In the beginning there was a sex procedure

Well, it's been awhile, but I guess it's a symptom of the turn in weather here in SF.. I rocked a nosebleed Tuesday (at work), and a residual one yesterday (at El Castillito). And, beyond pointing out the appropriateness of a little blood on Halloween (or at El Castillito.. I know, yuk!), I will say that it does remind me of a little story from 2001 (heavily updated, of course - you know the drill):

~~~~~~~~~~~~

What?

No really, what?! I'm just another guy watching warm blood drip down his unshaven face and onto the floor on another Tuesday night at his apartment in the city, a guy dreaming of his ancestors - bygone and obsolete - and if this is what they would have wanted for him one thousand, two thousand, three-thousand-I-can't-stop-the-years into the future. The living red color sequence contrasts nicely with the fairness of the skin of my upper lip, but looks downright primal as it navigates a path downwards, towards my jawline, through the dark, coarse hair of my beard.

Of course I didn't see all of this coming; the current situation was spawned from the mysteries of evolution at work, I suppose. More immediately, the light of occupation must have stimulated my optic cells, but by the time the signal that would tell me to *do something* traveled nerves and nerves for miles and miles, there was no buffer for action. It is a simple calculation to figure where the operation went wrong: Start with the pure propagation time for shine-y photons to space-time converge at my eyes, then add the same for spark-ly electrons to dart through my ganglion pathmarks - from my photron transmutors to my visual nervosa cortextion - hahaha, that reminds me of a funny story, but I will digress..

Anyway, there's plenty of time for me to react now, although the reactions are involuntarily: tearing, bruising and, ultimately, allowing fluids on the "inside" of my body to escape to the "outside". And here (always, in fact), I thought I had an agreement with alllll the cells in my body: those that would mutiny would die (and leave those left over - inside! sil vous plait - a little more vulnerable). This much is true, but there are apparently more powerful forces at work.. a mystical alchemy of osmosis and diffusion and keeping up with the Jones. It makes you think that you're NOT the center of the universe; what's up with that? SOo short-sighted, it seems, that we could all perish back into the elemental materials of such a place.

Back in the here-and-now, nodding my head is the first sentient (and symbolic) thing that I do with my much-evolved body; it is ritual designed to assure myself that I'm going to be ok, and I've got *at least* five more minutes of life in me (and, then, well.. no guarantees in nature, my friend). However, the nod doesn't stop the river of molten copper from flowing upward, then downward, through the internal channels of my head (surely creating small, horror-film, eddies as this outpouring hits the wrinkles on the inside of my throat). Surely! But why do I think my blood tastes like copper? Just one of those things that I made up a long time ago and still believe, I guess. No matter.. maybe I meant iron (the result is the same, and no less tasty).

It's hours later, and I'm thinking about how it feels to bleed while I'm safe, back in my apartment, and, in the shower of all places - hooked up to the periphery of my life support system (yours too!) - and washing the old blood and sweat from my body. The earlier blow must have knocked something loose from my usual safety-minded protocol of existence because I want to *feel* again, regardless of the consequences. So, with one hand holding the bridge of my nose, I blow hard - what a minor chance I'm taking here - and open the shower door to stare my naked body in the mirror above the sink. Thus the story starts again: a small trickle of red soon becomes a river (and I'm beginning to feel sleepy).

Superseding the animal instinct for life - even in such a minor capacity - once again exposes genetic flaws; sex not a perfect procedure, you know?