Introduction: Harmful or Helpful?

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Professor Taboo

As part of the Alternative Lifestyles blog-posts migration over to the new blog The Professor’s Lifestyles Memoirs, this post has been moved there. To read this post please click the link to the blog.

Your patience is appreciated. Thank you!

How Much Time?

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Professor Taboo

It is a lazy Sunday evening. I am finally enjoying a full day’s rest and a movie here and there. I kick Ms. Kitty’s little play-ball down the hall and she spins her sharp-clawed paws like a drag-racer’s tires, launching into pounce mode. As the prized ball hits a wall and deflects to the other side, Kitty uselessly tries to change directions. Bwahaha! Ahh, my FAVORITE pet entertainment worthy of viral YouTube status! This day cannot get much better. More please! Then my phone rings. It is my wonderful soon-to-be married 20-year old college-junior daughter! Hmmm. But we just talked a few days ago. Granted wedding preparations need much communication and many decisions, but typically we talk every other week or three weeks…unless…?
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For those of you who don’t know my family dynamics and recent history, due to a 2002 divorce and Texas Family Laws, I was forced to become a part-time Dad; a role that my family, extended family, and particularly myself never dreamt of becoming or wanted. If you’d like to know the dirty facts of our divorce, then Click Here for that page. It’s a brief narration.

Suffice to say, the divorce was finalized September 18, 2002. But this post is not about customary, nasty divorces by piles of wasted money. This is about the phone call. It’s about another ongoing conversation between an excited daughter and her tentative on-pins-n-needles Dad trying hard to say and do all the right things…a Dad who FINALLY has a pseudo-free daughter to chat with, to know each other a little better, and probably more accurately! This is a father-daughter relationship that got put on hold thirteen years ago.

The Question

We get through the usual formalities about what I’m doing at the moment, then I ask “So what’s up with you? What’s going on?” And this is pretty much how the conversation goes…

“I need to ask you something.“

If you think you know what’s coming, or you have maybe a clue, believe me you have not even scratched the surface of how many possibilities I’d already come up with.

“Yeah, what’s that?” I cautiously reply.

“What do you feel are the roles of a husband and wife?“

Silence.

Seconds later, “Dad? You there?“

A distinct deep inhale begins, “I hope so.”

I am now scrambling my brain for any non-transparent way to transparently show I’m not buying time to not give the most moronic, stupid answer by all fathers on the planet. All my past relationships, marriages, flash across my memory. Cue the music…

Of course my daughter would be asking me that question because I am the pillar of marital success… if you don’t include my two failed marriages; the first lasting a whopping four months! And if you don’t include my last two relationships that did not end at the altar when perhaps they should’ve. And if you don’t include the previous five relationships to my first wife. And if you don’t include my arrest after catching my once fiancé with another man. No, make that two fiancés. And if you don’t include my own parent’s failed marriage after 28-years by Dad’s suicide over their 4-day separation. And if you don’t include my incomplete master’s degree in Marriage & Family Therapy after the suicide. And if you don’t include my in-laws, her mother’s family naysayers, cutting opinions about her Dad. And if you don’t include the fact that now five years after my last live-in girlfriend I’m still single today.

Sure, why not come to me, obviously!

“What a LOADED question. Why on Earth are you asking ME!?” my mouth blurts out chuckling at the irony. Knowing her version of her Dad’s marital fortitude, she begins laughing…

“Dad, you’re not going to be graded on it!“

HAH! The irony just keeps coming, the voice in my head screams! After some fourteen long years, this was not how I pictured our early heart-to-hearts. Though I have vast knowledge and experience in the art of never-a-dull-day intense, passionate relationships and windows of loves-never-truer sprinkled throughout — some of them naval portholes and others large picture windows to gaze the constellations — in reality, I am considered anything but the model spouse my daughter has been taught to seek and decipher. My proper title in her circles might be What Not To Marry: Lessons in Proper Dodging.

“This is for our pre-marital counseling at church.“

This I knew. Now I am somewhat relieved that she and her fiancé had not had a huge blowout fight and she’s rallying the troops. My daughter DID fortunately inherit her mother and father’s “take no bullshit” confidence. However, by all indications my daughter has wisely…umm, refined it. To that, I nod in graciousness. But wait! There’s another mine in this encroaching minefield.

“Just one counselor?” I suspiciously ask knowing her “circles.”

“Well, it’s us and two other couples. Like a support group with a counselor slash moderator.“

That voice in my head leaps up screaming, Ah HAH! So I WILL be graded! Relief steps out, familiar stress returns… en-force.

I attempt to keep my voice inflection normal, “You realize that my answer is going to come out of wormhole left-field of what you’re going to hear around you!?” She let’s out a big laugh…

“Yes. I know Dad.” she explains, “I just want to offer a different perspective to the group.“

Well, ain’t that the most soothing answer I could hear. If any of you have read my blog-posts about history, civil rights, social issues and same-sex rights, love, romance, marriage, polyamory, swinging and open-relationships, Biblical history and the earliest Early Church, then you’ll understand my daughter’s definition of different is in this case, a bit understated. Oh yeah, and I almost forgot: my near 30-years of BDSM that utterly sent her mother into ecstasy-orbit for eight years.

“Are you sure you want my answer?” in a soft semi-begging tone.

“Yes!” she answers laughing again, thinking of her father’s known flair for the dramatic. I let loose a long deep exhale…

“How much time do I have to answer this very important question?” …which so happens to involve the major majority of my daughter’s life! I need to take some time to really ponder my answer so that it benefits, or at least helps increase the potential happiness of my flesh-n-blood and her husband! Right? She starts her response…

“Oh, I have about 10 minutes.”
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* * * * * * * * * *

Life can be stranger than fiction, even my fiction. It damn sure has a sense of humor. Daughters have ways of redefining the (in)sanity of love, marriage, children, and family for fathers, as well as the circus it sometimes takes to keep it all… normal?

WHAT! What are you looking at!?

I gave my daughter my crash-course in happy-love, happy-marryment in 5 critical points for both spouses. She gladly jotted-down my key points and words, even the ones I emphatically said to place all in CAPS because I’m ~~dramatic~~ passionate that way, we actually talked and laughed for about 30 more delightful minutes. What gave me the biggest smile and glowing heart to last for weeks, was that she felt it necessary to include me… the man, the Dad she hadn’t and doesn’t know day-to-day. Yeah, happy-dance for this father.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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Disposition

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Professor Taboo

Moments. There are moments in your life that define you. The crossroad laying before you that set the wheels in motion, all the wheels different with different outcomes. I have done some great things in my life. I have done some stupid things in my life. And I have done some things, little and big, that at first were stupid and then turned out to be the perfect thing; the right thing. The stuff when you say afterwards, “Get out the front door! Who’d of thunk?“

I have been accused of having a flair for the dramatic. This probably qualifies. It is a true story.

Growing up my little sister and I lived just a short walking distance from Pecan Grove Park. Mom would sometimes take us there after school or on weekends to get a break, a breather, by unleashing our never-ending supply of energy six, seven, or eight year olds possess. On this day to the park, my sister brought her rag-doll that she was never without. She had gotten it for her birthday weeks earlier. She slept with it. She traveled with it. She was proud of it. She loved it. It seemed like my second sister to me — and honestly, their relationship made me gag sometimes. At that age I guess a young boy hasn’t matured enough to understand that bond.

We had played out our afternoon park-time and it was time to walk back home. Our home, it’s street, and the park was divided by a busy major boulevard. Mom insisted on holding our hands every time we crossed because there was always traffic and sometimes a car or two that were driving above the indicated speed limit. It didn’t help either that where we usually crossed was atop a hill, where from one direction traffic wasn’t visible until it was just 40-50 yards away. The nearest red-light intersection was two or three blocks down the way, and if taken, two or three blocks right back up to our home street. Crossing the six-lane boulevard was too dangerous for me and my sister alone; that was made abundantly clear. This particular time of day was no exception.

Standing at the curb waiting for the right time, the perfect time, Mom held my hand tight. She’d lean forward but then stop, gripping our hands tighter to make sure we stayed put. The wind from the passing cars would blow my hair and my Mom’s and sister’s skirts. She would lean again, but stopped. This seemed to go on for ten minutes but looking back on it, she was simply calculating how quickly she could get across — at least to the median — with two small kids in her hands before the fast-moving cars would get close…too close. I sensed her rising anxiety.

Suddenly it was lift-off! “COME ON! NOW!” Mom yelled, and with our first step I don’t think our little feet touched the concrete! The three of us darted as quickly as we could to the middle! Gasping we had to stop. There was too much rushing traffic to make it all the way across. Now comes the harder part. We had to go through it all again: cross(?)…don’t cross! Step(?)…step back! There would not be as much time to judge the oncoming cars because of the hill. Mom was more nervous, her grip squeezed much tighter. LIFT OFF! Run! Run! And then my sister let out a blood-curdling scream.

We are safely on the other side as vehicles whizzed by but with one exception.

My sister had dropped her doll in the middle of the street and was beside herself bawling. Topping the hill are a couple of fast-moving cars. Lying motionless just twenty-five, thirty feet away, I stared at… my ‘second sister‘ who was probably about to get smashed and torn apart while my hysterical real sister watched. For the next few seconds the Earth stopped rotating, the noise, the engines, and the bawling fell silent… and time stood still. A moment became this moment.

In a split second Mom had my hand, in the next it was gone. I jerked it out and took off running those 30-feet — that blurred into a mile — with only one thing in my sight. Got her! I held her to my chest. I am standing motionless in the center. I realize I am not making it back. Time slows even more. I thought, the cars always travel between the lines, between the white dashes. That is where I must stand as they all (fly by it seemed to me) pass by. I cannot move; if I do, I become unpredictable to the drivers and their machines of major pain. Two or three cars pass and I run back to Mom and my sister. My sister was frozen silent with a gaping mouth staring at me. Mom was now screaming…at me! How odd I thought. I handed my sister her doll and got a smile I can never forget. Mom was a different story. I remember thinking how much trouble I was going to get into when Dad heard about it. In hindsight, I think his punishment scared me a lot more than what I had just done in the middle of Kiest Boulevard. In further hindsight today, saving my sister’s doll while almost putting my Mom into a mental institution was clearly a bone-head move, a moment, an impetus that could’ve defined my life permanently like many others I have pulled since: What Was I Thinking?

Would I do it again? Yes. Looking back over my many decades of stunts, of impulses, of moments of truth… I would do it again. I know myself too well. It’s who I am. Please do not tell my insurance agent.

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For my sister and Mom: Happy Valentines.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

To Limits and Back

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Professor Taboo

The highs are intoxicating, the lows exhaustively abysmal, and almost always consuming like fire. Sooner or later you ask the questions, where am I? Who am I? How did I get here…alone? Shall I return?

A song and toast to the eccentric…

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I had this thing to call my own…
Just one slip and it was gone…

A minor flaw and then it fell,
I brought this house down on myself…

I didn’t know just what I’d done…
I didn’t know just what I’d done…

I don’t remember anymore
what I used to be…
Where is the quiet piece of home where I could breathe?

Just like a razor to my soul
When I’m alone…
Oh, I had this thing to call my own…

I’m so confused, I cannot see…
This wave of guilt is drowning me

It feels like blood is on my hands…
I’d give it all for a second chance…

I still don’t know just what I’ve done…
I still don’t know just what I’ve done…

I don’t remember anymore what I used to be…
There was a fire burning strong inside of me…

Just like the soothing loving warmth of summer sun…

Oh, I had this thing to call my own…
I had this thing to call my own…
I had this thing to call my own…

I’ve never meant to let you go…
I’ve never meant to let you go…
To let you go…
To let you go…

They are very human. They feel intensely. Rarely anything they do or say is average. You can envy them and despise them in the same breath, same motion. Here one moment, gone the next…and you laugh or cry, sometimes neither; blank. Alive, dead. Those few precious moments of in-between normality you cherish, forever. For the drifting listless and unmoved, they are very hard to let go and hopelessly easy to grasp with open arms. Go. Don’t go.

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They are so tragically joyously human. They are, or a version of, manic/bipolar behavior disorder (hypomania?). In many ways we need them for either cardiac arrest…or cardiac resuscitation. The last reaction one should have to this behavior or disorder is eviction as if they’re lepers. Understand first the neurology, then you can better manage the situations with them, being positive instead of inflaming.

Personally I need them, I welcome them, the heart-monitors of palpitations, the respirators of inhale exhale! But…if there are warning labels, I usually miss them on many occasion. My advice?

Consult a physician and psychiatrist for recommended dosages, or risk missing or getting the vivid ride of a lifetime on and off the ordinary grid! Mind-blowing thrills and shrills guaranteed — bumps and bruises non-negotiable — but either way you will find out if you’re alive or taking up space.

**Music: I Had This Thing, by Röyksopp

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

Pigeon-holed

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Professor Taboo

Films based on a great, even superb story and script, offer so much to life. One such film is my all-time favorite “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” starring Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, and several other fantastic actors. There is one particular scene in the film where Graham Dashwood, played by Tom Wilkinson, and Evelyn Greenslade played by Judi Dench, had just finished their evening dinner in the hotel and are both retiring to their bedrooms. Below is the film’s script from that point…

GRAHAM (CONT’D)
“Mrs Greenslade?”

EVELYN
“Evelyn.”

GRAHAM
“Can I show you something?”

74 INT. GRAHAM’S ROOM – NIGHT 74

Moments later. Evelyn is sitting in front of Graham’s
collage.

GRAHAM
“I grew up here. Just a short
drive away. It was a big house,
and we had servants, everyone
did. We knew their wives, their
children. One boy, Manoj, became
my friend. We played a lot of
cricket together, played anything
we could. And that’s how it
stayed for years. Until one
night, he became something more.”

(BEAT)
“We had a few months, we had that.
There was a weekend in Udaipur,
we sat by a lake and watched the
sun go down, and I remember
thinking . I will never be this
happy again. And I was right.
Because quite suddenly it was
over. We’d fallen asleep, and
they found us.”

(MORE)

47.
GRAHAM (CONT’D)

(BEAT)
“For me it was bad enough. But I
already knew who I was, and I
think my family had guessed. For
Manoj, the disgrace was absolute;
a double taboo. His father was
fired, they were sent away, all
of them. I don’t know what I
could’ve done, but it should’ve
been more than nothing. I put up
no fight. I let it happen.”

(BEAT)
“Soon afterwards I went to
England, to University. I always
told myself I’d come back. But I
never did.”

EVELYN
“Until now.”

GRAHAM
“And now I think .. what if I am
the last person on earth he wants
to see?”
Evelyn says nothing.

GRAHAM (CONT’D)
“I don’t think I can go through
with it.”

EVELYN
“Do you want to see him again?”

GRAHAM
“Yes. Yes. Oh yes.”

EVELYN
“Then you must.”

I can’t imagine what humiliation and pain Graham must have felt (and still feels?) while his close friend Manoj suffered an even more severe public punishment; a punishment for something that was purely natural, purely human. I felt my heart sink into my stomach for them. I thought to myself, “what a horrible, horrible place to have to be born into and live through.” I’ve experienced places and people just like it. Though this is just a movie, the reality is that Manoj’s and Graham’s world is our reality too.

I will never be able to phathom WHY a person would want to create such a suffocating puritanical life void of more compassion, tolerance, understanding, but instead wrought with bitterness, hate, and self-righteousness…as if a theocracy was the more noble cause. Excuse me while I go throw-up.

Since I was unable to find this specific scene above on the internet, I will play another similar scene from another of my favorite films:

Love was never designed to be one-dimensional. It is not merely erotic or romantic or sexual. It does not distinguish between genders. It is expansive….so expansive that some cannot imagine or allow, however, that does not diminish acts of love or its unstoppable power and goodness. It will always be.

I’ve often concluded some posts with “Fear stifles, courage fulfills.” Though it would be proper now, I will instead end it this way….

Piety stifles, love fulfills. Conformity stifles, beauty fulfills…and excites.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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