Louie Pit Bull (and Ollie Beagle)

HI, MY NAME IS ADAM...

2011-10-31T12:25:00.004-04:00

Life is life. Sometimes you get the good end of the sheep, other times you don't.

I could write a story. I could. I choose not to. There is this story about a sheep...you can fill in the rest. I am a sheep. I am also a wolf.

I'm an alkie.

And so on.

You think that you have the world by the balls, but it turns out that the World owns you.

I am not bitter. (Well, maybe a little bit.)

***

But, listen: I did it to myself. Consciously, subconsciously...what is the difference?

***

I had the World by its "short-hairs." I fell to the wayside.

That is not to say that I cannot come back. I can. I will. But...it's just kinda disheartening, sometimes.

***

Oh! Sure! Get yer ass to a meeting! Um...no. I have been to meetings and, let me tell you, they're always an uplifting occasion. Seriously. They just are. Now, while that would tell a whole hell of a lot of people to "sign on, sign in, let go, let God," I pretty-much refuse. Why? Because I am a stubborn baby. (And that is not the best way to be a 38-year-old man.) It gets old....

***

Do you know what else gets old? Trying to circumnavigate Addiction. There is absolutely no way around it. It'll getcha every time. You try--sometimes--to be "normal." Then? Then your Addiction rears its ugly motherfucking head. And you acquiesce. You give in. There are people out there who declare, "I am my body. I am my mind. I am my Soul. I give the grace of my Life to God and Jesus Christ!" And? They stop. Their little minds cannot get used to the fact that God (Yaweh) made us as we are. Every person. Every person.

***

That is why it boggles my mind, sometimes, when people act "out of line."

***

I am not trying to get a gold star on my forehead, but I will tell you this: With money in my pocket, with a slightly-skewed vision of the world, I was more than happy to give a person on the street a twenty-dollar bill. I had more; he or she had much much much less. Is that egotism? Perhaps. But you know what most of it was? Helping someone in trouble. Case closed. Because...you know? Helping someone helps your own Soul. It just does....

***

And we move on to...today. I am not asking for sympathy--I think I burned that to the ground a long long time ago. What I am asking for, though, is tolerance. When in the fuck did the human race lose capacity for tolerance? When? Where? I am faaaaaaar from perfect, but I believe in my gut, in my Soul, that everyone deserves a fair fucking handshake. (Sorry about the cussing--no, I'm not.) I just think that there are Have's and Have-Not's. (And it is getting worse.) Should I belly-ache about this? Oh! Oh, hell, yeah. [Shudder-shake.] Who am I? I just said a lot of stuff about the rich and the poor. Should I not tolerate the Rich? They are human beings, too. So! You caught me--in a hypocritical moment. Good for you!

***

And the moons shrivel; the Sun doth Shine.

***

And the leaves from the trees fall all glittery-goldilocks. Loch? No. "Locks." But? There is a monster, yes? Call it the Loch Ness Monster. Do it, if it makes you feel good. Whilst you're feeling good understand that we don't know it all. There absolutely could be a prehistoric organism living in Ness Lake. Absolutely. And who is anyone to "disqualify" a man who says that, on the full moon, he--uh--changes. Why not a werewolf? There is scientific evidence to the pro. So.

***

It is All Hallow's Eve. Halloween.

***

This is what I believe: I believe that peeps have their eyes closed. All the time. I believe that there is a--no, many--plane(s) of existence that we (unless we are a medium) are not privy to. I believe in ghosts. I believe in vampires. (But! You have got to take into consideration all the maladies that prey upon human beings. Werewolf might be a dude who is hirstute. A vamp may be a man [or a woman] who is hemophilatic.) You never know.

***

You never know.

***

What else do I believe in? Aliens. Why not? Who in their right mind thinks that we are the ONLY? Seriously.

***

This is all to say that sheep are the best option. All they'll do is "Baaaaaaaaaaaah."

***

SOME SONG

2011-10-10T07:55:00.003-04:00

So, I heard this song. I've heard it before. Some the lyrics go like this: If I die young/ lay me down/ at the river/ cover me with roses/ never clearer.

I say this: If I die young, fuck the roses, just hustle me down to the river and dunk my fucking head. That should wake me up.

***

Have you ever drank/drunk so much water, so fast, that you thought your belly might burst?

Me, either.

***

Life is good, the house is looking great, my relationship with my girl is going swimmingly, my job is fantastict, I have lost some weight, and the skies are not cloudy all day!

There is also this bridge in Brooklyn....

***

And so it goes (KV)....

***

Do you remember that Uncle Remus story about the "tar-baby"?

Me, either

***

If you bring up the subject of Jesus Christ and the Lord to some people, sometimes, you feel like you have a bulls-eye on your forehead.

Other times? It is as cool as a cucumber.

***

And so it goes.

***

Have you ever felt the urge to take a coach's whistle and sneak up behind people on a busy street and shrilllllllllllllllllllll as loud as you could?

Me, too.

***

I broke my compter chair today. The left arm of it had been loosey-goosey for a while. Today? When I tried to shift my (over)weight?

The thing broke clean off.

***

And so but we adjust.

***

Here is a newsflash: Hospitals suck (ass).

In them, you often feel like a prisoner.

***

End of story.

***

Back in the '80s and '90s, there was a brand of clothes called, shockingly enough, B.U.M. Athletics. Who would want to wear that?!

Who'd want to be a bum?!

***

NINE-ELEVEN--TEN YEARS LATER...

2011-09-10T09:30:00.003-04:00

I remember where I was. Who doesn't? I was reading the numbers of gas meters in Bloomfield, Michigan. It was a meter that was inside, in the basement, and, as I climbed back into the hallway, I remember a young woman walking past me, in her hands a portable radio. "They're attacking us," she chirped. "We're downing all the planes, now."

I looked at her and went on my way.

Later, when I was in my car, the normal morning show was uncharacteristically bleak. We, the United States of Apathy, had been attacked. And, unfortunately, it had been a resounding success. The Twin Towers had fallen and there'd been an attack thwarted that led to a commercial jet-liner nose-diving into a Pennsylvania crop field.

More than 3000 people had been killed.

More than three thousand people. Murdered.

For no reason other than fanaticism.

As time went on--I watched the planes slam into the Towers every chance I got--it became apparent that some Islamic people hated the United States so very much that they would kill themselves to further the Jihad.

(A day after the attacks, a Muslim man in New York was beaten to death for the simple reason that he was a Muslim.)

And so it goes.

***

We had a cowboy for a President, ten years ago. He had won his post by cheating. He told the American people that if they (fill in the blank) and (fill in the blank) all would be fine; if the people did not (fill in the blank) then the terrorists would win. I am trying my hardest not to belittle the Cowboy, but it is tough.

Ten days after the attacks, the United States of America invaded Iraq, a Middle-Eastern country that was led by a tyrannical despot. It had been ascertained, through intelligence, that he had capabilities for "mass destruction." (These vehicles later became known as WMDs.)

We didn't find any. Whoops.

And so it goes.

***

Tomorrow, September 11, 2011, is the remembrance of....

***

There are terror alerts in New York and also Washington, DC. Citizens are told to go about there daily lives, pretend that nothing is amiss. Please let me tell you: Everything is amiss. We, as a nation, are a cunt-hair's width from mass destruction. That is not a wide margin.

Every day, I read a newspaper blurb that reports Thousands die in Iraq: Suicide bomber kills himself and thousands and Peace talks between Israel and Jordan stall and The new bomber: woman. Every time I read those stories, I think to myself, well, why not here? How tough would it be to strap explosives around yourself and go to a mall or a baseball game or a fireworks show and blow your ass up? Simply-said: It'd be simple.

***

I don't mourn, anymore, for the thousands who were killed. They were innocent. I still believe that. Innocent in a couple of ways (as was I): First, they assumed America was unassailable. Second, they had their heads buried in their asses, oblivious to world news and immanent threats.

We, as a nation, got a rude awakening.

***

All that said, I want to kill fanatic Muslims. I may chop their heads off and post it on the internet, a la Daniel the Reporter. I would waterboard their asses till they told me some intelligence, bogus or not. I'd shoot 'em in the kneecaps and then the stomach and urinate upon them as they lay writhing to death in their own piss and shit and blood. And I would have a clear conscience.

***

I was raised to love all people. I have that instilled in me. I also grew up and learned that hate is not always such a bad thing. If my family members had died, I would be even more of a nutcase. And, but, seriously, though? Isn't that the be-all end-all: Love one another. I try. But sometimes it is tough.

***

So...here is the "anniversary." Not a lot has changed. After a brief brief brief period of bi-partisanship, we're back to the same ole Washington. After a brief period of "all for one and one for all", we remain, as a nation, considerably divisive. What'd we learn? Nothing, I reckon.

***

Except for this: We learned that peeps want us all dead...cuz we're infidels.

***

To which I say, "Bullshit. I'm not an infidel. Getcho facts straight, motherfuckers."

***

Tomorrow is 9/11/2011. Ten long incongruous years. Fuck. We're screwed. I want to end this with a simple 5-7-5:

the Towers did fall

much confusion abounded

we learned about Death

BRING ON THE NF-MOTHERFUCKING-L

2011-08-27T08:32:00.004-04:00

It's football time, again. I had a draft last night with co-workers and, while I may have made a couple of bone-headed picks, I am thinking that my team has a chance to do well this year. A lot of the responsibility rests on the strong shoulders of Adrian Peterson. As his backfield-mate, I selected Matt Forte. I'm a little concerned about M. Martz's pass-happy offense, but I think Forte'll still put up some good numbers. I got the stud receiver L. Fitzgerald out of 'Zona--I just pray that Kolb will know to pass to one of the best catchers in the league. You throw it anywhere near Fitz and he'll snag it. I also got B. Lloyd--he's a question mark. You want a bigger question mark? I drafted Plaxico Burress, fresh outta the clink. I think this: He has something to prove, to both fans and himself. I think he'll turn into Sanchez's number-one option in Jay-Ee-Tee-Ess-land.

But who cares, right? Well, obviously, I, for one, give two shits. I love football, the NFL in particular. I. Can't. Wait.

I picked up the Philadelphia Eagles defense/special teams. First, I think they're gonna terrorize the league. (But maybe I'm buying into the off-seaon hype? Perhaps.) I know this, though: They have DeSean Jackson returning kickoffs and punts--he's always got a chance to break one for a touchdown. So. I'm covered.

I called my team the Galloping Ghosts, an allusion to Red Grange, one of the the best--if not the best--collegiate football players in the history of the game. He was nicknamed the Galloping Ghost. I really don't know that I have ever heard a better sports moniker. Oh, he was a beast. Google him, if you want to. Even a non-sports fan can recognize that the dude was head and shoulders above everyone else. I kinda fricked around with a picture of him: It's in the upper-right corner; I added some color to it. That's my logo. (I'm proud of it.)

Anyway. Bring on the football! I can't wait!

YA WIN SOME AND YA LOSE SOME

2011-08-17T21:21:00.003-04:00

This is the picture of a camera carcass. I have given up with this one. It is a Nikon Coolpix s6000 and it is--and pretty much always has been--a piece of shit. The price wouldn't tell a person that. I bought it for about three-and-a-half bills about two years ago, but the results I have had with it render it pretty much the brown organic stuff civilized persons flush down a toilet.

It belongs in the toilet.

I'll keep it in the desk drawer just to remind myself never never to buy a Nikon point-and-shoot ever again. (And, also, maybe I'll be able to export the pictures from its memory card, many of which are from the Kid Rock Concert in Detroit. Another thing the Nikon Corporation took away from me.)

I have a thing about technology: I want it to fucking work. With this particular piece of machinery, I have had nothing but problems. Listen: Three-and-a-half hundred dollars is not a gold mine. I know this. But, damn it, it was hard-earned money, and the least, the absolute least, my purchase could do is give me at least a year (maybe two years) of harmony. The Nikon Coolpix s6000 didn't. Did. Not. In fact, damn-near out of the box, it gave me problems. Our marriage has been oh-so-much-less-than harmonious. Its latest malady is a ubiquitous "lens error" message, a situation in which I press the power button, through the view the picture is nothing but BLUR and then the lens closes its eye, goes to sleep, says fuggit. Um. No. No fuggit. Work.

But it simply refuses and I have had it far longer than the warranty (that I probably never purchased, anyway) and the receipt is long-lost and its idiosyncrasies have forced me to turn my back on Nikon and its products for the length of my God-given life. I spurn Nikon. And that gives me great pleasure.

It'll reside in the computer desk's center drawer, now. Now and forever.

You know the funny thing? The image of the camera in the drawer was taken by my Canon PowerShot SD630, a four-year-old camera, a relic, a camera that spent a year of its life in the side door compartment of my mother's PT Cruiser. It stayed there for damn-near a full year, through 105-degree-greenhouse-summer temperatures and the biting freeze of a Michigan winter. Does it complain? Does it go to sleep on me? Does it give me nothing less than its best effort? No, no and no. It works. End of story.

***

But, of course, it's not the end. Is it ever really the end, with me? No. I like to type. I like to spew keyboard diarrhea. I'm loopy, that way. Does price matter? I believe in my bones that, most times, yes, you get what you pay for. I spent three bills on the Canon about two years before I lost it and purchased the Nikon. It has been steadfast in its reliability. The Nikon boasted great zooms and stellar HD videos. Tell you what: Take the HD videos and zooooom them up your ass. I'm a Canon-man from now on.

The devil's advocate may whisper: "Hey, man, maybe you got a lemon." And maybe I did. If that is the case, it sucks for the Nikon Corporation, because I am a lost consumer. I think that is just the way it works. People become loyal to products that work for them. The ones that don't? Well, consumers turn the other cheek to them. (And I'm not speaking biblically.)

This is not supposed to be a manifesto, but maybe it turned into a mini-manifesto. In my gut, I don't feel bad that I excoriated the Nikon Corporation. I am angry. I feel that I just gave my money to them and they wiped their collective ass with it.

Shout it loud and proud from the rooftops! Shout it! Nikon sucks! Nikon sucks! Nikon suc--

And Canon should be hereforerafter-known as Old Reliable.

(In my estimation.)

(And I am only one little ole blogger...but, damn! It feels good to write again! [Even if most of it was a vitriolic rant against a highly-successful electronics company.])

(Parenthetically? Good night, godspeed and God bless.)

By the way...I'm thinking about buying a DSLR camera sometime soon. Guess what? It ain't gonna be a Nikon.

WORKING TITLE

2011-05-21T14:50:00.004-04:00

***

"Slap me."

"No."

"Slap me!"

"No!"

***

laziness precedes the fade

so-be-it attitudes rear

their Dragon-Heads

throughout life, we all humans realize these emotions:

love

trust

pleasure

addiction

pain

betrayal

forgiveness

resignation/resolution

their fucking Dragon-Heads.

there be many again there before me

who'd lived his life as though he's free

but then in the end, he had realized his gaffe

that all that all Life is is a big ole Laugh

***

I smoke too much. I have been known to drink too much. I don't eat the most healthful foodstuffs. I possess, however, a great big ole heart. I care. I empathize. I'm no fucking saint, for sure. But I get down-and-outedness. "There but for the grace of God, go I."

Whistle past the graveyard, if'n it pleases ya.

***

It was windy in the graveyard. Every breath and gust of wind brought the smell of decay.

***

Decay. Sure, bodies decay. But, too, emotions and relationships decay.

***

The dreaded red pencil plays a part in a majority of Life. I always wonder--and do believe--that the red pencil comes equipped with an eraser.

THE TITALODGE.

2011-05-01T12:58:00.002-04:00

Once upon a time, there was Peace.

There were good times and randily-drunk brews.

There was...Nothing.

The Nothing has returned.

There was a "goodboy" and there was Silence.

The Nothing has returned.

[cue V. Price, cackling]

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Between a rock and a hard place"?

Me either.

I'd like to be a rock, but I am just a frail human man, warts and all.

There *is* no game. Everything is as serious as a heart attack.

I have Faih, but my Faith is splintered.

I love God and I know he loves me...for whatever reason.

[If the sheriff tells you to jump, you jump; he holds the cards.]

Then again, if God looks at me, he'll see my good. Do ya know?

Have you ever heard of the "tortured artist"?

***

My gun snucked him clearly in his left temple. It--the gun--is a .45, a big gun. He died. His name was James Oliver. The left side of his skull was dented, in a way. Someone else did it to him. I'd not had the power.

***

Someone had stolen my gun.

***

My gun? The death weapon? It'd been stolen.

***

thru feudal fielded flecks we froom.... anger is at no premium; i hate it; it sucks. there is a jank-o-lantern. see it Fire! i rest. thru feudal frocks...we hide.

***

I asked him straight-out: you take my gun?

***

"Who died?"

I said, "Jummy? James Oliver? He died."

"Jummy was a piece of shit." Allen stretched out his six-six frame. He lit a Pall Mall. He cleared his throat. He made it known, non-verbally, that he has no idea of Jummy's demise. Al sent mucus flying.

"Al," said I, "I do believe you're full of shit. The party was done. man! Only you knew where my gun was!"

THE DAWGZ

2011-02-25T12:54:00.003-05:00

One of the best gifts I have ever received in my life is a mouse pad. Seriously. My sister, Alexis, made it, through some computer program, and it shows Louie and Oliver in cahoots. Every damned picture brings a prick at my eyes. They were partners in crime. And, yes, every time I look at the mouse pad, images of my boy Louie swim to the forefront of my brain.

I know that no one reads this shit anymore, and that is okay. I'm fine with it. Who wants to read about a person riding a bicycle towards a cliff with no brakes? I understand why people don't read this shit anymore. I'm fine with it. So, in that case, I'll just describe what the mouse pad looks like. And...what it means to me.

It is a regular-sized mouse pad. The mouse glides easily over it.

The pictures on it are all pictures I took. Lou might have been the most-photographed dog in the history of Photography. [Oliver lacks.]

In the upper-left corner of the pad, we have an image of a little ferocious beagle, ears akimbo, south-pawing the larger dog. Lou's head is cocked to his right; he's ready to serve up a counter-punch. Ollie looks insane, like he is a killer. Great, but Lou'd have done him in if he felt like it. But...no. They were friends. They loved each other.

At the upper-right corner of the pad, there is a black-and-white photo of the dogs, hind to hind, in which I later Photoshopped in some bones. It was supposed to be something like the stand-off at the OK Corral. Lou, the bigger dog, has a smaller bone. Oliver, the beagle, has a larger bone. In the picture, Oliver is looking up at me, through the camera, seemingly saying, "Um, sir? Can we expedite the process, please?" [Oliver would never talk like that.]

Below the first picture, there is one of, simply, Louie and Oliver. Lou is all big-snouted and calm, and Oliver continues to look like a girlie-dog.

Interruption: Doggie-paws across the middle of the pad. One. Two. Three.

The next snapper, reading left to right, is of Oliver lying in the hallway and Lou being right up front, in focus. He looks non-plussed. He looks like he has the burden of carrying the little guy, his friend. In a dog's life...right? He was, to his last days/daze, a soldier.

We draw our attention from the right and focus on the left. Here, at the bottom left of the mouse pad, we can see what Louie could have done. Total and utter subjugation. They're still play-fighting, but Lou makes a point: I will, if I ever have to. His right fore paw is completely obscuring Oliver's eyes. Louie's body is dangerously close to just collapsing upon the beagle, rendering Oliver non-still. Lou loved the little guy, though. That much is obvious. Be he intervening if I were disciplining Ollie or be it if my voice were raised, Lou always--always--looked after his brother. [And me. And his mother. And his sister.]

Next picture: Lou and Ollie, in tandem, walking next to the side of the house. So what, right? Oh, no. This is key. From the moment they met, they were inseparable. One for both and both for one. Their tails are up in tandem and Oliver is daintily placing his right fore paw on terra firma. And Lou is looking at the camera as if to say, "Another, man? C'mon."

Yes, Louie. Another. Because you lived like you burned it at both ends, and I am so fucking glad that I took too many shots of you.

The final picture is just that of a bone. But, by the way the images were constructed, it looks like Lou is right above the bone, like it is his birthright. And? It is.

***

ANXIETY AND ANGUISH

2011-01-14T20:59:00.003-05:00

I am sad. The dictionary that I have....

The love of my life just informed me that, no, the dictionary that I have had since 1992--someone had left it on the desk in a Journalism class--is not half-full, that it does not end on "praline."

"It's under there, babe!" she squealed, pointing at the end table. "See," she said, fluttering pages beneath my nose, "it ends on 'zombie!'"

My apologizes to Daniel Webster. My tangible love for words is restored.

(She also taped it together. I said to use duct tape--it's more utilitarian--but she wanted to use packing tape. We used both!)

Glee.
--Adam Burrier

Professor Burrier wrote the above. His dictionary he assumed was only half there. You see beacause he only had the half of it. The other half lay under the coffee table (he must've forgotten it was old and tattered) which I grabbed joyfully (I fixed yet another problem) and proceeded to repair with duct and packing tape. Finally, praline and zombie are re-united...and it feels so good.
--Meagan Spurck

By the way, all I can think of now is a--LOL--"pralined zombie." Back together, and it Tastes so Good! Brains, that is! Like ice cream. Pralined Zombie Treats.
--Adam Burrier

Now, I have to rebut with my own wit and impressive wiriting skills. Sometimes, all it takes is a little thing, a twist of words, an experience to bring us together. Call it fate or destiny or pralined zombies...all I know is this, when you find your soul mate, the one whose words collide with your own on deeper levels that you have ever known. You'll know...that pralined zombies are the next best thing to sex.
--Meagan Spurck

I concur. Words and laughter--laughter, especially--can be just as good as sex. What does that say about sex? That it is all-good, all-knowing, but that, sometimes, life experiences (Fate and Destiny) can sometimes mean more. In my case, sex only lasts an hour, an hour-and-a-half, at most. But gut-busting laughter--and the brain-drugs in which it incites..? That lasts Forever. And I feel--know--that I am a lucky man. She is my best friend. (Even though I'll end up eating her pralined brains.)
Glee.
--Adam Burrier

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW...

2011-01-09T12:28:00.002-05:00

Is Love, sweet Love.

You! Yes, you! You are either a good person or a bad person.

Which one are you?

The world has always been Krazee.

But it seems to me that it is gettin' crazier.

Who would shoot to death a nine-year-old girl?

Not me.

No, some dumb-assed freak in the Southwest. Arizona.

Dude walked into some "town meeting" and opened fire. He killed six.

He wounded twenty other world-sharers.

He blasted a nine-year-old girl's face off.

Why?!

Did he disagree with "Government"?

So what. I disagree all the time. But I have Love in my heart.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!

2011-01-02T17:32:00.002-05:00

A day late, but the thought is still the same: I hope that 2011 is a great year for you all.

THE THINGS THAT A VIOLENT VIDEO GAME WILL TEACH YOU

2010-12-17T19:59:00.003-05:00

I am a fan of the video game Grand Theft Auto series. I always have been and I always will be. These games are not for pre-adolescents or adolescents or, even, teenagers. Those young folks' brains have not developed enough to enjoy (and not be scarred by) the "games."

My latest GTA kick is "Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City." In the game, my character is a guy named Luis, an ex-soldier, a bad-ass, a straight bodyguard for one of the biggest (gay) nightclub owners in Liberty City.

Drugs, violence, sex.

[By the way: Liberty City is a video twin of New York City.]

Luis may not like it, but I absolutely love Carnage. Mayhem. Luis is under my control...or am I under his? That's a transcendental question, I reckon. Be it as it may be, I am the Puppeteer. And when I say "jump" Lou jumps. And when I say "Throw your grenade at the cop car and see what happens" Luis does just that. And when I say "Climb to the top of the highest building and drop a grenade at your feet and wait for the blim-blam" Luis does just that.

I think "transcendental" is too big a word for this. I think "vicariously" would work better.

See? I am college-educated, I have a somewhat golden finger for writing, but I am not immune to the slowly-seductive forces of--gasp!--video games.

They are so fucking realistic. Every time I play, I am immersed in Liberty City. If I start, I play for, at least, three hours. Good. God. Yeah. Three hours.

I enjoy killing. Vicariously. I enjoy throwing a live grenade, vicariously, into a crowded, traffic-jammed intersection. I enjoy watching the cars blow up and I, also, enjoy watching the fire-bound wounded straggle from their vehicle, and deposit Life on my doorstep. Upon which, I shoot them either in the head or the genital area.

In this game, I am a malevolent God.

***

But. Back to the title. What can a video game teach a person?

Well. For one thing, this: I was in Chinatown; I had just bought another grenade and also a bullet-proof vest. (Kevlar?) Anyway, I walked out of the shop and intentionally bumped a dude twice. Once was enough, for him. He said something like, "Why you here-ah?" in an Asian accent and so I bumped him again. In my side-vision I saw the red-and-blew of Trouble. The coppers were on the scene. My fingers itched to hold my M-16. I, instead, backed away from the Asian malcontent, and I squeezed my hands into fists so tight that the next day I had semi-circles on my palms. During the interaction, the game-cops took the Chinese guy away. (I guess he'd been inflammatory.)

***

See? Don't tell me that (even violent) video games can not be informative. That one interaction taught me something: Listen not to your gut which tells you that you are the chosen one, that you can do no wrong. Instead listen to Logic.

***

Words to live by. In this case, Logic dictated that: One, there were cops with guns and batons and training and shields (so.what.) and Tazers. Two, the Asian with whom Luis had tangled was bearing the brunt of the policia pressure. All grenade- and M-16- and rocket launcher- and baseball bat- and handgun-laden, Lou knew where to turn: the alleyway. Let the bellicose Asian fend for himself. Live to die another day.

***

This is not all I do. I do not play GTA 24/7. Hell, I only play it, like, twice a week, man. But when I do?! Oh, shit. I get into it. I am Luis. Actually it's more like, I am Luidam.

***

I am Luidam. Hear m-m-m-me r-r-r-r-roar!

***

(Note To Self: Work on your mofo-ing Confidence.)

***

And that is all I have to say for today. Peace and Love, kiddos. (All two of you.)

***

PEACE......................................LOVE..................................

KING LOUIE

2010-12-06T20:27:00.003-05:00

A Poem:

your ashes rest right next to the television set

below, Oliver snorts his breaths on a double-bed

how long could I have waited?

i fear that i waited too long, you were all skinny

gangly

well, you were gangly as a puppy, too

all big-eared and big-headed and full of energy

i remember taking you roller-blading, but

you took me

long legs flexing, you carried me Home

Home is Love

Home is Peace

Happiness is Home

brindle, you were

and are, always in my mind

you're ashes now,

gray, in a plastic bag

but, to me, you'll always be brindled

Golden Louie

Time has a way of diminishing

you were never diminished

Time has a way of culling defeat from victory

you were defeated only once

Time has a way of shellacking over past Glory

your Glory never left you

you were Strong

until your last day, you were strong

does it seem stoopid to poime to a doggy?

not to me, it doesn't

you were my Constant,

you were my Louie

and you'll always be

dogs have a way of implanting themselves into a human brain

a human mind

a human soul

dogs have a way of ingratiating themselves into a human Life

and, so, when the dog is gone

the presence is still felt

and leaves oh-so slowly

dogs are kids and babies and companions and

compatriots

dogs are Love and Health and Compassion and

grief

dogs are life-savers

dogs are saints

doG is God spelled backwards

dogs are:

feeling the wind in your face as you are pulled on 'Blades

behind a boxer-mix who thinks he's a huskey

dogs are Safety

dogs are always there

dogs are 24/7

dogs will come when called

sometimes, dogs are "bad"

getting in the garbage

treating the basement like a toilet

snapping at contractors

but dogs are oh-so good

dogs are dogs

end of story

but it ain't

when i saw you suffering, Louie,

i waited for a reason

"he's lost weight!"

"he's all skin and bones!"

"he sometimes loses his bladder in the house!"

(which, of course, you'd--on one hand--done before)
"he's not looking too well!"

"but he still eats!"

"long live the Survivor!"

even Survivors have to succumb, eventually

your last week, i kept my eye on you

i watched: for differences, for malaise towards food and drink

eventually, it came

and i knew i had to make your decision for you

because you wouldn't

you'd have shrunk to nothing

your Survivor Spirit

was nothing less than amazing

it had to be done

it had to be done.

so i did it

and cried like a baby when you were shuffled off to buffalo

when, through injection, your heart quit

when, throughout it all,

i still remembered you as the gangly puppy

all ears

and the strong boy

all Heart

and the Constant Companion, always

always.

before that point in my life, i'd never shaken with Grief

(every day is an adventure, eh?)

i shook with Grief

i kissed you on your dead head and your dead ears and

smelled, one more time, what i could of you

(the olfactory sense is too-often overlooked)

and then i realized, through the help of meeg, that

it was time to go

i realized that it was time to leave you....

but i never will; you know that, right?

one last thing:

you know how, when you were sick, you still licked ollie's ears?

that, to me, was a denotation of what you were

ollie, the trouble-maker, ollie the oaf

you, in your sickness, were there for him

i saw it in your eyes, man

whenever i would get a little mean with ollie

your ears went back

you'd protect a brother over a pack leader

that meant a lot to me

(could i be personifying?)

(when don't i?)

maybe i am over-emotional

or maybe i am not

the bond that exists between a "master" and his "beast" is strong

i'll never forget, lou

never forget

***

love you, man

have fun at that self-proclaimed "rainbow bridge"

i'll see you when i see you

i'll see you on the Other Side

baby doggy

i love you, man

and i always will

GRANNY 'BUELA DODIE

2010-11-30T18:54:00.004-05:00

The solidity of the occurrence will set in later. The sense of loss is yet to come. Right now, I have memories, good memories...and that's the right place to start.

Watching the Detroit Tigers with her. Watching Superbowls with her. Watching tennis with her. Watching golf with her. Athletic most of her long life, she dug watching sports. She golfed and bowled until her body said that she couldn't anymore. Yet, even in the assisted-living home, she watched the Tigers and the Lions and the ice-skating and the tennis and the golf. Until her brain said she couldn't do that anymore.

Ah, hell, back it up a bit, okay?

When she was in her 30s, she and her love, Bill, were roller skating legends. They almost went to the World Championships, but it was during the War Years. ("The War to End alll-Warz," for those of you who are keeping score.) They didn't go overseas, but they taught kids and teens and adults how to dance on the waxed floor of Roller.

***

I was bummed out all day. I knew the end was coming--I'd seen her on Saturday, and she was a sweet blessed frail sleeping version of herself--but I'd thought that she'd had another week in her. I was bummed out all day. I knew the end was coming, but I wanted her to stick it out. Why?! Because I love her.

***

"Fee-fi-fo-dum; I smell the blood of an Englishman; Be he alive or be he dead; I'll grrrrrrrrrind his bones into my bread." And then she'd let loose with a cackle that'd shame the Wicked Witch of the West. Scared the shit out of me as a kid. Seriously. Her rendition busted me into tears a time or twice. (Okay, maybe more.) But...looking back on it...it was cool. She was a stage actor, too, did I mention? Okay, no I didn't. But she was. I don't know how far-flung her acting career was--I'm guessing not too far--but I do know this: She acted with George Peppard (he of the "A-Team") in a stage show that was something like "Chicken For Dinner." Which, for me? That's absolutely fine. Chicken, shrimp, pork, beef, tofu...whatever. I'll eat it.

But.... In her room at Wickyham. My Mom fabulously decorated it. She brought in Memories and thoughts of Past and Comfort-in-the-Now.... There was this--I don't really know what to call it--this stage revue of her and Peppy in the "Chicken Soup Fiasco" and she was there, all sepia-toned, talking with bedridden, and also sepia-toned, George Peppard. "What's for dinner?!" Um. "Well, chicken, of course!"

And the audience exploded into laughter....

***

But one cannot say a word about Eldora Bella (Andrews) Best without uttering, "Sweet." I have never met a sweeter woman in my life. She was so ingratiating. She was so sweet and soft. I understand that I met her when she was three-quarters through her life, but I have to say this: Leopards don't change their spots. Once sweet, always sweet. She was just a great human being to be around. Being around her raised one's spirits...every time.

I miss her. What a stupid thing to say. It's been half of a day since she exited Stage Left.

I miss her.

***

What a lucky thing it was that I put down my devil and visited her on Saturday. Heck, it may have been pre-ordained. I don't know...I just feel lucky.

Sure, it was tough to see her in her last days. Of course it was. But I had been such a bad grandson. I loved her (and do), sure, but couldn't I have made more of an effort to see her while she was still kicking? At least a bit? I only live 25 minutes away from where she'd spent damn-near three years. And had begged off, on a couple of celebratory occasions, opining that, while she was Here, she wasn't.

So, yes, there is guilt on my part.

***

Ain't there always?

***

I did the same with my dad. I did the same with my uncle. I did the same with my other grandma. I do the same with my dog. If you're sick: Beat it.

***

I sincerely hope that when it is my time? No one will come a-running. I made my own bed and I'll lie in it.

Enough about me and my character defects.

***

I am pissed off. I am pissed to lose Grandma. I am angry that she had to die. I am angrier, still, that she had to strangle through the morass of dying, nigh-upon three years. Does not a good blessed life ensure one of a peaceful transition into the next? I know. It was relatively quick. And for her, I leak tears of Joy. The end is one thing: What about the Epilogue? Why would an Epilogue have to be so strung-out? Finis. Finish. End. Did she suffer? No. No! She did not. But I think/know that an intrinsic part of her did suffer.

I know I would have.

It is the ceiling that kills me. It is the ceiling that she--assuredly--gazed upon, each night, before sleep, that stones me. This is it?! At the end, she wasn't looking at the ceiling; she was looking Into Herself. She was probably clowning with Bill on the beach; she could have been feeding one of her two (fantastic) children; she could have been immersed in an icy lake; she could have been hang-gliding in the Bahamas; she could have been acting with G. Peppard; she could have been scaring the shit outta little Adam; she could have been seeing a White Light; she could have been saying her I-thank-yous and God-bless-yous; she could have been reliving her life as a child; she could have been roller skating, with Bill, in damn-near-perfect symmetry; she could have been hugging her sister Marian and her brother Joe; she could have been....

She could have intrinsically known that she was much-beloved--by everyone--and that she shed the love back, a bit, to everyone, just an iota at a time.

***

I can't do her justice. You'd have had to have known her. Her vitality. Her spark. Her verve for life.

***

When I walked into the room, I was steeled for what I would see. I did. I saw. I saw a frail shrunken woman, with tubes up her nose, and her name was Grandma. I knew the situation. 92.789 years is a fine time. I walked to her bedside and my knees felt weak. I sat in the folding chair and leaned over her. I kissed her on her forehead. The skin beneath felt taut and cold. I kissed her again and lightly-rubbed her shoulder. I kissed her forehead again. "I remember," I said, "watching baseball games with you. Football games. The World Series." I sat back in the chair and just looked at her, examined my 'Buela Dodie: Turned to her left side, being oxygenated, shuddering intermittently, bone bruises on her spindly hands....

***

I have to interject. Let it not be said that Eldora did not receive the highest-quality care, within reason, that she was owed. When I break down what I saw the last time I saw Grandma, well, when a body is ready to go, a body is ready to go. She had ample care, there, and her daughter, Cindy--I am proud for her to be my Mom--was there every day. So, no, I believe that Grandma was not lacking for Love.

But I have to not cloak Death in a White sheen. Let it be seen, I say.

***

I leaned forward again and kissed her on her forehead again rubbed her shoulder again. I looked at her and leaned back over her. "Gramma," I said, as I kissed her repeatedly on the right side of her forehead, "I love love love love love love love love love love love love you."

Her mouth worked around itself a bit, and her right eye cracked open, and she said, "rrrytoo."

Was it just wishful thinking? Oh. No. She had to struggle her ass off, but she said what she thought and felt. For all of us. She returned the "I love you," and she added "too."

***

What a life! What a life! It is Celebration of her life. Start with horse-n-buggies and end up with bullet trains. Start when the Babe is a 19-year-old pitcher/outfielder for the Boston team and end up with a formerly-drug-addled outfielder winning the American League Most Valuable Player award. Start off with dusty roads and end up with mega!-super!-highways!

***

Start off with peace and Love, as she did, and end with Peace and love, as she did.

***

Can you ask for anything more?

***

I miss you already. I know I wasn't around enough during your last years; I apologize. Please, just, know this: That time that I called on the telephone, all drunk, and hyperventilated over the fact that my Mom was on an airplane, with--perhaps!--terrorists, and you calmed me down? Remember that snafu? That, to me, is the sign of Benevolence.

I miss you, kiddo. I hope--I do hope--that your transition has been free of body-scans. Fly free, please? Fly free!

***

I loved my grandma--Eldora--and I will always.

***

The solidity of the occurrence will set in later. The sense of loss is yet to come. Right now, I have memories, good memories...and that's the right place to start....

***
**
*

RING-TAILED LEMUR

2010-11-20T08:26:00.004-05:00

Once upon a time, there was a ring-tailed lemur named Arthur. He was ostracized by his friends, and the community at large, and so he spent most of his time by himself, hanging upside-down, by his tail, swinging from a branch. The dizzier Art got, the better he felt. Or so he told himself.

One day....

Need I continue? I am Art. I am Lemur. Hear me chickle.

The thing about allegories, these days, is that I have no patience to see them through. Call me a monkey.

Do it!

King Kong takes a vacation, sometimes...mostly when I am on-call. When I am off-call, the Kong batters down the door, says "hello" with a backhand to the face. "Hi, Kingie," is all I can manage. "Good...um, it's good to see you again, sir."

Kong snarls and tears the door off of the fridge.

"I think there's some cheese in there," I offer from the living room.

How does a ring-tailed lemur support a giant gorilla on his back? It is mathematically-nonsensical. Yet it happens.

***

You think I, the lemur, am tough? You ain't seen tough yet. Look at Louie. I hope I am not jinxing him by saying this, but he is one tough S.O.B.

Every time I think I should needle him, he wakes the next day as spry as a four-year-old dog. Yes, he still has his bumps. And, yes, he still breaths like the cigar-smoking, 300-pound Cousin Alfredo. And, yes, he is all skin and bones. But the dude survives. Call it an apple from a tree.

I am pretty sure that, during the next week or two, shit'll hit the fan. Lou will have succumbed to his beast. I know that, intellectually. (I also thought the same thoughts two weeks ago.) I know, intellectually, that Lou-Bear be on his lastest leggums. I know. But I am amazed, and proud, at how strong the kid is. He don't wanna go; I certainly don't want him to go.

I am a sucker for strength. Be it physical, mental or spiritual, I am a sucker.

It warms my heart.

***

Strength. Now, while you may say, "Hey, lemur! Get off the sauce, you jag-off!" I would offer this: It takes a hell of a lot of strength to continue to pour toxic beverages down one's throat when one is ill as a hatter. I reckon it's kind of a toxic strength. But it is strong, nonetheless.

***

Lou is different. Lou is better. His is a White Strength, while mine is Paint It Black strength.

***

Like the Cat in the Hat, the bumps came back. I'd like to say, rhetorically, "Wha-?!" But I knew they would. Dude. Lemme tell you this--and I may be jinxing Luigi--I am fucking surprised at how the Lou-Bomb has dealt with his malady. The vet said a month about a month and a half ago.

Lou is as "sick as a dog." That's fer cheezy. But he still gets up and goes Outside. And he still ingests food and water (lots of water). He still greets me in the morning, looking at the Outside Door. He still, occasionally, stands up and puts his paws on my chest.

He is a fighter.

I feel little--and belittled, and emasculated--next to him. (And he has no balls.)

Dude sleeps all the time, now.

But I feel this: I feel that Lou's demise is to teach me one prominent thing: No throwing in the towel. It ain't over till the fat lady sings. Quitters never win and winners never quit. Sometimes Life throws curve-balls--swing accordingly.

There is a hell of a lot to learn from a dying doggie. Tons of stuff.

I think the most important importation is this: Live in the Moment.

***

THE "SPORT" QUANDARY

2010-11-05T15:41:00.004-04:00

When...is the game called? Is it when the starting pitcher has a blister on a finger of his throwing hand? Is it when the much-loathed second baseman throws a routine out into the fifth row, first-base side? Nope and nope. Is it when the manager of the team so-completely embarrasses his players that they douse him in Gatorade? Not to celebrate, but to quell?

Is that when you call the game? Naw.

Why even..?

Switch to football. When the wide receiver, who garners much press, bitches to the reporters, do you call the game? Do you ground him?

When the raindrops start falling on your head, do you call the game? When you hear thunder in the distance and sighs from the stands...do you call the game? When the sky flashes with electricity...do you call the game? (In that case, yes.)

Switch back to baseball. Don't we need to get five innings completed before a called-game can be officially recognized?

Switch back to Life.

Dogs....

Lou has not completed his requisite five innings of play. Sure, he's nearing seven years old, but my mathematician mind tells me that he's in the fourth--perhaps the bottom of the fourth, but the fourth, no less.

How many sighs and flutter-breaths from him do I have to listen to before I "pull the plug," "call the game"? How thin must the always-strong dog must get before I pull myself from my tears and concentrate on his.... His tears. His pain. His embarrassment. His dreams left unfulfilled.

Am I being gregarious with my assertions that, yes/maybe, dogs have aspirations all their own? Am I being stupid?

All I can say is this: Seeing a puppy born is wondrous. Adopting and living with and loving said dog is miraculous. Witnessing the end of your puppy's life--be he one or early-seven--is horrific. I don't know what to do. (Typing through tears is tough...but not as tough as the life Lou is living right fucking now, at this moment!)

When do you call the game?

[Teers dreep off me nose.]

When?! When is the lightning enough?!

God works in very mysterious ways. I may have--have--some time off, coming up, with only myself to blame. Do you think?! Do you think that maybe that worked out?! Just in time for Lou's...internment? I don't know. But I have an inkling of a thought that says that God is looking down on me, shaking His head, and throwing me a bone. Me? Hell no. God is throwing Louie a bone. As the thunder crashed.

After the lightning lit up the sky.

A LETTER TO DAD

2010-11-02T19:32:00.002-04:00

I miss you. I am in a maelstrom, I am sinking. And all that. That's Life, huh?

I thought, today, my Dad died on the 4th of November, two years ago.

Today is the "anniversary."

I miss you Dad, and I love you Forever.

(Better words...later.)

THAT TIME OF YEAR? YES.

2010-10-28T19:57:00.003-04:00

Seemingly every commercial is a political one. We have the Elephants blasting the Asses and we have "back-room deals" and "no jobs" screeching at us every time we choose to hit the ON button.

The Dems suck and the Republicans rule. Or, the 'Pubs suck and the Democratic Truth rules.

See what a phrase--or even a letter-switch--can do?

Do I, personally trust any of them? Nope. Should I? Nope.

I was raised in a Democratic-leaning fam dambly. Must I adhere? Um. Fuck no.

Will I?

I can't tell you. I'll vote, for sure. For sure.

This time of year is "blast down your competitor, show all his warts" time of year.

I like Peace.

This time of year, every other year, speaks only in crocodile tears, veiled tears...that their shit is right and the "Others" are wrong.

Fuck ye.

We're all humans, right? Sometimes you do well; other times you could have your deeds spilled out into the TV and the newspapers and the Cyberspace like you were a...leave that to your imagination.

We are all humans. We all have our foibles. I have mine. Many. The thing I wouldn't do, though? I wouldn't sucker-punch a competitor--below the belt--for some assertions that had happened...Before.

Jesus said something like, if you be in a glass house? Fo' shizzle, my nizzle, doan throw dem stones.

Words...to...Live...by.

The campaign ads just turn out to be so damned sophomoric. It's like: "Some sixty-year-old paid for this slop?!" Hell, yeah, they paid. And they'll pay again. To maintain their maintenance.

It's a fucking joke.

Whatever happened to real leaders like G. Washington and J. Madison and Addams and T. Jefferson and MLK and the Black Vulture X? What happened?! *They* were leaders.

Every. Fucking. Year.

Smear campaigns. "This guy is that. This woman is this. That dude? Who knows? He may be...a molester."

It makes me not want to vote.

But I will.

I have no hard-liners, anymore. I won't vote *strictly* on a "party-line."

I'll vote. Because I am an American. It's my right. It is my *duty*.

But the more I see and hear these childish Wants-and-Needs on the teevee? It makes me sure that there is not a lot of Hope.

Any party, politicians grasp at straws. Most of them double-deal. Most of them suck.

Now: My selection for the "Man of the People"? Me.

Me.

Me. My name is Adam Christopher.

Vote hard and heavy, damn it!

LIFE IS...

2010-10-21T19:58:00.003-04:00

Love.

Life is...Hope.

Life is...Faith.

Life is...fucked-up.

Put that on a poster.

Life is...Wondrous.

Life is...Beautiful.

Life is...God-like.

Life is...fucked-up.

Life? Is Life.

"Hello, pleased to meetcha, Life."

And Life is noncommittal.

That's Life! LOL

(Always the buzz-kill.)

Life.

Yes.

Do you know what pisses me off about Life? He's a jag off. He's always looking for the next quick score. Life is a three-year-old. Life is irrelevant. Life is a lifer. He'll never get away. From himself. Life is a braggart.

Life is Life.

What can ya do?!

Well....

Introduce Life to a neuron-changing experience.

And call it "Peace."

I think Life would jive on that. I think Life would break dance a mean motherfucking "Worm" on that. I think--actually, I know--that Life would spin on his motherfucking head over that.

Get with the program, Life! You slow piece of poop. Get with the fucking program.

I don't ask twice.

--Amen.

LOU AND OLLIE'S BIG ADVENTURE

2010-10-18T22:43:00.003-04:00

My sick dog and his fat little compatriot busted out of the Harwood Prison on Saturday evening, right around 6:45. I was on-call and unaware that the gate had been left open and I had let them out to do their business and then, right before I had determined that a shower would feel good, I went to the back door to let them in and I discovered that the gate had been left open by someone (not me).

I panicked. I threw some pants and shoes on and grabbed my wallet and drove around the neighborhood for an hour or so, intermittently stopping at intersections and tweeting some whistles. I saw no shadowy dog shapes flitting across my field of vision, I heard no howls at the moon (or at other dogs). I felt absolutely nothing.

I went home.

***

Before Sunday passed, Meagan and I put up six cardboard signs on telephone poles. The signs explained that I had lost two dogs. One was a boxer-mix named Louie, wearing a red bandanna, of brindle color, who was seven years old (and sick with a bump on his neck). The other dog was a beagle named Oliver, overweight, black-tan-white-colored.

Before Sunday had expired, I had had a telephone call from a woman saying that she'd seen the two, running together (for some reason, I see this in slow-motion, Louie's tongue flip-flapping in the breeze, his muscles flexing, and Oliver panting along) down Harwood towards Campbell Road, a busy road.

I went to sleep on Sunday, on-call (with a world of other thoughts weighing my melon down) thinking about my doggies and hoping that they were safe and also that they had not harmed another animal or, God forbid, a person, a small child.

Sunday expired.

***

Bright and early today, Monday, I got a call on my cell phone that I didn't answer. I didn't recognize the number; I wasn't about to answer it. I'd had some really odd dreams the night before and I feared that some small part of them might have been prophetic. I didn't answer then, but I listened to the voice-mail when I got to work and had a moment to myself. It was the cracked voice of an older woman. She said that she'd seen the signs that we'd posted and that she had seen the boys running down Campbell towards Interstate-696. Oy-fucking-vey.

"Well, I live on Brockton, and we were outside taking pictures of my granddaughter before her dance and I saw the two dogs--one had a red bandanna--right in front of the house, going down Campbell to 696."

In my mind, I saw the "going down Campbell" phrase as a shadowy mass that one may see on a PBS television show in which they show maps of, say, Alexander the Great's sign-knock over Asia Minor or the Nazis' subjugation of their nearest neighbors. Just a spread of ownership. And I thought to myself, Just be good, boys. If ye have to be bailed out of doggy-jail, just don't have bitten anyone, or anything. And I prayed that to God, too.

And, like I had been thinking all along, I amended this: And also? Please do have not bitten a police officer.

Because, you see, on a Saturday night, who else will cage a loose dog? But a police ossifer. I just prayed that Lou had not bitten one.

He hadn't. Nor had his sidekick.

***

They were in the dog-pound all along. For damn-near forty-eight hours.

***

During that forty-eight? I fretted that one or both may have bitten someone or mauled a child or killed another animal. During that forty-eight, I worried that they may be dead, slammed by a car on Campbell, or wherever that had run. I was secretly-pleased that I wouldn't have to give Lou the needle myself. Sure, lack of closure would suck, but would it suck as much as having to take your kid to the doc and watch him die? During that forty-eight, I missed the hell out of the both of them, even though Lou loves garbage and Oliver has no inkling of potty-training. During that forty-eight, I was pleased to see Meeg's cats exploring the whole of the house (except my bed--no way). During that forty-eight, I missed the hell out of them.

***

We have them back, now. The cats are back in their prison, the silent prison, the prison I learned to care a whit for. Fifty-five dollars later, of which I paid none (Meeg didn't leave the gate open), the boys are back. Oliver is Oliver; he'll always just be the fat little impervious fuck. Lou is a different story. I know this shit has been coming for awhile, but I just cannot fucking stand his labored breathing. It kills me to hear and it kills me to see. It's almost a comic snore...but it ain't. It just isn't. The kid snores 'cause the kid has tumors in his throat constricting his fucking breathing. There is not a fucking fucking fucking thing I can do about it. Except for one thing....

***

Earlier tonight, Meagan said, "Well, at least Louie got to have one last adventure." I may not have the words exactly right. But, yes. His last adventure. Do you know how much that tears at me? Do you know how much his snore-breath fucking tears at me? It does. A ton. A whole hell of a lot. I'm thinking he has, like, a week or two to live. Or...a week or two before I pull the needle-trigger. Have it pulled.

He is not happy. But, sometimes?! He is! =)

He is not happy. He is happy! He is not. He is happy! He is not. He is dying.

***

I can't do it. I told him earlier today, "Louie? You have to let me know. If you don't, I won't be able to do it."

Intellectually, I know that he's going. (I could have so many more graphic connotations, there, but why? I have them in my head and they spring to the ready every time I think about the end for him. I know they're defense mechanisms...at least I think they are.)

Humor. Don't leave home without it. Especially if your best buddy for near-seven years (too short) is breathing like a five hundred-pound Wop hit man named Skinny. 'Cause it ain't funny. Never has been, never will be.

***

I feel the boy--Luigi, Louie, Lou, King Louis--is suffering. I don't want that. I can't have that. What is a father supposed to do? Make sure his son is getting a better life--either here or in the Hereafter. Amen.

***

I'm still undecided. But each lurch of his breath brings me closer to a conclusion.

***

As a side note: I'm on the couch typing, sitting across from Louie, lying in the armchair. (Yes, dying bring some privileges.) Lou's head is cocked to his right, and the red bandanna is visible just over the black of the arm of the chair. Though I hear his labored snore-breath, I see his eyes. I am not a psychic, but I'll be damned if I didn't see quite a bit of Death in his brown eyes.

***

Calgon. Take me away!!!

THE OLE DAWG

2010-10-14T20:44:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, when Louie is laying down, resting, his respirations come as "coos." Like a pigeon would do, but he is a dog, a big dog. With a big bump.

I love him.

PHOENIX...RISING

2010-09-24T20:16:00.002-04:00

I am the phoenix rising,
charred
bleeding
--flesh sloughs off--
bone is brilliant White
beneath

the fire that encapsulated
encompassed
energized
enjoyed
me--ME--me
is smoldering

it sits, like a tiger
it waits
it stares
it caresses
me--ME--me
it waits.

the rise from the ashes
was not so bad
i got burned like a motherfucker
and, yet, i was glad
far be it for me to screach "fire."
i'd rather prefer to lay--LAY--in my mire
i'm the one who opened the door
I'M the one who became a true whore
whatever the bastard Boozie says
i'll do it (willingly)...pretend that it's Pez

"the rise from the ashes"
what fucking rise?
i may have wings but they're
burned to me
i may have a desire to fly
--far above, like a dove--
but i'm planted, man
my wings are charred bloody pieces of
Nothingness
my long-range view is
a 40 at one o'clock aye-em
confused?
so am i
but i am hardly a phoenix

"The Rise From the Ashes"
sounds like a movie, right?
we'll have pre-moron Charleton Heston play
"the suffering addict"
i can just imagine: his booming voice:
"Why, oh why, Lord, does this plague consume me?!"
[quick-shot to a silhouette of C. Heston in his best "Thinking Man" pose]
chin in hand
nekkid as a baby
"Why?! Lord? Why?!"
--booming voice--
the Lord says:

a bird never had so many damned ideas scrim-scramming through its "brain"

i am the phoenix
"I am the phoenix rising"
i am the phoenix
"I am the phoenix rising"
i am the phoenix rising
"I am the phoenix rising"
i am the phoenix rising
"I am the phoenix rising"
i am the phoenix rising, and i ain't colorful
i have no sharp oranges and bleeding yellows and deepest reds
i am the phoenix rising
i am the phoenix rising
i am the phoenix rising
i am the phoenix rising
and my skinny feathers are charred and
bleeding

i am the phoenix.
charred pieces of bloody human flesh are
affixed to my feathery shoulders
blood is the Order

oh! i Love
i do

i am too charred
i can never fly in the kingdom, man
i can try.

SUNDAY DOG DAY

2010-09-19T08:36:00.004-04:00

Dogs....

Even though you love 'em and you want the best for them and you want them to feel better and be better, sometimes they'll just drive you up a wall.

I knew that the kitchen garbage smelled a little--how to say?--ripe. And I thought about changing the bag last night, before I went to bed, but I was tired and so I said, "Fuggit, I'll do it tomorrow."

I guess that's what procrastination gets me.

And I can just imagine how it went down:

Louie probably knocked the lid off, as it most likely was not sealed the way it should have been and then he got up on his back legs to scavenge for the "good smell." Down goes the can! Down goes the can! [Said to the cadence of the boxing call, "Down goes Fra-zhuh! Down goes Fra-zhuh!"]

And then it was game on. Ollie probably crawled into the garbage can, the dirty little mofo. Lou probably just pawed through the wreckage. However they did it, the scene was not one that one wants see on a Sunday morning when one walks into the kitchen/dining room, groggy with sleep.

And, to add insult to injury, Oliver left his little calling card right next to the sprawl of coffee grounds and dog food cans and wet paper towels and cigarette ashes and all the rest of the virtual cornucopia of crap. Not only was there garbage all over the floor, but there was also a pee-circle?! Gimme a fucking break. (And I think Louie might have voided near the back door; but if he did, at least he has an excuse. Ollie's just a dolt.)

It is tough to be angry when the dog whom you love is sick and exiting stage left in the near future, but I managed to still get a little hot under the collar at the both of them. What was done was done, so I didn't scold them or physically disabuse them of their garbage-picking notion, but I sure as hell wasn't giving out any treats, either.

Blimey.

All together, now: "The world, it is a-crumblin'/Through it, I feel I'm stumblin'/Each day it brings a brand-new Sun/But where oh where did I put that gun?"

Joking. (Kind of.)

SEPTEMBER 16TH, 2010

2010-09-16T19:30:00.004-04:00

My doggy is dying.

He's full of cancer, lymphoma to be specific. I worry about his level of pain; I worry about his quality of Life. The vet said that he had, like, one or two months to live, given that his disease was high-caliber. Intense. Uber-degreed. Metastatic. I forget exactly what the vet said--the terms that he used--but I know what he meant; I catch his drift.

Louie's doing pretty okay, right now. He eats, he barks (he farts like no one's business). He is okay, right now. I just dread what is to come. Because I love him, you know. I have soooo much love for the little kid, the skinny kid, the sick kid. I--well, it doesn't even register, to me. On too many fucking levels.

[As I kiss him on his snout...] He and I have been inseparable for six-and-a-half years. He's been here, with me, as a Constant.

That is one of the myriad things that tugs at me about this. And but one also has to deal with end-of-life issues ($136.85 from the Rochester branch of the Michigan Humane Society, but then I have to take his body and bury it. Otherwise, three hundred extra dollars will be added--'cause they have to outsource, don'tcha know, to the Burners.) I'll tell you this: I wanted his ashes to spread as I would want, but I'll be got-damned if I'm going to spend another three bills on his death. But, this too: If I don't take his body or pay for the outsourced Burning, what in the hell will they do with his body?! Uh-uh.

I ain't having it. I'll bury the sweet boy myself. I will. I will. I will.

He deserves Respect. He is not some piece of biological garbage. He ain't. He's Louie.

The Best Dog Evah.

My boy.

And it is fucking killing me.

Oh, fuck.

Damn it.

Like I said, he's doing okay, right now.

(I fucking miss him already, damn it.)

***

hot tears dot the page

such Good cannot be equaled

Love is like taffy

***

It keeps pulling you back.

I. Just. Don't. Know.

I think that I have been dealing with my best friend's demise in a detached, clinical manner. No. Uh-uh. It don't work that way, motherfucker. Try to hide from the emotions. Just fucking try. It can't be done. I'll have to face it--them, the emotions--eventually. I cry, but they are tears of angst, they are tears of frustration. Fuck that. They're also tears of loss and tears of Love and tears of what-coulda-beens and tears of recognition.

I know this: I love Louie sooo damned much. Sooo damned much.

To me, he is not just a "dog". (And, by the way? What dog is "just" a dog? Very very few. They're God's gift to us, for sure.) No, Lou is not just a dog. He is Memory. He is a slice of my (hopefully long) life. He is a lighthouse seen from the stormy sea. He is a beacon of Hope and Love. He is....

He is just a dog.

Bullshit.

He. Is. Louie.

He. Is--

LOVE

502 AND THREE TOUCHDOWNS?!

2010-09-11T19:19:00.003-04:00

I am impressed, man. Just flat-out impressed.

You always hear, "Oh, he's good, but he's just a 'running quarterback.'" As in, sure, the kid can run, but he lacks football acumen and his arm is less-than.

I saw Denard Robinson, number 16, the quarterback from the University of Michigan, play today and he just dazzled. The quarterback rushed for 258 yards. Swallow that. 258 yards?! Gimme a fucking break; outstanding. Not only that, though, but he also showed a high football IQ and made good decisions and damned good passes. If not for the stone hands of a wide-out, Robinson would have had another passing touchdown.

I am just flat-out impressed.

A (NEW) UPDATE ON LOUIE

2010-09-08T23:13:00.003-04:00

Well, so I took Louie to the animal hospital last night, and he stayed the night and had his biopsy done today on his swollen lymph nodes. I picked him up after work and was told to wait in a room so that the technician could speak with me before I took him home.

You know the drill: Keep the sutures clean, don't feed or water the dog too much in the first couple of days after surgery, keep an eye on him outside (in fact, walk him to do his business like you used to do when he was a puppy), excise the horseplay if you have more than one dog, etcetra, etcetera.

Just...when I was waiting for Jackie the Tech to come and talk with me, I kept eyeing Louie's stuff that another worker there had left in the room with me, on the table, in a little plastic purple-bone-ringed bag. His Zip-Loc bag of food that I had brought, had he been hungry the night before. His red leather collar, with the little metal tag that says "Louie," and then, below it, my telephone number. The red bandanna that I've been tying around his neck. I'd taken them out of the plastic bag and they'd just lain there, on the metal examining table...and I'd just felt such a powerful sense of loss, I could hardly hold back the burgeoning tears. I'd known that they were just fragments of, not him, but, still, I couldn't help my thoughts.

I'm not going to dive off into MemoryLand, right now--that's a post for a different day--but, oh man, dem were some tough thoughts.

Jackie the Tech came in and explained to me what they'd done. They'd biopsied the nodes below the nodes that we had all noticed and that the results would be known in about five to seven days. The vet, who was off that afternoon, would call me with the results. Jackie told me that not just the nodes we noticed were swollen, but all of Lou's lymph nodes were found to be swollen. She also imparted that, during the chest x-ray I'd agreed to, they'd not found "quarter-sized dots," which would imply lung cancer, but that they had found what they reckon are bronchial lesions. The heartworm test came back good, but his liver count was elevated--not alcoholically-elevated, but elevated, like 15 to 20 points too high. "Wow," I'd said, half-joking, "sometimes I give him a little beer; would that elevate his counts?" She'd politely laughed. "Not unless he drinks like a fish." I'd smiled. And had thought, And what rambling wreck shall I call my King Louie?

And she'd left and brought him back into the room, and I had seen nothing but My Louie. A little drug-drunk, with a shaved and sutured area on the left side of his neck, but My Louie. Adorable and inquisitive, little puppy face still peering, bright-eyed, from the whitened muzzle. And my heart melted. With pack-pride. With love. Just. As. It. Always. Does.

And always will.

So the new and abridged update on Louie is this: I'll wait, for five to seven days for the biopsy results, and thus the chess game will enter another stage.

One thing changes, though. Per the doctor's orders, I'll have to keep the two dogs separated for a spell--maybe two or three days, maybe longer. No horseplay, you see. That could screw up the sutures.

Okay, then. Louie sleeps upstairs. With me.

AN UPDATE ON LOUIE

2010-08-27T18:48:00.004-04:00

The kid looks 12 but he's only 6-and-a-half. He's been gray for awhile, but the gray seems more pronounced, now. He has a camouflage bandanna around his neck, but he's not looking like a rough and tough soldier. He is lying on his side, and, though his eyes are open (for the most part), they have lost luster. Am I reading too much into physiological signs and symptoms? Maybe, but I doubt it.

The bumps on his throat have not gone down, though I have used all but a day-and-a-half of the allotted antibiotic medication. The aspiration that the vet took a couple of Saturdays ago showed no signs of cancer--lymphoma, to be specific--but the vet told me that the pathologist kind of hedged his bets, seeing as how the bumps had so-recently arrived. I don't know, but I know what I feel.

I feel that the kid is slipping, a bit. He still barks and he still plays with Oliver, but, most of the time that I'm home and looking at him, Louie is lying on his dog-bed...he just looks tired, man. Just tired. And when he eats and drinks, right afterwards, he does this kind of retching/regurgitation thing. He's not outright vomiting, but he is having problems with his throat. And would that surprise a soul? Hell no. He's got his lymph nodes squeezing his trachea and his esophagus, in my not-at-all-medical opinion. Am I wrong? Maybe. Hopefully.

Anyway.

This is how it stands: I feel that my buddy, whom I have known since he was a little big-headed brindled days-old puppy, is slipping away from me. Like the emotional mofo I am, I remember all of him. His good days, his sweet days, his handsome days (always), and, maybe, his end of days. Bah. Bah. Bah! Words don't, won't, could never do him justice. He is a part of me.

And it hurts me to see him (maybe? yes) hurting, or, at least, feeling less-than. It hurts a whole hell of a lot.

Earlier today, when I got back home, I gave him a cold leftover half of a hamburger patty. (He's been getting tons of people-food, lately. And that will continue.) In the past, up to and including just a month ago, he'd have vaporized that treat. Swi-zaysh, down the chute. Like a vacuum. Today, he struggled with the little piece of meat. Oh, sure, he made sure that Oliver didn't steal it away from him--just a head-turn'll do it--but he struggled with it, man. He broke it into little grampa-sized-pieces. And then ate it. And, minutes later, he was doing his throat thing, the thing that makes me feel (like crying) like he's trying to force a cantaloupe down a garden hose. Not good, man.

Memories, like the times we used to share....

I may have the lyrics wrong, and, yes, it was an attempt at smarmy cheesy humor.

'Cause this is how it'll go down, if what I feel to be true, actually, is:

Meagan is going to drop Lou off at North Main Animal Hospital on Monday morning at about 9:00 or 9:30. They're going to do a biopsy of the bumps and, hopefully, just remove the fucking things. Quality of life, you know? At the very least, though, they'll slice and dice (hopefully maybe just remove) and send the samples to a laboratory, somewhere....

And this is what my gut-feeling tells me what will happen:

The sample will come back cancerous. Lymphoma. Listen: I have no money. I am scraping by. I had to jiggle a few commitments to be able to pay for his Monday surgical procedure. But it is not--not!--just a financial matter, a monetary concern. Hell, no. It is also a quality of life issue. I'll not have my baby boy rendered a motherfucking pin cushion. I just won't.

I think that God tells us when it is time to say good-bye. All the fucking drugs and procedures in the motherfucking world will not change that, but for a very very very limited time period.

Anyway....

Anyway.

My gut-feeling tells me that the biopsy comes back malignant. And if it does not?! I'll literally jump for joy. But, gut-feelings...? If the results come back cancerous, then an era is over. I'll not do chemotherapy for multi-fold reasons. One, I ain't got the greenbacks. Two, even if I did, it's just prolonging the inevitable. If a dog has lymphoma--a rapidly-growing motherfucker of a cancer--the dog'll not have a very good life, regardless of how long he or she lives. Just my two cents. Three, I remember (and see) Louie strong, soldier-like, affable, handsome, yes, The Best Boy Evah. And, also, my boy. Will I subject him to pricks and prods and days of nausea? Would I? Hell. No.

I'll watch him, though. I'll eagle-eye him, my lovely boy. I'll center every grain of my being on him and how he is feeling and how he ate and did he drink and did he regurgitate and is he in pain and will he be miraculous...until I have seen enough and the pain of having him hobbled is equal to or greater than the pain of seeing him set free.

And then I'll have to set him free, with much pain and much Love and many endless tears.

"The only knock against dogs is that they don't live long enough."

PS--I dearly hope I'm wrong.

PPS--If I'm not wrong? Well Louie, this, from one King Louie to the next, man. Peace to you.

BUILD THE FUCKING MOSQUE ALREADY

2010-08-22T10:26:00.003-04:00

I mean, seriously. Build it. Build it!

I thougt we--as a nation--were built on religious tolerance.

Yes, we had 9/11 happen. It happened; it was horrible.

So the proposed site from Ground Zero is about a three-minute walk? So. Fucking. What.

Build it. Otherwise then, what?

Then we, as a nation, are a bald-faced hypocrite.

And, by the way? It's also a fucking community center.

Gimme a fucking break. What do people think the YMCA and the YWCA acronyms stand for?

So Christianity and Judaism work but Islam doesn't? Come fucking on.

It's simple bigotry. That's it.

9/11 was horrific. Just horrific. Here is a help to all the bigots out there: One group of people are not all the same. There are bad apples in every bunch.

I must repeat: It may be a mosque (so what?) but it will also be a community center.

Let's move on, folks....

This really pisses me off. I mean, really. Pisses me off, man.

GIVE OF YOURSELF...

2010-08-20T20:35:00.006-04:00

Short Fiction:

"Give," he'd said. "Give of yourself. Just...give. Give the Devil an inch, and he'll take a mile...I mean, your life."

She'd been scared. She'd thought that she had known him--albeit they had been together, as a couple, for "only" four months--she'd thought that she had seen into the Personal Him.

"Listen," he'd said, "I think about violence and carnage and God and sex and horrific movies and peaceful retreats and Love and pressing a screwdriver into--pop!--somebody's eyeball. Warranted, of course. I'd not do it for no reason. I think about coffee and times lost and rot-gut best booze and times lost. I am a circle with black and white. I am yin and I am yang. I eat meat, yet I love animals. I poo-poo tofu, but it tastes grand. I am just as comfortable in watching 'When Harry Met Sally' as I am watching 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.' I profess love for everyone, yet I harbor silent bigotries. I--" He'd stopped, examined her. She'd felt like a housefly, straight-pinned to corkboard. His eyes had travelled over her face, her breasts, her thighs, her Special Place. "I'm hungry," he'd continued, his eyes glazed with his ubiquitous opium. "How about a meal?"

Her heart had fluttered like a butterfly, flitting hither and yon. Through her panic-stricken eyes, he'd seemed to double and treble. Focus, she'd told herself. Just fucking focus.

His eyes had lit up, then. Brilliant-blue. "Scared? Don't be. I'll make the salad; you make the steak. Grill it just the way you do." He'd dropped an ominous wink. "You cook my meat the best that anyone ever has."

She'd shivered inside.

What, she'd thought, seasoned with arsenic?

And but then they'd eaten a meal together--the steak was perfect and the salad was otherworldly--and they'd actually watched "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and then they'd had some popcorn and taken the cats for a walk and then had so-steamy three-minute sexual intercourse and then they'd fallen asleep, legs intertwined.

***

And...she wakes up this morning and this kernel of a thought is in her head.

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

Just fiction.

That's it. Just fiction.

Don't get all bent out of your shape(s).

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

In other news, my doggy Louie may have lymphoma. I took him to the vet's after Nay and Meeg and I (last) had noticed bimpy-bumps in his throat, right where the lymph nodes are. I was crying last Saturday when I took him to the doc's. They aspirated him and told me to call back on Tuesday or Wednesday. The doc left a message on Tuesday--and I called and re-affirmed on Wednesday--that the pathologist could not find any cancer cells in the sample. Good, right? Well, hopefully. In the message, the vet noted that, since it was early, the pathologist said that maybe it was just the beginnings of canine lymphoma, a certainly-deadly disease. Or...maybe not. I cling to "maybe not." It could be lymphoid hyperplasia. Um.... LH is a disease of the lymph nodes caused by anything from fungi to bacteria to a virus to an act of God. I have no fucking idea what caused the bumps in Lou's throat. I can tell you this, though: He's spry. He's fight-playing with Ollie-wag and he's eating his food (and the food, my food, that I give him...'cause I love him) and, though he coughs more than he has in the past, his nose is still cold and wet (good health) and his barking is just fine, and his playing, as noted before, seems up to par.

So, antibiotics twice a day. Okay! Whatever I have to do! Yes. Yes. Yes. But, then, this: If Lou does have lymphoma? I haven't the funds for his treatment. There. I fucking said it. If it comes down to me having to retch one- or two- or three-thousand dollars out of a dry stone for his treatments that may only elongate his life by eight months to a year, I'll say no. Nope. Can't do it. Emotionally and fiscally, I can't do it. And I won't.

Six-and-a-half-years-old is Louie. King Louis the First, I used to call him.... I knew, going in, how "blink-y" a dog's life can be. I knew that dogs live like a candle burning from both ends. Going in, I knew that the only fault that any dog-owner could lay on his or her pet was that they leave too fucking fucking fucking soon! I knew that, but I saw a little brindled puppy. His head was huge and his paws were big and his body was small and I just fucking melted. Couldn't help myself. And, through the next six years, we were inseparable.

That's not to say that I was Opie and he was my dog nor that I was the Lassie-boy-tool. I wasn't. I'm still not, even with his maybe-not-purported death staring him in his graying face. (And mine.) What I will say is that I have never felt such...what? Togetherness. He. Is. My. Boy.

And when he hurts, I hurt. When he coughs, I feel a tightening in my chest. When he looks forlorn, I feel forlorn. For the last six-and-a-half years, as he's gone, I've gone. Or? Vice-versa. See, that is the thing about dogs. They intertwine with a willing host. And I am more than willing.

So we sit and wait. I give the Sir antibiotics twice a day and wait. Wait for the bumps to go down. Wait for the throat to slim. We--I--wait for Louie to be the Louie of old, sans bumps, ready to pull me on my Rollerblades for block after block after block. I'll not expect anything less! LOL

No LOL.

No. I wait, patiently, like a dog for his "master" to regain his health. Or vice-versa.

This is not a comedic situation. There is much grief and there have been many tears dribbled.

(I named my fucking website after him!)

Argh.

Websites don't mean shit. The love behind them, however, mean a hell of a lot.

Time ticks and I wait.

As does Lou.

King Louis the First.

(Never to be a Second.)

***

Megan's healthy...I'm healthy...Naomi's healthy...Ollie is Ollie...Cutie-Pie is thirteen (bastard) and healthy enough...and Mister Bubbles is healthy.

All of that is good and fine. I expect that (except for a thirteen-year-old pussy fromping about). What I do not expect--nor tolerate--is my boy, my Luigi, getting sick when he is 6.72. Don't expect it and definitely don't accept it.

So get better, Lou-Dog. Yesterday.

loveandhugsandmemoriesandsadsmiles,

--A___

A GOOD WALK SPOILED?

2010-08-09T13:21:00.005-04:00

Mark Twain wrote that golf is "a good walk spoiled." Though it holds many frustrations, there are a few reasons I play. The nature is nice, birds and trees and squirrels and such; the flora and fauna make for a peaceful morning or afternoon. And then, of course, the good shots keep me coming back.

I made the best shot of my life yesterday, golfing with Pablo at Sylvan Glen in Troy. On a par-four, I made a bad shot and then a couple of decent shots and found myself about 75 or 80 yards from the green. The hole location was front left and I was just off the fairway on the left side, in the short-cut of rough. I grabbed my pitching wedge out of the bag and stood, like Tiger does, behind the ball, trying to visualize the shot. "I'm channelling Tiger Woods," I said to my friend. He snickered a bit and said, "I don't know if now is the best time to be doing that. He's not playing that great right now." I said, "Okay, then I'm channelling him because of all the women he's had." "Well, that's different," he said.

I addressed the ball ["Hello, ball."] and stood over it. Easy-peasy, I told myself. Just let it swing. Let the club do the work. I swung and the hit was butter; you know that feeling you get when you hit something dead-nuts in the sweet spot. Yeah. That was it. The ball arced gracefully through the air, and bounced on the fringe of the green, bounced another time on the green and rolled--"Holy shit," said Pablo, "I think that's..."--and rolled and rolled right into the cup. I dropped my club and hooted and held my arms in the classic sign for victory. High-fives and fist-bumps ensued.

The best shot I've ever had. It feels good. It makes me want to go back. Like, now.

I also made an adjustment to my putting stance--I'm just standing closer to the ball and keeping my arms tucked in more, basic stuff--and so my putting was more accurate, too. I holed a ten-footer and had good long runs on several other putts. (Putting has been my bane ever since I took up the game.) So that's good, too.

Sure, there were tons of horrible shots, but the ones that I'll remember are the ones that got my blood pumping, the ones that boosted the adrenaline levels. They're why I'll keep coming back.

IN MY LIFE....

2010-07-31T03:04:00.003-04:00

Me-Again.

I have never met anyone like her. A few days ago, I forgot the date of our third year of physically knowing each other. My bad.

Yes, my bad. My completely horrific bad. And this is why.

And this is why: I have never met a better woman. She is me and I am her. Soulmates? Uh, yeah.

I--she's a rainbow. I want to proclaim to the skies that I love the woman, that she is my second half, that she completes me, that she is The Love Goddess.

And she is, all of those literary terms. But she is so much more than that. I'm sure you've heard the reference of someone being someone else's "other half" or "second half"? Yes. She is that, too.

She is so beautiful, to me. (Back off, Julio.) To anyone. Symmetrical face, sooty black lashes, fucking beautiful eyes, big breasts, tiny ankles, long reddish hair, strong legs...what more can I say?!

She is me. She is my life. She is my Love.

Wow.

I haven't ever felt so much Love before. I am in virgin territory.

I know this: Complete love. And it feels good. Damned good.

[giggity-giggity]

Some say that one only encounters--One Time Only Sale!--the one person for which he or she was destined.

I would like to say that I am on the fence--pre-destination or free will?--but I think I have, already, the answer: Fate. I know, I know...Some may laugh. But think about it, Some. Have ye ever, ever, felt as "at home" as you do with your lover? Have ye?

I think it is a neuro-chemical-aurical thang. And throw a splish-splash of pheremones in there, too, for good measure. I think--I believe--it just is.

And you can thank whatever god to whom you pay homage. I pay mine to the Christian God, the dude depicted sittin' on a throne of clouds. I say to Him, "Thanks, God. Thank you, so much."

Love.

Love her.

Love, here.

I love you, Meagan. Forever.

Sexviolence--A Movie Review--and...Birds

2010-07-31T00:14:00.007-04:00

I just got done watching a movie called Donkey Punch. If you don't know what that term means, I maybe suggest your looking it up on-line. Now, I am not a fan--at all--of the allusion (or the practice, for that matter) of a donkey punch, but the movie itself was a good one.

It had sexviolence--one word. That, in itself, is not a precursor to a good movie, but this one was.

I won't go into too much detail, but I will let this be known: The movie had quite a bit of violence and a little bit of sex and copious amounts of alcohol- and drug-use.... My kinda film!

Olly Blackburn directed it; it was his first feature-length film.

I got a kick out of the "Special Features" section on the disc. I usually like to get the director's opinion of his or her movie and Blackburn didn't disappoint. He talked about the film, about its violence and its sexuality and he spoke of it in terms that the movie was something akin to or as shattering as something like Deep Throat or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now, while good--no, uh-uh.

There was sex and there was gory violence, sure, but what really made me like the flick was the way in which the 20-something cast (three girls, four guys) played off of each other and made the script work.

(Maybe I'm just a sucka for sexviolence? Maybe I am. Maybe I am. But the movie worked. And I know quality screensmanship when I see it.)

The main reason I wrote this post? One, to get the word out on the movie Donkey Punch. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope others will, too. Two, something Olly Blackburn said. He said something to the effect (in the "Crowd Reaction" section of the Special Features) that, whilst the movie was being shown in Salt Lake, Utah, some Mormon woman, upon seeing some of the (banal) sex scenes, speedwalked out of the showing into the foyer of the theater...and promptly fainted.

To which I say this: Woman. Listen. You went to a screening of a movie called Donkey Punch. If you don't know the meaning of the term, fucking look it up. If you have a religious leaning, a religious "way of life," for God's sake (rice wine) know what the fuck you're getting yourself into. If you cannot see sexviolence on the screen, don't go to watch. Stay the fuck home.

...

[Or maybe I need to back off on her. Maybe she had low blood sugar, or some other pre-existing health condition. If so, I am sorry. I hope she got what she needed.]

...

But! If you fainted in the foyer of a theater from watching this movie?! Do your fucking research. Seriously. If you would be offended by breasts and asses and half-formed images of males' netherworlds, do yourself a favor. If you're offended by bloody deaths and knives and fatal punches and whirling deadly boat motors, do yourself a favor. In fact, do me a fucking favor: Stay. Home.

And...(smile)...to the rest of you: I recommend this movie. (winkwinknudgenudge) But I do. I do not recommend this movie to my mom, though. Just saying. She, and three other people (perhaps) read this blog-drivel, and so I need to make sure that I would not corrupt my sweet sweet Mom. (Mom, I do not recommend this movie to you. There. My Conscience is assauged.) To the rest of you: Watch it. Just make sure the kids are in bed.

[I can't get over that fainting woman. Shit. Get a grip, lady.]

Sexviolence. It's a new...cool...term.

(forpornography)

[Who said that?!]

***

In more pleasant news, a baby sparrow (I think) fell from the second-story roof of my mom's Tudor house and I sprang into action. (Just ask her.) With her help, I hustled the baby bird into a plastic Tupperware-like container and, upon her insistence, enclosed said box in a plastic bag. Off I was to the back porch, ladder in hand, whereupon I skimmied up the roof--with not a lot of handholds (I'd done it before)--thirty-seven feet in the air. Not a problem. I ain't scared o' no heights. The problem became when, near the chimney, I saw where the unfortunate fellow's home had been: Down a forty-degree grade, with absolutely no handholds, over the double-driveway. "This is where we part ways," I said to the baby bird. He blinked at me and squawked (probably for his Mammy.) "I hate to do it, but there aren't any things to hold on to, man. You're on your own." I angled the plastic box at the nest-in-gutter and let Baby slide. He tumbled, beak over ass-feathers, until he came to rest against a cylindrical roof vent. Okay, I thought, as I contemplated getting back down (coming down is always harder), he can't miss his nest. I am Superman. [cue music]

Well, as I was saying good-bye to my mother at her side door, I glanced to my right.... And who did I see? Seamus the Sparrow, much worse off for the wear after enduring two twenty-nine (?) -foot drops. Kid was not so spry, now. Kill him, my mind said. Put him out of his avian misery. I couldn't do it. My mom certainly couldn't do it. So we dug up a worm, and I cut said worm up, and we left the carcass, in the little plastic box, with the little damaged bird, and we, now, hope for the best.

Had it been me? Just me? I would have put a boot through his little head. I would have. Not to be mean, but to be (more) humane. I hate to see animals suffer. People suffering? Hell, I hate to see that, too...but to a lesser degree. Whatever. I'd have offed Seamus. Right then. I wasn't going to take care of the kid. My mom has bigger fish to fry, herself. She said to me, "I always hear about people taking sick birds in and nursing them back to health, but...."

Yes. I completely agree. She doesn't have time for it, I certainly am not Saint Francis of Assissi, the kid was mortally wounded...let it go.

(And it started off such a heroic story....)

I wish it weren't, but I believe this is how it will go: Seamus won't eat the worm-bits, he'll sit in the plastic coffin on the back porch for about two or three days/daze, and then he will succumb to both his injuries and also the lack of his regurgitating mama-bird. Sad story ends with baby-bird a Bustle of Nothing...nothing but feathers and a skeletal body.

And that is--kinda--the way the Animal Kingdom works: Survival of the Fittest. Yes, but....

But I coulda done better. I shoulda done better. I was so damned gung-ho to get the kid back in his nest, I didn't think ahead. I didn't think about the drastic slope of the roof on the driveway-side. Had I, I would have jammed a nylon rope in my pocket. Verily, I could have tied said rope tightly around the chimney and lowered myself carefully down the grade of the roof and gently deposited baby-bird into his nest in the gutter. And, with a rope, I could have clawed my way back up to the tippy-top of the roof. Would it have worked? Well, yeah, as long as the nylon rope held true. Is it worth risking? Absolutely not. I gave it a go; the baby bird tumbled, a second time, back over the roof (a mere three feet from his nest) and plummeted to his imminent death.

...

And that's why we're humans, and they're birds.

Fly free, Little One. Fly free.

MEAGAN, MY MEAGAN...

2010-07-27T21:59:00.004-04:00

Three years, today.

We both forgot. Wah-wah. We love each other. Passionately.

I'll have to make it up to her.

On the other hand, last night we consumated our third year of love. (With a game of checkers.)

;-)

(And it was after midnight--so, then, today, the 27th of July. I need to repeat that to myself about a hundred times.)

I love her. Completely. Infinitely.

***

I think we have a ghost in the house. I really truly do. A few things have happened....

***

Break: Meeg and I finish each others sentences and our moods are often yin and yang. Yeah. We sure as hell seem to be soul-mates. I am soooooooooooooooooooo lucky. =)

***

Back to the ghost. I don't want to get into details...there have been a few peculiar things here that happened, in the homestead, lately. I am a little freaked out. (But, maybe, in a good way.) We'll see what happens.

***

I love Meagan Elizabeth. I love her.

JACK

2010-07-25T17:59:00.003-04:00

Jack.

Lovely post--Jack all the thyme.

Jack. One name--the best.

Henry David Throw

2010-07-24T21:11:00.003-04:00

I know. I know. I misspelled H. D. Thoreau's name. On purpose. For a reason.

HDT had a point, man. Simplify. Keep it simple (stupid). And this before electronics hypnotized damn-near every person on the "civilized" planet. Before.

I misspelled Henry David Thoreau's name...because. Electronically-speaking, I am fucking cursed, man. Everything seems to glitch, for me. Everything seems to go south in a hurry. This computer upon which I am typing is no exception. My baby has been to the doctor more than once. (Let's call it three or four times.) My cell phone has glitched on me. The big-screen TV, that once dominated a corner of the living room, went ker-plunk. And on...and on.

The reason I spelled his name as "Throw" in the title is because, well, I want to throw all my electronic shit out the do', mang. They completely belittle me, man, on a (seemingly) daily basis. They break, they befuddle me with their madness, they mock me from a distance. Am I the only person in the world who has problems with electronics?!

Fuck! The latest malcontent is the Nikon snap-and-giggle that I bought for the low low price of over $300 just six months ago. It's a great camera: HD video, good zoom, high pixels...it's a good damned camera! So why, now, is the motherfucking piece of metal and plastic not charging? Is it the battery? Is it where the battery cord penetrates the camera's body? I. Don't. Know.

And it pisses me off. This is not a ten-, a five-, or even a three-year-old camera. It is about six months. Gimme a fucking break. What do they make these things with?! Bubble-gum and tinfoil?! C'mon .

Anyway.

I have to take it somewhere. Its receipt is long-lost. I have to take it to a camera shop, I guess. And, eventually, I will. Luckily, I found its predecessor (excluding, of course, that hundred-dollar-piece-of-Canon-shit that died, enexpectedly, far far too early.) Yeah, luckily, I found the silver Canon when my mom looked in the sidewall of her passenger door in her car, about nine months to the day after I drunkenly left the boy in her car. Yes. I am lucky. Lucky, I guess, that I can plastic-purchase time-keepers at a (seemingly) manic pace.

I will tell you three this: If the motherfuckers lasted longer...well, I 'twouldn't be so manic.

Back to Thoreau. HDT knew of what he spoke and wrote. Back to Nature. Keep it simple. Simplify, gosh damn it.

I am not going to throw my electronics to the kerb (curb). I just love them too much. But it definitely is a love-hate relationship. Definitely. But the damned things are just too alluring. They call me.

But Henry David Thoreau had it right. Back to Nature, mang. Keep it simple.

Keep your sanity.

DETROIT POLICE CHIEF RESIGNS

2010-07-21T23:07:00.002-04:00

Warren Evans had to resign. It seems that it was because a "personal relationship [was] a personal relationship."

I guess it also comes down to a conflict of interest.

Basically? It's peeps feelings getting hurt.

I saw a video of the chief acting like a warrior, facing down thugs and shit...he is good. He is a good guy. But his dick gets in the way?!

Gimme a fucking break.

What Detroit needs is a man with respect. They--it--had that with Warren Evans. What a fucking dipshit major city. Seriously.

***

DUCKS

2010-07-13T22:27:00.005-04:00

I don't know if I have passed this on, yet.

We were all on the way home from Virginia Beach--I was behind the wheel of the 2010 Chevy Malibu--and the weather had kicked up, a bit, in the lovely curvy and hilly state of West Virginia. I was driving down some six-lane highway (seperated by the grassy median) and, as I angled the vehicle to the right and down (yet another) a hill, I noticed something on the shoulder of the far-left lane, the lane in which I had taken up residence. Must be another blown-out tire, I thought to myself. Yes. Yes, but then the tire began to move to its left...smack-dab in my lane. As I cruised along at 75 miles an hour, I soon saw that the tire was not a tire.

It was, in fact, a family of ducks. Four ducklings and a mother duck.

I was going 75 miles an hour. I tried to brake and move to my right, but that didn't work. The pavement was damp and the ducks were headed exactly to the spot that I'd swerve. It's a moot point, anyway. Once I depressed the brake, the physics took over: 75 miles an hour, downhill--steep grade--angled to the right as it were; the physics told the rear end of the car to shimmy to the left. I gave up on that idea. I wasn't about to flip down the highway thirty-two times and have us all end up (dead) in a fiery crash. Was not going to happen. So I let off the brake and said a quick prayer for the ducks.

The last three ducklings said good-bye to this world. (I like to think that they are doing their "duck-dives" in Duck Heaven, now.) There was not even a thump-thump-thump (obviously) when I ran 'em down. No...just, when I shot a glance in the rear-view mirror, I actually some feathers flying in the air and the Mother duck seemingly taking to the air. Apparently, the mom duck had had enough of her bird-brained attempt to cross the six-lane super-highway and had decided that the last duckling was not worth being Malibu-ed herself.

Nice mom, huh?

Why she even wanted to flirt with the Devil is another matter all together. Maybe she had a duck drug problem? Maybe she had fallen in with the quick mallards? Who knows. I personally think--and events bore this out--the idea was a bad one.

"What was that?!" said Naomi breathlessly from the backseat, snapped awake.

"Nothi--" I said.

"Ducks!" said Meagan, simultaneously. "A mother duck and her four ducklings!"

"Adam?!" said Naomi. "Why couldn't you have missed them?!"

Meagan answered her daughter why (and she completely understood), and I was left to drive in somewhat-blessed silence, saying a repetitive silent prayer to the duck-world: Sorry.

***

x> x> x>

WHAT THE FUCK #16762

2010-07-03T21:27:00.003-04:00

So...Meagan and I were in line at Kroger's. I was commenting to the man behind us that he too purchased a 12-pack of Vernor's when I heard commotion ahead of me.

"I'll bash all the nigger's heads," said the African-American ahead of me. "I'll get my axe and cut them into little pieces," said the black man ahead of me.

I held out my hand. "Here," I said. "Shake my hand."

He looked down at me--a skinny six-foot-three black man--and he said, "I ain't shaking your motherfucking hand."

I removed my hand from the situation.

The man's order was done. His bags were packed. His change (the cashier rounded it up) was in his hand. Still, in his camo hat and with his neck veins pulsating, one never knows where the merry-go-round will end. Does he have a gun? Does he have a knife? Can he kill with his bare hands? (Probably.)

I was just happy to see the crazy motherfucker leave the building.

Meagan regained her voice. "What did you say to him?"

The cashier looked warily out the front window and said, "I just asked why he looks angry all the time. Every time he comes in, he looks angry."

It made me think: Just what is "crazy"? I consider myself pretty fucked-up. Crazy? Maybe. But then, when one actually sees "nuts," it makes one re-think the verbiage. This guy? Fucking nuts. Nutzo.

My prayers go out to the cashier. (And to the warped individual. His pain is heavy, man.)

Peace to all. And to all a good night.

LOVE.

TURNPIKE

2010-06-24T13:12:00.004-04:00

I had a really horrible dream this morning. It had to do with work. One of my supervisors (him, but not--he had different glasses) was telling me that they were sorry they had to do it, but they had to "let me go." "Let me go where?" I asked him. He smiled all slantedly at me, his girly glasses slipping down his nose, and said something like, "I don't know, but somewhere other than here."

The sense of panic was palpable, both in my dream-me and also in my physical-me.

It didn't help that I'd gotten a speeding ticket yesterday on the Ohio Turnpike; that had been twisting my gut from the time I'd received the citation at 12:10 AM till the time I woke up at 11:00 or so. Now, a speeding ticket is a speeding ticket; it's not a DUI or a DWI or an OUIL or any other of those scary-assed alphabet soups, but, when you have a CDL and your job depends on your having said CDL, you tend to grip a bit about it. Plus there was the fact that I was one MPH less than being 20-over. Listen: I had been driving safely for about six hours--slowing down to 45 through construction zones and slowing gracefully into the up and down curves of the mountains of Maryland and West Virginia--but I had started to get a bit (quite a bit) tired and so I'd stopped at one of those service plazas on the turnpike and had done the responsible thing: stretched my legs, grabbed a coffee and, basically, regained my wits about me. I merged back onto 80-West (easily-done, as there were only about three vehicles in the vicinity) and I gunned the 2010 Malibu around a slower-moving vehicle--I wanted to get home, already--and zipped past a state trooper in the turn-around who already had his bubbles bubbling. Maybe he's after someone else, I thought to myself. Um...nope. I had no idea the speed limit was 65. I'm used to 70, being from Michigan. Said trooper didn't cut me a bit of a break. And? That's his perogotive. I'd have liked a break, but it is what it is.

So, the check is already in the mail to the municipal court near Ravenna, Ohio. I will not fuck with not paying quickly enough and having my license suspended which, in turn, will mean having my job cancelled. $140. I'll handle it. Though the other bills and loan payments are, and have been, piling up, this one's a biggie. As is my insurance. That's a biggie, too. Everything else has to take the back-burner to maintaining "license health."

What a pain in the ass, being financially-idiotic.

Yeah. So is being an irresponsible employee. I took today, Thursday the 24th, off from work mainly because one of our vacationing party was sick in bed all of Tuesday. It would have been a horrific struggle to start driving as originally planned, on Tuesday. So I ordered another night from the hotel and we drove all yesterday, on Wednesday. (God, the days have all just melded into one giant fucked-up slalom race.) Anyway, I called my supervisor at 8:40 on Tuesday night (he was on-call) and requested today, Thursday, off as well. Originally, I was to return to work on Thursday. He granted it, though he asked me if I "even [had] anymore days left." I assured him that I did. 'Cause I do. Anyway, the point is that I have abused the system in the past and was told that any vacation requests would not be granted if they were not called in at least 24 hours in advance. Okay. No problem there. I called the on-call supervisor at 8:40 on Tuesday night, requesting today, Thursday, off. That is about 36 hours in advance...and it was granted. So what am I worried about? Well, I had two of my co-workers call yesterday, while we driving, and I had one of them call me again, today, leaving a message saying that people were freaking out, wondering what they could do with me, wondering, perhaps, if I were stranded in Virginia. Listen: I called and talked to a supervisor and asked him if I would be able to take Thursday off, too. I got the green light and so I did. He could have said no and so I would have had to arrive back in Detroit at four in the morning and go to work at eight. They talk about safety all the time at work. How safe is it to be in a car for sixteen hours, get back in town four hours before the start of the shift and then go to work in a job that requires physical strength and working around five-ton machinery? Doesn't sound safe, does it? But, to me, that is a moot point, as I was granted today, Thursday, off.

But it doesn't sound good. It doesn't seem good. I called the same supervisor, intent upon updating him that I was back in town, and all was good and I'd see everyone on Friday. I had to leave that on his voice-mail; he didn't answer. He didn't answer, but, then again, I had called around their lunch-time. I know I don't like to get interrupted while I'm eating. Who knows? I'll see what's up tomorrow. I think I covered my ass...but who knows? Maybe there's some kind of unspoken rule to which I am not privy.

All that to say: This is exhausting.

On the plus-side: I had a great time in Virginia Beach. I would not mind living there. The cost of living is lower, plus one always has the beach and the ocean, right? I would worry that if I were to go down there to live, I would turn into a beach bum--literally. I hung out with a few, while I was there.

Then again? I worry about everything.

PREACHERS AND CIGARETTES

2010-06-06T08:09:00.004-04:00

Have you had that moment? That moment in which what you were looking for had no place in the upstairs, the downstairs, the basement, the freezer, the fridge, the bathroom, the porch?

But...

I've had that occurence and I had it again.

(But then you find it in....)

It is simply amazing. It really is.

(You find it in the broad open?...)

***

I woke up early this Sunday morning to take a piss and maybe pinch out some of the unhealthy foodstuff I injested yesterday. I let the dogs out (Ollie'd been lying on the new couch--he'd get his) and I pulled a smoke from the pack and went and did my business. I got out of the bathroom after a particularly stinging shit and I let the dogs in, letting Lou lounge in the basement/kitchen stairs and Ollie--because he had slept on the couch and pissed in the dining room--in the pen in the basement.

Because I wasn't quite ready to go back to bed (and also because my stomach/tummy was still gurgling) I turned on the TV and flicked and chicked until I came across a guy named Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen. I'd heard of him before. I'd seen him before. Slick-haired and squinty-eyed, bright white teeth and superfluous.

Haley Joel Osment, right? That dude? The kid with the sixth sense?

Yes. No. Maybe.

They look kindred, sure. But Haley and Joel ain't no Osmonds. Haley's his own man and Joel is Yaweh's.

But, hey, truth be told? Joel Osteen is a hell of a speaker, a preacher, a harbinger of good news, a modern-day...prophet?

I know, I know. Right. Like that butt-smear knows a God-damned thing. He's in it only for the money. He's (assuredly) got nice cars and nice homes. He's married to an attractive woman, yet he still (perhaps) sleeps around.

Yes, but....

Maybe, but....

But I know this: I have watched the guy before, and every time I do, he brings-a me to tears-a with my own shame and hope and love of God and love of uplifting stories. Am I an easy mark? Perhaps. But I have got to give it to the man: he's good.

Here's the point: The whole time I was watching Osteen, I was intermittenly looking for a smoke, for my pack--17 if there were one. I could not find my pack. I smoked a butt from the ashtray and watched and listened (teared up) to Osteen's imploring of the audience to get up off their asses and to do what the Bible warrants. Simply put: Just do it. He didn't use those three words (they belong to Nike, see) but he definitely told us--in a most-pleasing manner--to pursue our dreams.

I know. Just another charlatan, preaching in the name of the Lord.

Maybe not.

I suppose I was unduly impressed by the man, and my searches for my pack-of-smokes fell to the backfield in my mind. The guy is hypnotic, is all I'm saying. I looked, a bit, during the broadcast, but never found the pack of Camel Wides. And, then, the show was over. (I cut it off before I could see J.O. imploring me to send cash or "get on my knees" or, basically, follow him as Savior.

I got up, let Ollie out of his downstairs prison, took a piss, and walked back into the living room to see my pack-o-smokes sitting right there, on the table behind my TV-watching armchair--right there in the wide-fucking-open.

It gave me shivers, 'cause I had looked there. The pack and lighter were on a bed of sea shells from Vag Beach...but I still shoulda seen them.

It made me think that, if Osteen were the man of God that he claims to be, could God not, perhaps, be trying to tell me something?

(And the Sun just poked out from the clouds....)

I'm not a fan of evangelists, but I recognize talent when I see it.

NATURE'S WAY...AND OTHER THINGS

2010-05-27T20:04:00.004-04:00

In a Back-to-Nature moment, I ventured Outside--after a day, no, a week of working outside in Eighties-in-May-degree temperatures, and I sat down on the green metal chair in the backyard with a book and a beverage, intent upon seeing how the tale of Castle Rock's rabid dog would turn out. (I know; I've read it more than ten times--but it's still worth reading.) My own doggies accompanied me, which was nicer than nice.

As I folded my right leg over my left knee and dug into the part where Cujo brains himself against the driver's door of the blue Pinto (with Donna and Tad screaming helplessly), I noticed/saw/felt a yellowish creamy-white substance fall from the green heaven and establish itself on my right ankle-bone.

"Oh, shit," I said. (Yes.) "You gotta be kidding me." The splotch of bird shit lay there, on my ankle, resplendent in the late-afternoon sun, winking crystals at me. Louie looked over at me, briefly, and went back to his lying in the dirt. I put the book on the edge of the trampoline and snagged a couple of close-by large leaves. They'd have to do. I'd never been shit on by a bird before, but, instinctually, I gathered that I ought clean it off, before it solidified. (Yes. I am a man-o-th-woods.) The leaves turned out to be what the doctor ordered and I turned back to my book.

But the thought crossed my mind that I really should go in and wash my hands. Nonsense. I hadn't gotten any on my hand; I'd been thorough. That cleaning-thought passed, and I was, once again, in the Grimm fairytale land of Castle Rock, one in which a sheriff named Bannerman probably should have radioed in for back-up the very instant he saw the blue Pinto in the Camber's dooryard.

***

I remember hearing the story, a long time ago, about when my Dad, assuredly black-bearded and strong, was talking to a colleague when a bird screamed "Drop-Zone!" and left a bomb on his lapel. "Shit," he'd said, and the lady had answered yes. I remember hearing that story and thinking that my dad was a lovable loser--who else gets shit on by bird-brains?! I guess I do. And I also further surmise that, perhaps, the apple doth not fall from the wooden greeny thing.

Let me amend this, posthaste: My Dad was lovable, but he was not a loser. (Shit. It makes me feel all chink-y just writing that.) He was/is a success. World-travelling, bread-winning, business-opening, family-loving success. And I feel that I have big huge shoes to fill. (And, I can't, really. Each person is his or her own Sun.)

But the thought jabbed at me: Am I not my father's son? That's a loaded question. Of course I'm my father's son. I would never say otherwise. I think that it's a requisite part of living for a child to compare and contrast him- or herself with the parent of the same sex. Often, it's done beneath the conscious level, methinks. But that doesn't go away, I think. I think that that mindset stays with a person throughout his or her lifetime, and I think it is particularly forceful when they're in their mid- to late-30s.

Sometimes it is just a whiff of Have I measured up? and other times it is a full-blown gale-force scream that tells one that one cannot fill the god-damned shoes, damn it!

I acknowledge that. I acquiesce. But, in some ways, I fight it, too. Why the fuck must I be the spittin' image of the man whom I love and miss? Why shan't I bust my own groove? I have; I know I have. I know that I have "busted my own groove" and gone my own way, yet I still feel the cold fingers of Predestination chilling, tickling my back.

Am I doomed to die the death of my father and his brother? Am I doomed to deteriorate in the way in which my father's father died? Do I have the Lung Cancers and the Parkinson's and the ALSs genetic bulls-eye stitched upon my back, pink like weeping tattoos? Are they my Soul? Am I doomed? I'd love to floss it over with glitter and balloons, but the fact remains that genetics play a huge part in a person's wipeout.

As does free will and choices a person will/could/should make. It ain't over till the fat lady sings, right? Right.

But the troubling thought remains that I am not fulfilling my potential and that I think that I will be scolded for it. By God.

***

Have ye e'er been scolded by a sparrow, from the high green heaven? I was, today, and it made me think about my Dad.

AMERICAN...JUSTICE?

2010-05-26T22:13:00.004-04:00

I admit: I watch American Idol, sometimes. I'm 37 and a male. Most of the time, I have watched it, through its ten incarnations, specifically to laugh at the fucks who think they have talent, but have none, to laugh at the poor slobs who believe that bad publicity equals out to good publicity, however pathetic that may seem. I have enjoyed watching Simon and Paula and Randy do their things. It's entertaining. It has been a joy and, I suspect, it will maybe continue as such (minus S. Cowell).

The show is geared towards little girls. Little I-haven't-had-my-period-yet-but-I-heard-that-Becky Alvarez-has-already-jeez-I-hope-it's-not-icky. Little girls who, God bless them, should be doing mathematics or other such bullshit. Playing with dolls. Baking a pie in the oven. Storming the jungle in the renewed Battle of the Bulge.

What they should not be doing is voting.

I can't understand, otherwise, why some doe-eyed fuck like Lee DeWyze (real name?) beat out the much- much- much- much- much-more-talented singer Crystal Bowersox. Here. I wish I had access to her last song--for votes--on American Idol. It was blues and soul.

Soul.

Now, I really don't want to dig on DeWyze too much--he's good--but, come on.

Here's the paint salesman, Lee DeWyze: Song.

Whoops. Did I fuck up and insert the wrong link? Hell, by this time, you've heard both of them.

What you missed when I missed the link was DeWyze doing the same ole bullshit that we have come to expect from Idols. And, also? He ham-handed his way through "Beautiful Day" by U2 and REM's song "Everybody Cries (Sometimes)".

What we have, here, is a failure to communicate. That's it, apparently. We have telephones and cells and computers and texts given to little girls...who know not what to do.

They don't judge on talent, they judge on looks.

And fucking shame on them.

Here is a glimpse, kids, little girls, into the real world: People come in all shapes and sizes and genders and talents. Sometimes? Sometimes the doe-eyed boy isn't the best out there. Sometimes? Sometimes a single mother with more Soul in her little finger than The Wise has in his whole made-for-TV body could win it all.

WAKE UP!!!

It was--and is--an outrage, a miscarriage of Justice.

I'm 37, a male, and I feel screwed by the results of American Idol.

Peace.

ERNIE HARWELL: "YOPTERIFKE"

2010-05-11T19:04:00.005-04:00

I had to do better justice to the man, the broadcasting legend, the human legend, Ernie Harwell, who died a few days ago after a bout with cancer at the ripe young age of 92.

Here, in Detroit, we think we own him but, no, his career had started a good time before his time as a Tigers' broadcaster. Good ole Southern comfort, his voice was unique: raspy, high-strung, crackly, deep, melodious. Other adjectives may be out there, but I can't pin his voice down. And I believe that was a part of what made him great. Let alone the over-half century of broadcasting which (deservedly-so) sat his bony ass down in baseball's Hall of Fame...his interviewing of the fucking monoliths of baseball, his writing for the Sporting News at a ridiculously-young age of 16...but, no.

What is/was he to me?

He was a Constant. His is a voice of Memory.

Listen: I remember lying in bed, well past my bed-time, listening to Harwell's soothing voice from the West Coast trips, while, in the back of my mind, I had my parents' arguments still fresh. I remember eating baked beans and scorched hot dogs and walking in the lush green grass of my grandparents' house as Ernie's voice crackled and smooooothed through air.

I remember his "go-to's": "Stood like the house by the side of the road and watched that [one] go by". Or, when a Tiger hit a home run (Lance Parrish? Chet Lemon?): "And that one's...looooooooonggg gone!"

Baby memories, right?

Apparently not.

Those outside our fine metropolis may not give a whit or a damn about Ernie's passing. Here, in the Motor-Town Skyscape, people care. There was a public viewing of his body in Gate A of Comerica Park (against his wishes, methinks) and thousands of people stutter-stepped or rolled past to see the Body of the Dead Great-Man. And, you know what? I wish I had, too.

Harwell's voice speaks to History and...Memories.

I was between 10 or 93 when his voice started to register with me. His was a voice that could sweep across the Major League Baseball world and affect both young and old. The older simply had a head-start.

I was 11 when the Tigers won the World Series in 1984. I can't say that I really heard the man's call of when Larry Herdon caught the fly ball in left field. I can say, though, that my love of baseball was borne from that year. Who was I? I was an 11-year-old who had caught on, finally, to the beauty of baseball. The absolute beauty of baseball.

The Beauty that Ernie helped let people...see.

And, to top it off, he was a great guy.

I am certainly not (just 'cause I'm not) an overly-Christian guy, but I get the basic premise--Be good to one another, love one another, try to have a kind word for a person, help a stranger when you can--the premise that Ernie spread wherever he went. He was a great guy, more times than not having an ear for a person, a story to tell, a signature.

Through his years, he had always seemed to be self-effacing, giving the glory to God rather than himself.

I believe that he was as he projected, instead of what seems to happen more often in these recent years: A man (or woman) who is snidely disingenuous.

Ernie seemed real. And my gut feeling says he was real.

But, so what. Right? Let's not deify him. Let's not put him on God's right hand side. Let's not shove Hey-Zeus over for Ernie's place. He was "just" a broadcaster. He was "just" a man.

I agree. No Jesus-pushing, please. (Yahweh would never accept...nor would I.) But here's my point: In an ever-increasing world of booty-booty-booty and scandalous breasts and intermittent heroes, can't we please please please just accept one who actually is?

Sure, for those non-sports fans out there--and there are many, I know--the passing of a dude who called baseball games might seem minuscule, even irrelevant. (I had to force myself to type that.) Well, it's fucking not. He was just a man--a slight, balding, vain, self-conscious, melodically-voiced man--who was the voice of and to about four generations. Not a deity. Just a man.

But....

But nothing. This is as about as close as I can bring to you all understanding Harwell like I did and have. There is really nothing more I can say. (There is a book out there, Adam-scribe.) Really, nothing more....

Oh. Wait.

A relatively short time after hearing that he had acquired terminal cancer, our man Ernie was out on the grass of downtown Detroit's Comerica Field saying this, ever-melodiously:

Thank you very much. We don't want to be penalized now for the delay of the game, but I do want to express my feelings here. It's a wonderful night for me. I really feel lucky to be here, and I want to thank you for that warm welcome.

I want to express my deep appreciation to Mike Ilitch, Dave Dombrowski and the Tigers for that video salute and also for the many great things they've done for me and my family throughout my career here with the Tigers.

In my almost 92 years on this earth, the good Lord has blessed me with a great journey. And the blessed part of that journey is that it's going to end here in the great state of Michigan.

I deeply appreciate the people of Michigan. I love their grit. I love the way they face life. I love the family values they have. And you Tiger fans are the greatest fans of all. No question about that. And I certainly want to thank you from the depth of my heart for your devotion, your support, your loyalty and your love. Thank you very much, and God bless you.

Here.

Wonderful night. Any time he spoke, it was a wonderful night.

We Tiger fans? I'm sure other cities have had their broadcasters and feel the same. Most do. The difference? We had Ernie Harwell for about three decades.

It should have been a complete four decades: 1960-2000. But there was some fucked up kind of Detroit Tiger management Snah-Fih-Zoo in the early-90s that deemed that Ern was kaput. No-uh-uh. The only thing that could finish William Earnest "Ernie" Harwell was God calling him Home.

All this writing and talking and hyperbole aside, I really need to pass along my understanding of Ernie Harwell to you (three). It helped that he was a (assumed) great guy, but what really clicked with me was the way in which he would put me to bed, with his sweet Southern drawl, when the Tiges played the California Angels. Some pitcher would throw to Lance Parrish or Chet Lemon or Marty-fucking-Castillo, and the bed would melt away and I'd be...there.

God love and bless you, Ernie.

DUALITY OF KEYBOARDS

2010-05-08T18:30:00.004-04:00

As the dogs fight outside, I type here, in our dining room, on a borrowed keyboard, USBd into the oft-sickly laptop. The picture that you see is how one must type, now. Briefly, that is. The computer store that now knows me on a first-name basis loaned me this keyboard whilst they wait for the new one to be delivered. Actually? I'm quite happy. I never thought that laptops could be so easily-fixed. I had always thought that they were prima donnas, reflexively ungh-ungh to the doctors' knives (or, um, screwdrivers).

Fifty or so dollars for a new keyboard installed into the laptop? Not bad, I think. Maybe I'm getting cornholed, but I think the price is fair enough--plus, they loaned me this USB keyboard at no additional cost.

Here is the axiom, then: Treat your laptop like gold. A single spilled sugary beverage can wreak havoc on its interior mechanisms. Trust me. Trust me also on this: Had the slip-slop been more significant, the mother-board would have been fucked. (I got lucky--only the keyboard was affected.) Had the mother-board been compromised? Might as well go shoppin', Tex. Three hundred fifty bones? Might as well buy a new laptop, Tex. This one, though, a Toshiba Satellite, has enough good side, memory- and capability-wise, to have made me consider....

But, no. I'd have waited to purchase a new one. Ben Franklin once said, "A fool and his money are soon parted." Wise words, Foun-Father. Wise words.

(By the way. I put the laptop a little farther up on the table and I positioned the loaned keyboard in typing range. Comfort is key, see?)

Last point: This is not a throw-away world. It may seem like it, but it truly isn't. Nor should it be. Anything worth having is worth fixing....

And that can be applied liberally--like massage oil! ;-)

Postscript: This Duality of Keyboards? It makes for some unwanted but accepted hand-eye coordination. See, I type on the one I'm typing on, but if I want to scroll around in the document, the best way is with the soft mouse of the lappie. So I have to reach over this loaned one and finger-fuck the soft mouse...lightly. It makes a person think.

ERNIEHARWELL

2010-05-04T22:28:00.001-04:00

yopterifke

JERRY SPRINGER

2010-05-02T02:36:00.003-04:00

There once was a faaaaaar-away land in which lesbians and fat people and cheaters and dwarves and giants and dog-lovers and cat-lubers lived. People "slept" with their kinfolk and nary a day went by without a Cuff-o-Fist breaking out.

There was a man behind the curtain who wasn't.

--And a break in to Reality. Times Square. Thousands of people. A bullseye on the United States, New York in the limelighted center. An SUV left running with explosive devices inside. Let us look at the devices, shall we? Gasoline, timing devices, consumer-available fireworks...kindling?--

Listen: The CNN anchors asking rhetorically if it were an international terrorist attack? Al Kumfuck is laughing right now. I don't blame them. They--the Osama Network--are guffawing. And absolutely loving this shit. They're saying to themselves, "Look! You get some irate numbskull in the A of U.S. and he'll do our job for us!"

Look. It'll happen like this: A man (or a woman) will walk into a densely-populated space--a market, a shopping center--and he or she will blow him- or herself up...along with however many people are standing in the vicinity. People will die. We'll become like a war-torn Middle Eastern nation. Arms and legs and heads and blood. Everywhere.

I am surprised it hasn't happened already.

SATURDAY MORNING

2010-05-01T07:19:00.004-04:00

I reckon it pays off to do as the doctors and other professionals say and wake up on the weekend at the same time that you do during the week. My alarm went off and--boom--so did some thunder. I walked downstairs and let the dogs out and saw that, verily, the first few fat drops of the storm were falling. Outside I went to check the car windows--Meeg's drivers-side was down all the way, mine were up--and then back inside to close the windows in the dining room as the rain was starting to slant in through the window fan.

I drained the one-eyed monster (or one-eyed mischievous elf, whichever seems to make more sense) and--cla-zing-crash--the whole of the backyard was illuminated by the nearby brilliance of a lightning sta-rike. And now, as I write this, I hear the seemingly-close peals of fire engines. And the sky is that weird greenish color.

By the way, this has been the norm of late. It's been nice, weather-wise, during the week, and then on the weekend all hell breaks loose. What can I say? It's Michigan. Thanks, Michigan!

REASON #3872 WHY DOGS...

2010-04-21T21:11:00.003-04:00

Reason #3872 why dogs are better than cats, why dee-ogs simply blow kiz-zats out of the water.

Here.

Cats, on the other hand? Shit, cats'd have left the scene the minute the hand got cold and/or stopped feeding them.

Just my too sense. =o)

A SIGN FROM ABOVE

2010-04-18T23:04:00.003-04:00

You've heard of how people--often in Latin America, it seems--"see" images of deities in prosaic everyday items, right? You know, like a shadow of the crucified Christ in a tortilla? Or a silhouette of the kneeling Virgin Mary in a swirl of wedding cake icing? Well, it seems as though I too have been blessed by a beatific bonanza. It's true. Seriously.

My girl and I were driving on Saturday and I reached into the back seat to grab a napkin to blow my nose. Well, I grabbed two on accident. After I blew my nose and crumpled the first (and threw it away) I stuffed the second, unbesmirched, napkin in my mouth and started to chew it. I don't know why, just to be weird, I guess. Just to get a rise out of Meagan, something like, "Adam Christopher! What on earth are you doing?!" Something like that. Anyway, after I got the requisite reaction--"What the hell are you doing, Adam? God, you're weird." "Wha? No, you should try it sometime; chewing napkins is great fun."--Tiring of the game, I fished the paper out of my mouth and slam-dunked it on the dashboard. And did a double-take.

"Wow," I said, laughing. "That looks a little like Mary, doesn't it?"

"Oh, shit," she said. "You're right!"

"Do you see it?"

"Yeah, I do," she said, laughing. "She's kneeling, and she's, like, wearing a robe, right?"

Strange, strange days, indeed.

PFA AND FOUND STUFF AND BEAGLE BADNESS

2010-04-16T20:06:00.005-04:00

I have to admit: I like pens. I'm thinking of founding a twelve-step program called PFA--Pen Fetishists Anonymous. Okay, maybe it's not a fetish per se, but I do like my pens. I like to doodle, to draw, to cartoon, so I've always liked the roller ball-style pens, preferably black, preferably medium-tipped. Art pens with the scritchy-scratchy needle-nosed tips don't do much for me. How to get a consistent line with them--to be thick when I want thick and to be thin when I want thin--is a mystery to me; my lines seem to be spider webby when I want bold and gummed up when I want fine. And when I'm trying to get an expression on a character's face and it comes out looking like a Rorschach reject, well, my goat has been gotten.

When it comes to writing words, don't insult me with a Bic or a Papermate (although Papermates aren't too bad, come to think of it). What I look for in a writing utensil is a smooth line--imagine using a knitting needle to write words on a stick of butter, soft--and a comfortable heft in the hand. I want the scribing experience to be like writing on a cloud: no herky-jerky motions, no tearing of the paper.

This need for smoothness extends to Cousin Pencil, too. Fine-point barbarians that, when used, lend an almost shivery mojo to the page are not allowed admittance to my digs. In fact, I may even call the boys in blue to roust them from my front porch. Like that old song says, "Freaky needle-nosed nuisances need not apply." No, what I'm looking for is, again, smoooooothness.

Just some background, the preceding drivel, to let you--my one or two reader(s)--know why I was pleased, earlier tonight, when I ventured into the back room, the cat room, to root around for the wireless router disk. I was pleased, yes, to not only find the disk but to also run across a few blasts from the past: a Cross mechanical pencil that writes like it's made out of silk, a black roller ball pen that is smooth and has, also, the added bonus of a laser pointer button and a blue LED light button, and the PC game No One Lives Forever, a first-person-shooter set in 1960s England, the protagonist a sexy brown-haired spy named Cate Archer. I hadn't been in that room for a while (I'm slightly allergic to felines) so it was nice to find some old friends. Oh. And I also discovered my Social Security Card, tucked safely away in the bosom of Cate Archer's CD jewel case. The SS Card: always a damned good thing to keep track of, eh?

***

I have a son who either cares not to listen to me, is deaf, is set in his ways, is stubborn, is untrainable, or is just plain stoooopid. I truly don't believe that he is the latter, so it must just be a conglomeration of the previous attributes that affects our poor Oliver, the cute dear little orphan. We got a new sofa and a new recliner about a month ago and I have been doing my damnedest to convey to the boys that they are not welcome on the furniture anymore, damn it. I've put gates and my guitar on the cushions and blocked off the recliner with a TV dinner serving tray and Louie seems to get it but Oliver? He seems to be totally oblivious if said guards are not in place. See, the couch that I had before, a nice newer piece of furniture from my passed uncle's estate, was virtually--hell, was--ruined by the dynamic duo o' dogs. Their smell, their dirt, their weight all served to age the sofa before its time and make it virtually unsittable. Oh, and dear Ollie had the penchant for pulling and prying with his little teeth the stuffing from the cushions and their backs. Great fun, huh? Dogs destroying. So, the rule was set: No dogs on the furniture no more. Well, Oliver hasn't seemed to have gotten the memo. I've caught him a few times on his favorite old perch atop the left back cushion at the window. This way, I presume, he can get his stink all over the new couch and ruin the cushion and gaze out the window at his whim. I caught him today, as I was walking up the stairs with my basket of freshly-laundered clothes and I let him know, in no uncertain terms, that it was his bad, his blow, his ill. Perhaps I was little forceful with the pear-plump dude, but, hell, between his mastication foibles and his overactive Inside bladder (though I let him and Lou out late at night, every night) and his cushion-destroying peccadilloes, he pushes my buttons in the wrong wrong wrong way, sometimes. I still love the little guy, though, perhaps because of his idiosyncrasies.

And Lou remains The. Best. Dog. Evah.

***

Michigan: You don't like the weather, wait five minutes. Yesterday it was 84 and sunny and today it is windy and damp and 50 degrees or so, making yesterday feel like summer and today feel like an early Fall. And it's only the 16th of April. Confused yet?

DISSEMBLE NO MORE

2010-04-16T00:31:00.003-04:00

It is interesting where shit turns up, sometimes. Earlier this week (Monday, to be exact) I made a lunch of two corned beef sandwiches with pickles as their accomplices. I ate one for lunch and saved the other--and a couple of pickles--for later. On the way home from work, I stopped at Little Caesar's and jigged out of the store (like the commercials) with a Hot-n-Ready. I'd thought that I put the left-over sandwich and pickles in the fridge to take to work on Tuesday. Well, Tuesday rolled around and the sandwich was nowhere to be found. Huh, I thought, maybe did I throw it away? I mentally shrugged and took some cold pizza to work to eat for lunch.

I never thought about the sandwich again. It drifted out of my mind, out of my life, like so many gossamer clouds on a summer's day.

Until today. Egads, like the cat, the sandwich came back! Dissemble no more! For I hear the beating of its dyed-pink meat heart! It is there! There, I say! Beneath the wood planks of the floor, I hear the beating of its hideous heart! Yeah. Uh, either that...or in the freezer. And, yes, I hear the pickles chiming in, too.

And, so...it went like this:

Meagan [looks stage-right, honestly perplexed]: "Um, Adam? Did you mean to put your sandwich in the freezer? Oh, and the pickles, too?"

I think my brain is turning to Cream of Wheat. I think that, sometimes (often, lately) I'm kind of a moron.

Talk about a blackout! Shit, I don't even remember putting that foodstuff in the freezer! I'm doomed, doomed I say! Doomed to live out the rest of my life putting things in weird places. Next I'll be putting my clothes in the toilet and flushing. Next I'll be storing my cell phone in the microwave. Next I'll be--verily!--putting my bread and cereal in the refrigerator! Oy vey.

AHHHHHHHHH...

2010-04-10T21:22:00.003-04:00

It is like having a new computer. The screen, which was cracked and suffering nontransparent brown-black spider slashes across the top and the bottom and somewhat diagonally down from right to left, is fixed. It cost a buck and a quarter, but it is definitely worth it. It had gotten to the point where I didn't even want to crack (no pun intended) the fucking thing. It was too much of a melancholy practice. ("Pwactice?! I know I'm supposed to be the leader of this team and I give my heart and soul during the game, but...but what are we talkin' about? Pwactice?!" Allen Iverson, circa 2006.)

Yes, it sucked to look upon the tragedy of the cracked laptop...when I happened to have it to myself. (I'm faaaaar too passive-aggressive when it comes to using my personal personal computer, the one that I bought for myself to use exclusively. I feel that I, when come off as a selfish prick when I say to whoever is using it, "Hey, I want to use my laptop. I don't know when I'll be off of it. My muse has trouble speaking up sometimes. Sometimes, it takes a while for her to talk to me." My muse is often silenced by my disinclination to speak up; she is damned-near cut off at the knees.)

Hell, it's a work in progress.

(You can see that I haven't been on here for a long while--the writing is stacatto, jumbled and jumpy. Meh, it is what it is.)

Here's something you don't see every day: On Friday, my partner and I were heading back to the headquarters when we came up to a construction zone. We saw red-and-blue bubbles up ahead at the intersection. "Uh-oh," she said, "looks like someone got popped." I nodded. As I trundled slowly past the orange barrels and past the crews laying and smoothing the cement, the scenario revealed itself: Some lady, older it seemed (I don't really know how old because the whole time we were stopped at the light, her face was turned to the empty passenger seat, and she was seeming to get something out of her purse--long time looking) some lady had driven her red Cadillac smack dab into a freshly-laid road-square of cement. And by "freshly-laid," I mean, like, laid an hour or two before. All four tires of her Caddy were sunk midway into the cement and some had splashed up on her quarter panels. That, uh, that would...suck. Not only the damge to the car and its tires, but, come on, the embarrasment of being stuck in virgin cement, while a lane of traffic has nothing else to do but slowly inch past, the great majority of the drivers muttering something along the lines of "you stupid ass," "nice going," or, my favorite, "where'd you get your license? a Cracker Jack box?" Eeeeesh. That airplane commercial comes to mind: Wanna get away?

And the lady says, "Hell, yes, please...please?!"

Well, as Phil Collins said before, "Hello, I must be going." Hi. Bye. It's good to be back. Maybe I'll post more of these thing-a-majigs. Meagan and I have Bad Lieutenant with Nic Cage. I've read good things about it. Hopefully it stands up to the talk.

Peef ow.

"SNOW-LOCKED: SUBURBAN DC STORY" SEVEN PARAGRAPHS

2010-02-26T15:11:00.004-05:00

The snow has not abated. It falls, still, steadily and implacably. It shrieks, with its brother wind's help, sideways through the suburban streets of DC. Great voluminous drifts--pure blinding white--squeeze our streets into impassable trails. My 4x4 is useless. I wish I had snowshoes. Born in the great state of Louisiana, I had never seen snow, let alone blizzards. We--my wife, our two daughters and our dogs, a Beagle and a Boxer--are sticky-stuck. We're snow-locked.

The first few days weren't bad. We held faith that the crews would be able to clear the roads, clear them, at least, to the point that going to the grocery store would be a viable option. Hell. The first two or three days, we had fun. No work, no school? What could be better? Paid days off and no school for the teen aged girls. We watched the Olympics, and saw the US men's puck team cream Finland. (What else was expected? The US and all its accroutrements are a juggernaut. Power, greed, success.) And but then the power went out. Briefly. It came back, but the TV was fucked. No matter, I said to my wife. We go Outside. We play. And we did, building snow forts and snowmen and -women till the setting sun withdrew its brilliance from the reflective white world.

Inside was cozy. We had fires roaring nonstop in the living-room-dining-room pit and we had steaks and chicken and mashed potatoes and chicken Caesar salads and all the canned fruit you could shake a stick at. But.

But the snow never stopped. It has not, still. It hasn't stilled. Live is "Evil" spelled backwards. I have reached my wit's end. The girls bickering has reached a fever-pitch and the wife is incommunicado and the dogs are shitting and peeing all over the place because we have about three feet of snow wedging us into this Colonial, this place we call Home. I have reached my wit's end.

***

It is a White Wash-World. DC is under(frozen)water. The snow is omnipresent. It's ubiquitous. It's always here. You know what I'm trying to say. When we and the girls eat, snow is what I think of. When I shit, snow is what I think of. When I go to the basement and bring up yet another bottle of Absolut, snow is what I think of. When I sleep, I dream of snow. I have nightmares in which snow is the villain and I am the hapless victim. Or, verily, I nightmare in which I am the villain and snow is the angelic White. I'm fucked-up, man. My wife of eighteen years and my daughters (and my dogs) are a-scairt of me, now. They're frightened, man. Can't say that I blame them. You see, the last few nightmares I've had have been of White, yes, but they've also been splashed with innocent red blood. I just pray that it's my own.

***

We ate the dogs last night. It was tough for me, but. I'd known them since they'd been puppies, but.... The Beagle tasted better; he had more body fat. The women ate the pets hesitantly, with tears in their eyes. There were some tears, here, too. I, after a prayer for Friendship and Companionship, ate greedily. When one's cupboards are bare, when one's Hunger is omni-fucking-ubiquitous, one has to do what I had to do. I had to eat. We had to eat, so I killed the dogs--humanely!--and we ate them up. We had to use a ten rusted Sterno canisters that I found down in the basement (from earlier, more peaceable camping days), but it worked. And, yes, it's what "they" say: it tasted like chicken. Only stringier.

***

I have blood on my hands. Not to mention my lower face. And, definitely, my teeth. Look out the window, if you will! Oh! That's right! You can't. The snow is.... The snow is.... I have problems even writing this. Before the goddamned motherfucking SNOW came, I was living beautifully. Everyday life, man. You know what I mean. The garbage cans, the fucking grass-cutting. Shovelling NORMAL snow?! Yes! I could do that! All that! And I did. But, wait, Reader, look out the windows. Does it seem dark? Of course. It is. The Sun can't slant through 30 feet of snow. You know. I really truly do not want to go in to graphic details. Let us leave it at this: I'm single again. I'm starting anew. My dogs have been shit out and I still have half of my wife in the snow outside and my two precious girls. I guess it comes down to the survival of the Fittest. Who is stronger? Who has more pull with the butcher's knife? I had more pull and so I have the longer lifespan. I made--I made!--the difficult decisions and so I am still alive. Here. Under three stories of snow. Did I mention that the heat has blew? It's gone. Whatever. The kitchen table--so many good fucking memories--will heat my bones adequately. At least for today. Oh! Come, Spring!

THE OLYMPIAD--21ST WINTER GAMES

2010-02-12T19:36:00.004-05:00

The Winter Olympics, the 2010 edition, is upon us. I love watching the Olympics. Summer or Winter, it's all good. I enjoy watching the women and men--for the most part, amateurs--competing, in their chosen sport, against the best that the world has to offer.

Sometimes, when the Olympiad is not upon us, I sniff and scoff at the banality of sports like downhill skiing, bobsled, beach volleyball, archery.... But then, when the Opening Ceremonies, well, open, I'm hooked. It's the stories, I guess, that grab my watchingeye. The stories of the athletes' tribulations and triumphs. The stories suck me in.

I think it's the athletes' passion that convinces me. The arduous training days, the postponement of basic human wants and desires and lusts that they, more often than not, smother in the hopes of achievement. Well, that speaks to me. I am a somewhat athletic person. I can rain threes in basketball, I can make diving catches in softball, I can throw a tight pigskin spiral, I can juggle.... But, I know, I lack the passion that these men and women hold.

[I'm not an Olympic athlete. There. I said it. I feel so much better now.]

Which makes what happened today so damned tragic. A 21-year-old Georgian (Russian Georgia) died as a result of an accident during a training run in the Luge. Lugers are fucking crazy to start with, I think. Basically, they're lying on their back, on a sled, on something like a bobsled track, wherein their speeds can reach in excess of 80 miles an hour. Um. Yeah. Sounds safe. It's just horrible, though. A 21-year-old, ranked 44th in the world at his sport, hit a curve a little too tightly and thus upended himself from his sled and went airborne, slamming into a steel girder, back/neck-first at, probably, 85 miles an hour. (In a case like this, the helmet ain't a savior.)

I just think of all the time that that kid put in to training and postponements of Want and it just makes me fricking sick.

What a way to open The Games, eh?

Mister Rogers: "Can you say 'pall'? I knew you could."

Another thing? That makes me ill? I am human. I am not immune to craning my neck at an accident site, to, perhaps, see some carnage. But I was shocked, actually, when, on the national news on whatever network, I saw the hapless Georgian going into his death-soar.

>>>Meet steel girder/column.<<<

We were warned, of course, before they aired the video of the guy's imminent death, but, still. Did they have to show it four times? Twice in slow-motion? I think not.

Sure. It's news. Being the Olympics, it is world news. But. Just...no. I think most of us human beans have the (perhaps) Neolithic urge to survey tribulation and say to ourselves, "That bad. Sho. But that not me. Sho." But there should also be some small amount of dignity in death. The guy was a fucking athlete, you know? He trained the majority of his life for his chosen sport. Was he great at it? Well. 44th in the world is nothing to sneeze at. But for what will the Georgian be remembered? His slow-motion death.

"Hey! Remember that dude that died before the '10 Olympics even started?! He, like, flew off his bobsled, or something, and then, like, smi-zashed into a concrete wall, back-first?!"

"Um. No?"

...Consideration...

"Oh! Yeah! He died, right? But it wasn't, like, bobsled, or nothing, it was...what'd'ya call? Loogie?"

".... Oh! Yeah. Luge. It's a sport where you slide down icy tracks, on your back, in a kinda sled, and you go, like, 45 miles an hour, or something. Wait. Make that 85 or 90. Damn."

Damn.

Well, anyway, I love the Olympics. I just do. Sure it's over-journalized, sure it's sssssssappy, sometimes, most times. It is what it is. I am geeked to watch as much as I can.

(Also? Lindsey Vonn? She is fucking hot. Her face? Her tightly-toned body, sculpted out of years of skiing and training? Um. Yeah. Mmmmmm....)

=o)

A NEW POST--GONATESS

2010-01-16T20:27:00.003-05:00

Wow. How long's it been? A month? It seems like that, at the very least. I'm back...for today, at least.

So.

Well.

Er.

Um.

[twiddlesthumbs]

So, of what do I write? It has kind of been the same-old-same-old here, lately. I have no joyous news to convey. But!

I do know this: If'n I ain't exercisin' the Writer Gene, it's-a goan shrivel up n die. And who the fuck wants that?

*Gonatess*

It was one of those word-verification thingies on a weblog. I had to type it in to make my (assuredly) salient point visible to the Blogo-Whirl.

I got to thinking. Just what could be a "gonatess"? To me, it culls images of a priestess, albeit with a goat's mug. And a goat's horns? Maybe. And, perhaps, a goat's cloven hooves? Yes. But the inner beauty/body of the goat priestess? Allllll woman. Replete with 34C breasts and a teeny waist and a couple of slender kickin'-slims.

I am chuavanistic. Hear me meow. [roar]

***

The Gonatess

Once upon a time, there was a small village in Hungary. The schoolchildren were warned at an early age to steer clear of the last house on Mulberry Street. See, there was a gonatess that lived there. She lived off of government funding and rarely left her house, but the people of Ursk were convinced that she was Devil-like. 'Cause of her goat-head, don'tcha know.

Here is what the people of Ursk did not know: Glenda (that was her name) was actually a very gentle soul. She fucking hated her head and her hooves. but, through the love and learnings of Jesus's teachings (and her own genetic predisposition) she was able to channel her self-hatred into, well, Love.

She never made much ado about anything--she was far too self-conscious--but, early in the morn, when all the other Urskans were sni-zoring, she silently and carefully partook in random acts of Kindness. She cleaned chicken coops, she used her hooves to jerry-bust rusted padlocks, she...she...she. She just loved the town, man.

The town that hated her? Well, yes. She turned that Hatred, Ignorance, on its head.

Every once in a while a man named Igor or Victor or a woman named Suzie or Greta would exclaim to their mate (or, if single, the blue sunny skie), "My Lord! Who--how has this been done for me?! It must the work of Your angels, Lord!" They'd cross themselves and then, if, perhaps later they saw Glenda, they'd turn their hearts into rapiers, slicing and dicing the freak, the Gonatess.

To each? Their own...but.

But: There was an Urskan who was blind, had been ever since a bleach accident when he was 6. His name was Vlad. He had suffered from insomnia [ugly word, huh?] since his late-teens. He also possessed a sexual problem; perhaps that factored in to his insomnia.

Sexual problem? Let's just call it a problem of self-love. He could not get it up because he hated his blindness. He saw himself as a fri-zeak. Masturbation could go only so far. And? If one loses one's eyesight at the squeaky age of 6? Well, that just confounds the shit even more. How in the hell can a young man find any microfiche in his mind if he has not been able to see since the age of 6? Sure. Rubbing one's genitals often feels okay, but if one does not have a virtual library of pornographic images in one's mind..? Rubbing? It gets a little old.

Vlad had insomnia. He couldn't whack it, he couldn't put himself to sleep by watching MTV or Crason Daly; he couldn't sleep, but for an hour or so a night. Misery.

As a result, the young strapping Vlad took to early-morning walks; his calves were like barbells. He walked--no dog, no cane--along the sleepy cobblestone streets of Ursk.

As Fate would have it, he, one night, brushed against a breast of a--hold it now-- a woman. Her name was Glenda.

So Vlad and Glenda met. Through the brushing of a breast, a tit, a bazoonga, a gun. [There are worse ways to meet.]

It was early. Three-thirty or four if it were a twelver.

Morning--3:47.

Vlad said, "Oh! Excuse me! I'm blind. I--I'm sorry. Are--are you hurt?" His erection throbbed.

Glenda said: "Blind? Oh, I'm sorry, dear. I didn't see you with a cane. And I see no dog, here, either." She gestured vaguely 'round her head. "Oh, me," she said, as she watched Vlad watch the tree to her right.

"I use no dogs and I use no cane," Vlad said defiantly. "I use this." He jabbed a finger to his temple. "My brain has told me for 17 years which way to go, what feelings to trust...what smells to trust... I'm sorry. Where the heck are my manners? I am Vlad. What do they call you?" His gaze searched the tree.

Glenda considered for a moment. "My name is Glenda," she said. "Hello, Vlad. It's nice to meet you."

"You, too," he said. "Imagine. You, a beautiful girl--"

"I'm not that pret--"

"You," Vlad overrode, "a beautiful girl--who smells like Heaven, I might add--being out here, on the sidewalk at three or four, just happening to walk into my fly-zone. Amazing, huh?"

"Is that what you call it? Fly-zone? Sounds...different, Vlad."

Vlad smiled at her midsection. "My momma called it that, God bless her soul. She'd told me since I was 7 that life would be different, there'd be...you know...."

"Bigotry?" Glenda said. She sighed. "Yes, Vlad, bigotry is rampant. It's evil. It's all around us. It's ubiquitous. It is...."

"Omnipresent?" he mumbled.

"Yes!" She flashed a toothy grin at him. "Yes! So, Vlad? Would you like to walk with me?" She clasped his hand.

Vladimir Roscoe Popillzar accepted her hand. And the smell? Well, she smelled purty, all right. His erection, regenerated, thrim-throbbed against his waistband. "Yes," he said. "I would love to walk with you, Glenda."

She hugged him, then, careful to both keep her goathead out of his "fly-zone" and also to press her beautiful breasts into his chest. "Let's go..." she breathed.

And they began to walk, hand-in-hand, down the dusty four o'clock street.

Click-clock click-clock click-cloc--

Vlad stopped. Turned to her. "You wearing heels?" he asked. "They sound kind of...funny."

Glenda stroked his shoulder. "Let's just say I dressed up for tonight. It isn't often that you meet someone.... Someone with whom you cli-zick. I like you, Vlad. Isn't that enough?"

"Sure," he said, squeezing her hand, "I guess that is about as good as it gets, Glenda. I just met you, but I like you, too. You smell real good."

And they walked, the Gonatess and the blind man, hand in hand, into the yawning darkness.

[You know what they say about goats? That they'll eat anything? Truism.]

***

Happily ever after.

THEEND

AND THE WAVES IS CHOPPY

2009-12-05T17:06:00.004-05:00

I don't know what I'm going to write, but I am going to write. I need to. I'm bursting. I just got done reading my sister's blog from the first day of December and, I have to say, I have not recently read more emotive writing. I was leaking from my peepers and my nose was jammed with the requisite mucus.

[It is called crying, Adam.]

I'm wearing Dad's Adidas fishing/safari hat right now. It is a blue hat, 360-degree-rimmed, with brass holes and the logo on the front. I clipped it from my Mom's house, when I was over there to help my 66-year-old mother, with a pulled hammy and a pre-operational knee, bring the Christmas "stuff" down from the attic.

I only mention my mother's physical maladies because I am glued with guilt over the fact that, though I live only 15 minutes from her house, I am an intermittent visitor, at best. Conjoin that with this: She visits her mother in the nursing home every damned day. Who is more selfless?

No. Don't answer that.

Anyway, like I said earlier, I don't know what I want to write about. I think I have given you readers a snippet of what is on my mind, but there is a virtual iceberg beneath.

And the waves is choppy. And the waves is cold. Frigid. Brr....

Okay, here's a metaphor for you all: Right now, I feel like the Titanic, two days before her maiden voyage. The ship appears tip-top, she's had many people compliment her on her physical appearance, she's said to be bullet-proof and ten feet tall, but is hapless, is helpless, is doomed to smi-zash into that iceberg.

And the waves is choppy. And the water is cold. Frigid. Brr....

But. Like I said, I was at my mother's house today. and she said that she'd sent me an email about an--in my opinion--an overly-optimistic fellow. From what I gleaned from her conversation (I was hung-over as fuck) was that the said dude "made a choice every day" to be happy, to think positively.) Besides being an obvious writer--narcissistic, selfish, ego-maniacal, I am also, at this point, I think, clinically depressed. I slop around in my doom and gloom and, somehow, feel...better.

But, what my mom was saying was that this guy--this guy in a forwarded email which I have not yet read--this guy gave himself no leeway at all to feel sorry for himself, to, as I said, slop around in his doom and gloom. The guy fell two or three stories, I heard, and he survived. And, though he was a pin-cushion for, well, pins and epoxy and whatnot, he maintained his sunny outlook.

I say, "How?!"

People are different, obviously. Some people, who seemingly have it good, are constantly miserable. Others, who have not, are happy and buoyant. What gives?

I call it Faith. I think it is Faith. Hope. I think it is Hope, too. I think that some people just have a built-in neuron to maintain a happy face, throughout whatever may come their way.

And, others, myself definitely included, have a built-in neuron to see the glass as half-empty.

Now, neither faction asked for this mindset. It is just the way they were built. Who the hell would ask to live in gloom and doom and shadows and rainstorms? ("I would," says the masochist.) But, seriously? Who would want to put on a sad face every fucking day? ("I would," says the masochist. "And, also? Can you pass me that red ball-gag? I'm getting too much oxygen, right now. Kthnx.")

I have heard someone, before, implore another to "get off the pity-pot." Why?

I'll answer. This, this, is why: Because life is short and life is beautiful and life deserves--no--needs to be explored and sometimes one has to fake it till he makes it and sometimes one has to grin and bear it and sometimes one has to angle on to a better life and sometimes one has to row up the river with only one oar and sometimes one has to leap before he looks and sometimes one has to revel in his talents and avoid his peccadilloes and sometimes one has to forget/forgive the Past and not approach the Future and sit, instead, in the Now and sometimes one has to just remember this: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference

Truer words were never spoken.

The very first word brightens me. God. Though I may take His name in vain--often--and though I may violate the Commandments and Seven Deadly Sins multiple times a day (as most human beings do), I feel--I know--this: God is the Creator, God is the Father and God is the Way to salvation. It is just what I feel, what I know, what I believe. Shoot me.

No. Don't.

So. Shit. Hmmmm. So I started this soul-gutting by stating that I miss my dad. I do. I still do. I always will. But, through the process of writing, I worked some shit out. On your time. In your ear. In your eye.

Said shit is this: Life.

Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. But, you know what? It's mostly good--sometimes great--and the bad times? Look in a mirror. If you have a computer with which you can navigate the Internet, you're probably doing, at best, okay. Life could be sooooo much worse.

But, hell, Life is so much more. I'll give some unsolicited ass-vice: Get laid. It'll brighten your day.

More ass-vice: Volunteer. It'll make you feel good.

Ass-vice: Find your Center. How? Fuck! I don't know! Just find it.

AV: Every day, make a list--be it mental or pen to paper--about the things, people, events, thoughts, animals for which you are thankful. Thankfulness helps the heart. It broadens it; it enlivens it; it makes one's heart swell. Plus? Plus, it gives the thankful person a rush of dopamine and norapinephrine and serotonin. The best drugs ever made; thank God.

And I thank God.

Peace.

ELEVEN-TWENTY/TWO-THOUSAND-NINE

2009-11-20T20:49:00.004-05:00

My sister turned 40 today.

Alexis.

Forty.

My! How Time doeth fly! Right? Heck.

Heck, I remember being 10 and Alexis being 14, at the house on Smith. Even at that age, she was showing brilliant flashes of artistic brilliance. (I know. "Brilliant" in its forms, twice. Read on.)

Alexis has always been an artist. Poetry, painting, colored-penciled drawings, prose, short stories, sculpture, artistry of musical instruments--she can pick up an instrument and make sense out of it. Piano, dulcemer, guitar, drums....

So. She turned 40 today. It is her birthday.

I say to her, "Happy birthday!" And I grin like the Cheshire Cat. Because I feel that way. I love the girl. She is an inspiration to me. She truly is. Is.

We have not always seen eye-to-eye and I think I know the reason: We are far too similar in many aspects of our personalities.

But, the fact remains that I love her and I miss her--miss her. She lives in Duluth-fucking-Minnesota, a fourteen-hour drive away. That's far. I am without vacation daze at work....

***

Meagan intervenes (and I type)....

For Alexis's birthday, Meeg came up with the idea of 40 things (for the years accumulated)--randomly chosen from the dictionary, in alphabetical order--that we'd like to give her for her 40th birthday.

And it so goes:

We give her 40 adorable anoles.

We give her 39 blue blankets.

We give her 38 cute cat calanders.

We give her 37 doozies.

We give her 36 ethos...um. Um.

We give her 35 forklifts. Damn. Much work to do, huh?

We give her 34 germy gerbils. (Annie and Nikki.)

We give her 33 heterosexuals. (Back down, Sean.) ;-)

We give her 32 insomniatic nights. Sorry. That's the way the page unfolded.

We give her 31 jowls.

We give her 30 Karmas. (Peace, my sister.)

We give her 29 lifeboats.

We give her 28 malamutes. (You wanted a dog, right?)

We give her 27 Norsemen. (Sean?! Back off, man! It's just an alphabetic exercise.)

We give her 26 obsidian rocks.

We give her 25 precious pandas. (And China is pisssssssed.)

We give her 24 Quakers. (Enjoy your oatmeal, sis.) =0)

We give her 23 rest areas.

We give her 22 sitars. (Be the Beatles, uh?)

We give her 21 tender tendrils.

We give her 20 umbilical cords.

We give her 19 Vermeers. (He's a famous Dutch painter. She got 19 of his works for her life-changing 40th birthday!)

We give her 18 weathercocks. (Whence does the wind blow?)

We give her 17 xenophobes.

We give her 16 Yuppies. (And she will hate that gift.)

We give her 15 zoologists.

---

[We start back at "A" for the remainder of the 14 years.]

We give her 14 apostles. (Meagan and I will round the 12 out to 14.)

We give her 13 bibs. (Red Lobstah, anyone?)

We give her 12 comedians.

We give her 11 deja vus.

We give her 10 entertaining entrepreneurs.

We give her 09 forests.

We give her 08 guest workers, a foreigner permitted to work in a country on a temporary basis.

We give her 07 howitzers. (Aim carefully. Please?)

We give her 06 ideals.

We give her 05 jackals. (Sorry.)

We give her 04 Korean Krishnas.

We give her 03 lobotomies.

We give her 02 megaliths. (Think...Stonehenge.)

We give her 01 neophyte. (Meegie says, "Have fun with that!")

And, for zero, we give her the Love of Language; we give her the Mastery of Mastication.

Chew on, dear sis, chew on.

Love you,

Adam and Meegie. =0)

THANKSGIVING? LET'S...

2009-11-12T17:33:00.005-05:00

Hey, it's only November 12th, but Thanksgiving is coming up soon; it's just around the proverbial corner. I figured that I would--in no particualr order--write about some things for which I am thankful.

* I should word this one carefully (one never knows who is reading) but I am thankful that, sometimes, a split-second decision grants one documentation in the stead of a boot to the ass, out the door.

* I am thankful for my immediate family, my Mom and my Gramma and my sisters and my late Dad, and my "other" family, my Meegie and her/our Naomi--from all, love does show and flow and Grow.

* I am thankful for my dogs--they're always there for me; and it is up to me to reciprocate.

* I am thankful for my job. In this economy..? I shan't even finish that thought, lest it germinate, come to fruition. Thankful for a good wage and--generally--good co-workers. Even though I am not the best at, well, anything at that job, I still have it, and it pays a good wage, and I actually find it stimulating, sometimes.

* I am thankful for my strong body. I mean, seriously, the shit I have put it through? And the heart still ticks? And the lungs still fill? And the bwane still works? That says something about Divine Engineering, doesn't it? I am kind of at a loss to explain how this is. But, actually, maybe I already have--D.E.: Divine Engineering. I am 36 years old. 36.76666666, to be somewhat-exact. This ain't a kid's body, anymore. (It may be a kid's mind, but I digress.) God makes many bodies. Tall, short, fat, thin.... Doomed to die young, doomed to die at age 93. I am only 36 years old--perhaps I should not count the farm fowl before they crack through their egg--but I feel thankful that, until this point at least, God has made me a Seiko--I take a licking and keep on ticking.

* I am thankful for the Internet. Because, that way? I can spew, from my fingertips, misplaced hubris.

* I am thankful for sports.

* I am thankful that the world does not have to revolve around liquor, spirits, or beers. The world is a much bigger place, keemie-sabo. (Spelled wrong, on purpose, kemo sabe means "wet bush" in some other language--perhaps Navajo?)

* I am thankful that my brain still has the capacity for Denial. (See above.)

* I am thankful that many people love their cats. I, however, am not one of those people. Cats? Never been a fanatic. But...cats can be cute.

* I am thankful that my car still runs, though through shoddy maintainence.

* I am thankful that my mother instilled in me the love of the Creative and that my dad instilled in me the love of the Ethic of Work.

* I am thankful that I was granted a gift from God to love words. They've lulled me to sleep, they've been exclamations of pain and worth and love and greed and hurt and acceptance and unabashed Hope.... Words are Lifeblood, sometimes. And I thank God that I love them and understand them and use them as I can.

* I am thankful that...the List could go on and on and on.

Thanks.

MEEGIE, MY MASTER MECHANIC

2009-11-06T19:03:00.004-05:00

So...here was the situation: my 2002 Ford Focus's left headlamp had burned out. Yesterday, I walked out the door, after work, armed with a screwdriver, ready to make things right...make things...illuminated.

Now, the catch.

You either have to be a rocket scientist (or Meagan) to change the damned lightbulb. I know, I know...how tough could it be? Well.

Like I said, yesterday, I walked out of my door, armed with a screwy, thinking--obviously!--that to change a lightbulb is child's play.

The 2002 Ford Focus is a bitch when it comes to changing bulbs. First of all, it isn't the old-skool way of lighting one's way. You have to pull off a "weather protective" shield--easy--but then you have to, basically, free the burned-out bulb from its shackles by touch alone. It is so inconveniently-situated, it is ridiculous. It's basically upside-down and blind lightbulb-changing.

Some fools on the Internet suggested using a mirror. Hum.

(They were right.)

But I couldn't hack it. I tried (briefly) and then I said fuggit, I'll take it to the Ford dealership, where they would charge me from between $50 and $70 to "get 'er done."

I happened to mention to Meegie that my plan was such, and she blew a gasket.

"Fuck that!" she ejaculated. "No, no way. Uh-uh. That's bullshit."

I said, "But, Meagan, I can't do it. I'll just fuck it up."

"Then I'll do it," she said. And she got off the couch and slipped into her slippers and lit out the door.

I sat there, looking blankly at the front window, thinking to myself, If she does it, again, I may have to become a eunuch. You see, earlier, before I had brought up the imminent rape of myself by the Ford dealership, I had been running water for the dishes. The dishes! And, later, I will pop Ping-Pong balls....

And, when I say, "If she does it again..." it means that she is very very very good at figuring things out. I? I tend to say fuggit and meekly hand my money to the greasemonkeys. Or the geeks. Or the Men-Who-Can-Do-It-All.

Fast-forward.

Meagan took a mirror and a flashlight out to the car. I walked out a minute later to find her fingering the lightbulb encasement.

"It's got a clasp," she said. "I just have to figure out how to unlatch it."

I mentally shook my head. No fucking way. It's impossible. It's bullshit, is what it is. Aloud, I said, "So, how do you want me to hold the flashlight?"

"Wait a minute," she said. "I think I know how to do this."

You have a snowball's chance in Hades of doing this, I thought. I did not think she could do it...again.

Long story.

Short.

She did it. She figured out the Hell-Clasp and she extracted the dead bulb and she figured out how to install the new one and connect it to the wires, and--then!--she figured out how to re-clasp the motherfucking worst idea for a car headlight bulb ever.

(She is reading over my shoulder. She wants me to let y'all know that I had mentioned that, maybe, we should get the bulb in its place before she hooked up the wires. I was just thinking, hell, the clasp is the hardest part. We need no distractions, like wires.)

Yeah.

I'm a boob. I was completely ready to hand $50 to $70 over to Ford mechanics who'd probably have snickered at their rotund snookering of my dumb ass. But! Because of my love, Meegie, I have not to pay for a...listen now...a lightbulb change.

I'm here. I have a dish towel over my shoulder. I am washing dirty dishes. Perhaps, later, I will show you my....

THE CAMERA VORTEX AND SIGNIFICANT DATES

2009-10-31T16:35:00.003-04:00

My house is a camera vortex, a camera maelstrom, if you please. I--we--have lost two within the last two months. A camera a month; we're battin' a thousand.

The thing is, we know the optical refractors/savers are here, in the house, somewhere. The other thing is, we can't find them. They're both Canons. One, the original one I had, was a $300 camera a couple of years ago; the other, a red Canon, is a $100 POS that I bought about, oh, a couple of months ago, if that. They both took shots.

And that is the real traged--sorry part of this yarn. The images that was cap'chud is goan.

Gone for all eternity...untill we find the stupid cameras.

(At least Meagan found the rocks that she collected from Martian City. Um...Marine City, Michigan.)

***

On to significant dates.

My Daddy, Robert, God bless bless bless bless his soul, passed away, died, a year ago two days from now. Tomorrow, my sister and my Mom and I are going to have a Dad Remembrance Day. I love him; I miss him; I want him not to be gone. I am not one--seriously--to whine and caterwaul and carry on, shit, but I miss him. He left faaaaaaaaaaaar too early. (Not his design; His.)

And so I may tell myself that this is a part of life and that "the show must go on," but I miss my dad. I miss him. I love him. I miss him. I lovingly miss him.

A year ago, I was fresh out of rehab--not like it helped a damn--and I came out into a situation of seeing a Power Figure sick and dying. It rocked me. I had been in denial. I hadn't dealt with the significance of the situation. (I don't know, actually, if I have, yet.)

When a son sees his Booming Father shrunken and ailing, it tends to--fuck, at least for me--it made me see the world in a different light. I think it is the loss of the so-called safety net that really gets to a kid.

I am 36. I am not a kid. I am a man. (And I should be more successful.)

The point is, though, when I saw my dad dying, it sent a shiver through my bones. (Apropos, considering it is Halloween.) I saw Death. Death is ugly. Death is shit. Death is Pain. Death is diapers. Death is waiting in a line for one's number to be called. Death is always busy.

On the plus side, Death relieves a human being (and all other beings) from pain. From strife. From chaos and anarchy. Death is the great equalizer. All go to the Promised Land.

The thing that pisses me off, though, is that I wanted my father around longer. Am I a brat, throwing Lincoln Logs at God? Maybe. 'Cause, seriously, God knows best. Shit, even if you're a non-believer, Time knows best.

Who are we to question pre-determination? Who are we to question Fate?

Tomorrow, my sisters and my Mom and I will remember my dad. I remember him every day.

As we all do.

But I tend towards the dark side. I remember his pain, his paralysis, his thrushed breath, his neotonical mouthing of mashed pills in apple sauce. I remember all these images in vivid detail.

I have a photocopy of a picture of my dad that my sister Alexis painted. It is stunningly photographic. In it, Robert Raymond sits, his coffee in his right hand, his glasses perched down on his nose, his eyes winking, his shoulders broad, eyebrows tilted in just his way. I look at that picture often. I gain strength from it. I glean some of--a small percentage--of the strength that my father had... up and through his final day.

I have never met a stronger man.

It took universal malignancies to bring him to his knees. And, even then, he was stoic. He was strong. I can't even imagine the psychic and physical pains he was enduring. Yet he stayed. He stayed. He stayed Strong.

Almost a year ago, I bid farewell to my dad.

And now I say hello.

=0)

Peace, Dad. I love you. I miss you. You're always--always--in my heart.

Peace.

SATURDAY MUSINGS

2009-10-17T11:45:00.003-04:00

It is around noon on October the 17th, a Saturday. I am downstairs in the comfortable leather La-Z-Boy and Meagan is upstairs, rearranging the bedroom. I shifted it around on Thursday, but my fine woman was not a fan of how I'd done it. So now she is putting her female slant on the project. I had rearranged it so that our feet wouldn't be right up against the window. It's getting chillier, you know. She wants to surprise me with the results. I'd wanted to help her--had been prepared to help her--but she's all about the pleasant surprises. I'll like it any way she ends up shifting it. I'm easy that way.

Exciting blog post, huh?

***

It gets more exciting.

Kind of.

Well...not really.

As I walked out through the kitchen to let the dogs back in, I noticed that someone had called my phone and left a message. The number, as I looked at it, was instantly familiar. My doctor's office. What the hell would they be calling me on a Saturday for? I wondered to myself. I listened to the message and the girl on the other end chirpily informed me that it was Doctor H___'s office calling and could I please call them back at my earliest convenience.

I gotta be honest: Morbid thoughts were floating through my head. Why would they call on a Saturday if it were not important, perhaps even life-changing? Thoughts of the Big C or the Hiv or failing kidneys or high liver counts zinged about my head. That's silly, I told myself, I have just been there a month ago and got blood work done and the results came back with a big check-mark through "Normal." Still, though, I wasn't quite at ease as I called the number back.

Hell, they aren't even open on Saturdays.

I got the chirpy girl and she put me on hold. I waited for about two minutes, thinking death-thoughts and/or being stuck with a medical bill that my insurance would not cover and then I hung up and called back.

"Yeah," I said, "This is Adam; I was on hold earlier? Can you tell me, please, what the call was about?"

"Oh, yes, Adam...um, you're due for your tetanus shot. We need you to come in. When would be good for you?"

Tetanus shot? Ahhhhhh.... A load was lifted. Fricking tetanus shot. And there I'd been, thinking the worst. Ah well, that's the way the Adamnator's mind works, sometimes. I scheduled an appointment for Thursday at 5:15 and hung up, life still intact.

***

So, in summary, just another Saturday. I saw Meagan's finished work upstairs and I am duly impressed. My rearrangement was sophomoric, hers looked professionally-done. She's got the bed up against the opposite wall and the desk in the corner near the window with the computer and the TV atop. Her dresser is at her side of the bed and mine is at mine. She's got me lying on the side closer to the window, which is just fine. I am hot-blooded (check it and see).

I am very pleased with the finished product, and I love my girl and never want her to leave me for warmer climates (such as Virginia Beach). But, as some sage poet once uttered, Love is like a little bird, held in a hand. Squeeze not tightly, or you may crush it. Hold not too loosely, or it may fly away. But, you know, true love is loving someone enough so that one does not oppress the other with chains of the heart. I, in no way, want my love to pedal off into the sunset. I want her here, with me, forever. I, too, want her not to be miserable. Do you see the quandary? Time will unfold, as it always does, and questions will be answered, as they most-often are.

In tetanus-related news, I did some E-searching and I discovered that, yeah, maybe a tetanus shot is not a bad idea. I'd rather not have my back bent like a Beckham free shot. I'd rather have my jaw unlocked and I'd prefer not to be a helpless victim of spasms, ones which contract and crunch and bunch my muscles and skeletal structure into shapes that belong more in the family Homo Pretzelalius than the family Homo Sapiens.

I work in dirt. I get cuts and scrapes. I could step on a rusty nail. A little prevention goes a long way, you know?

IN PROGRESS, WORK

2009-10-11T01:23:00.003-04:00

"The first thing we do, we kill all the lawyers."

I looked at Bill. "The Bard, nice. Whatever. What you meant to say was, 'First thing, we kill all the zombies.'"

He looked at me blankly. He opened his case to his .45. Dribble drooped from his lower lip.

***

Man, it'd been quick. Exponential. From a few bleeps about "Cannibals in Sandusky?" to mass chaos. It was exponential. We all learned quick.

***

I'd had this friend Chuck, Charles, since I was seven. He and I grew older and we drifted apart, as friends so-often do. We stopped hanging out when we were, like, 15 or so. He'd started smoking and drinking--at 15!!!--and I still hit the books. We were like grease and water. In the halls we still said hello to each other, but it was low-class teenage bullshit. We'd spaced. I knew it; he knew it. Man....

This is difficult. I hope you--whoever the fuck you are--knows that it was tough to see him that day. After the Alarm-Sec-2009-09.

I do not like zombies. I hate their slack-jawed expressions and I hate the omnipresent fact that they want to kill me and eat my brain.

I'm just not down with that.

Charlie the zombie.

Fuck.

There is no room for error with these fucks. They scratch you, you die an agonizing death. They bite you? You die an agonizing death. They eat you? You're fucked.

Whatever. Charles came after me. It was after all the government's shut-downs and shit. But, yeah, he still was hungry.

He had knocked at my door. He'd still had the modicum of Humanity in his diseased networks.

"Chuck. Not home," I said as I parted the curtains on the door. "Zee-Chuck. Go bite someone else."

He hammered his head in to the door and--goddamn if--his head didn't

WHY DO PEOPLE CHOOSE PETS?

2009-10-03T22:17:00.003-04:00

First of all, companionship. And then you also have funny pictures to take. And you also have a warm dog on a cold night, nestled up against your feet.

But, the thing I have been realizing these last few weeks, is that they are not there forever.

***

I kissed his graying snout. I snuffled his ears. I said, "Louie, please...be immortal." I don't want to be the one to tell him that, yes, his time is up. (He is still well-healthy; just graying. But, still....)

***

I had a childhood dog named Merlyn. My mom named him and he became a central part of the family's formative years. Through junior high and high school and then--for the older siblings--the moves-out, Merlyn was always there. Being the youngest of three, I was there for the dog's--the beloved dog's--transition into the Otherworld. It was tough, no kidding, to see one's Constant Companion go through the rigors of old age.

He was the dog I used to tackle in the living room, right? Doggie Team of Kansas, I used to call him as I swept him up in a bear-hug and lay him on the floor. Doggie Team of Kansas...who thinks of that shit?! I did.

Merlyn, a big-ole-snouted Lab-mix, got older and creakier. My sisters were off, out of the house, doing the things they needed to be doing. I was--and am--the baby of the litter. I was still at home and I witnessed Merlyn's fall from dignity. "Look at Merlyn," my mom used to say, "he is so regal." And? He was.

But carbon-based lifeforms get older. They eventually die.

Merlyn lost control of his bladder. He lost control of his bowels. He lost control of his hind legs. He got skinny; he got fragile. At the end, I'd sooner drive a hot knife through my eye than treat Merlyn with anything less than kid-gloves.

The last day of Mer-Burr's life, Mom and I drove him to the North Main Animal Hospital. There is a Burger King right next door and we pulled through the drive-through and ordered a chocolate shake. "Here, Mer," my mom said, tears tugging at her cheek, "have some of this." She proffered the lid-off chocolate shake and Merlyn lapped eagerly. (At that point I thought to myself that he looked pretty healthy; were we not, perhaps, jumping the gun? No. We were not.)

Merlyn had his Last Dinner and, yes, I feel guilty about that.

But what is a pet-owner to do?! There comes a--horrible--time in which one must make the correct decision for the benefit of all involved. It is a pros and cons game. It is a balancing act. How much pain should either side endure before it is time to call a halt to the action? It. Is. Heartbreaking.

If you've had a pet, you know what I mean.

Woooooossssssssssssssh....

Back to Louie. I have known the kid since he was born--I saw him birthed. December 23rd, 2003. So, in a couple of months, he'll be six years old. Six in Dog, with his breed, is like 52. Yikes. Was he not just that little puppy, all ears, looking up at me with unbesmirched eyes? Wasn't he just that agile teenager dodging the raindrops?

Was he the life-preserver when I lit the fireworks in my bedroom when I was 13 or was Merlyn?

Sometimes, I get them mixed up.

And there is a reason for that. Both were big dogs, dogs you could get your arms around--and both had deep wells of permanent optimism and loyalty. And--of course--both had deep brown eyes that spoke of intelligence and pride-pack and love.

They're both much-loved.

Fuck.

But it makes me think. I know Mer--er, Louie--has a few or six years left. But, the graying muzzle? The graying face? That makes me uncomfortable.

Listen: Lou has been with me for coming on six years. He has been with me in three different homes and with six-or-so women. He is Constant Companion. He is my buddy.

But--God damn--I do not want to have to put him in his grave.

***

flowers, colors bloom

we humans do love our dogs

flowers bloom Dog-love

***

This--that--is for you both, MerBurr and Lou. Dig on it.

Peace.

DA BUMBLEBEE MEMOIRS--ABRIDGED

2009-10-02T22:04:00.004-04:00

My dear sister Melissa had a birthday yesterday. She turned 38. Wha?! 38?! Jesus, it seems like just yesterday we were hanging out at MSU, she 19 and I 18, both going green-and-white. Hell, it just seems like a week ago that she and Alexis and I sat on the back porch, on the long bench, eating PB & Js and Campbell's Bean With Bacon soup as we looked out at the back yard, dust motes floating through the sun slanting the trees.

Time sure flies, huh?

We all get older, yet we maintain our general default settings. Hers is Helper and hers is Caring and hers is Selfless and hers is Sweet. Sweet as honey.

Happy Birthday, Bumblebee Missy. We all love you.

POST 420--WORDS

2009-09-25T22:02:00.004-04:00

Life can throw curveballs. Life can be boring and can suck. But! Life is life.

You have to take the good with the bad.

If you read this blog at all, you know with what I struggle. Sometimes, it kicks my ass. Recently, it has done just that.

But, you know? I still have humor in my heart. I still have love on my lips. Will these attributes stay forever? Sure they will. I have to make a major change, though. Can I do it? I can. Will I do it? I must.

I have been off of work for the past two days (daze)--unpaid--with a "stomach issue." I have peeved people off and--generally, generously--I have been but a bump on a log.

I sense a lot of wasted potential, here. (That was sarcasm.)

Do y'all get sick of hearing this drivel? I know I do. I also know that you three or four readers, too, get sick of hearing this drivel.

I'm trying to feel optimistic. I am trying to feel good about myself. Sometimes, it is hard gosh-damned work.

But, as I mentioned above, I *do* have Faith. I *do* have Love in my life and Laughter behind my lips. I just...do. No matter how much I allow myself to beat myself into the ground, I maintain hope and faith.

I know--*know*--I have work to do. Much, much work.

But I have faith in God and, plus, I have faith in myself.

I will not allow my downturns, my failings, my uber-pecadillos, to drag me down. I just won't.

HAPPY THOUGHTS

2009-09-02T13:06:00.004-04:00

Let's think happy thoughts, shall we?

I am a complete human being. I have all my fingers and toes and I have two eyes and a mouth and two ears. That alone should make me happy. But I also have this: a beautiful girlfriend and her snappy daughter and I have a mom who loves me unconditionally and I have two sisters and their husbands--I love them, too, them B-I-Ls--and I have a grandmother who, though her health is failing, still registers in my mind at least four times a week.

I am gainfully-employed and I make a pretty good wage. I have dogs.... Did I mention them? No, I didn't. I have two dogs: Ollie and Louie. Louie is the sage one, the handsome one, and Ollie is the bumpkin, but I love them both just for who they are. (Don't ever tell me that animals ain't got no souls.) Who they are is: Companionship, Love, Soft, Furry, Regal, Hilarious.... I could go on.

Happy thoughts.

And but the Happy Train gets derailed.

How long would you allow a visitor to mangle your Happy Life? Would you allow a gargantuan smelly motherfucker to slop through your home and overturn the furniture? Would you let the Jabba the Hut motherfucker access to your most precious dreams and desires? Would you be surprised if the (invited) guest crapped all over them?

I see Alcoholism personified as a greasy yellow-brown-green tub of lard. I see the A as a being who cannot fit through doorways, yet still, somehow, gains entrance. I reckon I see A as a vampire: it sucks, it swallows, it comes back for more. And more and more. And more. And more of my lifeblood till nothing is left and I am discarded as an empty shell. Are those happy thoughts? Naw. Are they realistic thoughts? Oh, completely.

My days, recently, have consisted of me going to work, second-guessing myself the whole day as I try to locate the gas mains and gas services that our contractors could not find, and then coming home and sitting in the comfortable La-Z-Boy armchair that I snatched from my dead uncle's estate and cracking.... Beers. Cracking beers. I did not mean to imply that my mind was cracking, though it most-assuredly is. I am somewhat flibberdashed.

To make matters worse, I got over-buzzed last night and said a mean thing to my lover's daughter. I called her a bitch. And I called her stupid. But I put it together, out of my mouth, so that it came out flawlessly, and ten times more vicious. Is that who I am? I have always seen myself as a peaceful, affable guy. Has Jabba the Hut robbed me of even that?! I would not be surprised.

So...I sit here, at home (nobody-home), on a vacation-excused workday, pondering. Pontificating.

Losing.

Losing a lot.

Losing, perhaps, my sanity. My girl. Her daughter. My sense of well-being. My self-love. Lost. Losing my finances, as beer is not free. Losing my physical and mental health. Losing my dogs' loyalty and pack-respect. Losing the ability to care about dishes in the sink and Ollie's piss-circle in the dining room, right next to his bowl. I am losing the verve for life. The Verve for Life...what's that, again?

It is out there. I know it is.

It will take work, hard work, to regain that verve. It will take me admitting to myself that this shit cannot continue. It'll take me looking at myself in the mirror and admitting to myself that I...have...lost...It.

"It" is intangible. You don't recognize when you have it, but when it is lacking or, God forbid, gone, you realize what you have lost. The Verve is strong, but I'm not.

Like I wrote above, this'll take some hard work. I have a lot of halving to do. A lot o' scalpel work. I need to slice Jabba outta my mind. I need to send him a heave-ho. (Where his over-packed greasy body will slice-splatter on the curb of Harwood Avenue.)

And, yes, I am alllllll talk. I can't imagine a week without alcohol. I can't even, seriously, imagine this day without the Beast in my life.

As the minutes turn to hours and the hours turn to days (daze) and the days turn to weeks and months and years...well, I see myself, ten years from now, no family, dogs dead, no job, no welcome income, sitting in the ratty chair of a hotel room, bemoaning my fate.

Am I over-emotional? Yes, to a certain degree, I am over-emotional. Does that mitigate, in any way, the danger in which I now find myself embroiled? Naw. It is what it is; it is what I have written.

Happy thoughts.

Fucking Happy thoughts....

I have met my soul-mate and I have two blessed dogs and I am gainfully-employed and I live in a nice area and I have a loving supportive fam dambly and I am in relatively good health and I enjoy playing sports and I am at peace, most of the time, and I have comfortable furniture and a nice television set and a kick-ass laptop computer and.... Need I go on?

No. Didn't think so.

A LOUIE HAIKU--AND AN EXPLANATION

2009-08-16T17:10:00.002-04:00

vacuums, louie--stop
it is NOT a destroyer
don't bite it; it cleans

Lou likes to attack the vacuum on the odd occasion it is used. He jabs at it and bites at it and, basically, it is Dog vs. Machine. I had taped his reaction today to Meagan's vacuuming, but then I tried to edit my camera video.... I was not overly-pleased with my sack-eyed countenance. Having never edited a video on the camera, instead of cutting out my bleary face and leaving the good stuff, I cut out the good stuff and left my bleary face. Oh well. Life is a lesson, right?

I fucked up and Jimmy cracked corn. Regarding both scenarios, I don't care. So I decided to include said video. It was MUCH funnier before I tried to go all Producer on its ass.

Postscript--In the end, though, the full video was still available on the camera. So I uploaded it. Please, pay no attention to my so-called "sack-eyed countenance" and, instead, love my boyo, Louie

MY XBOX 360 DIED

2009-08-09T20:13:00.002-04:00

It is flashing the three-quadrant red lights of death. And I am bummed out about it.

The next one I get will not sit on a shelf right next to a window. XBOXs do not do well in the sunlight. They tend to fry. I think that is what might have happened. I have had the console for about two years. One would think that they'd have more of a lifespan than that.

Fuck it. It is what it is. The gaming system is dead. I may get another one sometime soon. I may not. It is a crapshoot.

But I am bummed....

THE LAST ONE SUCKED

2009-08-07T21:03:00.003-04:00

It fucking sucked.

The post--though it was an impromptu "yarn"--made me {or the author, the narrator} look like a complete boob. Complete.

I had second thoughts about the picture. The pikshur. That pikshur made me look like an uncomprehending ass. I remember sitting for the picture. My expression was done for effect. For the Slingblade effect. I think I nailed it.

This is the thing about blogs: They are verbal--binary--diarrhea. They slop loud and hard and then they are flushed away. I would like to flush the last post away, but...no. I wrote it.

I wrote it.

I'll agree with the last post on one issue: TV sucks ass. It also sucks out bwanes. {Brains.} TV makes a person flooooooooooooooo-oh through four damned hours. Where did the Time go?!

It went in the Beast's belly. I am Him.

I am the Beast.

--goodnightnow--

IMPROMPTU YARN

2009-08-07T20:34:00.002-04:00

He needs to hear it. He's all bottled up. His cap ain't snapped, and so he sits in carbonated Silence.

He works by night and sleeps by day and he can't get enough of daytime talk-shows.

Double-crossed bulls-eyes.

"Fuck this shit," he says to his dog. His dog raises his head. He is a goodboy. He is solid. He is Friend.

"You and me, Lassie," the man says, "we'll bust the god-damned motherfucking safe wide the fuck open. You and me, boy." And the man turns to his Irish coffee, brewed right, brewed strong. "We--you and I--we could turn this city upside-down, if we wanted to. Do we? Lassie?"

The dog snorted and returned to his nether regions.

"You and me," the man mumbled. His eyelids grew heavy and so he let them rest on his cheekbones. Behind his eyes, he saw a cacaphony of Bliss, colors left to the describer. Behind his eyes, he saw televisions being crushed and he saw a Humanity creating their own entertainment.

Lassie farted.

And...? It stunk.

The dog was not impressed, nor was the writer, the yarner, the fakir. (Fake.)

And the Talent wheedled down the road. Went bye-bye. Said adios. Gone.

--gone--

HONESTLY? IT AIN'T ALWAYS THE BEST POLICY

2009-08-04T19:37:00.003-04:00

So, today, I had to go to get my biennial DOT/CDL physical. Not so bad. A few pokes and prods, a couple of gropes and coughs, and a back stretch and a toe-touch. (I put my palms flat on the floor; not that the doctor cared a whit.)

Here is where I fucked up: When you come in, they have you fill out a form that asks the patient for pertinent information and then has a section in which the patient checks yes or no to a virtual laundry list of physical and mental maladies. You know the bit: "Yes or no, have you experienced or are you experiencing any of the following health conditions...." The conditions included but were not limited to: heart attack, stroke, cancer,, liver disease, kidney disease, neurological conditions, back aches, headaches, blurred vision, sleep disorders, tummy disorders, broken bones, busted fingers and toes, diabetes, anxiety issues, depression issues, club foot.... Okay, the "club foot" condition was not listed. I checked yes for "Sleep disorders, daytime sleepiness" and I checked the box for "Digestive conditions." My reasoning was that, yes, I take Prilosec for GERD and I am often tired during the day. I did not mean to imply that I fall asleep at the drop of a hat; I did not mean to imply that I am a sufferer of narcolepsy. Hell, in the job in which I work, I have many times worked for 16+ hours straight and--may I add?--that when some of my co-workers were waxing poetic on how tired they were, I was still a virtual exclamation point.

Below the yes and no boxes, there was a space to explain the yes(s). I wrote for the sleepiness that I should "go to bed earlier," and, next to the tummy issues, I wrote that I "take Prilosec."

Good enough, huh? Now just sign the card, Doc, and gimme my CDL medical card.

The doctor asked about the tummy issues and I told him that I have GERD, acid reflux, and that I take the appropriate medications. He then asked me what other prescriptions I had. Full disclosure, right? He is a doctor and I am not ashamed. I said, "I take half of a pill of Xanax in the morning, too." It were as if the world had canted on its axis. "Xanax?! What strength?" I told him I didn't really recall off-hand--I know now that it is .25 milligrams--and then he went into a spiel about how Xanax is on the list of controlled substances, the list of habit-forming drugs, and that it is a no-no in the DOT/CDL world.

Right away, Doctor V_____ became Sherlock Holmes. With a flourish, he swept into a tweed overcoat and slopped a tweed cap on his bald cranium and brandished a magnifying glass at me. (His eye looked fucking huge, man.) He went on to postulate that my "daytime sleepiness" was in direct correlation to my half-pill of morning Xanax. He told me what I told you above and he said that-- Hold on. Before this exchange, he exited the room and came back with a printout, a sheet of paper, that asked the answerer to rate, on a scale of one to four, how likely he or she would be to fall asleep during or after these seemingly-innocuous activities: After lunch (without alcohol), as a passenger in a one-hour car trip, dozing on a Saturday afternoon, talking with someone.... No, Doc, I am not a narcoleptic. I answered zeroes for everything except for the dozing on the couch on a Saturday afternoon, and, for that, I slashed a one, maybe once in awhile I would fall asleep. The doctor didn't know--and why would he? I've only had contact with him twice before--that my mind will not shut down unless it's completely dark and quiet and I am tired. That's it. And my body'll not take the initiative, no way. I don't wink out at the drop of a Holmes hat, Sherlock.

He came back into the room after I had filled out that garbage narcolepsy test and then he told that he could not, would not, sign off on my CDL medical card until I visited my PCP--and, no, that is not a drug. Primary Care Physician. I was less than pleased, but I basically kept it to myself. I told him that half a .25 Xanax in no way made me sleepy during the day, that perhaps I was sleepy because I stay up too late and don't get good quality sleep and that I don't even take the Xanax daily--just every once in awhile--but he swished his floppy magnifying glass at me and chortled, "Look at the list! Look at the list!" and I could only shake my head.

Hey, Doc, maybe I am tired because the job I do is physically-demanding. Maybe I am tired because I don't eat healthily enough and maybe the cigarettes don't exactly prime a person for Adonis-hood. Maybe I am tired because I am stressed about the new job responsibilities I have, staking/locating mains and high pressure mains and gas services for the ongoing construction jobs whilst I have only had about a week-and-a-half of true field work. Maybe I am just--like 75-fucking-percent of the population--tired during the day once in awhile. There was no place to add--and I didn't feel that I had to add--that my "daytime sleepiness" was not an everyday thing, that, sometimes, I feel like a million bucks.

So...I called right away to my PCP's office and managed to garner a 4:45 appointment. (I took 10 minutes of unpaid time to ensure that I got there on time. I ended up waiting forty-five minutes in the waiting room and spending twenty clams on my co-pay. Nice.)

My doctor read the literature that the other medical professional sent along with me and told me that it was crap, that they couldn't withhold like that. And I quote: A driver may use such a substance or drug, if the substance or drug is prescribed by a licensed medical practitioner who is familiar with the driver's medical history and assigned duties; and has advised the driver that the prescribed substance or drug will not adversely affect the driver's ability to safely operate a commercial vehicle. End-fucking-quote. That section of the J.J. Keller (and associates!) goes on to solidify the fact that methadone does not fall under this exception and I am left wondering just how in the hell a half of a .25 milligram Xanax calls, as neighbors, methadone and narcotics and amphetamines. How? Yes, it can be and is a habit-forming drug. It can definitely be addictive. It's kind of like super-Valium. But the amount I take--and, no, I use it not for recreation but rather as a morning mood lifter with my coffee--does not make me, a one hundred eighty-seven pound man, a sleeping sack of potatoes. It simply does not.

My doctor wrote and signed a letter stating that the evil drug would not impair my abilities to perform my duties, and I am set to take said letter, along with the above stipulations (which I highlighted on the paper), back to Doctor V______ tomorrow. Doctor V______ does not stand for "Victory."

It's crap. This is crap. I have already been subjected to about eight "random" drug tests this year. And, yes, this is a fate that I brought upon myself (again by being honest and trying to be a good guy and do what had to be done). But it is a fate that I brought upon myself. But, this?! This is just bullshit. They haven't heard of anxiety issues before? Every morning, I wake up with a knot in my guts. The reasons are multiple: I am embarrassed by what others at work think of me, I crave a smoke, I am worried about doing my job duties to the best of my abilities...I am just a worrywort. I always have been, since as long as I can remember. I already piss into a cup and blow into a device whenever they ask me. And now, when I am honest on a standardized piece of paper, they're going to nail me to the wall? Fuck that.

I'll take that letter in tomorrow and pleasantly present it to the doctor. "It's a prescription, sir, and it is perfectly legal, " I'll say. He still will maintain the power. He can sign or decline. But maybe he will feel better, once he feels that his ass is covered.

It is amazing, though. The field in which I work holds many people who like to tie one on. It holds many who work seventeen, eighteen hours before coming home to roost. Do you think? Do you think that they feel like spring chickens when they come back in to work? Hell, no. They probably feel wasted. And they are, physically. It's a demanding job. I'm sure more people than me have felt "daytime sleepiness." But! Most of my--if not all of my--co-workers would have checked "no" indefinitely. As I should have. But I was being honest.

Shame on me.

ITCHES, AND THE DOGS THEY LEFT BEHIND

2009-07-31T21:33:00.003-04:00

I have a couple of dogs. One is Lou and the other is Oliver the Beagle. Louie is a Boxer/Pit Bull-mix and Ollie is a pedigree. Ollie has a thick coat and Lou is thin-coated, sparsely-covered.

Ollie is fat and Lou is tall and gangly.

They share the same space. They sleep on "their" couch. They spend every waking moment with each other.

Louie is sleeping right now. Oliver is biting at his feet, his legs. Scratching at his ears, his shoulders, his flanks, his underbelly, his jaw.

They share the same space. They live with each other.

In a vacuum, if I viewed Oliver's histrionics, I would assume that the boyo had fleas. In a vacuum, I see Lou unabashedly lounging on the couch. What am I to believe?

I have never seen a flea. I have never seen a "hopper."

Does Ollie do it for attention? No. He itches. Badly. It actually hurts me to see him carrying on so. I am 99.8% certain that Oliver is not flea-infested. [As I type this, Lou lounges on the couch.] I think Ol may have skin dermatitis, or something like that. Skin allergies. He itches. I looked up on-line a homeopathic remedy to a dog driving himself and his human compatriots NUTZ by incessant scratching. There was an elixir to which peeps had sworn: In a spray bottle, mix one-third baby oil, one-third water and one-third Listerine and then douse the canine with the spray. Rub it in. Vigorously. For a thicker-haired doggy like a Beagle, make sure you double-douse and double-rub. With Love.

Because it sucks to see a family member suffering. And Ollie is--most assuredly.

Tonight, if the supplies arrive, I will spray the cute motherfucker and try to alleviate his itchiness. Within the next twenty-four hours, I hope that his malaise will be lifted. It is his burden to bear; Louie is as snug as a bug in a rug. If there were fleas, would they both not be affected? Yes, methinks.

Ollie: Better daze, man.

Lou: Keep yon sleep, brudder.

...To Be Continued....

AN AW-NOBODY-SAW-THIS MOMENT

2009-07-24T19:58:00.004-04:00

I have written about disc golf before. You may or may not know this, but I like to play the game and I have the lefty stroke to prove it. It revealed itself earlier today.

Walking from the front room to the kitchen, I took off my sweaty floppy baseball cap and sighted the far chair in the dining room, about 18 or 20 feet away.

I visualized success and let fly from my left hand. The cap floated serenely through the air (in the space of about a second) and--BAM!--landed safely on the back of the chair.

The dork I am, I may have pumped my fist and monosyllabically grunted, "Yeah! Boom!"

I am easily pleased.

Enjoy your weekend!

WORK IN PROGRESS

2009-07-13T12:34:00.004-04:00

Where do I start? From which point do I begin?

Let's haiku it, shall we?

start the deadening

let loose of ideals and Hope

sit and sit and drink

Uplifting, huh?! =o)

There comes a time in one's life--and I have not yet reached said point--in which the individual comes to his or her senses. He or she realizes that the trodden path (mashed down by multiple scores of addicts and alkies) is not the path upon which he or she wants to tread. The path is filled with jabberwockies and noodalzins. (And you never want to meet a noodalzin in a dark alley--they have sharp claws and even sharper teeth.)

See, here is the thing: I can look at myself and I can appreciate the strength that I possess. Thick arms, strong shoulders, strong neck, rippled quads. I am proud of my body (though I have lost 15 pounds recently and worry about the Big C--lol). I'm proud of my body, but I'm not proud of my brain. Sure, I am intelligent and creative, but--seriously--who gives a rip? I lack mental strength. I lack that genome that tells an individual that enough is enough. To borrow a phrase from a much-beloved individual: "Enough already." Enough.

There is much psychic pain in addiction. Whole shiploads of it. Self-hatred, shame, physical malaise, self-doubt...I could go on. But I'll stop.

Yesterday, I went golfing for the first time this year. I hadn't swung a club in a year. No driving range; no nothing. I stepped up to the first tee, BAL at about .15, and I stroked the five-wood right down the center of the fairway. No practice swings, no nothing. I just stepped up, gripped it and ripped it. It reminded me of that one time when I went with a friend to a Pistons game and we were allowed to shoot a free throw before the game. I was tanked. Other people stepped to the free throw line and air-balled their shots. I asked the escort if I could shoot from the three-point line. "Sure, go ahead," he said. I dribbled three times and, like a free throw, kept my feet firmly planted on the Palace floor. Swish. Nothing but net.

Nothing but net. I was sloshed, yet I swished the free throw-three.

And, yesterday, with the first drive of the season: nothing but fairway.

And that saddens me. Most people with the BAL of me would have swung and missed at the ball, air-balled the basketball shot. It saddens me because it tells me--firmly--that my tolerance for alcohol is intolerable. I can do a lot of things when I'm fucked up, fucking excluded.

It sucks. It sucks for scores of reasons, but it really sucks that Life takes a backseat to the brew.

I know I need to stop, I know I want to stop, but, at this point, drink by side, stopping is the furthest thing from my Soul. My Soul says "more" and I acquiesce.

And so it goes. Right?

I am not writing this to get advice. I'm not writing this as a call for help. I am simply writing this. To those who read this, you might get a tear in your eye. Or you might not. You may get angry. Fine. Feed on it. You may read this and say, "Shit. Same ole thing." And that is your perogative.

I just had to purge these thoughts and emotions. I had to get them out. I'm tippin' the scale, here. I am reaching a breaking point. But I don't fully give a damn. Alcohol is a snake, for sure.

Alcohol is a snake. For sure.

God helps those who help themselves. I know that and I believe that. Seriously, I am not looking for sympathy. I ain't looking for a hug or a coddle.

It simply boggles my mind how insidious alcoholism can be. It is baffling. It is powerful. It is a pain in the ass. From you, it'll strip every strata of your life. I'm nonplussed. It--the beer, the drink--pulls me strongly.

How many times does one have to go to rehab? Once should be enough, right? The second time I was in there, there was a fellow patient who'd been rehabbed 17 motherfucking times. When they wheeled him in on a gurney, he looked emaciated and near death. Perhaps he was. After three days of abstinence and good fatty foods, he looked a hundred percent better. Chris, I think his name was. 17 motherfucking times?! You gotta be kidding me. No. 17 times.

I remember I had thought to myself, well, I'll never be like that! Really, Adam? Are you sure?

No. No, I'm not sure. I am far from sure. This demon rivals the fallen Michael. Even when I am not tossing two or sixteen back, the demons are gibbering in my ear. "Have one, A. It's fine. Everyone does it. You need to relax. You need to getcho buzz on. Have three, have 2900, I don't care. Just have some. You deserve it. It's the weekend. It's the middle of the week and you've had a hard day. Drink up. Drink! It tastes good. It's snappy. It's cool. You're a writer; all writers worth their salt drink like fish. You can control it just fine. You can have a six and call it quits; I know you can!"

The demons can suck my balls. They're always promising but never delivering.

But. And I'll still tip the beer can or bottle. It's what I do; it is who I am. Damn.

Damn.

SATURDAY, JULY 11TH

2009-07-11T10:39:00.005-04:00

Now, I love playing fantasy football just as much as anyone. It is exciting and it makes interesting games that one might rather not watch. I scour the Web pages and I get "professional" information sent to my in-box. I love football. Fantasy leagues just make the game better.

But...I ask you: Is July 11th too early for the league at work to start collecting dinero? I mean, criminy, Kickoff Weekend is at the beginning of September. That is, by my calculations, almost two full months away!

Never mind, I guess. I bought in to the football fever. I purchased my first fantasy football mag of the year a couple of daze ago. It'll be outdated within the month, but, hell, I just like reading about the men in tight pants. Who wear helmets (sometimes purple). Who crash into each other at high speeds and, sometimes, knock each other unconscious. The game itself is a walking hard-on. The only places you'll find more testosterone are prisons and Rosie O'Donnell barbeques.

I like the fact that a Lion is highly-touted. Cal Johnson, receiver, is ranked (early, yes, but still...) number three out of the entire league at his position. And--hell, yes--he is the only Lion that I'd feel comfortable drafting. The dude is a stud. He puts up stud-like numbers (80, 1300, 10); the numbers are made even more impressive by the fact that he played on the worst team, record-wise (0-16), in NFL history.

Here is the thing about the Detroit Lions and their fans: It is a love/hate relationship and, damned near every year in recent history, they have been the Lucy to us Charlie Browns. "Here, Chuck, kick the football. I'll hold it this time." And we Chucks grimace and then shrug and wind up for a booming kick. Lucy Lion always pulls the ball away, just as our collective foot is about to make contact, and we are sent somersaulting through the air. We land hard. The wind is knocked out of us. And Lucy Lion snickers and says, "Okay, that was a joke. This time I'll hold it for you, Chuck." And we gear up--though we know we are fools--for another kick.

Sigh.

The last couple of years, I've not bought in to the pundits', the "experts'," theories about the Detroit Lions. I'm sick of somersaulting. They have to prove it to me. They have to prove that they have turned the proverbial corner. Matt Millen is back in the booth--where he belonged all along--and we have a new coach and coaching staff and they (the Lions' brass) are saying all the right things but, as Morgan Freeman said in "Seven" as he was contemplating opening the box within which Gwen's beautiful golden-haired head held residence, "I don't know...God...I just don't know."

It could be a bomb. Morgan didn 't know, and I don't know, either.

I don't know. I would love to have faith that they'd reach seven wins...but I just don't know. I doubt it, actually. They have made some off-season moves, sure, but how in the hell do you plug seventy million holes on the team in one off-season? Quick answer: You don't.

In his eight- or nine-year tenure, Matt Millen fucked this team up beyond repair. Put that way, Matty is akin to G. W. Bush(fucker). It'll take years to climb out of the mess, the quagmire, the morass. At best, I expect four wins out of this club.

Then again, they are the Lions. I think they get off on being contrarians. You think, expect, them to do one thing and they do the exact opposite. Forgetting last year (0-16), that is all they have ever done: Lose to the teams they should beat and beat the teams to which they should lose. If you are ever stupid enough to bet on a Lions game, bet contrary to your gut. You are guaranteed to win! =o)

Okay. I admit it. I am getting football fever. There should be a pill for that....

CLICK AND LISTEN

2009-07-11T03:41:00.007-04:00

This song gets me every time. Sarah McLachlin has the voice of an angel. The lyrics stick to me.

But, it is more than that. There is some kind of internal barometer that says, yes, exactly. Call me a pussy if you want to. I won't care. I understand beauty when I hear/see it.

And this song/sonstress are Beauty.

[If you're not touched the first time, well, play it again.]

Postscript: Bobby B., Dean, Grandad, Uncle Rod, Grampa Burr___, Nana: they're all guardian angels. I thank them all.

FASHION IRREGULARITY

2009-07-11T02:45:00.003-04:00

Have you all ever walked into a living room, shirtless, wearing but underwear and a single sock?

Well, I just did. Imagine how it'd have been had it been a swing-shinny! :-O

Just. Rambled. On.

HERE'S A HAPPY QUOTE...

2009-07-11T01:40:00.002-04:00

"Naw, wait, Meagan. We can't do that. If we switch positions on the canoe, we're gonna spill; I don't wanna fuck up my camera. And my phone."

She looked at me and then laughed.

My main thought had been--on that July Fourth weekend, in the canoe--that I provide the power to surge. When the time had come to direct us back to the launch area, I had wanted to be The Propeller. With my back to the shore, I had thought that we were fucked. Meeg'd have to row us back in. Otherwise, what? We shift seats? And risk being Persons Overboard? Helllll, no.

And then Meagan laughed. I realized what I had said.

A truly "Blonde Moment."

***

I am...City Boy. Hear me roar.

Meow.

HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED?

2009-06-27T14:11:00.002-04:00

Oh, but you must! It's a kick-ass game. It's like golf (obviously) but it is played with flying discs, heavier and smaller than your average Frisbee. There are different styles of discs--some more malleable than others. Putting discs, mid-range discs and driving discs. Each disc maintains a different trajectory. Some hook like motherfuckers and others are more stable--these fly straighter to the basket.

I have been playing for about fifteen years now. It is a great way to get outside and get some exercise and have loads of fun. If you haven't tried it, do! You'll get hooked, just like I did a decade-and-a-half ago.

[Yes, I am getting paid by Innova to write this. :-P]

IN THREES...

2009-06-26T00:44:00.002-04:00

Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and the King of Pop.

Damn. It always seems to work that way, doesn't it?

McMahon was 86 and Farrah had cancer, but Michael Jackson? He was only 50 or so. He left the life as strangely as he led it, apparently. My thoughts are that the stressors of his life (the fame, the fall from grace) finally had their way with his body. But, who knows?

It is strange, though, how the Trifecta of Famous Deaths always seems to be dead-on.

Um. No pun intended?

REMBRANCES AND CHANGES OF SEASON

2009-06-21T11:42:00.005-04:00

June 21st. Fathers' Day. June 21st. The first day of Summer.

It has been about seven-and-a-half months since my father passed away. I haven't thought about him every day, but, often, when I have felt like I were in a hole from which I could not extricate myself, the memory of Robert Raymond came to my mind and I found myself digging deeper within myself to "make Dad proud." (Or, at least, to not embarrass Dad.)

Dad is in another realm, now. He lives here on Earth only through memories and objects of his that just scream Daddy B. His safari hat, for instance. Every time I look at that damned thing (hell, every time I think about that thing) I tear up. He always wore it a jaunty angle and the hat was him. Sunglasses beneath the brim, his big beard beneath the glasses. It is then when I miss the hell out of him; and it is then when the final weeks of his life come smacking me back in the head with a clarifying jangle. I remember his final days and I remember the sense of impotence that I--we all--felt. I wanted to hasten his exit Stage Left, yet I didn't want him to leave. No one should have to leave this life, this transition station, in that way. In all actuality, his was a quick exit. He was really only in a helpless state for about two weeks. Yeah, I can say that. "Only" two weeks. Try living it, Adam. Where each minute seems like an hour. Where some limbs are paralyzed and to speak is a Siphyean chore. But.

Let's remember the good times, shall we? I tend to sink readily--almost greedily--into gloom and doom and dark shadows.

Growing up, Dad was always the strong bear of a man. Seen from a little kid's perspective, he was larger than life. Big booming voice, super-wide shoulders, big bushy black beard. Thick muscled forearms. A ubiquitous glint in his eyes. He was a mischievous guy, he was a playful guy; he kept us three kids entertained. And he worked hard. He worked his ass off. An engineer at Chrysler, he would come home during the week for the dinner hour and then shoot off to his second business, a yarn and loom shop. He'd put in about five or six hours there--business was definitely not always booming--and then he'd come home and go to sleep and then start it up all over again the next day. I'd like to say that I got my sense of hard work from my father, but, no. I'm a little lazy, sometimes. When I'm at work, sure, I bust my ass. But I have not nearly the drive my dad had. And that's okay. I'm fine with that. Everyone is different. Everyone has their own pace to life. My dad's was hyperkenetic...until he retired. And then he was off to globe-trotting. Kenya, India, China, Vietnam.

I miss him, sure. It's a part of life, sure. But, today, on Fathers' Day, I just want to send a shout out to Bobby B., wherever he is. I miss you, Dad, I love you, Dad, and you'll always be the number one dad in my life. I just hope that I can live up to what you did. I love you, father.

--Adam

PERSPECTIVE IS EVERYTHING

2009-06-16T17:25:00.003-04:00

We get spoiled as adults, I think. Though life can be tough (and often is a bee-yotch), I think that we take for granted the luxuries of life. Take, for instance, the automobile. Most of us have cars, as adults. It is only when they're on the fritz that we truly understand how much of a privilege, how much of a luxury, car ownership is.

My brake lights have been staying on, when the car is in any gear other than Park, for about a month, now. I--and my co-worker--tried installing a new brake switch today and, when that didn't solve the quandary, I drove my little Focus hatchback to the garage after work and dropped it off. I told the uber-sun-touched woman behind the desk what the problem was and then I commenced to hoof it to my house. The garage is located at Nine-and-a-half and Hilton and I live two blocks east of Ten-and-a-half and Hilton. A little more than a mile away. My backpack was slung over my left shoulder and my red plastic Coleman lunchbox was in my right hand.

Now, I used to walk to and from when I was in grade school. 'Twas about a mile from my house. There and back. Two miles a day.

To have never had is far better than to have had and then lost.

Exercise excluded, I think the difference between walking when you're a kid and walking when you're an adult is that you've been conditioned, as a "grown-up", to go from Point A to Point B in as little time as possible. As a kid, you just haven't been initiated into the Kar Klub and so you know not what could be.

Slow it down. Walk it. Right? Well, no. Not really. Actually, I like being able to climb into a wheeled machine and go from Point A to Point B in eight minutes rather than thirty.

But, here's the rub: I like walking, once in a while. The world slows down. I'm not in such a rush. I see things that I'd never have seen had I been behind the wheel. I guess this is kind of akin to taking rural highways on trips rather than bulleting along on the super expressways. You see more of Life.

I'm sorry. I'm taking a simple walk from the garage and turning it into some kind of life experience. It truly wasn't all that. But...it made me think. It stretched my mind, a bit. I didn't see anything special. Nothing to write home about. Though what I saw was Ordinary, seen through a different perspective, it became Extraordinary. [Just a brief interjection, here: "Extraordinary" seems like a misnomer. If something is "extraordinary" would that not mean that it were "ordinary" jacked up; would it not be "ordinary" on steroids? If so, why would that be a superlative? Wouldn't it mean that whatever was just as ordinary, if not more ordinary, as ordinary could be?]

Anyway, things are seen differently through a walker's eyes. Blurs of pedestrians become three-dimensional people. Dogs on the sidewalk become, perhaps, threats instead of four-legged sidewalk canterers. A house's landscaping can be appraised at a more moderate pace. It's actually kind of cool.

This really wasn't meant to be a kind of slow-down-and-smell-the-roses type of post, but I guess it turned into just that.

JUNE 16TH, 2009, 1:00 AM

2009-06-16T00:54:00.002-04:00

I just haven't felt much like writing, lately. I don't know...it's just one of those things. My verve for writing will come back to me.

In other news, June 16th was/is my mom and dad's anniversary. I forget how many years they were together. I think it was, like, 45 years, or something. This will be the first time in almost half a century that my mom will be apart from my dad on their anniversary date. She's a tough one, my mom. She's quite emotional, but she also keeps her feelings to herself. If that sounds contradictory, well, I guess it is.

She's going to Port Huron tomorrow, to the trailer, to spend some time by the water. I have the feeling that she won't be by herself. Memories can be almost tangible, sometimes. Dad will be with her.

I wish her a peaceful, loving, time.

FOR MEEGIE

2009-06-01T01:21:00.002-04:00

For Meagan Elizabeth.

This:

Queen.

Freddy had it kicking, on this one.

Enjoy, babe.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE--MY 400TH POST

2009-05-31T10:36:00.002-04:00

This is my 400th post. I have spent about three years on this spit. And I love it. I love to write, I love to blog. Sometimes, thoughts don't come easily to me. On those days, I don't post. Those days have been frequent, of late. I just don't have too much to say. I think my mother may have told me once: "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything."

I mean, seriously, what could I write about? No one wants to hear of the struggles of an alcoholically-minded dude. Who the fuck wants to hear of pain and suffering? I could write about my job, but that has been boring me lately. I go to work, I put in my eight hours, and then I go home. I could write, maybe, about hobbies, but I have none. The dogs are boring me, too. (And Ollie, he of the weak bladder, is flat-out pissing me off.)

What does one write of when one is merely existing?

...

Exactly.

I just watched a Twilight Zone episode in which the protagonist ran down and killed a young boy named--of course--Timmy, and, after the fact, his life was turned upside-down. His conscience was killing him. And his car was possessed. (I think S. King may have seen this episode; I think that Christine may have been thunk up after seeing this show.) His car honked, his car blasted its lights, his car, actually, in the end, drove itself to the point at which the dude fell down on the rain-slicked streets and the car zoomed towards him and then...stopped. Its tires were mere inches from the guy's head. The passenger door opened and--I wouldn't have!--the guy got in and the possessed car drove him to the local cop-shop.

The man got out and walked into the police ossifer shack and Rod Serling intoned something like, "A man's conscience is the staff with which he walks. A man's conscience is the value by which one must live. But, sometimes, the Twilight Zone is one's conscience. In the Twilight Zone."

I watched the episode and I just got to thinking. I miss them daze. Late 50s, early 60s. I wasn't born, of course, but those days seemed easier. You have the guy and his wife sleeping in seperate single beds (but how did they fuck?) you have the cars made of metal and chrome rather than plastic and bubble gum, you have cops as friendly peace-keepers....

I just enjoy the Twilight Zone. The episodes are good. They are parables, of sorts. They make you think and they make you want to be a better person. Black-and-white litmus tests. The time period in which we suck breaths is too frenetic. We need to slow down.

We need to watch a b-and-w classics. We need to slow down and appreciate what we have. And, yes, I am mainly telling myself this.

May you have Peace in your lives.

MAY SOMETHING OR OTHER

2009-05-25T14:58:00.000-04:00

Memorial Day.

WATER AND BARLEY AND HOPS--OH MY!

2009-05-12T11:14:00.003-04:00

The bottle is winning. It is kicking my ass. Hard. It is an old-school ass-whipping.

Beer, vodka, wine...whatever. As long as it is an alcoholic beverage, I am down with it. I am down with it and it brings me down. So damned down. So damned low.

It is far from fun, anymore.

It is a motherfucking disease. It has to be. Why else would I continue to pour this poison down my throat? Why else would I put work and love on the back burners? Why?

Why?!

My name is Adam and I am a blistering alcoholic. Just fucking blistering. Mad burning flames surround my yearning, my want, for alcoholic beverages. I have the tool box that I need to combat this evil life-sapper, yet I shove that tool box into the shed; I cover it with a tarp and forget that I ever had it at all.

I'll tell you this: This is not living. This is shit. The fear, the pain, the hurt, the melancholic meanderings day after day after day...it completely sucks.

When I do not drink, life, sometimes, gets very fucking boring. But what is worse? Boredom or this ever-tightening noose of alcoholism? I'll take the noose for a thousand, Alex. That--this--is much much worse.

The bottle is kicking my ass. It's really not even a fair fight anymore. And it can--and will--only get worse. Unless I can find some spine. Unless I seek help, go to meetings, take Antabuse, drag my nuts out from my ass and man the fuck up.

Being bitten by the bottle-bug is a tragedy. Alcoholism is tragic. I consider myself a pretty special person. I have much love to impart to the world. But I'm burying it underneath this fucking monster addiction. If I continue down this road of self-destruction I will lose all that matters to me. Fuck. Lose it? No, I'll give it away.

I am not prepared to take a dump on what I hold dear. I am neither ready nor willing to throw it all away.

I'm. Not.

Tell that to the bottle, Adam. Tell it to the bottle.

Words are words, man. That's all they are. I need to see Action. Blistering Alcoholic Boy? It is faaar past time to nut up, to sack up, and take motherfucking bull by the horns. Or by the balls, as it were.

This is my life. Mine. Life is *so* much more God-damned beautiful and fulfilling than waking and cracking a beer-top and smothering oneself with the "nectar of the gods."

Enough! Enough with the Dionysian Lethargy.

I talk a mean game, don't I?

Some days, I hardly even know what day of the week it is. Is today Wednesday? No. It's Tuesday, right?

I feel the tears welling up. I am in so much fucking pain, right now.

But I have Faith. I have Faith that I'll emerge from the other side of this self-made maelstrom a stronger individual. I do have Faith.

And that counts a whole hell of a lot, damn it.

WERDZ

2009-05-02T13:43:00.004-04:00

I was just having a conversation with my lover, Meeg, about the words Faith and Hope.

I see it this way: Faith is the unwavering knowledge that things will work out just fine. Scenario: a guy is in a liquor store that is getting knocked over--bullets are blazing--and he has the Faith that he'll get out of it unscathed. He does not Hope for good health; he has Faith that he'll be okay.

Same scenario: guy in the middle of a liquor store robbery. He Hopes that he'll be okay. He Hopes that the crossfire won't knock 'im in the noggin. He Hopes that a .44 bullet will shear through a can of Campbell's instead of churning his head into soup.

Which is stronger? Faith? Hope?

I don't need the dickshunhairy to answer the question. It is a landslide victory. Hope is Faith's bat-boy. Hope? Stand back for the power-hitter--Faith.

Hope, to me, seems, ineffectual. Hope, to me, seems wishy-warshy. You ain't gotta Hope; you've just got to have Faith. Hope wears Faith's hand-me-down clothes. Hope is Faith's little brother, little sister.

Faith knows that the world will be okay, eventually. Hope wishes so but then shrugs and clicks the TV remote, looking for the last American Idol re-spin.

Faith is the mortar that solidifies the Wall of Being. Hope is the groundwater that destroys the Being.

Raise yourself up into Faith. Believe. In whatever. Just--believe.

A ROMP AROUND THE MAYPOLE?

2009-05-01T17:45:00.003-04:00

Happy Friday, everyone. Happy May 1st. It is May Day. Why? What does May Day stand for? I'd look it up, but I am lazy, I guess. All I know about May Day is that, in some parts of the world, people gather in the village square, 'round a tall pole to which ribbons are affixed, and they walk slowly around the pole, the ribbons clutched in their sweaty palms. Or...something like that. Why? I haven't the foggiest notion. And, then, I do believe, they reverse the direction! Egads.

I may put my little ole spin (no pun intended) on the oh-so sacrosanct May Day tradition: I think I will walk circles around my warshing machine. Yes, my warshing machine is "on the fritz," as they say. The spin cycle is...troubled. The motor is runnin', but the tub ain't spinnin'. Oy vey.

I have looked online and I am prepared to open the lid (after unplugging the beast) to see if, mayhaps, something--a bra, a sock, a clump of dirt, a rhesus monkey--is stuck somewhere in there. My bet is on the monkey. Those damned animals are nuisances! Just ask India.

Anyway, may your day be bright, may your footsteps be light, and may your monkeys not be tight.

In the warshing machine.

THE STING OF DEFEAT

2009-04-19T22:30:00.003-04:00

The first softball game. Nineteen to one. A loss.

Not a good start.

I struck out. Not cool. Next at bat, I ripped one down the left-field line--it landed just foul. Not cool. The pitcher, a 45-year-old with a couple kiddies, spun the next pitch and I popped it up to the third baseman.

Did I mention that the Dirt Dawgz lost by eighteen runs? Yeah.

We did not hit the ball well, we did not field the ball well, and the pitcher walked too many men. Personally, as I said, I did not hit the ball well and, in the field, two balls went over my head that I should have caught.

Long story short: we need to get better, much better. We have a slick shortstop and third baseman and we have an ex-college baseballer on our team, but we need to improve. Expo-fucking-nentially.

A "WANNA GET AWAY?" MOMENT

2009-04-17T21:50:00.003-04:00

I think the airline is NWA, or Northwest Airlines, the airplane company that has those too-funny (most of the time) "Wanna Get Away?" commercials.

There's one where the cute black woman has something in her contact lens and she stumbles into the bathroom to fix her eye only to realize that she had stumbled into the men's restroom, all the guys staring at her as if she had two heads. There is another one in which a vendor at a sporting event laughs at a "Wanna Get Away?" commercial on the scoreboard and then proceeds to stumble down the stairs, spilling his full bevy of drinks on the isle-sitters. At the end of each commercial, Announcer Guy intones, "Wanna get away?"

That was me, today, at work: the woman with the effed-up contact lens, the vendor spilling down the stairs.

"Why don't you back-fill that hole, while I draw up the picture," Paul said. No problem. I had already back-filled a smaller hole, adjacent to the house's driveway, I was familiar with the Ditch Witch front loader, and, if this other hole was bigger and dug fresh out of muddy Bloomfield dirt? So what? I could do an adequate job of it. I was sure of myself, I was confident. Usually, the linesman does the machine work, though my job title is TMO, Trenching Machine Operator. Hey, it's like that for all the TMOs, for the most part--the linesmen -women do the digging and the TMOs do the grunt work.

Paulie's a little different. And, in a way, that's good. It's good to get practice on the machinery so that you don't get rusty with your skills. Well, I haven't been doing any digging, for the most part, since I've been in the department. I am rusty.

But, like I said, I had already back-filled a hole admirably and so I had a little confidence under my belt. Plus, it was a small Ditch Witch, easy to move and use, almost like a joystick-centered video game.

"All right, Paul," I said, "I got it."

This hole was different than the previous hole I'd filled. On the first hole, I could sit myself on the driveway--very stable--and I could just sweep the dirt and clay and roots into the hole by use of the digging arm. Very easy. This second hole, however--this one was different in a number of ways. First, this was a much bigger hole; this was where we had done the majority of the work, namely retiring a service tee and having the welder weld a new tee on and running a new service to the house. Bigger hole: more dirt. Second, there was no stable driveway upon which I could sit the machine. This was on the front lawn, butt-up against the two oversized mailboxes on posts. Third, the ground was soft as a baby's posterior. Fourth, I was tired--it had been a big job--and I just wanted to finish up and go home. Does that set the stage for disaster?

Maybe, maybe not.

This time, yes. Kind of.

I could go into detail about back-filling and how I had the welder's advice to which I listened, but I'm pretty sure I have bored y'all to tears by now. Long story short, I switched to the big shovel bucket on the front loader so that I could more easily push the dirt back into the hole and, having not had a lot of experience on the machine, I went a little too far into the not-quite backfilled hole and I...sunk in. No problem. Back out, right? Well, um, no. The problems were thrice. One, lack of experience. Two, the way in which the little Ditch Witch propells itself. It moves on treads, rather than wheels. Kind of like a little tank. Good for something, I guess, but not as reliable as good old-fashioned wheels. Three, the soft ground. I had gotten myself into a pickle; I had gotten flat-out stuck.

Matters were made worse by the mailboxes. I sincerely did not want to try to extricate myself from the mud and, upon operating the machine, take out two home's mailboxes with the front loader. So, maybe in the beginning, I tried to play it too cute, too cautious. Bad idea on soft untamped mud. I just dug myself deeper and deeper. I looked to the welder for help: he was on the phone. I looked to the linesman for help: he was in the 44, working on the computer diagram of the job we had done. I was on my own. It was not a success story.

Eventually, Paul wandered over to the hole, just in time to see me slam my hardhat against the machine's roof. "What was it?" he asked, smiling. "A bee?" Paul is a good guy, as genial as they come. He's also got an absurd sense of humor; often you can't tell whether the guy is serious or is yanking your crank. I have the same sense of humor and also I know that when Paul says something, you can bet that it is Theater of the Absurd. He plays good Make-Believe.

I told him that it had not been a bee, that I was stuck, that I was frustrated, that I was fucking pissed off. He smiled.

I fucked around a while longer with the controls and only succeeded in burying myself deeper in the mud. It felt like an Uncle Remus story, all Tar-Baby and shit. I gave up. "I give up," I said to Paul. "I'm stuck and I can't get out. This is fucking bullshit." At that point in time, I wanted to break something, anything. I got off the machine and Paul got on.

He had no more success than I. Though we tried to dig it out, put wooden planks under the treads, get a tow-chain from the welder's truck, nothing worked. In the end, Paul had to put down the digging arm to make sure the machine didn't topple onto its side. "No good," he said mildly, "we'll have to call for a tow truck."

I've been largely ineffectual since I came to the department. Sure, I work my ass off and people appreciate that, but I just have not yet caught on; I have not yet become as proficient a worker as I believe that I can be, should be. Maybe I put too high of expectations on myself, maybe not, though. It's coming up on two years in this department--I feel that I should be running circles around my previous self.

In most ways, I am. I understand what needs to be done, now, on jobs, and I do the work in a professional, hard-working, proficient manner. Yet I feel that I can't escape the ghosts of Adam Past, and getting the machine stuck in the mud?! Yeah, that didn't help my confidence.

In the end, like I said, the digging arm was down for support and the machine was tilted at, I'll say, a 30-degree angle. Not cool.

To make matters worse, Paul was on-call and a job had been sent to his attention. He was needed but he couldn't get to the job because his TMO had sunk his machine into about two feet of mud. Joy. He had to call, over the truck's radio, to the dispatch for a tow truck. "My machine got stuck in the mud," he said. "Tell'em I did it," I mumbled angrily. "Don't let them think it was you who got your machine stuck."

"I'm not saying that," he said, after he hung up the CB transmittor. "Shit happens. It's fine."

After the tow truck came and the driver took exactly seven minutes to winch the machine out of the mud, Paul walked up to me, smiling, and asked, "So...were you scared when the machine started to go into the hole?"

I know his humor. I knew he wasn't asking if I were seriously scared. I answered, "No, Paul. Not scared. Just fucking pissed and frustrated."

I have a softball game on Sunday. The welder is on the team. Other co-workers will have heard the "news of the stuck machine" on their truck's radios. I'll get some guff, some good-natured ribbing. I'll try not to be sensitive about the matter. But, seriously, ineptitude begins to get old, especially to the practitioner, if he cares a whit.

But, like Paul said, laughing, "This kind of shit always seems to happen to me. Never anyone else."

And now, as I write this, remembering the events, it is actually pretty funny to me. Shit does happen. I get super-worked up at the time, but, later, I'm all good with it. I think Paul has a good philosophy on life: don't take shit so damned seriously. It'll only raise your blood pressure and make you old before your time.

(By the way, because of the stuck machine, I got a meal ticket and an extra hour-and-a-half of overtime. But, no--it was not intentional!)

A PARABLE (WITH NO KNOWN OUTCOME)

2009-04-14T19:18:00.005-04:00

Once, there was a man. He was neither slender nor fat, his head was well-shaped, his muscles did bulge.

It was a gray and rainy day, yet the man did walk; he walked to the store to get some tobacco products. He was addicted, you see.

Along his walk, he noted things like the gray squirrel slicing to the top of the branch, he noted a neighbor's front yard gargoyle (complete with a lighting system) and he nodded his approval.

He walked.

Satan blindsided him from his left. God was an afterthought on his right.

Satan said, "Just buy some, you skank whore."

God murmured in the man's right ear.

Satan said, "Don't listen to that pussy punk motherfucker. All you need is here."

The man walked on; raindrops sluiced off his fedora's bill. He thought, I want silence in my mind. I just want God-blessed silence.

God spoke, then, but the man chose not to hear Him.

Satab said, "Good deal, sucker. You're with Us."

The man walked on. The skies were gray, there was intermittent rainfall; the man felt at Home.

For a few blessed steps, there was silence in the man's mind. He walked and breathed and appreciated Nature.

And then, God spoke up: "Son, you need to do some deep deep thinking. You need to face your demons and, I'm here to say, you have to best them. You've a lot of Love to give this world; you just have to cut the demon off."

"Easier said than done, Yaweh," the man muttered. "Easier said than done. Why don't You ask me to move a fucking boulder? That? That maybe I could do. What you're asking is nigh impossible, Sir. What you're asking is paramount to a...life change."

God nodded and trees swayed in His wind.

"God, I don't know," the man said.

Satan chimed in. "Don't listen to that billion-year-old fuck. He's a whitewash. He's nothing. I am king. I have the pleasures. What the fuck does that old coot have? Nothing. A cloudy throne? So fucking what? I am the king."

The man walked. Raindrops dripped. In his blood, the heroin was swirling. It made a dreary day palatable. The heroin made the man appreciate the blessedness of the drizzle. It made him...Heavenly.

Work, girlfriend, house, bills...all the concerns floated away. And he thanked Satan.

And he walked. The Future he was walking towards ceased to be paramount. The Future that he was walking towards ceased to be tangible--it lost its meaning. The man walked and he thought. And forgot. And thought. And forgot.

And he thought, This?! Is this what I signed up for?! Hell. No. I wanted picket fences, man. Whadda fuck?

Satan said, "You listened to me. Good boy."

God spoke from his right. He said, "You purposefully shunned what I had to say. You dropped the ball, son."

The man walked on, through the gray rainy late-afternoon and he thought. And he thought. And he thought. And he bristled at his earlier transgressions. And he bristeled. And he walked, through the rain, to the store to buy cigarettes...and a sixer. And a fifth of vodka and a balloon of the H.

And he walked out of the store and he turned his eyes skyward. "God, Jesus," he said, "how can I extricate myself from this self-made bondage? How do I bust the cycle?!"

And Jesus Christ answered and he said, "Fuck you, lackey. We've been here--always. You chose your path, you made your fucking bed. Lie in it. When you're serious, We'll answer. Until then, fuck off."

And Satan snickered and he said, "We'll always have a bed for you, here. Just call on me. I'll hook you up."

And the man walked on, towards home, from the Crime-Free Heroin Store in the gray sky, and the rain dripped off of his fedora's bill.

***