Trust: Complete

Bet

I don't trust people who say "I put that on my mama." It's weak. A cop-out. I can put anything on anyone in the world as long as it ain't me. Put your own life on it. 

These past holiday weekends summed it up best. I'm with my oldest friends in the entire world. I'm seeing almost everyone I've needed to mend issues with and talked to a few who I couldn't. The year, which was a roller coaster ride of emotions and changes, was looking to end on a high note. All was right in the world. 

One particular night with my brothers over the holiday, I'm discussing bets I made years prior with people we all know collectively. "Pay me my money!" The rant was long and epic but if you ask the those who were there, the only thing I wanted was what was owed. We laughed and laughed at the ideas being expressed but the only one that was important was "Pay me my money!"

I owe people money. A lot people. People in parts of the world known and unknown are profiting off of daily missed and ignored calls on my part because of how much I owe money. That's not mentioning the burgeoning everyday, run-of-the-mill and personal debts I owe to those dear in my life. I get the feeling of having to owe. I will pay each and everyone of you back and with added interest. A Lannister always pays his debts. One thing I always do is pay a bet. 

During that long entitled speech on bet ethics I was currently in two of them, both of which I lost and both of which I paid. I had $3. I paid anyway. 

To me you're only as good as your word. "How can I trust you?" That's what I continue to ask. The paramedics just left my house. I'm typing on this computer right now out of trust. We'll get into that later. The larger theme is this: I am trying to get to the point where I put my life on everything I say. Ridiculous? Doable? Complete honesty, transparency? Are you insane? Yes. I am insane. But is that not worth striving for?

Today I violated someone's trust. I didn't know that I was doing it. In a way I was trusting what story I was telling to someone. I miscalculated. It took a while to figure it out but I did. At the end of the day I told a story that wasn't mine to tell. And here comes a comedy rant. 

"I don't trust that guy." Angelica must hear this at least once a week. "I can pinpoint why," then I point it out and they proceed to fulfill the prophesy. One of the quickest fails men make when building report is telling other people's jokes. Not verbatim necessarily but ideas expressed that aren't original. Not original in that one didn't examine the words, challenge them against their current reality and create a new thought from them. No. They just laughed, as did the crowd and thousands of other people. To them they think they understand comedy. 

"He's not funny." Angelica must hear this once a day. Angelica is my boyfriend who takes me around town and shows me the world. My fucking Aladdin. We encounter the worst human beings with the most diverse backgrounds. Most of the ones she shows me on our outings get a "He's not funny." To me they're lying. 

Reality is the funniest thing to laugh at. True emotions. True feelings. Dark and light. Real events and real people. The Real World™. I've always wanted to see that first season. Seeing people interacting for the first time, normal individuals from everyday walks of life, living together for a month. That's an experiment I'd pay for. Some of the funniest things I've ever heard in my life were real thoughts and emotions expressed between people intimately. To my death I will fight anyone who disagrees that that the only thing that will stand the test of time comedically is truth and it is also the greatest form of comedy.

....AND THIS MOTHERFUCKER'S LYING! PAY ME MONEY!

I knew for a fact that Donald Trump wasn't going to be impeached. Another person bet against that assumption. What we were doing was challenging realities. In my mind he was being irrational with the idea that it would occur based on my experience and views of the world and he was confident that this event would occur based on his experience and views of the world. I want the $100 from my World Cup 2014 money, the Patriot's win over the Atlanta Falcons in 2017 money and my Donald Trump not getting impeached by the end of the 2017 money. Look at the calendar. 

The bets I placed on the NYE weekend I didn't even look at. I was being reckless because I like to gamble. I like to gamble with my life. I like to gamble with my assumptions. Constantly challenging the world around me is the only thing I can do to know what's real. Right more often than not and the idea of taking anyone else's viewpoint solely without investigation is ridiculous. So what can you trust? How about the truth?

9-1-1. I just told Quinn I would die first. My chest above my heart feels like a skinny person landed on it with the bony part of their ass but then the ass got bigger and the weight got heavier and I didn't move because I'm an idiot. Party's over. Time to press send. 

Reality Check

I love capitalism. At least the idea. "Pay what you owe." Well what I do owe. I owe whatever you're willing to sell this for at the agreed price for which I'm willing to buy this for barring any coercion or straight lies. This what I do everyday as a server. When a patron comes to the restaurant they are expecting what they expect from either a place like this, the presentation/placement of the venue and usually equate price with quality from there. With me I'm expected to know how to serve a variety of different people with varying preferences, know the menu, know what to do what when, where things go, be prompt and know how to make people feel comfortable eating. 

So how do customers know what they are about to pay for? Here comes the internet. You can see reviews from dozens, hundreds, and thousands of people on any of the concerns you have, see the menu and even see pictures of the items and the venue on dozens of apps, websites and pages on the world wide web. What a time to be alive. This is what you carry with you when you go to a restaurant. What do I expect of the customer? To not be a fucking asshole. From there you pay me based on the performance vs the expectation and if I hit on you or make you laugh/feel comfortable/give you therapy enough, you pay me extra.

My entire paycheck is based on me knowing people and consistency from the transactions. This is how you get repeat customers. Every single time there should be a level for them to know that when they come, they will receive this. If not there is usually a way to rectify it. If your solution isn't satisfactory then you will probably never see them again. This is why I run around the restaurant trying to maintain even the seemingly minute technical details and why I get pissed when I am getting outworked and aren't picking up the slack. I love my job. I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't so comfortable being there and I wasn't chasing squirrels. But you can only trust consistency. 

This happened before, ya know. I know, I know...

"Blah blah blah. What's your emergency?" I knew if I stayed calm at least that the person on the other line would know my address and hopefully save my life. I also knew I wasn't dying. I knew it. I didn't know it before.

It was my last Uber of the night. I needed the money bad, what else is new, but I didn't want to work anymore that night. I'm lazy. The last guy wasn't picking up either. Fuck it. I'm going home to jerk off. Then a text message came. "I'm deaf," is all I remember and I couldn't let bro down. I picked him up and he spat his way to a very energized conversation about his woman and his children. I was inspired. I got beyond the saliva on my dashboard to look at what his story truly was. He lost one sense but that's not who he was. He used ride sharing, went to see friends, fought, loved, laughed... 

"You wanna do some coke," he mouthed loudly to me. Fuck yeah I did. 

Elephant tree trunk lines is a term I invented that evening. His android smartphone screen that night had less pixels on it than it had combined particles of baby powder, speed, laxative and, of course, trace amounts of pure cocaine. Whatever. It was free. We talked for a little while longer and then I drove home. That's when I started to feel faint. I never had a heart attack but I assume this is how it starts out. My veins felt like they had scaled to minimum size, my heart was beating rapidly in pure ignorance or disregard of the former's status, and my chest had its first taste of the bony person expanding. I was sure I was going to die. 

I composed a text to an ex. People always say not to text your ex. I believe in mending broken bonds if they're worth it to me. A Lannister always pays his debts... Before I could hit send I needed to die, So far I wasn't doing that. Eventually I ended up at home and instead hit send to 911 when playing Playstation with no socks on didn't calm me down. The firefighters and paramedics came. Everyone was too relaxed for my liking. I was on the verge of death with no shoes on in a house I almost burned down and then they stroll in like they're breaking up an illegal canasta gambling ring. The firefighters came and the paramedics checked my vitals. I still felt faint so they took me to ER. 

That bill was high. Charge it to the Iron Bank. The Uber driver that bounced on me at 3a after calling to see where I was going was the worst part. The next person was much nicer. As I laid back in the backseat, well after awkward Uber small talk, I thought "If I live this night through I'm never doing that much coke again." I haven't since. For the first time in my life I truly realized how mortal I was. 

"Well, I was wrong," I thought as I stumbled up the stairs to put a shirt on. Whatever I calculated was clearly incorrect. Two nights from tonight should have tipped me off. I took an entire day away just to adjust for this experiment. I still might fuckin die. Just make it quick. I wasn't sure if Quinn was going to lose it after all the death talk we had that day. I had to snap out of it. I knew this wasn't real. I did the research and, while I don't know all the variables, I knew I should not be in any danger. But goddamn this feels like danger. 

Okay. Okay. But what is really real RIGHT NOW? Look at that only. Breathe... breathe...

"Holy shit. That's the plane to Los Angeles," I say or think out loud to my cousin. It was not the plane to Los Angeles. I was high as fuck on LSD. Probably my fourth weekend in a row. Summer of 2008. Pre-Obama for the world and pre-Kansas for me. I was 21. 

We were headed to my house. I sat on my bed upstairs preparing to wash while my cousin downstairs stayed in the familiar living room (and kitchen, you fat ass) of the place I called home with my mother for the majority of my teen years. He wasn't worried. He had never seen me on drugs before but because of me he knows which one tastes like Toblerone. I hopped in the shower and then the rag started eating my hand. 

"Holy fuck, holy fuck. This thing is..." and the ravenous cloth melted quicker into my skin. Water running down my body, I realized my hand is gone. There's no pain though. "Is this rag eating my hand?" The rag was not eating my hand. I had to look at the facts. My hand was okay. If it was gone it was gone. No point in whining. Can you remove the rag? Yes? Okay. Then wash your ass, you have a show to emcee tonight.

In that moment I had to challenge all the assumptions and knowledge I had of the reality up unto that point to sit through this false one, evaluate and recognize what was real. For the first time in my life, at that level of disorientation, I had to defend what was real. All the while my cousin was eating my cupboards bare. 

I got my shirt on after a few stalls. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't going to die. I didn't believe it yet. I never felt THAT pain before. This specific chest pressure. That heart rate this high at that level of inactivity. The broken screen on my Apple Watch told me so. 110bpm and I'm just walking up the stairs. Fuck I hope I die quick. Knowing is most of the battle. Right now I know I shouldn't be sitting on the couch tearing off my headphones because the song that usually soothes me is making my heart rate go up 10bpm but I am. 

I see the lights outside. Then my chest gets tighter. Flight or fight. I've been here before. Not like this but I've definitely been here before. 

Boyfriend

NYE 2019. Or is it 18? Which year do we say? The present year or the coming year? I hate when twitter hashtags become your encyclopedia. None of that matters now. I'm in my room crying for the first time in years. Balling. Big baby bitch tears. I crafted a letter to my first boyfriend. We weren't fucking. We aren't even gay. He was just my boyfriend. He would take me around town and country and expose me to things I'd never seen before. I was always with him. He loved me and I loved him. He was my boyfriend. 

I hated him. He made me do things I didn't want to do. Comedy being one of them. I was there when he started his comedy career. Not like when he first told a joke and people around him laughed but I was there the first time he went on stage. He killed. I think. Or who knows. He took me to so many comedy clubs it was hard to count. And club after bar after hall he would fight and be irrational and be charming and hilarious, honest, outgoing and reckless, and unwavering in his confidence. 

He wouldn't stop there. It wasn't satisfactory that he would succeed, he needed me to as well. Skits and writing and sets I would perform, all at the expressed desire of my boyfriend. Seeing what he saw in me he wasn't willing to let that lie dormant. In each adventure I had a story with a lesson TBD but an idea of what I wanted and didn't. Who knew coming out of your shell would reap so many benefits? It wasn't enough though. He would push me verbally and tease me. Wrestle with me. Fight with me. I was always the one being acted upon and reacting. I had no offensive skills. Not until the day I broke. 

We were on the way back to his place with him, his girlfriend and some other persons unknown and, as usual, he was teasing me. I had enough. Watching him for years I saw him attack without warning, a trait I really admired, a trait that had to be bred from just reacting on pure instinct. I reacted with all that I had experienced, all that I had learned from him. 

I made a joke about him. A dark roast. It was true and funny but seemingly mean-spirited. Before I could I think I had another one in queue and it came out as quick as its conception. And another one. It seemed like forever but was probably only twenty seconds. He stopped. I could tell he was stunned. His instinct. He was going to fight me. "Hahahaha." He laughed. Everyone laughed. I laughed. We laughed the whole way home and for years to come after that. He may not remember that moment but that was a day I graduated.

"I wanna end this year telling you that I hate you." The first submission of my ex-boyfriend's 2019 NYE love text thread in the books. It goes on. 

I hate you for being pushy for being strong when unnecessary. For being so critical. For being loud and in my face. Argh. But in that pressure something happened. I found pieces of myself that I didn't know. Something broke in me that made me realize I could break all things just to see how they worked. You brought me out of my shell and that's because we are so different. I don't think I've ever properly told you I hate very much but that's why I love you.

I cried for about twenty minutes with "Ghost Town" by Kanye West on repeat. I needed him to know how I felt about all those times and what they meant to me. I went two days with no reply, seeing his posts on the internet and wondering what he thought before I asked his wife if his phone was off. His phone was off. Nigger...

The doors I left open were just enough for the firefighters and then soon paramedics to meet me in my new location since we last met. The first one through the door was the loudest. "BLAH BLAH BLAH BUDDY?!" If I was in any position to die due to stress that was my moment. The rest shuffled in and I answered as many questions as I could while they checked my vitals. The level of consistency from our previous encounter keeps me calm. 

"So what happened," one asked, I believe. I couldn't tell. My neighbor was in the doorway. The questions so far were accusatory. Like they were trying to find the common denominator and get to the heart of the matter. Sounds vaguely familiar...

I go on to explain how I got into this predicament. But how did I end up here?

Right before Kansas and Pre-Obama, end of summer 2008. My boyfriend has me on another adventure. We're filming a movie about......? I meet one of my dearest friends in the world for the first time that night. She lives there. The filming is fun, fast, loose and tight on time. We have one day. Perfect for C-Doc's MacGyver creativity and eye for the perfect shots. We take a break and go outside. They're all in comedy so of course they're smoking. 

"You want some," or some variation of the weed smoking ritual (the positioning of the bowl or blunt nearest to you with an inquisitive look as they blow out smoke being one) was expressed towards me as an offering. 

"Okay." I knew I was gonna hate it. It had been some time since I last smoked. Every year I try it at least once to see if I still hate it. My year end review was coming. I took a puff. They passed it around and I'm still outside talking to my friend or someone. I didn't care. I was having the time of my life and...

"Hey. Wait. I'm not super tired or floored.Why is that?"

"Yeah," somebody said. "This is a sativa."

Sativa. That stuck with me for ten years. Every one of those years I searched at least once with hopes of finding the illusive sativa brand that person mentioned. If I was going to smoke weed I was going to enjoy it. This time last year I'm doing work and some degenerate asked me if I wanted to take a hit of their pen. Strangely enough the person whose trust I violated today let me take a hit of their CBD contraption weeks before. The trust built in the technology stemmed from there. 

Normally I would deny it but I didn't remember my yearly review and I asked what kind it was. "It's a hybrid," he said. Not the news I wanted to hear but I gave it a try. I was cool. I wasn't floored. I was actually enjoying this. That's when it started. 

A year later the loudest voice in medicine is talking to me in my living room. Another professional takes the machine off of my finger. "You're fine." Another one says "You're just stoned as hell. You got you some Doritos?" They all start to laugh. I remembered the last time this happened. I trusted them and I lived. I still had questions though.

"Yeah but do any of you have anxiety?" Not sure if anxiety is the answer. I looked up my symptoms during the first experiment two days prior but comparing internet notes to real medical professionals and their personal testimony is entirely different. Insert "You are already dead" WebMD meme here. 

"I do," one pipes up. I asked about his first panic attack. He walked me through it. Same symptoms. My neighbor was in the doorway. Middle aged older lady.

"Can you close the door? It's freaking me out right now." They all understood. She understood the most. I wanted her gone. Then she spoke up. 

"Okay but I want you to know that I work in the medical field as a (insert life saving title here) and if you need any help I'm right next door." I couldn't believe it. I sat there with all of these people caring about me who didn't care about me outside of this context but who would do anything I asked if it helped and was in the bounds of their desires at that time and their duties. Even the neighbor I tried to kick out was only there to offer help. I was blown away again. 

"But my Apple Watch says my bpm is..."

"Oh, don't look at that. It's...," and before they could finish I tossed it towards the window and it fell behind a vent. Another story the walls can't tell.

After a few warmhearted goodbyes I had new information. I walked up the stairs with confidence from my experiences and their opinions that I wasn't going to die. Every step I took felt like my last but I knew they were right. 

When I had all the answers, the questions changed. 

My now ex-boyfriend Angelica put that status up today. It's how one should approach truth. Always looking to find the answers and challenge them against new information. That is what stands the test of time. Sure I'll try different strains at different times and under varying conditions and circumstances. In typing this throughout the day I found people who, with full knowledge of my experience and the possible risks, tested what I had and I tested theirs, a mere four hours after the last paramedic vacated my front porch. I felt great. More experiments to come.

I need to know what I can trust. I need to know what is truth. Today I found it out in the context of my body, it's limits and possible side effects. I woke up under the assumption that I had all the answers and was smacked awake with different questions twice. Back to the drawing board. 

I saw the person whose trust I violated later in the evening. It was a coincidence as we rarely run into each other and on the same day I learned that I hurt them they appeared. I looked over, they looked over and their face changed when they recognized me. 

Pressure gripped my chest above my heart earlier that day, my heart raced into gears it wasn't prepared to accommodate and my brain panicked at the idea that it could be taking in the last images of a world it cherished so much. That look, that disappointment and betrayal in their eyes, that felt worse than anything.