Parting Glances
There are experiences that are alien to most people: walking on the moon, winning the $337 million Power Ball lottery, weighing 400 pounds, having implant boobs.
Because my life tends to be introspective, devoid of untoward kink, I'm curious what it's like to experience the unusual, as long as it doesn't ultimately involve attending 12-step codependency meetings.
A quick-read paperback, "Esquire Presents: What It Feels Like" (Three Rivers Press) is a collection of accounts of first-hand experiences, physical exceptions, trauma survivals.
After reading these fascinating anecdotes, I got to thinking about my own long-ago, life-threatening cliffhanger that I'd like to boast about because of its genuinely heroic content. It happened when I was 13. But first some "Feels Like" samplings to set the mood.
GRIZZLY ATTACK: "She grabs my left arm, tearing the muscles and tendons, and tosses me in the air. Then she attacks my head as I'm airborne. All I can see is her open mouth. Her teeth are gashing my scalp and ear. I can hear her fangs grinding on my skull. I think, the next bite will kill me."
TORNADO TERROR: "The feel of a twister approaching is exactly the feel of a freight train approaching – that low, ever-louder howl and shuddering ground. I had gone through the trailer wall, been thrown 30 feet up into the tree, and then dropped to the ground, concussed and black and blue."
G-SPOT GOOD FEEL: "I can have sex and orgasm. It's functional in that way. The orgasms are different, though. The male has this orgasm and that's basically it. For a female, it's more of an ongoing thing during the course of intercourse, more like a whole-body experience. As opposed to men – men have sex like dogs." (Arf!)
COMPULSIVE DISORDER: "Washing my hair would take an hour. Washing the front of my forehead, I would scrub it 60 times; it could never be 61. If I did anything an odd number, I'd have to do it all over again, despite how tired I might feel. The pressure to do it was constant and overwhelming. Like a voice saying, 'Do not stop.' Like a locomotive out of control."
Lastly, ME AS HOSTAGE, at Samhat Market, where I deliver groceries: Two guys walk up to the counter, pretend to look at smokes. One thug pulls a gun, yells at grocer Jimmy, "Your money, fast! I'd hate like hell to shoot the kid."
Jimmy fumbles. I'm too stunned to blink. Grocer Moses, eating in the back, tunes in, grabs a gun, fires warning shots, yells Arabic obscenities, and I duck behind a stack of Maxwell House coffee cans. Crooks scatter. Cops arrive. Next day I tell anybody who'll listen: I wasn't a bit scared (just peed my pants a little).
Oh, yes: BOOBS: "My implants aren't hard. They don't feel like basketballs. It's more like water balloons that aren't completely full. When you touch them you can feel the liquid inside, too, which I guess is weird."
In passing, but probably less weird: Bird seed-filled balloons work for enterprising (and cheap) drag queens. Arf! and chirp!
