Another opportunity to visit the nudist park has passed without me being able to seize the day and do what I really wanted to do this weekend. It was, however, a different set of reasons than last time. Last time I was determined to go on a Saturday when more nudists would actually be present. I got sick and it rained that Saturday. So I set my sights on Labor Day weekend.

This weekend the hurricane that ravaged Houston changed my plans. You see, the storm also ravaged Port Arthur and the distribution points that local gas stations rely on for new shipments on a weekly basis. I did not see the gas shortage coming in time. The lines at gas stations and two hour waits for gas mostly all happened before I was ready to cope with it. So I was not prepared to make the trip when the time came. Gas stations are limited to selling chewing gum and promising that more gas would be available by the middle of next week.

Yes, the boy in the picture is me naked as I might’ve been in a more sylvan youth than the one I actually had.
So I am left to sit here in my bedroom studio in the nude writing this and listening to Dvorák’s Scherzo Capriccioso on YouTube.

A scherzo is, perhaps, the perfect metaphor for an essay like this one. Most of what I write are really scherziplay (or scherzi if I hadn’t goofed on that typo in the definition) if you analyze them closely. Sprightly and humorous idea flows (at least, they make me laugh) that wax thoughtful and slightly serious at certain points. This one, the capriccioso, the capricious and mercurial idea that I have somehow turned into a nudist, is my attempt to make sense of the nonsensical, the whims and flimsy that led me to be a naked old man.
You may have noticed in my artwork a tendency to associate nudity with childlike innocence. (At least, you should have noticed if I have any ability at all as a writer and artist to guide your perceptions.) There is no sense at the nudist park that it is about sexuality and impending orgies. Those things are completely against the rules and have no place among actual nudists. You go to a nudist park and it is just you and your towel for sitting on talking to a bunch of naked people who just as fat and old and saggy and baggy as you are, each with their own towels for sitting on. Nobody uses more than their first names, and more than that is not necessary. Nudists are more open and honest than most people you meet in social situations. They literally are not hiding anything. And I have discovered that I fit right in there. It seems like the most natural thing in the world.

Once I got past the initial embarrassment that anyone would feel in that new-nudist situation, I came to the conclusion that I have always been a nudist. Having been born a nudist, my parents and grandparents trained me not to be one, and being sexually assaulted at ten gave added horror to being naked around others that it took a lifetime to overcome. But naked is how we were created. There is a reason that Adam and Eve didn’t wear clothes in Eden.
I didn’t get to go back to the nudist park this holiday weekend. I will never convince my wife and kids to go with me either. In fact, I myself may never have another opportunity to go back there. But listening to Dvorak’s Scherzo has confirmed in me that I am a nudist and always have been. Sorry if I have frightened you with my naked ideas, but maybe you should listen to a scherzo naked and test whether you are one too.

























Being Bankrupt
I am swiftly turning into a detestable human being. I have admitted already on this blog that I have not only known nudists in my lifetime, but I have recently visited a nudist park and become one… for a few hours. Today I am admitting to being a bankrupt individual. I am taking steps to declare a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy.
As with nudism, bankruptcy is really probably not what you think it is. It is embarrassing and stressful to be bankrupt, at least if you are not Donald Trump and able to gleefully rob workers and creditors and investors by manipulating bankruptcy laws. But it is not immoral. In fact, with my Chapter 13 bankruptcy, I will end up paying back everything I owe to credit card companies and especially Bank of America whose lawsuit caused this bankruptcy. It will just be a managed pay-off with no further interest charges, managed by a court-appointed executor over the next five years. It will drop the bottom out of my credit rating initially, but may actually bounce it back up better than it was because my debt-to-income ratio will be dramatically improved. I will not lose my house or my car. I simply will have no more credit cards. That can’t be all bad, can it?
So, filing for a bankruptcy of this type has done a good job of teaching me where I fit in modern society and how the idea that you need to pay back what you owe to those you owe it to applies more to me than it does to rich folks. I will let you in on a big secret. I am not now, nor have I ever been, even remotely defined as rich. I haven’t really been poor before now, either. But I am sinking into that swamp quickly, and the crocodiles smell blood in the water. It is expensive to become poor. You have to pay a lawyer to help you get rid of all your money. You have to plead with them to allow you to continue to buy food and, with luck, necessary medication. But as long as you continue to hemorrhage money into their money-sucking vampire fangs of profit-making, the rich ones who own everything and control everything and make all the laws will allow you to continue to live… unless it becomes more profitable for them in the short term to let you die.
Now that I have driven over the bankruptcy cliff, I will probably try to enjoy the view and the exhilarating rush of air on the way down. Maybe I will do it naked. I could go back to the nudist park for the Labor Day weekend. I would save on clothing budgets. And when I get to the bottom of the cliff, there is a possibility that I will bounce back up. After all, if I don’t the bankers and the lawyers won’t be able to get any more of my money.
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