Joseph Owens: Real Raw

“I gets real raw. / Change the arrangements on your face!” Dr. Octagon, Real Raw

Recently, mensah wrote about Specter assembling a passel of outcasts to write for the magazine. He wanted them. They wanted Specter. And by “they,” I mean “we.”

There are an infinite number of reasons and paths to being an outcast. For some it’s physical appearance, for others it’s personal beliefs that contradict what is considered mainstream at the time. They have been ostracized. They are oppositional-defiant. For many—even most—it’s probably something intangible, a combination of factors that makes up the person as a whole.

For me, it’s almost entirely genetic.

I’m about to take a scalpel and flay myself open, deep under the epidermis, past muscle and sinew, down to the most vital organs in order to explain the path that brought me, personally, to Specter. We might need the bone saw; this procedure might go down to the marrow.

I’m fucking terrified. But I’m beginning the incision now:

I was a sick kid. I spent a fair amount of time in hospitals when I was young. I had ear infections, sinus infections, tonsil infections, a bout of pneumonia that nearly took my life. I got cavities in my baby teeth from all the sugary children’s medicine. I missed a lot of school too.

This is not to mention the fact that I started school too early—I was only four-years-old on my first day of Kindergarten. Emotionally, I wasn’t ready to be there. From being sick so often, I learned to play sick pretty well.

Fast-forward to present day and—health-wise—not much has changed. I probably take more pills than most people’s grandmothers. As well as having just about every major gastro-intestinal issue in the book, I’ve developed a slew of psychological problems over the years as well. I almost need a Physician’s Desk Reference to keep everything straight.

As of today, I have prescriptions for: Claritin-D for seasonal allergies that last for four seasons, Lexapro for a pretty wicked duo of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Clinical Depression, Adderall/ Concerta/ Dexadrine (though not all at once) for the Attention Deficit Disorder that, rather than growing out of, has only gotten worse, Ambien for insomnia that runs in my family, Canasa for Ulcerative Colitis I developed as a result of taking Accutane as a teenager, Abilify (which I’ve tried on and off) to help with the depression, Vicodin for a degenerative disc in my lower back and Prilosec/ Nexium for my other-worldly case of acid reflux.

Those also don’t take into account the myriad of digestive enzymes I take for regular digestion (i.e. lactase enzyme to counteract a lactose intolerance). Then there are my food allergies I have to contend with: gluten and tree nuts. Without pills, I can’t eat anything with dairy, wheat, barley or rye, or, in other words, all the best food on the planet.

Why does this list contribute to an outcast status rather than just providing me an opportunity to whine? Imagine this if you will:

You are out running errands with your significant other or group of friends. It’s hot as hell; you’re feeling tired and the only thing that sounds good is an enormous bowl of ice cream with whatever toppings you can imagine, as many as you can possibly fit in the bowl. Imagine going for that ice cream, sitting down and—wait for it—digging in and simply eating it.

I can’t do that. And I fucking love ice cream.

If I didn’t think ahead about the possibility of ice cream happening, I’ll have to go home first and grab some lactase pills. If the ice cream is at, say, a birthday party, and it’s Rocky Road, even having the lactase pills wont matter because it’s got walnuts in it. Let’s say I’m at a friend’s house and they serve carrot cake for dessert: again, I have to pass. Say you want to go out for pizza: I’ll have to say “no can do” because of the gluten in the crust (and the lactose in the cheese if I forgot my pills). A few ice-cold beers after work? Not me. Allergic, again.

All of the planning to get through even a single day can be exhausting. Combined with the fact that I can’t do most of the stuff other people do when they go out and most of the time (not to mention crowds of people make me a nervous wreck), it’s simply easier to just stay in.

When I was in my early 20s, I didn’t go out much because, back then, all of the stuff wrong with me was embarrassing. I never went anywhere that I didn’t drive myself. Invariably, I’d be the first one to leave because I’d be bored people watching. To this day, my friends practically have to drag me out of the house to get me to go anywhere. Going out was never something I did because I wanted to; I did it solely for them. I didn’t exactly want to be anti-social; it was just easier.

I turned 30 this year, but I feel like I’m 50. I go to bed every night at 10:00 and wake up at 6:00 the next morning like clockwork. To give my kidneys a break, I (strategically) take the various pills, vitamins and enzymes at different times during the day. Having to plan out nearly every step of every day of my life has turned me into an over-analyzer. Now it feels ingrained. I watch prison shows where inmates’ days are planned out to the minute and say to myself, “Man, I can relate.”

It’s not all bas though. After a killer bout of pancreatitis in 2008, I married the woman of my dreams (all clichéd-like and I couldn’t be happier about it!), I’ve got five dogs that keep me busy when I’m not working, which is basically al the time since it’s better to be busy than bored. I get to work from home because I write grants for a nonprofit organization, which is good because an 8 hour workday might take me 10 hours to get through since I get sidetracked so easily—I call it a “goldfish attention span”.

I love to write and I have a lot of time to do it. I’ve found a truly killer community of writers and editors all over the country that I stay in constant contact with. I’ve got a gig here at Specter where I’m allowed to spill my guts on whatever strikes me as important that week. In a little over a year I’ve gone from zero publications to my name to having written feature pieces for PANK, The Rumpus, Grey Sparrow Journal, The Houston Literary Review and InDigest Magazine. I’ve even landed editorships at two of those places.

But most importantly, it comes back to the people I’ve met—virtually—who I consider friends and colleagues now. I personally write to feel less alone, and these print and electronic media have opened up a way for me to do that. For all of the shit that I have to account for every day in my life, I feel twice as lucky to be able to do what I love regularly—maybe not for a living, but not everything in life is about the money.

Peace.