding upon the rough and heartfelt experiences of my childhood. Then, when I was about 200 moons old, I met a woman and the surface of my essence was pierced, releasing many strange yet familiar ideas from the depths of my being as a volcano sometimes slowly spews forth a river of molten earth. I had fallen in love, real love, and would never be able to return to my boyhood again.

I have never truly been an adaptable person, and like all serious change I spent the majority of my energy resisting it. The tools which I used to do so were denial (”I am NOT in love,”) faith (”It is contrary to my values to have a relationship so young,”) and every other possible excuse I could find to ignore the changes happening to my life. I would be steady. I would be unchanging. I would be the rock.

I began to crack.

The force of the change was too great. I had built my dams thick, but as great as I built them, my molten soul would not stop flowing. The lava soon outpaced me. I began to catch myself looking forward to going to school … arriving early even, just to spend more time searching for her. I began to spend just as much time with her and her friends as with my own. I would think up ways to atone for my initial refusals, but none of my ideas were received well. As time went on she became just as unresponsive as I had been at first. I was fast becoming desperate to save that which I had initially sought to destroy. For the first time in my life I knew what it was to have burned a bridge. I vomited forth my love upon her as though it were a fearful sickness which I could no longer stomach. The intensity of this eruption frightened her, which in turn both frightened me and made me ashamed and I lost myself to despair.

It was a hot September day when Brandon and I left Ms. Dicely’s class for lunch. I was 14, and in those days what everyone called a “prep.” My family had more money than most, and it showed in my clothes: khakis, cross-trainer tennis shoes, a new and clean white t-shirt and even a sweater-vest. My hair was very short, almost cropped, and worn in that southwestern pacific spikey style so common in those days. It was unbleached, demonstrative of a conservative and traditional ideology. Brandon wore clothes that were more common in this society: poorly fitted bluejeans, worn sneakers, and a too-large black t-shirt with some rock band on the front. I do not recall what the topic of the conversation for the day was, but as we headed out for the nacho truck I gave him my number, confident that I had made my first friend in high-school.

That night I sat at my desk in my room reading “The Lord of the Rings,” a ritual which I had decided to make annual. My room still had its fresh-off-the-market beige paint, but it made up for it with an antique heavy wooden desk painted forest green (my favorite color) with a game of tic-tac-toe carved into it by yours truly years ago when I was bored out of my mind writing lines as a punishment administered by my step-dad. I had won, of course. Above the desk was a poster of Link from the Zelda games, standing heroically with Princess Zelda in one corner and the evil Gannondorf in the other. My bed was a queen-size with forest green and burgundy sheets, a heavy and plain comforter, over which was draped a blanket depicting a pack of wolves under a full moon in a rocky forest backdrop. The blanket was the only gift given to me by my step-grandmother which I ever really liked. I loved that blanket. My night-stand matched my desk.

I heard the phone ring downstairs and shortly there was a knock on my door. When I opened it I saw my mom with the cordless phone held against her chest to block the receiver.

“There’s a girl on the phone for you,” she said with a curious and excited look on her face.

“A girl?” I asked incredulously. “Thanks, mom.”

I took the phone and closed the door.

“Hello?” I asked warily, sitting on a corner of my bed.

“Is this Michael?” came the voice of a young girl whose own boldness apparently shocked her to the point of shyness.

“Yes. Who is this?”

She giggled as young girls do, although there was a sort of quiet confidence in her voice. “Rosalie.”

“Uh … hi,” I said awkwardly, not sure what to think.” “What’s up? I had only a vague idea who she was. I didn’t pay any attention to girls. They were no fun. Why was she calling me?

“How are you today?” she asked, apparently wanting some small talk.

“I’m great! Just reading “The Lord of the Rings.”

“You’re reading!?” she asked, her turn to be incredulous.

“Yeah. I’ve read it seven times already, this’ll be the eighth. It’s my favorite book.”

“Do you read a lot?” She sounded like she was having a hard time getting used to the idea. In high school, in Vallejo, CA, nobody reads except for a few losers (a clan of people which, by my dress and manerisms, I clearly was not one of,) and especially not for fun or interest.

“Yeah, I like good stories.”

There was a long pause.

“Are you okay?” I asked, not sure what else to say.

“Well,” her voice had taken on that confident shyness again, “I just called because I was wondering … would you go out with me?”

Ah … there it was. Okay … what to tell her … ?

“Uh … I don’t think so … my mom won’t let me have a girlfriend until I’m sixteen.”

“Oh …” she sounded surprised and disappointed … and hurt. “Well, do you do everything your mom says?”

“I’m supposed to. I love my mom.” Good job, Mike. I haven’t lied once. Awkward silence. “I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t like you or anything,” vague enough thing to say to a teenage girl, what does “like” mean anyway? “I just don’t want to upset my mom. A happy mom keeps a happy home.”

I was downstairs now, in the kitchen where my mom was making dinner … baked chicken. It would be dry. She always dried it out too much. I covered the receiver and whispered to my mom from across the counter, “Call my name like dinners ready.” She gave me a funny look before she caught on.

“Miii-CHAEL!!!”

“Sorry, gotta go. Dinner’s ready. See yah ’round.”

“Oh …” more disappointment, “bye.”

“Bye!” I said, trying to sound friendly.

The phone beeped as I pushed the off button, signaling the end of an unwanted yet flattering ordeal.

“Who was that?” my mom interogated curiously, her eyes narrowing protectively.

“Some girl I hardly know who wants to go out with me.” There was no pride in my voice, only distaste.

“Did you tell her that your momma says no?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I don’t want you worried about women until you’re at least sixteen.”

“I know, mom. That’s what I told her. When’s dinner gonna be ready?”

“In about two hours. I’m putting the chicken in the oven now.”

I quickly rummaged through the cupboards, making sure there was plenty of apple juice. I would need it in about two hours.

Later, back in my room and two pages into “A Shadow From the Past” I heard the phone ring again. This time my mom didn’t even come to the door.

“Miii-CHAEL!!!”

I have had a vision and the best place I have to record it is in this so-far wretched journal.

It began with a long dream about Jack Wolfe (another of my personas) on various adventures.  I was sutrggling and determined and only marginally successful.  Somehow I wound up in a sea on the coast of some land, the Middle-East and North Africa, or more generally the Mediterrainean come to mind.  Iw as standing on some sort of flat, moving object on the seaward (and port) side of a vessel which was attempted to either moore or un-moore from a dock and I was moving, more specifically I was floating, in the opposite direction of said vessel.  I was either expected aboard or appeared to be in need and so I was thrown a rope.  Only it hung from the freeboard of the vessel to the water, about 10 feet away.  I leaped to it and caught ahold of it, only I was unable to climb it.  My strength was unable even to lift myself, nor could I push myself with my legs for my feet would always slip from the rope.  At this point I realized they would try to hoist me to the deck if I couldn’t make it on my own, at which point I somehow made it aboard.  I stood there taking everything in and everything was tinted with yellow as though I were watching robotic pirates burn a fake village in a Disney Theme Park when a lid exploded into the air from a coffin which I had mistaken for a crate and was lying on deck.  Lying in this coffin was a woman garbed in an elegant black dress without a speck of color about her whole person aside from her eyes which were a startlingly brilliant shade of piercing green which contrasted the sepia-yellow tones of everything around her and even more sharply contrasted with her own colors of pale ivory-white and raven black.  Inside the coffin with her were snakes of the same brown and yellow flames of the setting.  She sat up with no help from her arms and without bending her legs.  I have no recollection of her leaving the coffin as in the next moment she was facing me at my side, snake wrapped about her shoulders.  As she began to speak with a velvety voice and a strange accent I slowly turned my head to the left to look at her.  She was only slightly shorter than myself.

“You have ambition,” she said, “This comes first.  I will give it to you.  Power is first, and wealth follows, and then …”

She said a third thing which I cannot recall.  The last thing I remember is the beauty of the scene before waking.

Status

Body: Exhausted, sore, sinus troubles

Spirit: Foiled again! Begrudging complacency

Mind: Primarily subconcious, very little activity of my own intent.

Once again I have elected to yield to the machines of politics and economy.  I am still unsure whether or no I believe discretion has anything to do with valor, but in the face of such an insurmountable foe as the entire world it is a necessirty of survival.  I play to win, and if that means sacrificing the glory of the day and an almost certain death, so be it.  I’ll work a shit job.  Grudgingly.

Things to note:  Eric is now working with me at the shitjob.  Mark is getting increasingly angry with numerous little things.  Jeffrey still lulls in Texas.  Busby’s getting married (!) in Novemeber and I am to be best man, and God only knows what my other Californian quasi-allies are wasting their time with these days.

Status Report:

Body: Sore Calves, Sinus congestion

Spirit: Rapid changes between angry and aggressive to glum and lethargic

Mind: Analytical and Determined

Fought with Marcos the other day as a form of therapy.  It was some small measure of good for my spirit.  I wish I could do that every day, but Marcos doesn’t want to fight anymore.  I bloodied his lip.  Eric will be next, I hope.  He’s never been in a fight before, so it should prove interesting.

Am rapidly running out of food and money.  If only I knew where I misplaced my last paycheck.

After I fought with Marcos I still was full of energy and in increasingly high and aggressive spirits, so I went running.  I ran some six miles before I fell through a railroad bridge and then ran, limping, 6 miles back.

I am also recovering from a nine day bout with bronchitus, hence the sinus trouble.

It would seem to me that my poor spirits are a reaction to being forced to work shit jobs just to survive and not being allowed to do half the things I would like to, fighting for example.

My mind is, as ever, the universe.

Lots of shit’s going down, but I’m not gonna write about it.  I don’t know why I’m not going to write about it, but I’m not.  I’m crying inside.  Struggling with myself.  I don’t know.

I wish I could write as quickly as I can think.  I need to get my head screwed on straight.  It seems as though I can’t even do the simplest of things.  It is an immense struggle even to write these things down.  It has been ten minutes since that last sentence was written, all the while I was trying to write something.

Oh.  Right.  I remember what it is now.  No one believes in me.  That’s a terrible excuse, but it’s the only thing I can come up with.  Sometimes I wonder if I even believe in me.

Pause! Cigarette.

Unpause.

I’ve turned off the music I had playing.  Music takes me away from what’s in front of me.

I finally don’t have to rely on that damn blue pen.  I find it amusing that I still have it, though.

To do list:

Fix lights on boat (Checked off on Moon 266)

New Mainsail Cover

Find out info on new job (Checked)

Finish cleaning boat (Checked)

Take of sweatshirt (Checked)

Write like a madman

Swim like a madman

Be a madman (Checked)

Get naked (Checked)

Stop drinking rootbeer (Checked Moon 266)

Be stronger

Be faster

Be more enduring

Regain lost pride (Checked Moon 266)

Stop this for now because this entry is terrible and you need sleep to see Lauren tomorrow (Checked)