Monthly Archives: April 2009

Listening to the train and the frogs isn't exactly first on my list of things to do at 1:30 in the morning. Not to mention the fan from the gigantic computer and the perpetual winamp play list that is currently cycling through 846 songs (that's barely scratching the surface… Not even an entire genre…) or the creaking and groaning of an old house at night. I don't mind the sweet sound of heavy sleep and deep breathing next to me, though I am totally jealous that he is getting the sleep and I'm squinting at the keypad of my phone. It could be worse. It could be 4am.

So while I'm on my way to the next hour marker, the thought has crossed mind that just maybe I shouldn't have had the coffee this afternoon. Damn the tasty, tasty frozen, malted coffee concoction…. But no matter. The eyes are finally heavy. Dream well, I will because tonight, oh yeah, woodland friends and temple friday!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Dear Weather Controlling Dude,

While I appreciate your recent efforts to warm things up, as it is spring, setting the temperature to linen/wools is just too much. I realize you were trying to respond to the numerous complaints. The past couple days have been much cooler, bit nipply, but nothing like today. A sudden drop to damn, it’s frickin cold out here was too much. How do you expect us to plan any fun activities? Or sit on the porch and have a beer? Or just decide what to wear to work… That’s right, we can’t because we’d have to bring a duffle bag of layers. Your erratic behavior just can’t be tolerated.

Okay, Okay, I am a big softy.. If you can prove yourself over the weekend I may keep you… on a probationary status… I’ll give you through the weekend to figure it out. Anywhere from dude! I love bikinis! during the day to don’t forget your sweater in the evening will be acceptable. But this is your last chance. We’ll talk again on Monday.

Best regards,
The Secretary of Something

I’m a very bad liar. Ask anyone I’ve tried to lie to and they’ll tell you. That’s probably why I make it my practice to be honest, even if it hurts. I have this rule that I’d rather hurt a little (sometimes a little more) now from the truth, than a lot later because I was lied to. For me lying can include omission and secrecy. I do realize there are exceptions to every rule and sometimes we keep secrets to protect others from unnecessary hurt. I don’t need to hear stuff that doesn’t concern me and will only cause me anxiety. I’m really good at worrying… about everything… including those things I shouldn’t. But we are all products of the past that shapes us. Be it the divorce of our parents that caused us to be fearful of commitment, or the breakup that made us bitter or even the amazing love we once shared with someone that just wasn’t timed correctly, we are molded into who we are by these events. I think if I add up the events of my past that I fear reoccurring and throw in a healthy dose of Freud (oh yeah, he’s in there too, in spite of all I did to insure the contrary) I get an accurate sculpture of myself. It is not easy to look at and I keep the white sheet over it when others are nearby. I can see every nick and mark where time and pain have caused imperfections. So I hide them. The last thing I want is others to see, is the flaws and their origins, right? But that isn’t how it should be. We are scarred and flawed beings, all of us… some of us in ways immediately recognizable, some not. I am scarred and flawed, though not in easily apparent ways. I bear the markings of many hurts that I’ve never shared and may never share. But they make up a small part of the whole. My heart is big and full of love. The scars just make it stronger. Still, I need to move forward daily. I need to pull the sheet back and let the sun shine on the dark parts to wither them away to nothing. The past only recurs if I let it. I can’t hide the past and the parts of it that frighten me. I can’t hide from the man who cares for me despite the times I fear recurrence, though he has given me no cause to fear. The anxiety is from within. So I guess its good I have more clay and keep close to a window.

I’ve been listening to Explosions in the Sky (or something similar – …Pandora) all day. When you are already busier than hell (how busy is that exactly??), doing the job of 2 ½ people and trying to stay sane.. (maybe should have clarified when I made that wish not to be bored at work… damn) probably would be a better idea to pick something with a bit more pep. Maybe I should have put on the “f-mix w/a lil p in butt” station. My friend sent it to me after the tall one made it during a movie night.. He has a way of putting some crazy shit together to make you whip your head around and ask wtf mate?? Where the name came from and what it has to do with electronica/dance hall/hip-hop/disco I don’t know. I try not to ask questions I may not want to know the answers to. So anyhow, I opted not to go with pep, but sort-of punk-ish ambient music that I really like. It hasn’t helped with the work-flow but has kept me from blurting things out in a frenzy of musical tourettes. I don’t like the looks I get when I blurt out “pee in the corner” or say the word “douche”. They don’t like that in government buildings. Incidentally, I like saying the word douche. Its always funny.

I’ve switched over to winamp in hopes that something on there will perk me up. Basically, for someone who talks as much as I do words are becoming more and more difficult. I said I wouldn’t and yet, I keep putting them through a filter so they don’t sound like the person that I really feel like. I wear a gas mask of recycled feelings, only sometimes I think I have the thing on backwards. I keep thinking it will all flow quickly and easily onto the paper. There are so many things swimming around it’s like a schizophrenic radio. There is no rhyme of reason to it, no pattern. My mind isn’t cooperating with me, more like its playing pong at high speed. I don’t want to play pong. I like video games, but not playing them. I want someone else to play and I’ll read a book while you shoot shit and kill the grubs or roll the little wheely ball to make birdie or whatever it is you’re mangling today. I don’t need all that on my hands. Anyhow… it’s not flowing easily. It’s jumping around in there like a kid trying to avoid a spanking. So here I sit… hands poised, thinking about many things; shoes and ships and sealing wax, maybe cabbages and kings too. I know I’m not the walrus, at least that’s something. I think I’m trying so hard to keep things cohesive so that when someone other than myself reads it, there can be a sort of understanding, something to follow. Why? Isn’t the point of this that it’s mine? That it’s a place of journaling and venting? Read it or don’t but maybe today I want to write a completely disconnected four paragraphs about three different things that have absolutely fuck all to do with each other. That’s what is happening to me in this moment.

women drivers, twit or tweet, m & m’s, what to eat, emoticomics, number crunching, headphones humming in my ears, pennants on the wall, jackhammers, beer and strippers, Alabama slammers and dirty slippers, lazy workers who won’t leave their desk, scotch tape, data, data and license plates, governmental red-tape crap, color my hair, and ZAP (it’s a sticker)…

hhhhmmmmm it is like schizophrenic radio in there. I need to pick a station already so I can be productive. I put on winamp to get me out of the ambient punk depression of my afternoon. I chose three or four artists and made a playlist of all of their stuff. (some 27 albums). I have now heard the same song in three forms in less than a half hour. hhhhhmmmm again. Good thing I like the song. Not inspiring to write, but I guess I can work to it, and I guess that’s better than playing pong.

beer, food, geekitude is one of my new favorite places…

These are words from my friend. He writes in a raw, naked way that lets you know you are alive and it is real. I hurt for him and I feel anger for him. I also hope for him and see the beauty that makes him one of the most amazing friends/mentors/men I have ever known. I read these words, part of a much larger blog, and, as he often does, was inspired to think about my own life. I thought about the difficulties we’ve weathered together and what storms he’s faced alone (much, much more fierce). I am thankful for his constant friendship. We can go weeks without talking and still we never lose our connection. I love that.

“I’m working on anger issues. Part time. Well….kinda part time. Less than 10 hours a week. Everywhere I go nowadays, I carry a pocketknife. The highly spiritual metaphor here is this. Whenever I get around someone I know…and I mean in the moment, instinctually know….I don’t like, or who would stab me in the back, I pull the knife out…closed….and hold it and rub it in my palm. Then I move…mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or physically….to strategic high ground. My trust was broken at the last job….by someone who’s job I saved repeatedly. I have no trust left for business purposes. I won’t be caught again. Conversely, I won’t dirty myself taking my pocket knife (or say…a pen or pencil) and ramming it through someone’s eyesocket….I just choose to disengage. “

On my way to higher ground.”

I can’t fix anything, I can’t even pretend. When your pocket knife wears out let me know and I’ll replace it… because I love you and wish you to find your higher ground. You deserve to find rest.

Thank you for inspiring me.

Walking With My Pocket Knife

in the gardens
efforts fraught with heartache
withered stems mark
passing time
dreams broken by deceit
yet the path continues
climbing higher on
through land unkempt
new growth is seen
untouched by the immoral
nurtured by time
within grasp
a calm
the game is past
what once was
returns to the earth
regeneration
through land unkempt
passing time
a means of letting go
by leaving angers perils
on the roadside
there is light on the horizon
within grasp
a calm

Reverend “comb over with a pot-belly” in a purple velour jumpsuit with Jesus written in rhinestones across his bulbous ass, toolin around the stage on a Segue… A televangelist “Father Tremendous”, handing out $20 bills (10 or more) from his “pulpit” with a gyrating nun chanting lu-ya ha-holy in an ethereal haunting voice… News of throngs of people worshiping at the feet of a marble statue with a talking ass crack, quoting the twelfth chapter, seventh verse of the “Book of Douche Bag”… The crowd like a wave chanting along with the common theme and ever present mantra “V is for Vagina”… Sniffing out “the Sin” in dens of iniquity because BOB is everywhere (the talking ass crack said so)… and cracked out looking doll baby girls with guttural voices because “it’s all fire and brimstone baby”, L.S.D. and the chupacabra….

Um, Yeah…

Accompanying a friend on a journey of closure and renewal that could potentially turn bad by including lots of man bashing, crying and evil shit: potentially too expensive to say

Dinner at LA’s famous Yard House, including drinks: $140

Hotel room to stumble back to after said journey: $100

VIP Tickets to the Club Nokia (which seats about 500 people in high back leather chairs and has three bars for your drinking pleasure) to see Maynard’s side project (Maynard from Tool if you don’t know me and haven’t been paying attention) and potentially the most crazy show of the year: $300+

Getting dinner and the tickets because you sent said friend a link to something funny and she saw the notice for the show, thus causing the chain reaction that lead to the quest for closure and renewal, and allowed you to see the most awesome show of your life so far: Absolutely fucking priceless!!

Not to mention, I got stoke to out my best friend by meeting Danny Carey and getting him to sign my ticket. I got to watch two mommies have a good night away, just for themselves, see the “LA scene” that I don’t have any desire to be a part of, but was fun for a moment and sit next to Milla Jovavich without even realizing it because she was dressed and made up like a cracked out dollbaby! But with all the video clips, the rocket man, sniffing out the sin, finding of the sin, flamenco guitars, wine, $12 beers, songs sung behind LCD screens, indigo children, getting right with jesus and dueling drummers, the question remains… What is a Puscifer?

I’m not super political. We know this from prior posts in the political area that bring facts about obscure laws rather than stats about affects laws have. There are a couple things that I don’t have to wax on political rant to say… I don’t like this “war” we’re fighting. But we’re fighting it none the less. I don’t like the killing of other humans for gain of materials or property or something that may or may not exist, now or ever. But it’s happening none the less. War is not new. Killing for materials or property is not new either. Nor is “protecting” claims on or interest in those properties. Whether or not we like these things, people with more power than we have, make the decision to pull the trigger. Fallible humans capable of mistakes just like me. Now I realize I am dangerously close to the rant, but I won’t, that’s not the point. As a person just a fallible, I can choose to be angry or not. I choose to recognize. Too many blame and rant and yell and burn out their lungs and my throat is tired. Wow, I’ve gone askew from where I started… In the vein of recognition some of the music I listen to has a political theme, some more overt than others. It was interesting to get a soldier’s perspective on one of those songs. I fully expected a pro-defense, though not necessarily pro war, stance and a reaction giving me shit for listening to stupid emo kids that have no idea what it’s like to be on the other side of the weapon or be in combat or even to want to be in the military. Well I can’t really argue, but I didn’t get that reaction at all. What I got was ‘so its an army song.’ (former Marine – very loyal if you know anything about that stuff) ‘doesn’t matter though, people with think its some cool anti-war song, but that’s real. That’s what happens, everyday. You live that shit and then it comes home with you’. I was taken aback, first by the even tone, then by the reality of what he said. We listen to songs about war and killing and what someone interprets soldier life as, but never realize the implications. You never stop to think about that the vet may have a completely different view than you think. So I filed this information away. I changed cd’s and hadn’t really thought about the conversation again until I saw the latest The Big Picture Blog post. It was picture from Afghanistan and they aren’t old or retouched. I look at the Big Picture every time he posts because it is always amazing. This time was no different. In my day to day filled with data entry, eating, getting coffee, making plans for whatever and all the hustle that is life I forget that there is much beyond my control. I can’t fix it, nor can constant worry help. But awareness and taking a minute now and again to remind myself ‘that’s real, that’s what happens everyday’. And more importantly that someone I know, and probably someone you know now lives with that shit because it came home with them.

Rise Against
Hero of War

He said, “Son, have you seen the world? Well what would you say, if I said that you could?”