The Mighty Thumb

      
            My phone is my sword and my global comfort. There's an intense pain in my chest when I realize I have no Internet or phone connection and that instant panic runs deeper than I care to admit. Being so technologically ingrained at this point the idea of having to ask someone for directions feels prehistoric. I'm hanging on to the idea of self sufficiency but is it really? Or is it the complete opposite? A GPS can only get you as far as the battery lasts but then what? I myself couldn't find my next breath without the Google map App. The world wide web is a powerful weapon and an even more dangerous crutch. A Pandora's box if you will? Remembering life before it is impossible and I can't imagine life without lightning speed search engines and instant media at my fingertips 24 hours a day. If the entire world was denied the Internet for one week starting right now can you imagine the instant chaos and global terror of millions of soccer moms not being able to Google recipes for dinner that night or the billion or so people that are logging on every minute of the day to stalk eachother on Facebook?! Every thought I have either gets written down in my notebook application or else it's completely forgotten, stored away in some invisible database somewhere out there beyond my own brain and far more reliable.  The Internet. WIFI. Digital media. Social networks. My Evita wife Ann Stonehengenginninja eloquently stated how our society is now so completely immersed in access to instant information that we will never again be able to function without that standard again. My brother makes fun of me for treating my phone like the holy grail but his jests are justified. My IPhone is all......my stories, writing, music, computer, GPS, all the images and photos from my life over the past two or so years (yet to be downloaded of course) and my connection to every known contact I have. I maybe have three or four numbers memorized max! Jason jokes at how I'm crippled and nervous without my cell and he's totally correct. I'm a wounded naked disaster without my smart phone attached to me like the tumor it's probably creating. My overly dramatic comparison of having no service would be like floating in a life preserver at night in the middle of a stormy rough ocean with no ship light in sight! Smoke signal? Jesus Christ AT&T give a brother a bar or two I mean I am standing in the middle of Times Square! Making change to use dirty homeless pay phones is not the Manhattan way either. Some dead spots in the city are so surprisingly patchy that I think I might do better if I tied a hand written message to a diseased pigeon foot and sent it flying off into the sunset to find my best friend John with a hopeless note. Or maybe a hand scribbled message in a bottle chucked into the Hudson would be faster than a no-G busted phone? If Safari dares to deny me even once all hell breaks loose and steam starts shooting out of my ears like a cartoon. Its as though I somehow feel entitled to a flawless connection every single time. Do you think there are support groups for cell phone addicts? "Hi, my name is........................Tavid......Dankersley and uh......I'm.....uhh basically a serial texter and a hardcore IPhone abuser. I'm here today (deep breath) to try and get a grip on how to handle my phone plan and my cellular data network."..........................................................Hi Tavid.

                 My fat thumbs on this touch screen are my salvation and I know of no greater comfort than blogging or a strong rollerblading push with Harley. I wonder if there would be anything to write about at all if there were no shitty details threading together our daily lives and making us think? If there's never any discomfort there's probably no growth I'm guessing. The things that I bitch about the most are the very things that I hope will push me to change for the better and evolve past the painful reality of working in a gay bar four nights a week, working the weekends at a low paying skating job, and having no "glass" in which to be empty or full. Fuck full! I'm giving you a flimsy paper dispenser cone or a puddle in my shaky palms. My prison is not the bar or this city (no matter how much time and energy I devote to complaining about it!)  All my problems come from the way I see my own life and my perspective on things......not my actual life! Things are in motion regardless and I must keep my head up and my chest out to even fake the strength. My imbalance is tamed through an attempt at simplifying my life without giving up the juicy reality that the wheel has been invented already, that technology is my sexiest lover, and that gay people can get married well................somewhere.

(laptop graveyard)

Money for Movement

    

       Four long weeks until I'm free from my early morning weekend schlep into Central Park for an indeterminate amount of ice skating lessons. I have Manhattan parents calling me from unknown numbers at ghastly hours and leaving me messages about sessions two or three months away that I have absolutely no intention of being available for. My IPhone vibrates and dances all around the coffee table, bubbling over with ridiculous parents freaking out and panicking that little Brennan's swizzle progression is virtually nonexistent or how pissy Parker's unfortunate balance is an unrealistic dream held only by mommy and daddy...not Parker himself. All he really talks about is video games and soccer. I'm a seventy-five dollar half hour distraction to him. You think he gives a flying fuck about anything I have to teach him? No, he wants to eat snow by the fist/mitten full and lick the dirty ice long enough for his tongue to completely freeze and stick to the dirty ice surface. My unlisted number (mysteriously released) blows up with freaky nannies trying to cancel and reschedule and chat and complain and bitch and torture me to my wit's end about you name it! Hordes of little Jon'Bennet Ramseys, that aren't exactly blossoming before my very eyes circle me like vulchers eying wounded prey screaming "David....DAVID....look at me...why aren't you watching ME....David...over here!!!!" It reminds me of screaming for my mom to watch me every single time I jumped off the high diving board at our local community center as though each one was the first and only time. It's like the desperate need for a son to impress his mother. The reality of ten or more kids screaming my name over and over doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, in fact, it takes me right to the brink of a mid-life breakdown and I don't know why. These kids are right in the middle of the worst part of a swirling insecurity that rendered me personally a total social retard at that age. The awkward  middle school years almost killed me with huge daily decisions like where the hell I was gonna park my gay ass in a redneck lunch room?! Even the bible study kids would move if i plopped down beside them saying they didn't sit with faggots.

       Today my classes are full of future accountants and computer techs and maybe a school teacher or two but none of them are destined for greatness in the United States Figure Skating Association that's for sure. Demanding, stubborn little city girls in the throngs of the most vulnerable part of their puberty give me attitude every step of the way only because they are tragically in love with me and the only way they know how to show it is to piss me off in every way possible. Well, mission accomplished ladies! If these little girls who are crushing on me so hard only knew that their funny ice skating coach was hanging from the ceiling saying "Yes Sir...Yes Sir!" on Sunday nights down in Chelsea I bet the gleam in their little untainted eyes would gloss over and fade into sheer terror should they ever really get to know me or someone like me. Ignorance is bliss my children....trust me. Adolescence is something that I could never face again myself so I pity these little terrors for the long journey still ahead of them and it helps me understand a little better why they are so purposely bad. Even bad behavior evokes a response from the nearest adult present. 13 years old is the sassiest age in my professional teaching experience and boy do I get a lot of it! If there are more than ten kids in a class I start to loose it.
       The inconsistency of a typical Manhattanite's weekend plans is always so up in the air that I never have anything in stone really. I just show up hoping that my boss has booked me for more than half an hour. Diva mothers, paralyzed from countless injections and encased in Botox, cancel on me in the blink of an eye(which isn't easy) with a double air kiss and a Ciao over the phone probably from a Blue tooth in the Benz in South Hampton. Four more cold Saturdays being blown around by the icy New York winter winds. Four more frigid Sundays needling my way through hugely obnoxious ghetto public session crowds full of out of control screaming Harlem kids jaded well beyond their years. Working as a coach has more or less solidified my intense desire to never ever have a child that can hate me as much as some of these kids hate their parents. Of course the occasional curly haired, freckle faced little angels are there as well making it a perfectly pleasant morning class but at some point every weekend my patience always gets tested by the extreme youth before me. I love 'em and help them maintain their nonexistent balance for thirty minutes or an hour then I send them back to the nanny(the real parent) for the rest of the week. I have group classes that I've been teaching and still haven't nailed down the names of any of my sassy city kids. I always let my cute little friend Michael with the clip board and the tight perky ass come around take attendance because the names still escape me to this day. But I'll remember a face forever. Most of them just sound rich so it should be easy but nonetheless......   Here are some of my favorite silver spoon first names: Dirk(a girl) and her brother Noah, Liam, Pennington, Dakota, Rohan, Clinton, Olivette, and McKenna. In fact, none of these little kiddies are gonna grow up and be slicing limes in the back of a gay bar or working Ralph Lauren sample sales for ten bucks an hour. It's also not in the cards for these kids to be dragging huge Coors Light beer kegs across the cement floor slipping every disk identified in the anatomy book. I'm one tiny stop in their busy ivy league week and couldn't be a lesser deal. Their parents would catch fire if they knew what their wholesome skating teacher was up to the rest of the week especially on the lord's day. All that matters in that short thirty minutes is that Abigail has the time of her life and one of the most productive thirty minutes she has all week. Usually Saturdays I have at least ten little girls chanting my name as I make my way down the slippery ramp to the ice like a champion of child-like affection. It feels victorious yet slightly nauseating. My patience is pushed well beyond it's fullest capacity because most of the time I spend wrangling all of them into one spot and screaming until I loose my voice completely. The sooner it heats up 15 degrees the sooner my kids are ankle deep in a melting ice rink and I'll be free....free at last! Plus the cold needs to break before something gets amputated due to frostbite. Even I don't have the words to describe the deep chill that comes with a freezing winters day atop a sheet of ice.

           Having a dog makes me an outdoor person anyway thus I miss the heat of the summer months. It's so f*n easy to take Harley out too. I hate spending fifteen minutes layering up with scarves and gloves and hats and layer after layer. And yes I'm gonna say it.....doggie booties! It takes me longer to get ready to go out than the actual time I spend outside sometimes. Harley will kill me for the grievous act of putting protective bags over her paws but it's an attempt at keeping the salt from burning her feet and tramping all throughout the house and getting pronounced dirty paw prints all over my white ottoman and new couch! They are basically paw condoms that look like thick balloons. It's hard to watch as the super throws salt everywhere in an attempt at making it safer for us but total hell for my pooch. The dog shoes are a three act play in themselves. Getting them on is absolute torture and I just can't deal but the salt burns and peels the padding of the paw up like a scab and it's really hard to watch the tap dance of pain happen before your eyes. These situations can require immediate treatment and I don't have the time or cash on hand for an avoidable vet visit. Not to mention my OCD discomfort when it comes to the black wintry slush destroying her perfectly white fluffy feet every walk every day. Damn this cold! And damn this unnecessary jade that clouds over my once vibrant and untamed spirit. Where has my underground subway warrior gone?  I'm sure Harley can sense my New York City agita and I can read it in her hugely expressive eyes. A dog is a direct reflection staring straight back at you and showing you what you choose not to see in the bathroom mirror every morning. How often do I look into my own tired and blurry eyes and really see myself? Basically never I suppose. I don't look into the state of my soul with the same attention I give a nasty pimple that I'm embarrassed about and my spiritual well being falls short of my obsession with picking the right outfit for the day. I may not have the "time" to meditate but I'll be damned if I don't check my skin tone and make sure to dab the little scar I have on my left cheek with a L'Oreal concealer stick! My priorities are very clear here and it sickens me a bit. I put tons of energy towards finding the perfect placement for every piece of hair on my head but I completely avoid my tired eyes creased with countable New York crow's feet. I need help. Anybody? Ego annonomous every

 Thursday? Can one boost his dignity in milkshake form or perhaps through an injection? Time to fake it till I believe it.