INK

I am going to be honest; I believe the transformation has begun.  Though I am not eating perfectly at every meal and still having a lot of sugar.  Sugar is bad man.  It’s a bad trip man.  I am hooked on it.  However, I am transitioning off of it.  Just one of many things that have to change in my life but I know I am on the path.  The path of the beam to the Dark Tower, my Tower, KA, the change is upon us.  Every morning and night this week I have done the visualization techniques.  It’s really amazing.  Spending you time thinking positive.  It is something I have done a lot of over the last 20 years.   So, I turn on my ipad, rock my good vibes music, and watch the photos of who will be pass in front of me of who I am inside and who I will be on the outside.  What do I say to people who don’t believe?  Nothing, it doesn’t matter.  Their beliefs are theirs and mine are mine.  Last night, I actually meditated for 20 minutes.  What?  It was actually very Zen.  In my mind’s eye I kept seeing the picture of me and Dinger.  The one where I am in the green shirt, and I see that is who I am supposed to be. I take steps each day to free the mind and body to become. 

I have always seen this transition in four phases:  Believe; Remembrance; being who I am supposed to be; and doing the impossible.   In this dream, I have always imagined that as a reward for each trial being successfully passed, I would get a reward for it.  As strange as this might sound now that types it, I am trying to change my body, only show I can change my body.  I see my reward in four distance symbols that I want to etch it on my body, so that I will never forget it in my mind.  

Also, I fucking like ink.  I do.  I love the tattoo.  Why don’t I have any?  Because I am scared, however, I will conquer that fear like so many others.  I think ink can be bad ass. I think it can be sexy.  New and bright with lots of colors or older and a little faded, it can still be fucking cool.  They are erotic, deep, sensual, creepy, whatever, they are Bad Ass.  The tramp stamp, the arm band, the tribal traditional, biomechanical, whatever the style maybe, they are cool and amazing.

So, yes, I am telling you I want to get ink.  I want four tattoos in total.  Ok, really I want five.  However, one probably will never happen, because I am not really that sure I want it on the left shoulder blade the rest of my life. 

 

 

1.       Believe – I first found this symbol when I was training for the Double Dip at Pacific Grove.  Look, I was 390 lbs and I did two triathlons in two days.  That is pretty Bad Ass.  One Olympic Distance which was a .93 mile swim, 24.8 mile bike, and a 6.2 mile walk/run.  The next day I did the sprint was .25M swim, 12.4 mile bike, and 2 mile walk/run.  To this day that weekend will always be the best in my life.  I started wear the believe symbol around my neck.  It was my facebook profile picture.  The word means so much to me, because I never did.  I never believed in me.  I start to, and then I stop.  I start again and then I stop.  When we complete this journey over the next 18 to 36 months, there will be no room for doubt.  I will believe and my left shoulder will always bear the mark of belief.  When I think about my success I think about this symbol.

 

重生

 

 

2.       Remembrance – Or what I have come to call rebirth.  Well, ok, this is how it went down.  I have high highs and low lows.  My adulthood has been covered with anxiety issues, depression, and anger.  I never want to forget who I was, because that has led me to whom I am and who I want to be.  It was the spring of 2003 and I was coming out of my second death.  Long story.  It is when I really gained my weight; I was hiding myself in San Francisco, going thru a Nirvana Phase, and was really depressed.  My Nirvana Phase turned into a Gangster Rap Phase over that spring.  50 Cent dropped get Rich or Die Tryin and Eminem was rocking the Eminem Show, and I got hooked on it.  I also dabbled in some Tupac.  That is right.  I was first and only Revenue Recognition Gangsta.  Ok, I was more like that dude at the begging of office space who rocked out to gangsta rap in his car and thought I was hard core.  You know the dude.  Ya,  I was that guy.  Anyway, I realized how depressed I had been.   I joined weight watchers at NetIQ and I dropped 80 lbs.  I started to deal with my depression issues, but I realize now I was not ready to do that yet.  Anyway, I started to paint a picture in my head of the person I wanted to be.  The man reason I see now that WW and me didn’t work is because that life was built on anger and hate and being rejected by the women who I loved at the time.  I still wonder if she ever knew?  However, I felt pain.  Pain was part of me.  Pain was everything.  When I say pain mean the hate, the anger, the fear, the self-loathing.  The journal I kept at that point can be considered nothing else but a diary of a mad-man.   So I imaged my second ink at that time. I was going to have the work PAIN tattooed across the chest.  Think about that famous picture of Tupac when he is holding his hand behind his back and his gazing off to the left (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RddqlctLnk), it’s a cartoon of him, and he has not shirt on, he is ripped and he has thug life tattooed across him tummy.  Now think of that but move the tattoo up to the chest and change thug life to PAIN, and me staring off to the left being ripped with my hands behind my back.  You would know what the cover of my autobiography would have looked like at that time.  That image has changed though.  Thanks to a random conversation with some marketing lady at work.  I realized I don’t want the word pain tattooed across the chest.  No, I don’t.  I wanted the Kanji symbol for pain tattooed over my heart, because my heart needs to remember who I was, even when that person is dead and buried (the fat angry person not me).  So I sent her an email and asked her for the kanji symbol for pain and she was like well it depends on what you mean by pain.  So I spun her my tale.  Well part of it.  I also said it was for an alcoholic I know.  Then I ended telling her the truth because it isn’t really a secret.    I have an eating issue.  Hello.  I am fat.  So, she said, pain isn’t right.  Aren’t I really looking for重生.  Which means Ribirth and she went on to say “pain just remind you that you have "pain", or had. doesn't really show how positive you become? rebirth also has the meaning of been thru a lot in life but totally changed? a "transform" of life. what do you think”  I read it and I thought KA.  Wow, this girl who sat across from me who I harassed for months giving her a hard time because she was quiet and a little scared of this big crazy dude, has such a good outlook on things.  I knew right that moment we are talking about remembernace and rebirth, not Pain.  Then she went on to say “hahaha it's Confucius' wisdom. I can help you checking the character and calligraphy, I saw some people have bad hand writing on their tattoo, looks very elementary and not pretty tho. :P Dude!!!! I can draw (amateur), I can put characters together like art/symbol if you would like to see. :)”  So, is working on my 2^nd Ink and my first ink.  Rebirth is under way and the world is mine to conquer and take!  This will be on my left breast over my heart.

 

 

3.       Being whom I am supposed to be.  One thing to say and let’s get this clear.  I am a child of the sun.  I belong outside by a pool, soaking up rays.  Or I should be out walking and taking in the rays. I was not meant to spend all my time on a couch.  Or in a cube.  No, no, no.  I was meant for greener spaces under the Sun.  I have searched long and hard for ink to represent my love of the sun.  Be of the sun are supposed to be happy.  Laugh loud and laugh hard, be kind and warm and be good people.  That is who I am supposed to be.  Not the jaded fat man who hates the world because he is too big to enjoy it.  So for life, love, and spirit and being a true creature of the sun my right shoulder will forever carry the sun with me.

4.       Doing the impossible.  Look at it.  It is a dot M.  That is what it is called.  It is the mark of the ironman.  I have never told you my dream.  I will.  It is a quiet a vision.  So, laugh now.  It’s ok.  I am 460 pounds.  It is funny.  I get it.  Enjoy it, while you can.  However, know this, and understand this about me, I have never failed to do an endurance event when I have trained.  I did two Tri’s in two days at 400 lbs.  Every one of my 20 endurance events have come with me being over 360 lbs.  So, when I become the person I want to be. When I turn off the hate and learn to love myself.  I will do it.  I will because I have written it.  My dream, my tower, my goal is at the end of 140.6 race.  I have seen it, in my dreams.  I have seen when the tears that come but won’t fall will finally flow.  I know this.  That is my dream carved down a lot.  I will spin this tale.  I just have sit down and do it.  If the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.  I choose this path.  I can do this!  I will do this!

5.  THE BLACK REAPER – If you read KA Mai, then you know one of the sayings I said would rule my life was "Let the Black Reaper Rise".  It was meant to insight anger, fear, and hate.  I was so mad, but I was happy to.  My life, like much of my writing, like the medallions I wear on my neck is a contradiction.   I wear a Kanji symbol for believe, a cross, and a St. Christopher medal, and I even though the pain tattoo isn’t across my chest, it is.  It’s call sagging breasts and a belly that hangs.  Much like the emotions I wear on my sleeve, I wear the torment that is my live in the form of the fat wall I have hidden behind for the better part of 20 years.  It is the constant contrasts of my life. I have not believed in modern religion for a long time, yet, I am terrified to take my cross and St. Christopher off.  I often say I have made my own peace with God, however, I don’t think I have.  I am in the process of doing this.  After all what is this blog for if it isn’t to find out whom I am and where I belong, and what I believe in.  I believe in the self, yet since I have adopted the Kanji symbol, I have gained 60 pounds.  So, this speaks so much to my nature.   The duality of it, the duality of who I am.  The happy, fun loving laughing boy, who can cackle like the Joker, and have a heart as big as the universe verse the angry, rude, mean, stubborn man that is radiates hate and self-loathing,.  So, the Black Reaper represents a peace between the two.  Hei, the man behind the mask is mild mannered college kid, however, when BK-201 comes out, he is a heartless, ruthless man who uses his dark side for good.  I need to use my dark side to tell my stories.  I need to use it for my good.   So, when I see the Black Reaper Rising in my mind’s eye I see my transformation from the angry fat man.  I see me closing in on the Tower.  I see me dancing in field of roses.  I see me crossing the finish line.  I see my world, and my life changing.  I love this image.  I also love the Black Reaper who sits above this paragraph.  I think it is one of the coolest works of art I have ever seen.  I am just not 100% convinced; I want it on my left shoulder or shoulder blade for the rest of my life.   However, the duality is who I am and what I am, but not what I want to be.