To Fight and Not Smother (A Myth and Legend)

I once enlisted my grandmother –we’ll call her Mema, because that is what I call her – for relationship advice. I was a senior in high school and I was in what I thought to be a very serious relationship and it wasn’t going as smoothly as I had hoped. I needed a pair of eyes who had seen hard times in love and gotten through them. I needed someone who had some sort of insight into my possible long-term relationship. She told me two things. First, never go to bed angry. Second, do not under any circumstance smother your lover.

I will never forget this and it is my inability to forget this that causes me such anguish now. I think about these two ideas for relationship strengthening. I imagine myself being both of these supposed men at the same time. It is when I do this that I realize it is impossible to do these things. It is impossible to fight through something with your significant other and not smother them. To fight is to smother. Someone somewhere is probably thinking, “of course you can, both sides make compromises and then they let the anger go”.  This person has obviously never been in a fight with their spouse.

Even when two married people look into each other’s eyes and say they’re sorry and they kiss and make up – and make up gratefully afterwards, they aren’t really saying sorry. What they are saying is I’m sorry I couldn’t out right win this battle. I will concede, if you will. A compromised is made but a battle is not won or lost, and there is no such thing as a draw in war. So then what the hell is it?

It’s none of these things and all of them at the same time. It is an ongoing struggle that, if taken far enough, will last a lifetime. This is what old couples mean when they say if you are not fighting then it’s not worth fighting for. It is because they are still fighting to this day and they have to rationalize it somehow. When you go home for Thanksgiving, and you watch your grandparents, they are in the middle of two things. They are either not talking to each other at all, or they are making little comments to each other with smiles on their faces. We smile about it longingly when we’re all out in the backyard back getting drunk saying, “Man, they still have that fire. No wonder they have been together so long”. We have failed to see it for what it really is. It is not the fire from their passion we are seeing, it’s the fire from their poison. It is a fifty year old inside joke gone wrong, that no one will understand except for them and it has been going on since the day they said I do.

The thought that two people should fight but then concede to one another is the same blind Christian bullshit that has poisoned marriage and this nation for years now. Two sides are never equal and life is not equilateral. Someone has to win. Even if you think everyone is losing, someone is winning. So while men everywhere are giving up their balls and substituting them for their wife’s purse and/or miniature poodle, I hope there is an equal if not increasing number of men giving the middle finger to the Feminist Reich. I mean have you seen the divorce rate in this country?     

Matches and Love

Life and love are like matches and flame. We burn so hard for them, yet they fitter and extinguish themselves on the brink of their creation. We can never hold on to anything eternally. We fret and blow to keep the embers burning, letting the match smolder until it touches our fingers. We eventually feel the pain of our trials. We eventually have to let go. We drop the tarnished match into oblivion, letting it be just another testament of how our love will never be complete. The pain will always be there to remind us of the previous and warn against the future. We will henceforth not bear to withstand the same pains we went through before and therefore protect ourselves from it. Will anyone ever love as fiercely as they did the first time?

In essence, we must all taste this flame. This is our journey to become complete. What we are becoming complete for, that is yet to be determined. This does not negate the fact that the first flame always burns the brightest and the hottest. We stare it right down to our torched fingertips, grimacing at the look of the flame as it burns away our prints on this world. We can smell the burning flesh and it does not deter us. It is only until someone tells us to let go that we finally release.

To anyone looking for love, and to anyone trying to figure out love, the greatest realization is that of letting go. The future will happen with you, or without you. The flame that you try so hard to care for will eventually burn out. The true task of love is excepting this. You must sit back and wish, hope that the wind will once again rekindle the spark. You may find that this spark ignites other flames or the one that was once thought to be lost.

So keep your fingers closed and you breath shallow. Let anything you have going on inside out, because how knows when the flames of the match will burn out forever.

This Guitar

I hold my guitar as I write this. The strings are greasy from use. I stop and strum a few notes until I come up with a new or reprised line.  Hit the open E and I’m on cloud nine, a place so happy it literally can’t be bought. It’s the kind of thing you have to practice over and over, until it’s all pure muscle memory. Your fingers curve over the fret board like a bridge over troubled water – Oh, Bet! These vibrations are not the poor musings of a sad life on stark white computer screen. These vibrations are what make me able to express myself freely. So I muse.

Certain things that appear in my mind, certain things that to me should be written, don’t always come out easily on paper.  They are under the cover of an opaque shroud, a mist that is discernable, but impenetrable. They must be brought from this concealment and barrier. The finger picking of an open D chord lets me pick my way through this precipitant. As I grasp what my minds has for me, I let out a sigh of relief. For the road to understanding my mind is easier than I imagined. All I have to do is sit with my wooden and metal molded friend. My fingers in comfortably memorized positions on his neck. That’s when the words and my world begin to flow as one.

I no longer look into my mind as an empty and uncharted space, an expanse too dark to see through.  Your hands disappearing, in front of your eyes, if you try to stretch your arms out any further than a half a foot. I blink my eye but can’t tell if they were ever shut, there is no differentiating in the blackness. I hear the droll of Paul McCartney’s Liverpool accent as he rides the melodies of ‘Yesterday’ and a light shines through, ripping the darkness in two. I can see the faces of all the people I have ever met and the cities I have been and someday wish to go. I can see the places I grew up more vividly than ever.

I can see me lying in my bedroom on the floor in front of my stereo, my home in Tallahassee. I have headphones on because my youngest sister was only a few months old and barely sleeping through the night. So anytime I could help out the folks by not waking the sleeping one, I was golden. I would just retire to my room, homework done or not, and disappear into the wave of sound, mostly the classics - the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Red Hot Chili Peppers, you know the kind. I would lie down and pray to whatever deity I felt gave a shit that night that I could become one of these legends. I at least prayed that I would get to at least attempt the feat of becoming famous. The closest I ever got was the Indian Brand guitar that I had begged my dad for, my very first guitar.

I held it in my lap and felt the thick heavy strings, which after months of rigorous practice switched for the light strings – less calluses. I fitted the curve of the left side of the guitar over my right leg and it magically matched up perfectly. I draped my arm over the left side of the body and began to stroke the face of the guitar. I didn’t know much about the woods that guitars are made of, and seeing as I don’t have the current profession of a guitar maker I still don’t, but I do know that the face cover was imitation. This was most easily distinguished by the seemly particleboard insides. The lesser-engineered factors of my present didn’t deter me from the simple enjoyment of it. I held up the neck with an upward facing palm. I flung my hand toward the horizontal strings. My right forefinger and thumb touching each other as they are poised for their attack. I use my fingernail as a pick and depress none of the strings up the fret board – my first note. An open resonating note enters my room and my dad opens my door and smiles.

“You like it?”

“Hell, yeah!”

“Good.”

The first song I learned was ‘Act Naturally’ – The Beatles. The second song I learned was ‘And I Love Her’. Since those first songs much has happened to me, but just like that first memory, the other memories are recovered and easily recounted. The chords of ‘Greens Eyes’ by Coldplay bring me back to serenades on the beach in Sullivan’s Island. My wife’s face reflected in the moon’s surface. Certain nights I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, other nights my hands. As I sang every love song I could think of, along with a special song I learned just for her – ‘Secret’ by Maroon 5 (yeah, I know. Get over it!).  This was what connected us in the first place. These spell casted night are bound together with steely notes and sea breeze. Love was born of these two. It was their power that drove us to our happy life together. The guitar bore the notes and the world bore the other half.

The song ‘Karate’ by Tenacious D and pretty much any song by Rage Against the Machines, brings back good times with good people and shitty alcohol. Nights that I wasn’t sure how I got home or where exactly home was in reference to my head. Several carpet stains are a testament to this. How I didn’t die back then I would surely like to know. Music blaring so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think, only the thoughts brought on through a subliminal frequency. Only the words ‘don’t trust the government, only trust yourselves’ emblazoned in my brain. A chant that, when repeated, becomes more of a mantra. The meaning lost in its multiplication. But, the feeling of those nights that turned into days will never leave.

‘Sorry About That’ by Alkaline Trio, makes me think of a lost love.

‘The Dance’ by Garth Brookes, brings thoughts of my parents.

‘Stay Together For the Kids’ by Blink-182, again thoughts of my parents.

I now put down my guitar and lay my fingers on the keyboard. The memories, which are merely refracted images of my possible future, are still fresh. My first keystroke will begin my purging of these and lead me to my mountain of understanding. This is where I will sit and reflect. Epiphanies will come and go like schools of Minos and I will let them slip through my fingers and toes, catching every one in a hundred. I don’t know where this road or my inner sight will take me, but this guitar will lead the way.

Entry 1

His mouth is moving. He is talking directly to me, but there is no sound. There is only a drone. This monotonous buzzing like the wings of humming birds. His mouth isn't moving anymore. I believe he must be waiting for a response. I muster a nod, totally committed but not committed at all, just enough to give the perception of my full attention without actually giving it. The glance in return is that of appeasement, exactly what I want. He gives me a pat on the back as he walks away. I start to wonder what he wanted in the first place. I wonder just long enough to disengage the lever that locks my swivel chair in the full upright position. I lean back and place my steel toe booted feet on the desk. Was someone talking to me just a second ago? I could have sworn someone was just standing here talking to me.

My mind is under a blockade of cloud cover. A misty place cut off from the ability to receive. I could sit here in this chair for hours, and I will. Closing my eyes and placing my hands over them, I shield any light and fill up with the darkness. The A/C unit kicks and sputters to life, sending a flood of cold air across the office that drives me even further into my artificial isolation. I drop my hands and open my eyes. I look around the trailer that serves as my office. Somber faces of the alarm clock mournful, sinking into their caffeine induced servitude, uniformed and callus. Such is the life of the government employee, military or otherwise. Work is as far from the getting done, just as the bureaucracy that rules it is far from functioning successfully.

I woke up with a single thought, a question. It is the present and only clear thought I can manage today. I've try thinking of what I ate last night. I try to think of my wife and her loving embrace. I try to think of consistency of macaroni and cheese, but to no avail. I’m brought back, dragged back as if by an invisible rope to that thought. Its imprisoning words echo and vibrate, flashing in my mind as it cuts me off from the rest of the world. I look at the digital clock radio that sits on top of the filing cabinet across the room, 7:30.

I’ve been here an hour already and I still haven’t logged onto my computer. I drop my feet from the desk and use this momentum to take a proper working position at my desk. Legs tucked underneath. Eyes motionless and facing the monitor. I place my hands on the keyboard in the poised and ready position. I can’t bring myself to hold down the Ctrl + Alt + Delete that would bring up the access screen. I would plug my username and password in, if I could just begin. My fingers, with nails recently trimmed or chewed (I can’t remember), lay motionless. The weight of them is impossible. Staring into the blue welcome screen I ask myself the question. The question, which awoke me this morning with such crystal clear intent, that it is now burned into my conscience. A brand and trademark of something I’m not too sure of.

How did I get here?

My tingling fingers remain motionless and I have now sat here, answerless and staring into my computer screen, long enough to cut off the circulation at the elbow. I sit back in my chair and feel the cushion depress as it takes on the weight of my back and shoulders. The tingling in my fingers resides and I resort to closing my eyes and covering them with shaking hands once more. It’s such a simple question, but I can’t answer. An answer would be an admission of something wrong. Nothing is wrong. If nothing is wrong then there is nothing to admit. Yet here I am, in my makeshift office, assembled in a trailer, assembled in a hangar bay, wanting an answer. My pulse is building up, am I really going to have an anxiety attack right here.

I pull at the collar of my shirt and, with darting eyes look around the room. No one has noticed my agitated state. I start to sweat. Rising from my chair I muster the strength to walk, at a slightly erratic and brisk pace, for the door. Not one soul, of the seven present in the office, looks up. I open the door and with a flurry slam it shut behind me. Standing in the hangar bay a breeze blows. The smell of the shipyard, a mixture of fabricated metal and the stuff collecting at the bottom of the various dumpsters, circles in a blistering cold current. My cheeks expand in the effort to hold my stomach back. I run to the adjacent hangar bay aircraft elevator. I was going for the shantytown style trailer that served as a restroom. It rested on the elevator, looking over the side at the collective madness of junk that sits on all naval shipyard piers. I burst in almost impaling a shipyard Baba with the broken doorknob. The urge to vomit passed as I stand over the lime-incrusted sink

I look at myself in the mirror. My reflection is pale and distorted behind the etched words and symbols left by past patrons. I run water into my hands until the temperature is scolding hot. I splash the steaming liquid across my face. I let the water cool and run down into my shirt before I splash some more. This overwhelmed feeling in my lungs is like a sucking gunshot wound to the chest. I gasp for breath and slam my back to the wall. I slide down into a crouching position. The room is small and claustrophobic, but the tightness is soothing to me. I can’t understand my reacting. My question is crippling me and the real problem is I know the answer.

I don’t know how I got here...

I say the answer aloud. My voice doesn’t sound like mine and it cracks into more of a croak as it bounces off the aluminum walls. I tell myself to breathe. In. Out. The air enters my lungs and the supplied blood flow makes my face warm, signaling a return of color. I stand to face myself in the mirror. I say the answer again with a forced conviction. What I’m trying to convince myself of is unclear, but it makes me feel better. I don’t know. Now I say it with determination. I don’t know. A cloud of dust descends from the metal under siding that serves as a ceiling, as the vibrations of my voice knock it loose. Another good, deep breath and I’ll walk out of here. My face and hands are dripping; I reach for paper towels. There aren’t any – typical.

I open the door and walk out onto the three steps that lead to the elevator floor. The cold air hits my wet face and hands causing my teeth to chatter. I walk back through the open aired hangar bay. I place my hands in my pockets; the cotton walls absorb the remaining water from my hands, dampening my legs. A grimacing smile crosses my lips from this sensation, as I see Patrick and Salinger, probably on their way to the smoke pad. They move in slow motion and I can’t make out what it is they are saying. Lips move with no sound, but are nonetheless directed at me, and the thought of inventing a response brings back the nausea. My tongue tastes like bile acid.

“You too, fags!” is all I can manage.

A noticeable look of confusion spreads across their faces, first Patrick, and then Salinger as I continue on without looking back for acknowledgment. They look to each other and shrug, moving onward to whatever. I ascend the stairs to my trailer. Entering I notice nothing has changed. Everyone is in the same spot as if in still frame, like a painting of the saddest day of your life. Everyone in the same uniform, blue with white lettering that spells out the name associated.

A squeak rises from the chair as I again take my seat. I rehash the possibility of logging onto my computer, but decide I don’t need another panic attack this morning. So I concentrate on just the keyboard. The letters arranged to mimic the original design for typewriter keyboards, by Christopher Sholes in 1874. The earlier design for typewriters was bulky and used mammoth bars, or stokes with each individual letter. The problem Sholes found was, that when typed to fast, these stokes would bind and collide with one another, ultimately breaking and disabling the early monstrosity all together. It is said, and with no real evidence, that Sholes QWERT design was meant to place the more frequently used letters in more difficult positions. This arrangement would help by slowing the typist down and allowing the machine to function without the deleterious effects. This is seemingly baseless however when letter frequencies are considered. The third most frequently used letter in the English language is ‘A’, which is the resting place for ones left pinky finger and easily punched with said finger.

“Fucking damn pig fucks!”

The abhorrent verbiage jostles me from my trance and I spin in my seat towards the only sound I’ve heard all morning. Harp is sitting in the corner playing Angry Birds on his smart-phone, which he has done every day this shipyard. His unblinking eyes transfixed on the miniature screen, which is smudged opaque with fingerprints. The FX volume on his phone is set to silent, so the only affirmation of success or failure is from these violent outbursts. His goal, a lofty one, is to get a score of three stars on every level. Lofty of a goal it is, because with new levels coming out almost every week. Every design increases in complexity, leaving each stage more sinister than the previous. Harps out cries were nothing out of the ordinary.

“I swear to God, these pig forts are like fucking fort Knox!”

“Have you considered trying a different game for a while, there Harp?” Rorche asks over his shoulder.

“Have you considered fucking yourself?” Harp replies shortly.

“All I’m saying is maybe if you tried a game you were better at, you wouldn’t yell in the office like someone with Turrets.”

“And all I’m saying is… have you considered fucking yourself?”

Rorche rolls his eyes. Harp returns to his siege of pig forts. The joy of being snatched from the drowning pool of my thoughts is short lived, as the silence of the room crashes into me with torrential force. It leaves my mind dazzled; a million stars of the universe explode in my vision. I begin to wonder if the exchange was a figment of my imagination. An apparition that might possibly bring me to the reality I craved and out of my head. I try searching again for a different answer to my question, or maybe I try thinking of a different question. So much space in my head, my mind is an endless expanse, leaving a place unable to be traversed.

I look again to clock radio, foolishly. 8:06, in blinding red text, alights my mind and the thought of staying in the trailer, in this chair, for another minute sends decimating stomach pains to my abdomen. I bend over in my chair a lay my face on the black desktop. I bring my right arm up and around to support my head, knocking over a paper cup of water that was left behind the day before. The cup is almost empty but the remaining water is enough to completely soak the base of my keyboard. I don’t lift my head and allow the water the run over and off the base, to my forearm, which is an inch away.

As I lay defeated, I feel a vibration in my coverall pocket. Keeping my head down I push myself away from the desk. I lower my left hand and plunge into the darkness. My minds eye can’t make a plausible connection between the vibration and anything. I feel a square block. As I pull it from my pocket it continues to buzz in my hand. I recognize this mystery object as my cell phone. The screen is blinking with life and showing the smiling face of my wife. I hesitate to answer.

What if I answer and just can’t say anything. She will know something is wrong. She knows me all too well, and whether by averment or abstinence she will know. On one hand an ally would be handy. A person necessary to confide the darkness that is slowly, or not slowly, consuming me. On the other, if she doesn’t understand, the problem could be expanded to boundaries I am yet able to face. I clench my teeth and answer the phone, sliding the virtual unlock button on the touch screen.

“Hello”

“Hey baby, just wanted to say hi. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine sweetheart.”

“Seriously, baby, you don’t sound good. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.”       

Untitled Rant

I'm tired guys. It goes without saying I hate Virginia. More specifically I hate the Norfolk area.

Today, while sitting in stop and go traffic, thinking about my stop and go life, I wished I could be doing anything other than stopping... and subsequently going. For anyone who is in the same area as me, which is probably any and all of you sad fuckers reading this, you feel my pain. I literally banged my head on my car horn today and left it there to blare for a good 30 seconds, hoping to find that the person who was sitting in the middle of the intersection of Tidewater and Norview could see, hear, or have anything resembling a pulse. Turns out this person did, and he moved his candy colored Escalade, although too late for me to continue through the light to turn left. This person also gave me the finger and was yelling something. What he had in pulse he lacked in brains, because I obviously can't hear you through your passenger side window, my windshield, and the 10 or so yards of outside ambient noise that separates us, you dumb ass!

Secondly, I would love to go back and find the guy that created the I-64 interstate system (Consisting of I-264, 464, 564, and 646, for all of you not in the know) and kick him, as directly as I can manage, in the testicles. Anyone who has ever sat for an hour in traffic at the Downtown Tunnel or, even more God forsaken, the Hampton Road Bridge Tunnel (HRBT) probably feels the same, and could definitely think of other things to do with his testicles. None of which would be pleasant. Why the fuck would you make a drawbridge immediately followed by a tunnel, or vise versa depending on which way you are traveling? Not only that, but why would you have on and off ramps feeding directly into the tunnel, leaving no room to maneuver (i.e. get over) to allow, I don't know, traffic to flow? And heaven help you if a boat comes and they lift the bridge, which isn't supposed to happen after 5:00 AM, but we've all been sitting there at 7:10 AM as traffic is backed up for 3 miles in both directions. If a nuclear attack happens in America, God forbid, I hope the bomb drops right on the fucking Downtown tunnel.

I pray for the soul that works in Portsmouth and lives in Newport News, causing you to have to traverse the previously mentioned bottlenecked fuck job and the HRBT. Yours is the darkest heart know to mankind. Your eyes are probably blackened raisins of hell set behind knife slit for eyes. The stuff that comes out of your mouth is probably dirtier than the stuff that's been collecting in the bottom of all of our trash bins for the past year put together. I would stay clear of you my friend, because I'm sure you have a gun with a concealed carriers permit, and if you don't shoot someone soon you will. 

I think the worst part about it, other than the wear and tear on your fucking brakes, is the time alone with yourself. Nothing is scarier than a man left alone to his own thoughts. One of the leading reasons why people in the Navy get divorced, other than the fact that all navy wives/spouses are cheating whores, is because navy men and women have to sit in this traffic all day and think about this and many other decisions. 

"Really I married that fucker?"

I'm no different, other than the cheating whore wife part. My wife is awesome! I'm no different because I hate being alone with my thoughts. They're like a good beer that's been poisoned. They start off with everything you want, and then slowly but surely they kill you. Here is an example of a simple, silent train of thought that has been left alone too long.

Man I'd love to go to college and learn how to be a good writer. I've been through so much this past 4 years; I've earned the right. Man, nothing’s going to hold me back from my dreams. I need to start looking at colleges. I wonder how many colleges I should apply for, 2… or 3… maybe 4? I wonder if they will accept me. I wonder if I have anything to offer them to make them want want to accept me. Why was I so stupid, signing up for 6 years instead of 4? Oh yeah, because I'm a no good fuck up that spent his 4 years of high school smoking dope and…

I won't finish this because it leads to a really destructive and self-deprecating path that's not healthy for really anyone involved. But you get the picture. In Virginia these trains of thought are probably even worse because, if you are in Norfolk/Hampton Roads, you are probably there because you are a fuck up. If you aren't then there is something wrong with your head like a brain tumor or peripheral neuropathy. Please seek help as soon as possible from your nearest health care professional, as long as they aren’t from a Navy care facility.

Notice that there is no counter constructive input. This is because there is no one but you, the hardest of all critics, left to input anything. It's like a skinny girl looking into a mirror only to walk away thinking that they're fat, but for a whole hour. 

But that is for another rant. 

  

Google It

 “The Weed Eater don’t work.” I said, slightly exhausted from the multiple yanks at a tether cord, spanning most of the last twenty minutes…

“I don’t know what we’re going to do about the Ivy.”

…

“Hey baby, I found out how to get that Ivy up without the Weed Eater,” She said. “I Googled it.”

I stare at her surprised, but eager to hear. “How?”

To spare my readers a long winded list of steps, I will explain how it's done. It’s a two man operation where one person has a rake; the other has some hedge trimmers. The person with the rake combs back the Ivy, while the guy with the hedge trimmers cuts at the snagging vines. You continue to comb and cut until you have a pile of Ivy and pine straw that resembles a rolled up carpet. The best part about it was it actually worked. Holy shit! Thanks Google!

…

What the hell do our dads do now that Google is around? Any question you can ask your dad, you can ask Google. How do you change the oil in your car? Google leads you to a website with step by step instructions and dummy proof drawings. Where do babies come from? The explanations spelled out on a teen health site, without the embarrassing hand gestures. How do you tie a tie? How do you shave? Answers all provided at the click of a mouse. Google monopolizing the humanity of asking a question.

The nurturing touch of a parent has been replaced by the cold precision of straight answers. No decoding required; it's laid out in black and white. No need for disappointment when the advice given doesn’t pan out. No ones memory to get things fuddled up. No need to remember because Google is there if we ever need it again. And maybe there in lies the problem. Have we left Google the job of remembering for us?

No need to remember how to cook a pie. No need to remember how to play a song. No need to remember how to remember. You can just look it up on Google.

I ask the question because what happens when we can no longer remember? What will happen once we’ve given our brains to the collective? Will we be left to consult the super engine Google for everyday menial tasks? I don’t think it’s that serious or anything. I don’t think this is the matrix, but what if?

Mankind left searching for the meaning of life through keywords.

Getting Bad News and Just Being

What are you supposed to say when someone gives you bad news? I've always struggled with this.

Are you supposed to shrug it off; be a man about it? Are you supposed to cry in the wake of the news? Are you supposed to morn your position of knowing? Or can you just be?

I was sent an e-mail (or should I say my wife was sent an e-mail) from my grandmother today. It said that my grandfather had prostate cancer. It said that he would be going through a localized radiation treatment and that the prognosis was good. It said that is was expected, after the treatments, that the cancer would go into remission for 10-15 years. It also said that they really liked his urologist and radiologist. Like, I really care about them. It also said that they would be going to dinner soon, which meant I would have to wait if I wanted to call them.

I was sort of taken aback. Kind of like the kid who gets dumped over an e-mail. I mean couldn't I at least get a phone call. But then again, the guy that gets dumped on the phone only wanted to be told in person, as if the news would be any easier to swallow.

I'm not retarded. I know that prostate cancer is the number one cause of death in all men over the age of 75. Strange enough, that is my grandfathers age range. numero uno... un....um... eins...

I know what cancer does to people. A friend of my dad's friend had contracted brain cancer. He ended up acting like that weird uncle that everyone indulges because we know... he doesn't have much going for him right now. We looked at him with petty. I not sure if they would admit it but I sure would. I didn't laugh when he told the story about how he mistaken Pilate's as some organic food restaurant. But everyone laughed as loud and as hard as they could. As if it was his last joke, but then again, maybe it would be.

So I waited an hour or two before calling my grandparents (Mema and Pop). I thought about what I would say. I thought about maybe opening up with a nice, "How ya doin there Pops"

I've always seen my Pops as a hard ass. Maybe not hard ass, but definitely rough around the edges. This guy did 20 years in the navy, father 4 of the craziest girls you'll ever know, did 20 more years as a postal worker, drank hard liquor for breakfast, gave up drinking for the bible, and when he had his first heart attack, didn't even realize it was happening. He said, "It felt like I couldn't breath. That's not normal?"

I thought maybe this was one of those naked moments when you see someone stripped down to bear bones. The man was just diagnosed with a terminal illness.

I called. Mema answered the phone. "Heeeyyyy!!!" Seriously, that's how she answers the phone, with an over enthusiastic greeting followed by, "What a pleasant surprise." You couldn't be that surprised. Even if I had popped out of the bushes in your garden wearing peacock feather nipple rings could you be that surprised. For God sake you just told me my grandfather has CANCER! Usually she talks on the phone the longest, but tonight she knew the jig was up. They are normally so conservative about these feelings, these moments when anyone else would be looking for pity from someone. They are too proud.

She gives the phone to Pop. When don't start off talking about much. How's work. Fine. How's the wife and that ugly dog. Fine. How's the.... and his phone dies.

Shit that was my chance. I was supposed to see him vulnerable. He was supposed to cry and I was supposed to say it's okay. I was supposed to say I would be there for him no mat.... wait the phones ringing. I answer. It wasn't a long conversation. He said he didn't want to be attached to a cord connected to a wall all night. I guess he would be there soon enough, except in a hospital.

"Hello"
"I know why you called" (it was him if you couldn't tell)
"Yeah, I know you do"
"Listen we caught this thing early. The doctor took 11 biopsies and only one came back as cancer. 5 of the 11 were what they call pre-cancerous"
"Yeah, but cancer is cancer Pops." (I was the one being vulnerable)
"This is the kind of thing you just can't help, so you can't worry about it. That's biblical! Is there something you can do to fix it?"
"No"
"Then we'll worry about it once it's taken it's true course and we can really see what we're messin' with. Until then, It's all life."
"I love you Pops"
"I love you too"
"Goodnight"

I was given some confidence. I was given a breath of life. He was right. I can only really worry about what I can do to change matters and in this matter I could change nothing. I was helpless and in my helplessness I am given strength. If a man can be given a diagnosis of cancer and still say some shit like that. Maybe you can get bad news and just be.

The Garden Chronicles; Act One: The Clean up; Scene One: The Chopping and the Racking Pt. 1

My wife and I decided this week that we wanted to grow a garden in our back yard. This sort of spontaneous craving to grow veggies and flowers came from... wait I already said it was spontaneous, therefore by definition it came from nowhere. One moment, we’re just sitting there, the next we are in full blown planning and making lists mode. The moment the words, "what do you think about making a garden in the back?" and I was making objective points.

1. Check the shed that I never go into for tools that we may already have.
2. Clean up area.

And that was about as far as I got before I realized something. I've never fucking made a garden before! I've done the shitty cleanup work (weeding/racking), but I've never actually gone out and put shit in the ground to bring to life. I looked into my back yard.

At this point the home of our future garden was taken up by approximately 55 square feet of savage ivy, fallen tree limbs, the stubborn remnants of onions; piles upon piles of leaves and pine needles, and a fucking stump. There were no dilutions of grandeur here. This was going to take a few weekends (weather permitting). I used to be a yard slave - my father being the yard slave owner, and I've had my fair share of yard projects to tackle. When I first moved in with my dad in the summer of 2001, at the ripe old age of 13, he told me to look out into what was our back yard. I looked out of the backroom window. The entire fence line that separated us from the house directly behind was a savagely overgrown jungle. I looked at my father and I said, "So, what do you want me to do." - Famous last words.

"I want to be able to see my neighbors looking at me by the end of this month."

"This summer?"

"No this month."

"But, what about those trees?"

"I've got an axe."

Needless to say I knew what was in store for us long before we even went after anything with an axe or rake. I looked to my shed. Dear God I hope there is something useful in here. And there were several useful things in here. There was a garden rake, a lawn rake (yes there is a difference), a garden hose complete with a garden variety spray nozzle, a weed eater that I'm still not sure works, and a hatchet. Okay. I've dealt with less, but I knew I wasn’t going to attack the fallen tree limb with a hatchet so I started making a new list of things I would need to purchase in order to make this a little easier on us and a few things I knew we would need later:

1. An axe (I was raised with an axe and I'm not too keen on using chainsaws…)
2. Chicken wire and metal stakes to keep Ninja out of the garden once it was finished
3. Hoes x 2
4. Miracle Grow fertilizer (as in this is going to take a miracle)
5. Weed killer
6. Garden trash bags

That morning near 11:30 we stopped at Home Depot before going to the grocery store, to pick up the above listed supplies. We walk through the automatic sliding door entrance and we are immediately hit by an old but familiar smell, sawdust. It's a heavy sort of smell that tends to collect in the bottom region of your nostrils. It clings to the hairs and coats your lungs with the thinnest of dusty films. The smell alone makes you want to put on your oldest flannel shirt, chop down the closest tree, and use the wood to build your family’s home. It's the smell of the frontier. It's the essence of America. Okay snapping out of the man dream and getting back to the story. Now where the hells are the gardening tools?

We purchase everything on our list ($198), and made our way to the car. After hitting the Kroger's we get home.

I put everything from the car into the shed, rush to my bedroom, put on my shitty clothes (blue navy SEALS shirt, tattered black Adidas shorts, oldest pair of shoes I could find), and make my way to the back door. I walk into my kitchen to find my wife still putting away the food by herself. "Shit!" I thought, "Am I really that anxious to get outside and work?” Hell, yeah I was. I then hastily get the food in the fridge and cupboards to allow my wife the chance to get her crappy clothes on and then we were out the door.

First things first, the fallen tree limb had to come down. The limb wasn't fallen completely. The end of this limb was stuck about 1 1/2 inches into the ground and the base was nuzzling into the crook of a still living branch in the tree from whence it fell. I tried pushing the cast away from its living counterpart. Not a budge (I'm not that big of a dude, okay). So I decided the best way to get it down would be to chop this dead limb about 2 feet from the end that was stuck in the ground. This end wasn't so thick so a few good chops and it was splintered. The limb teetered and slid from the hands of its holder a couple of feet but did not topple. This time, the end of the branch was not touching the ground. So it was hanging suspended from the still living branch, with the point at which it was hanging, acting as the fulcrum. What did I think the brightest course of action was next? Fuck let's push it.

So I pushed, and it slid, this time unhinging itself and toppling over, much in the way that I wished it would have before. However, once toppled, it rolled up onto the curled portion of the base of the branch that was ripped from the tree. The splintered portion, which was at the opposite end, was at this point directly over my head and poised and ready to come crashing/smashing into my face. I did what I would like to call a gracefully awkward leaping motion - something that involved a leap to the left along with covering my eyes and neck - as this end of the limb came down and sprang back up and to the right. My wife said my face was priceless, which is a delicate way of saying I looked like I had shit myself.

After having narrowly escaped certain death, I proceeded to chop the limb into smaller more manageable pieces. About 20 minutes of axe hacking later and I was halfway done. I then asked my wife if I she would help me carry the bigger half behind the shed (seriously, I'm not that big of a dude).

Then came the racking. My wife did most of it. I will say this folks, my wife had, before this day, never really done yard work - aside from the occasional racking back were she grew up - but I'll be damned if she didn't do most of the clearing out of  the portion that we finished. I wonder if she'll be pissed, because after talking with a couple of co-workers it was brought to my attention that I could have used that weed eater to clear a lot of that mess out. Oh, well. She looked great while she was doing it!

I came behind and bagged all the pullings; the leaves, the pine needles; the onions, the baby trees, and those god damn Ivy vines. 

These, fucking Ivy vines; bastards! That is the only way to describe them. They tangle around everything and choke the soil and the wooden privacy fences and my garden rake prongs. This was probably why I cut the work evening short. I wasn't in yard slaving shape anymore. I couldn't hack it. Don't you worry though because I'll be out there next weekend. And this time I'll bring the weed wacker with me. I'm goin' in guns a blazen!

There is only one thought on my mind as I sit in my computer chair in my office tonight. So, that's where back muscles have been hiding the past five years... They were right beside my axe and my garden rake.

    

The Line of Deforestation

I am the Alchemist

Last night I used my iPad to buy two new books. I purchased The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. I picked these two books from a list of about 50 books that aspiring writers should read (as told by Gotham Writer Workshop). I chose American Psycho because I saw the movie and I heard that the book was even more fucked up. I chose The Alchemist because... well, I can't really tell you why I picked it. I know a lot of people had to read it in high. I never did. So I guess it was just the being familiar with the title more than I was with other books on the same list. This morning, as I was sitting in my office, I took out my iPad and began to read. You may be asking yourself, what the hell does this guy do that he can sit and read at work. If I told you, you would probably get pissed off because your taxpayer's dollars are paying for it.

As I opened the Kindle App on my iPad I decided to read The Alchemist. I started the first page. I then didn't stop reading until I was finished.

The Alchemist, if you haven't read it, is a straight forward story about a shepherd boy named Santiago who has a dream and, through his journey to find the meaning of his dream, leaves everything he has ever known behind to see his dream come to fruition. He meets several people along the way and each encounter is a step closer to his enlightenment. The key point is listen to you heart. If you listen to your heart you will find your calling. To ignore you heart is to ignore your true purpose in life.

There are so many passages of wisdom and as I read it I realized something. I am this little shepherd boy. I am starting a journey and following my heart into something that I will not, at least until the end, know the outcome of. The more and more I read, the more and more I could draw parallels to my own life.

"Every search begins with beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being tested"

Holy shit that's me! I only stumbled on writing because my wife wanted me to take a college course during the spring and I just so happen to pick a writing class. Then, this last little bit of writer's block was  one of many tests that will lead me to my overall victory. It was a small test, but a test none the less.

"The closer one gets to realizing his Personal Legend, the more the Person Legend becomes his true reason for being"


Everyday that I didn't write this week was followed by a day of thinking of nothing else. It felt like I had something to say, but what that something was kept eluding me to the point of obsession. My heart felt sick everyday I didn't put something down. All I could think of was all the time I was wasting not writing.

"When you possess great treasures within you, and you try to tell others of them, seldom or you
 believed"

I have to stop worrying about whether or not the things I write here are stupid. Nobody is really even following me. Unless you are one of my Facebook friends then you are just doing it out of curiosity and spoiler alert! I don't have very much interesting to say. I have been battling with myself over the past five days to write something meaningful, but forgetting about the one objective I had when I started this whole endeavor in the first place; to write anything.

"People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them... their hearts become fearful... of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sand"


I can't be afraid of failure. This will be the death of my dreams. Fear of something that is going to happen, because I will fail sometimes, will end something that can be great before it has even begun.

In closing this book has really helped give me a sense of purpose to my writing. It has made me see that what my heart is telling me will ultimately end in my happiness, whether it is goals accomplished, or from dreams not yet obtained but pursued. The journey is what makes it an experience and I have to make that journey. There will be obstacles. I will be tested and fail more times than not. I will, however see this dream of mine through.

I am Santiago the shepherd boy. I am the Alchemist....

Perfect Sunday

Q: What makes a perfect Sunday for you?

As I sit and survey what I can see in my rental home from my oversized recliner, I see what I consider to be my perfect Sunday.

My wife and I; we sit together underneath a spare comforter from the closet. It smells like the French bulldog that is currently cradled in between my lover’s legs - Peacefully sleeping, possibly dreaming of whatever it is that makes up a perfect Sunday for her. My wife disturbs her by picking her up and holding her in her arms like she is our child. My wife loves this but the look on Ninja's face as she readjusts herself is that of pure annoyance. 

It's a rarely warm night for February so we have the majority of the windows open. Peacefulness exists outside and is only broken up by the occasional low-flying airplane that passes overhead. The only light on in the house is a standing lamp in the front corner of the living room. Giving just enough light to signify that it's time to relax, but not quite time to sleep.

I got off work around 7:30 AM this morning; home by 7:45. My wife is still in bed. I fell in beside her with my shoes still on. I need to take a shower though. I still smell like the ship. If you're wondering what that smells like, it's stale. That's the only word I can give it. I tear myself away from wife and take a shower.

I know it goes without saying, but showers are probably one of the greatest things to happen to mankind ever. Hands down. I think I take a special enjoyment in the act of showering. It's nothing perverted. I just relish in the feeling of the water running over my face, as the spray falls on the top of my head and cascades down through my hair. Cleansing. Refreshing. A chance to wash away the stench of a hard day's work and bring in the new day. A perfect day.

After my shower I get into my favorite pair of cookie pants. For those of us who have not had the pleasure of watching Scrubs, “cookie pants” is a term used to describe any pair of pants that are made entirely of cotton and have elastic in them, anywhere in them. This single element is what really makes this day perfect. We went to breakfast at The House of Eggs in them. We went grocery shopping in them. We went to our favorite sushi place for lunch in them. I am still wearing them as I type this. The freedom. The lightness of the material. There is no better feeling than cotton on the skin - except satin but that is a different kind of good feeling and should be left in the bedroom. 

Cotton. It's the fabric of our lives. Well, at least the fabric of my perfect Sunday.

Don't Set Your Watch Just Yet

When does the present become the future?

This is an easy enough question, right? As I sit the future is giving way to the present; ripped from the silently anticipatory place of will be, to is, and then to was. I'm stuck on the planning. Where do my blueprints go? Is the future so fluid that I can't engineer it? Why can't I set my watch to it?

The answer is not one you come to in a straight forward way. You have to stand in one place and look at it, and then you have to step to the side and look at it from a different angle. You have to cover you eyes for a second, then move your hands away and let them focus. You really have to squint at it and read between the lines. Sometimes you even have to let it walk right up to you while you're not looking and let it smack you in the face.

I am currently trying to be the first of what I listed above. I am approximately 19 months from being out of the military. I don't plan on staying in. I don't want to stay in. I want to go to college. For what? You would be an asshole and ask me that wouldn't you. I am currently not at liberty to say... or know. As much as I am embarrassed to say, at this point in time, I don't really know. I would love to say this writing thing is what's for me, what if right?

Although there does seem to be a distinct difference between my idea of going to school for writing as apposed to a past speculation... we’ll, say... architecture. I didn't know what the fuck an Architect does! I just guessed based on what I saw in movies and TV. This is the point when I decided to research it a little bit. I tried to read as many articles as I could however, the more and more I read, the more I found that I couldn't see myself anymore. I saw someone else. I saw someone rundown and gaunt. I saw someone who didn't want to get out of bed. Someone who is much like the same someone I am now. Someone I don't want to be.

I discovered writing in a strange yet tangible way. I'm taking online classes right now at a local community college. I'm not going for any reason more specific as I just wanted to see if I could hack it  Before the military I was just a mere high school grad with no plans (there's that word again!). So I applied and was excepted because the military would pay for it and that's guaranteed money in the pocket of the college. Hooray taxpayer’s dollars! I signed up for College Algebra and College Composition. College Algebra isn't so bad. I wish I could take it in a classroom setting though. Where I seem to be flourishing is the Composition class.

One of the first things they made us do was free write. Just a pen, or in this case a keyboard, and write without stopping. I'd never done it before. So I decided to really try. I cleared my mind, put my fingers to the keys, and started typing.

At first there wasn't much there, just awkward self talking. Stuff like, "well what do I write about… I don't know you’re my subconscious not me... he he...” but soon it all came pouring out. I actually erased a lot of it because once I was done I was supposed to turn it in and there was a lot. It was a rush. It really wiped the slate clean. It was an intellectual purging.

The purging led the way to a lot of creative pathways opening up. It's where I got the idea to do a blog. It's where I came up with so many of my musings.

This is a future me I can see; studying the written word. There is history to it, there is future in it, and at present I can't think of anything I would much rather do.

With all this being said would it be so bad, seeing as how I am less than 2 yrs away from leaving this miserable existence behind, for me to start planning. I can see how, if the zombie apocalypse happens in 2012, it would put a damper on my plans, but what ever happened to having a dream? What ever happened to aspiring to something in this life? What happened to believing you could give something to world that can change it? Is this not a noble enough calling to try and plan for?

Of course it is, but you can't answer a question with a question. So what's the fucking answer!

There isn't one.

You have to do what you feel is right for you. You really do have to squint at it for God sakes! There will come a day when you look at it a certain way and it will all make since. You will have all the factors aligned and the multiple futures will fall together into one present. It’s not something you can set your watch to, but it's closer than setting your sundial.
   

Running

In the fading light of another February evening I am stretching. The holiday season has been over for a while now and beach season is looming its bronzed face so it is back to the grindstone. Ten minutes earlier and I was lacing up my blue Sacony's running shoes, trying to think of a reason, any reason, why I shouldn't be running. Oh, I've got homework to do... wait no, I can do that later while Lakin is watching CSI: NY. Well, the dishes need to be washed... Seriously Chris? You'll be gone for 30 minutes (make that 50)!

The inner dialogue of the procrastinator; an ongoing battle that rages inside even the most ambitious.

I look down at my wristwatch. It's blue and something I picked up at a Target in Charleston while I was stationed there. Nothing fancy. The time reads 09:35. This actually isn't the real time because I have forgotten how to set this particular watch. The time is actually 5:00 PM. The time on the watch is not what I use it for, so the error isn't noted. I just need this watch for the stopwatch feature.

I am done stretching so now I place my headphones in my ears. Then, I take my iPod and feed it down my hoodie so I can place it in my pocket and not risk getting tangled in the wires of the headphones as I’m flailing my arms about. I step from my driveway into my street. I have goals. I have a destination that I want to reach. I want to run 5 miles. I didn't start here. Just running was my goal in the beginning. It all started on deployment; nothing to do during your time off except sleep and workout. So working out started with the elliptical. Then, as my endurance built up, I went on to running. That's when I got motivated. What about running 2 miles? Did it and along with every other goal. The only goal that has eluded me thus far is the 5-mile mark.

Not this day. This day I was going to make it. I was going to hit that mark if I had to die doing it. I was going to Sparta-kick that bitch in the face! Okay that's a little severe. I was going to hit that mark even if it meant that I would have sore calves the next day.   

I started my playlist, which is comprised of a veritable who's who of pulsing mod rock. I start running. I begin to build up what I like to call my "running rhythm" - that's the point where I’m running at somewhere between 5.5 to 6 MPH. By the time Island in the Sun by Weezer comes on I’m there. 

When I run outside in my neighborhood I have a strategy. I run out half the distance I wish to run and once I reach that point I turn around and run home. That way I’m either going to run all the way home or take a hell of a long time to get back. 

I'm 15 minutes in and I begin to feel the sweat build up even though it's 47 degrees outside. I love this feeling. Most people when they sweat they wipe it away. I tend to relish in it. It's the body’s nature cooling system. If we didn't have a cool house to run into once we started getting hot, we would just stop working and the sweat would cool us off. I like to think about how much the human race has come along in this aspect. We don't even need our built in defenses because we've build things to do it for us.

I'm at 25 minutes now. The band Keane is singing about how they wonder. I've reached the overpass that shades the nearby Interstate system here. It's conveniently 2.5 miles from my house. I stand in the middle of it looking out over the rush hour traffic. Little ants with red and white lights. Men and women driving home. Somewhere I need to be headed here in a second. If I could just get this knot out of my right calf. CRAP this sucks! Okay look back over where you just ran here from. I look down at my feet and sweat drips from my nose. This is just one goal. One hill. One of many. 

This is the beginning of a new me one that can conquer anything. I set goals. I attain them. I make new ones. This is how I live my life. I didn't join the military to quit it. I didn't start college classes with a full time job to fail. 

I sure as hell didn't run 2.5 miles to not turn around and run 2.5 miles back.

Our White Russian Lady

Last night, as you might have seen, I had posted that I was too drunk to write. I think I also made a comment about Anthony Bourdain. I want to take this time to say that I love Anthony Bourdain and his show (all one episode I’ve seen). I actually know him more for judging people’s cooking on America's Next Top Chef. I really want to stress the fact that I do not want to fuck that guy... No matter how well he has aged.

Anytime I drink vodka I tend to think about one of my more excruciating tails of the dance with Our Russian Lady. I was 16...

It's Friday night. My friend Wes and I had taken a bottle of Aristocrat Vodka ($15 a handle, that's quality) off of one of our friend's hands for the night. I think his name was Pete... or was it Patrick? I can't remember. Honestly he was one of those kids that you weren't really friends with, you just used them to get liquor, because they would steal it from their dads or older brothers (wow I sound like a dick). So we've got this handle and we’re driving in Wesley's champagne colored Camry down W. Tharpe St. in Tallahassee, FL. We're passing the bottle back and forth taking three chugs a piece. What is a chug? A chug is a unit of measure that is equivalent to the formation of several bubbles that float to the top of an upturned bottle, as a result of you in taking large gulps of any liquid. How we never got pulled over or died is a fucking miracle.

So we finally arrive at my friend Jeff's house. Jeff's mom was out for the night I think. Jeff also had just obtained probably one of the shittiest drum kits I have ever seen in my entire life. The snare wires were loose and couldn't be tightened to any satisfactory extent. The toms were heavily bruised and I think one of them had tape on it. This being said, it was the only drum set we knew of that we could literally beat the shit out of and not care, so we took advantage.

Wes and I had brought our guitars from home. His was a blue Ibanez SV Prestige. Mine was a white Ibanez P-O-S (I love that guitar though).

By the time we arrived at Jeff's house the bottle was a third gone and we were three sheets a piece. What was Jeff's only option? If you said try to drink a second third straight from the bottle in one eighth the time that we had, then you were right! Fast forward an hour and we are complete belligerent. I'm playing the drums, Wes is playing grudged out versions of some Rage Against the Machines riff, and Jeff has his shirt tied to his head and fulfilling the part of lead singer. Well, if you consider screaming things like "CHRIS ON THE DRUUUMS!!"; "WES ON THE GUITAAAR!"; "I'VE GOT A BOOONEER!!!" to be singing.

In all honesty this was probably some of the most fun I’d ever had while intoxicated. I can't explain why but it just simply was. Maybe it's the fact that we were all blitzkrieged and didn't have a care in the world. Maybe because I couldn't feel the redness in my face after playing drums for nearly an hour. Maybe Jeff's slurred screaming was having a more soothingly chaotic effect on me. The reverberations from the noise (because what else are you going to call it) had actually pulsed me into tranquility. I was in a place where your ability was not frowned at because your lack of coordination and talent gave you an excuse. Well, before I could accurately grasp the concept, for which I was drunkenly searching, we were interrupted.

Turns out Jeff's mom hadn't planned on being out all night, which would have been apparent if Jeff hadn't failed to mention that she was merely out on a date. I've never ran out of a house so fast. My shadow couldn't keep up and subsequently got its ass kicked by Jeff's mom.

So after a long drive home - it's midnight at this point - I get to my front door. It's locked, great! I knock. The door opens. It's my stepmother Amy. She greets me with a you don't have the damn keys. I reply with a big vodka drenched hug and a "SHHHH it's shokay! Don't slurrie about mae!"

I got to my room and proceeded to fall into my bed and spin out of existence. Or so I thought. I woke up the next morning feeling it. The acid in my throat that let me know what had happened shortly followed by the smell. I look at my carpeted floor. Chunks... that's all I'm going to say. I try to clean it up. I sprayed it with carpet cleaner. I covered it with a towel. I got up most of the solid stuff up and washed out most everything else. Then I realized to my horror that it was Saturday, which meant I had to mow the lawn. FUUUCK!!! I had no choice. I got dressed, went outside, and started that damn mower.

About an hour-thirty into my chore my dad stops me.
"What did you drink last night?"
"Vodka"
"Damn, that's fucked son!"
"Yeah"
"I would kick your ass, but you already look like death and you are mowing the lawn solo"
"Thanks"
"You still have to clean that shit off your floor"
"Yeah"

That story is only surpassed by the Pre-Graduation Party Drunk Dial Fiasco of 2006. I'll save that for another time...

Vodka

So just as a warning for all you aspiring blog writers, don’t drink four sprite zeros mixed with double shots of vodka and expect to write anything.

I was going to write some stupid story about a car wash I took my civic to earlier today, but then I started drinking. 

Nothing is here now. No inspiration. No words of wistful thoughtfulness. I just feel a blissful nothing. I'm now watching a show where people get paid way too much to travel the world and experience things that are in all instances... awesome. This guy Anthony Bourdain gets to go around the world and experience it, and the Travel channel pays him, quite amazingly, to do this. 

I say fuck that guy.

After rereading the last few sentences I realize that I write on vodka the same way I speak when I’m on vodka - slurred and not making any one point.

I love Vodka!

Playing Forts

For the better half of this week my wife has been saying that, since I had the entire weekend off, she wanted to play forts. What is playing forts you ask? Well, when you were a kid, did you ever lie in you bed under the covers and pretend you were in a cave? This is the basic idea. We were going to lie in bed and play all day (her words not mine - well, maybe they are a little). 

I had 24 hr. duty on Friday so once I showed up to work I would be staying there until 8:00 Am Saturday morning. I had the last watch, which was from 11:30 PM to 7:30 AM, so I was up all night and into the morning. To compound my tiring duty day, I couldn't sleep because my berthing was the temperature of the sun. Oh yeah and I was relieved a good forty-five minutes late. On my wife's side of Friday, she had probably the worst day she's had since I’ve been back from the last deployment. She did a lot of crying and self-loathing, which is a really exhausting task for all you non-criers out there. Needless to say, Saturday was a sleep day. No real playing to speak of.

So Saturday comes and goes as many Saturdays before it. Then Sunday came. This is our chance! Nothing but playing under the covers... or so I thought.

It's about 8 o'clock, and my eyes open. What do I see? I see the light pouring in because the blackout curtains we bought 2 years ago are still in their packaging in the closet. I see my wife on her side, her hair spreading into a beautiful (in the eyes of the beholder) mess on her body length pillow. I lie on my left side and snuggle into my position as the big spoon. I can smell the Pantene pro-v shampoo we use. OH the smell of clean. I place my right hand on her hip and begin to slide it up and down her leg. She stirs slightly. 

Believe it or not this is a ritual. This scene has happened many times in the few years we've been married, and it changes depending on who wakes up first. I can't think of what she does exactly, mostly because I’m in a state of pure zombie-fication in my pre-wakefulness. I tend to start with this move of excessive caressing of the legs and hips. Then I start playing with her panty line. She really likes that. That last statement isn’t true though. My wife isn't much for fooling around in the morning. You may be thinking this is a bummer and that I got jibbed. It's actually comforting to me, because I don't like it either. Two words will describe my apprehension, morning breath. The ones in disagreement are the ones who haven't been married longer than a couple of months or are really desperate, horny college kids. 

Okay so what was I talking about? Oh yeah waking up! 

So I’m playing with her elastic and she then turns over to face me. I will say this about my wife. She may have horrible morning breath, but I won't trade her looking me in the eyes and smiling slyly for all of king Solomon’s gold. This is exactly the same position we were in back in 2007 when I asked her to marry me. Really it was more like "so you wanna get married?" This is what I get every weekend I get to wake up to her. I get to relive the exact moment when my love for her was so great that I had to have her for the rest of my life.

Now here I am it's morning and I’m reminiscing, giggling with her in this early hour like a gay schoolgirl, when she hears it. The sound is so soft that I can't hear it at all. My wife has super hero style hearing. Then I hear it, it’s our dog ninja, who also has super hearing, being a dog, whining in her kennel in the dining room. Lakin asks if I can hear that. I say what the birds - there were in fact birds chirping outside. "No" she says, "the ninja". I say I don’t hear it. Lakin says she's probably hungry. "Yeah"

She gracefully gets out of bed and I know we are up for the day. Responsibility and the real world are stealing my wife from me. I lay there for a while staring at the white stucco ceiling right behind the ceiling fan blades. The fan motor is only set to medium but, after sometime of concentrating on the same spot, the illusion that they are spinning backwards at light speed takes effect. Damn dog! This was supposed to be my morning! Jealousy isn't the word - but it fits. 

Then I get out of bed and go into the kitchen where my wife is watching Ninja. She is pushing her green, hollow rubber ball, which is filled with food, across the wood floor. Kibble falls out of the two holes on the top and bottom (we bought this so she would eat slower). She asks if I want to go to house of eggs for breakfast. I say yes. Then we go about our day. Then I think to myself, as much as I would have loved to stay in that bed with my wife all day, I love to walk around and go out and experience life with her equally. 

We have the rest of our lives to play forts...