Recycled writing
Portland OR – August 2024

I’ve always loved storytelling—orally, written, or through mixed media like audio and/or video recordings.  I started writing LONG ago in the form of private letters and journals—some lost to time, others kept in sacred spaces within my home or the things I carry on me each day.

The longest period that I have consistently written started when I created the Nurse Ratched blog back in 2010.  I wrote that almost every week, and continued almost consistently until August 2015, with a few more spurts lasting into 2019. I started that blog to serve as a combination of daily(ish) journal and therapeutic outlet while I worked as a live-in nurse.  A great deal of the content generated from that period reflects contemporary events in my personal and professional life; some pieces are dated indications of old attitudes or ways of thinking. 

Obviously, a great deal of time has passed since then, but there are a few pieces of writing I’d like to share from that time period.  I’ll clean these up a bit to try and cut the amount of WHARRGARBL and fix spelling or grammatical errors, but only just.  There are post-scripts or updates on a few of the topics/instances covered, and I’ll add those where appropriate.

I aim to regularly mix in NEW writing too–once a week or more (depending on the myraid of variables that can derail life and plans in our modern hellscape). The writing/posts will fall into one of 5 categories:

Adventures big and small
Photos and stories from wandering to and through various travel and events.

Chapters from a past life
Stories from work and volunteering in healthcare, policing, security, and other occupational misadventures.

Urban Exploration
Photos, Stories, Travelogues, and information about my adventures in Urban Exploration.

Photography
Photos, silly cell phone snaps, and general information concerning photography or photo equipment.

Random writing & silly stories
One offs and other things that do not fit in any of the above categories

Enjoy!

It’s a cool, quiet Saturday. After 5 days of being baked by early summer heat in the mid to high 80’s, the city is blanketed in low clouds and a refreshingly cold, misty rain. It’s well after dark now, and the rain still floats down and kisses the concrete and glass in the gritty city center.

I step out into the mist and take a seat on the patio. The waiter appears and I ask for the usual: Bourbon and a splash of Coke. My drink arrives accompanied by a freshly cut cigar, compliments of the house and a barman who, perhaps, knows me too well. The city is quiet, save for the odd passing automobile, and the silence on the patio is a welcome break from the omnipresent urban chaos.

I savor the first sip of a beautifully stiff drink and the bourbon’s woody flavor caresses my mouth. I light the cigar and let my mind wander as the band’s jazz music spills over from inside the dimly lit bar. I take another sip of my drink, swallow, and put the cigar to my lips and inhale. I roll the smoke around, caressing my tongue, and then exhale a billowing cloud. I watch the smoke waft away into the night, and think.

I want you. I want you here, now, next to me. Better yet, I want you at my feet.

I want to see that smile and the saucy look on your face that all those dames aspiring to be starlets imitate. I want to see you in that dress that makes your curves stand out like stars in the hills. I want to feel your skin in my hand as I take you by the neck and guide you where to sit between my feet. I want to feel your hair flow between my fingers as I blush it aside, and then gently tug on it, ever so subtly forcing you to expose your neck and shoulder. I want to hear you sigh and see you flinch as I blow smoke on your skin.

A prowl car screeches down the avenue, red light ablaze and siren piercing the silence. Adrenaline momentarily floods my brain; I wonder if they know me and have questions of the judicial variety about that pachuco and the incident with a razor back in ’43. Jerked back to reality, I wait for the coppers to disappear while I take a wallop of a drink to take the edge off, and let my mind wander off again.

Decidedly ungentlemanly thoughts invade my brain and make hair stand on end. I have thoughts of taking that same razor and slipping it across your delicate flesh ever so carefully, as I whisper quiet words of caution in your ear.  A more malevolent part of me wants to see you tremble as the blade springs forth and then feel your shuddering as I take you by the neck and touch the razor’s finely sharpened steel to more delicate parts of your body.

I take another puff on the now barely lit cigar, swirl more smoke around in my mouth, and release another cloud. I take a smoky sip of Bourbon and wonder… I wonder if a classy dame like you use that precious mouth and those luscious, lusty lips to keep this cigar lit for me?

The barman appears at the door with news of closing time. I offer him a sawbuck to go away for a while and leave me to my thoughts. No dice, he replies–the boss wants every swingin’ dick in the place gone for a private meet. I know better than to stick my nose into business. I take one final belt on the bourbon, flip the cigar into traffic, and head out into the mist, lost in my thoughts.

This place — this dimly lit place in a bohemian city district.  Its’ bones of old wood are plainly visible; Well kept and cared for wood gives rise to creaky floors.  Its walls are bedecked in dusty art, and columns stand guard at the entry way to the living room.  One can almost see students and workers as they sit around the big, old table plotting revolution late into the night.

Slowly rising puffs of flavored cigarettes and pipe tobacco flavor the air with a thousand scents of the old and new worlds alike.   Jazz seeps under a door and down the hall as the humidity of a warm summer night seeps through the windows.  The combination betrays the modest setting and imbues the evening with a perfectly sultry feel.

Beautiful though it was, we’ve just finished busting it up.  Since rousting Uncle Joe’s flunkies and cracking the heads thereof is no longer fashionable with Parker Center, the boss got a hot tip and a decent rate for us to stand in for the Red Squad.  Done with my civic duty, I copped a flask of Bar&Tender from the commies fridge and hit the bricks.  I have it on good authority that smooth bourbon is always a good thing to have on hand or in the body.

I shucked off my jacket and wore out out a bit of shoe leather, strolling down a city street in the warm summer evening in search of a place to sit and collect my thoughts.  A handful of blocks and a bit more shoe leather later, I spied a lush green park with a perfectly shaded picnic table.  I slid on to one of the table’s seats, fished a notepad and pen from my shirt, and began to pour thoughts of a Dame I’d met out on the paper.  Before too long, the sun had disappeared and my notepad was half full.

There, in my scrawling script, appeared the following words:

I know one thing tonight…. It’s that I want you here.

I want to wrap my arms around you as far as I can and cradle you in them.
I want to pull you as close as I can and never let go.
I want to pull you into me and feel the weight of your body against mine.
I want to snake my fingers through your hair and tug gently as we embrace.
I want to put a hand on the nape of your neck and guide you.
I want to put a hand on your throat and gently squeeze.

I want to care for and about you, dote on you, worry over you, and spoil you.
I want to spend a thousand irreplaceable moments together with you.
I want to love you with the full and unrestrained measure of my heart and an intensity that may be best described as wanton, reckless abandon or passionate, benevolent fury.

I want you to love me just as hard too.

Winter in the high desert. Cold. Dry. Windy.

I’ve left the city behind and decamped to the suburbs for a holiday party. It’s that time of year when half the world gets chummy with coworkers for the evening and pretends to care about the lives of others because they’re also involved in getting a check from the boss. We’re a bunch of hard cases and a collection of saucy broads of questionable virtue shacked up in a house in the hills, sipping cocktails, swilling wine, and shooting whisky like Dragna with a tommy gun.

I step out of the din onto the balcony for some air. The house is set half way up the hills overlooking the valley; the balcony floats atop a run of stout timbers and juts out into space, just over the edge of the hillside. You can see everything from up here, just like a hawk waiting to swoop down from the sky or a cat waiting to spring out from the shadows. It looks like every light in every home and on every car in the valley is lit all at once. I can make out downtown, busy streets, and the new freeway line job. Fanciful types might say it’s as if there are a billion eyes of all different colors looking up at me and twinkling.

It’s frigid out here, in the 30s maybe. The cold air is sharp, just like that razor Frank keeps in his back pocket. The gentle breeze steals my breath for a moment, and makes my eyes water. It’s quiet out here too. Still as glass even. The usual city noise is all but gone–no screeching horns, wailing sirens, motor noises or the rest of the normal auditory assaults of daily life. Up here it’s all faded out, like water rushing softly down a creek. The occasional snippet of noise floats up on the breeze, but is gone just as quick.

I swear It’s quiet enough that I can actually hear myself think. I’m pretty certain that I can hear my gun leather squeak as the holster in my belt rubs the cold steel of pop’s trusty old .45. It’s strange. It’s refreshing too, and let my mind wander after a belt of Cutty. My mind turns to a saucy dame I met in the kitchen of a clubhouse in the west valley. She was short, dark haired, gently curved in all the right places, and decorated with more tattoos than quite a few of the sailors I’ve tangled with over the years.

That broad also had a mouth on her that’d make any dull man blush. Whip smart and gifted with a vocabulary that made sea captains proud, she boasted a taste for good cigars and better scotch, and enjoyed both with the boys any chance she got. We spent a few fall nights together enjoying the pleasures of each other’s company—and pleasure it was. A given evening might’ve found us stalking quality dives downtown, enjoying varying libertine adventures about the southland, or embarked on a tour of questionable joints all over Hollywood.

We parted ways suddenly one morning. A note appeared under my pillow, in her delicate script, informing me that she was going to Malibu to work on her health, and would contact me upon her return. I wondered where she was that chilly evening, what he was doing, if she was alone, how her health had progressed. Less gentlemanly parts of my head mulled visions of our next sojourn in a Cigar lounge, scotch session, and how her skin moves under my hands.

It was then I realized I’d nearly chewed a hole in my cheek. Seems memories and Scotch are dangerous.