Thursday, February 28, 2013

Quiet...

It's so easy to step on the wrong word
hit a bad verbal note
an off-key phrase
and bring the whole delicate dance to a screeching halt
Why can't we each just understand the other's meaning?
After all these years
you'd think we'd know each other well enough by now
to understand the intent behind the words
that fall limply from our mouths
to thud at our feet
It shouldn't be so easy to hurt each other
accidentally
trod on a vulnerable heart with ill-prepared words
and misguided affections
The sentiment should speak for itself
the care-for-ness that guides our every action
shouldn't need to be stated explicitly anymore
should it?
We know how we feel
about each other
So why is it still so easy to fall to the same conclusions
that paint ourselves as victims
each to the other's phantomed cruel intent?
We should know better by now
Will we ever be able to truly learn this lesson?
Or are we doomed by the very fact of our dancing
through this life together
to step on each other's toes once in a while?

I guess it doesn't really matter
so long as we keep dancing
it's worth the 
bruised toes
bruised egos
battered hearts
and all
Just hold on
hold close
don't look down
and don't stop
don't stop
don't ever stop

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

When?...

I wanted to write a poem today
about that frustrating feeling
when Life intrudes on Art
that sensation of being stuck
pinned between
Wants
and Needs
I need to express myself
but I want to make money
so I can eat
and watch TV
I wanted to write that poem
today
but I was too busy

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Afterwork...

day's almost over
Sun's almost gone
an entire star hidden in the shadow cast by a speck of rock

high on caffeine
while falling asleep
trying to push myself past a mindful minefield of lyrical cynicism

scraping around bottom
goring the core
make a wish upon our shadow star to be a whimsical poet-to-be

flimsy words arise
then fall away
and the head's emptied again from nothing worth remembering

could be better
could be worse
not qualified to judge due to never passing the bar set for myself

eye-ing the time
passing me by
feeling the throb of decay in fingers' muscle memories of home row

finally the night
and darkened peace
stopping to let the words sink in, refresh the mind, and rest the eyes a minute

just resting my eyes

Monday, February 25, 2013

Name For God...

I remember feeling a sort-of sense of
vertigo
looking down at my mother lying
in her coffin
Difficult not to see
my own waxy lifeless face
lying there
someday
doomsday
and it was like looking down on Earth
from Heaven
or maybe I was standing on Earth
and looking down into Hell
for the first time
seen in the empty face of
this life that I came from
this person I came out of
my maker
now just a lump of dead weight
a heavy pile of stilled flesh
eerily still
like a life-sized doll
The light that created me
that started the spark that still flickers behind my eyes
suddenly gone out
and nothing left behind but
a sagging sack of meat and salt wearing
the too-fancy clothes that
she only ever wore to funerals
That is where I came from
That was Home
now gone forever
and someday soon
it will be me
lying there like a pile of clay
wearing too much make-up
but there won't be anybody there for me
holding my hand for hours
rubbing off the make-up
exposing the rubbery grey-blue skin underneath
the way my father so lovingly did
for her

Friday, February 22, 2013

Electric Ego...

I want to write a poem
but I have to write code instead
There can be a kind of poetry in code
especially my code
I'm proud of the elegant design
of my loops and logics
my streamlined systems
My code flows

pulling the User along effortlessly
guiding them gracefully from one end of the black box to the other
and out again
No Errors
My code flows

secret haikus left in comment blocks
for other programmers to find
like digital hieroglyphics on virtual cave walls
test data populated with pantheons and
mystical chants from faraway lands
My code flows

water of ones
in sea of zeroes
pouring through me
from aether to mind to muscle to machine
bit by bit
block by block
stacked upon stack
module into module through function and parameters passed
My code flows

flows through me
until the integer flips
the Boolean switch
change of state
status update
now compiled and crystallized
Executable
and then passed on
leaving me
out of my hands
disseminated to The Users
like a prayer to a congregation
I hear the clicking fingers of their choir
singing the song of my code
now flowing through Them

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Slow...

it's not that i'm blocked
though i don't have anything particular to say
at the moment
i'm just tired
couple of long nights
back-to-back
not enough sleep
another one looming ahead of me tonight
the weight of it all holding me down
thoughts coming slow and sluggish
every yawn another pothole on the road
to creative output
sometimes i wish i was a machine
a poetry machine
that never stopped
never stopped
never stopped writing
never stopped creating
never stopped expressing
just feeling and saying and doing everything in poetry
all day
every day
never needing a moment's rest
never needing to do anything more than this
to keep my clockwork heart ticking

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The Realization Of My Tautologies...

It's been five years
since the Moon spoke to me
And I did my best to listen
and remember

I'd never been more lost
never felt more alone and confused
never been closer to death
than I was that year
Technically an accident
but living so recklessly
"accidents" become a near certainty
so I am not free of responsibility
I nearly ended my self

Grasping at straws for months on end
Clutching at any whispered fragment of hope
of a Way Out
One morning
I heard a news report
about an upcoming celestial event
a Total Lunar Eclipse
of the Full Moon
I barely noticed it
thought nothing of it
changed the channel
and landed on a cartoon
about the embodiment of the Tao
in the Spirit of the Moon
and something clicked
I know that click
I'm intimately familiar with that click
I have been my whole life
But it'd been almost a year since I'd last felt it
I thought it was gone
gone forever
but here it was again
from a news report
and a cartoon
a cartoon!
of all things
but unmistakeable nonetheless
something about the Tao
and the Moon
and an eclipse

That night five years ago
the night of the eclipse
I didn't know what to do
I almost gave up
but I finally decided to go through with it
out of a sense of absolute desperation
I had nothing left
I might as well
At the appointed time
I took my posture
half-lotus in front of my altar
set flame to candle
and recel
I tried to relax
to let go
to empty myself
I found my Center Mind
and reached inward
to the Void
When it was time I let myself go
drifting up out of my body
flying through the atmosphere
floating in space
above the Earth
staring at the glowing white surface of the Moon
filling my vision
with cratered beauty
and profound grace

And I waited
I watched as a shadow crept across the face of the Moon
from East to West
as the Earth behind me
moved slowly between us and the Sun
And I waited
until the shadow blotted out the Moon entirely
leaving me in darkness
And I waited

And nothing happened

And I felt something inside me break
I had been so certain
that click had always meant The Way before
but nothing had happened
I must really be Lost then
so I gave up
and started to let myself fall back to my body

Just then
the eclipse broke
as the Earth continued on its Way
the shadow began to leave the face of the Moon
a brilliant crescent of white light blinded me from the eastern edge
and I heard a voice that was not my own say

All things that Are, are Change

As amazing as the experience was
a voice inside my head
that I did not recognize
I was still let down
What it had said was
hardly news to me
a paraphrasing of Heraclitus
"All things that Are, are Fire"
The only Constant is Change
Nothing is Certain
except Uncertainty
et cetera
I knew that
had been living it
for years
the purview of Chaos
Nothing is True
and Everything is Permitted
Kids' stuff
arm-chair mysticism
Tell me something I don't know
I said
And the voice answered

You cannot be Good
You cannot be Bad
You can only Be

And suddenly I knew
what should've been obvious
all along
Good and Bad are entirely subjective
just ideas
not Truth
their existence depends entirely
on our particular point of view
at any given moment
there is no single thing in this Universe
that is entirely Good
or entirely Bad
every single thing is both
Good and Bad
depending on your circumstance
your point of view
how you look at it
just as no single thing in this Universe
is entirely Yin
or entirely Yang
every single thing is both
Yin and Yang
that is the Way
that is the Tao

How had I lost sight of that?
What had happened to me?
I wanted more
I knew there was more
I asked the Spirit of the Moon
What else?
and Manni-Moon-Yin replied

Look on the Bright Side
Make the Most of it

Again it suddenly seemed so obvious
it followed naturally that
if all things are both
Good and Bad
then it must be our choice
to view them either one way
or the other
Joy is not a circumstance
Happiness is not an event
something beyond our control
that we must wait for
wait until it happens to us
No
It is a choice
it is something that we do
or don't do
So if there is Good in every single thing
then all I need to do
is choose to see it

Reeling
Overwhelmed
Overcome
Humbled
Awed
I asked
Is that all?
And Manni-Moon-Yin replied

You are Amazing
And so is Everyone Else

Human existence is
astronomically improbable
We should not exist
We are the end result
of a billion
one-in-a-billion chances
all coming up Jackpot
even the worst of Us
is an absolute fucking miracle of Nature
the most amazing thing in the known Universe
the Living Embodiment of Tao
a Human Being
an astounding accident
a chemical formula so complex
that it has become aware of itself
and I am one of them
and I should never lose sight of that
I am one of these ridiculously
outrageously
amazing pinpoints of sentience
and so is every single other person I will ever see
or hear
or touch
or encounter in any way
throughout my entire life
Each person is an Individual
and I can't know them
can't know their experience
or their circumstance
so it is unfair
and pointless
and rather ridiculous
to try and judge them
when we are all equally amazing
each in our own Way

I said Goodbye then
to Sifu
to Master
to Manni-Moon-Yin
and slowly fell back to Earth
back to my body
back to my self
anchored by Knowing
by finally Knowing
something
some True thing
again
with certainty
and clarity

To this day
I do not know
whose voice I heard that night
the Moon Spirit's
or my own
my Unconscious
and I don't care
it makes no difference to me
either way
because the words that voice spoke
are Truth
undeniable
inarguable
solid
foundational
Truth
and I will remember them
for as long as I live
and as long as I remember them
I will never again
be lost

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Bittersweet...

the lunch lady likes me
because I smile at her
every day
and say Hello
and call her by her name
because I took the time to learn her name
because I asked her how to pronounce it correctly
so she likes me
I can tell
by the way she smiles at me
and says Hello
and calls me by my name
she doesn't do any of this for anyone else in line
just me
and I can tell by the way
she gives me extra portions
a little bit extra
a second small ladling
of everything she puts on my plate
more than she gives to anyone else in line
my plate is always heavy when she gives it back to me
this is her way of being nice
the only way she has to say
Thank You for treating Me like a Person
and not a Food Dispenser
and so every day when I get my lunch from her
and she heaps an extra portion out for me
and I take that too-heavy plate from her hands
it makes me feel very happy
in my Heart
but also very sad
in my Stomach
as my pants feel just a little tighter each day
and I know she is giving me too much food
and I can't eat it all
but also knowing
that I would never
ever
want her to stop

Friday, February 15, 2013

KIC1013...

I gave Her a star
my Valentine
my Forever Valentine
designation K.I.C.-
ten-thirteen
now bears Her name
a Kepler star
a binary star
so 
truthfully
two stars
locked Together
Forever
each attracted to
and repelled by
the other's force
of Gravity
Two immense
uncontrolled
Nuclear Explosions
so gigantic
so astronomically enormous
that their own weight
holds them in place
and keeps them from growing
any larger
Chaos poised
in perfect Balance
these two fireballs
right now
are spinning around each other
in the cold vacuum of deep
extrastellar space
each throwing off enough Heat
and Light
to brighten and warm
a dozen worlds
they spin around each other
Burning
locked together
Dancing
through the void
They have been dancing for
a billion years
and they will keep dancing
for a billion more
They will still be dancing
and burning
together
lighting the dark
long after Our World
has turned to dust
and blown away
and there is no one left
to remember them

But for now
we call them by Her names

And it's not enough
it will never be enough
there's so much more I could do
so much more I must do

But for now
I call them by Her names
so we can look up at night
and see ourselves there
on fire in the void
dancing forever

And so I call them by Her names
my Valentine
my Forever Valentine

Thursday, February 14, 2013

In Rapture...

A Big Daddy knows only one thing:
Keep Her Safe.
Do what She says,
whatever She says,
and Keep.
HER.
SAFE.
Keep Little Sister Safe.
The whole world
the whole big, violent world
is trying to hurt Her
and the only thing She has
the one and only thing She has
in this whole horrible, fucked-up world
is Me.
The only thing standing between Her
and all the wretched, psychotic lunacy littering the streets
and all the pain and degradation they want to inflict on Her
is ME.
They want Her.
More than anything
They WANT Her.
But they can't have Her.
They can't even get near Her.
Because first,
they'd have to get through ME.
A hulking,
faceless,
impenetrable
wall of NO.
And I won't let them have Her.
I WON'T LET THEM.
She's MINE.
And I will Keep Her Safe.
Like cradling a Snowflake
in an Inferno
I will Keep Her Safe.
Because She's MINE.

She's All I Have.

My Little Sister.

And I am Hers.

All She Has In This World.

Her Big Daddy.

And I will Keep Her Safe.

I will Keep Her Safe.


I will Keep Her Safe.


**inspired by the Bioshock series, and dedicated to my Little Sister, my forever Valentine

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The Day Before My Birthday...

the city smelled like frankincense this morning
stepping out into a world of
startling reminiscence
of childhoods spent chanting in churches
and calling out to Papa, Papa!
Come save us!
Come save us from ourselves!

the city smelled like frankincense this morning
like a whole world made holy
streets paved with sacred resin
sewers leaking holy vapors
warm fogs wafting down from
some invisible censer
to smother us all in glory

the city smelled like frankincense this morning
oh so familiar tangy-pine aroma of magick
and mystery and mastery
and gold glinting with candles' light
burnt offerings sacrificed
as to make the very air sacred
with graceful gifts to gods

the city smelled like frankincense this morning
potent and penetrating and permeating
into and through and all around
clinging and saturating, dizzying and cloying
turning the world as a dervish reeling
in a rush of divine dance
inspired to the light of one true mind

the city smelled like frankincense this morning
and when I breathed it in I knew
I could read the sign
I knew which way to go
I knew what I had been waiting for
and why I had been wanting

I knew

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Far Away Eyes...

Only half here
eyes held open with
caffeine charms
and sugar spells
thoughts whirl in
a hot delicious haze
All desire
and no purpose
rushing headlong in
a furious attempt to
say absolutely nothing
Catching whispered whiffs of
marijuana smoke
in the conditioned office air
like phantoms remembered from
an old recurring dream
of being naked in public
Casting out
reaching
stretching
grasping
desperately clutching at
shards of pitiful ideas
hoping against hope that
something
anything
will prick
and gouge the flesh
and spill the vicious viscous crimson
artists' blood of poetry
But finding only
endless
fistfuls of sand
Battered Ego
and Bloated Heart
do not a poet make
What do I need
to say?

What needs
to be said?

Monday, February 11, 2013

Back Tomorrow...

Today's work is just for Her.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Meditation #1...

Reaching Inside
to Center Mind
and further still
past Grey Matter
past axon and dendrite
through the synapse
Once more unto the breach
and further still
into cell
into nucleus
into gene
into acid amino
and further still
into particle carbon
past electron
past proton
into neutron
and further still
to Reach
The Void
and reside within
and wait, still
Being within Nothing
as the World Serpent
tail-in-mouth
consumes itself

Wait
and Hold
Still


Wait

and

Hold

Still


Now gently Returning
Up and Out
tugging softly at The Void
with wish whisper touch
softer than Light
pulling
bringing Nothing
Up and Out
into Everything
into Center Mind
Up and Out
leaving neutron
past proton and electron
leaving carbon
Up and Out
pulling No-thing
Up and Out
leaving gene, leaving nucleus, leaving cell
Up and Out
bringing The Void
Up and Out
through synapse
past dendrite and axon
through Matters Grey
Up and Out and Into

Center of Mind
the Hole in
Your Self
the Whole within
the Holy
You

Now Wait

and Hold

Still

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Nodding...

suddenly so sleepy
nodding off at my desk
don't know what's come over me
limbs weigh a thousand pounds
it's a concentrated effort of will
to hold my eyes open
muscles made from opium tar
i feel myself being pulled under
slowly
down down down into warm grey
favorite blanket
arms of a mother
wrapped tight
held close
warm and safe
all over warm
all inside warm
and down down down
further down into night
and play and wonder
into joy and fruit loop philosophies
and cotton candy sex with
childhood friends
and down down down
further down into warm caves of earth
molten black rock steam and sweat
lungs full of fragrant sweet hot
breath of life ancient ageless mind
swept away gone gone gone
lost in the stream mind of one
eye and one flesh and all
of one and down down down
into gone gone gone
into heavy warm wet safe loved all
over all over into
suddenly
so
sleep

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

It's Not OCD...

It's not OCD
I'm just anal-rententive.

There are two
coffee urns
in my office kitchenette.
Each urn has
a spot to place your mug
beneath the spigot.
Each of these spots has
a circular insert
of gridded plastic
to mark the mug-placement area
and allow spilled coffee to flow through
so this spot
doesn't become
just a puddle of coffee
soaking the bottom of everyone's mugs.
Each of these inserts has
three indentations:
one on each side
at nine and three o'clock
small, arcing parabolas
like reversed parentheses
there to allow someone to
get their fingers into the
coffee mug spot
and under the insert
to remove it
and, presumably
clean it
and then another indentation
more like a groove
or a notch
much smaller, thinner, and deeper
at the top
that fits perfectly with
a matching
small plastic protuberance
jutting from the coffee mug spot
where the insert goes.
In an almost sexual fashion
this protuberance fits into
this last indentation
this notch
this groove
to secure the insert in place.

For some reason
I've never known
perhaps laziness
perhaps inattentiveness
more likely simple
couldn't-care-less-ness
this insert never seems to be
placed into the mug spot
properly.
It is always placed sideways
rotated a quarter-turn
so that the larger indentations
on the side
meant as finger holes
are placed top-to-bottom
noon and six
the small plastic protuberance at the top
being swallowed whole
by the too-large indentation
and its mate
the groove
meant to hold the plastic piece
so tightly
is left alone
to one side
empty
and useless.
This has always bothered me.
Bothered me more than I would like to admit.
It's such a simple little thing to get right
it would take almost no effort at all
and yet, day-after-day
someone
I don't know who
whoever is in charge of these things
insists
on doing it wrong.
And I cannot abide it.
So, day-after-day
when I go to get my morning coffee
I fix it
I twist the insert ninety-degrees
and secure it in the correct position.

Lately
I have noticed something.
Sometimes
when I go to get my coffee
one of the inserts
will already be
fixed.
Someone else has seen
what I have seen
and felt the same
had the same response
took the same corrective action.
This feels like winning something.
I don't know what
but it definitely smells like Victory.
And Conspiracy.

And it makes me happy.
Happier than I'd like to admit.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Trigger Warning: Rape...

I am a rapist.
That is a powerful word
a putrid, painful word
a psychotic thing to say
out loud
to know
about myself
to admit
to You.
This is the worst thing I know
about myself
that I raped a girl once
without even realizing what I was doing.
I don't know why I'm saying this now.
I know a lot of people will hate me
for saying this
for admitting this horrible thing I did
for displaying this
repulsive
repugnant
piece of my personal history
like picking up a piece of my shit
and showing it to You.
I don't know why I'm saying this.
I don't know why I'm telling this.
I guess because
after all these years
more than half my life later
I still haven't forgotten
I can't forget
I still regret
so I guess it simply
needs to be said.
So call it a confession.
And now the bargaining begins.
The inevitable qualifications.
Because while it is true
I am a rapist
that powerful, putrid, painful, psychotic word
calls forth to mind an image
of violence and brutality
that is not me
and is not what I am trying to say
and is not what happened that night.

We were very young
not even twenty
and stupid
clearly stupid
and we'd been "going out" for years
Homecomings and Junior Proms
we'd taken each others' virginity
many years before
this was not our first dance.
And we were drunk.
Blind drunk.
It's not an excuse
but it's a fact
and it's relevant
and it needs to be said.
We had rented a hotel room
away from our parents
alone
free
and we were fucking
joyously
terrificially.
Young
Free
Drunk
Fucking.
It was a glorious night.

At some point
she said,
"Wait, stop."
I don't know why.
To this day, I have no idea
what happened
what was wrong
why she wanted me to stop.
But I remember
what I said.
I'll never forget
never be able to forget
what I said
what I did.
She said, "Wait, stop."
And I said,

"No,
I'm almost done."

There is no apologizing
for that
no accepting it
no getting over it.
Not for her
or for me.
Some things just become
a part of you
forever
and you can't hide them
no matter how much you want to
or how hard you try.
Some words weigh on you like Marley's chains
and you carry them for the rest of your life.
And you should.
I'm not seeking sympathy
or solace
I deserve neither
and I wouldn't want them
even if I did.
I want to carry this chain.
I have to.
Because it is the only way
I can attempt to
balance out the equation
and even have a hope
of trying
to begin
to make up
for what I did
to her.
I guess I just needed to
acknowledge the chain
admit it
make it real
so that I could keep carrying it
a little longer.


**I really wasn't sure whether to post this one or not.  I knew it could make some people feel some very negative things, and quite probably at me.  But it's real, it's honest, it's from the heart, and it is likely to make people feel something, and as that's all I'm aiming for, I felt that I had to call it art, and put it out there.  Art shouldn't be about only expressing what is safe, or acceptable, or what is likely to only make people feel positive things.  It is often controversial, or provocative, and that's as it should be.

Another concern I had, was whether I was right to use the word "rape" in this way.  As I tried to express in the poem, that word conjures up images of violent, brutal sexual assault that is not even close to what I did.  I was a stupid, drunk teenager, having sex with my girlfriend of several years, and when I was just about to come, she said "stop," and I didn't.  It was absolutely wrong, and I have regretted it ever since, but that is, literally, as technical as rape can get and still be considered rape.  So, am I doing a disservice to victims of actual violent sexual assaults, by using that term, by equating what I did with the horrible trauma they had to endure?  Am I just taking a mildly traumatic event from my youth and blowing it up for maximum drama and artistic gain?  I honestly don't even know anymore.

All I know, is that for my entire life since that night, every once in awhile, the first line of this poem has flashed through my brain.  It happened again this morning.  I was lying on the couch, trying to catch a few more minutes of dozing before I had to get up and go to work, and a story came on the news about a sexual assault in my area.  There was something about the story that resonated with me in some way, and the thought "I am a rapist" flashed through my brain again, and that whole night came flooding back to me.  And at that moment, I knew I had to get it out, and onto paper.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Seoul Bath...

I went to a Korean Spa for the first time this weekend.

My friend had invited everyone to spend the day at the spa with him for his birthday, before the party he was throwing that night.  A few of my friends showed up, but most people were waiting for the party.  I'd been wanting to check out this spa for awhile, so I jumped at the chance.

Now, when I say "spa," think more, "communal bathhouse" rather than "salon/day spa."  You pay $20 to get in, and stay as long as you want.  (They're open 24 hours-a-day on the weekends, and they even have a "Nap Room" to sleep in when you want.)  There's a restaurant (awesome Korean food); a PC room with computers, video games, and internet; and a gym.  But the real attraction is the bathhouse.

As soon as you walk into the place, before you even get to the front desk, you encounter signs indicating "No Shoes Allowed Beyond This Point."  So, you have to carry your shoes up to the front desk, where they give you a key to fit a locker there by the entrance, just big enough to hold a pair of shoes.  Once you get your shoes off, you can feel that the dark wood floor is actually heated; feels so lovely.  Once you pay your entrance fee, they give you another key to a bathhouse locker, and a uniform of simple cotton t-shirt and shorts; men get robin's egg blue, and women get prison orange.

Inside the locker room (men and women each have their own locker rooms, and their own bathhouses, naturally), you can change into your uniform and head out into the communal area if you want.  But inside the locker room is the entrance to the bathhouse, and I headed straight for it.  Inside were showers (regular and Asian style - a little stool on the ground in front of a mirror, with a handheld showerhead and a large bowl); two large, tiled, bubbling hot "tubs" (they were more like small pools), one of them herbal; two saunas (one wet and one dry); and a cold water pool (only about knee deep and three feet wide, but running the length of the room; obviously meant for bathing, not swimming).  In one corner was a massage table, with a naked man getting scrubbed down by an attendant.

In fact, except for the attendant, everybody in the place was completely naked, and making no attempt to cover themselves up, which I found very comforting.  I'm used to puritanical American gym locker-rooms, where everyone gets dressed and undressed either with a towel wrapped around them, or in a shower or toilet stall, out of some ridiculous sense of homophobia or something.  That environment always leaves me feeling very uncomfortable.  It freaks me out to be surrounded by people who are clearly all very afraid of something, and not really have any understanding of what it is that they are so clearly afraid of, exactly.  Are they afraid that some "faggot" will see their penis and somehow become aroused?  (And if so, why does that frighten them?  What does it matter to them at all?  And how would they even know that it had happened?)  Are they worried that if they get naked the other men will think they, themselves, are a "faggot," trying to show off their penis?  (That seems more likely.)  Or are American men just incredibly modest and shy?  (Haha!  Yeah, right!)  So I found it incredibly refreshing to be in an environment where nobody had these ridiculous hang-ups that I couldn't understand, and everybody could just relax and enjoy themselves, without getting all squirrely and nervous about something so completely innocuous as being naked in the same room with other men.  I think it helped that all the men there were either Asian or Russian.  (Apparently, this spa gets a lot of Russians, because it is the closest thing to the traditional Russian bathhouse in the area.  They even had one set of their pamplets listing their services up at the front desk printed all in Russian.)

The larger, regular hot bath was empty (presumably out-of-order), so I headed to the herbal hot bath, which probably would've been my first choice, anyways, now that I think about it.  This bath has a large cloth sack filled with various herbs hanging off of the faucet so that the water is running down through the bag and into the bath; the bag is also hanging about half into the water, steeping like a tea bag.  (They had a sign listing all of the herbs they used, but I don't remember them all at this point; several of them I had never heard of before.)  In fact, it felt very much like taking a bath in tea - the water was brown, had little bits of plant matter swirling around in it, and was incredibly aromatic.  After about ten minutes in this tub, my skin felt softer and smoother than it has since I was a teenager.  In fact, even now, it still feels much softer than usual.

After the herbal bath, I took a quick rinse-off dip in the cold pool (and when they say "cold" they are not lying - it was like ice water!) and then tried out the dry sauna.  It was just over 200 degrees in there, and so it wasn't long before I couldn't take it anymore, and headed back out to cool off in the cold pool.  Going from the hot to the cold like that is the Russian style, and I find it unbelievably refreshing and invigorating and sensually satisfying.  (Maybe it's genetic.)  The hot opens up my pores and loosens my skin, and then the cold tightens it all back up again.  The heat brings all my blood out to my extremities and into my skin, and then the cold sends it all flying away from the surface and down into my core.  And the simple juxtaposition between the two sensations is very-nearly overwhelming.  It leaves me light-headed, but pleasantly so.

After that I tried out the wet sauna, but I couldn't take it for more than a minute.  The air is so thick with moisture that you can barely see your hand in front of your face.  Whenever I would breathe in, I would feel like there was more water in the inhalation than oxygen, and since I was already a little light-headed, it wasn't long before I felt like I couldn't breathe and had to get out before I passed out.  It's a shame, because, other than that, I liked the room.  It wasn't as hot as the dry sauna (only about 150 degrees), and the wet air made it feel more like a bath or shower than the dry sauna, which felt more like an oven.  And the water that they used to produce the steam was apparently infused with some herb, as well, because it was, like the herbal bath, incredibly and pleasantly aromatic.  (The dry sauna actually had a small wicker basket full of cinnamon sticks in the corner, as well, producing a pleasant aroma as they baked in the heat.)  I think next time I'll have to try this steam room first, before I do anything else, and see if that works out better for me.

I spent the next hour just going around between the dry sauna, the herbal bath, and the cold bath.  It felt amazing.  We had agreed to meet in the communal room at that point, so I dried off, dressed in my powder-blue uniform, and headed out into the communal room, which is between, and connected to, the two locker rooms/bathhouses.  The communal room is a large, central room, lined with thick tatami mats on the floor, and little tables to go with them.  (At least, they're called "tatami" in Japanese; I have no idea what they are called in Korean, but they are the same object.)  There were also large piles of these small, traditional head-cushions used for lying down on the mats.  There was a TV on one wall, playing Korean television.  There were Korean newspapers and magazines lying around the room.  There were boards for playing Go, Chess/Checkers, Backgammon, etc. scattered all around.  At one end was a line of massaging recliners, and beyond that was the "Napping Room" - a small, dark room lined with more tatami mats for sleeping.  I tried out one of the massaging recliner chairs, expecting a vibrating massage chair.  What I got instead was ten minutes of, essentially, being pummeled in the back by a robot at high speed.  It was more percussion than vibration.  It hurt like hell at first, but by the end it felt fantastic.

Along the walls of the communal room are smaller rooms of varying temperatures, all dry rooms.  The hot rooms were each lined with different materials all over the floor, walls, and ceiling.  The Himalayan Salt room was lined with pink rock salt, presumably Himalayan judging by the name, and kept at 130 degrees.  The Jewel Room was 150 degrees, and lined with smooth cut slabs of green amethyst.  And the Charcoal Room was lined with small cylinders of charcoal, and heated to 170 degrees.  (I didn't go into the last, hottest room, and don't remember what it was lined with.)  There are also two cold rooms.  The Cold Room is about 40 degrees, and then inside the Cold Room is the Ice Room, which is well below freezing, and lined with, predictably, ice.  (The sign said it was -21 degrees Fahrenheit, but it had to be Celsius; -21 degrees Fahrenheit would be dangerous in just a t-shirt and shorts, and while this room was definitely cold, it wasn't painful or distressing.  It felt more like about 25-30 degrees Fahrenheit.)  Again, I spent a bunch of time going back and forth from the hot rooms to the cold rooms and back again.

We ate lunch in the restaurant, sitting cross-legged on pillows at low Asian-style tables, eating delicious, cheap Korean food.  I reflected on the fact that the place was full of families.  I could tell that this was a regular family event; you bring the wife and kids and spend the day.  It was a like the Korean version of a community center or a YMCA.  There was a father and son in the bathhouse while I was in there, the son maybe six years-old.  They sat together, naked, at one of the little Asian-style showerheads, the son laying over the father's knee, as he washed and scrubbed his son's whole body over and over for what seemed like at least half an hour.  To my Western eyes, this looked decidedly creepy, and I couldn't imagine an American father and son doing this.  But at one point I happened to notice the father try to put the son down on the floor next to him and attend to his own washing, but the boy began to pout and plead until the father agreed to pick him back up and wash him again, which made the boy incredibly happy.  I tried to look at it through their eyes.  This was a bonding moment between a boy and his father.  In our culture, we're taught to sexualize nudity in any form regardless of context, and so something like this instinctively seems gross to us.  But this wasn't sexual at all.  It was loving.  And when I stopped myself from seeing it as sexual, and started trying to see it for what it actually was to them (non-sexual, familial nudity) it became a touching display of affection between a father and son.

I lost track of the hours I spent there, and didn't want to leave.  I could easily see how someone could spend all day there.  I can't wait to go back.  They offer massage services as well (foot massage, body massage, Thai massage, body scrub, etc.) for very reasonable prices, and next time I'm going to book one of those and make a day of it.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Nine Months...

Nine months
since My
Last
Drink.

Nine months.

That is
Significant
in an obvious way.

Nine months,
Today.

Nine months since
I last sipped
purposeful poison.
Nine months since
I last heard
the beautiful
tink-tink-tink
of ice
swirling around
into amber
glass
wall.
Nine months since
I last melted
away
into caramel-
and smoke-
flavored
oblivion.
Nine months since
I last felt
the burning hole
in my gut
weep red and raw
and wail for more
More
MORE.

Nine months since.

Nine months today.

Does that make me a new man?
Am I a New Man yet?
Am I re-born?

The bags
under my eyes
are gone
but it's still Me
I see
looking back
from that glass.

It's still Me.
I'm the Same Man.
I just found
some New Pleasures.
And New Problems
to go with them.

Happy Birthday,
Little Man.