The Official Hog Blog
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
I was thrown into a pool before I could talk properly, at age four or five. So long ago, I can't even remember the first time. The shallow end was nice and easy, playing tag and marco polo. But I watched with amazement at the kids who were big enough and old enough to swim in the deep end. I practiced holding my breath under water for extended periods, knowing that if I had to I could swim from the deep end to the shallow end by the mere strength of my lungs. Heck, I could stay underwater for an hour it seemed. Eventually, I did swim in the deep end, but I resisted the diving board and the deep end as long as I could.
The older kids able to swan dive, cannon-ball and flip off the spring board made me long to make those leaps. They always pulled themselves out of the water with smiles, and often ran back to do it again as soon as possible. I'd sit with my chin in my hands and stare as they'd pull gainers and jackknife with a kick to get the biggest splash. Oftentimes huge splashes that soaked the lifeguards, getting them benched like some sort of technical foul.
You get fifteen minutes!
These were the guys I idolized for pulling tricks on bikes and skateboards, guys who were allowed to go hunting and always caught the biggest fish in the smallest of creeks, fellas who cussed, spat tobacco, and the girls swooned over for their coolness. I wanted to feel that. I wanted to fel that comfort and coolness and that unflappability.
It wasn't until I realized that every one of those guys had to be where I was first, afraid to jump and looking at what seemed a great drop with almost certainly terrific deformities if an accident happened, that I knew it would be as easy as walking. It could be as instinctial as blinking, with just a huge amount of faith, and knowing that everything is going to be just fine. With that faith, I could make the leap, land safely in the water, swim to the deck, run back to the ladder and make the dive again.
Approaching fatherhood is a bit like approaching the edge of a diving board for the first time. It looks quite daunting, but the allure of the cool water is tantalizing and exciting. The joyous flying feeling of diving off and up into the air outweighs the fear.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Neo on the written works:
(From "Helen")
The laugh, the tear and the hard-on are three internal gauges by which we can judge our literary work.
"I know the unloved.
I love the unknown.
There is much I don't know/
let it be said that
I feel much better when my grass is overgrown.
A patch of dirt, and a bottle of rye,
Aint much in the world that don't stop me cryin'.
let the rain fall heavy, and my eyes well up,
till that patch of dirt, yea till it
all in time for dyin'.
Chorus:
just let me fade away/
don't give me time to say/
that I love you or that I care/
just lets move on, babe, and take it where/
we need to be."
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
I was at the top of some building, as high as a skyscapers. the building's edges began to close in - slowly - around me. It became clear that I was being tested, by whom I don't know, which fascinated me more than the building changing size and dimension. Not to mention that as I looked down , I saw that my arms werenothing more than shards and jutting angles of the bluest crystal I'd ever laid eyes on. This crystal was in very much the same shape of my own arms, so they had to be mine. I waved the alien arms around to assure myself that I wasn't dreaming, and sure enough they were my appendages, and not only my arms but my entire body had become blue crystal.
Moving in even faster, the building was getting too close, and I could see that soon I could easily lose balance, slip, and fall. From this height - especially with my newly acquired fragility - that wasn't anything I could consider as healthy. Creeping over to the edge, I dangled a foot as if to test it's real-ness.
When my foot left the building, it became skin and bone.
it was then that i became confused and unbalanced - i felt
my entire body return to skin and bone
the air rushed around my face, and loudly inside of my ears
the buildings windows soared past me at an ever fast pace
cement rushed towards me as, face down, I plummeted
with people so near I could smell them
From a postcard to R___ & J__ :
I guess that you too, my friends, have wondered what it is that happens to a man when he can no longer see himself and can no longer grasp himself with the inner hands that hold that part of us (which part, or what to call it, I know not) which flees those unfortunate others. 'How abominable it must be,' I once told myself, 'to watch as some portion divorces itself from the rest and to have not even the power to lift one of those inner hands to simply give a grievous final gesture of farewell.' Imagine, however, the converse. Imagine a man walking down the streets as some part of him steals away as if in the night by imperceptible increments not even granting him enough awareness of its departure to that irreparable dissolution of the psychic union (what seemed indubitably indestructible breaks apart here without the slightest tremor or convulsion, and within---who knows…days, even hours…perhaps even minutes? all is lost and a shell walks those streets).
signed, Neo
