thalio's New Writeups

resentment (personal)

2013-05-15T18:25:21Z

"I'm resting, leave me alone," my mother said, waving my sister off with annoyance. We would later put it together that she'd been lying there on the floor of her cluttered, studio apartment for about two days by then. Her vital organs were already beginning to shut down.

My sister, a detective in the San Francisco Police Department, had just broken the front window and let herself in. She didn't have a key; she hadn't been to see my mother for over a decade. No one in our family had, apart from me and my brother. And he--a fairly high-functioning autistic man, from whom my mother was regularly stealing disability checks--had no real choice in the matter.

Not exactly Norman Rockwell stuff, I know.

* * *

As far as I can tell my mom had always been crazy. I may have first realized this when she told my sister and me about the end of her first marriage, which happened when…

Eudaimonia (personal)

2013-05-06T17:58:42Z

When I was in the eighth grade a school bully punched me in the mouth. I can't remember what, if anything, I did to provoke him. I might have offered up some helpful character evaluation that he hadn't actually requested from me. It happens.

The guy was about double my size, and since winning the fight was unlikely, I adopted the more conservative strategy of losing as quickly as possible. Minimize the damage. So I stood there and let this troglodyte punch me once, right in the face. Then I did what comes naturally, which turns out to be sitting down absent any conscious intent. Your knees just fold up under you, as if your pants were suddenly empty. It's like a magic trick--"And now, presto! Your legs, they are gone!"

And that was it. The "fight" was over.

I ended up with a fat lip for three or four days, and he ended up being publicly humiliated in front of the whole class by our crew cut, ex-Marine, boy's gym teacher. Why? Because he'd…

blades and handles (personal)

2013-02-08T21:27:31Z

I was a shy kid, but only in the sense that I would generally rather swallow broken glass than talk to you. Jean Paul Sartre famously wrote, "Hell is other people," (and then wondered why he didn't get invited to more parties).

Still, I could relate to that. It wasn't just discomfort that I felt when I was around strangers, it was outright fear. Not fear that people were going to physically attack me or anything like that, just that they wouldn't like me. Which was much worse. I probably could have handled being attacked--as long as you liked me while you did it.

"Hey, why are you guys beating me with sticks? What did I do?"

"Nothing. We just like you. We viciously beat people with sticks when we like them a whole bunch."

"Oh, well, thank you very much!"

My challenge lay in the fact that while the thought of being close to people petrified me, I also wanted and needed their company. I was after all human, and humans…

Recovery (idea)

2012-07-13T20:18:16Z

Spiritus Contra Spiritum

I want to drink sometimes.

At a recovery meeting a couple of nights ago, several people shared about their urges to get loaded. I want to drink, smoke, shoot up--they said. It reminded me not only of having all those urges at some point in time, but another one too. I wanted to die.

I set out to do it one night, some years ago. I drove my car to some sea cliffs about a half hour from where I live. And I looked for a spot I had noted in an earlier drive. A long straight away. A sharp curve at the end. A steep slope beyond that. I was having trouble finding it in the dark. And, maddeningly, I had to piss. Badly. You'd think that wouldn't make a difference, but oddly it did.

So I pulled over at a lookout point. I stepped out of the car, and right then some headlights swept across me. Just a car passing on the road. But it caused…

A Proof In Time (fiction)

2011-05-30T14:45:35Z

Journal entry -- 05-12-65

My access to the Chronos Project, like everything that happens in God's world, is no accident. With the help of the Brotherhood's additional technology, tomorrow I will turn time viewing into true time travel. And I will see the Son there with his fishermen, by the sea. There will be proof at last.

* * *

As the transport energy bled off him in blue electric crackles, the time traveler glanced around wild-eyed. Ecstatic with hope and expectation, he spotted the group of ragged-looking men and the one who was their master, only meters away. The coordinates had proved out. Surely, he thought, this too was Providence at work.

"My Lord! My Lord!" he cried, rushing toward them.

* * *

Andrew, brother of Simon, saw it first. A pale-faced demon that appeared from a ball of hellfire. It screamed at them in a…

Bill Hicks (personal)

2011-03-22T03:57:50Z

Bill Hicks was no friend of mine.

I'd love to say he was, now that he's become something of a legend. I can say that in the years I knew him, he never spoke an unkind word to me. Which is startling, given the man once compared himself to a camel with a "hump of hate" that required only an annual visit to any dance club to refill. But to call Bill a friend would be overstating the truth for reflected glory. We had a respectful acquaintanceship, we regularly performed on the same six by eight foot stage, and we shared at least one lover.

That last bit occasioned the only mildly annoying thing Bill ever said to me. The young woman in question had blurted out a strange idea one day while in my company--the possibility of discovering intelligent life in outer space and finding it in distress. I thought this was hysterical, and immediately wrote a couple of lines on having to send money and food to another planet. After seeing me perform it, Bill…