Monday, May 27, 2013

'Fuck Euphemisms' and Other Sad Thoughts on Memorial Day

The other day, I found this meme on facebook -


I'm sure lots of you saw it. But in the constant stream of photos and memes and little blurbs I read throughout the day, it isn't very many that bring me to an abrupt stop such as this one did, for a moment making me forget everything else I was doing or thinking.

Maybe it's age. I am 30 now, after all. To me, this has always been the number at which you really enter the world of adults. Maybe it's the fact that my man is a veteran. That he could have been dead before I ever met him, as high risk a field as he was in. And while, to hear him tell it, the things he saw and the things he had to do (cutting a live bomb vest off of a dead suicide bomber, for instance), haven't changed who he is, I know they have. There is no possible way that they can't have done so. To see a thing with your own eyes changes it from abstract to reality. If one still feels that there is grace, honor and glory in death after witnessing it in this fashion, well... I suppose that is an individual perception. I am fairly certain that, had it been me, I would begin to regard humans much more like sacks of meat, and life as cheap. I won't speak for Josh though.

There will be people who do not like or agree with what I have to say now. I would take this moment to remind you that as long as my opinions are based on evidence, thoughtful consideration and logic, I am entitled to them, and you are under no obligation to feel the same way I do. If you still feel like bombarding me with hate mail, I guess that's ok.

I see people all over the internet posting things today that are somewhere along the lines of "Thank you to the people in my life who are serving or have served, for the sacrifices you've made to protect our way of life." But to me, there is something off with this line of thinking. Because it suggests that without each and every one of those sacrifices throughout our history, our way of life would not exist. And while I absolutely believe that this is true in certain cases, I don't think it is true of all of them. To me, there is no question that many of these ultimate sacrifices were avoidable, unnecessary, pointless. I find it much easier to swallow the argument that, had the Nazis not been squashed, our way of life could have been taken from us, than that same argument in regards to the conflicts that we've been a part of during the last 10 years. I can't look at pictures of our troops standing guard over poppy fields, and be confident that my government is really valuing the lives and sanity it is risking.

This is where people start to take it personally, especially if they've been involved, because it sounds like I'm trying to say their efforts were pointless. And I don't want that, because I sure prefer it when people like me, but I can't... take it back. Nor do I mean any harm or judgment. I just think that the potential horror we place on our military's shoulders should not be taken lightly, and it appears that it IS being taken lightly.

This is what Memorial Day means to me; it means that we should take a hard look at what we've done to our young men and women who've served and ask if the means justified the end. Have we gained enough in these endeavors to justify all the pain they've caused? Have we? If we could give those lives back and take away that pain, would our freedoms be gone? Would our country be conquered?

We talk about death in war in terms that are designed to bring comfort. We say that they died with honor. That their acts were selfless. We talk about glory, duty and dedication. And I just don't think that's fair. I don't think it's enough. Glory will not comfort your mother when she has to put you in the ground. Honor will not hold your wife in it's arms on nights when she is alone and losing her mind in grieving. Your legacy will not raise your babies to be real men, or women who know what a real man's love should be. Medals and awards will never erase the memory of your death from the mind of your friend who tried to carry you to safety.

Again, I'm speaking for myself. I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way, but I guess I could be. I know without a doubt that if Josh got called up and had to go back to Afghanistan where he died in the line of duty... I would want to ball all of those "comforting" words into a fist and break the jaw of every person who offered them to me as solace in place of his presence. His heartbeat. His warmth. His laughter. What the fuck would I care about honor while being crushed by such grief, and how dare you assume that words, air, could lessen that loss. But that's just me.

I think Memorial Day is a time that we should take a hard look at reality without euphemisms. War is hell. Death is ugly. Pain lasts for years and years. It changes everyone who is touched by it. None of this should be glossed over. None of it should be considered vindicated by the grilling of steaks or consumption of beer and maybe, if someone remembers to do it, a few words about honor and sacrifice. To me, what we should really be doing, is looking at photos like the one so poignantly captioned on facebook and asking ourselves if what we've done to these people, our sons and daughters, lovers and friends, was necessary. And we should, with the knowledge of the pain that is left behind by war, choose to be very very careful in deciding it is our only option in the future.

Friday, May 10, 2013

A year on the road and 3 decades into this crazy thing called life.

Today I am 30 years old, and in just a few more days it will have been an entire year since I got rid of all my shit except what would fit in one box and a backpack and moved onto the road to live like a nomad. Anniversaries and birthdays are not very important to me, generally speaking. You can't force any specific day of the year to be special, or to stand out. Best to let it happen organically. So, I won't be doing anything special to celebrate. What I'm really doing more than anything, is reflecting, and looking forward.

I still vividly remember being 14 years old and thinking that I would never be old enough to buy my own booze. Half the friends I had were no good and probably still aren't, and my decision making was highly questionable. I thought then that I was as adult as I was ever going to get, but I made it through adolescence and have arrived here intact, an actual grown-up. Sort of. So now, when I look at age 50 or 75 and feel like I have a world of time between now and then, I have to remember... I don't. 

The other day, while musing about how cool it would be to set up a fish wheel in the river near wherever we end up, and without realizing he was bringing up such a deeply existential question, Josh asked me where I pictured myself when it was time to retire. It occurred to me suddenly that while I do have a very clear picture, that's... really all I've got.
It looks like somewhere deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Trees so old and so huge, their very presence makes you aware of how small you are on this planet, let alone in this universe. Everything around it is mossy, grassy, green and lush, with a smattering of wildflowers. There is wind rustling the pine needles and the wood chimes hanging from the eaves, and birds singing. There are no cars, sirens or other people's voices. There are probably a couple of dogs minding their own business while I work in the little greenhouse next to a relatively small cabin. Golden retrievers. Or maybe Rottweilers. I can see the river (or the ocean) about a dozen yards from the rocking chairs on my wrap-around porch, and on lazy days I can take a fishing pole down to the little dock and drop a line in the water for my dinner. Within a 3 mile radius is everything my body needs to survive. Within a 50 mile radius, there is a big city, full of friends, live music, cool bars and great restaurants... but my little spot is all by itself. No neighbors to see me if I damn well feel like parking my naked butt in the yard to write a letter or read a book. 

But that's not really an answer to the overall question he was asking me. It's just a picture. Where is this place? How do I make it mine? How do I get all the supplies needed to build it out to wherever it is? What does it cost? How do I pay for it? What is the chain of events in my life that leads me there? I can't just up and drive out of North Carolina to wherever this little sanctuary exists and set up shop. So basically... I don't have an answer. I never really have. The fact that 14 years old has turned into 30 years old so fucking fast makes it pretty clear that I had better come up with some of these answers pretty soon.

Otherwise I don't feel much different. There were no new gray hairs on my head this morning, no new lines of my face, no crushing feeling of being old or surprise urges to get hitched, have babies, or settle into any kind of normal routine. Only a clear sense of just how much life I've been fortunate enough to live in the year since I left Alaska, and how much I've learned that I would never have known had I not run off into the unknown.

I've lived in 6 different states and visited a few others. I lived in a little farm cottage on a big piece of land in rural Pennsylvania complete with a donkey, goat and a horse for company. I lived in what looked like a beautiful apartment in Alabama until we moved in and discovered the cockroaches (my worst fear) had claimed the place before us. We bought our now home; a 15,000 pound, 41 foot 5th wheel trailer that we tow behind our 8,600 pound king cab dualy Dodge 3500. We've put almost 5,000 miles on it in the last 8 months, from northern Virginia to Wilmington to Albuquerque to Austin to Jacksonville. We are 3 feet shorter than a Semi all-together and damn near as heavy. It's awesome. When we get tired, we pull into a rest stop and our house is right there. My shower, my kitchen, my bed.

Since leaving, I've visited the spot where the very first colony in America settled in the 1500's, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We went to the Wright Brothers Museum and saw an exact replica of the very first airplane ever flown. I went to Independence Hall in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, and then hit a concert and partied downtown until the wee hours. I spent two months in Austin, Texas, with a sunny little spirit I'd barely known before arriving but who I now count as one of my dearest and most unique friends. I got to visit my family's farm and my dad's parents, neither of which I'd seen in over 15 years. I climbed Enchanted Rock and hiked around Hamilton Pool. We drove forever up a steep cliffside to the hidden hot springs 3 hours outside of Albuquerque and watched the sunset turn the opposite rock face into pinks and oranges. Josh and I hiked all over Tent Rocks National Monument. We bought a Harley and I fucking love it. I caught a shark! I got to spend 8 days hanging out at practice at one of the very best fight gyms in the world; Jackson's MMA. I talked to 'the Natural Born Killer' Carlos Condit. I shook his hand. He smiled at me. Still haven't gotten over that one. I've been to the two biggest fights of Lauren's career, in Houston, Texas and Kansas City, Missouri, and in the process I landed my dream job writing for Fightland and the coolest editor I could have hoped for.

I own less than 4 boxes worth of material things. I've become an even better cook, with even less space or resources. I have no dishwasher or washing machine. I can pack up everything we own, strap the rest of it down, and be ready to bail out of any location for any reason in about 30 minutes. Hurricane coming? Gone. Running from the cops? Out of here in a flash. None of our license plates are registered to addresses at which we actually live now or ever will again (don't rat on me). I have learned to shoot a gun, and almost love them. I re-caulked my own shower. I alter my own clothes. I learned how to make friends with strangers without having an anxiety attack while doing it. I can fully pack for any excursion; plane, bike, international travel, you name it, in less than 20 minutes.

I've been through dozens of towns that all look exactly the same. Mom and Pop shops across the country have given way to the same 10 chain stores and restaurants. If there's a highway running through it, there will be a Walmart, a McDonalds, a few gas stations and hotels and very little by way of actual character. The best food I've had anywhere is still in Anchorage. I had no idea we had it so good at home as far as restaurants go. The best people, music and bars we of course in Austin. In fact, I pretty much knew this before I lived there for a while, but Austin is easily one of the best cities in America by a landslide. Albuquerque was gritty, Lebanon, PA was humble, Anniston, AL is the fucking armpit of the entire country (thanks Monsanto), Wilmington, NC is bad ass, and it's one of the oldest port cities in the country, Kansas City is full of friendly people (and trannys), and I still love Detroit.

This life isn't all roses, of course. I miss my family so much. I am still prone to random snippets of tears on days like today when I remember that a year ago I was standing around a fire surrounded by people who love me, because Jen always throws the best parties. I've met so many cool people that have made this excursion lack loneliness, thankfully, but we all know new friends just aren't the same as best friends. I miss the mountains painfully. Which is why I'll be taking a two week trip home in June for Summer Solstice, Primus, some fishing and some long overdue time with the people I love.

Til next time, friends.



Thursday, March 7, 2013

Lauren's Legacy 18 Fight; One Surreal Experience After Another.

I love writing. I hate waiting. I particularly hate waiting after I've turned something in that I've literally spent weeks working on, to hear back from the boss man about how it will be edited in order to publish it, or, as is my fear in this case, that he won't publish it at all.

It was good stuff... to me. Personal though. Lauren's life, which has been crazy, and my life as it's intersected with hers, combined equals one long story. To me there was no way to trim it down. We've been close for a long time. And the whole last weekend surrounding her fight was an insane experience to me. What I'm worried about, is that only I see it that way because of my bias being all... close to the situation or whatever. In any case, writing a piece for Fightland requires that I be diplomatic, and unless it's in appropriate spots, refrain from adding my own opinion. I just remembered that here I don't have to do that. And so, in order to kill time and keep me from freaking out while I wait for an email back from the boss, this is the unedited version of last weekend, opinions and all.

I knew when I saw Jennifer Scott's facebook fan page that she was going to lose. Only because, with all the photos peppered over the page of her in the lingerie football league, and naked in her cover photo Victoria Secret style on the beach, I just didn't think there was any way that she that she took MMA as seriously as Lauren did. Whatever pictures of LT have gone up on facebook in the last 6 months, 95% of them are of her in the gym training. Of course I was just speculating, but obviously I turned out to be right.

These feelings were only enforced when we showed up for weigh-ins with Lauren dressed and behaving about the same as all the other fighters in the room; wearing sweats, staying quiet because they were all hungry and apt to be cranky if they spoke. Jennifer on the other hand, showed up in full make-up layers, and wearing a ridiculous pair of long fake eyelashes. When it was time for weigh-ins, she didn't put her clothes back on after getting off the scale in her bikini. Lauren did. You all saw the result. The weigh-in photos look odd, but only because LT is modest, and understandably uncomfortable in a packed room full of men, wearing a bikini when everyone else is clothed. You can choose for yourself who looked silly in that photo. I think it's obvious how I feel.

Afterward, we were both starving. She'd been eating light, and only veggies and protein for 3 weeks, and I had only had a smoothie and some coffee all day because... well, I just would have felt like a dick eating a bunch of food in front of a fighter cutting weight. That and I'd braved the sauna with her to sweat out her last 3 or 4 pounds before weigh-ins. While I recognize and am grateful that an hour in the sauna is a fucking cakewalk compared to some of the other weight-cutting gauntlets I've heard about... I don't like saunas, at all. I was feeling pretty dang depleted by the time she finally weighed in.

All her coaches and teammates that had shown up to support her filed out of the room then, but one of the Legacy guys told Lauren she'd need to stay a little while longer as all the fighters would be doing interviews with Pat and Mike. We were both hungry, still in good spirits but only for a short time longer, I could tell, both on empty tanks as we were. I griped a little under my breath. "Who the fuck are Pat and Mike? I am starving."

We got all her stuff and sat inside the arena, watching as they put the cage together in the center and her taking photos with people that walked up and asked. It was a shorter time than I'd expected when the guy called us to follow him into a back room. Lauren walked in and sat in the only empty chair, and I propped myself up against the wall, as out of the way as I could get in such a tiny space, and dumped our paperwork on the table next to me. Then I looked at the two men sitting on the couch, waiting for us to settle in, and I could feel my eyes growing wider as it dawned on me who the 'Pat' was they'd been talking about.

It was Pat fucking Miletich. He won the Welterweight Tournament at UFC 16 (16! We're about to see UFC 158!) in Brazil back in 1998, to become the UFC's very first Welterweight Champ, and held the belt for two and a half years. He was one of 5 kids born to Croatian immigrants in Iowa, wrestled and played football in high school, and started fighting to pay his mom's medical bills when she came down with heart problems, influenced by his uncle, who was a boxer in the 1932 Olympics. He retired at 29-7-2 and has trained tons of MMA Champs since then. His gig now, is to train local, state and federal law enforcement, groups from all branches of the military, including Special Forces, in combatives. On top of that, he's a fucking Freemason, which fills me with frustratingly intense curiosity in and of itself. What are they doing behind closed doors?! They'll never tell me, and it drives me crazy.

THAT is a story. What a life! I didn't know all of this until I came home later and looked some of it up, obviously, but I knew enough while I was standing there to send my pulse straight into my eardrums as he smiled widely at both of us, asked our names, made niceties, etc. In the short time since I've gone from everyday person who doesn't know or care about MMA, to whatever I am now (obsessed) I've been privileged, mostly on account of Lauren, to meet some real deal famous fighters, but Pat Miletich is something else. He's been in the fight game for over three decades, as a contestant, coach, and now commentator, and that is no kind of normal life. I would give anything to sit down with the guy, feed him a couple shots to get him talking, and just listen to what I'm sure are some fucking insane stories.

This is really what I love about MMA. I like the fights, I am in awe of the work that goes into competing in the hardest sport on the planet, but mostly I love to know the fighters and their lives. Their stories are WILD. After submerging themselves into that lifestyle for long enough, I wonder if they know how different their paths in existence are from your average dude scooping shit out of his gutters on a Sunday, or picking through bell peppers at Walmart. How can they have any concept at all. The modest ones tell me that they are those people, doing all those normal things, walking amongst us unnoticed. That's nice of them, but I don't buy it. When the lights go out in a UFC arena, your song starts playing, and you come walking out essentially alone to thousands of screaming fans, on your way to brawl in the Octagon... once that's happened to you, your life and mine are no longer on the same level.

So, anyway. Pat Miletich and Mike 'The Voice' Schiavello. Him, I didn't know so well. I knew he was a commentator, but that was about it. Lauren on the other hand, after finishing the interview (in which I saw very clearly that, win or lose, they liked her) started hopping up and down in excitement at the fact that Mike 'The Voice' would be commentating one of her fights. "Check that off the bucket list!" as she put it.

She was far less nervous than she was before she fought Willow Bailey at the AFC and won the belt. The weeks before that fight were filled with terrified phone calls, long talk-her-down sessions by both myself and Jen, and I'm sure all her teammates. This time, she was pretty chill. Smiling like a happy fat kid when we finally got to stuff our faces on easily the best Italian food I've ever had, 90% of the time knowing she was going to win, 10% of the time slipping into paranoia that maybe there was someway she was wrong. But then Joe showed up on fight day around 10:30 in the morning, and all that was gone. She reverted to silly little Lauren immediately. I realized it when we were driving back to the hotel from getting her hair braided back out of her face, and she was bokking like a chicken to some song on the radio. Nervous Lauren never makes chicken noises. Silly Lauren, carefree, goofy, happy Lauren, that one makes chicken noise all the time.

There had been some confusion between Legacy and Fightland when it came to my press pass, that I'd been trying to work out before I got there. Apparently the Texas Athletic Commission had just changed the rules recently, and each media outlet was only allowed to have one seat/press pass for the event. Fightland had already given it to a lady named Kerry who lives in Houston, but I already had a ticket, and thus, my own seat. All I needed was the press pass so that I'd have freedom to wander in and out of the locker rooms with the fighters. I spoke to a dude in charge at weigh-ins who gave me a number to call for one of the Legacy big wigs. I explained to him that I just wanted the pass, and he gave me a number to text once I arrived at the theater, for the editor of Legacy's magazine. So when all of Lauren's coaches, she, Joe and I came rushing in almost late for the fighter meeting, they all had wristbands to get in, and I didn't. I sat down in the lobby on my own, having no idea if the people I'd spoke to would have come through for me, fearing I might have to wait to get into the fight until the doors opened to the public hours later. But fortune (and the good people at Legacy) smiled on me in a big way.

Legacy's editor let me in, and handed me a lanyard attached to a Legacy Staff pass, then he walked me around the arena showing me where all the locker rooms were, talking fighters and writers with me for a while, before wandering off to do his thing. I was absolutely ecstatic. I saw Joe and Pat (Pat Applegate, LT's longtime coach) standing in front of a locker room door, and swaggered over to them waving my golden ticket in the air. I've never once gotten to be behind the scenes at one of Lauren's fights. I always have to retire to the normal people seats on fight day and wonder how things are unfolding back in the locker rooms, but there, at a huge theater in Houston, preparing for the very first women's televised fight that Legacy ever had, I got a backstage pass.

So, you can imagine how my heart dropped into my stomach when a greased-haired guy in a black suit walked into the little 8x8 foot locker room, took one look at me, sized me up, decided there was no way I could pass as a fighter or a coach, and said, "You aren't allowed to be in here, miss. I'm going to have to ask you to leave." I waved the golden ticket in the air, but he shook his head at me. I walked out of the locker room and explained that I had been given the pass by Legacy's head editor, who'd been authorized by Rich (the Legacy big wig). He said, "You send him to talk to me," as he turned his back on me to walk away. Frustrated, I called out, "Well who am I supposed to tell him to look for?" He kept walking, but waved his apparently MORE golden ticket back over his shoulder at me and said, "COMMISSION."

I texted the editor and asked what was going on. He told me I'd been in the right. Media does have access to the locker rooms. That's the whole point of us being there. I asked him if he'd talk to the commission guy if he bumped into him, but I didn't have his name, and there was more than one. I knew that would prove fruitless. I decided to test my luck and see if maybe he'd not come back, which I felt confident enough doing once I had confirmation that I was allowed to be where I was. I went back into the locker room.

He did come back though. And much more irritated this time, he jerked his hand at me to get out. I was pissed, but I decided to remain calm, and be respectful. You always get farther with people when you don't give them a reason to blow you off. I followed him out the door. Instead of saying what I was thinking, which was somewhere along the lines of, "Fuck you, you old prick! I am supposed to be here, and how dare you try to ruin this experience for me! Do you have any idea what this night means to us?!" I said, "Sir, this is my job. I am supposed to be able to talk to the fighters behind the scenes. Otherwise, what is the point of me being here?" To which he replied, "Miss, I understand that. But you are not on the list." And he turned his back on me AGAIN to walk away. I stood there for a moment, frustrated, embarrassed and angry. He'd just treated me like a misbehaving child in front of all of Lauren's coaches and teammates. Then I remembered. "Sir!" I yelled as I ran toward his retreating back, "You have never once asked me my name. How exactly do you know that I'm not on 'the list'?" He looked at me, pointedly annoyed, and then told me to follow him back where we could check 'the list', walking unnecessarily fast through a tight crowd, obviously not caring if he lost me.

I was full of adrenaline then. This might sound silly now, but I HATE getting in trouble with anyone bearing the mark of authority. It scares the shit out of me. And I was pretty certain that my name wasn't on the list. I was pretty sure it would only be Kerry's name, as she was the one Fightland had sent first. I was preparing myself to tell this asshole that my name was Kerry, when he whipped a clipboard out of another young woman's hands, flipped to the media page and started running his finger down it... and just below Kerry's name I saw "Aurora Ford - Fightland". I broke into a smug grin and planted my finger next to my name on his slimy fucking media list, and said as sweetly as I could, "Would you like to see my drivers license?" He stammered for a second, really looked me in the face for the first time all evening, and then politely asked if I would follow him to find the lady with the wristbands that would allow me access to the locker room.

Right when I got back to the door, Lauren poked her head out of it looking around for me. She needed her hair braided up the rest of the way. She'd also, along with everyone else, seen me being yanked by the Athletic Commission out of the locker room and was in the process of trying to explain anxiously that she needed my help and no one else's would do. One of Lauren's coaches raised his eyebrows when I walked in and said, "You're going to come back in here again?" At which point I flashed everyone my bright yellow wristband, bearing the words "Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation" and said, "Yes I am. I told that asshole. I was on the fucking list!"

I am aware that that was probably not a very exciting story for anyone but me. But, here's the thing. I am a complete wuss. When someone tells me no, especially any kind of authority figure, I become physically afraid to defy them. It's in most of us, right? That's how society works. I had a badge, but he had a more powerful badge, and by all societal assertions, I should have shut up and known my place. That, and he was far older than me, and a man. I was shocked even in the moment at how confidently he assumed I didn't belong, and how intimidated I was, at least in part because he was a he, dismissing my input completely and telling me what to do. I knew I was in the right though. And despite that I was terrified to do so, visibly shaky when I did it, I challenged him, and he had to admit he'd been in the wrong to treat me the way he did. Maybe not a big deal for anyone else, but for an anxious, nervous, shy, and easily intimidated person such as myself, it was a huge victory. I felt 10 feet tall the rest of the night.

Sitting in the locker room, smiling to myself, I was aware how bizarre an event it really was that so many of us from the little Anchorage fight circuit were sitting together in that tiny space.

Ricky Shivers was challenging the Heavyweight Legacy Champ in the main event, and had been one of Lauren's original coaches in Alaska. He'd been mostly responsible for the fight camp Lauren went through in order to beat Willow Bailey for the AFC belt. They'd assigned Lauren and Ricky the same locker room, I assume because of this connection.

Pat Applegate is Lauren's real magic worker, though. He's got 'the crystal ball' as he puts it. He's correctly identified how all of Lauren's fights would go, analyzed her opponents with very little information, and always been right. His voice, of all the people yelling at her when she's in the cage, is the only one she hears. They've developed this connection through the course of many tournaments and fights. He speaks measuredly, is loud enough to be heard without having to scream, and gives her very specific instructions. Over the course of time, Lauren has learned that if she does exactly what Pat says, she will win the fight. He's a genius, in this sense. Half of a fight is the strategy and execution, which are mental, not physical, and Pat does half of that work for her. As long as she trusts him, and fights her heart out, it leads her to a win.

Then there was Joe. He'd been her teammate in Alaska, and then her friend, and now her other half. It's been a real joy to all of us that Lauren finally picked such a good one for a partner. Joe is a wrestler, one of the hardest workers I've ever met, a very strong purple belt in BJJ, and a gifted coach/teacher. He's also fought several times in the AFC, which means, the biggest thing in Lauren's life is something they share and understand. That and he's fucking hilarious. I don't know that Lauren has ever had a boyfriend her friends were so fond of. In fact, I take that back. I know she hasn't.

Then there was me, and her. With her other two coaches in the room, Alaska outnumbered Texas by a wide margin. Two of them fighting on what has been called the best card Legacy has ever put on. WHAT a trip. It's been only a year ago now that the jackass who owns Gracie Barra in Anchorage effectively disassembled the MMA dream team when he made the ignorant decision to let Pat go over easily solvable, petty, personal issues. Lauren had been devastated. But there we were, only missing a few key players that I'm hoping will up and head to Houston where they belong (ahem, Kat, Jared's, Tyler, etc...)

The pre-lim card was over, and the main card started faster than I could believe. I stepped out to let Lauren's coaches get her warmed up and paced around the arena by myself, wringing my hands and answering text messages from her fans watching the fights from Platinum Jaxx in Anchorage, and on the web. Everything was moving in fast forward. The first fight on the main card ended, "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangter" started playing over the speakers, Lauren was in the cage bouncing around to stay loose, and then the fight started. I swear all of that flashed in front of me like a passing freight train. Suddenly, Lauren was taking punches from Jennifer. The girls behind me were yelling that Lauren was fucked, that she didn't know what she was doing, that she was about to get the shit beat out of her.

I was silent, otherwise I would have started a fight of my own. But a minute into the fight, something shifted, and Lauren started winning. They traded punches for a while, and I could see Jennifer start to get frustrated that she wasn't landing big shots anymore. Then, about 3.5 minutes into the first round, this happened;


I wish it had sound. I wish there was anyway to portray in words how the audience was screaming, or how it felt when she ran out into the crowd and jumped into Joe's arms (that should be a testament to how strong the guy is) like they hadn't seen each other in ten years. I wish I could accurately explain the flashbacks through time I was having, to a decade or more ago when I didn't think Lauren would be alive by the time we were 20 years old... and the flash forwards to then, when she'd just dominated a fight on national television, with a left elbow that put a dent straight into that girl's forehead.

I hope I hear back from the boss man soon, because I want the extent of Lauren's story and everything she's overcome to be out there. Seems like if he was just going to say no, he'd have said it by now, so I'm going to wait patiently assuming he's editing it into something presentable for a major MMA outlet. He's good at that, after all. Though I don't think it's every day that he has to whittle a biography into one article. It doesn't escape me how lucky I was to land an editor that recognized without saying it that I'm new in this game, but that I can go places with a little work and a lot of patience. I intend to make him proud he took the time for me.

And now... I'm going to go run errands so that I can't watch my inbox any longer. Fingers crossed.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Leaving Austin, Texas in the rearview.


It's kind of like breaking up with someone. And how appropriate that in regards to my loss of the Live Music Capital of the World, I can only think in song lyrics. "I stand committed to a love that came before you, and the fact that I adore you is but one of my truths." I gotta be with Josh, so I had to let Austin go.

The act of leaving wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Even though I had only 5 days notice, no time to say my goodbyes or really to prepare at all, leaving wasn't so bad. I didn't have time to think about it. And how could I be sad? I got Josh back from Afghanistan much sooner than I had expected, for a variety of reasons that are not entertaining enough to explain and/or they're none of your damn business. His hair is almost as long as mine, and he's in better shape than he ever has been, as long as I have known him. Hate to be all mushy in such a public forum, but good lord my boyfriend is hot.

He got here last Saturday evening, and we left Austin early Monday. We had to make it all the way here, to Jacksonville, North Carolina, by yesterday evening so he could be at work this morning. And we did pull that off, though 10 hours of driving one day followed by 19 hours the next are pretty hard on your body. Especially if you've just been on 4 different planes back from the Middle East 2 days previous, and have brought with you a weird Afghani flu and fever that you've had for a week. Poor guy.

I knew this trip was going to be a long, rough one. What I forgot was how awesome road trips with Josh are, now that we have it down to a science. At a quarter tank of gas, I get on my phone and go through this website I love that tells you where there are big rig fuel stops along major roads. Josh maneuvers us in to the diesel pumps between the semi trucks and fills up, I wash the mirrors and headlights and then run inside to get snacks, and we're back on the road within 15 minutes. I download 4 or 5 podcasts before we leave, and those are almost 3 hours each if you listen straight through, which we never do, because inevitably every 20 or 30 minutes something they're talking about in the podcast reminds one of us of a story and we pause it and run off into weird conversations. We watch the sunsets, and sunrises. We count roadkill and spot animals, bitch about bad drivers, and look up random facts we've not had time to think about in a while.

For instance, there's a song by the Nixons that I used to love in high school, called 'Baton Rouge'. I knew it was a town in Louisiana, and I knew I liked the sound of the name, but I didn't know that it was named such in 1699 by some French big wig I can't remember the name of, who showed up and saw that there was a tall, red cypress pole strung with animal carcasses that marked the dividing line between the hunting territories of the native peoples. So, being the creative fellow that he was, he named the town le Baton Rouge. Which is French for 'the Red Stick'. I would never have remembered had I not been driving through there, that I used to wonder about the name before I had Google.

Every hundred miles or so, one of us always sees something that starts a conversation we would never normally have. We passed an exit for a town called Uriah, so I had to tell Josh all about how stupid I thought it was that people all over the internet were convinced that he was the one who got knocked out in lasts night episode of The Ultimate Fighter, just because they showed a black guy getting put in an ambulance. As if Uriah is the only black guy on the show. We saw a giant red barn style building claiming to be the biggest fireworks store on the planet, so Josh told me about 5 bomb techs that died in an explosion in Hawaii, trying to clean up a building in which fireworks were stored incorrectly. Apparently when there's that much flash powder in one place, if it isn't stored properly it doesn't take much to set off an explosion that could blast out  the buildings on all sides in a spectacular fireball worthy of the movies. Then we drove over a bridge that went on for miles and miles, through the wetlands of Alabama on the Gulf Coast, where the trees are those wild, ancient things growing out of the standing water, whose trunks flare outward like fingers reaching into the murk. I love those trees, and was so excited to see that kind of landscape in real life. This is understandably weird to a guy who mostly knows me as a girl who loves tall, ragged mountains and deep, clear water, so I told him everything I could remember about The Witching Hour, and how Anne Rice's descriptions of the old magic lurking in the bayous of the deep south had always seemed romantic to me.

Before I knew it, it was 11:00pm last night, and we were setting up the trailer at the park where I'll presumably be for the next 3 months at least. Right next to Camp Legeune where they are currently firing something that rattles my little house and rumbles deep into my eardrums every time they set it off. Fuji says it's a How-something. 155 mm cannon. Why they have to be setting it off at 10:15 at night is beyond me, and it sucks because Josh is still sick, worked a 12 hour day after travelling for almost a week straight, and the poor guy needs to get some good sleep.

This, right here, is where it gets hard to leave Austin. He's asleep, and I'm awake... trying to think of something to write for Fightland and failing, wishing there was a band playing tonight that I could go see with Ms. McKenzie. But, I have Josh back, and it would have had to happen eventually, so I am counting my blessings and considering myself fortunate... but man, I miss that place already. No city skyline is ever going to make me smile half as much without that glowing owl skyscraper in the center of town. No where else I wander is ever going to be so full of music, pouring into the streets from every open bar door on 6th street. No place will ever have so much of my kind of character. I never got to go into that bar called the Mooseknuckle. I never got to paddle a kayak around Town Lake. But I did plenty of pickle shots, I saw lots and lots of live music, I made friends I am certain I will keep for the rest of my life. Wish I could take all those things with me.

But, this is my life and I'll never take for granted how unique of a chance I have. Time to start over in a new place again. You know I dig you baby, but I got to keep movin.

Friday, January 18, 2013

So, I want to be a fight writer.

Calling this a bad case of 'nerves' would be an understatement. I am scared out of my wits for no good reason. I cannot fuck this up, and I'm so afraid that that's exactly what I'm going to do. If I had any experience with, or knew how my body would react to Xanex, I might go looking for some to squash my stupid social anxiety issues before what I have to do tonight.

Wait. I just realized I do have one experience. I don't think it was Xanex, I think it was Valium. I must have been about 19, when a friend of mine gave me one of them suggesting that it would cause me to turn into a melty pile of butter, which sounded nice, so I ate it. I never did feel melty, or really any different. But two hours later, I calmly decided to drive over to the house of a girl I had been spending a lot of time with, and explain to her that our friendship was over because all she ever wanted to do was talk about herself, even in situations where I was the one who really needed an ear. It all made sense in my head. I had been resolving to stop landing myself in co-dependent friendships, being taken advantage of by those 'all take and no give' kind of people, etc.

Really not proud of this. It might have been true that she was self-absorbed and taking advantage of me. It might have been a lesson she really needed to learn in life. But was it my job to decide those things? Am I in any way qualified to be judge and jury? Was it kind of me to show up unannounced and tell her she sucked as a friend? No. Was it irrational and irresponsible for me to have taken a strange narcotic and then gotten in a car? Was it bizarre that I could have chosen to do anything at that moment, and settled on using my temporary state of drug-induced courage and confidence to go shit on another person? Yes.

I believe I have just talked myself out of anti-anxiety meds as a solution for my current problem. Apologies for the detour.

Tonight, I am going to show up to a local fight promotion here in Austin and give my name to some people with the magic list. I'll then receive a press pass that will allow me access to everything behind the scenes, and wander around trying to talk to fighters, coaches, EMT's, promoters, or anyone else remotely related to the fight game, in hopes of having a conversation I can then make into a story for Fightland. Which is a subsidiary of VICE Media. Which is... all I've ever aspired to be a part of.

If I was Lauren Taylor, this would be easy. That girl has never met a stranger. I've always struggled to keep up with her in social situations. She has never been able to sit still as long as I've known her. Traffic makes her happy, because it means she's in a place with tons of people, and to her that is ideal. How weird is that.

Once, before I had really fallen for MMA and still didn't know much about the sport, she brought me as her guest to the AFC in Anchorage (that's Alaska Fighting Championship for those who don't know, and LT is the women's 145 champ). I more or less followed her around, trying to remember names, feeling really awkward and trying not to show it. I had just gotten into this rhythm with her that night, when she said, "Hey, that's Donald Cerrone. Let's go introduce ourselves."

I had no fucking idea who Donald Cerrone was. All I knew, was that he was a dude walking around by himself wearing a cowboy hat and boots, in Anchorage, Alaska. So, for lack of anything else to say, I made fun of his hat. I was good-natured about it, and it was the easiest introduction I'd made with anyone that night. I picked up from the talk between the two of them that he was a fighter, and that he must have been from out of town, but past that I was clueless. Wasn't until much later that I was informed that Donald Cerrone is one of the top ten MMA lightweight fighters on the planet, and that the promoter had brought him up as a guest. I would have been unable to speak, had I known. Lauren ambled over to him, stuck her hand out, and had a conversation like any other she'd have with a friend. I would give a lot for half of her social comfort level. Or... her balls, to be more direct.

But I don't have them. I'm trying to remind myself that this won't be a big deal. Over the last few years, I've been backstage with all kinds of fighters. I've made conversation like it was nothing with one of the top fight teams on the planet at Jackson's MMA. The answer is to just pretend that it's all normal to you, even though it absolutely isn't. Every time I get to sit in on practice, watch and listen while someone gets their hands wrapped, fetch some water or a coach or some gloves someone forgot in the car, I act like it's normal. But to me it isn't. See, I'm actually cheating. I've never been in the cage. I haven't earned my stripes with these people. Yet somehow, because I do my best to be a good friend, I get to share in an experience with them that most others will only ever glimpse pieces of from the stadium seating.

And tonight, I don't have a buffer. I'm in Austin, not Anchorage. I don't know any of these fighters. Lauren isn't here to charge boldly into the middle of conversations as my super out-going counterpart. I have to do it all myself, and come away with something worth writing about, because if I fuck this up, or disappoint the editor... if it's lame, or been done, or no one will talk to me and I come away empty handed... it will mean a failure at the single most amazing opportunity I have ever been handed.

I sure wish I could stop thinking about it like that. Self-fulfilling prophecy, setting myself up to fail, all of that shit I have to avoid. It's just another fight night, and these are just a bunch more fighters, and fuck if they haven't so far in my experience proven to be one of the coolest groups of people on earth. By and large, anyway. Even more than that, I'm in Austin. There is an unspoken social code among people in this town; don't be a dick. If you aren't friendly, genuine and warm, you aren't welcome. If that isn't how you acted in whatever town you came from, you better learn fast if you want to fit in here. This is the best possible introductory foreign scenario into which I could pitch myself headfirst. I'm a pretty cool girl, and I have always magically made strangers feel comfortable talking to me. Time to give this whole 'fake it until you make it' philosophy a real try.

Monday, January 7, 2013

A Twitter beef with Report-A-Pedo

Twitter is awesome and also terrible. There is no way to form a complete argument in 140 characters. And I should probably have known better than to attempt it, but I did, and now it's out there. This argument of mine... skeletal and undeveloped and open for rampant misinterpretation. So, let me back up.

Anonymous has a chapter dedicated to pedophiles. Or rather, the act of ruining their lives and/or sending them to jail. Sounds like something pretty much everyone can get behind. So far, I've supported everything in which Anonymous has elected to intervene. And obviously, I am not sympathetic to, or supportive of people who choose to abuse children, however, one of the groups most recent actions concerns me. When I tried to cram this concern into 140 characters, what I got was a response that more or less made it sound like I was defending child molesters which... well that is totally unfair and really sucks.

They hacked into a man's computer and found... basically a whole shit load of child porn. He's already been arrested (as far as I can gather from Anonymous' document), but has been released from custody until his trial date. So, Anonymous gathered pretty much all this guys major data, and made it public on the internet. Their reasoning being, that everyone needs to be keeping an eye on this man in case he assaults a child leading up to his sentencing. But, so far as I can tell, there is nothing to show that he has ever actually abused a child in real life. Or at least, that was not presented by Anonymous with his information.

The document contains his name, social security number, address, email, all his social media stuff, his job, credit history, etc. And... so what, right? This guy is the scum of the earth. Fuck him. I do understand how that's an easy conclusion to come to. But I am not convinced it was the right one.

Maybe people will show up and wait outside his house to follow him wherever he goes and make sure it's no where near kids. Maybe people will call his house hour after hour to make sure he is securely at home. But if these things don't happen... how does the publication of all his information keep any children safe?

What if he's never actually harmed a child? The legal system had already discovered his online activities and is in the process of handling it as our laws deem appropriate. It is against the law to possess child pornography, he broke the law, and the law is dealing with him. His reputation will be ruined, he'll have felony charges against him for life. So what did Anonymous accomplish here? To humiliate this person further in front of the entire world, and make him a target for identity thieves? Ok, that's fine. I am not claiming to feel bad for the guy. But if this is their course of action every time they discover someone in possession of illegal materials, I think the results they're seeking aren't the right ones. I don't see how that helps.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has a section on Pedophilia. That means that it is recognized as a mental disorder, albeit it one for which no known cure exists. It also means that for reasons we don't fully understand, sometimes people have inclinations towards children the same way some people have inclinations toward other odd, gross or unacceptable things. It is just as bizarre a thought to me that someone could be attracted to animals, yet those people do exist. Just as pedophiles exist, and always have. Given that this is true, we have a few options.

We can arrest them when they do harm to a child, throw them in jail and leave them there, but by then the damage is done. Or we can try to spot the ones who may be headed down that road before they've done any harm and deal with it preemptively. That may mean locking them in a secure facility like Coalinga in California, which is basically a giant state prison for sex offenders. It could mean sending proof of the possession of pornography to the police and seeing the case through to prosecution. Or, it could mean that perhaps you could first send a message to the potential child abuser, to try and solicit help with the bigger problem.

You could make it clear that the jig is up. Maybe it could list resources or places to seek help. It could inform the person that they are being watched and are expected to stop acquiring or sharing the pornography or suffer the consequences, which could then include publication of all personal information. It could even demand that said person turn themselves in and/or work with the police to track down the source of the media. Why not use the knowledge you got through hacking to blackmail an offender into being a part of a bigger solution? I'm not able to state for certain what the appropriate course should always be, but I do think there are better ways to handle the situation than the way this one was handled.

My fear here is this; if we're just outing people who have maybe so far managed to find ways to deal with those urges alone and without actually raping any kids, if we do this without warning them or giving them a chance to do right, are we saying to potential predators that it's better to keep your secret off the internet because Anonymous might expose you? That doesn't stop a pedophile from being what he is, and it may even drive them back out into the real world with real kids if they can't seek to hide in the virtual one.

We do need Anonymous, but we need them to track down the people who are actually committing the crimes of abusing children or filming it. I am not trying to say that I don't think possession of child pornography should be punished... but if you're a person who has stuck to a computer screen in an effort not to harm a child in real life, I also think that should be taken into consideration by the makers of vigilante justice. Perhaps those people can be tapped to help tackle the bigger problem.

Remember that scene in Casino Royale, where M is pissed at Bond for shooting the bombmaker before he could be used to lead the British Secret Service to the larger criminal organization to whom he had been contracted? I feel like that's a fair comparison to make. Would you rather throw the book at one man doing minimal harm, or bring down an entire network that regularly violates our youth?

Friday, January 4, 2013

Writers block. Bane of my existence.

I can't write. Again. I don't know why this happens, but it drives me crazy. Often enough, I am already packing sufficient crazy without having writers block, which essentially robs me of the most therapeutic outlet I have in life.

Three months ago, when something happened to me, the story started forming in my head almost immediately and by the time I got to somewhere I could type it out, it would just sort of... spill from me like too many shots of tequila. And similarly, I'd feel a million times better afterward.

Now, when I try to think out how I would tell a story... I get a feeling more similar to the one I get when I think about how I need to do the dishes. And it isn't for lack of material either. I meet new people and have weird experiences left and right since I've been in Austin.

I spent some time down at my dad's parent's farm over Christmas. Land that's been in my family since the late 1800's, in a small town where my ancestors settled right before Texas became a state in the U.S. One of them built their house out of the remains of the local Baptist church after the Indians came through and burnt half the settlement to the ground. My dad's dad is 86 years old with a fake hip and doesn't look or act a day older than he did when last I'd seen him 15 years ago. Instead, within a few months of getting the new hip, he was replacing the roof on the barn in the old pasture. It is an insane experience to be around him, and to hear him tell stories about the Korean War and about being a kid in the 1930's, in that slow Texas gentlemans drawl that is unlike any other accent I've encountered. There are so many things I want to write down about their lives while he is still so clear and lucid and strong. I just can't seem to do it.

Or what about Joe Rogan and that whole... difficult-to-categorize evening. The man was my idol, my teacher. I got to meet him. But more than that, I got to hang out with him and his entourage until 2:00am when the bars shut down, at their private after-party. I hung out with Brian Redban, Duncan Trussell, Alex Jones and Aubrey Marcus. I met some of my other favorite guests from his podcast, I had some of the weirdest conversations I've had in years, I made friends with a porn star and only found out late into the evening that that was her umm... profession. It was both everything I'd hoped for and also destroyed the pedestal I held Joe on, all at once. I have SO much to say about that experience. Only... I can't find the words.

I am an even more rabid MMA fan than I was when I met Greg Jackson and the very high profile students at his gym last fall. I watch some form of fight stuff every day. I haven't missed a UFC in... almost a full year. There is almost no way to know them all, but I am trying. I want to know where they came from, what drives them to punish themselves for the sport, which ones are freaks of nature, which ones could have been chess prodigies but chose combat instead. I want to chime in on the never ending argument between people who claim that fighting is barbaric and all it's fans are bloodlust craving animals and those of us... that know better. I could write about this stuff forever. For a living, if someone would pay me. Or at least, maybe I could have before I fell into this creativity-devoid ditch.

I stare stupidly at my keyboard, and wait for the right adjective to characterize a place or a person or a situation to just come rolling out of my fingertips like it used to... and nothing happens. I try to recall the passion I felt about an experience while it was happening, and I feel bored. It could be because Josh is gone... but I wrote like a fiend when he was in Kentucky for 3 months last winter. It could be that I'm not as tuned into the cyber world as I once was because I'm focusing on staying busy and making friends here, but that's never stopped me before. What I'm really afraid of, what I fear every time this happens to me, is that I only had that firey drive to voice my opinions when I was young enough to think they'd make a difference in the world. Or in other words, that I'm getting old. And complacent.

My last resort, my last hope, is something that really helped me tune into the muse this time last year. I need to find some weed. There was a time that I wanted nothing more to do with my evenings than to take one tiny puff of a joint, turn on a lecture or a podcast with an actual smart person, and spend the next 4 hours taking notes and opening browser windows for every little bit of information into which I wanted to dig further. Somehow, right in that window between stoned and sober, with only a tiny stream of THC chasing it's way through my neural pathways, all the cogs and gears in my brain started to move in synchronicity.

It makes me a little nervous to admit that on the internet, being as how it's open and available to potential bosses, family members, etc. But it's true, and I made a promise to write the truth in this blog, as I see it. So there it is. It helps those of us with creative juices to tap into that unseen layer of the atmosphere where art and ideas are born. And hopefully it helps a cranky and frustrated almost 30 year old broad to find the way back to her stories. Because... let's face it, I wrote this because you have to write to get better at writing, and practice will only help, but it sucks.

I'm going to hit the 'publish' button anyway.