Porno for Pyros (and Entomologists)

In 1995, two friends, my girlfriend at the time, and I moved into a huge house in a nice neighborhood near Fort Lee, Virginia. Because we were young and dumb, the 5 bedroom, 2 and one half bath mini-mansion quickly fell into a state of disrepair, as most party houses do, but no party damage could rival that caused by an invasion of bees and my attempt to exterminate them.

One day in the late spring, I arrived at home and noticed, as I waited for the garage door to finish raising, that there were an awful lot of bees swarming around the entrance. As the days progressed, the swarm grew.

Now, I hate bees. In fact, I don’t like any stinging insects. These invaders needed to go.

The next day, I bought several cans of Raid spray and, upon my arrival at home, sprayed the walls, roof, porch, ground, and bushes in an attempt to dissuade the pests from hanging around my garage. The next day, it was apparent that it didn’t work. They were back in full force, completely unimpressed with my attempts to evict them.

I decided to perform some reconnaissance. I went out that evening, when bees sleep, and looked for a nest. That was when I saw the hole that they had been flying in and out of… and it was huge. It was roughly the diameter of a golf ball, and fairly deep looking. I sprayed the hole down with the last of the Raid, and went in to call my father, because if anyone would know how to deal with this problem, my father would.

Just a short while on the phone with dad gave me the hope I needed. According to him, all I needed was to pour gas into their nest at night, and my problem would be solved.

So I went to the local gas station and purchased a second five gallon gas can full of gas to go with my mostly full five gallon can at home. I figured, whatever was left over after I filled the hole could be used in my car or lawn mower. With my gas ready, I dressed for the occasion.

I know I mentioned that I hate bees, but I don’t think I conveyed the depths to which I abhor these stinging little beasties. I hate bees! Not wanting to get stung, I went a bit overboard. An outer layer that included a flannel shirt, oversized jeans, and a pair of combat boots concealed layer two: a hooded sweatshirt, sweatpants, and thick wool socks. I hid my hands in heavy winter gloves, and covered my head and face with a hood, a scarf, and a pair of motorcycle goggles. There wasn’t a bit of unprotected flesh exposed.

This, in all likelihood, saved my life.

At midnight, the hour when I felt the bees would be most asleep and least likely to stir, I proceeded with my plan. I went outside with my 8 or so gallons of gas and box of strike-anywhere matches and began the process of exterminating the bugs. I started to pour gas into the hole.

Do you know the sound that a drain makes when you pour water straight down the center of it? That is the noise the hole made as the gas disappeared into its maw. I kept pouring and pouring, waiting for the hole to fill so I could stop… and the hole just wouldn’t fill. I started on the second gas can when the first was empty, and unloaded the bulk of that into the hole before I gave up. My best estimate is that was about 6 or 7 gallons of gasoline in the hole when I finished.

Now it was time for the lighting ceremony. I took a strike anywhere match, lit it, and threw it at the hole, making sure to stand plenty far enough away to be out of harm’s way.

The match went out.

I lit another and, edging closer, threw it at the hole.

The match went out.

Edging closer still, I threw another lit match at the hole.

The match went out.

Being the problem solver that I am, I created a solution. I rolled up a newspaper, lit it on fire, and stuffed it into the hole.

Well, near the hole at least.

Several problems conspired to make this situation dangerous. First, the amount of time I spent dicking around with the matches allowed plenty of gas vapor to accumulate near the hole. Second, gas vapor—as it turns out—is VERY combustible. Third, my newspaper starter was sufficiently short so as to force my arm to be very near the entrance to the hole. Finally, there was a LOT of gas in that hole.

Well, in roughly the amount of time it took for me to think, “Oh shit, this was a bad idea!” my plan went horribly awry. The flaming paper, as it became proximate to the hole, ignited the vapor surrounding the hole. The process of sudden, rapid vapor ignition could best be described as a Big Fucking ExplosionTM. The explosion shook the ground, the concrete slab that was my front porch split, the foundation of the house cracked, and a plume of flame shot out of every place in my lawn where the system of tunnels I had filled with gas met the surface. Unfortunately one of those outlets was immediately beneath a bush in my yard; so my bush lit on fire. A river of fire, originating farther down my lawn, flowed its way into the road where it puddled.

Oh, and my shirt was set aflame. It was chaos.

So there I am, running around with my clothing on fire, a bush burning like something out of a Bible story, a river of fire blazing like a sign of the apocalypse, when my neighbors come out to watch the show. Did anyone help? Not a chance; they just came to watch the show. Even my roommates were just observing dispassionately out the window.

I ultimately managed to put myself out (Stop, Drop, and Roll people… Stop, Drop, and Roll), and after a fairly short time, the gas was all consumed and the various fires went out, leaving charred grass, a burnt husk of a bush, and a complete halt to the bee problem.

The next day, I called my father back to tell him how poorly his plan went. A few words into the story, he said the words that I keep with me to this day.

“I didn’t say to light the gas on fire,” he said.

And you know what? He didn’t.

The Magic of Addiction

One of the things that I enjoy about the television version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the fact that, when they “hit” a storyline, they really hit the hell out of it. I have recently finished Season 5 and have made my way into Season 6, and one of the somewhat minor story arcs has reached its azimuth in “Wrecked”, Willow’s addiction to magic. I’ve been watching this grow and have frequently thought to myself how convincingly this mirrors the process that my own addiction took. The similarities are almost frightening.

Much like my own addiction, Willow’s began as a simple crisis of personality, and now in retrospect, it is a crisis that clearly began as early as Season 1. Willow has struggled with being the nerdy, boring, un-special part of the group since the group began. I can empathize with feeling out of place, even in your group of friends. It is such a struggle to feel like everyone around you is more important, cooler, funnier, more worthy of attention, and in general, better than you. It is so easy to latch onto the first thing that sets you apart.

For Willow, it was magic, for me, it was drugs and alcohol.

Several seasons passed with very, very few specific abuses of her newfound powers. It wasn’t until well into college that things really began to take a turn. My brush with addiction began a bit earlier than hers, so my personal arc began sinking quite a bit earlier, around my senior year, but both of our ascents and descents followed a fairly parallel pattern. For a time, addiction served the purpose it was meant to. It caused no problems and it was just fun, it was pure, and it could never devolve to the point where it would be an issue. Don’t be silly. I felt popular. I felt special. People knew my name. I was a “rock star”. I used to joke around that everywhere I lived and everywhere I went, I was “that guy”. You know the one; that guy you hear about at parties that did that totally ludicrous thing that made everyone amazed and amused. You would hear about “that guy who did that funny thing that had the whole party rolling for hours” or “that guy who was just so amazingly fun to be around that people wanted to party with him. Even when those stories took a rather sad turn and became “that guy who ate a handful of random pills, drank a case of beer and a bottle of bourbon, and beat the shit out of the neighbor for calling the cops about the party”, or “that guy who brought a different woman home every night for weeks because he could”, it was still fun to be famous, even in such an insignificant way. It’s what I wanted.

Of course, ultimately the stories became less party-impressive and more party-pathetic. The stories began to be about “that guy who had alcohol poisoning five times last month” or “that guy who lost his mind in a drug and alcohol fueled rage and sent his roommate to the hospital for changing the TV channel”, or “that guy who got arrested again”. It was hard for even ME to be amused by my own press. At that point, however, the only way to not feel bad about what I did the night before was to do more tonight; and to hell with all the nay-sayers. They were just haters anyways, they just hated how much fun I was having; let’s go get drunk and forget about all of this. My addiction became self-reinforcing. Willow found out about this when she started trying to use spells to quash fights that magic started in the first place.

There is something particularly pitiful about seeing the irony in your living situation, and feeling helpless to do anything about it.

Needless to say, because of my history, I saw the storyline of “Wrecked” coming quite some time ago. It was a matter of time, and Joss Whedon’s handling of emotion is entirely to real and true for him not to address Willow’s problem in a realistic way. It was a difficult episode to watch. Despite time spent away from the horrors of what we refer to as “active addiction”, it still hurts to think of some of the ways my addiction affected those around me. When Willow brought Dawn to the “dope house” as it were, I was haunted by hearing some of my famous lines repeated back to me. “I just need to stop in here for a second”, I would say as I swung by my dealer’s house, kids in tow, to pick up a little something for later. “I’ll just be a second”, would be the last thing the kids would hear before I wandered inside for a half hour, an hour, two hours, however long I felt the need to hang around and get freebies as I bought the evening’s fare. They would even point out that “we were going to go have fun” and I would reassure them that “of course we are, Daddy just needs to take care of a few things first.” How many times did a day of fun with the kids turn into a day of them watching their father get too drunk to move at a friend’s house on the way to the park? This is how people I love were treated; you can’t imagine how everyone else was regarded.

Seeing Willow break down after she injured and endangered Dawn, hearing her promise that she was done, that she’ll stop, seeing her pain; I remember so vividly saying that time and again. I was “all done” and “a new man” more times than I care to remember, and time and again I went back because, the alternative was to be me. Why would I want to be me again?

I think that is the part that so many people who don’t suffer from addiction cannot understand. It is not about the drugs. I never cared what drug I was on, or what the effects were. Not much at least. It is not about being high. Being high is merely a means to an end, and so many manifestations of addiction do not even make room for being high. It is not about having friends or being popular, that is, much like being high, a means to an end as well.

It is about self hatred. For as long as I can remember, I hated being me. I was, in no way, shape, or form, good enough. Acting on my addiction would allow me, for a time, to stop hating myself; or at least to not notice how inferior I was in every possible way. Being high, feeling popular, being the center of attention, feeling loved; these were the ways to mask the self loathing. Doing drugs, doing outlandish things, making an ass of myself, and being promiscuous; these were how I attained these things.

I can no longer find the quote, but there was an article about Robert Downey Jr. that compared drug addiction to putting the barrel of a gun in your mouth, and you know that you hate the barrel there, and you know it is dangerous, but you just love the taste of the gun barrel. To me, drug addiction was like putting the gun barrel in my mouth, and I hate the taste, I know it is dangerous, and I do not want that barrel there, but it feels like the only version of me I do not have utter contempt and distaste for is the one with the taste of steel and cordite on his tongue. If that version self destructs in the process, so be it.

Of course, the corollary to this is, in true cliched form, that I do not despise myself today. I do not feel the need to use drugs, or alcohol, to feel like I am somehow special, important, or otherwise worthwhile. I have my moments, just like every normal human being does; but those moments no longer rule and destroy my life. Still, as I sit and watch the final few minutes of “Wrecked”, I cannot help but reflect upon the torturous journey that lies ahead of Willow, and how grateful I am that I have the people in my life that I do; or I would never have survived my version of that same journey. I would not have even wanted to.

(Somewhere in the midst of this diatribe, I’m confident I was supposed to blame my parents for some transgressions, or society for failing me, or school for giving me some complex, or the media for glorifying such forms of “escapism”; but that is rather boring and trite. I, instead, am going to blame Mr. Rogers for having a rather creepy demeanor and Erin Pendergast for never going on a date with me in High School. I hope you are happy!)

Why I Don’t Date Often

Well, I went on a date with the waitress I’ve been flirting with recently, and I’m reminded why I don’t date often.

The plan for the date was to hit dinner then meet up with my friend, who was giving a lecture, so we could all hang out and play some poker. After I explained the details of the plan, she asked why I wasn’t going to see Bob’s lecture. I explained that it was because I had assumed she wouldn’t want to go, and she said she wanted to, and off we went.

A promising start, little did I know that this would be the last enjoyable part of the evening.

We chose to play Texas hold’em because she said how much she loves playing. I purchased her $20 buy-in, and away we went. Things started to get weird almost immediately when it became clear that she didn’t have the slightest clue how to play poker. I’m not talking about a general lack of understanding of the strategy behind the game…I, personally, have no CLUE about how to effectively play poker. No, I’m referring to a lack of understanding that these flat rectangular things are cards, and the flat round things are chips that represent money. In short, I think she might have sustained a closed head injury that prevented her from understanding concepts that involved 2D objects.

Throughout the course of the game, she fielded or initiated several phone calls, during which she referred to me as her “boyfriend” and us as a “couple”. When did this happen? Why wasn’t I informed? Don’t I get a say in this? My friends, sensing my discomfort, did an admirable job of easing my pain using a mixture of barely restrained laughter and pointed questions like “is Jer a good boyfriend?”

I hate my friends.

I got tired and really wanted to end the date, so as she lost the end of her chips I went all in, called, and sunk my chips into the pot.  I started to get up, assuming we were preparing to go, and she asked if I would buy her back in. For some reason, I did.

What can I say, I’m a glutton for punishment.

An hour or so later, she managed to cook that $20 and it was now about 1 AM. I asked if she was ready to go and she looked confused. She said that she had told her parents (with whom, apparently, she lives) that she wouldn’t be home that night, so she wouldn’t be able to get into her house until at least 8 AM, and, couldn’t she just stay with me at my place?

I said that I wasn’t going to drive home, and she could crash on Bob’s spare bed while I—ever the gentleman—slept on the couch. She agreed and left the room while I reclined on the couch to watch the remainder of the game and talk shit (mostly, truth be told, about her). A few short minutes later, she returned to the room in a scant amount of clothing that apparently passed as her pajamas for the evening asking if she could sleep on the other end of the sectional couch with me. Grudgingly, I agreed. Since my trash-talk was summarily interrupted, I put my head back and started to drift to sleep.

“Jer!”, Scott shouted, waking me from my near slumber.

I looked up and glared at Scott, which is when I noticed that Shaina had changed her position to lie on my lap with her head in my crotch. I’m a fairly light sleeper, so she must have moved like a ninja. Accepting the inevitable, I started to go back to sleep.

“Jer!”, Scott shouted, halting my drift toward sleep.

Glaring at Scott again, I noted that my pants were unzipped, and Shaina, “in her sleep” had rested her hand dangerously close to my now open zipper. In a room full of people. I made a point of re-zipping my pants and going back to sleep.

Only to have Scott jar me from sleep again; and again; and again. More than a half dozen times, Scott would yell at me for drifting off and, upon waking, I’d see evidence of Shaina’s attempts to get, literally, into my pants. It was only after the fourth or fifth time that I realized that the whole reason Scott was even waking me was to stop her onslaught.

I suppose that I should be flattered, but, no means no, right?

The next morning, I prepared to drop her off early before my softball game. Seemingly dejected that the date was to be over, she expressed an interest in watching the game, so—for reasons that I cannot fully fathom—I brought her along. At softball, she tried to join in several conversations with my friends and I and came off as so immature and uneducated that I wanted to crawl under a rock FOR her. In order to avoid further cringe-inducing conversation, I skip post-game lunch and drop her off at her home around 2pm. It wasn’t the worst date that I’ve been on, but it certainly wasn’t in the running for best either…at least it was over.

Or was it?

Today, when she calls, I explain that I’m too busy for dating, and, frankly, I don’t think it’s going to work out anyways, so I don’t want to see her again. She says that she understands…then says that I should call her tomorrow so we can meet up and hang out…then hangs up before I can correct her.

Umm…is that an option? This would have changed my dating prospects considerably in the past had I known!

I feel like I have to change my phone number, move, burn my clothes, put garlic cloves over all my doorways, and pour a ring of salt around my bed…but maybe I’ll have sex with her first, just in case…