Who'de Have Thunk It?

Celebrity children that apparently slip under my sensory nets never cease to astonish me.

Enter one Scarlet Page, daughter of the mega-rock-guitarist James Patrick Page (Jimmy Page) of Led Zeppelin.

http://www.scarletpage.com

Must be nice...you look at all these photographs of all these rock stars she's taken mug shots of and think just that. I concede she's good, of course. She also obviously doesn't want her father's name associated with her own namesake, since she makes no mention of him anywhere on her website. I had to look up various other website sources to confirm she is, in fact, his offspring.

My wife is extremely jealous of her most recent photo shoot of Duran Duran. Bleh.....I'll expound on more of my wife's sick fascination with a half-assed 80s Brit band in a later blog. Duran Duran is to her what Rent is to another blogging friend of mine.

And So This Is Christmas....

Guess I'm on a roll tonight.

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong
And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let’s stop all the fight

A very merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
And what have we done
Another year over
A new one just begun
And so happy xmas
We hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear
War is over, if you want it
War is over now

Happy Christmas

-------------------------------------------------------------

Although he was an agnostic, John Lennon knew the meaning of Christmas, the point of it all. And it had nothing to do with the barriers of personal beliefs.

One of my greatest Christmases (for a kid who didn't understand things at the time) was actually the Christmas he was assassinated. Dad was so depressed that year and I never understood why...they never told me. It goes without saying I understand why today. I actually didn't mourn the loss of such a gifted man until young adulthood.

It pisses me off to no end when people crap on others who celebrate Christmas. What amazes me is these are the same people who badmouth nativity scenes in school plays but would sooner wring your neck if you didn't give them the day off from work.

To you, those people, I say this: you need to understand the significance of the holiday in our culture, the reasons that have nothing to do with religion. It's the one day of the year people think of others, remember whom they love and care for, and the one time of the year there is such a fulfilling day of little if any -- bad vibes.

Serenity is the word. Serenity for all.

And if you still don't like it, I say to you with a defiant smile--

--Merry Christmas.

When I Was Younger...

I remember the sight of my parents old Balsam (brand name) Christmas Tree. That thing could have filled up a small atrium. Designed to look like a Colorado Spruce.

I remember going to just my grandmother's house, there were only 5 cousins including myself back then. We'd open tons of presents from everyone else. There was no name drawing like there is now.

I remember Dad and I doing one of the few father/son rituals we enjoyed together -- shopping for Mom. Dad would always wait till the 23rd or 24th, hit a nice mall (like North Park) and make a day trip of it.

I remember being one of the lucky few not being forced to go to church after I opened my presents because my parents were non-practicing Catholics. They still are.

I remember the antsyness of Christmas Eve and the relaxed feeling of the day after.

This year, I have no tree. My Christmas present is a simple wad of cash, which will probably be put to more utilitarian use. I dread going to my parents', in-laws and grandmothers houses, respectively.

But for one calm moment, in the eye of the storm on the way home from dropping my son back off with his mother, I shared just a nice, quiet car ride with my wife. Simple things like this are always amazing.

That moment touched on all the happy memories in my life, tied with the happy satisfaction I felt as I saw my son celebrate yet another awesome Christmas (for him), making out like a bandit and enjoying his new toys.

It has been said many times, and it's a moot thing to ask of this life and this world, but I wonder why every day can't be like Christmas. Even the best of us who are good at practicing 'life is what we make it' can't make most of the days of the year feel like Christmas does.

Rather than recognize it for what it was when the tempest has long since passed and say to myself, "Oh, there were some not-so-bad moments...", I'd rather recognize it now, and acknowledge it now.

The spirit of the season finally touched me. For no particular reason, other than it could.

Merry Christmas, Everyone.

(I'll be obnoxiously negative again in my next post, I promise)

WoW Quiz

Frickin' figures I'd be a damn gnome.....and with one of the most evil combat classes to boot. Ironic that my main on Warcraft is actually a Night Elf Hunter.

Gnome Warlock Gnomes are strange little things. Fascinated with gadgets and shiny things, gnomes are often plotting and planning - but are pretty smart, despite all the explosions. You're a creepy, creepy warlock. You delight in the darker things in life - such as setting people on fire, and delight in the macabre. You'd probably fake your own death just to freak people out by getting up from the casket at your funeral. Find out your real-life WoW race and class at QuizGalaxy.com

Amidst the Darkness this Holiday Season

I find one tiny spark of beauty to spread around.

http://media.putfile.com/Christmas-Rocker

The link is perfectly work safe. You will need sound, though.

Normally I can't stand Classical meshed with rock. But this was really done well without overdoing it. And yes, I've analyzed the guy closely, he really is playing the song.

I find it....oddly uplifting.

Christmas Woes

Once again, I have been smited by my parents.

I fail to understand why they get so upset by a family reunion.

And the fact that I'm not coming to it.

I let my son go with them. I'm not a complete bastard.

Let me explain how these family reunions work, or this particular one.

1. It's held every year, usually 2 weeks prior to Christmas.
2. My grandmother's siblings and their kids and their kids' kids, and so on, and so forth, ad nauseum, show up to this thing.
3. The only people there who know each other at this point are my grandmother and her siblings, and their kids. I lost track of who is who a long time ago.
4. There are some reasonable things, like about $1,000.00 is collected for a selected needy family.
5. All that happens is: We eat, the friendlier people say hello to one another, and my immediate family (whom I see ALL the time) stick to their side of the room, talking, and the other side of the family sticks to their side of the room, talking. Only my grandmother and her brothers make the rounds to talk to the 'other' side. It is nothing more than a lame social gathering/free meal at best.
6. Most of my family are under the social/intelligence ladder, so I don't like to be associated with them in most public situations anyway. In English, they are white trash (except my parents, and my uncle, who also disassociates himself from the rest of my grandmother's kids). And I KNOW my family is viewed as inferior by the other sides of the family, so I don't like being seen with them anyway.
7. The reunions have also always been a chance for both sides to display their spawn like livestock. I'm 32 years old, I have no reason to prove anything to anyone. I show up because I feel like it, not because I want people to see how healthy/sick fat/skinny stupid/intelligent I have become in the last year.

And here's the funniest part. With the exception of maybe 2 times throughout my entire childhood through about 16 years of age, my father would NEVER show up to these things. I was taken by my grandmother. I only wanted to go because my cousins were going ... kid thing. But Dad always sat it out.

Over the last 15 years, he's become more gung-ho about it than anyone else I know, save my grandmother. Every year we go through the same stupid ritual if I don't go. He throws me off on some guilt trip. Or, he tries. I fail to understand why he becomes so offended by it.

I personally just don't care one way or the other. I let my son go with them if he says he would like to go, and if they ask me to let him go, in that order.

Oh, and on the rare occassion that my son doesn't go (like last year, I took him down to Palestine, TX to ride the Christmas Train, and we had a lot more fun), he will go apeshit ballistic.

I swear, if I make it to being an old fart, I will do my very best not to riddle people with guilt just because they don't show up to some insipid gathering. The thing is, I wouldn't dread these things so much if my father and grandmother would just STFU about them. But they've spent all this time building up such a legendary tale about me and the fact that I don't show, that if and when I DO show to these things (which is about once every 2 years) the second I set foot in the door my entire immediate family, my grandmother especially will chime in like a chorus from the pit of hell: "OHHHH look who decided to show up." And it's not an affectionate chiding. It's downright hateful. You have to imagine it said in a 1970s/80s Conway Twitty, Texas redneck accent by someone who's just itching to pull out his Colt revolver and git' that snake. /grumble

As with all things, the old phrase "I shape my own destiny" applies here, to me. But you know, one can only take being persecuted because he/she is a homebody for so long. Any other day of the year, my parents are, too. Hypocrites.

Merry Effing Christmas

I'm going to hate Christmas this year.

Allow me to elaborate first.

Every year since I can remember, Mom has always asked me what I want for Christmas. I've always had to go through this little song and dance when I give her some suggestions, due to the odd monetary relationship she has being married to my father.

My requests have never been unreasonable. I always keep them well-within what she's willing to spend. And she's very open about what she's willing to spend, because the monetary value of my gift will be given to me during the part where she asks me. It's just the kind of relationship we have.

I know Mom like a book now when it comes down to asking me. The first question that rolls into her mind is: "Is your Dad going to bitch about it if I buy that?". Why should she even care if the money comes out of her own pocket personally like it does every year? Like I said, it's an odd relationship she shares with that man. Every year since I was a child, she gets him grander and grander presents that he never asks for, and always spends more money on him. Okay, so I learned to live with that.

I'm starting to sound like a spoiled brat, but for me, this is how I was raised. It's more of a 'tradition' with my parents than fact.

Generally, I always got what I asked for. Back when I believed in Santa, they played the 'be good' card with me until Christmas Day, but other than that, little has changed. Until this year.

She starts asking me what I want. Typically, my wife and I have been getting a combined gift of money from her (we don't ask for that, she just gives it) and individual, smaller gifts. This year, she specifies that it has to be something more fun and not practical. She sounds loaded and willing to spend a bit more. I try money for me and my wife, and she shys away from that, telling me to pick something else.

So, I ask for a medium-range MP3 player, either HDD or FlashMem. I don't care which. Would work for me. She seems keen on the request, but that changed (surprise surprise) one week later. I start talking to her on the phone and was trying to tell her about the more affordable models to save her money, but then I am notified that she suddenly 'can't do that anymore'. Not right now. Not possible. I say okay, but naturally ask why. She is vague and says she can't tell me but it has something to do with the 'mood' my father's been in lately.

It is at this point in the phone conversation that my eyes roll so fucking far into the back of my head I almost can't get them out.

I poke at her, but she won't tell me. Obviously (I know that tone in her voice), he's within earshot. It's a little game she plays where she wants to tell me but won't tell me with him listening in. Many an argument she's had with him she's come all the way over at my house later to rant about him if she blows up. I listen primarily for amusement. But this time ... it's different. My wife's and my money has been tight for the last several months getting our debts back into line, so I can't afford this little expense I thought I was going to receive from Mom for Christmas. I was asked, keep that in mind. Now I'm being told "No". Naturally I want to know just what the hell my father's done to ruin things this time.

What it turned out to be made me really wish she'd grow a spine when it comes to him. He apparently was demoted up at his job and lost about 4 bucks an hour, but trust me, if I told you his salary, your jaw would drop to the floor. It's more of a long term thing, I suppose. But I've noticed it in his behavior. He's acting like a real asshole lately, and he needs to get over it. He will likely be re-promoted next year when the new position opens up for him to manage. IN the meantime, he still has a job, and he's still financially very well-off. Their standard of living won't even come close to changing.

So, he lost some salary, now he's naturally freaking out to the point of uber paranoia about money. He and my wife have that in common. *eyeroll*

The collateral damage of his attitude gone sour is my Christmas present got borked. I literally could think of nothing after Mom told me to 'decide again' (with far less enthusiasm than she did the first time she asked). I was so pissed at this point, you know what I asked for? I used to wear a green army jacket back in my youth during and after high school. I miss it. It made me look more like a bum than I already do. So I asked for another one. My psychotic ex made off with my previous one when we split up. I could buy one of those on my own with no hassle, though.

Mom's always been the one to cheer me up at Christmastime with my present, it's just something nice she does for me every year, so this is just depressing for me. I really don't like being strung along and be told to ask for something specific, be told I'm going to get it, then get let down a week later just because my asshole father wants to be a Scrooge and ruin everyone else's Christmas. My wife also was asked to make a decision about Christmas by my mother, she asked for some money to help out with tuition (books). She won't be getting it now.

But overall, it's not just the fact that my father is borking my Christmas present. It's the fact that his attitude about something so utterly trivial in the grand scope of things is pissing off everyone who cares for him. Even Mom is getting irritated with him. I don't call and talk to him much lately, and for good reason (his attitude). And I'm seriously considering denying my parents access to my son for our yearly pointless-relatives-you-never-remember family reunion this weekend as a roundabout punishment to my father for behaving like a childish ass. He'll probably get her something shitty, which will also increase the fireworks on Christmas Day, but I won't even go into detail about that.

Every year, my Christmases and birthdays with them are a big enough pain in the ass, and they treat it like some grand inconvenience, even though they still feel obligated to buy me something. I just about told my own mother to piss off this year and not to get me shit, just because I don't want to deal with the headaches anymore. Maybe I should just say that to them. Don't get me anything.

So, that's all I get this year. A green jacket. I'd almost rather have nothing.

So...when you're opening up something cool from a family member, you remember me. And what I'm getting. And yes, I picked the green jacket out of a sense of disgust because of wtf I had to endure to get to that point to begin with.

Merry Christmas!

Well...

Friends are friends, so I have to give a shout-out to those who care about me. Actually I don't, you know who you are. I'm sorry about the previous post (now deleted). To say that my friends don't care about me is complete and utter b.s., and I hope you forgive me for that oversight.

I crashed on the cigarettes. I'm ashamed of myself, but relieved for the moment. As a very good friend made me recognize, I wasn't in a place where I was comfortable enough yet to do it. Maybe once/if this job goes through to permanent and I have a little more security in my life...

I was becoming a stark raving lunatic, for the most part. Even with the lozenges. Cigarettes provide something else besides the nicotine addiction. Something horribly habitual, which is far worse than any addiction itself. I'm going to have to figure out what it is about myself that I deal with by smoking, and learn to cope with it. Once I do, the desire to smoke will go away naturally. It could be as simple as weaning myself off the damn things slowly. We'll see. Either way, I have NOT given up on the idea of quitting them. In fact, I'm more resolved than ever to get it done.

It's about 1 a.m. and I thought I'd do a little ditty of a blog while I wait for this impossibly long file transfer to go through to Shanghai.

It's interesting that I volunteered to do this. I remember when my boss first asked the group "Who wants to come in at midnight for a special install in China?", two things crossed my mind immediately.

1. A chance to stack the deck and show him that I'm a team player, yada yada.
2. I get to go home at 8 a.m.

Those were the initial reasons that caused me to speak up.

But one has to wonder...are those the only reasons? Of course not. There are trade-offs to everything, I suppose. The most obvious being that I'm going to be exhausted and my sleeping schedule is going to screw up. I left my wife to sleep alone at home, something she doesn't like (and I really don't like either now that I think about it). But...selfish as I am...after volunteering I couldn't ignore the interesting idea that I would be basically here, alone, unfettered, for 5 hours of my work day. I can do my job with no interruptions. I can get up and go smoke whenever without being noticed. I can belch and fart as much as I like. Now that I definitely don't have a problem with. Is that selfish of me? Maybe. But there's still the trade offs that I have to deal with.

Also (and this is something very few people know about me), I'm always looking to break the monotony in my life, whatever it may be. Nobody likes to work. I have never met a single person who does, but that's just life. And I always look at things like this working late as a chance to do something different, even if it's some crazy bullshit like working off-the-wall hours of the night. Well, off-the-wall compared to my normal schedule. If a night like this became a habit, I'd hate it. I think that's why I never handled your 'standard' daytime office job very well.

Take my last job before working for this company for example. Law firm. I was a paralegal by title. I did well my first few months there, very well. Well enough to get a $3,000/year raise by my third month. They liked me so much they promoted me to a position and fired the girl in that position the same day. I liked my job. Then my job got more tedious. And actually, tedious isn't a big problem at all for me. Sometimes the more tedious, the better.

But it got monotonous. I dealt with the city and county tax assessors regularly. Once in a blue moon, even the mayor's office. I should have been honored, I suppose. Even my divorce dragged me down, but it wasn't the final reason I quit. I quit because I couldn't stand the monotony of it. I was going nowhere, doing nothing new. Nothing changed. Every day the same pile of affidavits had to be drafted. Every day the same legal documents had to be typed up for the court docket. Every day the same attorney came to my desk and yelled at me in front of everyone for doing the job wrong (it wasn't me, she was just like that to everyone except her personal favorites...I don't play that game with people). Day after day, it was just a long pile of paperwork. I soon realized my job was stagnating like a festering pile of trash, and because of it, I was learning nothing new, in addition to doing the same hellish job every day. So, my current friend/boss told me there were positions available where I'm working now, and I walked out on that job two weeks prior to coming here. Only job I've ever walked out on. There were other things, I suppose. Dishonest supervisors, for one thing. A general tight-assedness in that place that I just couldn't stand.

But what drove me away from it was monotony.

I've always been a very good independent worker once I've figured out whatever system of a job it is I'm doing. Indepedent to the point where I don't like human contact once I get going. I've been told that's an ADD trait. Whatever. I think it's just a me trait. If I'm knee deep in several projects at once, and you come to me asking me to do something else, I'll take it with the most fiendishly conjured 'Sure!' that you will ever hear. But rest assured, when you walk away, I've already pondered a hundred ways to make you pay. :)

Lovely. The site I agreed to come in and do has NO idea what their setup is as far as dial-up or broadband. F**kers. Oh well.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil....Or Snap Out of it, Man!

Hmph.

Well, I can't think of anything good to write about, but I promise that I will not write again until I can think of something 'nice'. No, I haven't been myself, and no, I can't think of anything positive, upbeat nor funny like I usually can, but if such an anecdote ever hits me, I'll write about it.

This is due to recent criticism of my work from several friends.

I will say to anyone who thinks I'm being overly melodramatic and too high-strung, you have no idea the things I have been through in recent times. You have no idea what I have to do every night to keep from yanking my hair out by the roots.

Excuse me for baring my soul...guess it was too damn much for most of you to handle. So, there may not be another post for awhile.

"The good, by and large, is an illusion, little fables people tell themselves every morning to keep themselves from screaming." -- Andre Linoge, 'Storm of the Century' by Stephen King

Sunday...the Day to Loathe

Yes, it's true. It's all true. I hate Sundays. Well, now that I'm working again, anyway. I hate them with a passion.

Why? I spend all day dreading Monday. The truth be told, Mondays are just as likely to be stressful as any other day of the work week. But it's an old habit, a habit as old as the first day I set foot into a room of kindergardners at the age of 5. It's a habit I doubt I'll break sometime in the next millenium.

Sometimes when I stress I wake up the next day feeling pretty bad. Leftover soreness from muscle tension due to the stress. I often wonder if that's the key to me feeling like shit on Mondays when I go in.

I don't know what I dread anymore, seriously. Nothing's there on Monday that's going to bite me any harder than any of the other days of the week.

So One Manager Says, Part 2...

This afternoon, after literally busting my cahones to get as much of the client's sites done as I could, my immediate boss, the one who came back and wasn't happy, said to me about an hour before quitting time, "Good job getting those closed, man."

Err, after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I made my usual unassuming remark, I don't take praise well. "Hey, no problem, I'm just glad that blah blah".

Funny, I found out later when he first came in that his foot was swollen badly for some reason.

By the time he complimented me he had taken a certain pain killer I know all too well.

Three cheers for the power of Vicodin!

So one manager says.....

....hold off, and he works with me on it. The problems with the client don't appear to be resolved, so he says to escalate to his boss, which I do. Then the first boss goes on vacation until today.

I escalate to his boss, who sits for two days plus the weekend on it. We finally figure out on Monday that the first boss was right all along.

First boss comes back today, and he seems very unhappy that the issue wasn't resolved, and that it should be my fault. Even though I've been busting my BUTT getting the issue resolved for the entire duration he's been away. But he didn't SEE that part of it, and now my reputation with him has to have been sullied.

God, if you exist, if you're up there, PLEASE give me a shot at redeeming my reputation with this guy. I know this situation wasn't my fault, but still... it's upsetting. My job now rides on his opinion of me, as well as others.

Chronicles of an Ex-Smoker, Part 3

Hmmmmm, interesting.

I'm totally fine, and was totally fine yesterday. For some reason, when I wrote Monday's blog I just felt like someone had gone to work on me with a sledgehammer, as I stated before.

Very strange indeed. But that's as far as I want to question it right now, because to do so might ruin a good thing. So I'll hark back to yesterday instead...

Yesterday I explained this odd shift in physical pain to my oldest friend of 27 years, his response:

"I dunno, maybe you're some kind of stress junkie. I do know you need a vacation, and I'm not talking about some lame drive through Texas. You need to get out of the country for about a week if you can help it."

Now, he knows I don't have the money to spend on that sort of thing, he was just trying to lighten the mood, and get me to dream a bit. Pipe dreaming is a good escape, as long as you don't take the pipe dream too seriously.

I do readily admit that I'm more prone to being inflicted by stress than others. It's something I bottle up, or just whine about from time to time. I really hate that part of myself. If I knew how to shed it, I would have done so by now.

If the old addage "mellow with age" is true, then I guess I have a few things to look forward to.

Chronicles of an Ex-Smoker, Part 2: Losing My Mind

I can't stand these nicotine lozenges. They don't help me much cope with everyday stress. But what can I do? If I go off them, I won't have the willpower just yet to cope with nicotine loss in my system. I'll crash back to the cigarettes.

Plus something else has happened...overall, I feel like utter shit.

Complete and utter shit. I go to bed just fine but wake up feeling like I've been through a train wreck. Body aching in all kinds of places, that sort of thing. In fact, I'm hurting right now. I guess I have some belief that -- if this is just stress -- that writing it down will help make me feel better. Typically, by about 10-11 a.m. (mere hours from quitting time) I feel better.

It doesn't help that someone tried to break into our apartment last weekend while we were away from it.

I don't know if the cigarette quitting has anything to do with how I feel, I just know that I've been far more absent-minded than usual, a lot slower in terms of mental performance overall, and definitely physically slower.

For those that don't know, I became a walrus in the year following my original back injury last year. Doctor's orders not to move for months on end, but it's a long story. But someone my height shouldn't weigh 330 pounds, that's the point. I'd been trying, prior to quitting smoking, a rigorous (rigorous for me) exercise program on my stationary bike, 15 minutes a day, 3 times per week. Since I quit smoking, I've been too exhausted to even force myself up on that bike.

I've noticed notable improvements, but are they improvements considering that I'm quitting smoking? Here are my current cigarette stats, courtesy of a prog I put on my desktop:

Stuart - Free and Healing for Seven Days, 13 Hours and 15 Minutes, while extending my life expectancy 22 Hours, by avoiding the use of 264 nicotine delivery devices that would have cost me $50.77.

All that accomplished in one week. But, I wonder if I shouldn't have tackled my weight first. Cigarette smoking 9 times out of 10 causes weight gain after cessation. My weight is critical right now, I can't afford to gain another pound, much less the typical 10 or 20 that are supposed to come with cigarette loss. And although I feel I'm handling this entire situation admirably overall, I unfortunately do eat a lot, and am eating a little more since I quit to keep myself from crashing. That's why I wonder if I shouldn't have tackled my weight first.

This is a double-ended sword as well. My weight isn't helping my back injury, not one damned bit. I suffered permanent nerve conduction loss in my legs, and they're already working triple-time just to propel my big ass everywhere. Plus the L5/S1 disc that I ruptured and herniated, it's at a place inside my body that just can't handle my monster gut hanging from it.

There's a little jealousy on my end, too, as my wife has lost 17 pounds in the last month. She has Weight Watchers at work, and a healthy support group in there with her. She's encouraged me to join it, but I'm honestly skeptical as hell that I'd do any good on it without the support like she has at work with the weekly meetings. Focusing too hard on a diet right now might drive my cigarette withdrawal to levels of insanity to a point where I crash, too, so I have to keep that in mind. But I am a bit envious of her...she's looking very nice...and I'm looking very Abrams A-1-like.

And all the while, the normal household items that get done by me (dishes, vacuuming, living room, kitchen, laundry) are falling by the wayside and my wife is having to pick up the slack because I'm so damned exhausted.

Maybe this has nothing to do with my quitting smoking. Maybe the stress from quitting smoking is exacerbating my already-existing problems. I distinctly remember telling a friend how effing tired I've been prior to quitting smoking. Yes, I told my doctor too, now that I think about it. That was before I quit.

I wasn't like this before I agreed to move back to an early morning shift. Shit...

...I just don't get it. Maybe all this will iron itself out in a week or so. That's another thing -- still worried about work. Very worried. If I don't get hired permanently in January, my wife and I are going to be fucked, money wise, in spite of our admirable saving in the previous months. I'm being given reassurances that are encouraging, but at the same time, I see things that are discouraging too. I really enjoy the nature of the work I do. But I'm also up against several pretty decent guys, any one of whom are as deserving of a permanent position within this company as I am, imo.

All I know is the longer I go without a cigarette, the harder it actually gets to not pick one up. There's never a 'good' or 'ideal' time to quit. I could have used that excuse NOT to quit if I wanted to, but I didn't.

Maybe the moral to my story is simply this. I have problems and they aren't going away easily nor quickly.

The Chronicles of an Ex-Smoker Begin

So, I'm sitting here at work pondering things again. I'm in a constant state of pondering...maybe that's why Ali's always asking me 'What?'. Anyway...

I quit smoking this week as a part of my fighting back at the stack of cards life has dealt me. And tbh, it's made me a little loopy. And crazy. I have yet to really go off on anyone, but I know the pain of quitting smoking quite well. I've done it before, you see. I suppose the catch is, you don't go back to smoking.

The past two times I did that, obviously.

So, I just sit here, pondering whether to pop a prescription Vicodin in my delirium, give into the precious nicotine lozenges in my lunch bag, or just sit here and get worse and worse until I can't stand it anymore, then do both and then some.

All I know is, I won't give into the madness burning my mind of wanting another cigarette. I will not. My poor singing voice is coming back, I'm not getting winded when I wobble up a flight of stairs like I used to, and I feel overall much better without them. I keep my mind on the person at the end of the tunnel when this psychological and physical withdrawal is all, for the most part, over with.

Oh yeah, that's another thing. I'm at work right now, why in the hell am I writing this blog? I mean, yeah, I'm doing an upload atm at 3.5kbps so it's taking a minute, but I guess that's beside the point. Better go back to my quiet little corner of the corporate world........

Here's to you, Life.....thanks a lot.

I want to thank a very special embodiment of power and spiritual hope today.

I want to thank... life ...(that's right, LIFE, not the magazine and not the cereal)...for kicking the living shit out of me-- whether I'm down or up-- and continuing to toss me more than my share of bad luck.

I know I've done bad shit in my past, but haven't we all, life? There's an old saying that goes "Behind every person lies enough sorrow and suffering to disarm all hostility forever."

For those that don't know, I have officially been diagnosed with influenza, diabetes and a heart murmur in one day. Oh, and in spite of the heavy doses of beta blockers I'm taking, my hyptertension is 'no longer in control'. Oh, and I get an electrocardiogram on Wednesday to determine if there are 'additional problems' with my heart.

Fucking wonderful. I couldn't ask for more.

I kept telling and telling people. My parents, my wife, my friends....and not a single one of them listened to me. No one listens to someone who has a sixth sense about such things. I tried to go to the E.R. last week, and let myself be convinced by my wife nothing was wrong.

Now something is very wrong. I'm probably going to lose my job over all of these absences I've had. Stress, tension, all from WANTING to DO a good job and be the person I used to be, coming back onto the job scene after a year and a half of being sedentary...hard hours...trying so hard...it all contributed to the stress that led to these problems.

That was the last time I listen to anyone. Because I don't trust you, life. Why should I? You've given me no reason to, you and your buddy 'Fate'.

Thanks, life. You were always there for me when I needed you the most. Now you just made me look like a fucking idiot following a promotion. Why do you always punish me after something good happens, huh? You've ALWAYS done that without fail. That's why I don't like very good things headed my way, because you always throw in something equally worse to go with it.

Why don't you just kill me and get it over with? You must like fucking with me that much.

Maybe there is no higher power at all...but if there is, I have a strong sensation that if there is in fact a God, or maybe even a guardian angel out there watching over me...it enjoys watching me suffer.

The tears are coming, and I cannot stop them, so I am ending this here. I've had enough. Fuck all of this. Call me childish for writing this, I don't care. Fuck you if you don't like it.

And then on the 8th day, there was.....traffic.

So, I'm at work, pondering the deeper mysteries of this dried up thing on my arm that I won't go get checked out (translated as picking at it). My long-time friend from childhood logs on.

He's just graduated from college, and finally gotten himself an admirable job. I'm beginning to notice a trend in what he talks to me about on IM as the work day winds on, and I decided to write about it today.

He just got a new car. Lucky him. Wonder if I'll ever be that careless with money. Meh...anyway...at first it was just general griping about gas because of the situations with the two hurricanes that recently hit us, plus its general rising over the last few years.

Why?

Because...he has to drive from the core of Dallas all the way to Richardson to get to work.

I used to do that kind of stuff, long ago, in my '73 Mustang. Irving to Garland I believe was the route. Imagine the stretch of road on 635, the section between 35 and 75...bumper to bumper in 114 degree heat, in a car painted black with no A/C, nervously tipping up your water bottle to your mouth and hoping things move soon. You get the idea.

I seemed to remember...no matter how much good music I listened to, no matter how loudly I sang along with it, no matter how upgraded my rides became, I would always come home in a rather ripe, foul mood.

You can just tell by the look on a person's face when they walk in the door, can't you? As a kid I never understood why Mom would have that look on her face when she got back from the grocery store (Mom has always had a habit of driving further and further across town to get to the bigger and better grocery stores...today it's not even grocery stores anymore for her -- it's Super Target).

Anyway, I thought of myself in those days. How foul I'd feel coming home. My ex wife didn't appreciate it when I was married to her and commuting between Irving and Garland. But screw her, she deserves no pity from me, ever. However, my current wife used to notice the same trend with me when I came home when I was commuting from the core of Dallas to HEB and back every day. And I had a much nicer car by then (Lincoln Mark VIII, damn what a ride, wish I still had it...oh well). My drive just got so damn bad I got a special request for a 'straight-8', an eight-hour shift where I took no lunch, just ate at my desk and went home, just to gain some of that wasted drive time back.

Today, I drive a paltry 12 miles to work during peak highway hours. I come in feeling great, and I finally realized today why. Because the drive is nice. Very few a-holes on the road during the times of day I've had to work so far, and very little distance travelled to have to deal with them to begin with. Overall, I'm happier when I first get home, and happier when I first get to work every single day. Yes, yes, yes, the job is part of it too, but I'm talking about a specific mood here, work with me -- the mood I'm in when I actually walk through the door of work/home.

In the early months of 2006, the company I work for is going to be moving just 6 miles from where I live. The gas/drivetime implications of this are simply staggering, as it will be the closest I've ever lived to a job.

Wow...I might come in so bubbly people might actually kill me...I might come home in such a good mood my wife might actually kill me too if she's had a bad day.

Here's another irony for you... when you take a road trip to someplace you WANT to go to, it's generally an enjoyable drive, even if you have to trek 500 miles to get there. You may be a little groggy once you get out of the car, yet nowhere near the fire breathing demon you can be when you've just come home from a bad day of work and crappy traffic. Am I wrong?

Moral of the story is... a good drive is worth its weight in gold. And it contributes to your mental well-being, for better or worse.

Today's "Notes"

Ever have a day when you get so pent up full of emotion that all you want to do is come home and cry?

I had one of those days today. Then, when you actually get home, you can't cry.

I often wonder about days like today.

I guess I can't put my finger on one specific thing, maybe the day overall was full of negative energy.

Maybe I just held my frustration in so long that by the time I came home, the time to cleanse my emotions had simply passed. Something about getting into your car and heading home after a bad day somehow calms your inner senses.

Who knows.

But I noticed something I remembered seeing from my early days at my current place of work, and I really will miss it when the company moves in January.

As you exit the highway and loop under to head east, there's the backside of a long row of houses just off the highway, each one with picket fences -- a very long line of them -- all the way to the Grubbs dealership.

One house in particular I always notice. I always look at it. From the picket fence to the curb of the service road (quite a bit of space), every year the person that owns this house grows a quite impressive garden. I always notice the corn stalks. Naturally, the garden is in its decline this time of year.

Simple things like this I hope to get to enjoy someday. Making things grow was tedious but rewarding when I was a kid, but wow, I really learned how to raise some nice cucumbers. Gardening your own vegetables is a wonderful hobby. To the person that does it every year outside that house, thank you, for making me remember that there still are many things in life for me to look forward to.

In The Name of the Father

So at last we come to the core of it all. The culmination of all my pain, the last of the demons I must exorcise from my current life. Some may dismiss this post as just another whine. Some may not. I may have other posts about my past, and my life (my ex-wife would be a novel, for example) that may not seem very cheery, but this is the darkest post of them all.

It concerns a person that I look up to, yet despise for most of what he is. A person whom I love, but whose actions I hate. A person I find myself becoming more and more like as I grow older, but less proud of the fact that I am.

My father.

No, for all you Catholics out there, not the ‘Father who art in Heaven”. My biological father.

Our relationship has always been quite odd. But I wouldn’t call it good, no. Not by a long shot. In fact, if he came anywhere near close to treating my son, his only grandchild, anything like he treated me, he wouldn’t HAVE a relationship with my son. It’s good that he treats him like I always wanted to be treated by him…but I can’t help but feel a pang of regret. But it’s too late to go back…very likely.

I briefly mentioned my father in the last post. His barring me from the Arts Magnet, for a stupid reason. His real reason, the one he won’t fess up to, is jealousy.

With that last comment in mind, before you judge me as being high and mighty on myself, just hear me out.

I won’t bore you with my dad’s life, or childhood. I’ll just say that he had a perfectly normal 50s-60s nuclear family, with a mom that stayed home and a dad that came home every day at 5pm, and 5 kids who were eager to see him.

I grew up much, much differently. First of all, I’m an only child. My parents could have had another child. But they decided they just didn’t want another. I had friends, and my cousins, I suppose. Some say siblings are overrated, but for those who grew up close to their sibling, I know that’s not always true. Some are lucky enough to have a brother or sister who loves them, and in rare cases, even likes them. I led a lonely childhood in this manner.

My father, a product of the 1960s hippie revolution, was never a pothead (though he did try it once), but other than that, he was just a quiet, model student, graduated from high school in 1969. Married his high school sweetheart – that would be Mom. Learning that he was going to be drafted during Vietnam, he enlisted into the USAF and got stationed in Thailand instead, working on airplanes.

Now, I don’t blame him for this decision. He could have been drafted and sent back to his wife and son in a box like the other 55,000 that went to the front lines. He was protecting his new family. Oh yes, I was born somewhere in there. Mom stuck by his side during all of his training days until he was shipped out.

Eventually, Mom – having come from a shitty family of her own, with no place to go – was offered a home in my grandmother’s house in Dallas. And there we stayed until Dad came home from Thailand. It was during these very impressionable years that I formed a strong bond with Dad’s father. My grandfather. The person whom my son is named after. It was unfortunate, because by the time he finally got shipped back and they moved into their temporary apartment in south oak cliff, I had already bonded with my grandfather, who was the world to me.

At last, we moved into the house that would be my home until I was 22. I was 2 years old, so I guess that makes it a solid twenty years spent there. Dad used one of his 3 V.A. loans and paid a grand total of $13,000 for that house. It’s worth $90,000.00 today. Dad landed a job at a printing company, and finally began his career. I have vague memories of my parents, being really ‘together’ for the first time, doing a lot of fighting back then. Adjustment, I guess. I just remember several times my Mom almost leaving him. I remember the house was so barren for so long, we had very little furniture. But I do miss that big tacky red vinyl couch we used to have. Anyway…

Dad never liked his job, but he's there to stay, still works there to this day. It was a constant nightshift position, and that was the routine that as a small child, I got used to. But I began to form my relationship with him…and it was honestly awkward. He used to get so mad at me. I didn’t understand his anger. And no, I wasn’t abused. I WAS spanked, but the fear he struck in me of spankings was far more effective. He would get mad over the stupidest things, and as a result, I started fearing him so much I would hide things from him. I began as early as age 5 to develop a quite different relationship with my mother than I had with my father.

For example …

I could cuss like a sailor around my mother. As a kid in the 80s, it wasn’t as big of a deal as it is today (and my son gets into trouble if he even says a mild cuss word). Mom didn’t care. She thought it was almost cute. She let me do things Dad wouldn’t let me do when he was at home. When Dad was home, I was obedient…sometimes we had fun doing an occasional activity, but said events are few and far between. Dad was really obsessed with his 1963 Corvair convertible and getting it running again. So I got to spend a lot of time just watching him work on it (until he found me annoying and sent me inside). The other half of the time he spent his days off getting drunk….VERY drunk. And you know what’s sad about that…he was a nice, open and much more honest and caring person when he drank. The stuffiness he still displays to this day when he’s sober is unnerving to say the least.

I understand he had to support a family. I understand he felt all these obligations weighing heavily on him. I understand he needed his free time when he was not working. He would try and talk to me one minute, but expect me to stay out of his way the next, though.

For a brief period during elementary school, something I always feared happened. He was moved to dayshift, which means he was home when I was home. We butted heads like you wouldn’t believe. But I always seemed to be the one who literally was winding up against the wall. Sometimes he apologized for getting angry at me, sometimes he didn’t. But fear was always there, ever-present, always waiting, it seemed to lash out at me courtesy of him, every time I did something wrong. So I either did everything right, or just hid anything I did wrong from him as best I could.

But, I genuinely tried, unconsciously, to form a bond with him. I tried to understand him. I tried to get along with him. Subconsciously, I needed that fatherly bond with him.

As a child with primarily nothing but his own imagination to entertain him, I had a lot of ‘pretend’ time alone with myself as a kid. Some days I would be a king, or a sorcerer, an eagle or some sidekick to Indiana Jones, whatever struck me that day. I kept my playtime very quiet and very private when my father was home, though, for if he caught me, every single time I would be told to ‘stop doing that stupid shit and come inside’. And he had the nerve to wonder why I would avoid him at times. It was because of things like that, comments like that … that hurt.

That kind of venom he could put into a stinging comment about me, showing his disapproval of me being expressive or free, it infected its way into everything regarding my behavior. I was always told by my mother’s father (the biggest a-hole on the planet when it came to kids) what a well-behaved child I was. It was my childhood years that made me a very great little actor, both because I still valued my creativity being a lone child with no siblings, and on the other hand because I was always in danger of facing my father’s wrath if I was ever caught doing it.

Where was my mother in all of this? She let me be the real me when he was not around, when he was around she just said, “Do as your father tells you, son, I don’t want to listen to him bitch.” And so it went on like this for many years of him being on nightshift or swingshift.

As I finally entered into adolescence, I was already a pronounced self-taught musician. I had been picking things out on the piano since I was 3 years of age. I had already been in band 6 years in elementary and jr. high school, and they seemed supportive of it. I think my father viewed it as fascinating at first, but as I got older, bands like Van Halen started getting my attention, and eventually, at age 12 – The Beatles. Dad had a few guitars lying around and yes, he can also play a little, but not much. I think he views it as one of those ‘pain in the ass’ hobbies he enjoys but doesn’t want to make any real effort to learn.

For awhile I had a musical keyboard, and there was almost a bonding there. He would get out his guitar and we would try and play some things with me on my little casio piano and him on his arch-top. But something wasn’t working. I loved Van Halen and the Beatles a lot by then, so I started to pick things up on guitar, using my already acquired knowledge of things like scales in band. Then, a mutual friend of the family who also played guitar let me borrow a very old and tattered ‘Complete Beatles’ songbook, that had every guitar chord inscribed for every Beatles song there ever was. And therein I learned every basic chord known to guitar players by playing music I liked. It was all downhill for me after that. I remember trying to play Stairway to Heaven once when we were testing out one of his older guitars through the stereo. He recognized the song enough to say something absolutely discouraging. He said "Shit...Jimmy Page you AIN'T." That pissed me off and yet hurt me so much that I made it a point to learn Stairway to Heaven to the point where I can to this day, play it in my sleep if necessary. All of it.

I was also a heavy dabbler in electronics. I wanted an amplifier like the people on MTV had. So I tried rigging one at first with my stereo. I saved my allowance and bought a tie-pin microphone as a ‘pickup’ for the shoddy old acoustic Dad had had for a few years and had pieced back together for me. I still have a picture of it with the mic taped to it. Today it would probably sound like shit to me, but at age 13, the mic distorted so badly and I got some real buzz out of the thing – I was in Heaven. The day after Mom took me to Radio Shack, I came home from school to find my father in his chair, smoking a cigarette and staring at me. That usually meant I was about to get my ass chewed out, in the putting-down manner he always did. He told me he was confiscating the microphone, that I had no right to do anything of the sort like that with my money. It’s funny, because just before I did it I had talked to him of the idea just to test the waters (I did this a lot to see what he thought), and he seemed to think it would work, hypothetically. So, being the motivated person I was with the things I loved, I went out and bought it with my own money. Now it was being taken away from me. I didn’t have many amenities back then. Just that Casio keyboard and a crappy student guitar. Such were my humble musical beginnings. But I didn’t quite understand at all what I was being punished for. This was where my father would not openly admit his jealousy of what I was becoming.

Eventually I got the mic back, but his overreaction to it was what perplexed me. At last, after a year of proving myself more and more that I could play, Mom felt sorry for me when I was 13 and my first girlfriend had just dumped me. She bought me an early birthday present – an electric guitar…a used one, slightly worn, but I liked it a lot, and I played her to death so much she’s hardly playable today, but I still have her. Resourceful as ever, I had managed to procure a crappy amplifier from my cousin who agreed to let me use it because she didn’t use it anymore. It wasn’t a guitar amp, it was just a little microphone amplifier, ran on D cells. I soldered together a cord that would work, bought again with my own money from Radio Shack, and played away. Later that summer, an old friend from Middle School eventually sold me a real guitar amp. At that point, Dad knew he couldn’t stop me from playing if it was what I liked to do.
But he found other reasons and ways to punish me, constantly using music as leverage. That summer between Jr. High and High School was probably one of the worst I’ve ever had, other than receiving my first electric guitar. Mom was very proud of me at that point. She would tell family, friends, whoever, that my playing was becoming quite impressive, and that (sigh) I had ‘passed my father’s playing up in a matter of weeks’. She wasn’t helping an already touchy matter. I’m sure Dad felt embarrassed by it, but if it were MY son, I’d have played right into it and said “Yeah, he did pass me up, but glad I could help, yada yada." I would say it without hesitation. My father did none of this, he brushed me off to others with a "BAH" attitude.

By the following summer I had another guitar (which he constantly confiscated along with my first guitar and all my equipment if I did badly in school), and I remember just doing a general audio recording of one of my birthday parties (I loved playing with audio equipment). My father said something when I was outside that I will never forget. He was so standoffish and blunt about my playing that I just worked harder and harder. My cousin was messing with my newer guitar, and she was saying to my dad “Eh, I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t play.” My dad replied, “Well….neither can Stuart.”

Those words cut like a sharp knife. He had already banned me from going to the Arts Magnet. Is this how I was going to be treated? I began to wonder.

I was more than right.

Yet, when he got drunk, and it was just he and I, and he was in a good mood, I would be teaching him some Creedence song he really liked, or whatever. I liked those bands too, but that’s not the point. Behind the scenes, when enebriated, he acknowledged my talent quite openly, and enjoyed being taught a few things, which I was of course happy to teach him, because other opportunities were few and far between.

10th grade I finally formed a band… and about this time Dad conveniently really turned up the heat on me with the grades. Always punishment, always locking my musical equipment up for better grades, but conveniently doing nothing to actually help me with school, or even ask me if I needed help. Just telling me to ‘just do it’. But, whenever he got drunk, the musical instruments came out. Little did he know…when he was working swingshift, they came out then, too, because my mother just couldn’t enforce the kind of punishment he wanted.

But at last, the punishment came, and it came hard. During one of my groundings, it was announced he finally would be moving to dayshift as lead pressman. That meant permanence. No more shift-hopping. He would be on days for good. I didn’t think he would enforce the punishment that was supposed to be inflicted on me, but he did.

For three solid years of my high school life, I spent it in my room when I came home. I was to eat dinner, which my mother had to have prepared for me by the time I got home, then go to my room and do my homework first. If I got done with my homework early, I was to spend the rest of the evening studying something, anything. I had to sit at my desk. No stereo. No musical instruments. No coming out of my room unless to go to the bathroom. My bedroom door had to stay open at all times.

Now, I fully acknowledge being a fuck-up in school, because I seemed to be cursed with some kind of deficiency at mathematics. Maybe it was the piss-poor teachers in DISD who would rather throw an eraser at me than answer something I didn’t understand. Either way, I didn’t get help from my dad nor from my teachers when I needed it the most. So I just said eff it, and failed a lot. At last I had gotten a good teacher in summer school for Algebra I, wish I could have kept her all the way through high school, but it just wasn’t to be. Everything else I was good in when I applied myself. But no one wanted to help me when I was really in trouble, least of all my father. He would not be inconvenienced to look over my homework with me because gosh, that would be interrupting the evening news or the Cosby Show, or Cheers or Night Court.

I hated those years so much. I still tear up thinking about how lost I was…not able to find my way out. What was funny (funny meaning ironic, NOT humorous) was…his punishment not only didn’t stick, but it just made me more defiant. I not only didn’t do my schoolwork, but I did as much screwing around as a teenage male could do sitting at that desk (yes, even rosy-palms at the desk goes……my desk wasn’t in the line-of-sight of the door). I pondered suicide and running away a lot back then.

Oh, and when I was grounded for bad grades, that grounding lasted until the next report card…which meant the musical instruments were completely off-limits, even on the weekends.

NO kid at the high school I went to even believed me when I told them what was being done to me, not even my closest friends. And I didn’t have many friends at high school, mainly just the people that followed me there from middle school. As stated in the previous blog, the bulk of my friends went to the Arts Magnet.

Somehow, I managed to salvage the weekends when my father was drunk and the rare periods I wasn’t grounded, or when Dad worked late.

There were times when I would completely break down--try and reach out to him--and I once even defined his method of punishing me as ‘torture’. All saying this to him did was make him even more angry at me. How, as a kid, could I explain it to him in a way he could understand it? I certainly could explain it to him now, knowing what I know. But what does a 15-17 year old know about explaining to his father that he’s got a dream, explaining it to a father that didn’t care about fairy tales and dreams, but lived in what he called harsh reality?

I seem to remember those days I ate at the dinner table in the dining room, and my parents ate in the living room. I think the coffee table was too small for three people, and damned be it all if they didn’t get to watch the news. Joining me at the table was inconvenient. I was inconvenient, or I felt that way, at least. Who wouldn’t?

Oh, somehow, during that time, Mom went out and bought Dad a guitar that was really, really expensive compared to what she’d spend on me. Ironic she spent so much, I define that guitar today as a piece of shit. Oh, and Dad didn’t ask for these types of things, he never felt he needed them, Mom just got them for him. I knew where her loyalties lay. But I can’t fault her too much. She loves both of us, he just came first. It was just the way it was.

Let’s face it folks, the moral to this story is…my Dad was (and still can be when provoked)…an asshole.

By the time I graduated, I got my grades into shape for me, I had finally learned how to take care of myself, but my parents in NO way had any affect on me in that regard. I started to do those things for me. And naturally, my musical instrument privileges were restored. Dad was still a shit to people about my playing, though, and my band, who were also my good friends (one of them still is). I guess I have to give kudos to my parents for putting up with our noisy rehearsals, but still… if it was a type of music that they didn’t like (we were doing classic rock, but also getting into newer bands like the Cult, and Metallica), they would beat on the door to my stuffy bedroom and embarrass me. Such was life.

But by then, by the time I graduated (on the A and B honor rolls that year, btw) , the damage had already taken hold. I once again propounded the idea of a career in music to my Dad, who had offered to help me with college if it was what I wanted to do after high school. I was thinking of music IN college. You want to know what his reply was?

“Sure, you can do a nightclub gig if you think your band’s good enough and you’re brave enough to get out there.”

Obviously, he completely missed my point. I almost tore my hair out. The subject was never broached again. I didn’t get the proper nurturing I needed, so desperately needed in the transition from middle to high school, I didn’t get the emotional and financial support I would have needed for college at 18 when I was ripe and ready to be taught there. It was nothing more than a pissant hobby to him. Always has been.

Only recently, about a year ago when I had my back injury, did it dawn on me just how much the decisions my father made back then, so non-chalantly, affect my life today.

You may say to yourself after reading all this dribble…..”Surely there were some good moments, come on..”

Growing up, Dad and I had and still have a shared interest of how things work. Cars, airplanes, computer technology, electronics, you name it. If it ticks, we like to know how it ticks, and we talk about it endlessly. But Dad’s more like a big brother in that sense.

He owned a 71' Mustang. I liked it so much I went out and not only bought a Mustang just like it, I fixed it up exactly as he would have fixed up his if he had the time and the initiative. We both now own identical white lebaron convertibles. Hardly coincidence. We share a common interest, but it's also still a vague attempt at gaining his approval, about trying to spark his interest in me somehow.

We still have that bond when we talk. When my son was born, that was one of the rare times he’s actually hugged me as an adult. The other time was after his heart attack.. As uncomfortable as it was, and as painful as the fact that it was uncomfortable was, every time I saw him in the hospital, I forced myself to hug him and tell him I loved him.

Why is that so hard? A father and a son should be closer than this. My son and I are tenfold closer than this, and always will be.

I can’t talk to him about emotional things at all. When my grandfather died, he went into the shadows. He didn’t talk to me about it at all, except to say that after the funeral, it would finally all be ‘over with’, not bothering to explain to me that it would be okay to grieve after that if I still felt it inside of me. Yes, this was the same grandfather I bonded with instead of my dad in the tender years. I pent up my grief after the funeral for 14 years due to the misinterpretation of his words, and just lost it at his grave when I was 22. Only now, can I say I’ve properly grieved his death, 25 years later.

When I was going through my divorce, all he could do was be there to help out with my son when I was going through periods of horrible grief while my ex-wife was out having sex with God-knows-who. Having not been through a divorce himself, he not only didn’t know what to say, but also being my father, he didn’t even try to say anything. The most emotional comment from him was ‘no one said any of this would be easy’. Gee, thanks.

I’ve gone through spells in dealing with all of this, in remembering my past….where I’m very calm in explaining it, like I am right now, or in miserable grief, screaming silently through gritted teeth “I hate him.”

There was and is so much that will likely never get said between myself and my father before he (or I) passes away. He’s mellowed a lot in recent years, and my wife really likes talking to him, maybe it’s his way of making up for the fact that he never tried to get close to my first wife very much.

For any doubters or naysayers, I’m not whining in this blog. The point of sharing my life in this blog is simply this, things you can’t understand you just have to deal with on your own. Some terrible emotional things have happened to me in my life, and my relationship with my father is one of the biggest. But I am recognizing it and dealing with it for what it is.

In a perfect world, I’d like to hug my dad hello and goodbye, and make sure he knows I love him. I’d like to heal any rift that may remain between us. I’d like to CALL him Dad just once and not feel awkward saying it (no, I don’t call him anything…ever have a person like that in your life?). I’d like him to say he’s sorry for the things he’s done, that maybe although I was a tough kid to raise, just maybe he went a little overboard, too. I’d like him to be supportive of the fact that I’m working on a musical degree now…now more than ever, I need that support from all the family and friends I can get. I have it from every family member BUT him…and that little boy in me that wanted to please him comes out, crying to be heard by just him, wanting to be acknowledged positively. Like he acknowledges his grandchild.

And I’d like to see my son see that his old man and his Papaw get along before he goes. It’s the most important thing I could do. As it stands now, dad still has his little moments where he forgets I’m 32 years old and doesn’t show any respect for my age when he lectures me about something he doesn’t agree with.

And in spite of everything that ever happened, I never once, in my 32 years, as a child, teen or an adult ever said to him in a fit of anger, "I hate you." Saying that to him actually would have hurt his feelings, and Mom would have made me apologize. I made a conscious effort never to say it.

I guess I’ll do what I can. But I have a feeling I’ll be picking up all these broken pieces on my own. And having myself isn’t so bad, I guess it’s better than nothing at all.

However, as my friend whom I loaned a certain anime series to will soon find out, I believe that everyone needs someone close to stand by them in life. Of all the people I could have chosen to stand by me in my life with something this big, I wish it had been him. My father missed out on a lot in my life (some of it against his will, some of it his own choice), and I’m sure he regrets all of it to some degree.

Whether or not I will ever bridge that gap with him, only time will tell. But we are both pretty set in our ways now in dealing with each other. And he doesn’t drink anymore, so there’s no more chance for a heart-to-heart talk with him like I used to have.

Is your brain fried yet? I’ll stop. This is becoming difficult for me to finish, so I’ll just end it here. This post, as I said, was simply to exorcise my own demons. I’ve never actually written a topic on this subject, as it is very sensitive to me.

The Past Revisited

So, I decided to write a blog while slightly buzzed on beer. Tried something tonight called Red Stripe, imported from Jamaica or something like that. It’s actually pretty damn good, doesn’t have that pissy immediate aftertaste that American beer has…

This entry is damned long, but I’m sorry, I need to get this out of my system.

I joined up with friendster.com and found more than I bargained for today. It was unduly depressing to see so many people from my past so successful today.

I take no pride in the fact that I’m a two-time college dropout who can’t seem to get his shit together. I’m stubborn and selfish and indecisive. I don’t know how my wife puts up with me sometimes.

No, I’m not done with this pity party. My new job IS going well, but it’s a means to an end. College. But so late in life, I wasted so many godamned years…screwing off.

What made me suddenly realize this? Let me ask you, the reader, a question for yourself…what school years do you remember the most fondly?

I will tell you mine. The Jr. High years. Yep, 7^th and 8^th grade. There’s something absolutely magical about the years that unfold into puberty. You remember the girls you started to notice. I had three. The first one was just a measure of my self-worth and trying to test out my ‘looks’ or whatever charm I thought I might have had.

I was dissed. Badly. She put me in my place. Thanks, Josie. You weren’t worth it after all. Seeing you working in a 7-11 almost 15 years later almost made up for it.

I was in the band, you see. Yes, a ‘band fag’, as we were called at the time. But I loved music, as you can tell by my photo. I picked up a guitar not long after I hung up my cornet for good at the end of my Junior High years.

There were so many interesting people in that band, and people connected to those people. I think it’s the pictures I kept that helped me remember them all, taken with my Dad’s now old Vivitar 110. I was academically a very good musician, but as with all things, kids are stupid, so few of them appreciated my raw talent at the time (especially my parents).

In 7^th grade I was 2^nd chair in the cornet/trumpet section of advanced band. I should have been 1^st chair, but I was too nervous during the tryouts and screwed up a scale. I could have challenged the 1^st chair player and won, but I didn’t. Why not? Peer pressure. I would have made a lot of this girl’s friends mad if I had, and they were big and mean friends. But I was already starting to pick up popular music, translate band songs to the piano, and began picking out things on the guitar.

By 8^th grade, the former 1^st chair had moved on to high school, and there I was, King of my particular hill, 1^st chair of the cornet section. But peer pressure still jolted me into never bragging about it, nor openly feeling proud about it. I impressed a lot of people privately with both my piano playing and my guitar playing, and the ease of which I could translate a lot of our band songs to other instruments. Looking back, I realize I had nothing to be ashamed of, and if I had held to my convictions, people might have remembered me better when I grew up. MIGHT.

My band instructor sure as hell did. My mom had a co-worker whose daughter was going to my Jr. High School many years later, and in the band. This was damn near 10 years later. My name was dropped to the instructor, and he responded like Obi-Wan Kenobi or some shit: “Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time….”

But would these other people remember me? I guess it just depends on the people. My band instructor remembers me as a good student, obviously. I’d hate to admit to him that I never once practiced at home, my chops were always kept sharp enough by just playing in band during band period.

Anyway…along with the band was a group from a rich grove nearby I like to fondly and affectionately recall as the “Kessler Brats”. The ‘Brats were a tight-knit group of people, all of whom knew the other, and a very large group at that. And if they weren’t in band, they knew someone who was. I tried desperately to fit in with this group, though my approaches were awkward. But there were many of us who were not from that neighborhood who tried and accepted into their circle to some degree. I had several friends from that bunch.

The second girl is the one I will never forget. She set the standards by which I judged all girls for the rest of my life, and truly I can say that it wasn’t a bad thing, because she was, for the most part, a very pretty and very nice girl.

Back in my day, to express that you liked someone of the opposing gender, you asked the girl if she’d ‘go with you’ (shortened form of ‘go steady with me’ from earlier generations, obviously). I never did this with her. Instead, some girls told her for me…and like an idiot I came back the next day acting foolish in class, and although she and I were still friends after that, she wasn’t as flirty afterwards. I never did stop liking her, though.

But after that, I kept on trying to fit in. The final time I tried was with a girl a year younger than me in band but in 7^th grade, a precocious flute player with a very sweet nature. I haven’t forgotten her due to the situation. She was a regulation ‘hottie’, and not touchable by anyone, much less a dork like me. Ah, so much we learn when we’re young and don’t know shit about shit. I got dissed seven different ways from Sunday. And due to her apparent ‘status’ in the school, my asking her to go with me apparently rocked the school. I was miserable for months, living in shame among the halls, and with my peers. She must’ve decided she’d had enough later on, because she felt sorry for me one day at lunch and gave me her sandwich to eat, just out of the blue. I learned a few years later from a sister of my oldest friend that she wound up pregnant and giving the child up for adoption while in high school.

It was about this time I had picked up a guitar, and began my musical journey. I finally had my first girlfriend for a little while after that, who dumped me after just a few months, but I’ll write about that in another blog.

Let’s see, other than some unforgettable friends and acquaintances that year…what else happened…oh yes, there was a house party thrown by one of my female friends, one that a LOT of people showed up to. It was fun, even though I didn’t know anyone. Two of the girls were messing with guys’ hair that night, and wanted to spike my hair. I didn’t let them. My loss. God, I was a prude.

The Kessler Brats finally split up at the end of that 8^th grade year…some went to the local high school, some went to the school I went to, and most of the cooler ones went to the Arts Magnet, where I wanted to go.

The measure of my worth hit me pretty damned hard during those years. There were also additional rumors floating around anytime anyone might like a girl, I was no exception to those kinds of rumors, either. I feel that in the long run, I took it like a 14 year old could take it. The ups and the downs of my 8^th grade year, though, I will never forget them. Nor the people. Following the end of those years, I began burying myself deep in my music, practicing night after night, honing my abilities. I did that for FOUR years of high school, much to the discontent of my parents. I once told a friend when I was 20 the story of how I never really had a girlfriend in high school, and I don’t know how I survived that long being such an outcast. His response to that was, “You had your music.”

Damned straight.

Oh yes, that’s what I was talking about at the beginning of my blog wasn’t it? Yeah, my best friend, also a band player during that time, sent me some links to some of the people over on friendster.com today. It was weird seeing so many of them for the first time in literally years. Seeing them ‘all grown up’. Very odd. Each person definitely looks like the person I ingrained into my memory, just the ‘adult edition’. Grown up, indeed. Some of them led exciting and purposeful lives, and are now the sums of experiences that are incredibly great in years. Almost 20 now. God, has it been that long? Too depressing to ponder.

But would they remember me? Maybe. Maybe not. I wrote one of them to test the waters.

Which at last brings me to what’s on my profile. I was stopped by my father. He said I would never make a dime at music, and it wasn’t worth trying, even if I ‘was the next Jimi Hendrix’. Leave it to my father to insult me and throw platitudes at me at the same time.

At any rate, I was barred from considering the Arts Magnet as an option, because, to quote my father: “I’m not sending you to a school full of godamn punks and pot smokers.”

/sigh/

That was the key turning point in my life. That was the reason I wound up hating high school. That was the reason I spent 10 years succeeding at jobs I hated anyway. That is why I didn’t go to college. My father shut me out. But that is also another story for another blog. Suffice it to say, that I found out at the beginning of my 9^th grade year, my talent didn’t go unnoticed, as many people at the bus stop (all schools all had busses stop at the same home high school for all the ‘magnets’) on my first day of 9^th either asked me why the hell I wasn’t at the Arts Magnet where I belonged, or asked me why I didn’t sign up for band at my current high school. All I could do was shrug my shoulders at them.

So…now, years later, here I am struggling to finish that music degree I should have gone for in the first effing place. Am I doing good at it, you may ask? My teachers display that old spark of interest in me that my band instructor did in 8^th grade. I’d say so. If only I hadn’t had that injury last year, I might only be one year away from finishing now instead of three. I guess looking back, it’s tough to swallow that I wasted 14 years of my life. People were trying to tell me back then that I had the ability to do what I really wanted, but kids can’t do much when their parents say no.

To my wife, I love you baby, you were the one that made me believe I could do this.

To those of you that graduated from Booker T., Class of 1991 or 92, I’m right behind you. And I consider myself one of you, no matter that I didn’t go.

I guess, for what it’s worth, I’m gratified to know I had friends and good acquaintances who did become successful rather than losers, which proves I’m a decent judge of character. Always been one of my strengths.

All I know is I started something dear to me, and now I've GOT to finish it. Even if I never do anything with the degrees I have planned. I need this for ME.

“…and all the handiworks remain there…only a dream away.” -- George Harrison

Back in Sickland Again

So, I'm sick again today. This blows. This time, it's diarreah. I will NOT go into details about that here, I think I've said quite enough.

I offered to work from home, since the rest of my department is set up to do so. But since, unlike most of the rest of my department, I am hourly rather than salary, there is likely a discrepancy as to whether or not I get paid.

I'd go if I thought I wouldn't look ridiculous sprinting to the bathroom every 5-15 minutes. I just want this new job to work out...and my body isn't helping things.

Yes yes, I know people get sick. But I'm in a probationary period, as with all new jobs, and I've already been sick once. I can only hope the quality of my work (which hasn't been presented to me yet as being good nor bad) is my saving grace.

I just get wound up when stuff like this happens.

Passion Stolen....

I need my fix. I've gone almost an effing year without it. I just can't stand it. I feel the familiar urge coming on, and I try to deal with it. But I just can't.

No, really. I CAN'T do too much about it, not right now.

Now that my self-esteem has picked up again, I find myself looking at pictures of me during my old addiction.

I'm currently watching an animated series called The Legend of Black Heaven. Only those with my addiction would understand the full scope of the effect this show has had on me the past few days. But it reminded me. It reminded me of the one gift that a higher power gave me at birth that I do, and do well.

It is my passion. My obsession. And now, lack of it is starting to become my pain.

If you haven't figured it out yet, my addiction is clearly displayed on my profile picture.

When I feel the urge, I pick up my Alvarez D-150 Acoustic. But it's just not the same. Not one damned bit.

It doesn't compare to plugging into an amplifier, cranking the master volume control, playing the stereo or a recently produced demo and playing along with it.

To become so lost in what I do I care not what anyone sees, the expressions on my face, only what I feel in my heart. It is the greatest natural high I have ever accomplished; the joy I feel playing guttural rhythm grooves or forcing one of my nine electric guitars to scream a high pitched, throaty cry....it's the equivalent of climbing a mountain.....then diving back down again into an extremely fast pentatonic or diatonic or frygian riff.....it's the equivalent of parachuting off the same mountain...and the faster and harder you go, the better it feels. The inspiration that got you to pick up your instrument in the first place suddenly gives spontaneous birth to brand new inspiration, sometimes without end. I know when I've done a good 'workout' when the backside of my right forearm and my guitar are both drenched in sweat when I'm done.

So at this point you're probably asking yourself "WHY the hell can't you do it already, GET OVER IT and just DO it?"

It's not that simple.

I live in an apartment complex. Strike one. My 'room' for all my musical stuff is shared by my son when he comes over....but I don't think the kid needs any more than just a damned foldout bed in the living room, because he lives on the PS2 when he is inside the apartment. So, there's a space problem.

My amplifier is set up. But it's cramped. There's no stereo in that room. Music playing on a stereo helps me set the mood, as well as get in the mood. It really does. Whether it be an SRV CD or some old rock-glam song. Something that sings melodiously, whatever-it-is that inspires me.

Lately a lot has been inspiring me, which is why this awareness in myself has been reawoken.

I'm a little self-conscious playing that deeply as described above around my wife. Yes, I just said I don't care whose watching, but I do wonder what she's going to say or think if she ever sees me actually putting all of myself into something like that. She's only gotten minor blasts of what I'm really capable of on the instrument. As much as I know and love my wife so deeply, this is a side of me (albeit a good one, I think) that she has yet to really see.

I used to have the ideal situation living at home, and in my brief year in my rent house in Oak Cliff. When everyone was at work, or on a Saturday afternoon when my ex went shopping, I would crank and blast. Even when we were living in my grandmother's upstair apartment, we had a door separating rooms. I could crank as much as I liked upstairs, as long as the door was shut. My grandmother is tolerant of noise, in fact, I think she prefers a noisy house. And this is going to sound rude, but she's in her 70s and losing her hearing, so there was little harm nor foul in cranking it up.

All I know is this when it comes to my playing...

Within me lurks something animalistic when it comes to music. Something demanding to be released. I can't crank my instrument amplification at home for the most obvious reason -- eviction. Which REALLY sucks. Bottom line (and those of you who play guitar know what I'm talking about)...if I can still hear the strings acoustically on my electric guitar OVER the volume of the amp, it's not loud enough. If I can't get some small unintentional feedback from the speaker of my amplifier (a la Hendrix) if I stand too close to it, it's not loud enough.

*sigh* I feel so oppressed, and so full of rage about the oppression. It's not really anybody's fault, I just wish we had a house.

And what's sad is, this is the greatest conduit I have ever had to deal with depression, anger, anxiety, etc., making music--and playing it from the heart--my greatest soul-cleanser. And I'm not just some noise maker... rarely have I ever gotten any complaints about my guitar playing (unless it was back when I was still learning a new song and my dad got pissed off about the fact that I kept playing the same tune over and over again, but that was just minor stuff...)

I'm not a top-40 artist, I haven't tried that because frankly fame scares me, but I'm damned good at what I do. And unlike ANYTHING else I'm good at, I love this in as much as I'm good at it, and unlike anything else I'm good at, I can never get enough of nor too much of it.

When it comes to music, I'm a free bird. And this bird you cannot change. Now I know how a bird feels in a cage.

So, Politically, I Am....

Normally I hate these things, but here's what I apparently am....

You are a Social Moderate (55% permissive) and an... Economic Moderate (55% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

First Post

Anyway...

Last post was just a test. This one will be my first actual 'entry'.

Since I'm home sick from some kind of irritating food poisoning/stomach flu, I feel compelled to write about my new job.

I spoke of new beginnings. So, after two years of college, and a dehabilitating back injury that damned near derailed my entire life, now I have a new job...right back at the old place I was at before. Any anonymous readers of my blog probably have no idea how ironic that is considering the circumstances.

I realized something new when I started this job. My apprehensiveness about every little thing is going to kill me from self-induced stress someday. I left my old job on very good terms, but also left a nasty work environment that many didn't survive as long as I did, under 'old management'. Since I'm trying very hard to shed my old skin of grudges and bad blood that the old company created, that's all I'm really going to say about the 'old days'.

I came back to find a completely different company, just with the same group of people. That same group of people created my apprehensiveness when I first came back.

I began to think of the old days, and in spite of what my friend told me to reassure me that things had changed, I became turned inward after I was hired, dreading that first day.

Apprehensiveness is good, but I somehow always resort to extremes in my mind when faced with a big life change. My wife remained supportive throughout all of these issues I had.

I was also fairly torn inside and assumed that I would have to completely give up school for all of this. It angered me at first, considering that I originally took on this job to support my wife through her Master's... then I realized... I had just been out of the cogs of society too damn long, and needed to snap out of it.

Two years of nothing but school and online games like Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft will do shit like that to you. The injury I had also drove me into a very unhealthy weight gain, courtesy of my doctors making me paranoid of moving a muscle, lest I break my back and become paralyzed.

So, where is all this going?

My first day of work came and went.

Blew my effing mind. My new boss, who is also the old friend, made good on everything she told me, and then some. Everyone there works hard, that hasn't changed. But the nasty aura surrounding the entire environment and department and attitudes of people I used to work with is no longer there. It's an amazing thing what a good change of management can do. For the people that left, I don't miss em', and if I ever see them again, it will be too soon.

Another friend of mine that worked with me during those old days just came back. He, too, is experiencing the insane culture shock of working in a humane environment. Work environment is truly everything with a job, for me. Yes, there is always going to be stress, etc., blah blah, but this old co-worker and I are both amazed at the change.

He and I can't believe that we can get up and go to the bathroom without being noticed. We're amazed we can go take breaks without getting followed outside. We're amazed that we're not being micromanaged. We're amazed that we can go to ANYONE in our department and ask a question and not have to dread the person answering us sounding annoyed that we even bothered them in the first place. I even came across an old middle-management boss that I was known to butt heads with in the past, very apprehensive, and even that person welcomed me back warmly with a sincere, friendly smile and a handshake. It was after all that had happened that I had decided things had truly changed for the better.

Ok, so I did touch on the past by comparing it to the present, so I lied. But since the present is a GOOD thing, I make no apologies for it.

Now, that I've had the time to think things through rationally, without worry, I realize I can do things...my wife and I can proceed forward with our goals without financial worry. I see myself actually living in a house with her. I see us as a true family. I see myself going back to collecting guitars and my classic car hobby. And, I even still see myself finishing school. I see myself losing weight again. I see a lot of things turning 180 degrees and being better, in time.

My friend, the one that got me this job, she's awesome and I want to tell her that here, I owe her so much for this. My entire life is turning back around again because of her. So this blog entry, the first actual entry, is dedicated to her. I owe her more than she knows, and though she may never believe it within herself, I would like to take this time to say that she's one of the greatest friends any person can ever have.

Ok, I tried to eat something about 16 hours ago and puked it up, so I need to try and eat something again. Cross your fingers I keep it down, I really don't want to go to the doc today...