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....