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About those Skunks
By my count, I have thrust Rusty or Mickey into the tub and started scrubbing them feverishly from skunk spray 9 times in the past 5 years. Seems it always happens as I have my keys in my hand on my way to a wedding, awards dinner or senior prom.
So much so that I've begun referring to my #2 tuxedo as my "skunk suite".( By the way, the remedy for skunk stink that many people are privy to is a big fat smelly lie. Washing your dogs in tomatoe juice actually makes the smell last a lot longer on the animal that using plain old moisturizing shampoo. "Clutch the pearls! What a nasty trick!", that's what I said!)
I was so happy last week when Bang informed me that dear old Johnny Burke, in his early morning flight from Silverlake to work, never noticed Mr. Smelly quietly napping under the rear tire of his 1999 Ford Ranger, and promptly squashed him with not so much as an "adios!". Bang scooped up Skunky-boy and placed him, limp and freshly squished, into our trash can and returned traumatized to bed.
All day long I was singing Johnny B's praises like a munchkin, recently released from the wicked oppression of the witch of the east. "Ding-Dong the skunk is dead!"
When bang returned from work, Rusty and I were startled to see a naive little baby skunk wander up on the porch, Seems Mr. Skunk was actually Momma Skunk, and this adorable little stinker was apparently seeking his recently departed Momma.
My heart broke for two reasons: For the babies current orphanded condition, and for the future of my #2 tuxedo. Gentlemen, start your engines.
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Long Live Spreckles
 I took such great pride in th fact that my Coy pond has the trophy of a five year old Koi named Speckles. I bought him as a pair of Koi's, his counterpart being Frekles. Both of them Orange, spotted with black and looking all Haloweeny. After years of Bird and Racoon invasions, Speckles was the last of those fish born outside this pond, for every resident now is original, and there are several. I'm sure if speckles was a Male fish, he fathered most of the swimmers in there. Today I was startled to see no fish greeting me as I approached the pond, meaning either there are newly layed fish eggs that Everybody must guard, or there was an invasion.
Toppled plants and stones in the water informed me the latter, and the slowest and most fabulous member of the koi pond club has gone MIA.
Be it a racoon, a bear or a Great Blue Heron(Yes, I have seen them eyeing my babys on occasion), Speckles is no longer, and I'm im in mourning for my big Halloween Fish.
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No Tweakers Please
There's a leak in my system, and it's making me a little crazy. I guess if you live a fun life in the heart of Los Angeles, and you know Gay people, your going to run into this problem. Tweakers, invading your space.
There seems to be an epidemic of Crystal Meth users in the Gay community here, and too many of our aquaintances are users.
Last week, an aquaintance of Johnny Burke's who happens to be an AA dropout, recently came looking for Johny at 7 a.m. by letting himself in the gate of the backyard.
After realizing Johnny wasn't home, he did the only thing a tweaker will do when he's been up all night, fretting over the fact that the whole world is plotting to see them dead. He stayed, made himself at home, and freaked Bang out.
Bang looked out the window to see this scary looking stranger meandering about the Garden. When Bang gave him the "Who the Fuck are You?" look he stated he was friends with Johnny Burke, as if that made everything o.k.
I went outside to talk to him,
I know him as Ricky, met him a few times over the last couple of years, and always knew him as cleaned up. After getting some really bad news lately, seems Ricky has turned to Tina for help in getting through it. Unfortunatley, Tina is a social girl, and hates to party alone.
One of the downsides of being a tweaker aquaintance is if they know you, they'll seek you out. It's hard to get rid of an aquaintance that's tweaking, much more than a friend or stranger because they force you into an uncomfortable position, especially if you dislike being a dick. If Ricky was my brother, I could do an intervention, put my life on hold and get him some help, but I hardly know the guy. If Ricky was a stranger, I would simply threaten him, and tell him to leave, and if that didn't work, I'd call the cops without so much as a glint of guilt.
But I've met Ricky, I've broke bread with him, and neither of these options seem to appply. As I mentioned, I went down to talk to Ricky before I knew he was tweaking, and that's when I realized for the first time that I've been here before, because I recognized something in him, and in the conversation we had.
That's when I made the list: How to tell if your dealing with a tweaker.
1. What time is it?
7 a.m. by my watch, and that always seems to be a recurring theme. When old friends, ex-friends ex-boyfriends, or "that guy who showed up at the party and no one knew him" decides to "pop in" it's always as early in the morning as might be socially acceptable. Seems they always decide to wait until 8 a.m. before they ring the bell, but then rationalize an hour earler because the sun came up so long ago, or something.
2. They won't take no for an answer
Often times they'll call first, invite you for coffe. They will always wake you up(see "what time is it") because the long hours of Crystal meth are lonely ones, and it's no fun to have a monologue by yourself. You tell them it's not a good time and to call back in a couple of hours, but they keep you on the line, rationalizing, sometimes begging.
"C'mon, he'll never know you left the bed, just tell him you decided to go jogging, that the morning was beautiful!" Careful, or you'll find yourself over dinner trying to rationalize what hapened by "He really seemed like he needed to tell me something!"
3. Does this story have an ending?
Don't ask a question, like "Why are you here?" because what started out as a simple concept suddenly turns into a live reading of an epic novel, starting from the ending and moving backward in the book. It's like watching "Memento" again, only much, much more boring. You will realize what you've got yourself into when the tweaker, right when he gets to the interesting part about how the aliens got him on board the starship, will suddenly stop and say "wait, let me back up, LAST WEEK I was talking to my sister , ok? and . . ."
4. Paranoid? Is that what they're saying about me now? That I'm Paranoid?
If I've learned anything about life as a tweaker, and mind you, I have NEVER done Crystal meth, or any other freakinshly mind-alertering narcotic, it's that it is NEVER your fault why you got here. If you have an authority figure in your life, then you have a reason to live in your car. And if you have TWO (say, your Landlord and your Ex-boyfriend) then you have achieved real Hero/Martyr status, because they will always be in cahoots to ruin you, and because you still love them (that's why you call them at 7 a.m.) You are such a patient person and deserve a medal. You can hang it f rom your rear view mirror as you sleep it off in the parking lot in Griffith park tommorow afternoon.
5. Why didn't he just . . . . .
Here's another hind-sight giggle inducer. When telling the story of today's tweaker encounter, I now preface it to the listener with "Please don't ask me why he didn't just (fill in the blank)". There always seems to be some illogic to their methoda that doesn't quite add up when referenced in hindsight. Like the time one of them needed to stop by and wash his hands because he got a flat on his way to work. "Why didn't he just use the bathroom at his office?"
That's not important, really, this mindless detail. What's immportant is that he got his foot in the door, was able to use my bathroom, change his clothes and waste my time for at least an hour before I realized Tina has made him either completely homeless, or personna non Grata at his current flophouse. Sometimes people just want their couch back.
In the case of Ricky, I told him he could rest her for the morning until the dust settled at his apartment. He said "Great, let me just get a few things out of my car first."
It was an hour later when I realized that this situation wasn't normal. He wasn't even remotely tired, and seemed to be looking on all of this as "Par for the Course" I looked out the window to see him folding clothes in the back seat of his mustang convertable, and a shitload of junk, that one would normally NOT keep in ones trunk, was scattered all over the road behind his car . On closer inspection, I watched him fold and refold the same hooded sweatshirt three times. I know those things are tough to make a tidy fold of, but this was outta hand, and I had to get to work.
I went out and advised him to go home. "But they won't let me!" he said, and proceeded to tell me he could hear the humming of the tracking device they put in his car.
"Ricky, I don't know who 'they' are!' and at the risk of sounding cruel, I advised him that even though he didn 't feel comfortable going home, he couldn't stay here.
Ricky is not the first tweaker aquaintance to put me into this uncomfortable situation and It saddens me when I have some much information on the tweaker syndrome simply from an observers point of view, but maybe this little bit of information will help you if you're ever put into a situation like those I've mentioned here.
If anyone has any USABLE advice for me on this subject, please let me know. No one I know seems to have any workable procedure fo tweaker invason.
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