The little insanities of life

Ever wonder why certain people do certain things, over and over again? Like, I was just thinking about this friend of mine who does all these incredibly self defeating things, over and over again. I sort of understand why he does these things, what I can't understand is why it still feels ok to continue to do self defeating things to himself after all these years.

But then I look at my own life and see the self destructive patterns and think, what's worse, my self destructive patterns or his? Of course, we all know that it's all relative. I guess it just appears to me that his patterns are more painful than mine. I don't know, I guess he has a higher threshold for pain than I do. Or maybe his experience of the things he does to himself are less painful to him than they would be if they happened to me. I dunno.

In his case, I do know that he has always been seeking out extremes in experience. So have I in my own special way. Mine are more of a sexual nature, looking for extremes in experience. His has been more life experience extremes. Extremes in human experience. Raw, violent, graphically emotional experiences. When I think about it, mine is not much different a need to experience, I just chose things less graphic to experience. I still want the raw human emotion though. I just don't need to see the carnage of war or a tsunami to experience those emotions. I'll take gut wrenching, heart ripping, suicidal relationships with psychopaths over carnage on a vast scale, for $800 Alex. Any old day of the week.

Anywho....

On a lighter note, it's New Years Eve at the moment. It's actually early in the AM on NYE, and I have yet to go to sleep from December 30th, so technically to me it's still Friday, December 30th 2005 at the moment. But I figure I will not get a chance to post here again until after the new years celebratory events, so I better post now. There is however, less than 24 hours left in this fucked up year of 2005. Thank fucking god. Considering that I believe that time and space is all relative and in the grand scheme meaningless, Gregorian  (or any) calendar year changes mean very little to me.

On an even lighter note, I gave Alyssa a nickname today. She had been looking for a nickname for sometime (in her words, years). We tried Aly out, but it wasn't fitting very well. Al of course was totally out of the question. So this morning (or at some point in the last 24 hours) I came up with Alec. She loved it. She loved it. Frankly, so do I.

I told her earlier this week that I actually loved her name, Alyssa. I thought it was a beautiful name. But it was not very fitting for a boy like her. I can relate, Jeanette is not a very fitting name for me either. I hate it. Which is why I do not use it anymore. J works just fine for me thank you very much. So now Alyssa can become Alec. I have a feeling that for some time to come that I shall be the only one calling her Alec. But I will be working on it... after all I made it up, it's my job to get everyone to call her that now. I managed some how to get everyone to call me J, if I can do that, I can do the other.

Well, it's time for bed. Happy fucking New Year everyone. Truly, I do wish everyone prosperity and unconditional love and happiness in this life experience.  It's just I wish it for you all the time. May your blessings be many. May the desires of your heart find their way to you soon and remain with you always.

Peace out my friends.

Pleaseant Festive holiday event!

Christmas was not too shabby. I got so much more than I ever expected. I was seriously stoked. Sue has pretty much figured out after all these years exactly what will float my boat.

I got way too much to mention here, but suffice to say, she did good and I am happy.

Thanks sweetheart. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. I love you more than you will ever know. Hope you liked your presents too.  

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do....

I just wanted to mention that Jay started taking T two weeks ago tomorrow. Tomorrow he should be doing the second of a life time of injections.

He called me earlier this week asking me to look something up online about how often you can take your dosage of T without liver damage. From some minor research, I let him know that once every two weeks was the right amount of time between dosages. What I noted from that conversation was that his voice, after only 7 days was beginning to deepen.

It was interesting to listen to the subtle change. I am most interested in our next communication. I will be searching for those changes in him. The subtle changes that only someone close to him could detect. I am most anxious to see how he progresses.

He is doing what I have never had the guts to do. I never had to the guts to cut off my family completely.  His family, not unlike mine is extremely ultra right wing, ultra conservative fundamentalist christian. To  become who you really are, you must be willing to release them from your life. They will never accept you for who you are, so the only option is to let them all go forever. I have never had the guts to do that. Waiting around for my parents to die off does not seem to be an option for me. I think I am actually going to die before either one of them actually expire.

You are a braver man than I my friend. My hat is off to you. Hope I hear from you tomorrow dude.

Standing on the mountain top.....

....and it's all down hill from here.

Ok, it sounded good momentarily. Like a good opening line or something. Not so sure about that right at this second. Not sure what my point was in the first place.

Have you ever noticed I don't necessarily have a point? There's no point tonight either.

I have been taking these hormone supplements the last few weeks. I am not sure they are working, but one of the possible side effects is that my voice could deepen and beard growth could develop. My voice is already deep, so you might be hard pressed to tell if there was any subtle change or not. My beard however should be something you could tell a difference in pretty easily. I already shave. No big deal there. I don't think I am noticing any difference in the beard department either.

Anyway, this stuff I am taking is supposed to give you back your strength. Apparently somewhere along the way as menopause waltzed through my life and left me hormone-less, I lost my physical strength. Things that had been so simple for me to lift and carry have become burdens for which I must reach out to others to help me with. This might not bother other people, but I have tended to be rather self sufficient for most of my life. For whatever my reasons, I have chosen to do most things by myself, seldom asking for help and then only when it was absolutely necessary.

These last few years have been a nightmare for someone like myself. Someone so used to going it alone, being such a loner, being the one who was always there for others. I find it almost impossible to ask for help. Having this self image of total self sufficiency, this weakening of my physical self has been more than I can comprehend. Hence the hormone supplements. I want my old self back. I keep telling myself I am still far too young to have lost so much strength.

If you have followed along in this journal over the last two years, you might recall the story of my second grade teacher Mrs. Carpenter and my hermit story. When Mrs. Carpenter asked us kids to get up and tell the class what our ambitions in life were (what we wanted to be when we grew up), I said I wanted to be a hermit. You know, if a 7 year old said they wanted to be a hermit to me, I would be amazed at the fact they even knew what a hermit was and could use that particular noun in context to a life goal. I would think the child brilliant. But hey, that's just me. Mrs. Carpenter got exceedingly pissed off at me for saying that in her class. But it was my truth at that exact moment.

To this day, it's actually been a goal of mine. To be left alone by a world that is pretty fucked up. My desire to not live in a world and with other beings who are cold and cruel. As you can see, I have not succeeded very well in obtaining this goal. Although part of my desire to live in the place I live in is based on my need to get as close to that goal as possible.

By the age of 7, I was seriously entertaining thoughts of suicide. Intertwined in my fantasies of living alone and far away from the cruelty of other humans, were thoughts of death, the ultimate escape from their cruelty. It seemed the ultimate to me at the time anyway. I had elaborate plans on how my death would occur. As you can see, I failed miserably with those goals just as I failed in my goal to become a self sufficient hermit.

I have always held people far away from me, never really letting anyone in completely. I assume that most people do something similar. I don't know because I do not live in their heads. I am just assuming this because I am assuming that we as humans truly do not feel all that different from one another. I could be wrong about that too. I don't know because, once again, I don't live inside other's heads and hearts.

I've spent a lot of time talking with other people over the years about their perceptions of life and how they felt as children growing up. I have come to the conclusion that most people grew up thinking they were artists and that they had some deep creative purpose in life that they needed to express in some way. This is either true of all of mankind, or else I only hang around extremely creative and artistic people. I dunno, I have known a lot of people in all kinds of walks of life. I have yet to meet anyone who said that as a child all they ever wanted to be was a garbage collector because they felt they would have some since of fulfillment in doing that. 

Among other things, and aside from being a hermit, one of the things I wanted to do when I grew up was be a composer.  I realized that this wasn't going to happen when, at age 8 and in the middle of piano lessons, I discovered that music was basically math you could listen to. Mathematics, unfortunately, was always my weakest point. I was certainly way less than brilliant. There was always something in the way my brain processed mathematical problems that never added up (pun intended). I always felt on the precipe of comprehension, like I was on the verge of an epiphany or even a mental orgasm, but I never quite got "it".  I would get so close and then the brain would shut down and I would lose whatever I almost was about to understand.

I remember sitting there at my music teacher's piano and silently crying to myself as she told me I would never be able to learn to play the piano or to read music until I learned to comprehend fractions. I fooled her. I would listen to a musical piece and then sit there for hours at the piano trying to pick it out, note by note until I had it down. I could not read the music, at least not the time signatures, but I could read the notes and knew where they were placed on the keyboard. The only way I had of placing the note value correctly was to listen to how someone else played the piece. And then I played it back exactly as I had heard it played.

I did the same thing on the guitar. I would listen to something and then pick it out, cord by cord until I could reproduce the piece. Consequently, I was never a very good musician. I seldom learned anyone else's work after a while. I finally wrote and played only my own compositions. It was easier that way. It was the only way to still make music. Which, for whatever reasons, I felt compelled to do.

I was also pretty bad at English. Much to the chagrin of my mother who had a masters in English. It's funny (as in odd) that now I would rather write words than music. For all the things I composed musically, without the words, the melodies have no real home. It was always the poetry of my songs which made them special in any way. Still I wish I could compose. Anything, I am not picky at this point.

As you can see, this whole post has absolutely no point and is going no where. So that tells me that it is over now, as I have absolutely nothing left to say. That and I am tired of typing at the moment.

You've been patient. Thank you for your time, please come again.

It's the end of the world as we know it.......

I am severely depressed right now. Not enough to entertain thoughts of suicide, but enough that I am torturing myself with extremely moving and melancholy classical music. I think I do this because somewhere inside I think it will expel the demons that haunt my soul and cause a depth of mourning that is beyond reasonable to leave me. This music is what I have always used as my solace... this passion that wells up inside of me when I listen... somehow  it has always been that which calmed my aching soul. Tonight, it is causing my spirit to ache to be free of this human condition, to be free of the pain of being a human being. This is one of those moments when I question my sanity for having incarnated again.

Yes, I do know what is causing the depression. And yes, it is grief. A mourning of a certain and unstoppable loss. Something I have had 51 years to prepare for and yet, I sit here grieving nonetheless, stricken to the core at my loss.

No, no one has died. Nothing more than a part of me that I had always known has passed away. And now I must grieve it's loss and move on with life. I do not like grief. Do not like grieving. And yet I know that it is part of the growth we go through as incarnate beings. It doesn't make me like it anymore, knowing it's purpose.

Giving up part of you that you thought would always be, appears to be more difficult than I first thought. I don't know why this is so hard for me to accept and just go on with. Well, that is not necessarily true, I do know why this is so hard, why this cuts me so deeply, why I am weeping deeply right now. I just wish I would buck it up and go on, walk away and figure out how to go on.....

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I wrote this almost two years ago. I can't believe that this blog is almost two years old. Wow... ain't that something?

It seemed so appropriate to me for this posting. Great grief begets the memory of great griefs past. I hide it all so well, you would never know I was nearly hysterical in my pain eh? Depending on who you are in my life, you have spent days, weeks, years on end with me and yet, you do not know the depth to which I ache inside.  Because I will never share it with you face to face. And here, in this place you cannot hear the pain in my voice, nor see the tears of a lifetime of grieving falling silently.

 

Feb 04:

You know, I am a great salesman, due in part to the fact that I can read people pretty well, that and I know what questions to ask and I listen to their answers closely. But when it comes to my personal life, I have a very difficult time reading people's intent. For some reason, even if someone swears on pain of death that they mean this when they say that, I still have deeply held doubts. That could be from years of being lied to by my mother. I guess I learned to never trust anyone who tells you they love you that they really mean it. I also learned at Mom's knee that just because you love someone with all of your being does not mean they are going to love you back.

Maybe this doesn't happen to every kid, but I suspect it does with many, we grow up believing our Mother doesn't really love us. I surely did believe that growing up. I really though Mom did not love me. Fast forwarding into my adult years, Debbie was pretty good friends with my Mom and they would talk for hours about stuff. This was even before Debbie and I were together. Apparently Mom confessed to Debbie (way back before Debbie and I were ever lovers) that she had never loved me as a child. Debbie was trying to console me one night in bed about my mother and her treatment of me when this revelation came out. Debbie let it slip that my Mom had told her she never loved me. I was probably 28 or 29 and this just struck me to the core. I felt mortally wounded, my heart was broken beyond words and I sobbed uncontrollably for sometime that evening. I don't think there are too many other times in my life I have been so heart broken.

All my fears confirmed, I had not read Mom wrong all those years ago as a child. I had read her as right as you can read another person. Mom taught me to doubt most people's sincerity in my personal relationships. On the other hand, she also taught me to tie my shoe laces, so it all evens out in the end right?

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So yeah, this is what the face of my depression looks like, and yet you are not seeing it. That I would never impose on you in real life. Here I can lament. Here you will just pass over what you do not want to read, what you cannot deal with hearing. Yet here I have the space to say what I cannot say to another living soul. Here I can become small and struggle for understanding. Here I can beat my demons until they rise screaming to the surface, finally to be released from my heart. Hopefully forever.

Ky, you said to me once that I love huge.  I took that to mean that I love deeply, fully, utterly. You are not the first person to tell me something similar. But you are the last person thus far. That gives you the distinction of being special to me in my book. Loving huge, I guess can be construed as good and bad, depending on your outlook. I cannot give up love, or love any less than I do. Love is the only thing I know to truly be real. Everything else in the universe passes away, but love always remains.

Every last one of you who has touched my life and I allowed to enter me, all you who are still living and you who are dead, I have never stopped loving you, never forgotten the depth to which I adored your very being.  I am struggling my loves, I have come to a crossroads in life. The grief is beyond measure, the loss so much more than I ever thought it would be. I have known this day was coming for ages, and yet, I find myself unprepared emotionally for it all.

I am getting small, backing away and hiding from you all.  I cannot bear this alone, and yet I cannot face you all with the reality of how I am reacting to this loss. I had this fantasy that I would pass this loss with dignity and grace. Instead feel the fool.  I am grieving because there are still things I wanted to experience, and yet, they were only things of the physical. Of what use are they to me in the grand scheme of the universe? None. They were of this world, of this physical time and space.

I am not ready to let go, I am holding on to a dead corpse.  Youth, youth, stupid and foolish youth. Arrogant youth. Why do they not teach you these lessons in school? These are the lessons I want to teach my children. Do not be deceived by strength and youthful vigor my children. So soon, too soon, before you turn around again they will be gone. Strength, energy, vitality, physical power, beauty, youth, all gone, left behind by this physical time and spacewe know as our existence here on this earth, in this physical form.

Youth, gone. Beauty, lost. Sexual power a distant memory. I will no longer fight this loss. I am a fool to attempt it. There is no stopping the loss of all you thought was the reality of your being. Time to seek out a new reality, free of the lies. Time to make a new path. Time to find another way of being, of relating.

Now it is time to rest my body and aching soul. I wish I remembered my dreams. I wish that one last time I could dream of days gone by, of power and beauty and strength. My power and beauty and strength. One last time. One more dance, one more,  just one more and then I swear, I will go silently into that good night.

 

Passionately passionate

I am listening to Luciano Pavorotti right now. He's singing Ave Maria. I thought it appropriate for this time of the year. My friend Gina Nicoletti sent this to me in a download one night some time back. We listened to it together online the two of us. I knew that she, as I, was crying as we listened together.

Only Gina would have shared this with me. Only Gina would have known to do so. No other friend or family member would have known how deeply such a thing would have touched my soul. Our souls.

We wept together, Gina and I, sharing something that only she and I could have shared in that moment. This touching of spirits through music. This dance of aural ecstasy. This passion, this musical climax floating tenderly in the air between us.

Gina my friend. Dear friend, from ages past. From youths not so much misspent, as misdirected and writhing in youthful angst. That time in our lives, I would not change, not one moment, for from it, and so many other layers of experience we became who we are today. In all the rich and textured fullness of our beings.

To say that I love you is an understatement. Beloved is closer. There are no words to describe my devotion to you and this our enduring knowing of one another in this lifetime. I am passionate in my loyality to you. My beautiful, beautiful friend. No friend or family member will ever know, nor share what we have known or shared with one another over the years. What we have is unique to us alone. It is not that our relationship or love for one another overshadows or lessons any other relationships in our respective lives, it is simply it's own beautiful unique experience of relationship with one another. And for this relationship I am forever grateful to the universe. What a gift, what an incredible blessing.

Next lifetime, let us start off less confrontational. Let us remember the lessons of this lifetime, let us start off loving and caring. I ask this as a special favor from the universe for us both. Let us remember Ave Maria... let the passionate flame of a past rememberance envelope us upon our first meeting. Let us remember the shared passions, how music touched the very core of our beings and bonded us forever.

Hi diddly ho neighbor

I know, I have been so bad about not journaling. Shame, shame, shame. 

I just haven't had the energy. It may seem odd, but I find writing an act of creativity. It can sometimes take hours for me to post to a BBS or even this journal. And I always have to do it so late at night. Waiting for hours for the noise of this house to go to sleep and leave me to consentrate and collect my thoughts.

I seem to be lost in trying to understand relationships right now. Any relationship. Friends, pets, significant others, whatever. I am trying to absorb something, some "ah ha!" that will move me further along somewhere in the learning process of life. I am not getting very far though. I feel lost right now. Or lonely, like I am alone in some deep quest with no map or mentor.

Whatever.

 

So this friend of mine named Tom posted something on Geekfest a day or so ago about water molecules changing their structure simply with thought. He got that bit of shit off some show I am pretty sure I saw myself some time back on the Discovery Channel. So somewhere around the 4 response post down from his, someone throws out that this program, this pseudo scientific show he saw was sponsered by some cult and that it's all hogwash (my words totatly, not their's),

So of course the thread now lacks any credibility in the minds of posters and lurkers because someone said it was a cult thing. Who the hell knows if it's really a cult thing, frankly, who cares. All I know is that suddenly, what might have been a fairly lively discussion was cut short and I don't get to see where it might have gone.

Oh well.

You are wondering why I even brought that up right? Me too. I don't know, and I don't care. It was just on my mind.

So have you ever had something pressing on your spirit, some deep emotion, some agony of spirit that you cannot talk to another living soul about? Of course you have. I tend to prattle on about meaningless bullshit while I am agonizing internally. It doesn't make me hurt any less, but it does serve as a minor distraction for the moment. I know you know what I am talking about. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt.

Ok, this took all of about ten minutes to write. Which tells you I am not trying very hard. You are absolutely correct. I am not trying at all. Not one iota. Oh well, such is life.

 

What's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget..

Remember Stromboli's pizza? I liked sausage and onions, you liked Canadian Bacon and Pineapple. The first time you ordered that combination, I almost puked at the thought of it. I chose to stick to my sausage and onion that evening, not even daring to try a bite of yours.

I finally did try the Canadian Bacon and pineapple one day. I am sure you found some way to dare me into trying it out. I pronounced it good and from then on that was the pizza we ordered together.

I was thinking of you today when I saw a slice of Canadian Bacon and pineapple at L&L up in Eagle Rock.  I went up there after a job near the Missouri state line this afternoon to cash in my winning lotto ticket for 3 more Quick Picks on Powerball. I decided I really wanted Canadian Bacon and pinapple pizza for dinner tonight. I wanted to remember the flavor of a time gone by, of a memory.

So I stopped at Sunfest and bought Canadian Bacon, cheese and pizza sauce. I had everything else I needed at home already. I made the pizza. Sue didn't like the pineapple on it. It made me kind of sad. Not that I ever wanted Sue to be like you, but for some reason I wanted her to like that pizza. She didn't.

Driving home, I remembered what you felt like when you passed through me at Gina's wedding. I remembered feeling the love. I remembered you.

What I remembered today was the team we were, how we faced the world head on, shoulders straight, head up, look em in the eye. There was no stopping us, no saying no and expecting us to walk away defeated. We knew what we wanted and we went after it for all we were worth.

We were young, we were strong and all of life was out before us, our eye on the prize.

Nothing ever stays the same though. Life is all about change. Growth. Moving onward and upward. Evolving. Morphing...

There are times I still get so angry and so painfully sad that you ever got so sick. I lost you long before the illness took you away. And when you finally died so many years later it was the finale' to all of the memories of my youth.

The truth is, I cannot imagine you and I having grown old together. Mainly because I cannot imagine you old. You are frozen forever in my mind in our youth. Still strong, still alive. Even sitting there at your death bed watching you die, the machines breathing for you, the tubes giving you sustenance, you still looked youthful. It looked just like you, only sleeping. She's just sleeping. Which is the last memory I have of you. Just sleeping. Peaceful, already dead.

The world has gone on without you Debra Jean. It marched right past your passing without blinking an eye. As it does every day to millions of others, as it will with me.

I am not afraid of death anymore. I have grown on in so many ways since you left your body behind.  In fact, there is not much I fear anymore.

I feel like I am sitting on a precipe, looking over the edge into an unknown and greater place than I have ever been right now. I feel on the verge of breaking into this new place, an epiphany awaiting my next breath.

Sometimes I think you are there with me as I grow and evolve. Like I feel your presence speaking to my spirit.  There is no such thing as growing old together, because we never grow old, we simply always are, forever.

I know you are there and I know you know I am sad because I cannot communicate with you. Like always, I wait for you to make the first move... you were the one to always make the first moves if you recall. You taught me more than anyone aside from JRS. But in many ways, you taught me even more than he did. I know you are there and I know you have watched over me all this time.

I miss you and I think I need you right now. I need someone who knows me well. Someone who understands how my head ticks. Someone who knows my spirit and always has. I need your wisdom, your ability to know instinctively how to calm my spirit and sooth me.

I'll be hear trying to listen as best I can. The noise of the world is hard to shut off, but you did teach me well. I was just always such a bullheaded learner. But you know that about me.

I'm here.

 

 

Fascinating Captain....

Jay called me twice today. First to tell me that he had been approved by his insurance company for top surgery on the 14th of September. He was estatic, life was good, finally things were starting to come together for him.

The second time was to tell me that the chest xray he had had taken a few days ago because of the cough he has had for 3 months turned up with a dark mass in his lower right lung. The CT scan is scheduled for tomorrow.

The mass in the xray, depending on what it turns out to be, could possibly mean the surgery would have to be postponed, for who knows how long. The pecular thing about the latter conversation was that Jay was most worried about the postponement of the surgery rather than what the mass might be.

Now I know Jay pretty well, possibly better than anyone else on the face of the planet. Possibly even better than he knows himself. I think Jay thinks I am his best friend, but I am not sure, he used to call me his best friend years ago, but you know, times change, people change, so who knows in what esteem I am held at this moment. I do know that he still shares things with me that he will not share with others, so I guess that still gives me some clout with him or at least some insite into his psyche.

Knowing Jay as well as I know him, it did not shock me that his head appears in the sand about the mass in his right lung. It's kind of his MO in a way. Let's pretend that there is not something possibly life threatening hanging over my head, instead let's focus on my dream being thwarted by this untimely turn of events.

He seemed not in a head space to talk possibilites of what might be the underlying medical issue at hand. He was seemingly concerned only with his possible loss of a surgery date and losing his insurance's coverage of said surgery. I wouldn't say I am annoyed by his behavior, I am used to that kind of behavior in him. What I felt was at a loss for words for his situation.

I know that if I was in seventh heaven (on cloud nine or whatever) about having top surgery and then something as off the wall (or out from left field) came hurling its self at me like a mass in my lung all in the same day, I just might stick my head in the sand too and pretend that the mass was simply an annoyance, like a flat tire or the battery going dead in your car when you are already late for a most important date. I certainly can comprehend his reaction.

I am concerned for him. I was truly thrilled, elated, whatever, for him when he called with the good news of the pending surgery this morning. When he called with the not so good news this afternoon, I was simply stunned. Kind of like that guy in left field who gets blinded by the sun and the ball bonks him in the head instead of landing in his glove.

I mentioned this to Barb Dunnam this afternoon as we were out riding around in my work truck. I hadn't talked to anyone since I had gotten the phone call. I was just sort of well, stunned. It's as if mentioning it to Barb spoke it into reality to me in my head and heart.

Jay has a mass in his lung. It made me begin to wonder what it feels like to have the knowledge that you have a mass in your lung. Then Sue called and I relayed the news to her. I could tell by her response that it immediately made her thoughts go to "what if I had a mass in my lung".  In talking briefly with her on this subject, I decided that I would never wanted to know if I had a mass on my lung. Mainly because I have no health insurance and there's not a fucking thing I could do about it if I did know I had a mass on my lung anyway.

Jay has a mass on his right lung. Eventually I began to go over the ramifications of what Jay having a mass on his lung could really mean. I thought about Jay dying, how would I feel about that? I imagined going to Jay's funeral. As you can see, I go directly to worst case scenario. That always gives me a starting point to go backwards from.

It was the picture of seeing Jay in a casket that made my heart begin to ache. My friend layed out there in a lovely dress suit, dead. It made the ache of so many deaths come back vividly. Damnit, you weren't suppose to die so young. You weren't supposed to die before me. We would all go on forever, young, happy, carefree, enjoying life to the fullest.

Of course, we all never lived life like that in the first place, but still, you weren't suppose to die at age 36, Randy Stewart.  I watched you wither away and die a slow and agonizing death my friend. All in the course of our 36th year on this planet, in this lifetime. I watched your youthful beauty be eaten away by disease until there was only a shell of my beloved friend left.

It still hurts sometimes Randy, that memory, of you, of death, of pending death. Of the agony, both physical and emotional. I still miss your sweet and gentle energy.

Don't die Jay. I order you to not be sick. It would suck to have to wait however many lifetimes again to reconnect. It would really suck my friend. Really, really suck.

The end

Tonight was the last episode of Queer as Folk forever. I am melancholy this evening.

I am a 51 year old queer person. I have been out since I was 19 years old. That's 32 years of living in a straight man's world as a queer person. I have known there was a name they gave people like me since I was 12. Interestingly enough, the first name I was ever called by a homophobe was "queer" when I was 12 years old.

I won't bore you with the gory details of the abuse I and most other queers have suffered at the homophobic hands of our culture. This is not about the specifics of abuse, this is about survival... it's about the human spirit, that against all odds, rises up and overcomes. This is about affirmation of us queers as folk.

What Queer as Folk did for me and countless other queer folk is to affirm that we are real people with real lives. Never before had queer life been depicted with so much honesty. In some cases bold, raw honesty. Those characters were us, our friends, our lovers, our families. It was fiction, yet it was close enough to the truth that it was as close as anyone of us has ever come to seeing our own real lives portrayed on TV.

Every week our fictionalized "friends" came into our homes and made us laugh, cry and think as we watched the ongoing saga of their lives. Our lives. Any town USA queer lives.

And that has meant the world to many of us queer folk. A show on TV that was really about our real lives, about us and how we live, in all our diversity.

Now it is gone, except on DVD and in our collective memories. Nothing can replace the loss of our friends on QAF.  Brian, Michael, Justin, Emmitt, Ted, Mel, Lindsey, Ben, Deb and Hunter, their characters frozen forever with the last show tonight.  We won't see them continue to grow, or develope. They will never grow old, which is something I personally would have liked to have seen.

So many of my friends are dead. They died in their relative youths. In their 20's, 30's and 40's of AIDS related diseases. They are also frozen forever in time in my mind. Never to grow old, never to know joy, or pain or any other human experience again. They were queer folk, just like me, just like the many queer characters on QAF.

I went on without them. I have gone on, growing and changing and losing that one thing they never had the opportunity to lose, their youth. I would like to have seen Michael and Brian growing old, losing their youthful beauty, learning to survive in a world that is also ageist too. But no television show lasts that long. Life however does.

And so I sit here reflecting. Wishing that my "friends" could go on forever, unlike my real friends who did not.

Life. Queer life. We go on.... even after our friends are gone. Against all odds, against a hateful culture. We go on. Us queers, us folk, we survive.

Ok, I haven't posted since my birthday and so I think I need to report all the cool things Sue did for me and got me on my birthday. 

First, she got me this cool dragon fluted cup. It's kind of pinkish with a kind of blue dragon on it. Kaitlyn got me a red dragon cause, well, she likes red. I also got the 6 pack of socks I requested (as you can see, I am not very good at giving people ideas for birthday presents). I also got the SIMS 2 (we immediately went out and got the college expansion pack so that Sue can play too).

But the best and coolest thing was this demim shirt with Ozark Lock and Key embroidered on the back with a Schlage Sc1 key in the middle. It's so cool I have worn it nearly every day since I got it despite the heat.

I think today is the first day I actually haven't worn it.

I know I already thanked you honey, but thanks again anyway. You made my birthday pretty cool despite all the shit that went down with work that day.

I love you baby........ and yes, you were the cutest paper boy ever today honey <smoochin ya>. I'm off to bed now.

Well, hello there friends and neighbors. I am waiting for something to get out of the washer so that I can throw it in the dryer and then go to bed. Does that sound sexy or what? You know, in many ways I am glad that nothing seems sexy to me anymore. I don't waste any energy thinking about sex or if something or someone is sexy. Think of all the spare energy I have to do other things now. Like bake cookies. Which I have in fact been doing a lot of recently.

Anyway, remember Eureka Kids, our youth program here in town? Of course you do. Eureka Kids lives in the community building in Harmon Park. Harmon Park is administered by Parks and Recreation, a governing commission of the City of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Harmon Park actually is owned by some group started by a guy named Harmon a really long time ago. They allow the City of Eureka Springs Arkansas to use it as long as it is used as a place that serves the recreational needs of children. Or something to that effect anyway.

So the community building is this old double wide sitting on a concrete basement. It's in sore need of repairs, major repairs.

Every year the city gets state money for upkeep and repairs on it's community building. For several years now that money has not been given to Parks to make needed repairs. I am not sure why, it just hasn't. At any rate, the city requested a list of needed repairs and upgrades from Parks stating they would pay up to $20,000 for the needed repairs and upgrades. So Parks goes to the current tenant (Eureka Kids, follow along here now) and asks for a list of things that need repairing and upgrading. Barb, the director of Eureka Kids gives them an itemized list. The Parks Commission approves it at their last meeting.

Fast forward to Monday night's Parks commission meeting. Suddenly the director of Parks (a fellow in a paid position, just for the record) decides he wants that list reviewed, he's not sure everything is necessary that's on the list. He chose to do this while Barb is off in Washington DC meeting with the likes of Hiliary Clinton to discuss youth funding and after school programs.

So then yesterday Kaye Millier starts a thread on Geekfest about that particular meeting (which of course as a board member I had to attend).  Here's the thread: http://www.geekfest.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/009286.html 

Now here's the deal.... there's a lot of good old fashion Eureka Springs style political bullshit going on right about around this whole repairs issue. There is a whole fucking hell of a lot of bullshit. It's so deep that I am past my waders deep in it right now.

I am not going to tell the whole story, that would take too long and would only send my blood pressure up higher than it already is at the moment. What I want to do is post here what I cannot post on the thread. I cannot post it because of my position as a board member, but just in case Bruce Levine should for some unknown reason read my blog, I want him to know I know what he is doing, how it's connected and to whom it's connected. And I am just a lowly little board member, imagine who else knows all this shit too. You best watch who you are politically bed hopping with Brucie boy.

But I digress, here's the post I cannot post:

 

I hope everyone who saw the televised meeting understands that the money that the city has to make the needed repairs to the community building is money that the state gave the city for their community building upkeep and repairs. It is money specifically designated by the state for community building repairs and upkeep. It cannot legally be used for any other function other than community building repairs and upkeep. Period. They have been sitting on it for some time now and were prepared to release it for these repairs once Parks submitted a request. Parks approved a list of requested repairs at the last commission meeting.   Suddenly, two commission members and Bruce Levine have decided those repairs and improvements are not needed. And it appears it is because they do not believe the current tenant of the community building should be making the list of  those needed repairs, even though they requested that list of the current tenant.

In fact, they have spent $400 (don't know where that money came from, hope it was Bruce's own wallet) for a legal opinion in some twisted attempt in what appears to be a way to figure out how to remove what they see as their main obstical to getting control of the money for those repairs. The sad part is that they already do have control of that money and it was they who requested a list of needed repairs and upgrades from the current tenant. I'm scratching my head on this one.  

This Parks meeting you observed on TV effectively pulled back the list for needed repairs and bringing the building up to ADA requirements and put them all on hold until the commission was through with their workshop to decide what repairs they believe are necessary. They (they would be Bruce Levine, Joel Taylor and Haley Tomlinson) believe that they need to reassess the list for repairs to the building. No one else believes that, but the above mentioned commissioners and Bruce Levine do. Everyone else sees it as a direct attack on Eureka Kids. Which amazingly, they chose to pull off while Barb was in Washington DC meeting with and speaking to Senators (Hiliary Clinton among them) and Congressmen.

Mr. Cris Dunnam attempted to answer all their questions to the best of his ability as Chairman of the Board of Eureka Kids. But he is not Barb and he does not handle the day to day operations of Eureka Kids. Barb would have been the person to ask those kinds of questions of. But amazingly, she was in DC meeting with our governmental representatives about youth programs. Amazing that the agenda was set up to discuss all this while the one person who could have answered all questions was going to be out of town. I am sure they (see list of above commissioners and Bruce Levine) feel it was a stunning piece of political cunning on their part. From the smirk on Bruce's face I would say at least he felt this way.  

I believe it was Mr. Taylor who made the statement that he never sees more than one or two kids there when he is at Eureka Kids. That's funny Mr. Taylor, I see tons of kids when I am there. Of all ages too. From 17 year olds all the way down to 5 year olds. I don't know about you Mr. Taylor, but I enjoy spending time with the teenagers, talking with them and watching them interact and mentor the younger children. It actually does my heart good to see all this. It also does my heart good to see Shalom out there with the kids, talking with them and watching them play.  My guess is that Mr. Taylor is seldom at Eureka Kids during it's hours of operation. My guess is that he has never spent any time there during the summer program.

My guess is that Mr. Taylor is sadly out of touch with the actually usage of any of Parks run facilities other than what is told to him by Bruce Levine. If he had a job and did something for a living that occupied his time he would have an excuse for being out of touch with reality. But he has all the time in the world to learn first hand what goes on at all of the Parks run facilities. Your ignorance and total lack of a grasp on what really is happening at Eureka Kids is showing Mr. Taylor. Your total lack of care or concern for the children of this community is sadly apparent.  

And Ms. Haley Tomlinson? Eureka Kids is not a day care center. They do not babysit children. It is a youth program, for children ranging in age from 5 to 17. I dare say a 14 year old boy would appreciate your insinuation that he is in a day care center being babysat. All you have done is prove the extent of your ignorance and your prejudice against the children of our community. Your complete lack of understanding of what youth programing is and does for a community was astonishing.  

Oh and btw MJ, a board of directors does not run the day to day operations of any given 501c3. Or even a church. They either hire a director (or pastor) to run the day to day operations or find a volunteer to head it and that person reports back to them how the program (or church) is going and makes needed budget requests. Period.  Find me one that does run the day to day operations of the 501c3 they sit on the board of and I will give you credit for attacking Cris Dunnam as he was leaving the Parks meeting. I am not sure what your "agenda" is/was, but other than attempting to harm Eureka Kids or make it's board and director look like fools, but what you did served no purpose to further the needs of the children of this community being met. Perhaps your ignorance of how a 501c3 operates needs to be educated as to the actual facts of the way a 501c3 is required to legally operate.

Or perhaps you are yet just another one of the multitude of citizens in this community who don't give a damn about the children of this community and you are willing to sacrifice Eureka Kids out of god knows what coming from your head and heart.  So yeah, go ahead and write you flaming story on how stupid Cris Dunnam is and misquote him to death. Have fun with your yellow journalism.  

 

Ok, so that was it, I got that off my chest now. I feel so much better. NOT!   All I can do is send this shit they are spewing at Barb and Eureka Kids back in their faces. So that's what I am doing. In the name of Eureka Kids, I refuse their attacks and send them back on their own heads.   There we go, now I feel a little better.  

While I ponder weak and weary

This is my brain. This is my brain on tomes. (grin)

Does that constitute a paragraph? No? Ok, let me try this then:

Tomes at the drop of a hat my ass! That requires time and energy. Most of which I lack 90% of the time. Often I am able to squirt out volumnous drivel, but tomes implies substance (at least in my mind anyway). True substance is something I desparately lack most of the time.

To me tomes implies that I have taken the time to actually think a thought through from beginning to end and then was able to place that in written form for the world to see (or not). I dare say I have that ability in me anymore. When you don't use something, it withers and dies. My ability to put pen to page and create a logical epic has long since passed me by.

That isn't anything a quick English 101 refresher course couldn't fix in a semester or two. Unfortunately for me at this exact moment, that ain't gonna happen. So until then, I shall continue to write drivel. Until the day I have the time and energy to go back and relearn the English language once again.

Tomes, ha! It's more like tombs.

Caio baby!

This is going to be a mighty quick post. I am in enormous pain in my back right now (same problem I always have, it just has been hurting like a futher mucker lately).

I really have nothing to say tonight. I kind of vegged all day at work. What little of it I had. I think what I need right now is to go check the moon phases for tonight and then go to bed.

Btw, we had one baby goat born today. A little girl. She is all sweet and cute and as adorable as all get out.

That's my day.

 

A hermit in his hermitage

I have the song Let's Go Fly a Kite by Richard and Robert Sherman from the Disney film score of Mary Poppins stuck in my head right now. I haven't got a clue as to why either. I just suddenly became very aware that my inner dialog was actually singing Let's Go Fly a Kite, rather than talking with its self. Maybe I am trying to tell myself something. Or maybe I have a synaptic leak that allowed that to ooze out of the recesses of my subconscious mind. Who the fuck knows.

Tomorrow I will be spending my work day alone. Bill is off to have some tests run at the doctor's. I actually am kind of looking forward to spending the day alone. Not that I don't like spending the day with Bill, it's just, well, rather than Bill actually annoying me, it's more the other way around. I actually annoy him with my incessant chatter about life in general and the ills of the world from my perspective.

Bill is like this living sounding board for me. I bounce ideas off him. If we were married I would drive him insane I know. I have far to many esoteric off the wall thoughts and way out there, creative ideas for him to handle in a 4 to 6 hour work day. More than anything, I bore him to tears.

So getting to be alone tomorrow I will have the opportunity to be alone with my own thoughts. Which is actually a rather pleasant experience on occassion. Part of the reason I enjoy blogging is because I get that alone time with my thoughts. The only real problem I have with blogging at this time of night (which really is the only time I truly have alone) is that I am usually exhausted by the time I sit down and attempt to collect my thoughts.

The problem with being alone tomorrow while I am out working is that eventually ideas and thoughts will come to me that I would probably like to put down on paper. Unfortunately, I will be driving or working on a lock or something and I will have to live with making mental notes to write about it when I have some alone time in front of this computer.

When I lived in LA I would carry a pad and pen with me in the car and jot notes as I drove in rush hour traffic. For those who have not experienced LA rush hour traffic, you are probably agast with horror. However, for those of you who have driven in LA's rush hour traffic you know that you could actually prepare a 9 course dinner and actually serve it while driving to or from work. Creeping along at 5 to 10 miles an hour gives one plenty of time to actually jot down thoughts.

I actually wrote an entire poem (one of my better ones in my opinion) while driving from Studio City to Ventura one stormy winter's evening. Here in the Ozark Mountains, it's pretty difficult to attempt to write even a phone number down while driving.

So tomorrow I shall most likely come home with a thousand mental notes. Very few will ever see the page. My thoughts are like that one lonely sperm that finally makes it to the egg after beating out 10 million other sperm rushing toward the same destination. One out of 10 million will finally hit pay dirt. I can almost guarantee you that it won't be the one I think the most poignant. But it will suffice because, well, because I have no other choice in the matter.

Picture this: Someday, in the not too terribly distant future, on an empty and stark white beach, crystal pure sand wrapping warmth around my toes, I sit. The sea an emerald blue, transparent gem, glissening off into the horizon's end. The sky a robin's egg, sailing endlessly through lofty cummulous circus animals. With pen in hand (ok it will probably be a laptop, but who's counting?) creativity flowing from my finger tips, I write (or paint or compose, or whatever).

It's a dream, we all need a dream. That's mine. Time, solitude, health is good, I'll take health at this point too, a dream. Alone, a hermit in his hermitage. A monk in his tower. Alone with nothing but time to just be in the moment. To reach out (or in) to the infinate.

Sounds like heaven to me.

 

 

A day that will live in infamy

As usual it's late and I am tired. I finally finished my email and after chasing after Disney World vacation packages online, I now am ready to write.

I made this deal with my friend Cheri White 2 days ago. It goes something like this: I will write everyday if she will. She wants and needs to write, so here's her opportunity. I will ride her ass and she mine. So ok Cheri, here's the beginning of my part of the deal. I shall be awaiting yours.

Cheri's part of the deal was that we were to write at least one paragraph a day. I had to laugh. As you all know, I am incapable of writing anything less than a doctoral dissertation in one sitting. If she bothers to read my blog she will learn this quickly. Another thing she will learn is that I am incapable of ending a sentance in anything less than a preposition, cause that's where I'm at. (I had to add that last part so that I could end the sentance in a preposition) If she reads far enough back she will discover that I am also a very bad poet. It also won't take her long to figure out that I have no concept of proper sentance structure. She'll also note my hideous spelling, gramatical errors, punctuation and of course the proverbial typos that I never double check for. (see that was a hard one getting the preposition at the end of that sentance, but I managed, it just takes a little work sometimes)

In other news, I think Jesse the goat is going to give birth any day now. Y'all may recall that we named all the goats after a Toy Story theme (Buzz is the proud father, he was brought in to replace Woody who was killed by a pack of dogs). Well, everyone except Wanda who was named after a Fairy Odd Parents theme. I'll keep you posted as to when and how many Jesse drops when she gives birth.

Alrighty (which, btw, is not really a word) then, my paragraph is written and it's time for me to toddle off to bed after the nightly brushing of the teeth and emptying of the bladder rituals (not necessarily conducted at the same time, but yes, they do occur in the same room, albeit in different locations.. at, is, to, from, it... see how easy it is? Two for the price of one there! I am so on a roll now <grin>).

P.S.

I am sorry Ky that I am not a good bad punster. I so want to make bad puns for you, but none will come out of my head. It's as they don't exist in me anymore. It's as if my Groan-O-Meter is broken. Do know, however, that I think of you and bad punning often. I think the problem is that I became obsessed with double ententres' of a sexual nature at some point in my career and lost the more innocent sport of the bad pun. Perhaps the problem is that I need Viagra for Puns. Then every once in a while I can get one up for you. I shall work on it diligently O' Majestic Mistress o' the Bay.

This will suprize you. I haven't had a damn thing to say that I felt was worth the time to put down here in my blog. I spend a lot of time playing with numbers. I spend far too much time on my financial investments. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Normally I would think this is wasted time, but lately my opinion on this subject has changed.

Seriously, you know what I have been thinking about a lot lately? Let me preferance this by asking you this question: If you won several million dollars in the lottery, what would you do with all that money?

Now you know where I am going here.

It's amazing how priorities change as you evolve as a person. When I was a teenager, my fantasies about wealth generally were about buying what I considered all the trappings of wealth. Yachts, fast, expensive European sports cars, mansions in the hills, on the beach, my own private island, Lear jets, you get the picture.

As a young adult, my fantasies hadn't changed much. It was still all about material trappings. In my 30s I began to see the need to take care of my immediate family too. So I was willing to share a piece of my wealth pie with them.  By the time I hit my 40s, the desire to own expensive items had diminished almost completely. My wealth fantasies became all about taking care of my family and friends so that I and they were set for life and were monetarily stress free.

By the time I hit my late 40s, the only thing I cared about was being debt free and having the ability to help others when I could.

Now I am sitting here, nearing 51 years old and all I care about is helping others as much as I can. I still want to be debt free and I do want to make sure my friends and family are cared for so that their struggles are about personal growth and not totally about external survival. But by and large, I want to give wealth away to those who need it most.

I recall a rich man saying to me once that he wanted to give his money to organizations that helped people better themselves. I didn't think much of it at the time. He wasn't into just giving people money just because they needed to save their home or whatever. He was into giving his money to things that taught people how to fish so to speak.

That is such Republican thinking. Most Republican thinking is the antithesis of what I think and feel. But when you think about it long and hard enough, the teaching people to fish isn't such a bad thing.

We have a youth organization of which I am a board member of here in Eureka that is sort of like that old proverb. It exists to teach kids how to fish. It's all about teaching kids responsibility. For themselves, for each other, for their community. It's about teaching them that they are valued and valuable assets, to themselves, to others around them and to their community. It's abut teaching the self respect and high self esteem. It's about helping to develop well rounded individuals who believe in themselves.

Our youth organization is something I give my money to, what little of it I have to give at the moment.  Were I wealthy, I would give at the same rate I give now, the difference is, my contribution would be considerably more and would solve all their financial problems about keeping their doors open and serving the kids in our community.

Once, I would like to attend a board meeting where we are not stressing over how to pay the light bill. Just once I want to go to a board meeting and the topic of discussion is how the construction of the new youth center building is coming along. I would like to go to a board meeting where we are discussing how many new employees we need to hire this year and not how many months it has been that our Director has gone with out a pay check and has run the organization alone because there is no money to pay for staff.

Eureka Kids is one reason I look so long and hard at numbers late into the night. Every night I try to figure out how and when I will be able to help them out of the financial pit they are always in. I am tired of fundraiser after fundraiser that barely nets enough cash to keep the lights on or the phone bill or the food bill, or the water bill or any number of items that must be paid regularly to keep the doors open.

And all we want to do is teach kids how to fish. All we want to do is help mold people who can stand tall and proud and face the world head on and not have to resort to drugs, alcohol or any other form of escapism to face it.  Is that so much to ask? To get these kids off the street and offer them something constructive, fun and educational to do with their afternoons and summer vacation? I don't think it's too much. I wish there had been something like this where I lived growing up.

So that's what my wealth fantasies are about now. How can I help? How can I make a positive difference in someone else's life? How can I pay it forward today?

I don't want for much anymore. A roof over my head, reliable transportation, a kick ass computer system (ok, there's my one major indulgence). What I need is what I already have. Self love, self esteem, a loving family, dear and cherished friends. Everything else just seems to fall into place now. Roof over my head and all.

Oh and the fast Eurepean sports car? I want a Suburu Outback or Forester. How much more boring can you get?

I don't usually post many links here, but I had a friend send me this site in an email tonight. I didn't go past the second page, but I thought I would share it with my friends who enjoy odd and slightly different things. Apparently these people are from a couple of Scandinavian countries. That explains missing prepositions and even the awkward site name. I am sure they thought in their not so great English way that they were being clever. It's all in your perspective.

Enjoy!

Fuck for forest

I live in a small town out in the middle of no where. This is no suprise to those who know me and have visited Sue and I (or in the case of you who have actually spent a great deal of time here with us'ns). Y'all know how small and isolated we are out here in the middle of BF Egypt.

I also own my own business. I am the town's locksmith. I am the watch dog of people's security around here. People look to me to care for their possessions by installing, upgrading and maintaining their locks. I have to present a certain image of honesty and  integrity. My clients who know me well know I am beyond honest (to my own detriment in business) and my integrity is beyond question with them. Those people don't care what I look like. They have known me forever, they are used to my quirky short hair cuts and my rather masculine appearence. They just accept me for who I am, knowing I will always do my utmost to maintain their security at a reasonable price.  

It's all those old people who live out on Holiday Island and new comers in and around town who don't know me who might be taken aback should I get much quirkier than I already am.  I have to maintain a certain sense of decorum in my physical presence. What that translates out to is, I can't really be the real me.

The real me is a smart ass who likes to make amusing observational remarks. I can't do that around my customers. I have to just smile and tell them their African Violet collection is very beautiful.

I made the decision the other day that I was going to attempt to retire in a couple of years. Somehow making that decision to retire rfeed something up inside me. It's like this weight on my shoulders is begining to lift slightly.

Yesterday I found myself making honest wise ass jokes in front of a customer. Now I know this customer pretty well. Not in the sense that we actually might go out for coffee and crossants, but well enough that we can make idle chit chat with each other. I found my idle chit chat losing a bit with him yesterday. I found myself playing along with his joking around. Usually I just smile or chuckle appropriately when a customer makes a joke. I never drop the professional decorum and let my real self out.

Yesterday I found myself cracking jokes right back at Rich. We had a pretty good time making jokes about the place he just bought and was having rekeyed. I know the locks in his new resort very well. I know his new property's locks well enough to know that a large chunk of them are near death. I found myself telling him that 2 of his cabin units had locks on them that were dying a slow and painful death. Usually I would not put it that way with a customer. I would tell them that their locks will need replacing soon as they are in very poor shape. Instead I told him they were in worse shape than the Pope. He laughed, I laughed.

I realised that I was letting go in a way. Letting go of "professional" J. Letting go of a persona I had to create many years ago in order to make the needed money to survive in this culture. The truth is, "Professional" J has been dying a slow and painful death for the last 13 years. Ever since I first moved here to BF Egypt.

I am not sure if I ever really liked Professonal J all that much. Other people seemed to liek Professional J, but for me, Professional J was such a narrow aspect of me that I felt confined in many ways by Professional J.

It's not like when I do finally retire that Professional J will actually die. Professonal J will still have to be around to handle business transactions like purchasing property and handling other grown up stuff related to money.

So the real J, who has been stuffed down inside only to come out on rare occassions, is going to be coming out more often. Real J slipped out a little yesterday.  I have a feeling that as time goes by, Real J is going to slip out more and more. I am not sure how that is going to feel or look like yet. I'll keep you posted.

Patty Potpie and I don't care

Several days ago I had this burst of a memory thread pop into my head. I am not sure how I got drawn into that thread of memory, I just know I was suddenly thinking about Brother and Sister Mann and their two very ugly children.

For those of you not raised in fundamentalist christianity, you need to know that grown ups never have first names. They are either Brother or Sister so and so. And you address them accordingly. My mother was Sister McDonald. If someone from church saw me in the store alone, they would generally ask after my mother. No one would ever say "How is your mom?" No, they would say "How's is Sister McDonald?"  Get it?

Anyway, Brother and Sister Mann were severely unattractive people. There was nothing in the least bit attractive about either of them. Their two daughters were equally endowed with ugliness. The sad part about the Mann family is, they were also stupid. It's one thing to be homely and smart and quite another to be butt ugly and dumb as a rock.

My train of thought however did not dwell long on Brother and Sister Mann and their two daughters. No, it veered off in to memories of Sister Mann's father. Now Sister Mann's father was this old crotchety bugger (with a slight twinge of Alzheimer's) who had been given the title of Deacon in the church (mostly I think so that he would have some sense of worth and usefulness in his old age). For the life of me I can't remember his name, Brother Somethingorother I am sure. The reason I can't remember his real name is because us kids bestowed upon him a nickname that stuck forever with us.

The way he came upon this nickname went something like this:

I was studying human anatomy in art (on my own volition I might add, there was no class like that in my high school) and I had this really cool text book that had a whole section with Michaelangelo and Da Vinci's human body sketches. I loved that section, it was my favorite. There was this one whole page devoted just to Da Vinci's study in grotesque faces. In fact it was entitled "Grotesque Faces" in Da Vinci's own hand writing (only in Italian of course). The first time I saw that page I looked at this one face and exclaimed to myself "OMG! It's Brother Somethingorother!"

Well, of course I had to take that to church to show Patty Pipkin, my best friend and Pam Whittinghill my other best friend (but not nearly as best as Patty).

I showed them Grotesque Faces and said "Does that not look like Brother Somethingorother?" They of course screeched "YES!!!!!!" and proceed to fall over laughing their asses off.  From that point on he became simply known as Grotesque Faces.

OMG! You are not going to believe this! I had to go pee just now and as I was sitting on the throne it came to me, his name was Brother Ellis.

At any rate, all us kids hated Brother Ellis.  Brother Ellis's important job at church was to make sure all the doors were shut properly (and locked after church of course) and the a/c or heater was set at the right setting for services. He was also in charge of making sure we juvenile delinquents were not fucking around outside the church building during services.

When we were still in junior high school, he used to be able to catch us being in the wrong, or not being in the right place, depending on where we should have been at the moment. We despised him. He was not kind to us and came close, often, to grabbing our ears and taking us to our parents (he did grab male children by the ear btw, I watched him do it to Steve Herrman one day while Steve was blazing on acid).

By high school we had wised up. No one ever checked the alley behind and down several houses from the church, nor did they ever bother to check Aqueduct Street just a short block down Rayen from Haskell where the church was (and still is) located.  We found we could smoke Marbies (better known as "Cows") to our hearts content without being busted. (in typical teen age code, a pack of 20 Marlboros was referred to as a "herd of cows". We would "burn cows" while keeping watch for Grotesque Faces).

Brother Ellis never found us at either location. Once though, one of our parents found us in the alley. Thank god we weren't burning cows at that particular moment.

While I was having this "flash back" about Brother "Grotesque Faces" Ellis I was thinking to myself that if I don't get this memory written down, it might just actually fade into the recesses of my memory again forever.

Several days have elapsed since the poignancy of writing down the Grotesque Faces story hit me. I am not sure why I feel this lonesome sadness in my heart as I remember these days of my youth.

These were not particularly happy days in my life (who's teen years are ever truly "happy"?). But the memories I have of Patty Pipkin, Pam and Diane Whittinghill, Lura Bennett and Sue and Debbie Winchester are always golden in my mind.

We all had so much fun together, that gang of ours. The 7 of us were hell to pay when we were all together. We laughed so hard at things and pulled so many fucked up funny pranks on other people and even ourselves. It's probably the only thing, other than my youthful strength and health, that I actually miss from my misspent youth.

I miss Patty the most. The last time I saw her we were around 26 years old. Right after Debbie (Winchester) and I got together, her mother (the ever lovely Sister Carol Pipkin) refused to let me know how to get in touch with Patty siting my relationship with Debbie as a valid reason. Even my own mother to this day won't give me information on how to get in touch with Patty. I haven't tried asking Carol in 15 years, it hurt too much the last time.

See, Patty was my first real love. Now I had had several "crushes" on other girls, but Patty became my world, my life, my everything at age 16.  We were "best friends". We spent every moment we could spare with each other. And when we weren't together, we were busy writing witty notes to each other all week long which we saved up and put in small amusingly decorated paper bags and gave to each other at Friday night church services. We then spend that entire service reading the notes we had written all week long to each other.

I loved Patty, probably because she was one of the only people who ever actually "got" my droll sense of humor. We got to the point in our relationship where we didn't have to even talk anymore. Someone would walk by us and we would take one minor glance at one another and bust a gut laughing.  Simply because we knew what the other one was thinking about what had just walked by us.

Patty was witty, clever, extremely talented and had an incalculable IQ. She became the Valedictorian of her senior class and graduated at 16 having skipped a grade or two. Patty was actually 6 months younger than I was and still graduated a year ahead of me. Patty was actually off having a lovely time at Pepperdine when I graduated 300 and something out of my class of 700 and something.  I never understood why she was my friend. I actually couldn't understand what it was she saw in me.

So I asked her one day, "what was it she saw in me that made her want to be my friend"? She just looked at me and said "Because you make me laugh".  At 16, I didn't understand the importance of laughter in a relationship. Now I do, but back then it was beyond me.  The funny thing was, aside from her other outstanding qualities, the real reason I loved Patty was because she laughed at my jokes.

Patty also attributed me with greater talent than her, but that simply was not true. I could sing better than her, but then I could sing better than almost anyone when I was young. Patty on the other could do something that very few people can do. She could listen to a musical piece and recreate it verbatim on almost any musical instrument without benefit of a score in front of her.

It had been requested of me to sing Morning Has Broken (the Cat Steven's version) for my high school graduation. It had just been released maybe 2 weeks before my graduation and there was no sheet music available for it yet. There wasn't even a record (yes they still only had records back then boys and girls) out yet. They were just playing it on the radio at that point in time.

So I recorded it off the radio on my nifty little Sony cassette recorder and high tailed it over to Patty's house (a mere 25 miles away) and we sat down and listened to it together while sitting at her piano.

Patty listened to it one time and then began to play. It was amazing to watch her effortlessly pick those notes off without a mistake. I was simply dumbstruck. Now I had watched Patty transpose from one key to another many times before, but I had never witnessed anything like this before in my life (and frankly I never have again and I have been around some pretty awesome musicians in my day). I was absolutely in total awe of her ability.

She then sat there and corded the song out for me for guitar. When we discovered I couldn't play in the key CatSteven's had recorded the song in, she simply transposed it into a key I knew well enough to play in and then taught me how to kaypo up at the key change on the last verse (I was a piss poor instrumentalist and musician to be sure, I still am).

Patty simply amazed me period. She spoke French and then eventually, after a year or so in college, German, fluently. She was (and I am sure still is) brilliant. Patty had her Ph.D. by the time she was 24. At 24 I was still struggling to get an AA degree. But then school wasn't my life. At that time sex, drugs and rock n roll were my life.

I miss her.

I miss laughing like that with someone.

I miss having someone who understands me inside and out.

I miss being so innocent and uncomplicated that someone else can understand me inside and out.

I miss having brilliant esoteric conversations with late into the night with her.

I miss Pam and Diane. I miss Lura.

And I miss Debbie and Sue, both of them dead, both of them important parts of my life for many years long after we were all grown ups.

I miss Debbie because there was a spirit to our relationship that I don't think I will ever experience again with another person. We were a team, we worked well together, hand in hand we built an empire that I believe would have known no end had she not gotten sick.

I miss Sue because despite her insanity, she was often the voice of reason and sanity when everyone else around her couldn't see the forest for the trees.

I miss pure unfettered joy and laughter so hard that you cry from you sides aching so hard. I miss having lungs that allow you to laugh like that.

I miss my little brother who became an asshole when he decided he was a grown up "man".  I miss the love and friendship we once shared.

I miss you Phil Carmen, where are you?

I miss Suzanne Rush and Gina Nicoletti. I miss the truly innocent beings we really were, despite what we thought we were. We really weren't the bad asses we pretended to be my friends.

I miss themall, even as I miss innocent joy and laughter. And love, real love, unconditional love. The kind of love only a real friend can give you.

Don't get me wrong, I am not lonely, or even melancholy, I just miss the friends of my youth sometimes. I especially miss Patty and wish with all my being that we could reconnect someday.

And Brother Grotesque Faces?  He is long dead. Gone to dust. Just like the models of Da Vinci's original Grotesque Faces. They, captured for immortality by Da Vinci's hand. Brother Ellis, etched into my brain until the day it stops functioning. There as a reminder of my youth. Grotesque Faces.

I'm still looking for you Patty. I haven't given up. Maybe one day our ancient, fearfilled mothers will decide to let the secret go as to our where abouts with one another and we can at least tell one another what a great time we had being best friends when we were still kids.

I can tell you what a dear and tender memory our friendship is to me still. And thank you for laughing at Grotesque Faces.  You will never know how many times your laughter validated me in a day and age where I had very little of that from outside or within. Thank you for having been my very best friend.

Thank you for being Patty Potpie Nikpip. I understand that Brother and Sister Hguanavac are dead now too <grin>.

It's where America shops!

Sears that is..... NOT!  Since that oh so clever piece of 5th Avenus tripe was shoveled down our throats in bad advertisements back in the 80's, Walmart has far surpassed Sears as the place America shops. Not that shopping at Walmart is any better, but I thought I would point that out.

Back in my late teens, I applied for a Sears credit card. They turned me down siting my lack of credit. At the time I thought to my self that this was some kind of Catch 22 statement. You have to have credit to get credit. Right, just like you have to be working at a studio to be allowed to join the union and you have to be a member of the union to work at the studio first. Get it? I sure did. It was Sears (and Warner Brothers or 20th Century Fox or Universal's) way of saying "fuck you".

I swore back at the tender age of 19 to never set foot in a Sears again, nor buy another product they peddled.  I did pretty good with that promise to myself for close to 25 years. Then we moved to Florida.

Sue's dad Marty had a Sears credit card (who of that generation did not?). He instructed us to march straight down to the local Sears in Lake County and buy us some appliances for our new home. We did so dutifully.

We came home (well, actually they delivered it) with a fridge, stove, dish washer and a washer and dryer. The fridge didn't fit properly in the kitchen, so it went back and credit was issued. I took that opportunity to go to Lowes and buy a different fridge. The fridge has worked fine since the day it was purchased over 5 years ago. (as a side note here, the dish washer also broke down the first few months we owned it, it however remained with the house in Florida along with the stove when we sold it.

The washer and dryer are another story. The washer broke down constantly, almost since the day it arrived. The dryer followed suit a few months later. Both of them probably broke down collectively over 15 times. Sears finally replaced the dryer 2 years ago. The washer is another story.

We paid about $1500 for the washer and dryer. Over the ensuing 5 years, we paid close to $1000 in service contracts with Sears.  Our washer died a final, slow and painful death sometime in December of 03. Sears refused to repair or replace it as we had let the service contract lapse a few weeks before.

Now Sears believes they are within their legal rights to fuck us over that way. And frankly, they are technically within their legal rights to say "fuck you" to us. But from our perspective they sold us a pile of shit that constantly broke down. They should have replaced it 5 service trips back. It would have been the moral and ethical thing to do. But they didn't, they chose to take another road.

Our service contract renewal was almost $300. I refused to pay them one more dime for anything, let alone this contract. Not to mention we didn't have a spare $300 for a service contract for a washer that had broken down 8 times in 3 years.

Sue got her tax refund a week or so ago. She said "Let's go buy a new washer and dryer with it." I said "Hell yeah!"

So we loaded up the truck and we drove to Rogers, (Lowes that is, Bentonville, Walmart Corporate). Well, the next thing you know the washer we had picked out the week before on sale was no longer on sale (nor was the dryer). So we ended up getting just the washing machine. I need to note here that the dryer that Sears had given us to replace the pile of shit we bought originally in Florida had broken down on us 6 months after they delivered it and took the other pile of shit dryer away. That was why we thought we needed a new dryer.

Turns out we didn't need a new dryer after all. Barb Dunham swore to Sue on pain of death that we could probably repair the old/new dryer. She even gave us instructions on how to do so. Sue and I attempted to repair it and couldn't even get the back panel off let alone repair it. So Barb said she'd come over and fix it on Sunday. A miracle occured when Sue went to show Barb what the dryer was/or wasn't doing. The damn thing came on and stayed on and works now. We must have banged on the right thing when attempting to get the back off Thursday night. Who the hell knows or cares, I just know I have a washer and dryer now and I am fucking thrilled beyond words.

But I digress, sort of. I so hate Sears now that I am at a point where I actually have a vendetta against them. I not only have renewed my vow of 31 years ago, I also am going to figure out how to sue them if it takes every last breath in my body to do so.

I made the Lowes delivery guys put the crappy broken Sears washer on the side of the garage. They were supposed to take the broken one away, it was part of the delivery deal. But I wanted the evidence of Sears foul play to still exist until such time as I could sic lawyers on them.

Ok, this had an epilog when I first puiblished it last night. Now it no longer exsists. I'll paraphrase what I recall writing for your sake. It went something like this:

So that's the Sears story Ky. I wish for Sears that they go the way of Woolworths. Knowing the greed and lust for global domination of Walmart executives, they will eventually. I have no fear of that. They are next year's Kmart reorganization waiting to happen.  I wish for Sears nothing less than what they did to me.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

I have about 45 minutes before I have to take off out of here for a board meeting at Eureka Kids. I thought I would stop in here for just a moment or two and blow smoke up everyone's butt with my ramblings. Aren't you lucky?

I wanted to talk a moment about this stupid rooster that (at the moment) we have. There was this incredibly high wind that came along the other night and blew down one wall of my make shift chicken coop. Amazingly only a small handful of the chickens decided to make a break for it. We managed to recapture everyone of them except for the rooster. He has eluded capture for 3 days now. How he is alive still, I do not know.

We have a large selection of preditors that like to shop in our neighborhood for fresh meat. Chicken meat is considered a delicacy to them. I am waiting with bated breath for the squawk that ends it all for Angel (K named him, not me).  It's interesting that he will hang out near the coop (I am sure he's wishing he could get back in there with the hens) but he runs off in the woods when we try to hurd him back in the coop.  

I can see him right now even as we speak, pecking away at some unseen insect on the ground, acting as if he hasn't a care in the world. He can survive the cats and racoons, even the possums around here, but it will only be a matter of time before a bobcat or the coyotes come and get him.

On a happy note, we finally have a new washing machine. I think I am personally going to take the old washing machine and shove it up Sears' ass. It's almost a foreign feeling to be able to do laundry at our leisure. I am washing throw rugs right now. It's feels strange to know that I can have a clean rug any old time I want now.

Angel just crowed a moment ago. He sounds lonely. Not at all as cocky as he does when he is in his little kingdom, sitting on his throne as king of the roost. If he would just go in the coop when we open the door, life would be good all around.

Sue is coming home with some more Rhode Island Reds and a few other chicks in a little while. These are unsexed chicks. For all we know they are all males. Really, you only need one rooster in a hen house. There could be complications if they are all males, if you know what I mean.

Btw, Angel looks like the rooster on the Kellogs Corn Flakes box. He is one hell of a big ass rooster. Probably around 4 pounds. He is a handsome devil as roosters go. He's just really stupid.

Oh well. It's his life. If he wants to throw it away being the gormet supper to a pack of coyotes who am I to say different?  I am sure as hell not willing to get pecked to death trying to save his life.

Sue just called. The board meeting was called off. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy. I surely wasn't in the mood to get all dressed back up and go induct new boards members tonight anyway.  Catching Angel sounds like more fun, hell a root canal sounds like more fun.

Ciao!

Off we go into the wild blue yonder.....

I was trying to Google my paternal grandmother just a bit ago and I came across this:  Google Search: "Fred Kjer" That is my Uncle Fred. I learned something new about Uncle Fred tonight. This I will share with you in a bit.

Uncle Fred is my dad's youngest brother. He is 14 years younger than my dad. So by the time my dad was dropping out of planes behind enemy lines during WWII, Uncle Fed was barely 4 or 5 years old. By the time Dad got home a decorated war hero, Fred was like 6 or 7. I have this great picture of my very black haired dad when he was around 15 standing there holding up an old bike with a grinning blonde baby boy sitting on the handle bars obviously enjoying the ride of his life. That baby was my Uncle Fred.

My first real memory of Uncle Fred was when he came to visit when I was around 6. I just remember him being a tall, handsome, happy fellow who looked nothing like my father. They told me he was Dad's brother, that he was Grandpa and Grandma Kjer's son (I had met them the summer before in Nebraska). Still he looked nothing like any of these people, Dad included. He grinned a lot. He had Dad's dimples. A huge infectious grin with those twinkling blue eyes and those deep, deep dimples.

At the time I met Fred (and Grandpa and Grandma for that matter) I had no idea that Grandpa Kjer was not my dad's real father. I had no concept at that time about people dying and people remarrying and having more children by the second spouse. It never crossed my mind that Dad and Fred did not share the same last name. It never crossed my mind that Dad's parents should also share his last name either. After all, Mom's parents didn't have the same last name as us. Why should Dad's?

Our last name was/is McDonald. Dad was born of my Grandmother' marriage to a hard drinking Irishman named William Edward McDonald. She had 3 children by Mr. McDonald who swore that the baby in his wife's womb was his long awaited son. William never got to find out if the gestating offspring was his son as he died 2 months short of said offspring's birth in 1923. W.E. McDonald died of liver failure, the result of drinking himself todeath, literally.

He had black eyes, black hair and was dark in only the way the black Irish are dark (think Pierce Brosnan). As my father was growing up, his sisters told stories to my father of how their dad loved to sing and play the piano. Grandma was a Beneke. Her family was from Germany. She had blue eyes and black hair, something not very common amoung Arian stock. She also had dazzeling deep dimples.

When my father was around 5 years old, Grandma married John Kjer, a tall blonde man of Norwegian decent. They had 4 more children, Uncle Fred being the last, all of them very blonde and very Nordic looking. All of them with deep, deep dimples.  

The next memory I have of Uncle Fred was when I was around 10. We were down in Texas visiting Mom's family and making a side trip to Corpus Christi to see Dad's older sister Virginia. Fred showed up there in a brand new 1964 candy apple red Corvette Sting Ray convertable. Us kids were seriously impressed with Uncle Fred that day. I had my first and only ride ever in a Corvette that day. I have a picture of Fred sitting in the car grinning with those dimples.

I honestly don't remember if I ever saw Fred again after that day. I saw him in pictures, but never in the flesh that I can recall. In fact, after that day in Corpus Christi, I don't think I have seen a single one of Dad's relatives again.

That was like our very last real family vacation to anywhere with my dad. My dad was slowly getting ready to disappear from our lives for almost forever back then. Between trying to work himself to death and never being home because of work, he also managed to have 3 major heart attacks and then lose his job to his employer going bankrupt, to his moving to San Jose to find work, to his finally finding a cushy, fat ass paying job with RMK (the Haliburton of it's day), personal secretary included in Viet Nam, Dad was slowly slipping away from us. (he eventually married that personal secretary btw, but that's another long story)

That's where all the pictures of Uncle Fred came from. Dad went to visit him in Da Nang while he was stationed there flying missions. In one picture, my dad and Uncle Fred are standing there (grinning of course) in front of Uncle Fred's F-4 Phantom. My dad's notation on the back says "Fred and I in Da Nang in front of his F-4 Phantom (that's the only reason I know it's an F-4 Phantom btw). Those bombs on the wings were dropped that night in a raid over N. Viet Nam." Pictures from my dad always had cute little notes on the back like that one. I also have a picture of my dad standing in a little park in Saigon (I know it's a park in Saigon cause the back of the pictures says so). My dad let us know in his notations on the back that of picture that the little park was destroyed by a bomb 2 week later in the Tet offensive. Just as an additional aside here, I have a picture my dad took during some major battle in WWII of hundreds of paratroopers landing on the background with the inscription on the back saying "I took this one for General Ike".  My dad was real big on that inscription on the back thing as you can see.

What I never knew about Uncle Fred until tonight was that he had shot down a MiG over North Viet Nam no more than a month or so after that picture with Dad was taken. I guess I thought he just dropped bombs. I never knew he engaged in "dog fights" in the air with the "enemy".

Uncle Fred was a lot of things, frankly he still is a lot of things, it's not like he rolled over and died when he retired from the Air Force. Uncle Fred is still doing track and field stuff. He holds the Nebraska State collage record for some track and field event (you can see I know nothing about track and field events). He was invited to represent the USA in the 1960 Olympics but declined to go as he did not want to break up his squad in the Air Force.

So that's the story of Uncle Fred. He's the only blood relative I can ever find anything about on the Internet. Course I am always looking for my dad's side of the family. It's like I am searching for long lost realatives or something. I never search for Mom's family cause, well, they are not lost. I know right where they all are. They're all down in Fucking Texas. Sometimes they even come up here and see me (God forbid I should go to Texas).

I wonder if Uncle Fred still has those twinkling blue eyes and deep, deep dimples?