Brittleliquid's Journey

I Am Back, One

2007-08-06T10:38:00.001-10:00

It's been a while since last I posted and as the words flow, I'll explain why. Before any of that, I thank those of you who "nudged" me to wakefulness during this several weeks slumber. You may never know how your simple question "What's up, Dickie?" made me feel important.

A month ago, I mentioned that my cancer numbers were discouraging, indicating that the drug treatment I was receiving wasn't working. My visits to two separate oncologists told me that I should stop the treatment and clear my system of the drugs. With a clear system and a blood test to prove it, I could then apply for what's known as a "clinical trial." A clinical trial is basically a live human test of a new drug for any purpose.

If a trial is successful, meaning the drug does what it's supposed to do, it's one step closer to FDA approval and sale to the the public through medical community. Of course, there are always risks with these trials among them death. In my case, the risks as described are worth whatever it takes to overcome this cancer.

The two drawbacks are that the window of application may close before my six week cleansing process is complete and the trial compares the new drug or treatment with conventional chemotherapy. Since a computer marries the method and the patient as a condition of the trial, neither the patient or the medical people know which treatment is being administered. I'm worried that I might miss out on the opportunity with the sign-up deadline looming before my body is cleansed. At the same time, I am opposed to chemotherapy on my fine specimen of a body. As I thought about the deadline, no continuing treatment and looming chemotherapy, I slowly went into a blue "funk."

I was depressed. I started losing interest in most everything. If a TV show started moving faster than I could keep up with, I changed channels. I changed channels a lot. In fact, TV became a constant companion. I stayed away from the news most of the time. I liked house make-overs, "American Chopper," "Deadliest Catch," "Good Eats" and my favorite "Take Home Chef." I watched the America's Cup and Le Tour De France at 2AM. I fell asleep many times with the TV on and it watching me. I was so dragged out because of my almost all-night TV that I napped during the day. I slept a lot though it was an hour here, two hours there.

I was too tired to cook are even prepare what might be good for me like salads or vegetables. I did buy lots of easy cooking things like pizzas or breaded chicken. McDonald's was a convenient stop for me though I did manage to avoid the heavy meats, most of the time. I cut up potatoes and roasted them. I found artichokes and steamed them. I read that tomatoes and broccoli were a great combination to defeat prostate cancer and loaded up on them. Then, the same publication said they had it wrong, there was no medical evidence of any prevention. As I continued toward a simpler diet that suited my declining preparation abilities, a new phenomenon came on me.

Almost immediately after I finished a big salad or a any meal for that matter, I was hungry. I couldn't figure this out although someone did suggest I might have an ulcer. When I looked up ulcer symptoms, hunger wasn't one of them. Stranger still, these hunger pangs started occurring while I was eating, maybe half-way through the meal. I tried different foods even resorting to McDonald's, Korean and Chinese foods and even Zippie's and nothing changed. I always got hungry. The only answer I got was from my acupuncturist, who said I had too much "heat" in my stomach. That didn't change much, not even my understanding of what was happening.

I thought I might have some sort of stomach acid problem through a self-diagnosis and administered my first-aid. I mixed some baking soda and water, drinking that. Surprisingly, the hunger pangs went away, almost immediately. Whenever I began to feel these pangs, I drank my concoction and felt relieved. I began to depend on this solution to the extant that if I was hungry at all, I drank. I didn't have to go anywhere or cook anything. If I woke up hungry at night, I drank. When I watched TV for miracle appetite-loss cures, I thought I had something worth advertising. But, there was a downside to this miracle--distress in the lower tract, if you know what I mean. Suffice it to say, that what went down as food came out with much greater vigor than I was used to, so fast that several times I wondered if it wasn't a good idea to just go ahead and sleep on the toilet seat instead of sprinting to it at night. "Just In Time" is not just a manufacturing term, I can tell you from experience.

Surprisingly, the food I most wanted to avoid--Mickey D's, Kal-Bi, Lemon Chicken--comforted me the longest, something I still puzzle over. One would think that all that salt and MSG couldn't possibly have anything to do with satisfying an appetite. Perhaps it was the bulk of each of these meals: the bread in the Crispy Chicken sandwiches or all the rice in the others that lined my stomach. I still don't know for sure but I think I have an inkling. Years ago, someone said if I felt hungry after a meal, it was because I was not getting enough fruits and vegetables. The adventure continues as I add a plethora of fruits and wait for the results. I'll keep you informed.

Through this past month, I've been undergoing acupuncture and massage and the results have been remarkable. For one thing, a hip pain that had me limping for almost a year disappeared almost completely. After about five massages, it reappeared with a vengeance, this time involving the entire leg with pain shooting from my thigh to my toes. I lived on Ibuprofen. I had started a gentle excessive program during the month as I was no longer limping but, that came to a screeching halt since I could bare roll over in bed. I was so disappointed with this turn of events because I was looking forward to slipping on my shoes, hat and sunglasses and going for a morning stroll around Nanakuli. I was feeling stronger, lighter and my unswollen ankles were proudly showing veins and tendons. Now, I was back on my butt, or rather my back, feeling sorry for myself. That was a feeling that gripped me the entire month to which I'll get shortly.

The acupuncture has affected me in ways I never thought. I did feel very tired after my sessions which was explained as normal since acupuncture releases a lot of energy and I wasn't used to that. I might be in bed the entire next day, recovering. One effect was on my diabetic "neuropothy." These are pains in various part of the body caused by nerve endings firing off at will. These pains were typically in my thighs, knees, calves, shins, toes--in short all over my legs. But, they found other places, too, like a finger or an elbow or the side of my head. In the past, I found relief by drinking copious amounts of water along with taking non-prescription pain killers. The pain was usually intense and brief, a lot like someone using pliers deep in my body. Other times, it was like hitting my funny bone only the action was in my finger or toe. Sometimes, the pain throbbed and lasted for 24 hours. In any case, acupuncture seemed to have an affect on this as the frequency and intensity subsided almost immediately. It hasn't gone away completely but we're on the right track, I think.

Another effect was on my diabetes. Right after I started these treatments, my blood sugar started changing for the better, so much so that my insulin injections were giving me trouble. I discovered the change when I woke up in the morning with my blood sugar so low that I had to find candy, maple syrup, anything sugary to allow me to function. I was near fainting. My insulin was driving the blood sugar too low. What was happening was that the acupuncture worked on my pancreas which released my own insulin and that, combined with the shots, had my body using up all available blood sugar to satisfy the insulin. My primary doctor reduced my daily level of insulin and changed my injection time to mid-evenings. I continued to check my blood sugar and found to my amazement that when I forgot to take my shot, my blood sugar levels were normal anyway. I began experimenting by not taking the injection at all to see what would happen; nothing did. My sugar levels normalized. I can only attribute this to the acupuncture. My diet is just as screwy as before. My exercise is off and on. All hail acupuncture!

More, next time...

Some News

2007-06-24T12:20:00.000-10:00

The latest news is: The cancer is coming back. After some 7 months of
relative quiet, my PSA (prostate cancer activity measurements) are
elevated and rising rather quickly. In March I was at 7.9 (not
necessarily healthy but better than the 48.5 when I was admitted.) At
the end of May I was at 22. That’s alarming because it’s about half of
what put me in hospital and could mean a serious operation.

I lay this increase squarely at the feet of my response to the “idiot”
and all she did from March until the end of May. I have said that this
was the most despicable person I have ever known and the stress caused by dealing with her antics—I believe—triggered this episode.

I’ve done several things to handle this. I made a follow-up
appointment with an oncologist who is running a clinical trial of a
prostate cancer vaccine that involves getting my immune system to eat
my prostate cancer cells. If you’ve seen much news about prostate
cancer lately, you may be familiar with a new treatment called
“Provenge” for which the FDA is delaying approval. This regimen is
similar to that. I think it involves 12 injections a week for 6 to 12
weeks. When I first applied in April, my treatments—such as they
were--had not failed which was a prerequisite for inclusion in the
local trial. This same doctor prescribed hormone treatments of
excessive estrogen to overcome my male hormones, which typically drive
prostate cancer growth. Other than my watching “Oprah” and “All My
Children” religiously, asking everyone if I look fat in my jeans, doing
my nails incessantly (yes, toes, too), constantly cleaning the bathroom
and yelling at my roommates when they don’t let me know if they’ll be
late for dinner, I haven’t noticed any side effects from the extra
estrogen...

But now that treatment is failing so, other than chemo and radiation,
on to stronger stuff.

In the meantime, I applied for and received a medical “grant” to pay
for massage therapy and acupuncture which aren’t covered by my
insurance. My first sessions were this past Thursday. Let me ask
you, why did I wait so long? The results from both these first of ten
sessions were immediate. For the longest time, I’ve experienced pain
in my left hip so bad at times I literally crawled to the bathroom.
I’ve had little feeling in my extremities because of the diabetes
slowing down my circulation. I could only sleep for two hours at a
time before rising to urinate. I tell you, all that went away within
48 hours of those treatments. The massage was relaxing for sure but it
worked on the pain somehow, which is now gone. Some feeling is
returning to my feet and hands because of the acupuncture, which also
addresses my liver and pancreas. I slept for more than five hours at a
stretch last night; an absolute delight!

The acupuncturist asked if I was afraid of needles but, since I’ve been
injecting insulin daily since last year, I fear nothing. In fact, I
didn’t know they were inserted until I looked for them in my hands,
legs and feet. She said most men are afraid of the needles and most
women aren’t. I may be more of one gender than the other because of
the hormone treatments but it doesn’t matter. I just want to be cured
whether I’m wearing pink and chartreuse or lovely white Guess jeans…

Anyway, this is just to keep you up to date, “Dahlings” (Damn that
estrogen)!

I Think About You

2007-06-22T16:54:00.000-10:00

“When I am alone,
“I think about you.”

I remember looking at you as you glided toward me
Thinking of the graceful walk and the loving smile
As you came to me. I see the gentle curves of your body and raven hair flowing across your shoulders and away from your stately cheeks
As you ease your way into this space we call our own.
I see your soft, ivory hand reaching for mine as you settle
Next to me and I look deep into your rich, mahogany pupils;
Transfixed am I by you no matter where I am because for sure

“When I am alone,
“I think about you.”

“When I am with others,
“I think about you.”

Their chatter means nothing to me, their joshing and
Good-natured ness is of no comparison to your soul
And how it envelopes me or your sigh of contentment
At our being together. I envision you moving among
My friends so easily, charming and warming them
With just a comforting word or a knowing wink so
Simply dispensed and so devastating to those that hunger
For your appreciative nod and your accepting them into your world.
I am suspended in thought among their jostling energy for no
Matter how hard they try to hold my attention, surely they must know

“When I am with others,
“I think about you.”

“When I am with you,
“I think about you.”

I feel the gentle touch of your fingertips on my temples
Your palms on my cheeks as you bring my face to yours
And your lips lightly brush against mine for what must be
An angel’s eternity even though this brief moment is just that.
I know the rising passion from just that simple encounter
And slide my arms around you vowing to never let you go into
Any other time zone without me, to always breathe in your rhythm,
To honor the soft tremor of your voice with nothing louder,
To listen to your heart, to hear your ministering, to accept you,
To protect you and bless you, for surely you must always know

“When I am with you,
“I think about you.”

And, So It Goes

2007-06-01T10:33:00.000-10:00

The judge turned to me and said, “Mr. Hoyer, in regards to your Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), you as the plaintiff will have an opportunity to tell your story and the “respondent” (the Former Female Tenant) will tell hers and then you can ask her questions and then she will ask you some questions. Do you understand the process?” I answered that I did and said, “Well, Your Honor, it all started about a month or so after the respondent moved in…”

“But Judge,” blurted the Former Female Tenant (FFT), “What about my TRO against him? I called the court and they said it was okay to file it close to my home and then they said it was wrong to do that but I want my TRO against him to be heard right now at the same time; how come I can’t get that done?”

The judge replied that this was not about her TRO against me, this court was in session to hear my TRO against her and in any case her TRO was not even here in front of her. “Besides,” said the judge, “If you wanted your TRO to be heard at the same time as Mr. Hoyer’s, you would have to file it here in Family Court and then we would have to find a schedule that would permit hearing both at the same time; is that what you want?” “Yes,” said the FFT, “That’s what I want!” “Court is in recess for a moment,” said the judge. She conferred with one of the court officers about the possibility of such an arrangement and was told that it would be near impossible to make it happen. The judge then turned to the FFT and said, “It’s not going to happen that way. We’ll proceed with Mr. Hoyer’s testimony. Mr. Hoyer, you may begin.”

“But Judge,” said the FFT, weeping now, “He broke the law when I was there picking up my personal belongings. He had the entire household watching and laughing at me and he was taking pictures of me; doesn’t that count for anything?” “Not right now, Ma’am; Mr. Hoyer, do continue.”

“But Judge,” interrupted the FFT, “He says he has cancer and that he only has only a year to live. How come he’s asking for ten year duration of his TRO against me if he only has a year to live?” Again, the judge turned to her and said, “Well, maybe he’ll beat the odds and live longer than ten years.” “But, what if dies in a year, what happens then?” At this point, I thought I’d get an edge in word-wise and said, “Then the entire subject is ‘moot.’” “Yes,” said the judge, “If he dies before the ten year limit expires, then the TRO is moot.” “Moot?” said the FFT. “What does moot mean?”

The only sound next in the courtroom was the thud of my forehead hitting the table top. This was a question posed by a person who purported to hold a master’s degree from somewhere and had taught somewhere else for eighteen years. Surely, I thought, the word “moot” would have turned up in her lexicon at some time during all that study toward an advanced degree and the spreading of precious knowledge on her hundreds of students during eighteen years of teaching. But, no, in a living room-sized courtroom with a surprised judge, a bailiff, several court workers and myself—all of whom knew the meaning of “moot,” [irrelevant]—the FFT was admitting to ignorance and displaying it nicely.

It’s long been my opinion that the FFT was not a complete idiot since she never finished Idiot School as a background check revealed. As well, I learned to hold another opinion of her which was I could always tell when she was lying because her lips were moving. With these two thoughts uppermost in my mind, I took things in stride for the balance of the TRO proceedings. I must admit that I laughed a lot during it all.

Consider this exchange:

“Look, Ma’am, if he does die before the TRO term is exhausted, I can’t order him not to approach you from ‘The Great Beyond;’ it can’t be done.” “Well,” said the FFT, “You could if you believed in the life ever after.”

I had prepared some 40 pages of evidence and testimony prior to this hearing. All of it was in front to me, including the TRO I filed against her following her physical attack on me. I was ready, though, for this entire episode to be concluded and was pretty near ready to agree to almost anything to get this woman out of my life for good or at least for ten years. The judge then proposed that we agree to a ten year “mutual” TRO wherein the FFT could not approach me closer than 100 feet or 100 yards from my home or workplace and the same conditions would apply to me towards her. There would be no findings of guilt included in this mutual TRO, my 40 pages notwithstanding. All we had to do was agree to the ten year moratorium on contact with each other and the hammer would fall with court adjourned. I immediately understood this would end it all—no more courtrooms and no more dealing with the FFT. I said yes right away. I told the judge I had no problem with disposing of the papers I presented and also that I completely understood what I could and could not do with this proposed compromise. The judge asked the FFT, if she understood and her response was, “But Judge, what about my TRO against him?” I pointed out to the judge the court documents I had indicated her TRO had been “terminated” (meaning dismissed) three weeks ago and she said to the FFT, “Look, Ma’am,” all this ends today if you agree to stay away from him as he has already agreed to stay away from you for the next ten years. How about giving us a decision?” The FFT said she would have to call her lawyer and reached for her cell phone. The judge said, “Not in here; make your call outside in the lobby. You have five minutes.” “Well, Judge,” said the FFT, “I may need more time. I mean what if his line is busy?” “Court is recessed for five minutes,” said the judge.

I was told to sit in the specified “Plaintiffs’ Area” until the session reconvened. Five minutes later, the bailiff came for me and I returned to the small courtroom, sat down and waited for the FFT to be escorted in. We all paused while she parked three bags off her shoulder, her purse and an orange and black wheeled case with two beach mats protruding from it into a corner, smoothed her hair and sat down. The judge asked her if she would accept the terms of her proposal and she responded, “So, this takes the place of my TRO? Can I still file one against him?” The judge told the FFT that she would dispense no legal advice from the bench regarding whether or where any TRO would be filed; she was only interested in the FFT’s decision regarding the mutual TRO—yes or no? The FFT mumbled that she would accept the terms.

The judge repeated the terms of this mutual TRO including one section that prevented either one of us from possessing firearms. “But Judge, does that mean I can’t own a firearm?” asked the FFT. “Unless you were a member of the armed forces and needed a firearm in the course of your duties, you would still have to get permission from this court to obtain a permit.” “But Judge, what if I applied for a security guard job and needed a gun; what then?” asked the FFT. “Same conditions apply,” said the judge. Surely, any security guard company would carefully examine anyone to whom they issued a firearm and equally anyone as unbalanced as the FFT would never be sent to guard a crate of oranges much less a nuclear facility.

Court was finally adjourned and I awaited the paperwork. I had been in the courthouse since 7:45am and it was now 1:00pm. When the court officer, Tia, presented me with the final papers I simply said thanks and concluded with, “I don’t wish her ill, Tia. I only pray that she can get some help, somewhere. She may well be intelligent and possibly useful to society, somehow. So many people have asked me if she was on medications of some kind and I’ve had to say I didn’t know. Perhaps I was too close to the situation and unable to be disinterested to say for sure. In any case, Tia, this is over which is all I care about.”

I’m told the FFT now lives on the beach close by Nanakuli. She is on welfare and food stamps presently.

And, so it goes. What goes around comes around.

I wish her well…

One Very Lucky Man

2007-05-29T08:04:00.000-10:00

I have seen your smile,
That infrequent smile,
That smile of immense proportions,
That smile of stellar qualities,
That smile that stops time and makes me feel
Breathless and stunned but, I know
That someone else has it bestowed on him limitlessly and,
Whoever he is, he is
One very lucky man.

He knows that smile, that smile that brightens any place
And any time of day,
That smile, the one that arrests him and makes him a willing prisoner
Of affection and love,
That has him gleeful and giggling at any hour, anywhere,
Even when all he does is close his eyes when he’s away from you
To remember what your smile does to him, and
Whoever he is, he is
One very lucky man.

He’s known the touch of your smile
From across the room or across the meadow
And how his step falters as that smile falls on him
And it seems the full brilliance of the universe
Is all around him and,
Wherever he looks, he sees only pure beauty,
Only splendor,
Only grandeur,
Only richness unknown before that smile enveloped him, and
Whoever he is, he is
One very lucky man.

He’s felt your fingertips on his cheek,
Your forehead against his neck,
Your soft, gentle breath across his collarbones,
His own smile stretching across his face,
As you laugh with him, again.
He’s watched your eyes sparkle
As your smile lifts across your face,
He’s seen the way you tilt your head
As you laugh with him, again
And stopped his heart, again, and
Whoever he is, he is
One very lucky man.

I’ve wished and prayed for that man
To be me,
To be that one very lucky man.
I’ve endlessly hoped and thought
That it might be me who birthed that smile,
And who bathed in its magnificent depths,
Cleansed of all my sins,
Raised to heights unknown before that smile fell on me but,
Alas, it is and will always be--it seems,
That someone else is benefiting now and will forever and
Whoever he is, he is
One very lucky man.

Update From Far West Oahu, Act III, Scene 1

2007-05-15T11:20:00.000-10:00

Act III, Scene 1

Monday, 5am came and I shut off the clock radio. It had been a fitful night; sleep escaped me, exchanged by rabid thoughts of what could go wrong in this, my Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) presentation against the Former Female Tenant, FFT. I was groggy but sure I would make it to the downtown Honolulu courthouse in time for my 8 o’clock docket. I just wasn’t entirely sure I would prevail since the FFT was no longer living in the same house anymore. I thought that might be a leading factor in my own TRO being dismissed as she was no longer a direct threat to me.

I worried too much…

The express bus stopped in front of me and I boarded it at 6am. This was the worst ride I’ve ever had on “America’s Finest Bus System.” The driver had a lead foot both on the accelerator and the brake, alternatively rapidly hitting the gas and the brakes, almost like she had one foot on one pedal and another foot on the other. I think my abs got a great work out but I was really tired when I finally stepped off an hour and fifteen minutes later.

I arrived at the courthouse a few minutes later and sure enough, here comes the FFT, plopping herself down on a stone bench about ten feet away. My TRO says she must be 100 feet away from me at all times. She didn’t move, so I called 911. They promised to send an officer but, when the building doors opened at 7:45am, I went in, figuring the police were not going to show up. I laboriously climbed up two flights of stairs—remember, I’d had virtually no sleep—and checked in at the bailiff’s desk. They took my driver’s license and handed me a court ID badge to wear directing me to a hallway, which had courtrooms on the left and right, the end of which was reserved for TRO plaintiffs. I took a seat, acknowledging several people who were in my TRO class a couple weeks earlier. It was 8am. A cop called my name to ask if the FFT had done anything but sit a few feet away from me. He said the courtyard of the courthouse was a “common area” and that the FFT had to come there to get into the court. He did say that if she did anything else, he would help me “make a case against her.”

I asked a few of the other TRO’ers how they were doing since last we met. Some were still strong, some had weakened and were nervous that they might be arrested, since they themselves had violated the terms of their TRO’s by making contact with the defendant. Mine specifically stated—as did everybody else’s, I’m sure—that I was not to contact the defendant in any way, verbally, through someone else, by phone, email or semaphore flag, for that matter. Yet, in some cases, not only did the plaintiff make contact with their “terrorizer,” but the TRO was actually withdrawn not two weeks after the initial service. One guy, who was a plaintiff himself and who had worked within the TRO program as a volunteer for eight years, gave me some disturbing insights into the system.

He told me that the emotions and actions leading to a divorce or final imposition of a Restraining Order had the plaintiff leaving a marriage, as in a separation, or leaving a live-in relationship and issuing a TRO only to rescind it six times. He said the statistics were the same, whether people were married or just cohabitating a place. He told me of one woman, of Asian birth, married to a European-born man, who endured 40 years of abuse before finally coming to court. Not a week later, she dismissed the TRO and a week after that was in a dentist’s chair having her two front teeth replaced because of a blow by the husband.

He went on to talk about the people working in the system. Many “burn-out” after a few years. He said that their hearing the same stories, day after day, or seeing the same clients coming in month after month just got to them and they had to move on to something else. He also said that the TRO courts had the lowest burden of proof of any court in the land. In went like this: if the judge didn’t grant a TRO in what seemed a minor case of two people merely disagreeing with one another, that might be the very one case where death resulted and then the state would be sued for negligence.

I then sat next a university student, majoring in zoology, who I agreed to call “Stella,” after the character in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” We struck up a conversation immediately, covering a multitude of topics, one of which was her reason for being here this day. It seems her roommate in the college dorm was heavily into drugs—ice, cocaine and pot. Stella turned her in after the roommate threw a full bottle of wine at her during one of her binges. When Stella called the campus police, she was told to stay out of the way and say nothing. They were ineffectual in removing the roommate, even though campus rules forbad illegal drug use and so she called the police. The police told Stella later that the campus police are usually as lackadaisical as she just experienced but, they then got the girl out.

Stella was delightful to talk to. It didn’t matter that she was just two years into school and I was entering what for most is retirement years. We chatted like two friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while and were just bringing each other up to date. She was an artist at heart though she was studying how to care for animals, not as a veterinarian, but more like a zookeeper. She received dozens of art scholarship offers from many prestigious universities and art schools but turned them all down to follow her parent’s instructions: find something you can make money with; art won’t do it. I can’t understand how parents can ignore offers of a tuition-free education from people who recognize great talent and then tell their children to go for what they identify as a “sure-thing.” Stella admitted she was an animal lover and that from six years old she had naturally cared for sick and injured pets and wild animals with some success. Her heart though had always been in art and even showed her art teachers new ways of seeing and doing things, with several now teaching Stella’s methods. All too soon, Stella’s court time came and she was gone, leaving with promises to call or email me for a shared lunch.

Some 30 people were waiting for court times and one by one they were called in. I had been in this lobby since 8am and now, at 11:30am there were few others left, mostly just waiting for court orders to be written up and handed back. Finally, at 12:30pm, my name was called and I entered Judge Fujikami’s chambers.

The clerks told me to sit down at the end seat fronting the judge’s raised bench. This was a narrow room, almost like a hallway had been converted into a courtroom. The paneling was a soft mahogany, the seats comfortable as I took my place, opening my manila folder of TRO information in front of me.

The FFT entered next and took her seat on the opposite end of the room. A court clerk sat between us.

The judge then apologized for calling us in so late but there had been some difficult cases ahead of us that took more time than expected. He went on to say that because of court rules, he could not hear my case today and would have to “continue” (postpone) it until May 30^th. He asked me if that was okay with me and I said sure. Judge Fujikami than said, “Unless you can come to an agreement right now.” I asked him what he meant and he asked me what I wanted with my TRO. I replied that I expected it to remain intact; I was changing nothing. When he asked the FFT what she wanted, she pushed a fully stuffed manila envelope toward the judge say she wanted to enter the contents into evidence. The judge told her “not now” that she would have to save it for the trial on the 30^th. With that, he adjourned and I went to back into the lobby to wait for my paperwork.

When the clerk came out, I asked her just how I could enter further information into evidence. I had a 15 page log of the FFT’s actions and behavior and pictures of these that I wanted to provide. I also had a statement pleading with the court that my TRO be unaltered as although the FFT had moved out she was in a room in a house nearby in the same neighborhood. Since she hadn’t even returned her house keys she could still conceivably harass me within my home if she so desired. The clerk explained how to include this into the trial and off I went.

Frankly, I can’t imagine what evidence the FFT might have against me. I’m sure it is specious at best. Yet, judging from some of the results of other TRO’ers, something might come up that alters the judge’s view of things that has him changing the terms of the TRO, possibly against my interests.

Oh well, maybe he won’t commit her to a mental exam as I requested and that would certainly be a loss I could swallow.

More in Act III, Scene 2 after May 30^th…

Update From Far West Oahu, Act II

2007-05-12T17:50:00.000-10:00

As best I can reconstruct from my notes, the FT was attempting to get her combination lock to work so she could enter her room. Her room was hard by the front door and the light through that open door gave her just enough illumination to see the numbers clearly. As no one was going in or out of the house, I asked another roommate if he would kindly close and lock the front door. For some reason, the sudden lack of light caused her some consternation as she rushed toward me—of all people—(while I was standing in the kitchen) with her right arm extended downward and her fingers curled as she was going to “cup” or grab something; my genitals, perhaps? When I felt that grasp tighten, I broke free and called the police, who wrote up an assault charge on her and told me how to file a TRO against her and—for all our sakes (including theirs)—to do it soon.

These same cops had been out to the house numerous times on her behalf, I would later learn. She called them to throw out one roommate who had allergies that kept her awake. The FT told them another time that one roommate swore at her. She reported missing panties from the clothesline. If the cops could be called at all, they were, I found out; no reason was too small. They were kind enough to give me a phone number card to Family Court and even told me what to say when I connected.

I set an appointment for the following Monday and answered the court clerk’s request to describe the FT by saying she looked like a bowling ball on chopsticks and, as far as I was concerned, had the same intelligence. I went over some of the many actions she had taken against me and he suggested I had a case and to “come on down.”

When I arrived that Monday, I waited in the lobby for my name to be called and met one woman who was also intent on filing a TRO against her boyfriend, who was languishing in jail at that moment. I asked her why she was here and she told me her story of grief and anguish. I’ll spare the details of her horrific tale and just say I asked a couple questions of her. I asked her what was her first thought when the first bit of violence occurred. She said, “Oh, he didn’t mean that.” I then asked her did she ever think she deserved the violence as it recurred. She responded, “Oh, yes. After all, I was making mistakes, sometimes the same one more than once. Sure, I thought I needed correcting after time.” She went on to say that she finally realized what a mistake she made with this guy; that the pain was no longer acceptable when she watched him attack his own mother, subdued later by the police.

I asked others within this circle of “TRO’ers” what their experience was and much the same responses came forth. They forgave the first hit, accepted their on-going punishment and then reached a point of no-return. I am befuddled by these responses. I can only surmise that a weak self-image coupled with a self esteem dependent on someone else’s assessment brought many of these women to this courtroom. Somewhere, thankfully, they saw some value and worth in themselves, either on their own or through the intervention of some other loving person (a sister, in one case) and made a fateful decision to end the violence. Not that the TRO is an immediate solid wall of protection against the perpetrators of this violence; it can keep honest people honest. A TRO is only as good as the speed with which a cop can get there. In the main, it may even prevent an escalation of violence but the prevailing thought—as I observed it—was that it was a first step of many toward resolution.

I completed my presentation and awaited the judge’s decision as to whether mine would be approved. After about 20 minutes, the clerks returned and called out several names; they were to follow along to the second floor. It turns out these women were the most intensely in need of counseling and even physical relocation into shelters. The rest of us were handed our approved TRO’s. We shook hands and hugged each other in much relief and even exchanged our landlords’ home numbers if we needed to move to a new place. Although this TRO still needed to be delivered to the nearest police station (Waianae) to be served to the FT, I was ecstatic. My first foray into the judicial system and I felt victorious. It was only a matter of time now and the FT would be out of my life.

I just didn’t know how the clock would turn: in my favor or not?

I rode the bus back home and drove down to the Waianae Police Station to drop off the TRO. They asked if I had a picture of the FT and I presented one of her and an investigating officer as she blocked the front door to keep me from talking to him. That photo was taken on Sunday, the day before I filed the TRO and after she temporarily kept me hostage in the house. The desk sergeant said the patrolling officers generally kept a copy of the un-served TRO in their squad cars and would come by the house and see if she was there. I was to keep a copy with me at all times and to call 911 if she showed up. She did on late Monday afternoon. I immediately called the emergency folks but she was too fast—in and out in minutes. I followed her to the bus stop, keeping a running commentary going with the operator of her movements but the cops were too late; she was gone.

On Wednesday morning, at 4:30am, one of the roommates came to my room and told me the police were looking for me. I grabbed the copy of my TRO and met them at the front gate. They told me that the FT was entitled to return to the house within 24 hours of being served the TRO to retrieve personal items, like clothing. I told the police she hadn’t been served and showed him the “defendant’s” copy of the TRO over the fence. He muttered something and went to where the FT was sitting on the curb, returning with the actual served and acknowledged TRO to show me. I knew that her coming to the house was at my agreement and permission and I could have spared my roommates the disruption of her visit. I decided I would get this over with and invited the police to bring her in.

The officer told her she had 15 minutes to gather some clothing but, she ignored him with a high protesting voice saying she had to get her “things.” She dragged out a full suitcase on wheels, several black 50 gallon garbage bags and three or four flattened boxes. All the while, she was either muttering unintelligible phrases, identifiable prayers or accusations against one wheelchair-bound roommate that he “…brought young girls and boys into the house for the rest of them and even tried to prostitute me, Officer!” He responded by saying she had 10 more minutes. She wailed and cried out loud while packing as we watched. She begged the cop to help her. She slipped on one of the plastic bags and screamed out for an ambulance. The cop said she had 5 more minutes.

I went to my room and retrieved a Cuban cigar sent to me by a Canadian friend whose proviso was I only smoke it when I was in a celebratory mood. What better time than now, I asked myself. I lit up and made sure the exhaled smoke was full, thick and blown toward the front door, which the FT had to pass in and out of as she dumped her full trash bags and suitcases onto the lanai. What a rich aroma that cigar imparted to the morning dew…

Finally, she was done and dragged her worldly goods across the street awaiting a pickup. What a mess she left behind; a trashed room with a broken glass louver she admitted breaking because someone stole her room key. Sure; like someone her size could squeeze through a three inch high opening into her room. She even insisted on posing by the broken glass for a picture I took to show the landlord what she had done on Sunday, a few days earlier.

I asked one of the officers how they served her my TRO since she never returned to the house. He said when she finished reported me “running into” her with my car, they simply handed her my TRO and told her she was “…hereby served.” By reporting me, she made it easy for the cops to serve her.

There just didn’t seem to be anything more she could do or say that didn’t have us shaking our heads. Or, so we thought…

This past Friday, I was ordered to court to defend myself against a TRO the FT filed against me in District Court in Waianae. I rode the bus into town catching the express at about 6:10am. The court time was for 8:30am. At about 6:45am my cell fon rang with one of the roommates calling me. He said the FT was already downtown walking toward the courthouse. He described her outfit for me and hung up.

Well, I thought, she is actually going to go through with this. I didn’t give much credence toward her avoiding it as; after all, she might even have a stage for another performance. I arrived in town and went to court.

I was surprised to see my landlord there in the same court room. He was there on another matter and I asked if would stay on my behalf after his deal was done and he agreed. The FT came in, saw us and looked as if she was going to join us. The court made it clear that plaintiffs sat on one side of the room and defendants/respondents sat on the other. As soon as she made a move toward us, I said in a loud voice, while pointing to her assigned area, “SIT OVER THERE!” The bailiff looked at me, the court clerks looked at me but nobody said anything. The FT made a hard U-turn so tight a bobby-pin looked loose and sat down. Two people came in, sat down with her for about three minutes and left; witnesses perhaps?

The court went through all the cases to determine how difficult and time consuming they might be and came to our case. I told the judge I was protesting my being here as the TRO was not in my name although I had signed for it in my proper name. He said no matter, we will proceed and directed us to sit down until called. I didn’t feel defeated on this point so I waited confidently until we were called a second time.

The judge asked the FT if she really wanted to go through the entire process of “validating” the TRO by virtue of a hearing and she said, “Yes.” The judge tried reasoning with her saying that he didn’t see much in the TRO of merit and that the hearing might well go against her. She insisted the hearing take place. We were sworn in and asked if we would affirm or swear to tell the truth. I said, “I swear.” The FT said, “So help me God!”

The judge asked the FT to speak first about the recent TRO violation on my part. She said that I almost hit her with my car as she described the incident. The judge turned to me and asked me how I felt about her remarks. Well, he asked me how I felt about her comments and I said, “Flabbergasted!” He quickly grinned and changed the question to have me tell my version of the events which I calmly did, adding that the FT no longer lived at the address. He swung around to her and asked if that was true. She paused and said that was correct. He asked where she lived now and she replied that she was in a room in the same neighborhood. He then asked when was the last time she slept at the house and when was the last contact she had with me. He then said a short recess was in order and told us to wait at the witness table.

The judge returned and once again reaffirmed the dates of the last night at the house and the last contact with me. He turned to me and asked if I accepted these facts and I concurred. He then announced that since some harassment may have occurred in the past the fact that she was no longer in the domicile made continuing this TRO against any future harassment moot. “Besides,” he said,” you filed this TRO in the wrong court; it should have been filed in Family Court. This case is dismissed and court is adjourned.” “But,” the FT blurted out, “Your Honor, I called the number given to me and they said it was okay to file it in Circuit Court at Waianae!” “Well, they gave you the wrong information; case dismissed.’ “But, Your Honor,” she blurted out. “Listen,” he said, “This is my courtroom and what I say goes here. This case is dismissed!”

I was shaking my head as I left the courtroom with my landlord, asking, “What’s the word of the day? D-I-S-M-I-S-S-E-D!”

My next day on court is Monday, May 14^th, where I present my case for the TRO filed against the FT. I am confident I will prevail.

More later…

An Update From Far West Oahu, Act I

2007-05-12T17:41:00.000-10:00

Some of you have stayed in close touch regarding the incidents at “Nanakuli House,” by phone, Instant Messenger and email. I can tell you your support has been most gratifying and helpful. Some days were darker than others and although this saga has a few more days before concluding your being there was the many bright spots. Thank you…

Before I begin a short history to date, I must take my hat off to anyone involved with resolving anybody’s issues or problems, anybody in the human resources industry. For example, I’ve been working my way through the judicial system as I filed a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the female tenant (FT) and as I responded to a TRO filed by the FT, herself. Without exception, everyone I met and worked with was a delight, helpful and sincere. These court clerks and administrators daily have to deal with horrific stories and--without prejudice--guide abused and shattered people to carefully prepare legal paperwork (TRO’s) prior to presentation to a judge for approval. They do this day-in and day-out. I saw them as kind and gentle throughout the time I spent with them. My hat is doffed.

All I had to do was get my thoughts together well enough to be coherent when I put pen to paper for my TRO against the FT. I was at least smart enough to bring those tracks of words to the TRO “Training” session and put them in between the appropriate paperwork before the judge saw it all. These clerks had to hold hands and dry tears as the “plaintiffs” struggled to describe why they were there. I saw a part of humanity I’ve never been exposed to; indescribable physical, mental and psychological violence between once seemingly loving people. I thought my TRO—albeit containing a reference to violence against me—was just not comparable to the stories I was hearing from others in this classroom. What I found was that violence is violence no matter the source or delivery method. My TRO was approved by the judge as the “kick-out” type meaning should the FT appear on the premises I was to contact the police and they would immediately kick her out of the house.

I waited all night and into the next morning, barely asleep, listening intently for any door creak that might indicate her return to the house and my signal to the cops. I was exhausted from the waiting but mostly from the FT’s aberrant behavior over the last several months which intensified daily. I was eating poorly and what I did get down didn’t stay down for long because of my strained nerves. My concentration was strictly on how quickly I could respond to anything the FT said or did. I thought of little else except how to counter her every word or deed and to protect myself as best I could. I leaned folding steel chairs against the house doors that would crash to the floor and awaken me, warning me that she had returned and I was to call the cops to serve my TRO.

But you sometimes can’t wake the dead from sleep and that’s what happened to me.

I didn’t hear the chairs clatter to the tiled floor when the door opened and I barely responded when the cop was shaking my shoulder as he stood over my bed. I had slept maybe an hour when I was so rudely awakened. He announced he was here to serve a TRO on me filed by the FT. What a wake up call.

The TRO was addressed to one “Richard California.” I pointed out this discrepancy to the cop but he dismissed my comments by telling me the FT didn’t know my last name and just entered my birthplace. I told him I was from Brazil. It didn’t matter to him. I was Richard. He was here to serve the TRO and I was “it.”

I was in a stupor from the lack of sleep, lack of food and the effects of daily medicines I took for my cancer, diabetes and high-blood pressure. I couldn’t think well enough to realize I could reject the TRO because of incorrect name. The cop asked for my ID and told me where to sign. I followed his directions. It was early Tuesday morning and I decided to go to the supermarket and get something to eat.

On returning, I turned into my street from the highway and saw the FT trying to cross from one side to the other—outside of the crosswalk. I stopped my car and waited for her to clear the roadway, watching her every step. She appeared confused as she then crossed in the opposite direction while now at the crosswalk and even attempted to cross the highway as heavy morning traffic waited for her to get across. She turned around and went back to the sidewalk and stood there waiting for a bus to pick her up. I went home.

The next afternoon, cops came back to the house to speak to me. Apparently, by waiting for the FT to safely cross the road, I had violated her TRO against me by “…making contact.” I had to explain my actions in writing waiving my right to attorney which didn’t concern me much. This whole episode in my life was a simple test of confidence and I had plenty of that, I knew.

When the FT moved in some five months ago she irritated me by never staying on any subject for very long, simply starting to talk about something else literally mid-sentence. Too, virtually everything she said was a commentary on her life, delivered in such a way to have the listener feeling sorry for her. There wasn’t a conversation with her that didn’t have its focus on her. It occurred to me that if an opera were to be written around her self-centeredness, it would be called, “MeMeMeMeee!” I finally gave up communicating with her at all and spent most of the following months ignoring her.

Over the recent weeks her behavior became more bizarre and inexplicable. When I tried to tell others what the FT was doing, virtually everyone asked if I knew anything about her medicines. One cop even suggested I contact her doctor and get him to either “…up the meds or down the meds.” I didn’t even think about prescriptions on her part; I just thought she was weird. For instance, she would turn all the house lights on in every common area at night such as the kitchen, bathrooms and hallways and if any of us—like myself—turned them off, they’d be back on in five minutes. Or, she would turn all the water taps on full so that splashing water resounded throughout the house and especially into my bedroom, which had two bathrooms just out side my door. When the trade winds blew, the FT found a way to prop doors so they would bang open and closed with every gust. How about this one? I toasted my bagel in the toaster oven for five minutes each morning. One day, sensing the five minutes was about up I returned to the kitchen from my bedroom to find that she had extended the toasting time another five minute, scorching my last bagel.

The FT would become active in the kitchen at 11:00pm and wouldn’t let up until 4:30am or so when she would replace the pots and pans banging with KGMB radio loud enough to disturb the household. She wailed and wept as she prayed or read aloud from her bible. She…well, you get the picture—she was not well and I’m a layman.

What I didn’t expect to happen was a surge in confidence to confront this FT at any time. If words needed to be uttered, they formed at my lips and issued forth with my hearing them for the first time as they vibrated in the atmosphere. I thought of nothing when I approached her, I simply watched myself interact with this person, dominating her entirely. There was not a single word or phrase that she could say that was not met adroitly. She just didn’t just meet her match in me, she was so overmatched, so intimidated that she was reduced to tears and statements like, “You’re, you’re no good!” That’s original, wouldn’t you say?

I kept a journal of these behaviors—physical and verbal—and recorded as much as I could remember at the time it happened, even if it was two in the morning. I had an idea that journal would come in handy; I just didn’t know when or how. I even transposed cell phone messages left by the FT on another housemate’s voicemail as a part of the record. The more I wrote down the more bizarre and unreal her actions seemed to become. I’m not sure she wasn’t already doing some of the things I noticed at an earlier time (when I was ignoring her) though it did seem the intensity increased.

By now, she managed to alienate everyone in the house and they all wanted her out. One even threatened to deduct one day’s rent from the monthly rental for everyday in May she was still in the house. That got the landlord’s attention more than the constant barrage of calls from all of us complaining about this nuisance, the FT. All that was really needed was a spark that would light this tinderbox and she could quite possibly be gone.

She delivered that spark to us on a Friday with her attack on me.

A SIX MONTH ADVENTURE

2007-04-24T20:08:00.000-10:00

This might be a bit graphic so, be aware.

Yesterday was a six month anniversary of sorts, although champagne and chocolates were hardly in order. I refer to the semi-annual replacement of two internal “stents”—plastic tubes, actually—that deliver urine from my kidneys to my bladder. These were put in place in October, 2006, by drilling holes into my back and then feeding the tubes down to the bladder. All this was done while under a local anesthetic and guided by x-ray images relayed to the surgeon. While these have been in place, passing urine has been a “joyful” affair, considering what prostate cancer does to that act for a man.

There are parts of yesterday that made it an adventure and I’ll start with some things that have been ongoing since December. I’ll spare the Dear Reader a blow-by-blow accounting of most of the personal issues I have endured except to provide a bit of a picture of what it’s like to live in a house occupied by five other people, none of whom are related. In this instance, I’ll focus on some odd behavior that, frankly, made me glad I was headed out of the house to surgery for the day. Maybe that is odd behavior in itself, preferring the hospital instead of the comfort of home but, perhaps things will come clear.

I set my alarm for 6:00am as Bill was coming by an hour later to give me a ride into Pali Momi. I was already up anyway long before that as the female tenant (“FT”) approached my room at about 4:30am and announced through my closed—and locked—door, “Hope you enjoy ‘loser’s land.’ I’ll add that to the list!” I have no idea to what she is referring.

This was just one incident in a string of many that shined a light on some of the oddest behavior I have ever experienced. This FT moved into the house sometime in December. There were five men living here. She seemed somewhat intelligent in the beginning weeks, buttressed by her repeated assertions that she had a master’s degree and that she taught school for some 18 years. I found any discussion of virtually any subject with her difficult as she couldn’t seem to stay on the discussion thread for very long, diverting the talk by interjecting other subjects altogether.

One of the housemates took umbrage at her moving in and began berating her for a variety of issues, much of which I wasn’t aware. This relationship—or lack thereof—took a turn for the worse when the FT cried tearfully every morning after these sessions. The rest of us men in the house looked at the situation and deemed it worthy of discussion with the landlord, if for no other reason but to get some calm and harmony within the household. We couldn’t seem to reason with either one of these combatants what with one yelling and the other blithering. Maybe a meeting with those of us concerned with chivalry and a lady’s honor would defuse these circumstances and all would be happy.

What a surprise--we later found out--that we meeting-attendees were as much actual victims as the one portrayed by the failed graduate of “Bad Acting School.” The FT hooked us all into believing she was a “poor thing,” misunderstood and not appreciated by certain segments of society and we should take her side as “gentlemen.” We did stand up for her yet, to this day, not a thank you in word or gesture as ever emanated from the FT. We made things better not only for her but, for all of us.

Or, so we thought…

As the year progressed, the FT called attention to her every act. If she as making morning instant coffee in the microwave, the door would slam shut loudly. If she was heating up a can of soup, she constantly had to borrow a can opener. The radio blared in the bathroom whenever she showered causing other roommates to bang on the door to ask her to turn it down. She would leave the back door open when doing her laundry in the washing machine allowing flies to enter the house en masse. Her response to requests that this habit be reversed was, “I’ll do it when I’m good and ready!” The FT took a liking to one of us and began a hugging campaign on him and even went further by exposing herself to him, completely nude, by delaying her entry into the running shower. She began lifting food from us out of the common refrigerator a little bit at a time and since she was the only one in the house that did not keep anything in that icebox, we suspected her immediately.

She burst into my room from time-to-time to ask my opinion of what she was wearing. When a bowling ball on toothpicks asks me anything in the fashion arena, I turn away.

Her behavior became more overbearing and disturbing. Once, she demanded that I allow her the use of my PC so she could check her email because, “If I don’t do it today, it will all be removed from the server—forever!” I said too bad... She yelled at others when she was bathing if they deigned to flush a toilet or draw some water from a faucet as this lowered the water pressure at the showerhead. She constantly left the kitchen light on all night to give her a “sense of security” when going to and from a ½ bath at 4:30am. When I challenged her about this so-called security at 8:00am, she responded by going outside, slamming the outer screen door and the fence gate and proceeded to shout loudly—in the middle of the sidewalk, in full view and earshot of neighboring homes—that all she wanted “…was to go to the bathroom in peace and security; is that so wrong?” At another time, she went out to the roadway and loudly sang “God Bless America.”

She constantly talked to herself while in her room or in the bathroom, usually hurling epithets toward one or more of us regarding our behavior toward her. She loudly played a Christian music station from 4:30am, as well, waking up everybody around her. She would read out loud in the kitchen from her bible while the rest of us made our breakfasts and even tried to reason with her about how inane this all was. The FT regularly posted various brochures about the Christ in the common areas and we regularly tore them down. She seemed to have two personalities, one that was charming and the other that was evil, wicked mean and nasty and she could switch between these two at will.

The FT believed the police could solve anything for her. When she was upset by one of the tenant’s allergy problems (sneezing, hacking and coughing) she tried to get the police to throw him out. When one of the guys called her an unbecoming name, she got the police to respond by saying she was being “attacked.” They advised us to get the landlord to evict her as soon as possible, surely lending that advice after reading three or four pages of an FT behavior log I maintained on a daily basis.

She constantly left messages on one house mate’s voicemail of what she planned to do to the rest of us, especially me and another guy, including charging us with harassment, defamation of character, stalking and being peeping toms. She claimed to have filed a report with New Hope Mission (a church), the Department of Human Services and the Kapolei Police Station. We checked through a local prosecuting attorney and no notices were ever placed.

My patience ran out when she stole food from me and then claimed she thought it was someone else’s. When a ½ pizza disappeared from my section of the fridge, I pointed the finger at her and she denied it. She called me a “pervert” and announced I was frustrated and in need of Viagra in the presence of the housemates because I “…stayed up all night looking at naked girls on my PC.”

We reported this behavior to the landlord so often he stopped returning our calls. He asked me to send him a copy of my log and I complied. He said he would use this log as a basis for eviction—along with the more serious failure to pay the monthly rent for a second time. Not a single housemate got along with her except for, believe it or not, the very one that used to harass her in the beginning. But even he tired of her taking his food and lying about it. His opinion of her returned and he began arguing with her, even though I advised him “…never argue with a fool; people may not know the difference.”

When my friend, Bill, picked me up for the ride to the hospital, I told him that she had followed me out of the house, stared at me as I returned the city trash bin to inside the gate and then started reading aloud from her bible, loud enough that I had to get in my car to avoid it.

Our drive to the hospital was most pleasant as I learned more about Bill in those 50 minutes than I had in almost 25 years of knowing him. I got to Pali Momi at 8:00am with my surgery scheduled for 10:30am.

I was perfunctorily checked in by an administration person who needed a dose of charm school, quite unlike those in the medical specialties. Most of the former group has been quite pleasant during my recent visits. The entire latter group has been friendly and supportive in those same visitations. I was puzzled by the seeming difference in these attitudes; perhaps it was the difference in jobs. On the one hand, it’s a day of name, rank and medical insurance cards. On the other, it’s a variety of “procedures” among them the one I was about to go through.

At 10:00am, I was invited into a dressing area to mount into a backless gown and get punctured for my intravenous drip line. My blood pressure (BP) was high enough to alarm the nurse. I was nervous about what was about to happen and I was still thinking about the FT’s recent actions. For sure, this would cause anyone’s BP to elevate so; the nurse got a prescription for some “lowering” salve and applied it to my chest. It worked.

Next, I was wheeled into the real waiting area where I donned a shower cap and snuggled into some blankets because of my shivering. Fear and cold do familiar bedfellows make.

The last thing I remember was watching the overhead tiles and fluorescents whip by above me. When I got into the operating theater, the anesthesiologist said something unintelligible and I was out.

My urologist had earlier explained what was to happen. It was a “grope and grab” through my penis and into the bladder. He would find the old plastic tubes and replace them. He did warn me that if he couldn’t do this in one sitting (I was lying down, actually), then I’d be in overnight for a refit through my back as earlier explained.

I woke at 11:20am, just 50 minutes after going under, with the operation done. There was no pain anywhere probably because of those great drugs they give one. Seriously, I hurt no where. They wheeled me back to the waiting area I left earlier where I dressed and waited for my ride home with Timmy.

I was really thirsty. I think I drank almost a gallon of water and apple juice from 4:00pm until evening news time yet, I voided only a few tablespoons through my new tubes. I worried that something might be wrong since so little was coming out. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to be waking up almost every hour after midnight to urinate most of that gallon back to the environment.

I’m back, folks, better than new and grateful for the skilled hands that carried this off. Every six months, you say? No problem, I say.

By the way, more news on the FT: Today, the landlord set up her eviction. She has until the 30^th to vacate the premises. I send her love and no hate. She needs help desperately. We’ll tighten our “Sam Browne” belts and await her further actions.

Stay tuned…

A Failure of Courage, Part 2

2007-04-09T11:24:00.001-10:00

The only real solace I found was in long-distance running, at which I excelled. I discovered this lonely sport in the tenth grade when, at an annual school-wide run around the American school campus in England, I came in second to a high school senior who had won the event four years in a row. I stopped trying out for football as a 140 pound tackle and joined the cross-country and track teams. As a sophomore, I led in first place finishes not only against other American schools in England (where we lived as an Air Force family) and Europe but against English schoolboys, too. I was a Big Man On Campus because of my prowess in moving over the Earth at great speed and for long periods of time. Yet, in spite of my need to train, I was condemned if I didn’t replace the time involved to get our house’s grass tennis court mowed or the garden’s rhubarb chopped and readied for canning.

I continued running as a junior and senior in a 4,000 student high school when we returned to the States. I was County Champion in cross country, ran in the Illinois State Finals in track, as well, and was elected Captain of each team. I set various records in several events. I ran in an 11 mile road race against college and older amateur participants, coming in 7^th in a field of several hundred participants but, more importantly, was the first high school boy to finish. This personal victory meant nothing at home, of course, because being in this event prevented my scheduled Saturday leaf raking (it was autumn, after all) and since I didn’t do it, I got the silent treatment for a week.

All the while, my courage to talk back or to challenge their words and behavior toward me tapered off to a simmering resolve that I would get back at them, somehow. I would make them feel bad that they had boxed me in, categorized me as useless and my ideas “…not worth a hill of beans.” I would find a way to make my “rebellious” nature real—obviously, I was rebellious if I couldn’t fit into their dreams for me. I would “…show them a thing or two” (as they used to say to me). I would make them hurt. I would get back at them even if I was doing the suffering. I would make them wonder whatever did they do wrong that I turned out like this.

So, I flunked out of college, for starters.

How does anyone flunk out of the University of Hawaii (UH)? I found lots of ways; the main one being: don’t do anything. Don’t go to class. Don’t hand in any assignments. Blow up organic chemistry labs. I didn’t do that, but the small fires I created or the acid I spilled didn’t sit well with the lab assistants. I did well in things that interested me, like English composition or Public Speaking but, that wasn’t enough to save my academic career. By the fourth year of college, I had so few eligible credits that UH gave up on me and reported my status to the Draft Board, who promptly invited me down for a “Pre-Induction Medical Exam.”

I got out of military service because I had asthma as a child and was treated with the drug “epinephrine” after the age of fifteen. I thought back on my early-age asthma attacks and realized they coincided with my dad being away on one of his many military flying assignments. He left and I got sick. He came back and I got well.

More interestingly, I got well right in the middle of a doctor’s appointment. I associated the doctor with being a “father figure” and was so happy in his presence that I literally healed and stopped wheezing and coughing in his examination room. He was kind and solicitous and interested in my well-being; everything I wanted in a “daddy.” His very presence and touch honored me so much that I returned the favor by curing myself in front of him. He’d often look over to my mother and ask why I was here. She would say I was too sick for school so, that’s why we came by. This healing act didn’t last long, though. As soon as we returned home, I was sick again until my dad flew back.

I remember his being away on a trip and coming home with his usual cavalcade of souvenirs for the family. We were stationed in Germany at the time. My mom told my dad that I failed to be “The Man of The House” while he was gone and didn’t do something that fit the title. He looked at me with his cold, blue eyes and said that because of that I would receive nothing and to go my room. I was just seven years old and devastated that I was being held to adult standards already. The pain was intense. Being left out of the “goodies” was a terrible fate. “What did I do that was so bad that I was being punished so brutally?” He later opened my door and handed me something, telling me to quit crying and “act like a man.” Getting the goods alone and not in the presence of the family felt like being picked last for a dodge-ball game.

Slowly, in spite of the rave reviews some of my teachers and other adults heaped on me and told my parents about, truths emerged. I was insignificant and insensitive to their aspirations. I was thankless for all they’d done for me as “first-born” and upon whom the future of the family name depended as the only son. I was told I had no idea how they’d sacrificed for me. I couldn’t “…imagine what my becoming a doctor meant to the family name.” I didn’t understand that I was destined to be the first doctor in the family since my dad had to leave pre-med in college to “…go fight a war on my behalf” even though he didn’t marry my mom until seven years later and I wasn’t even born for another year after that.

Guilt was the watchword by which I lived. I felt guilty if whatever I was doing felt good or made me happy. If those emotions were present, then I was betraying my parents and their ”love” for me. If I was enjoying myself, I would soon feel their wrath. I had to remind myself constantly that happiness and contentment were for somebody else, not me. As long as I was in their presence, being correct was the guiding principle and if I didn’t know what to do, I “…should know by now; My God, haven’t you been listening?” Guilt heaped itself on me, again.

The little child within me, who only asked to be cared for, loved and nurtured, retreated to a safe place somewhere inside, licking his emotional and mental wounds. He didn’t emerge for a long while and when he did as a man, he was creative, imaginative, artistic, sensitive and joyful if only in short bursts. Even though these times overflowed with positive energy, I couldn’t assuage the feelings of foreboding and guilt that came with them, that somehow I would gain my parent’s diminution simply by doing something well on my own. I remember their taking the credit for whatever I did well. After all, it was their genes or their teachings that gave me the wherewithal for my individual success and achievement.

When I told my dad that I flunked out of college, I almost laughed in his face. I did get back at him. Here was something I did all on my own. I really disappointed him this time. I flunked out so I couldn’t possibly go to medical school now. I couldn’t possibly be the doctor he dreamed of my becoming.

Although I failed in courage to come right out and tell him years before, I had enough courage—albeit a strange application, for sure—to stop trying to be something I didn’t want to be, putting an end to the charade, once and for all. I told him I wanted to be a psychologist and he got back at me, saying they were “…a dime a dozen.” He won again, deflating my hope in doing something at which I did well as exemplified by the “A’s” I earned in those college subjects. That I wrote well and could speak well was backed up by high marks. No matter to him.

For the rest of the time we were a family “unit” in Hawaii, he ignored me except to tell me that since I wasn’t in school and now had a full-time airline job, I was going to have pay rent to help out. We lived in free government housing on Hickam Air Force Base. We shopped at the cheap government food commissary. Even my mom was working. He was a colonel in the Air Force, surely a high-paying job. What did he need with my money?

I decided that since I was going to have to pay rent somewhere, I would at least choose my roommates and I moved out a few weeks before he and my mom were transferred to their retirement home in Florida. So there! A glimmer of courage sparkled although it was dusted over by my leaving home for good. I could never go home again, as has been said. I did miss family life, such as it was. At least the cooking was great.

To this day however, anytime I hear about some group of people being “like a family,” I run the other way. The only family experience I ever had was what I described and no way was I going to repeat that anywhere in my adult life by choice!

And so, I emerged from this family’s cocoon with wonderful memories of things I accomplished outside of their influence (some while they still lived in Hawaii) but, with heavy emotional baggage.

I learned how to sail small boats in record time and went on to be named “Corinthian (Sailor) of the Year” by my yacht club, at 21, for my work developing the club’s youth program and for teaching others how to sail as a paid member of Hickam Harbor. I won two consecutive “Single-Handed Championships,” where I raced a fully rigged 20’ sailboat by myself, winning over men several times my age and with much more experience than me. I won the annual “Dillingham Regatta,” a sailboat race from Waikiki to Kaneohe Bay as the youngest ever in that same 20’ sailboat, “Gay Lady,” with my dad and a good friend as crew. I skippered “Gay Lady” to several islands in races and on leisurely cruises with friends.

My career in the airlines flourished and I married an artist, whose father was in the Navy as a flotilla commander. We moved onto a 22’ sailboat from an apartment, storing much of our goods ashore. It was a sweet life aboard. We could sit in one place and cook, answer the phone, adjust the TV, eat and wash dishes. We had many friends that moved aboard their boats, too, and we sailed as a fleet on almost every Sunday to Waikiki and back.

Life was good but I was bad. I treated my wife the same way my parents treated me. If she angered me I gave her the silent treatment. I put her ideas down if they didn’t agree with mine. I sometimes made fun of her in public. I was rotten and ugly. I felt so guilty whenever I treated her in these ways but, I didn’t know of any other example to follow.

I had wanted out of my family so bad that I proposed marriage before my parents left for the Mainland. I thought she would rescue me from the feelings of inadequacy imbued in me. She was a free thinker, pretty, intelligent, charming and loving. I challenged her with deep thoughts and sexy moves. I thought we were in love enough to marry and we did although my mother insisted we come to Florida to do so. After all, my wife’s mother and father were retired on the East Coast, too, so it made sense.

I was still afraid of my parents, believe it or not, and when my mom complained that my fiancée arrived on the pre-wedding flight without wearing make up, I went ballistic and confronted her. “How could you fly without make-up? What will people think?”

I write this some 30 years later and still shudder at that last statement, “What will people think?” It has been a thought that hounded me most of my life, up until now. No matter what I did, if it was table manner errors (for which I was often kicked under the table or had my mother’s high heel ground into my foot), a misspoken word or a mismatched pants and shirts, I was always reminded of, “What will people think?”

I was so traumatized by what people might think of me that I began thinking through what I might say or do, rehearsing my behavior, giving up spontaneity for correctness, especially around others. I moved through life as if I was in an airplane cockpit (albeit low to the ground; I’m only 5’7”) and guiding my body-fuselage with available controls over the earth and through my life.

Intimacy was out of the question. To tell anyone what my deepest feelings were risked them thinking I was weird or out of place. Even my two wives never really knew what was beating deep inside me. As long as I could get by commenting on something outside of me like politics or the stupidity of someone else’s actions, I felt safe. I seemed to act spontaneously but I would often review whatever I said or did and wonder how I got away with this or that. Maybe I was louder than anyone else. Maybe I really was original in my words and deeds, saying and doing things no one else thought of. Even as an adult, people seemed to like me and want to be around me. When I got drunk, I was a happy drunk, hilarious to a degree that even years later, others ask me if I remember something I did or said that had them rolling on the floor laughing. I could not remember, of course, perhaps because of being so loaded, though I think something deeper was afoot: hysterical amnesia.

As I grew up I seemed to remember less and less of what went on before. I could remember the pain of living within this family. I could recall the names, the slurs against me uttered by dad and (less often) by my mom. I remembered following one of them around the house trying to get the courage to ask permission to do something like go out with my friends somewhere and needing my allowance advanced. I knew I would get some kind of “no” and yet, I was happy when I did. Maybe I would avoid the turmoil of going out and then dealing with not having done something for which I would be punished. It was almost better to be at home unhappy, than sorry for going out. The good things that did occur, I seemed to forget; unable to recall. While the scientific literature is kind to this condition, saying it usually lasts a few minutes or a few hours, mine has gone on to this day.

Hysterical amnesia usually occurs as a condition of some psychological trauma and is looked on as temporary. It can involve short or long term memory. The two key phrases for me are “psychological trauma” and “temporary.” I’ll admit to the trauma which I’ve described thus far but temporary has me stumped; just how long is temporary?

My sister is the opposite of me in many ways. She is calm while I am excitable. She is thoughtful toward others while I can run roughshod over others feelings. She can remember everything and here I am, hopelessly lost in the land of forget-it-all. My sister can remember if not the full details of any event but, can include the date and what the weather was like. I’m being facetious. Compared to what I can remember about our pasts she is Encyclopedia Britannica and I am a comic strip. I can ask her about our history or more particularly my history and she has the facts and the first and last names of everyone involved. My sister never makes fun of my not remembering, she just answers patiently while I listen, fascinated at her recall.

I asked her a few weeks ago if she and I ever talked with each other about what was going on the family. She said no, we never did. It was like I kept what was happening to me to myself and whatever they did to her was her secret. We often heard, “What happens in this family stays in this family.” We were never to discuss anything on the inside outside the walls of our home. It appears that the two us took that admonishment to mean she and I could not speak about anything inside—inside either.

I’m getting close to the end of my adventure in being down about my past—that which I can remember, of course. Next time on “Brittleliquid’s Journey,” I’ll continue, perhaps with the startling revelations leading to my emotional and actual castration. It won’t be graphic but it will be descriptive.

Until then, peace to you, Gentle Readers.

Taking a Break

2007-04-05T11:22:00.000-10:00

While the last two posts have dealt somberly with negative emotions, today I wanted to take a break and just share a few things that happened over the last couple of weeks. I’ll sort through those--the good and the not-so-good—and present them not necessarily in chronological order, but on their effects on me. I’ve already written Part Two of “A Failure of Courage” and I’ll post it in a few days after editing.

As an aside, I received surprising responses regarding Part One. As I wrote it, I thought I was the only one who experienced about which I was writing. I thought that no one would believe me. Yet, people wrote me to say, “Dickie, if you thought you were all alone; think again. We went through the same things.”

I’m finding that what is common in those comments is the age of the people writing them. We all grew up in the 50’s and 60’s of American parents. These parents were of that group of people called by one notable newscaster as “The Greatest Generation.” His premise was that the generation who fought in WWII and Korea realized greatness for going to war and coming back to build a new USA. I ask where the greatness is when so many of their children suffer from low self-esteem.

On to this past week or so…

I thought I was lucky in love until my fiancée decided to lay down our relationship. To say I suffered a blow would be a massive understatement. Those of you who follow this blog know the depth of my joy at my being considered good enough to marry at my age, diseased and essentially penniless. (I live on Social Security, Medicaid and food stamps, right now.) Although she said her change of heart had nothing to do with me--it was her thoughts and feelings about herself that didn’t permit her to continue on--I still took it as a rejection. I will admit this loss was horrific and the pain more intense than anything I have ever experienced. I will also admit that my eyes finally dried out what with all the tears I shed.

In the end, this was a good thing. I resolved to be her friend, again, returning to a role I had for most of the last two years. In addition, I made a business deal with her that has her billing me monthly for her modeling services. If our feelings do change toward one another, we can still keep the posing going. I will survive and so will she.

That incident behind me, I continued on in my quest to achieve two goals: beat cancer and beat diabetes. I knew that my general health needed improvement in order to be better prepared to handle the two “biggies.” So, I started an exercise program and later added a new eating program that dates back hundreds of thousands of years.

My exercise program began with getting my running shoes on. To bend over and tie them was difficult, like trying to touch one’s toes while sitting down with a basketball in one’s lap. I could hardly tie them tightly because my feet were so swollen; they barely fit. But, once on, I was now free to move across the earth. I began my first week by walking for seven or eight minutes a day; not every day—I was exhausted after just a few sessions. I did get through those days gaining strength each day.

The next week, I doubled my time to 15 minutes a day. Surprisingly, this effort was easier than the first few days. I had strengthened myself so that the 15 minutes went by surprisingly fast. I was still walking in a protected area, a church parking lot, and it was quiet and devoid of traffic on weekdays.

The big change was extending my walking time to a half-hour a day. I was surprised to find I could walk from my place to the local supermarket and back in that time. Since it was open at the early morning hour of my stroll—6:30am—I even went shopping, bringing back my favorite breakfast, bagels, and to my delight at day-old prices. The change I mention was walking along the busy highway instead of a protected area like the church property or even the local neighborhood. The four lane highway carried the combined morning traffic of cars carrying their occupants to work or schools, school buses and huge diesel trucks loaded with containers or construction materials. The noise was horrific. I was very proud of myself for maintaining my new schedule and while I did take a day off or two, I kept on.

While my exercise continued an interesting thing happened. For many months, I suffered from a pain in my left hip that was virtually debilitating. I could hardly sit at my desk, stand or sleep. Getting into my car was like getting into a space craft. I had to edge myself in, hanging on to the door, the roof and the steering wheel until I could reach down and actually pick up and lift my leg onto the driver’s seat. Getting out was a similar ordeal only in reverse. I limped everywhere and couldn’t make sharp turns when I walked.

A Chinese doctor felt my pulse and told me I had arthritis. My primary care guy said my latest x-ray showed I might have cancer in that hip. All I know and care about is that the more I exercised the less pain I experienced. If I missed a day, the pain was mildly evident. If I missed more than two days in a row, I had to take Tylenol to quell the pain. That worked but, another of my goals was to be medicine-free and taking that stuff, while temporarily helpful was moving me away from my goal. So, I resolved to increase my time on the road to one full hour a day.

It was now my fourth week at this exercise game and I was up to one hour a day, a remarkable feat considering just a month or so ago I drove around parking lots looking for spaces really close to store entrances. If I had to walk far from my car, I found I could only do that once or maybe twice a month. Now, to my delight, I was walking far beyond the supermarket entrance along this busy highway, turning around a half-hour out and coming home tired but happy. I was so proud of myself for committing to a goal and achieving it.

About a month ago, just as I was starting my seven minutes a day program, my primary care doctor was berating me for gaining as much weight as I had since leaving the hospital (almost 40 pounds) and for having a blood pressure as dangerously high as I did—190 over 97. I blamed the insulin for the weight gain. I couldn’t possibly be my diet. I was only having one or two fast-food meals a week. I ate prepared salads I bought at the supermarket. I may have added a few pieces of breaded chicken to those salads but, those calories couldn’t have added all that many pounds. Okay, I did have one or two baked potatoes a day but again, the butter, sour cream and bacon bits surely didn’t outweigh the benefits of all the potato’s fiber. And then, a good friend, a vegetarian, re-entered my life and changed everything.

Bob and I worked together in the 80’s on a couple projects, one mine and the other his. I invited him to lecture at a weekend “camp” for our running club about the benefits of a vegan diet for runners. He was (and is) articulate and humorous and his message got to many of us. I remember one of his slides (no PowerPoint then) of the healthy “stool” or dump, something he said we should all aspire to. In a toilet was a stool specimen that filled the surface of the toilet water in a spiral measuring some four feet, coincidentally almost the length of the average adult large intestine. He told of that some African tribes, who eat nothing but roots, fruits, nuts, berries, bark and rocks (just kidding about the rocks) experienced these bowel movements three to four times daily. These people are trim and fit not only because of their diet but because of their daily long walks and the amount of fresh water they drank.

I decided I wanted be just like them so, I started my vegan adventure abut ten days ago because of a few recent, well-written paragraphs from Bob.

I gave my remaining chicken to one of my roommates. I took my food stamps to my closest supermarket and exchanged them for green leafy vegetables and peppers, carrots, tomatoes, onions and garlic. I got some inexpensive salad dressing, too. I started preparing and eating huge salads every day. I added brown rice to my routine, sometimes mixing it with the vegetables and heating up this concoction in the microwave for lunch or dinner. Overnight, it seemed, I started feeling differently—better, actually. And, wouldn’t you know, the “African Stool” happened for me.

Ten days after I adopted the walking and diet regimen, I was in my doctor’s office for my monthly check up. I thought I would be greeted with good health news and went through the various “vitals” measurements.

Weight: nine pounds lost since my last visit about a month ago. Blood pressure: 140 over 77. Sugar count: down from a daily average of 180 to 96—normal. And to what do I attribute these changes you ask?

Let me say I am still on daily insulin so some of the downward spiral in my blood sugar may be due to that. I’m also on a blood pressure (BP) drug to control those numbers. But, let me also add that my BP was always high whenever I went into his office, no matter the possible influence of the drug. I truly believe that the path I’m on is a big part of achieving the goals I espoused earlier: beat cancer and beat diabetes, the double deadlies of mine.

Watch this space for further updates on my progress.

A Failure of Courage, Part 1

2007-04-02T11:19:00.000-10:00

I go far into my childhood for a sense of a failure of courage when I felt victimized for not responding willingly to my parent’s urgings and downright directives that I become a medical doctor. When I resisted--as in not getting top grades in science and math (prerogatives for medicine) in elementary and high school--I was mistreated by them in some way. I was yelled at, they entered disparaging responses in my report cards returned to my teachers or I just got the silent treatment.

I endured an atmosphere of worthlessness so long as those grades were low. I couldn’t tap my courage as a seven year old or even eleven years later on leaving high school to say med-school was no place for me. I felt abandoned by my parents, so long as I could not please them in their only request of me: “…become a doctor so you can make us proud.”

Those subjects that required creativity such as English Composition, Sociology, Psychology or reports in Modern History gained me excellent grades. Those subjects didn’t matter to them and as a result, I spent most of my time feeling insecure and mistrusting of my ideas and dreams. Any family discussions of these were immediately replaced with questions about my sincerity toward becoming a doctor, the only goal from them for me.

The result was I hardly ever spoke about what I really wanted to do—be creative—with anyone. I shunned intimacy with best friends, girl friends and even trusted teachers or athletic coaches. I spoke the family line: “I’m going to be a doctor!”

I knew more about my acquaintances’ aspirations and how they were going to achieve them than I did my own. I carried an empty feeling inside me whenever I thought or talked about becoming a doctor. I had all the medical books money could buy, primarily as Christmas and birthday gifts from my parents. Gray’s Anatomy weighed in at several pounds but, the only thumb-worn pages were those picturing external female body parts. That book sat on my bookshelf with others of that ilk surrounded by dozens of model airplanes I built and painted—creativity on display? I should say so.

I’ll admit that my “inner child” was being slowly smothered as I grew up. All I wanted was for someone to ask me “…what did I really want to do?” All I wanted was to have my ideas and thoughts acknowledged and embraced as genuine and original. Yet, anything I originated was ignored or “pooh-poohed” as insignificant or unworthy of discussion in the family.

When I was with others, I was fun-loving and free spirited, a pixie, an elf, a “Pied Piper” bringing others to all sorts of activities. I led people on cave explorations; “spelunking” as it’s called. I formed a band with me playing my dad’s trumpet, having no idea how to play it but, sounding pretty good anyway. I created war stories and used my family’s 1954 Buick as a four engine bomber, even “bailing out” over Germany and evading capture. I turned a tree-hung rope swing into an aircraft carrier catapult, only releasing a “pilot” for take off when he had run up his engine (his voice) to my satisfaction. I got my friends to dig holes in the forest, cover the holes with boards we found at constructions sites and created underground forts for ourselves with small, smoky fires for cooking hot dogs.

But, get me home and I was neglected and ignored unless I was talking medicine or “operating” on my sister’s dolls. I tried being humorous and joyful at home but, that usually was met with distain or long stares. If I wasn’t practicing my piano (“We’ve paid a lot of money for those lessons”) or my penmanship (“See, your handwriting is so bad it’s obvious you’ll be a doctor”) or sitting at my student desk staring at books, then love was withheld, diminished or diverted somewhere else. “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” was a common utterance.

I was criticized and chastised for anything not measuring to their standards. “If you don’t get your elbows off the table, then I’m gonna insert razor blades, sharp side up on the table edge to teach you a real good lesson you’ll never forget!” “Sit up straight!” and the classic, “Children are to be seen and not heard!” was literally beaten into me. It wasn’t long before I began admonishing and punishing myself for my transgressions.

I remember hearing, “BOY?!” shouted up to me by my dad from the bottom of the stairs and feeling my heart leap as I scurried out of my room to find out what I’d done this time. Maybe I’d forgotten to take out the trash or left a can of paint open or missed a spot in the two acre lawn I mowed or left water marks on one of the car’s tires when I washed it. Whatever I did, I was afraid of the consequences.

I wasn’t physically beaten in those days; it was the mental anguish I feared the most. “How could I have… (insert here any manner of actions? Why was I so stupid? How could I miss something so small?” were thoughts that raged within me. It wasn’t enough that I was called “Dumb head” or Knucklehead” or told “You’re not going to amount to much” if I didn’t get these things done right.

To ensure I wouldn’t forget my lesson this time, I found ways to inflict pain on myself as physical punishment. For instance, in returning to my room, I would deliberately slam my knuckles into the sharp edges on the door jamb, causing blood to issue forth, swellings to rise and bruises to be left behind. Or, I might kick my toes into the bedstead. I might even slam my fingers in the drawers of my desk. I just wanted some physical pain to match the mental and spiritual pain inflicted on me. It made sense for my body to hurt and make me cry rather than just having words do me in.

Since I was doing so many things wrong—household chores and poor grades—I was questioning my existence. I even went public in eight grade geography class when my teacher made a statement about some mystery regarding my birthplace, Brazil. I raised my hand and said, “I know another Brazilian mystery, Mr. Robertson. Why I was born…” I hung my head as he calmly looked away and called on someone else. At fifteen, I wrote a suicide note, “To Whom It May Concern,” stating simply that since I could not feel any emotions at all, life wasn’t worth living anymore. Obviously, I never carried through with that as I am here today. The real problem was I just knew I would screw that up just like I had everything else.

A Failure of Courage, Part 2 follows soon

This is who you are

2007-03-30T12:47:00.000-10:00

This is who you are;

A timeless beauty.

A sweet and tender soul is how I know you.

A wisdom of the ages;

Feelings revealed only by you.

Eyes of a depth known only with you.

Love that envelopes,

Joy that swept me in a rushing tide

To heights unimagined,

As you unwrapped the gift of my heart.

I am yours,

Forever…

Never Have I Fallen

2007-03-30T10:10:00.001-10:00

Your lips speak soft sweetness
Your touch a cool caress
I am lost in your magic
My heart beats within your chest

I think of you each morning
And dream of you each night
I think of your arms being around me
And cannot express my delight

Never have I fallen
But I am quickly on my way
You hold a heart in your hands
That has never before been given away

- Rex A. Williams -

A Failure of Courage

2007-03-29T09:55:00.000-10:00

When I married a second time, it was with reluctance. I didn’t really want to follow my first marriage with another so quickly. In the first, I was married from 1972 to the divorce in 1981. I met my second wife in 1979 and we moved in together shortly thereafter. Although I proposed marriage in late 1980, I was not yet even divorced. Our wedding date was to be in 1981 and we even sent out invitations. These all had to be called back when I averred, saying I wanted more time than just six months from the divorce decree to new wedding vows. I caused much embarrassment and expense for this family though they stuck by us during this upheaval. We finally married in 1982.

This was a way stop on the path that led to my suffering diabetes and prostate cancer. After two years of study and reflection, I have determined the sources of these two maladies as something else rather than any environmental or genetic issues.

I am of the belief now that disease is easily explainable in terms of one’s internal emotional state rather than pointing elsewhere. As startling as this seems—that it’s our fault and responsibility that we get sick—an open examination of our emotions and our body parts, their functions and any detrimental actions on their part clearly shows just how much we control our destiny and health by how we feel about ourselves.

In my case, and I think in the case of anyone suffering from anything but, say, the effects of an accident, it is a failure of courage that put me squarely where I am today—laboring under the “double deadlies,” diabetes and prostate cancer. In sharing what I believe I failed to do, what I felt about myself and others, I may do more than just tell my story, I may strike a chord in somebody else.

If my thoughts run true, then it is a failure of courage that purposely got me sick. Since I failed to raise my courage, described as “grace under pressure,” while facing my life circumstances, then what I propose is that I actually got sick on purpose. I deigned it, desired it, designed it and felt deserving of it even though I denied having any logical reason for catastrophic illnesses to envelope me. If I’m right about how all this happened to me, maybe my example serves others.

I used to think that helping just one person to get better was ridiculous. Why put so much effort into an enterprise if not to serve many? Now I understand that in the grand scheme of things, just the intent to help someone else is really enough to reap great rewards. The universe sees the intent as a positive energy release and much comes back to the sender. More about that some other time but for now, I see my effort as much like a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon yet, causing a major weather shift off the coast of Maine. These word-shaped thoughts issued from a small room on an island in the middle of the Pacific may well cause a thought shift of immense proportions somewhere else. If I can clearly define what has caused these illnesses to descend on me, then surely there is a way back to optimum health for me. As well, if there are parallels in the dear readers' lives, then perhaps I will have served my true purpose on earth: helping others heal themselves naturally and do so without extraordinary outside measures.

To start, I’ll break this treatise into parts. I’ll cover my childhood and early adulthood to my second marriage. The next part will be the effects of that second marriage. If there is a finale, I will wrap up my thoughts there.

I think this process will take several issues. It’s not that I’m a slow writer. I’m a careful writer these days, editing as best I can. Too, distilling my thinking about the emotional causes of my illnesses will require some letting go and a willingness to share some fairly deep, personal issues. I may stare at the PC screen for long periods deciding what is appropriate or better yet, how to say what I want to say.

I’ll be back soon with more of “Brittleliquid’s Journey.”

Bringing You Up To Date...

2007-03-25T16:40:00.000-10:00

In the last short while since I wrote, some issues are notable and some are just laughable. I’ll do my best to be serious about some and work at not guffawing myself off the page. You be the judge…

My doctor appointments were, at best, barely satisfying. I saw my primary guy early this month and he continued to admonish me for my weight gain and my elevated blood pressure. The weight gain is astonishing as I changed my diet to salads, vegetables and small amounts of chicken. Okay, maybe I do have a toasted bagel smeared with cream cheese every morning accompanied by mostly black coffee but, that can’t be creating this weight change. I think it started when I began the diabetic insulin shots which did improve the digestive process somewhat. My doctor agreed. So, I began a different tack.

I needed to start exercising and so, I did. I began walking in the mornings. The first week was seven to eight minutes a day but, it was every day. I hadn’t so much as put my running shoes on since before this cancer “unpleasantness” descended in October of 2006. I came back not winded but, certainly tired. The next week I resolved I would double my exercise time and I did—to 15 minutes per day. By now, not exercising daily meant I felt I was missing something in my day, like missing a meeting with a close friend. By the third week, I doubled my walking time to 30 minutes and added an incentive. I walked from my house, along the highway until I reached the local supermarket, “Sack ‘N Save.” I would usually arrive about 7:15am just in time to find day-old bagels at sale prices.

I’ve kept up the walking for these last three weeks and the expected and unexpected benefits showed up. A second doctor’s appointment three weeks into my program showed me at a weight loss of six pounds, a huge change. I was also sleeping better in that I would go for up to four hours a night without waking to make a liquid donation to the toilet. The walking was just tiring me out enough to create a pleasant slumber for the first time in many months.

Surely, the weight loss and the better rest were satisfying to my body and spirit. I proved to myself that my decisions were right, that improving my diet was a good thing, additional powdered fiber intake was moving that food through me more rapidly and getting my heart rate up through the walking was providing rewards in weight change and restful sleep. A surprise benefit was relief from a consistent, deep pain centered in my left hip.

The pain was unendurable at times, keeping me awake at night and preventing me from sitting at my PC during the day. It was right in the pelvic joint and while I couldn’t figure out if yoga-like stretching helped or made the pain worse, occasionally my entire left leg throbbed with pain. I started taking Tylenol regularly and that helped though I didn’t want to rely on that for life-time relief. I drank more water, thinking that would help as water intake helped with neuropathy, a painful muscle cramping associated with diabetes. It helped some. I even told my primary care doctor about it and he ordered an x-ray to see if my cancer had spread into that hip. (He called back later to say that the x-ray “lit-up” in that hip indicating a possible cancer spread. My oncologist told me in another appointment that if the cancer had indeed spread then he would see a hollow space in that ball joint and he didn’t. So, just what was causing this pain, arthritis?)

In any case, the more I exercised, the more the pain went away. I was amazed! There might be a few twinges from time to time but, in the main I was pain-free. My Tylenol intake dropped to maybe one pill every three or four days instead of two a day. My sleep was uninterrupted by pain. Life was good, indeed. My shorts were already getting loose and I had to tighten the wrist band on my watch. Watch this space for the continuing improvements… Tomorrow, I start trekking one hour a day, everyday.

A second medical appointment was with another oncologist or cancer doctor. My interest in connecting with him was because he was the head of a “clinical trial” researching the effects of a new prostate cancer (PC) treatment. This regimen involved twelve injections a week for about 12 weeks. It was a vaccine that triggered the immune system to chew up the cancer cells. Typically, the immune system won’t attack its own human body cells only foreign bodies, like viruses. This stuff makes the cancer cells look like foreign invaders so the immune system goes to work. He reported some success although there is a time limit of sorts. It only works for a little while in terms of the immune system eating up the cancer cells. The good thing though is that once diminished, the cancer stays diminished. My only disappointment was he wouldn’t admit me into the program because I’m not far enough into my current hormone treatment to qualify me. He did prescribe some medicine commonly used to reduce my PSA count (a measurement of how bad is the PC.)

My next appointment that same day was with an MD dispensing what is called “integrative medicine.” He was a Western-trained doctor that was integrating Eastern medicine with contemporary medicine with some remarkable results. Even the local medical insurance company, HMSA, was impressed enough to include his clinic in their payment programs. He went through the normal questions asked of a new patient and then started applying the Eastern methods on me. He took my pulse in both wrists not so much to count my heartbeats against a clock but to read what their strength or weakness was telling him about my general condition. When he finished with that he started asking other questions of me. “What was I most proud of?” I said my daughter. “What did I do for fun?” I said my art was so engrossing that I hadn’t found anything else of such a level. “Why did you divorce?” I explained that I thought my wife had tired of my behavior and decided to lay down the marriage. When he asked what that behavior was, I started to choke up. He asked me what I wanted accomplish from here on out and I started to bawl. I don’t know why I started crying; perhaps because I had never been asked these questions in a medical setting. I felt as if a professional really cared about was important to me as a part of his determination of what was the right treatment for me. This interview was so different from the “Where does it hurt?” routines of previous medico’s. I felt at home in a way probably more because I felt as if someone was actually listening.

In the end, he prescribed acupuncture as a way to “balance” me as I handled the double diseases of diabetes and PC and my work to make my artistic talents pay off into a wealthy lifestyle.

My last appointment was with the oncologist who last saw me almost six months ago when I was in hospital. I thought he wanted to see me because my PSA count was of concern.

In October, my PSA count was 48.5, incredibly high. When I left the hospital it was down to 5, still high when a normal PSA reading is >.01. By February, it was t 7.4. In March, it had risen to 7.9. In PC, the rate of increase over a specified amount of time is the critical measurement. While mine was of some concern, it wasn’t too serious.

I arrived at his office about 20 minutes early for a 3:15pm appointment. My appointment time came and went and soon it was 4:00pm. A nurse called my name and hustled me into a lab to draw some blood. I went back into the waiting room and waited some more. By 4:45pm, I was in a deep nap when I was finally called in to get weighed, read my blood pressure and other vitals. It was close to 5 o’clock before my interview started.

Before he got going, I told the doctor about my days in the airline business. A physician’s conference ended in Hawaii and doctors, wives and families were aboard and ready to leave when some airplane part broke down. Departure time came and went and I was assuring the passengers of a time not far off when they would be on their way. When the delay extended to an hour and a half and the doors were ready to close for the last time, I took up the cabin microphone to speak to the sold-out airplane. I apologized for the delay and wished them an otherwise safe trip home. I then said, “And folks, we know you are doctors and specialists with us today. We thank you for choosing us to fly with but, we also hope you now know what is like to be stuck in your reception areas for hours on end waiting to be served. See you next time!” Whereupon the cabin’s occupants burst into laughter and applause as I clicked off the mike.

This doctor got the message and chuckled, as well. He apologized, saying that a just-prior patient didn’t want to leave and took loads more time than normally allocated. I asked him if my elevated PSA count had caused his office to make this appointment and he said, “What elevation?” He said he hadn’t seen my recent blood reports but he had set up this meet because he hadn’t heard from me these past six months.

It was my turn to pause and consider just what kind of care I was getting in terms of quality and quantity. I had assumed that the medico’s associated with my care were in contact with each other in some way, if not at least by sharing my reports, lab tests and x-rays with each other. They do that and they even sometimes read these things before this patient is at their doorsteps.

I then understood why it is critical to anyone in my position to keep, read and understand the medical reports issued. Once understood, it’s a lot easier to ask questions, even penetrating questions of what treatments should or should not be undertaken on one’s behalf. The internet helps immensely in this regard and I’ve begun to research more and more about what ails me. In time, I may know as much about these two “deadlies”--diabetes and PC--as my medico’s. It’s then I’ll feel confident enough to point out the direction my medical partners will take in my treatment.

Watch this space for more developments…

If I could have just one wish

2007-03-24T09:13:00.000-10:00

If I could have just one wish,
I would wish to wake up everyday
to the sound of your breath on my neck,
the warmth of your lips on my cheek,
the touch of your fingers on my skin,
and the feel of your heart beating with mine...
Knowing that I could never find that feeling
with anyone other than you.

- Courtney Kuchta -

Online Soulmates

2007-03-13T12:52:00.000-10:00

She was the yin to his yang.
He was the dot to her "i".

When she was black or white,
he was her colors in between.

He finished her sentence
she felt his thoughts.

They understood from the inside out
because that's how they began.

She was the words and he the notes
together, an endless song.

He was her real after surreal dreams
she the pier where he anchored his soul.

He was the rope when all else pulled her away
she was his lamp in the dark.

Hers were the blue that mirrored the brown
in the looking glass eyes of the heart.

She was the soft to his hard
and when the door had closed
oh, when the lights blinked out ...

they were as both fire and ice
blurring the lines
between the she and the he

until he was time
she the clock
and together, an eternity.

Written by CJ Heck

48 Hours After You Left

2007-03-08T13:10:00.000-10:00

The telephone
has put on a bathrobe
complaining that my constant staring
makes it feel naked.
And I find myself out in the street
interrogating raindrops
as to your whereabouts.
This one particular raindrop
keeps being very evasive, answering in metaphors
(I may have to get rough.)
Happiness stumbles along
smelling of Mad Dog
and mumbo sauce,
wearing cheap sneakers
with holes the size of a headache
and a shirt that reads
like a menu of stains.
I've begun bottling my tears
to serve as holy water
and all the vowels
in my vocabulary
are now lookouts
on my windowsill
waiting to trumpet
your return.

by D.J. Renegade

Always...

2007-03-07T19:10:00.000-10:00

Everything went wrong,
And the whole day long
I'd feel so blue.
For the longest while
I'd forget to smile,
Then I met you.
Now that my blue days have passed,
Now that I've found you at last -

I'll be loving you always
With a love thats true always.
When the things youve planned
Need a helping hand,
I will understand always.

Always.

Days may not be fair always,
Thats when I'll be there always.
Not for just an hour,
Not for just a day,
Not for just a year,
But always.

I'll be loving you, oh always
With a love thats true always.
When the things youve planned
Need a helping hand,
I will understand always.

Always.

Days may not be fair always,
Thats when Ill be there always.
Not for just an hour,
Not for just a day,
Not for just a year,
But always.

Not for just an hour,
Not for just a day,
Not for just a year,
But always.

by Irving Berlin

I Will Watch Over You...

2007-03-07T15:47:00.000-10:00

When the day dawns and the sun comes up,
And sleep is done and the dreams have ended,
You'll find me there, right next you;
I will watch over you.

As the day's work begins and you make your way
To those needed tasks,
And words come up that are less than pleasant--no worries;
I will watch over you.

If your energy fades
And the effort seems too much,
If your mind starts to wander, no problem--
I will watch over you.

When breaktime comes
And others clamour for your attention
And your thoughts seem like someone else's,
I will watch over you.

As the day stretches on
And fatigue sets in and
You seek the comfort of home,
I will watch over you.

When your hands seem enclosed
By those larger than yours
And you feel safe, it's me because I said,
I will watch over you.

When night finally falls and all that's left
Is slumber and dreams,
Sleep well because,
I will watch over you.

Everything PointsTo Us...

2007-03-03T11:17:00.000-10:00

Halo, Honey Girl,

You are always in my thoughts. You are in my every waking moment. My dreams have evolved so that one way or another you are in them, every night. Virtually all I do, every I step I take is with you and us in mind. I plan my time so that my efforts lead to more of what we need to be able to experience our lives more fully and to have, be and do whatever we want. And now, everything points to us…

I sent you “The Secret” and The Science Of Getting Rich for many reasons but the most important one was so that you and I would think alike, that we would think with positive expectancy toward anything we envisioned. If we thought about it and planned it out, we would expect it to become real. I sent these to you and “The Daily Motivator” and the other things so that you would know—absolutely know—that someone else believed in you and your goals and dreams. Also, I sent them (and continue to send them) with my belief that you would choose me as your friend (your best friend) and later would come to me, put your arms around me and tell me I would be your deepest lover, forever. I wanted you to understand that having a life’s purpose for yourself would give meaning to your every action and thought and that having a certain mindset, doing things in a certain way would inevitably result in anything you wanted to have or to become. And now, everything points to us…

Both of us are working everyday toward shared goals: that we are together for the rest of our lives and that we will build together a life that no one had ever dreamed of—except us. You are studying courses, which while not particularly interesting or satisfying, will be of great service to us in the very near future. I am studying how to go from zero to USD$100, 000, 000 in our business which is a difficult study but which also will be the basis of our future together. That we are speaking with each other in such great admiration of each others’ talents, abilities and skills is testimony that we see how each of us adds to the other, immeasurably. And now, everything points to us…

I look for signs to affirm we are doing the right things. I am able to support you as you continue through school; as best I can. With that support comes the day you will graduate on time. You have a renewed interest in school as you can now see how use those studies in your future. Your poses are intriguing and plentiful allowing me to choose what best reflects you and what I can portray that is new. When I post something new of you, people rush to see what I have done. (Yesterday, we achieved a new record in visitors for one day—73—at Yessy.com) In the short time that I have advertised our art (just a month) we already made one sale and have a retail store interested in representing us. I have a good artist friend advising me on how to improve the art (not much he says) but more on marketing it and I am taking some steps he suggests. I am getting better as an artist and now as a marketer, I will be unstoppable. You will handle the financial end of our business just as it begins to rise to bigger heights than anyone dreamed. And now, everything points to us…

About four or five years ago, my passport expired. I applied for a new one so that, in time, I could travel overseas, particularly to visit somebody I care about very much. She lives in the Philippines on its biggest island in a small town by a bay. Today, that renewed passport arrived! All I need now is a visa and an airline ticket and you, Princesa, and I will hold each other for the very first time. It won’t be long now!

And that’s why I say, “…everything points to us…”

I love you, Princesa CC

Dickie

No One...

2007-03-01T09:57:00.000-10:00

No one is as beautiful as you.
No one poses like you.
No one is as imaginative as you.
No one is as clever as you.
No one is as intelligent as you.
No one is as charming as you.
No one is as loving as you.
No one has captured me like you have.
No one has arrested me for loving you like you.
No one has me confessing to love in the 1st degree like you do.
No one makes me feel the way I do like you do.
No one has ever been loved like you are by me.
No one loves me like you do.
No one...

Yes...

2007-02-28T18:30:00.000-10:00

Your breath quickens, yes,
Catches, yes,
Slows, yes,
Quickens, again, yes,
Deeper, yes,
Holds, yes,
One last deep breath, yes,
And then, yes,
Oh yes, yes, yes,
One long sigh, yes,
And holds, yes,
And yes,
Yes, yes, yes,
You behind my eyes, yes,
You watching, yes,
This is because of you, yes,
I dream you near, yes,
My breath hot, yes,
You are My Love, yes,
Oh yes,
Yes,

Yes,

Yes…

Yes…

Yes…

I Am--Thine

2007-02-25T16:36:00.000-10:00

My Darling Belovéd Princesa Che-Che,

I weep before your beauty.
I bend my knee to the power of your gaze.
I am prostrate facing you.
I beg to breathe again.
I beg you allow my heart to beat again.
I am helpless.
I am hopelessly in love with you.
I beseech you; lift me to where you are.
I seek permission to be alongside you.
I await your soft words granting me audience.
I am yours in my heart, my mind and my soul.
I faithfully carry your heart in mine.
I serve.
I love.
I am--

Thine

Time For A Change

2007-02-25T12:19:00.000-10:00

Halo, Dear Heart,

Nais kung maging asawang lalaki…

There, I said it again!

How are you, My Li’l Love? I pray that all is well, that the exams and quizzes were easier than you studied for and that Mom is back to help around the house and to cook for you all. Whew! That was a lot to hope for all in one sentence!

BTW, you do know that I’m madly in love with you, don’t you?

Yesterday was a very interesting, fulfilling and gratifying day. I’ll tell you about it…

It began early—for me, at least—when I made my coffee and bagels at 6:30am. I showered, shaved, gave myself an insulin shot and dressed to be ready to leave at 7:30am for the hospital. Nothing serious for me; it was just a doctor’s appointment at 8:45am. I live so far from town that it takes about an hour’s drive at 60 miles an hour to get anything done. But, I got there in time enough and went in for my chat. He said I should have a full body x-ray to see if the cancer has spread anywhere else in my body and from that, determine if any other treatment is necessary. I had to go to the X-Ray department for a radioactive injection and then come back in 3 hours.

While I was in my urologist’s office, I told jokes to him and his secretary about my responses to all this stuff. He’s so serious all the time that I resolved to get him laughing, often. I’ve succeeded.

I went back home—only took 20 minutes—answered some email, listened to a lesson from The Science Of Getting Rich and did my homework there. After that, I returned to the hospital for the x-ray scan. I stopped into a jewelry store on the way to look at rings for you and even had your “Che-Che” ring sized. Here in Hawaii, it is a size 5. (Does the ring fit you loosely or tight?) I’m having a ring made for you and I want to make sure it will fit correctly. Then, I went through the bone scan, which was basically lying down quietly while a machine took pictures of me of the radioactive fluid and where it might be deposited. I won’t know what the results are—has the cancer spread (?)—until the urologist goes over the pictures; maybe next week.

After I finished the scan, I decided I would get something to eat. I went to “Burger King.” While there, I went through a strange physical episode. I sat down with my food and began to get faint, very faint. I almost passed out right in the restaurant. I didn’t want to do that because no one would know why I was getting sick and the result might be they call an ambulance. I knew what was going on—I was having an insulin reaction (too much insulin in my body) and needed to eat or drink something sugary as soon as possible. My friend, Connie (who is a nurse) just happened to call me on my cell phone at this same time and told me what I already knew: get some sugar in me to counteract the insulin, too much of which was causing me to go into shock. I very carefully stood up—the room was getting dark around me as I was about to pass out—and made my way to the soda dispenser to get some “full-on” Coke, not Diet Coke, which is what I usually drink, since I am a diabetic. I don’t usually like the taste of regular Coke because of the sugar content so I mixed it with what was left of my Diet Coke, sat down and started drinking the mixture.

The effect was almost immediate. As the drink got into my stomach and then passed into my small intestine, (where all nutrient absorption takes place) I began to feel more aware of my surroundings and the previous darkness began brightening up. It took maybe five to ten minutes for my situation to begin improving. Instead of my head resting on the table top, I could sit up straight and breathe normally. I was still feeling somewhat uneasy but, I knew the worst was over. I stood up without being shaky or weak and went toward the movie theatres in this shopping center. I found a movie I wanted to see, bought a ticket, got some popcorn and sat down. I didn’t want to chance driving back home after what had just happened in case I might get faint again; better to fall asleep in a movie theatre than in my car on the highway.

I wanted to go to a cancer presentation at a church far away from here and meet my friend Connie, the nurse. It didn’t start until 6:00pm and it was only 3:30pm when the movie began. Obviously, driving home and then turning around right away to come back was out of the question. So, I sat through “Breach” (the title) until about 5pm and left for the meeting. I felt strong as normal. All the effects of my previous problem were gone by now and I felt safe in my car.

The meeting was excellent. We listened to a medical doctor who was very spiritual (he once studied to become a Jewish rabbi) and who had a medical clinic in Honolulu that combined today’s conventional medicine with spiritual support. I was very much at peace as I listened to him. I found I could relate to what he said about combining the practice of medicine with the art of supporting a patient spiritually. While he talked, I kept thinking about an encounter I had with my own doctor (not the urologist) earlier that day right after the bone scan.

As I came out of the hospital elevator, I ran into my “primary care” doctor, the one caring for my diabetes and general health. I had asked him back in December for a referral to another doctor in a different hospital who was conducting a “clinical trial” of a new medicine that fights Prostate Cancer. This new doctor would not see me unless my primary care doctor referred me so that my insurance would end up paying for this trial. I asked for this referral in December, again in January and February through his nurse/receptionists and still I had not received the form. I wanted to visit this new doctor and see if I qualified for the new treatment he proposed. Without the proper referral I was going nowhere. I confronted my primary care doctor right then and there while he was in his street clothes, obviously heading to his office. As I reminded him of my earlier referral requests, he countered with reasons why I shouldn’t even go that way. First he said, I wouldn’t qualify based on what he knew of the entry requirements. Then, he said my insurance probably wouldn’t pay for it, so why try? I looked him straight in the eye, poked my finger into his chest and said, “Never mind all that, I want the referral.” He asked if I wanted it mailed to me and I said yes.

That encounter kept coming up to me as I was bathed in the peace and harmony this spiritually-guided doctor spoke to us. I kept wondering why I was having so much difficulty obtaining a simple piece of paper from my doctor. In the end, though, I didn’t let that stop me from going up to this gentle man after his talk and asking if my insurance would cover visits to his clinic and what I needed to do to start my visits. He explained how simple it all was and yes, that my insurance covered my potential work with them. You can imagine how relieved and grateful I was.

All in all, it was a satisfying day from the difficulties I experienced in the beginning to the highs of peace, gratitude and harmony that ended the day.

I slept well that night and dreamed richly of you and me.

The Hawaii Artists 2007 Show

2007-02-20T12:03:00.000-10:00

Over the last several weeks, I have been working on getting my artwork exposed to more than just myself and a handful of interested friends. It’s great to get the compliments of others and, of course, I give myself the strongest kudo’s. But, for me to achieve the objective of a famous, world-renown artist I had to move from my comfort zone to a much more risky area: the general public. A little history is in order to form a basis for these things I’ve just said.

Those of you who have followed my blog, “Brittle Liquid’s Journey” (http://dickhoyer.blogspot.com) know that my trek towards world-wide fame (and the accompanying income) has been both arduous and easy. It’s been arduous in that I ended up doing everything else but pursuing art. I worked at jobs and businesses, some interesting, some excruciatingly boring instead of art. Art was a minor issue in my life as so many bills and money needs clamored for my attention. I didn’t grasp the idea that I could have fun doing something I loved and make money at the same time. I was chained to the belief that art was for children or very special people, who just happened to be crazy enough to pursue their calling. I couldn’t do it; I was so far away from having the drive to do artistic things for money that I pushed any art thought deeply away. I was convinced art was not possible for me.

Yet, so much of my thoughts were about art, either producing it or viewing it. There were times when my artistic “bent” was called to needful things, like designing a poster for the ACLU or in college, designing and building an award-winning float for Homecoming. Sometimes, I did things that were artistic but were disguised as something else. One thing that comes to mind is “The Champagne and Chocolate Couples’ 10K Classic, The Most Elegant Running Event in Hawaii.” This was a foot race, staged on a resort golf course that really lived up to it’s billing, “Most Elegant.” We had choral groups and violins on the golf greens. The race organizers wore tuxedoes or long garden dresses. The aid stations were decorated like hotel serving tables, including floral arrangements. All the volunteers wore white gloves and bow ties. The artistic element for me was in the grand design of the event from the applications to handing out roses to all the lady finishers. Everything was done with the idea that the participants were entering into a piece of art, were a part of the art and would leave the art with a vision of the art within them. Simply put, as art happens in the mind, so did this event, even though there was a physical element involved by actually completing the race.

I could see art in some of the lowliest things, like TV or print commercials or even the design of a can opener. I marveled at the ways art communicated ideas, even those of Salvador Dali or Picasso. I looked at some art and thought I could do better and tried to. My efforts were laughable, at best. Since I couldn’t get the idea transmitted on my first try, my impatience took over and I dropped my efforts. I didn’t know then that art is a process and a progression of efforts building to something recognizable, at least to the artist. All I had to do in reality was to do a little at a time, practice a little but do that frequently and, in time, I would find success. I buried even that small assignment in favor the larger issue of earning a living for me and my family.

I paid scant attention to my dreams which had me producing art; those were just night-time illusions. I was laid off or dismissed from several jobs in the past and every time and I mean every time that happened, always my mind said, “This is a good time to start your art career.” The thought was so strong that I might even go to a museum to see what might encourage me. I went to poster stores to look at what was selling and what I might offer. I went to bookstores and libraries browsing the art sections, particularly instruction books on how to create art. Hanging over my head though, was the need to get a job to pay the bills. I shut myself off from the possibility that I might quietly do some art and work full-time. For some reason, it was an all-or-nothing thing for me; either I was a fulltime artist or a fulltime employee, nothing in-between. Call me stubborn, if you will.

As some of you may recall, my re-birth as an artist occurred when my most recent marriage broke up and I was left with many choices about how I would spend my time after work hours. Not surprisingly, that still, small voice within said, “So, Dickie, wouldn’t you say this is a good time to revive that artist idea?” Suddenly, the thought was easy to entertain and I set about to do so fiercely. All the drawings I had surreptitiously kept away from my family were dragged out and judged worthy or not. I set about drawing or tracing all manner of photographs, especially those of female nudes. I bought art supplies and set up my daughter’s now-vacant room as a studio. I drew from the moment I got home until I collapsed in bed. I made up for lost time with a vengeance. Even when I dislocated my right middle finger from vacuuming the house with so much vigor, I kept on drawing, taping the pencils to my cast. The drive to produce was insatiable. I couldn’t get my ideas down fast enough. At work, I kept a notebook handy and doodled in it constantly. The courage to produce came easily and soon I was making stuff that was not only recognizable to me but, attracted the attention of some important people and in the words of the poet, I took a different path and that “…has made all the difference.”

I realized that my art was going to be different if it was to gain any acceptance and lead me to my goal of becoming a world-famous artist. I chose stained glass art as it was an area few people tried because of its perceived difficulty. I had a background in it as I had been a glass artist some years back in my first marriage. I had a modicum of success then, selling anything I produced. Yet, the vagaries of paycheck production won out and I demurred to getting a job. This time, it was the subject matter that would be different. Instead of making “staid” glass windows of traditional ideas or even those that reflected Hawaii, like poi pounders or plumerias, I would take stained glass in a direction no one had thought of just yet. I would take stained glass as often found in churches and create erotic stained glass.

The most frequent response I received when I talked about my idea was, “I’ve never heard of that.” It was like music to my ears. Those responses meant I found a niche and now all I needed was a market. With a lot of help from a stained glass studio, I produced a one-man show, “The 2004 Hawaii Couples’ Stained Glass Classic: Original Erotic Art” which was staged in a downtown restaurant, Café Che Pasta. The show was for a month and I sold some pieces. Some of the work was censored and had to come down, a huge disappointment to me. I think the only person disturbed by my offerings was the Catholic Arch-Bishop of Honolulu, who, it is reported, immediately cancelled his weekly luncheon reservations for the entire month of my show. Well, as far as I was concerned that very reaction told me I was on to something—or so I thought. I set up a website, www.dherotica.com and marketed it through Google with lots of hits and no sales. I wondered as to what would attract buyers. I went so far as to commission a study and presentation for the pornography industry, www.dherotica.biz designed to show them that erotic stained glass would be an ideal addition to their product mix. I was doing a lot of this while I was unemployed though I had some money from a small inheritance to keep me in rent and food.

Eventually, I ran out of money and had to go back to work. By now, however, I decided I would concentrate on producing erotic art rather than windows. I had no place to make my pieces, anyway, but I could use the same PC program used to design stained glass windows to simply create art. The program included color stained glass samples within it so I could instantly color my works once the drawing was done. I found lovely flesh colored glass to bring my “girls” to life and interesting other colored glass for backgrounds and such. All I needed was models.

And they came forward in the person of Che-Che and her cousin. They posed for me and brought much delight with their various pictorials. At one time, I was receiving about 80 photographs a month which I turned into art as fast as I could, sometimes two or three a day and seven to ten on each weekend day. As I did more, I got better, up to and including their faces. The art became more realistic. Their facial expressions became more accurate in reflecting their moods. I learned to portray them with a minimum of lines so that their portraits were simple but powerful. I learned how to size the projects so that I told their story not necessarily from head to toe but using the most engaging parts of them. I created hundreds of art works of them, learning something new with each one, making progress each time, if only it was to change the thickness of the lines I used in portraying their eyes.

Everything I did was but a step closer to my dream of being a world-class artist. I finally got to the point where I needed the court of public opinion to tell me if I was on the right track this time. I took a couple steps in that direction by showing some of my artist friends what I was doing and they seemed to be suitably impressed. I asked my first college art teacher for his comments and those changed my art for the better, immeasurably. All I had to do now was find a way to expose this new art to as many people as I could and see what happened.

Suddenly, as I was now open to directing my efforts to exposure, several websites came my way. Each showed promise but the one that caught my attention—and my dollars—was http://yessy.com/dickhoyer For just pennies per day, I would get exposure to literally thousands of art aficionados, some of whom might even buy. In truth, since January 21st until today, February 2oth, some 4,000 people have at least clicked on my site. Because of that frequency, Google has me listed by name on page one of their engines, if one only types in “nudes.” Surely that means something. Then, I found http://brittleliquid.artremains.com which put me in the company of other artists. Some of them found my work intriguing and commended it to others. By now, I found myself feeling more courage and confidence when a “call for artists” arrived from the Honolulu Academy of Arts for the “Artists of Hawaii, 2007” show, an annual event. This was what I had been working toward for so long: acceptance. I immediately offered three pieces, “My Storied Scarf,” “I Am,” and “Obedience,” all of which can be seen at http://yessy.com/dickhoyer. Let me caution you, they are all nudes.

To be accepted into such a prestigious art show would launch my career, surely. Once I submitted my art through the appropriate channels, all I could do now was to wait as the jury would meet sometime in April for the July show. At last, a chance to reveal my works to the public in a very important way. If you know anything about me by now, I won’t be sleeping much for the next month or so as excited as I am.

Watch this space for updates on my progress toward possible acceptance and certain success…surely, right?

I Breathe You In

2007-02-20T03:43:00.000-10:00

My Dearest Princesa CC,

Always I feel the warmth of your love and affection.
You never leave my thoughts.
I have your heart because I carry it in mine.
You are the spirit that keeps me going and going.
You are thoroughly within me, in every cell and molecule.
I breathe you in with every breath and sometimes I hold my breath for a
moment or two, keeping you inside me for just a little longer before I
let you go.
I’m selfish; I don’t want you further away than that last breath.
But, I am comforted knowing that the very next breath will have you in
it and so,
I breathe deeply again and you are here again and again and again…

Dickie

Curing Lover's Loneliness

2007-02-16T09:58:00.000-10:00

e.e. cummings D, SONNETS-REALITIES,XVIII

my girl's tall with hard long eyes
as she stands, with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress, good for sleeping
is her long hard body filled with surprise
like a white shocking wire, when she smiles
a hard long smile it sometimes makes
gaily go clean through me tickling aches,
and the weak noise of her eyes easily files
my impatience to an edge--my girl's tall
and taut, with thin legs just like a vine
that's spent all of its life on a garden-wall,
and is going to die. When we grimly go to bed
with these legs she begins to heave and twine
about me, and to kiss my face and head.

I looked up what is called the Minimum Daily Requirements for healthy living and found out some surprising information. I’m told there some basic things that must be included in a person’s life everyday or face unhappiness, despair and gloom. There a wide variety of things described but there was one item that caught my eye. It got my attention so thoroughly that I researched it in my own life to see if I might be at risk because I might be missing it.

I spent hours on the internet. I called experts in the field of healthy living and asked hard specific questions on how I might know whether I was missing this key ingredient. They all said it was characterized by listlessness, inability to concentrate, staring at walls for long periods, sleeplessness, lack of hunger and unwillingness to participate with others except to tell others that something was missing and to ask for help finding it. These experts all agreed on one thing: missing this one ingredient for more than one day in my life was risky to my emotional, mental and spiritual health to say nothing about my physical health.

I knew what they were talking about, for sure. I was experiencing those pangs in my consciousness for the last two days. I couldn’t sleep for more than two or three hours before I would get up, check my computer for the tiniest shreds of information and see if any responses might lead me to some small comfort. Alas, my searches were fruitless; I found nothing of any help.

In desperation, I tried calling on the phone—no answer. I emailed incessantly—no reply. I packed my Yahoo Instant Messenger with wondering words, pleading paragraphs and sorrowful soliloquies begging for a return to my remonstrations in some small way—no one to accept these. I entreated those on “the other side” of my quests to at least wink back or to lift a hand in acknowledgement, even just a finger. Ah, but that was not to be. Only a silence greeted me. What more could I do? I found out…

First, I had to admit to myself that I was missing that key component of my personal Minimum Daily Requirement. Next, I had to settle for a measure of something that I previously denied myself. Finally, I needed to address this issue head-on. Here’s what happened:

The Minimum Daily Requirement I discovered missing was a daily dose of Che-Che. It didn’t matter what form that came in—email, IM, phone conversation, postal mail—as long as I had some contact daily I could live healthy. Without that daily dosage, I was a sufferer of “Lover’s Loneliness, (LL)” characterized by the symptoms I described earlier. Only a small quantity was necessary, but that dosage outweighed anything else I could do; eat; drink or exercise. In fact, that dosage did more to accelerate my pulse than a daily jog. What wonderful feelings arose from just a little connection with Che-Che? I could dance all night. I could sing all day. My smile looked like I had slept with a clothes hanger in my mouth. My eyes were bright and clear. I didn’t need a car to get anywhere; I was floating from place to place anyway. My friends knew I was well and good and healthy not from me but from the energy arcing across the sky, brighter than the sun. Complete strangers suddenly greeted one another in loving embraces in grocery store checkout lines. Parking spaces quickly opened up…

Okay, okay, maybe not all of that stuff actually happened but, what does happen when joy fills the world? I suppose things like that could. I mean, I knew joy unbridled when Che-Che was before me in print or on the Webcam. Colors vibrated with sound. Sounds were colorful. Her every word or gesture brought me sights of what heaven must be like—pure breathtaking beauty. Her words rolled by my eyes over and over again; I practically memorized her missives. One look from her and I was that deer frozen in place by bright headlights, I needed reminders to breathe again. I was slowed down by whatever she did, so taken was I by her grace, poise, confidence and power. I welcomed this tempo; I embraced it for it represented the surcease I sought from the discomfort of “LL.” Just a glimpse or a word from Che-Che was enough to lift me off my knees, get me shaving and eating normally. In the grand scheme of growing things I brought myself to the acceptance of things denied earlier.

I needed to learn and practice patience.

You know the old prayer, “Lord, please give me more patience…and I mean RIGHT NOW! ´” That was my mantra up until now, except I left out the “Lord” part. I just tried hard not to make my impatience evident or obvious usually by couching it in sarcastic utterances. I thought people would understand my rushing to get things done if they just listened to me. It worked sometimes and I even got ahead—sometimes. Meeting Che-Che was a chance occurrence, declaring her my friend was a choice but, falling in love with her I had no control over. And that changed most everything in my life, mostly in my patience quotient. I find I am calmer than before. I rush to fewer judgments. Drivers find me waving them ahead of me in line. I strike up conversations with others in cashier lines. I watch others with more consideration of their outward condition. I understand others more deeply and I find people revealing themselves with more candor. All this was happening as I kept myself aware of the value of patience—“…all things come to he who stands and waits…” or “…patience is a virtue and virtue is its own reward…” It’s been a lifetime of unconscious “hurry up and wait” up until now for me. Suddenly, (well, within the last two months anyway) I was learning to slow down, really smell the flowers (in Hawaii, they are dream-inducing) and look, really look at everything that was good and decent in my life. I was learning to be grateful anew for everything—good and not so—all because of falling so deeply in love with Che-Che. After all, she was proof positive that my being happy was because of being grateful for everything.

And so, I confronted this “LL” head on by recognizing the symptoms and being patient enough to wait for Che-Che to appear again, either in print or in person on the Webcam. I went back over saved IM conversations, re-read her emails or visited her blog http://chesjourney.blogspot.com/several times a day. I produced fresh art of her and posted them in my online galleries http://yessy.com/dickhoyer (Warning: most of these are full nudes) and it was better art than before, done with great patience and attention to appropriate detail. I learned to slow down, savoring the precious moments of my memories of her, directing my night dreams to be full of her; in short having her by my side all the time. And thus, I cured myself and took my Daily Dose of Che-Che, my Minimum Daily Requirement for a full, happy and healthy life.

Thanks be to science!!!

You're The Best Thing That's Ever happend To Me

2007-02-14T09:57:00.000-10:00

I've had my share of life's up and downs
But fate's been kind the downs have been few
I guess you could say that I've been lucky
Oh, I guess you could say it's all because of you.

And if anyone should ever write my life story
Oh, whatever reason there might be
You'll be there between each line of pain and glory
'Cause you're the best thing that's ever happened to me
You're the best thing that ever happened to me.

Lord, there have been times when times were hard
But always somehow I made it through
'Cause for every moment I've spent hurting
There was a moment I've spent loving you.

And if anyone should ever write my life story
Oh, whatever reason there might be
You'll be there between each line of pain and glory
'Cause you're the best thing that's ever happened to me
You're the best thing that ever happened to me...

Jim Weatherly

Because Of You

2007-02-12T12:14:00.001-10:00

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e.e. cummings

===========================================================

Monday, February 12, 2007

Halo, My Darling,

I write this a few hours after we were cut off by PLDT—again, it seems. We were just getting into a serious exchange of thoughts and poof! Gone again…

Bummers! I didn’t get to tell you how much I love you…

Anyway, perhaps I can just state my case this way and you can read it and decide how to respond.

As I was saying, I think finishing your accounting degree is important for several reasons. You will prove to yourself that you can take on a project—any project—from start to finish. If others want to know if you can complete assignments you can point to the degree. Having a degree also says something else: you know how to do research, how to find out what you need to know to complete a project. So, with a degree you tell future employers you can do two things. You can finish things on time (getting your degree in the prescribed amount of time) and you know how to look up stuff. It doesn’t really matter what the degree is in, anyway, though it is very helpful to have a degree that matches the job you’re looking for.

Another reason is the money you’ve already spent to get this far. Surely turning away from what is a possible career (accounting) is probably foolish at this time. And, going for what you really want—psychology—is not quite the career move that makes sense right now, particularly in PH, as we both agree. I can understand that your heart is not in the “numbers game.” For now, this is the only game worth pursuing if demand is high in PH and if, of course, you decide that staying there is the right choice for you.

That decision is complicated, for sure. There is the possibility you can get hired quickly in PH, maybe even close to home. You may not make as much money as you would say in Cebu or Manila, for instance, but here is another consideration for you; Mom’s health. If she gets through this latest illness, that is great! If she doesn’t get through it and she requires home-care, who will do that? Let’s be realistic here and hope for the best but have a plan for the worst that can happen. If she gets worse, are there family members that can care for her while you continue in school? Will you be able to finish school, at all? What happens then? You can expect that I will do everything I can to help you but I will have limits for a while as I build the business up to something profitable for us. But, we have to be practical and think about what could happen and how to handle that. Let’s pray she goes through this surgery well and no further complications arise.

You know I love you very much. I’ve said it in many ways and I’ve variously demonstrated it, as well. Surely it is interesting to have me as your love since there is so much distance and yes, even years between us. There are surely some differences between us but for now all we discuss seems to be similar and likeable. Over time, you may find some of me is not necessarily attractive and you may accept me anyway. Yet, there may be some things that you feel strongly about and that you don’t want to have in your life and you may reject me as a future husband. You are free to do that I can understand that.

I know for certain that much of my depths have been changed by knowing you and loving you. I constantly search my mind and soul for those negative traits I might have and strive to work on them. I am impatient but I find a new willingness to wait for you to express yourself and that has affected me in other areas of my life. I don’t yell at stupid drivers anymore. I’ll wait in line to be served by an overworked store cashier and even make small-talk to make our shared experience pleasant. I find honesty a pleasurable experience and up until now I wasn’t sure I could tell the difference between being totally truthful and only partially so. I am also more aware of what is honest behavior in others. So far, I haven’t been disappointed in leaving someone if I find they are less than honest with me, although I tend to give people too much time to prove themselves dishonest. This must be because of my caring nature, which has also improved due to knowing you.

Up until now, I played with businesses instead of being serious about making them create money. For now I see this art we have created as a serious thing, something no one has ever seen before up until now. Once it “takes off” (and I firmly believe it will) we will be in for a deliciously profitable ride. For the first time, I am very positive about what I am doing with the art of you and of Até Rory. Because you permitted me to portray yourselves in all manner of ways, I am an excellent artist and now I am working on becoming an excellent businessman to promote the art and sell it. Your participation in my dream of becoming a world-wide famous artist is an absolute key to my success. I could not do it without you and I will not do it without you.

I now take care of my health better than I have up until now. As you know, I have two things to concern me: diabetes and cancer. I am getting better control over my diabetes by changing my diet. I now eat salads, vegetables, chicken and fish. I make juices out of apples, carrots, ginger and spinach. My blood sugar levels are getting better, too. Although I have to inject myself daily with insulin to keep my sugar levels under better control, the diet and accompanying weight loss is making things better, too. Because of my love for you and my desire to remain alive for many years to come with you, I do more healthy things than before. You know I quit smoking last summer and I have not missed it a bit. I do have an occasional glass of wine from time to time and I find that relaxing. I sleep fairly well. I drink a lot of water, too, and sometimes my sleep is interrupted in order to go to the comfort room during the night, but I fall asleep quickly after those visits.

Because of you, I have less loneliness in my life. I do miss you immediately after we end our conversations but I find “…i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)” as the poet says. That keeps me full of you until we can speak again. There are times, I have to admit, that missing you hurts so much that I can’t stop myself from crying. It’s then that I feel weakest and am in most need of hearing from you. And you know what? Almost every time that I am on my knees weeping, something comes in, either you on IM or an email. I promise you, just when I need you most, you show up. It doesn’t happen all the time. I mean, I’m not always crying, of course. People would take ME away if I was doing that all the time. Just occasionally, I feel sad about not hearing from you for several days.

Because of you, I now know what it means to be a “best friend” to someone else. You act differently around me from how you describe yourself around others. You open up and tell me what is on your mind. You allow me to ask you about yourself. You trust me more each day. I appreciate the confidence you place in me. I’m glad what I say makes sense to you. I’m glad it is useful. I’m proud that my suggestions to you are taken seriously, simple as they may be. Up until now, I really didn’t understand how important my role might be in someone else’s life. When you turn to me for advice or you just make comments of one kind or another, I take what you say seriously. There are times when you tease or make me laugh and I appreciate that so much. You do things gently and in a kindly manner with me and I softly accept. Up until now, that was very much missing from my life. But now, I know what it is to be important enough to someone else to be called a “best friend.”

The poet once said, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Looking at you, I know exactly what he means. You are beautiful. Your eyes are dark and deep and so inviting. Your nose is so European, straight and narrow. Your cheeks show your deep heritage to ancient civilizations; high and filled. Your lips are full and appealing; so ready to be kissed. All of you is delicate and well put-together. I adore you, Princesa and I can hardly wait to be held by you, stroked by you and wrapped around you. You are indeed a flower unfolding right in front of me and I am enraptured by you.

I love you, Dearest CC, and my last breath will have your name on it.

Dickie

My Answer To My Sister

2007-02-09T16:29:00.000-10:00

Hey there,

I’m glad you’re into the creative process again with the sewing. I still think your abilities with interior design could be a pleasant—and very possibly profitable--experience for you even though it may seem late in life. Despite your commitments with all the children/grandchildren, your creativity is special enough to warrant a closer look. If you were to casually mention to friends and others that you can help decorate homes, you may well find a willing and supportive audience and clientele. I don’t think I’m telling you anything you don’t already know deep inside, Naneo.

Being willing to acknowledge the creative urge and then do something about it is a very powerful and natural step which few of us actually do. We are consumed by what we think is important and cannot seem to make a space for what we may well consider frivolous—our artistic drives. Yet, we are all artists and are so from our earliest memories.

Think back to one’s own original efforts at art or even to our children’s or grandchildren’s efforts. We spend a lot of time recognizing their efforts, praising whatever is put on paper or—heaven forbid—walls and even posting this art on refrigerators or framing and hanging it in hallways. Every child has this talent and we do encourage it as adults—for a while. Then, inevitably, we start telling these incredible prodigies how to draw and paint. We tell them that coloring books should have colors within the lines. We ask them to explain specifically what it is that they’ve just drawn. And then, horror of horrors, we start telling them it is more important to read and do math than it is to follow their creative urge. Few are avidly encouraged to follow their creativity since there are careers of greater significance than art.

I speak with some authority on this as a recipient of the directives described above. I remember very much wanting to draw and paint as a child. I recall Mom and Dad requiring me to set up my easel and water colors in the bath tub so that I wouldn’t mess up my bedroom with any possible spills. I remember wearing one of Dad’s shirts as if I was wearing an artist’s smock and even donning a beret to complete the look. Even though the art I created was important to me, what was important to them was how silly I looked in my costume. After all, their plan for me at 7 years old was for me to become a doctor not an artist.

I remember having a “paint-by-numbers” art set where all I had to do was match the number on the art with the number of the paint, fill in the numbered block and voilá! a finished masterpiece. Yet, all I heard was how much the oil paints smelled up the apartment and to get back to studying science because, after all, I was to become a doctor. I can still see the drawings of airplanes hanging in my 5^th grade class room, the only place I felt comfortable viewing my art. I remember staring out the windows of that same classroom at St. Bernadette’s Catholic School, looking at trees and wondering how I could draw them well enough to be recognizable while the teaching nuns droned on about multiplication.

I can recall doing well in diagramming sentences in English class as I saw these efforts as just more art. I remember a Mexican boy in 7^th grade who could draw water drops so realistically in pencil that I often wondered why the paper wasn’t wet. I admired him so that even in my adult years I tried to do the same thing and never got quite as close. I received an “A” for a geographic depiction of the earth in geography class, of all places, again because I considered the assignment one of art rather than where places were located.

Certainly, I have recovered from the medical path I was pushed into, even if I had to do poorly in every college class in pre-med studies just to avert that parental push. I feared a backlash from Mom and Dad if I flat told them I wasn’t going into medicine. After all, their hopes and dreams were that I would be the first one in the family to be a doctor, if only because I replaced Dad’s aspirations for medicine, interrupted as they were by WWII. I do remember responding to other adult’s questions as to “…what I wanted to be when I grew up?” with, “a doctor.” I remember the admiration they heaped on me for that answer and feeling good. I think I remember better how good it felt to be praised than what they actually said. I got so little praise or recognition from Mom and Dad for the things I enjoyed or did well. I only remember praise for responding to what they wanted me to do, for instance telling their friends that what I want to do “when I grew up” was to become a doctor. Anything else I did was simply a diversion from their goal for me: be a doctor.

It’s taken a long time to let go and let my creative talents come to the forefront. Whether it is art or writing, these creative urges drive my life right now. I can barely look at anyone without picturing them in a portrait. I examine facial expressions for clues as to how to portray people better. I read to glean a way of expressing myself better in my writings. I joined the Honolulu Academy of Arts to be closer to other artists, whether famous or otherwise. I attend various artists’ openings to see what makes them so attractive to others that they get a show of their own. I posted my art at http://yessy.com/dickhoyer on January 21st and until today, February 9^th over 1840 people have seen my works, from all over the world. What I pray for right now is someone(s) to buy and launch me in the direction of my dreams. I believe that will happen. After all, 100’s of millions of people are on the internet, millions search for items of interest on the web, some of who are looking for art, a few of them for art like mine.

Watch this space for news!

Meanwhile, get quiet one day in your sewing room and listen carefully to your heart. Dismiss anything coming from your mind and just listen to your heart; it will tell you what you want. Then, take the first step and the rest will be revealed, one after the other. If you do this, ya just never know, you might just be hanging out a shingle that says, “Nancy’s Knick-Knacks--Woobies Our Specialty.”

Love,

Dickie

Poems For CC...

2007-02-07T15:24:00.000-10:00

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know;
His house is in the village, though.
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep

Sonnets from the Portuguese, XIV
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love, thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

Love's Philosophy
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever,
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle;--
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven,
If it disdain'd its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

Sonnet CXVI
by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.

Oh, no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests.. and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love is not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out.. even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Of Pearls and Stars
by Heinrich Heine

The pearly treasures of the sea,
The lights that spatter heaven above,
More precious than these wonders are
My heart-of-hearts filled with your love.

The ocean's power, the heavenly sights
Cannot outweigh a love filled heart.
And sparkling stars or glowing pearls
Pale as love flashes, beams and darts.

So, little, youthful maiden come
Into my ample, feverish heart
For heaven and earth and sea and sky
Do melt as love hath melt my heart.

Beautiful Dreamer
by Stephen Foster

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd a way!

Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody;
Gone are the cares of life's busy throng, --
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea
Mermaids are chaunting the wild lorelie;
Over the streamlet vapors are borne,
Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.

Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,
E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea;
Then will all clouds of sorrow depart, --
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

Gratus

2007-01-22T23:02:00.000-10:00

Gratus…

In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy. --Albert Clarke

And so I am, grateful that is. I am grateful to all of you who have stood by me during these last few months of change. I am thankful to those of you who thought enough of me to be with me on my road to recovery from this “double whammy” of diabetes and cancer. I wrap my arms about those of you who went “the extra mile” and bore me on your shoulders for a time, handing me off to those that had strength anew for the next mile and then the next mile. You know who you are. To single you out would be something not necessarily what you would want so I will keep silent about what you did for me during these tremulous times. There are, however, some things you must all know and so, I begin with the happiness I feel for being grateful to all of you.

I need not repeat the circumstances from which I write. I do want to speak of some things that brought us together and that may well keep us bonded in the future. These are things of “release,” things that paved my road to where I am now and if the universe be kind, are a view to smooth surface forward. Should the past be prologue, then what I write here may well have us—well, some of us—joined in an adventure, great or small, but an escapade, nonetheless.

I thank you for accepting me as I am, warts and all. You have blessed me with friendship and loving unknown to me in recent times. It is not so much that is has not been there, but that I have been blind to these two angels—friendship and love. The blindness came as I focused totally inward, staring at my “bellybutton” and hoping good feelings would emanate and envelope me. Always, I saw what was wrong with me, rather than the good that had, from time to time, spread out among many of you, known to each other and not. That you were unaware of these shortcomings I so vividly saw was either out of acceptance of my “warts” along with the silken voice or that you chose to ignore those faults; bless you for that. So bidden was I to chastise myself for what I did or did not do that the dark cloak I drew around me was the only comfort I had from the cold winds of criticism that blew into me, albeit from me.

It was you that brought me the warmth of the sun, living as I was as a character in Aesop’s Fables, causing me to drop that cloak. It was you that encouraged me to stride out of this self-imposed dislocation from a different reality, you who said, “…you have hundreds of friends, who all love you…” It was you who told me that “…many were waiting to give back to you after you had served so many, way back when.” It was you that held my hand as I wept, begging forgiveness for my silently leaving you so long ago, not a word forthcoming about my departure, just turning on my heels and heading off “…into the sunset.”

I am back among you, now, and I am grateful that you welcomed my return, if indeed quietly. I am happy because I am grateful to all of you.

What brought all this on started with the word from my immediate former wife who said one Thursday night that she was moving out on Saturday, laying down a 20 year marriage, much like laying down a tool whose usefulness was complete. Naturally, I was stunned. I’d seen no signs of disturbance. I was aware of no petulant behavior on my part, for sure. The bills were being paid on time. “Baby Girl,” my daughter, was advancing well in school both in classes and socially, being popular and articulate as she was overwhelmingly elected to class office. What could be so wrong that a break-up was in the offing? My carousing habits were long gone. Diabetes had surfaced making me a “cripple” of sorts. I did not drink anymore. I dropped any extracurricular activities long ago to concentrate on my work to come straight home every night. While we may have eaten lunch and dinner in separate rooms in front of separate TV’s, that didn’t appear strange; after all we had done that for years. Yet, all of a sudden, I was to be alone, without the accompaniment of family for the first time in 20 years.

“We’re too much like roommates,” she said. “I don’t want to live like that for the rest of my life. And there are those ‘transgressions’ for which I will not forget or forgive. You’re on your own, Buddy.” To say my jaw dropped to my knees would be an understatement; more like dropped to my ankles. I thought I had made improvements over my previous life. I thought I was now an upstanding guy. I thought I was respected by friends and family alike for my posture, poise and confidence. I thought my integrity showed through, that what I thought, said and did were all the same thing. I thought I could be counted upon to “deliver the goods.” I thought I was good enough to keep around for the next 30 or 40 years. I thought the phrase, ‘…’til death do us part” was the watchword in this relationship. Here I was, though, being told that I was lacking in the most basic ways, that I was no longer interesting or funny or attractive in any way. I was unacceptable as I was, improved version or not.

Interestingly, as I was confronted with this new level of nonconformity, I felt two things. One was rejection, of course, of the grandest kind. After all these years, I was no longer adequate to stand within this family’s limits. I was being pushed out much like the adolescent male wolf is shunted aside from the core family, never again to participate in family things, forever on his own, hunting alone. The loneliness was immediate and breath-taking. I was to be a “no-name,” never again associated with family celebrations of birthdays, holidays, even funerals. I would have to make appointments to see my daughter. I would never again sit at the head of a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner table; not that we did anything different from regular meals on these days, anyway. I would never again hear, “Hi, Daddy” from either of them. I would never again hear, “Mom told me to ask you if I could…” I would never again have my daughter reaching over the front seat to change the radio station from mine to her favorite one as we drove to and from work and school. I would never again watch her walk from apartment to dumpster and back, ensuring her safe travel. I was rejected even as that lowly watchdog.

The other feeling was one of relief. It was done, the marriage, I mean. I lauded her courage in declaring it over and moving on. I wanted out years ago but, never had the nerve to say this was not for me, child within the marriage or not. I didn’t think I should be the one to end it, leaving them to fend for themselves as I sought other pastures. That she did meant I was released. That she did was a result of a long path of thought and planning that brought us to this end. I lauded that, too. She was able to keep me completely in the dark about her campaign to cut me loose. Her patience was extraordinary; she might have been planning this for years. The proof was she waited until my daughter’s 18^th birthday to spring this on me; now she wouldn’t have to grant me any special privileges because my daughter was underage. That she required nothing special from me was testament to her kindness and graciousness through all this divorce stuff.

Still, I was relieved and grateful that she had “pulled the trigger.” Among other reasons, I could now pursue my art without any recriminations from her or any guilt from me. Before this, if I so much as bought an art pad and some colored pencils, I was branded as taking food out of our mouths. If I tried to discuss what I really wanted to do—create art—I faced rolled eyes. I had come into the marriage an artist yet, as I went along, I saw that having a “job” was the only way to create happiness within the union. I ”laid down” thoughts of a successful artistic career and worked in customer service for most of the marriage. As my wife and daughter left and moved into their new “digs,” I turned the now-spare bedroom into a studio and began creating designs for a new subject matter: erotic stained glass windows.

My designs were accepted by a number of important glass artists and I went forward to construct them. Eventually, I staged a one-man show in early 2004--downtown at a local restaurant—which lasted a month. I thought myself an artist, at last. Although I kept my full-time job at a national long-distance telephone company, I dressed colorfully as befitting an artist and doodled between incoming calls. After the show, I made a few stained glass panels, preferring to try my hand at other things artistic. I made ribbon weavings that I attached to “Dickies™” work shirts and showed them to various retail stores, who weren’t interested. I created some thick copper-wire sculptures for my own amusement. I went to art shows and museums and looked at others’ works. I marveled at what passed for art on one hand and stood speechless in front of masterpieces not needing to be told they were. I was disgruntled at my stuff when I compared it to others yet, I persevered. I would be good, eventually.

Not much later in 2004 two things happened that changed my life: I got fired and my mother passed away, leaving me a sum of money (enough to live on for about 18 months). Losing the job was a happy circumstance as I hated it anyway. Gaining the inheritance allowed me to pay off my car and some debts but I was ill-prepared for this “sudden money” and ended up spending it on fast cars, fast women and fast times. The rest I just frittered away… I’m kidding, of course, about frittering it all away. I didn’t realize just how much expenses went out each month in general—food, rent and gas to name a few items. I did try a few businesses along the way but, my heart was still in creating art which I continued to do during all this. Eventually, despite the constant urging and encouraging of business friends, I laid these down, working on art 10 to 14 hours a day.

As life would have it, I needed to support myself and went to work for a couple temporary hire firms during 2006. I stayed with them until I was fired—again—just as I entered the hospital for this most recent round of unpleasantness because of calling in sick once too often. Since then, many of you have come forward to offer support of various kinds, for which I am eternally grateful. Social Security handed me a portion of what I’ve contributed in a lifetime of work. The State gave me food stamps and health insurance. So far, I have the basics, like bagels and cream cheese with coffee in the morning at home. I can buy gas though I don’t travel much. I have the internet, email, basic cable (paid for by what I charge two housemates to share it) and a cell phone. I am happy because of being grateful for all this and more.

I am also grateful for you, my viewing public. You allowed me into your homes and places of work. You may have said, “Goodie! Another piece from Dick; I’ll view it now!!” Then again, you may have simply clicked “delete.” Some of you have responded; most have not. No matter; that you even opened something from me or visited my sites is indeed a blessing. You allowed me to ensconce myself in a small corner of you, if only for a moment. You may or may not like what I do or say but, again, I am grateful for your glance. I’ve learned one thing during all of what I’ve gone through: for me, creativity is my driving force, my raison d’etré. If I can create artistically, I am incredibly happy to reflect what is in me through brush and paint, l albeit through a PC. If I can join sentences together in some order and be understood, I am grateful beyond any words I can find. I am eternally grateful that I can communicate—so far as I can tell—in art and words, spoken or written. I’ve discovered talents, though not lying fallow, were dormant until recent events sharpened them. And though I am grateful as hell that you read or look at what I do, I leave you with anticipation.

You are but a small enclave of people directly addressed by me. I’ve gleaned that your intelligence is above average. I’ve discovered your tolerance and acceptance levels as none of you (so far) have said, “Enough! Drop me from your mailing list!” You have a good sense of humor, collectively. And you are special to me from a very significant point of view: you are the first to read what I write and see what I produce. You may not like either but still you are the first. You may agree or disagree but nothing changes your prominence as first. You may or may not own any of my art which doesn’t really matter--someone else outside of this special circle may be the first to do that. Still, what is unchanging is that you saw or read it here first. I am grateful that you were first. You allowed me to experiment before you in words or visually. I practiced my various crafts in front of you, first, before going out to a larger audience thoroughly prepared. For now, I listen to whatever feedback you offer. Later, I may not be as approachable simply because of engagements on my time. I anticipate that what I do now, with you, will expand not only here, within the Islands, “…from sea to shining sea…” but to a world-wide appreciation. You may think me arrogant to say this from a 14’ by 14’ room in a house on the desolate, dry and dusty west coat of Oahu. I said I would leave you with “anticipation.”

Mark my words. You will always be able to say you were the first to know of my body of work, literary and artistic. Others may propel me to prominence and wealth, but it is on your shoulders I stand. It is to you I will point when asked how I got my start, from where I came.

So far, it has been a great privilege to share my thoughts and feelings with you.

I can tell you, I am happy because I am grateful.

More to come in the next edition of Brittleliquid’s Journey…

Where I Am Now

2007-01-19T19:47:00.000-10:00

About three months ago, as many of you know, I was diagnosed and began treatment for prostate cancer (PC). I have been virtually pain-free since that time, suffering only occasional cramps in my penile region which I’ll explain later. I’m basically inactive now though I have begun a walking and diet program to handle my weight gain since hospitalization.

My emotional life soars presently as I feel the tenderness of love newly embracing me. All this and more in this edition of Brittleliquid’s Journey.

Let me first explain why I use the term, “Brittleliquid” in the title of this blog. I invented the word about 25 years ago to describe what glass is. I was working heavily in stained glass at the time and wanted to name my newly formed small business. I new that when glass is made it is in a liquid form, albeit at about 1200° Fahrenheit. When glass cools to room temperature it is brittle, requiring thoughtful handling to keep it intact. Hence, I put the two words together and came up with “Brittleliquid.” Fairly rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

When I was first tagged with the label “Prostate Cancer Sufferer” I admit I was devastated. I spent a lot of time “woe is me’ing” and crying uncontrollably. I felt so sorry for myself. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, that I would end my days eroded by cancer, slipping away in a painful or woeful demise, tubed-up and incapacitated. At least that was the way I perceived this illness. I had not paid much attention to my prostate even though in my 50’s; the proclivity toward the cancer is remorselessly high in men my age. I had some signs of the disease over the past few years—frequent urination, slow spill and even some erectile dysfunction. Yet, I attributed this to the damage my Type II diabetes inflicted and left things at that.

As my urinary troubles intensified—I going five or six times a night—I got to a point where I was so tired from working all day and sleeping so badly at night that I stopped eating regular meals. I came home at 5:30pm and went straight to bed. My weight dropped and my belt was getting more notches as my waist size decreased. Gee, a happy coincidence but, I was paying a heavy price. As my date with destiny and hospitalization neared, I ate less and less, maybe yoghurt in the morning and a saimin soup at night. I just didn’t have the strength to prepare anything more than that. I had little taste for much, not even fast foods.

I landed a job a few weeks before all this at Hawaiian Telcom, the local phone company. There, I worked in the business customer service section which was floundering under poor performance. I was assigned to collect data on customers’ missing invoices and made a few suggestions as to how to do it better. I was immediately placed in charge of the duty and had two people working for me in a matter of a couple weeks. The pay was good--$20 per hour—and the people very accepting of me as a “newbie.”

About three weeks into this assignment, I began the suffering stage of the combined effects of diabetes and PC and started calling in sick. I just couldn’t get out of bed; I was so tired and weak. I slept most of the day and by night time, I was wide awake and couldn’t fall asleep, though I was very much fatigued. I might make it in to work the following day but, by the end of the day, I was so whipped I didn’t know if I would make it from the bus stop to home, a mere 200 yards away. The routine would engage itself again and I might make it in the next day or I might not.

By the time I signed myself into medical care, I even went to a Chinese doctor to see if he could figure out what was wrong with me. He took my pulse and said something in half-Chinese and half-English which my friend, Miss Chinatown (really, Sonja Wong) translated as, “Your cholesterol is very high.” He took my pulse again Sonja translated his next statement as, “You have arthritis in your left hip.” I could be sure of pain in my left hip; it came and went over time. He told me to pay him $7.00 cash for his consultation and to get my prescription in the front of his store. I did both, leaving with two packages of twigs, bark, roots, bugs and seeds and the directions to boil each one in 5 ½ cups of water down to one. The bus ride home took almost 2 hours in the evening rush hour and I was woozy most of the way.

At home, I told my landlord of the boiling directions and he went ballistic. “That’ll take two hours or more of electricity!” As his electric bill had been increasing monthly, largely due to the company’s fuel costs, he was beside himself with a deliberate increase in kilowatt hours. Nothing about whether this “tea” might be any good for me, just concern for more money to be spent on utilities. So, I paid him what I thought two hours was worth and started boiling. I drank this incredible-tasting mix later and I can say it settled my stomach somewhat allowing me to eat some of my landlord’s local cooking, which was always fabulous. The next day, he boiled the second package for me, perhaps embarrassed that he was unreasonably upset at the prescription’s requirements. Strange that he would challenge me on this as he was local, even had some Chinese in his background and knew what was needed to use this medicine.

All that was moot as the very next morning I made my to Emergency at the local hospital.

During my three week stay at the hospital, I endured five medical procedures; three involving my prostate and two involving my kidneys, which were operating at about 50 percent when I was admitted. Two of the PC operations were to obtain specimens for the lab to determine the depth of my cancer; one was to reduce my body’s testosterone levels—thought to feed the PC. My urologist came in to talk to me and said what I remembered as “Gobbledegook, gobbledegook, gobbledegook and sign here.” I tried very hard to concentrate on what he was telling me but the administered drugs affected my concentration. I had three Playboys’ at my bedside and I couldn’t turn the pages, much less lift them to my bed tray. I barely understood what he was saying now that I recall and had no one to sit with me as these procedures were described. I signed the releases and headed off to surgery or x-ray.

There was one release, however that really punched me hard. The medical term for this was “orchidectomy.” It was necessary in order to drastically reduce the effects of testosterone which was thought to feed the PC. I found out later that testosterone, if indeed it was the guilty party, was also produced by the adrenal glands. I wondered later whether this particular operation was really necessary but, my urologist spoke to me again in “gobbledegook” and I signed where indicated. I was not totally unaware of the central effects of this orchidectomy and, at my age, I figured baby-making days were over. You see, the word breaks down like this: “orchid” is the substitute word for testicles and –ectomy means removal. You understand I’m sure. By “cutting my nuts, the family jewels” I was now on hormone therapy. No more testosterone, no more cancer was the thinking. It was either the “snip” or chemical castration costing $900 per month for pills, ingested for months. My urologist’s way was “quick and dirty” and results would likely be immediate as measured by my PSA blood levels; high is bad, low is good. Mine measured at 48.5 just before I went in for my first operation. Two months later it was at a 5 though best is less than .1. Maybe these “medico’s” were on to something here.

I did find the side effects of lowering my testosterone rather deep and challenging. Since my female hormones were now running rampant in my system, unchecked by a balancing male hormone, I underwent some interesting changes. I cried at the slightest whiff of an emotional scene—weddings, children smiling and hugging each other or flowers offered to someone for no reason at all. Suddenly, I started watching soap operas and didn’t miss an episode of “All My Children.” I watched and wondered why men couldn’t be more like the ones on daytime TV. Oprah Winfrey was my heroine. I started shopping for shoes, did my nails incessantly and asked my housemates if my jeans made me look fat. I cleaned the bathroom twice a day and hung curtains everywhere. I fussed at the others if they didn’t come home in time for dinner… In short, my feminine side was coming on strong from the lack of testosterone.

When I told that story to a group of PC sufferers at a recent support group meeting, the men shifted nervously in their seats, looking down at their hands and one actually asked me, “Dick, did all that really happen?” He was visibly relieved when some others assured him I was joking.

Presently, I’m feeling fine with no pain anywhere. I pee normally, better than normal really, more like a five year old. My urine exits with such force I can write my name in letters 6 feet high on blank walls and not use my hands to direct the stream…

Other than a mild weight gain since I came out of the hospital and my primary care doctor’s admonitions about that what is coming up is another check with the urologist. He says that the two plastic tubes in my back that deliver urine from the kidneys to the bladder need changing in about two months. These get “crudded up” (another medical term) with waste material and slowly restrict urine flow. Apparently this procedure will be a challenge as he has to go through my penis and the bladder to replace these tubes with new ones. Get this: he says I won’t actually be in the hospital; we can do it at Burger King since they have wide tables. What he means is that I’ll be an outpatient; you know, drive myself to surgery and back home all in the same day. Yeah, right…

There’s been little talk of a cancer doctor visit, so far. Prior to this upcoming plumbing job, I’ll get a full body scan to see how far the cancer has progressed into my bones—ribs, pubic and spine. If the results of that are scary, then I’ll see this third doctor and talk about the favored treatment, radiation, either in rays or in imbedded pellets. Chemo is not in much favor as it tends to kill living things like people as it does its work.

Along the way, I’m researching PC as best I can on the internet and in books. I’ve attended two PC support group meetings, called “USTwo,” since November (none were open during December) and have come away with some perceptions that won’t go away. The first is that most of the men in these groups are in their 70’s and 80’s. The second impression is that most of these patients know more about PC than their doctors do. Comments from these attendees lead me to believe that PC is not “sexy” enough for most oncologists—at least in Hawaii—to spend a lot of time working in this arena. The big bucks go to leukemia, breast cancer, lung cancer possibly because typically younger people get this stuff. Too, since urologists are the first to be consulted about PC, and their expertise is the urinary tract, few understand the treatment methods that could kill this thing off once and for all.

I’m still new at this thing but I am looking for other methods of treatment, including what is called “clinical trials.” In these, new methods or medications are tried out on a select group of people to see if they will work. Typically there are several criteria that must be met or one cannot enter these trials. For a Honolulu clinical trial, I must have failed to respond to other treatments before consideration.

Additionally, diet and exercise are being touted as of some real use. The diet part is total vegetarianism including lots of juicing, particularly with spinach leaves. I’m juicing several times a week, adding carrots, fresh ginger and an apple for sweetness. I’m eating more salads, too. For exercise, I walk and jog for a half-hour at a time. I drink loads of water and take an occasional multi-vitamin. We’ll see how this works out.

When I was first diagnosed, I was given six months to live. My urologist said that whoever told me that was lying. In his opinion, I had a whole year…! As I’ve mentioned before, people associated with healing told me I had least 20 years. I decided to live as if I had those 20 years and did two things: I went to an awards ceremony honoring me with the “Fickle Finger of Fate” prize (for those who fate intervened into an otherwise normal life) and told the audience of my plans. Many had young children, even babies with them. I said, “on the anniversary of my 20^th year of survival, my goal is to be in bed with a 20 year old woman who is hot, wet, satisfied and happy to be with me. I’m looking around for a candidate and she may well be here in the audience tonight!”

The second thing I did, with my new-found confidence, was to make my girlfriend into my fiancée. I asked her to marry me just before New Years and she said yes. My friends were ecstatic and supportive and full of gladness for me. My family, on the other hand, said, “Marriage? In your condition?”

You can probably guess my response.

Until next time,

This has been another episode of Brittleliquid‘s Journey.

2007-01-08T07:07:00.000-10:00

12/10/05

Wednesday dawned quietly, cloudless and windless. I stared at blue skies with morning coffee alongside, sitting outside the house, watching others get into cars and drive off to work. For me, it would be a day at the PC, designing more artwork for upcoming projects.

Or so I thought…

About 10:00am, my best friend Steve called asking if I was available to help deliver Angel Fish, a 42 foot wood fishing boat from the boat yard to her berth at Kewalo Basin, about an hour’s trip by sea. I would need to be pier-side by noon if I agreed to go. Would I! I worked on Angel Fish for almost three weeks straight for this day and I wasn’t going to miss it. I rang off with Steve and thought over what this day meant to me.

I would be back at sea, again, almost 20 years after I hung up my sails to live ashore. Marriage had separated me from the ocean as my second wife abhorred the beach and anything having to do with water. I missed the ocean. In Hawaii, the water is warm and clear and of a deep blue that no camera or artist ever captured. The winds are generally steady, blowing from the northeast most of the year at 10-15 miles per hour. The other times of the year, like the fall and winter, winds come from any direction and any speed. Today was like that—from the south, little puffs blowing onshore. This made for warm, muggy days but with little wind and a flat calm ocean to travel over. This was going to be a pleasant and short, surely no more than an hour or so.

Back on October 13^th—six weeks ago from today—Angel Fish came out of the water for repairs after spending several years working various fishing areas around Hawaii and a few more just tied up to her dock. Angel Fish required extensive work. She leaked both below and above decks. Her steering was frozen; unmovable. Her military-surplus diesel engine needed a major tune up and her tanks held water-contaminated fuel. Her decks were rotten, needing replacement. Her topsides were badly marred by black rubber from the tires used as fenders at the harbor. Her hull above the waterline was laced with holes from dry rot and occasional bumps against the pier. Her interior was moldy, oily and dirty. The lowest parts of the boat were wet and in some areas at least six inches deep in water. She would be expensive and time-consuming to fix up.

I came into this scene about three weeks into the project to prepare Angel Fish for a return to sea. Steve asked if I could help out based on my own experiences as a former boat-owner and as a favor to him and his cousin, Angel Fish’s owner. I agreed since I had some time available from my own business project and headed down to the boat yard.

For someone whose exercise consists mainly in picking up a pencil and a sketch pad or using my PC’s mouse to design for various art projects , I certainly wasn’t prepared for this kind of work. In the end, I was under the boat, inside her, on top--scraping, sanding, grinding, cleaning, pumping, caulking, lifting, carrying, cleaning and painting. I came away sore and hurting in places I didn’t know existed. Daily, I cleaned paint and dirt off me with chemicals and scrubbing pads. I threw away shirts, shorts, socks and underwear that could never be cleaned of oil and paint enough to wear in public. I woke up more tired than when I went to sleep. I lost weight. But, in spite off this, I really looked forward to the day when Angel Fish would be back in the water, motoring on her own freshly repaired and painted bottom, gleaming with new hull paint; proud again.

And now, that day arrived and I was on my way shortly after Steve and I talked. I took my camera and my cell phone along just in case I could use either or both. Turns out now, both came in handy…

Came 12noon, the appointed departure hour, and I looked down at Angel Fish, bobbing gently against her mooring lines at the temporary dock. She sparkled with new paint. She even floated higher in the water because of her repaired bottom, half of one side having had its wood replaced. Her seams were tight and not leaking. She was clean inside and out.

Bobby, her owner, came up with some supplies in one hand and a borrowed anchor in the other. He swung aboard for a moment and left in search of a diesel mechanic as for some reason, the motor wouldn’t start. While a tune-up was in order, due to the vast amount of work required just to get her afloat, this one thing didn’t happen. She had been towed into dry dock when her steering wouldn’t work and now it looked like she would have to be towed back to her pier because of a uncooperative engine.

The diesel mechanic arrived, took a deep breath, removed the deck boards over the engine compartment and lowered himself down. He asked how long the new batteries had been charging and Bobby told him. Not long enough, the mechanic declared. So long as the battery charger was running, at least the starter would get enough electricity to get the motor turning. After that, the batteries would get their charge from the generator but first, the motor needed to start. Several attempts later, the motor caught and fired up. The mechanic took a sample of what fuel was still aboard and told Bobby he still had water mixed in it. She should be okay for your short run, he said, but get that water out soonest.

Bobbie sent me to the boat yard’s mini-mart to get a gallon of motor oil and there, I ran into the mechanic and struck up a conversation. He said that Angel Fish’s motor was an old military surplus one in bad need of complete overhaul or replacement, which would be the cheaper way to go. Then, he said something that would come back starkly: That motor will probably get you “from here to there” but don’t go planning any trips to Maui.

Angel Fish used to work the hottest fish spots all over the state and had a solid reputation for profitable trips. She always made money and always took her crew “there and back,” confidently rumbling along hour after hour. Now, we were having trouble getting her started and keeping her running for a one hour trip. Water in diesel fuel is deadly to a motor causing it to quit as would be expected. Yet, not only did we have water in the fuel but the mechanic found water in the lubricating oil, also highly damaging to a motor. Tell Bobby to make sure to add that gallon of oil, the mechanic said, but get that oil and water out soonest—a favorite expression of his.

At 2 o’clock, we finally pushed off and backed away from the dock. Bobby signaled to call him during the trip as we left. We waved. The engine room covers were off and oily, white smoke spewed from the motor and into the cabin. Walter, the skipper, just shrugged his shoulders and applied power as we nosed out into the harbor and headed for the channel leading to the ocean. I shrugged, too, and drew out my camera.

Angel Fish moved easily in the water, throwing spray off to either side, leaving a burbling trail behind her. We “turned the corner” at the outer buoys of the Keehi Channel and headed east towards Kewalo Basin, the commercial harbor which was her home. Higher motor revolutions, however, produced a screeching noise from the engine compartment, which both Walter and I figured was just a loose rubber belt slipping in its pulley, probably the generator. Smoke still issued from below but was quickly blown out of the cabin by the wind created by our moving over the water. The motor continued to rumble on—as well as could be expected.

I took pictures—of the coast passing by our port side, of the far west end of the island receding behind us, of ships coming by. I wasn’t at all seasick but that was partly because I was determined not to be, partly because the sea was so flat and partly because Angel Fish rode so smoothly through the water. The day was bright and clear. What clouds appeared, billowed up behind the Koolau Mountains like giant piles of un-baled cotton. What a perfect day to make this homeward bound journey.

Honolulu Harbor came up on our port side and I could see all the business buildings rising up behind it. What a shame people were working in them instead of enjoying this peaceful—but noisy—ride out on the water. Next, maybe a mile away, would be a turn into Kewalo Basin as soon as we reached the outermost green and red marker buoys.

Walter kept looking over his shoulder from his perch in the captain’s chair at the motor still smoking away as its six cylinders pounded away. He looked concerned. I wasn’t sure what he was worried about; we were moving along smartly edging ever closer to our destination, seemingly just minutes away. I popped open a beer and continued snapping pictures of Honolulu and Diamond Head.

And we were there—the outer markers. Onshore, I could see the park right next to the Kewalo Basin entrance. Waves broke against the breakwater, white foam spraying up and over its black rocks. The water below us turned green as the bottom rose up from the depths, the deep blue ocean water exchanging places with it. I could even see patches of reef below us the water was so clear. In an instant, it seemed, the calm and peace we enjoyed up to now changed. The trust we had in Angel Fish to get us to her home port evaporated as Walter motioned me to come forward from my seat in the stern.

He pointed to the throttle which was all the way forward--meaning the motor should have been operating at its highest RPM’s—and yet, the sound from the engine was the same as it was at idle; no change. He looked at me with eyes widening as he threw the throttle back and forth, slow to fast, with no response from the motor except one: it quit. It slowly backed off from any rotations and went quiet. It wouldn’t restart either, probably because the batteries didn’t have enough charge to do that. Things got very quiet aboard Angel Fish.

We had no radio to call for help. Earlier, during the time the mechanic was ministering to the motor, I tried to install a replacement radio but it didn’t work. All we had were cell phones to call anybody. There wasn’t time to make any calls, anyway. That breakwater with waves crashing on to it was getting closer as the onshore wind of 5-10 miles per hour had control of Angel Fish, pushing her towards it. The clear water below us was almost white as the sand on the rising bottom was also getting closer to us. We were abut 20 minutes away from grinding a perfectly good, fresh-from-dry dock, 59 year old fishing boat into splinters.

So, we sprang into action.

I went up forward with Walter to the anchor hatch and pulled it open, looking for anchor rope. It was there alright, in bunches of coils that had no end that I could see. It looked like rope used to tow water skiers—polypropylene, a kind of plastic rope, certainly not the strong, expensive nylon line I was used to. I grabbed handfuls of what was there dragging it out on to the springy deck which sagged under my weight due to its being rotten away. Walter called for me to hand him the anchor, now buried under yards of this rope. I dug it out from under the pile and at the same time, found the bitter end of the line, also giving it to him. He tossed a fast knot through the anchor’s stem, secured it, and threw the anchor into the water. I looked back at the breakwater, so close now I could see people picnicking in the park it protected. A wave of relief came over me as I knew now we would only have to call Bobby and have him send some one out to tow us in. We would be safe and secure so long as the anchor dug in and the line held.

I looked at Walter just as his eyes really went wide this time. In his hands was the parted remnants of the anchor line we had trusted just minutes ago. The anchor had cut through the knot as if it was sewing thread. We had no motor, no radio to call the coast Guard and now no anchor and now we were starting to roll as the swells moved us ever closer onshore. I reached for my cell phone and called Bobby.

“BOBBY! THIS IS DICK! IT’S DICK! ME--DICK! WE’RE OUTSIDE KEWALO BASIN AND THE MOTOR HAS QUIT AND WE’VE LOST THE ANCHOR! SEND SOMEBODY, QUICK!”

I repeated myself as Bobby couldn’t understand me, perhaps because my voice was not that of an airline pilot reassuring his passengers during an emergency situation but rather that of somebody who just saw a ghost and wanted out of there. Just then I looked up to see a boat coming out of the harbor, the kind used to haul tourists around for parasailing. I hung up from Bobby and asked Walter if I should flag it down and he said no, he has customers aboard; we shouldn’t bother him. Shouldn’t bother him because he has customers aboard? There is an ancient sea tradition that sailors drop what they are doing to go to the aid of a stricken vessel. If we weren’t “stricken” right now, we surely would be in about 15 minutes amid the wreckage of a surf-tossed vessel pounded into pieces on those evil, black rocks of that breakwater. By then, it would be too late to ask for help except from those picnickers in order to get ourselves ashore in one piece.

My heart sank as I watched the parasailing tow boat glide away from us with his customers. We were out of options and running out of depth quick. We had maybe 15 feet of water beneath us and when that came down to 4 or 5, we would be aground and at the mercy of an onshore wind and crashing waves. There was not a single boat around us until…

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Coming out of the harbor was another parasailing tow boat, this time with only the operator aboard—no customers! I stood up on the rickety forward deck and flashed the international distress signal: arms straight out, alternately lifting and lowering them as I faced him. He saw me and turned his boat toward us in response. Angel Fish was rolling pretty strongly from side to side by now and I fell onto my backside on the forward cabin top as I watched him close the distance on us. When he was within earshot, I told him of our predicament and asked for a tow in. He tossed line to me, which I fixed to the forward bollard as he took up the slack and began our tow.

I needed a beer badly; several of them. We were finally headed in the right direction although silently. I looked out to the breakwater as we passed it. The waves, which had been so menacing just a few minutes before, seemed serene and beautiful: white, soft and foamy. The rocks glistened in the afternoon sun, sparkling with spray just tossed on them. In the distance, picnickers frolicked on wide swaths of deep green grass, unmindful of how close they might have come to the tragedy of a run-aground boat. A temporary pier was open before us and we tied up, thanking the saving captain as he motored off.

As luck would have it, the only spot open on the concrete pier was protected by old tires, the same tires that left so many rubber marks on Angel Fish before she went to dry dock. All that fresh, beautiful, expensive white topside paint now had long black streaks imbedded in it.

Angel Fish brought us home from dry dock, for sure, a little worse for wear, but home. May she sail on for a long time to come…

I Feel All Alone

2007-01-07T05:38:00.000-10:00

12/18/06

Today, in spite of the assurances of countless others, I feel all alone. Tears are streaming from my eyes, my lips are stretched tightly across my teeth and I sob quietly. I’ve been here before so, it’s not new. It’s just that I realize how lonely I am and don’t really know what to do about it.

That’s not quite true. I do know what to do and that is to reach out to other people. I have to stop thinking that I’m bothering them if I call. I have to write those emails or letters, hoping for a response. I need to attend support group meetings for my cancer. I may even need to volunteer for various things like learning how to become a docent (of all things) at the local Academy of Arts. I need to be among people, to care for their needs and to get away from myself and my problems.

Maybe…

I find such comfort in creating my art right now in spite of these momentary bouts of low feelings. I find that each work is better than the last one. I’m using more imagination and taking more chances. Each piece is a story now instead of just a portrait. Of immense help is my model who transformed herself of late. She now poses pretty much any way I ask and adds a few twists of her own.

Before my diagnosis (BMD), she was shy and posed like it. We sent emails back and forth and we learned about each other. I encouraged her in any number of ways to become more courageous in her posing. In doing so, that courage would pay off in other areas of her life. She changed—a little bit at a time—and her posing relaxed and was freer. I didn’t realize it at the time but, I was building a relationship with her in friendship and love. I thought that I was merely using the powers of written persuasion to see more of her.

BMD, I just wanted pictures so I could produce something, anything. If the pictures were dark or out of focus, I fixed them best I could. If the model wasn’t sure, I sent pose suggestions. When the pictures came in with approximations of what I wanted, I simply accepted what I got and did what I could. I even paid for model time thinking that as long as I was fronting money I got what I asked for. I could have simply bought some magazines or downloaded pictures from the web but, those were fraught with stumbling blocks like copyright infringement and the like. Besides, I liked my model and her family, so much so that I supported them for a while and gifted cameras, a PC, clothing and support for various business ventures. That we could comfortably converse and she would take her clothes off for me was delightful, indeed.

She read a journal of my hospital experience and contacted me right away to see if there was anything she could do. I suggested another pictorial, as soon as possible, because I honestly didn’t know how long I had left to live. I told her the doctors said six months and then they said a year. In any case, a pictorial of her would be soothing to my frame of mind, I said. She told me pictures would arrive the next day—and they did; all nudes! This was an overnight, radical change for her. When I queried her about the transformation she said that I had done so much for her and her family when I was well that, now that I was sick, I deserved whatever she could give me and nude poses was a start.

It’s been the start of much more than just her body in front of me. I’ve fallen in love with her. For a year and a half I’ve harbored deep feelings toward her which I’ve tried to ignore. As we corresponded, I answered her doubts and fears with uplifting messages of hope, courage and building confidence. Motivational, to be sure, but I was also attempting to ingratiate myself. I wanted her to accept and like me. I spent long periods composing and editing those messages so that every word fit its meaning, all with an eye to being memorable. She reached out more often, not necessarily asking for any particular advice, just saying hello or thanking me for a contribution of some kind. I usually responded quickly, acknowledging her words and offering encouragement of some kind for school, for the future and for posing—always the posing suggestions.

One time, she decided to accept an invitation to enter a fund-raising beauty contest for her town. I was delighted at her decision this time as she had refused the call before and only stepped forward this time after I wrote her about it. I wrote that she would be the winner if only because of her beauty and brains; I mean, what else is there? Well, in this case, the object was to raise money for the town library and the contest winner would be the one who raised the most money. The result was the ugliest girl was first and my beauty was fourth--$5,000 to her $500.

She so impressed the crowd and dignitaries with her beauty, poise, confidence, posture and speech (which included a specific reference to an American by name—yours truly) that the town mayor changed the rules about who could ride on the parade floats the next day. Before this event only the top three—the Queen and two Princesses--were presented to the parade route. Immediately after my beauty ended her presentation, the mayor announced that all seven contestants would be on the parade floats the next day. My girl made an impact far beyond placing fourth; she changed the contest rules just by showing up. She was also offered a job as an account in her sponsor’s business as soon as she graduated from CPA classes and a position in Hizzoner’s office with the same proviso.

Later, McDonald’s invited her to be sponsored in another contest, this one truly a beauty and brains event. Even the mayor’s wife came by the house in her limousine recommending she join this one. Initially, my girl said no. She wasn’t interested in anything that would take her away from her studies. I stepped in by reasoning with her about accepting the invitation. Should she win, I said, there was a scholarship and a chance to move forward to some real money winnings in more prestigious events. Still, she hesitated, even though would mean financial reward heretofore unknown to her family. I pulled out the stops by researching the name of a heroine in her country and then compared that war-time effort with my girl’s own rising from her current situation to--at least--lead her town to fame.

Apparently, that did the trick, for she was out the door with a good friend to complete an application within minutes of my email arriving. She made the deadline and McD0onald’s was thrilled. I congratulated her on her wise decision. I wrote about she would overcome her innate shyness over time and through engagement with life. I was very proud of her actions and quite glad that I seemed to have something to do with them. She didn’t tell her Mom about my email although I did, in a roundabout way, so that I did not betray the confidences my girl and I exchanged up until now. I found out later that my girl was at her Mom’s hospital bedside during the opening phases of the new contest and missed it.

Now, in the present I was deep into thoughts of her. Someone asked me how I know I’m in love with someone else. I replied, “I know I’m in love with her because when I’m alone, I am thinking about her. When I’m with others, I am thinking about her. And, when I’m with her, I am thinking about her.” I wondered what it was like to fall in love--again. It had been so long since anything stirred in my chest, any emotion enveloped my heart that I wasn’t so sure I wasn’t experiencing acid reflux. I wasn’t in pain; don’t get me wrong but, I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside whenever I thought of her. My imagination carried me across the miles and time zones to emerge from an arriving airline flight and seeing her live, for the first time. I pictured us holding each other so tightly a crow bar couldn’t pry us a part. I envisioned us quietly talking, laughing softly at each others’ gentle teasing, holding hands at the dinner table and so easily loving each other. I saw us in long moments’ just looking at each other, smiling then giggling over who knows what. The years between us disappeared as love took over, embracing us in kindness, consideration, gentleness, caring and hopefulness. I am a man in full. I need nothing else so long as she is alongside me. My potential is released with her breathing the same air as me. I am content and peaceful, at last.

And at this moment I am alone, waiting for her beckon and gesture to join her, if only through the exchange of emails. I gaze at her fresh pictures and shake my head in incredulity; she’s provided total exposure of that which makes her most a woman. I stare for long moments enjoying the view. I run thru stories that might match each picture to visualize the finished piece and calculate the production time. Her eyes invite me into her world. I read “Come hither” in each photo. I take solace in the knowledge that I am the only man in the world privileged to see these. So, whatever she does in front of the camera is for me only. Such a beauty she is and, with sex oozing from every pore and every inch of skin, she dominates any scene. She said that her purpose in life is to serve others but in these pictures and in my imagination all is reversed; we are serving her.

Would that that be the case. I want to serve and she wants to serve. She wants to serve in duality; I’m for the singular version. She wants to be “of service” to her loved ones--like her family. I’m more of the state of mind to serve one other person—there’s not enough room in my ego for a lot of others. The duality she seeks is to “repay” the support her family gave her while she studied to be a CPA and to be “in service” to at least one other person as she explores her “dark side” in a safe way. Although my journey involves many other people, I’ve thanked them by just being around them as they went through the experience of me. I’m looking to serve someone else, solely in gratitude that I can.

While our outward definitions of service differ, it is this inward journey of service that is the same. The “service to loved ones/others” vary in candidate number and reasons for us. Fortunately, I see her with arms extended to a world of others and I embrace that. I think my role in serving her is to lead the applause and to introduce her to the people that will serve her, too, as she goes about her life making things better for her family and loved ones. I think she sees my art of her not as my serving her but, as she serving me with rich pictorials. Here, we bond. She provides me a plethora of poses saying, “…i am just here for you, appreciates your whole individuality.. you’re an amazing person, you just deserve to receive a great appreciation.. I will always support you.. Maybe later after i'll do the house chores ill ask mom to take me some pictures for you, [so you] could persist [to] do your work as an artist. Remember that we’re just here for you, always...”

I weep again as I consider these words of “betrothal,” written with such kindness and tenderness, from the very person I fix my eyes on in these photos. I ask myself if she could ever love me as a lover and companion, really considering myself unworthy. Yet, I am the only one who knows her secrets; she’s not felt safe until me. I can reflect those secrets in my art of her while she provides the tapestries. I send those “secret life” works back to her alone for her perusal. She writes wonderful things about the art and about me. I respond in words and in ever-better art. By better, I mean artistically. I amaze myself with how much better I am yet, I know I am creating this improved art because her responses. I understand that my art pleases her and for that I am in gratitude. I see that I have served her well and she is very pleased. On her side, she has served me by providing fresh displays of herself, responding to my request to “reveal all.” In her eyes, I am worthy and for me, that is my payment.

I recover from my loneliness bout and carry on with my art. In fact, whenever I am verbally blocked, I work on a piece. I lose myself in solving the many architectural problems of depicting the 3Dhuman form in two dimensions. She is such a beauty that I work hard, with perspiration dripping from my nose on to the keyboard (okay, I lied about the sweat). I do work at reflecting her concisely, especially her eyes. I am so fully connected to creation that time goes by without notice. When I get blocked at the easel, I return to this writing and find words I hadn’t seen before, picking up effortlessly from where I left off earlier.

In the background is XMRadio, coming through my PC’s hi-fi speaker system. I’m tuned to the New Age channel which is very stimulating and yet peaceful. Yanni’s been on there, Kitaro and others too numerous to mention. I used to listen to Classical exclusively, well, maybe some old rock music came through once in a while.

I sign off today and promise more later…

A View Away

2007-01-05T10:28:00.000-10:00

How could I but love you if only just for those?

2007-01-05T10:20:00.000-10:00

1/5/07

Hello, My Darling Che-Che,

I think you may wonder at why I love you like I do. Look at our situation from my point of view towards understanding.

You are young and beautiful. You are warm and enthusiastic. You have accepted my wisdom and thoughts and even worked with some of them. You have revealed yourself both physically and emotionally to me over some two years. I get to spend hour after hour just looking at you, studying your form and shape and working out a design that reflects you. You helped me make breakthroughs in my art like getting your eyes perfect and learning how to make your skin color consistent throughout. And, what a lovely skin color it is!