His problem....

"What is your problem!!", a 300 pound fat guy in an orange polo shirt.

Young man collects his football, which he apparently dropped, and throws it back to his dad.
His father is apparently a police officer and has driven his police cruzer to the peewee football practice. I'm sure to impress-intimidate the other people on the team.

Dear sir,
   I suspect his problem weighs 300lbs, is a police officer and wears an orange polo shirt.

Wrong side of lunch

I woke up on the wrong side of "you need to go fuck yourself" this morning. Well, the morning was fine, then I had to work, then I came back and... well "Y'all needed to go fuck yourselves".

I am fairly certain of it.

It's interesting, I think I'm more convinced than ever that y'all are hopeless. I don't think y'all know what makes you happy. Of course that makes me ask, Do I know what makes me happy?

There is something really wrong. I think we have enough distractions for 10 people. Movies, TV, Internet, Games. All of this getting us so far away from living our lives, so far away from Being alive. All of these distractions interfering with being alive. "Hang on a minute, I can't talk to you or help you I need to watch my favorite episode of Friends". It's a fantasy, it's a dream, It's like people are in a dream all the time. Then when your real life happens, you don't know what to do about it. You barely know how to live it. Barely know how to respect yourself or the people around you. Developmentally challenged... I can't turn a year older, I've spent the past year watching "the new girl" she is finally going on the big date. I can't live the idiot on 'the big bang theory' is pretending to be smart. I was watching some movie the other day, watched about 30 minutes of it and went "ya, All I can see are 3 bad actors on a shitty set, I'm turning this off"

Yet, where is my life, been trying to live it for years. It's not there. Read an article about happy people, who surround themselves with happy people. Easy to be a monk in a monastery. Another part is a life of service and caring about the people around you. If you are surrounded by people who are happy, they don't exactly need anything. It's people who are miserable who need service.... Easy to help people who don't need it. Funny little quandary there. If that is it, I'm doomed. Cause I have some of the most mixed up, miserable people around me you have ever seen.

Good luck.... I may not say it to you... but maybe it would be better if you internalize it.... Y'all need to go fuck yourselves.

Conversation with my dead brother.

“Jesus Christ, how the fuck can you own so many shit albums!”
“Patty Smith was the godmother of Punk!”
“Shut the fuck up! That is a load of bullshit.”
“but google says so”
“Have you heard that fucking album, they should use it on prisoners at Gitmo… It would make me talk. I also warn you that the other 40% of these bullshit albums will never see the light of day.”
“What are you talking about, I own the Patty Smith album”
“That album wanted to make me break glass and stab myself. You barely had any albums you were willing to listen to.”
“I loved those albums”
“enough to have the beat up in boxes for 20 years, Oh… and holy shit the ultimate ‘kurt weill’ collection. One fucking coltrain but 6 braxton, and the ultimate Brubek collection. Did you have something against Jazz from black guys? I don’t mean to be a douche but they are the only ones smoking enough weed to understand it.”
“hey now, that was uncalled for”
“You bought albums, how if you purchase ones you fucking like. The bowie and the Talking heads the clash… Ya, I get that. But there were 300 other albums. Were you just drawn to the Shitty soloist section in the record store?”
“Ok, so some of them I just purchased and didn’t like.”
“ya, I keep hoping for some real gems… even your Pink floyd collection was ‘compilations’ You fucking understand that they were concept albums, every one of them. So… NO FUCKING COMPILATIONS”
“Hey! I’m dead, you should be nice to me.”
“no, I should have been meaner when I was alive. Hang on a minute, I need to switch the record… I need to listen to another lame ass soloist sing Cole porter. And I love cole porter. Ya… well i’ll spend a lifetime torturing people with ‘i need to listen to some random album because I’ve never listened to ‘“cracks in the sidewalk” please indulge me as I torture my friends with your collection.”

Pondering

Sitting, pondering, I don't even know what. That is the horrible thing about pondering... sometimes you can't even figure out what it is that you are pondering. I feel broken, 40 years and I sit here. I must be so much of an asshole that nobody wants me. Yet... are you kidding the fucking monsters that find relationships... er victims. And i'm obviously too fucked up there either.  In all of that mess, here I sit, friday night dateless. Don't really like 'going out' really. I like work, I like adventures. Not a woman in reach that I either "should' want to date, or would I date. Where is that good friend, who I'm just overlooking... Where is that obvious woman who I'm just not seeing because it's just too obvious... what I see in the dysfunctional relationships, I don't see in that person so I overlook the relationship. Where is my sweet end to my romantic comedy.

Chasing my brother's demons.

I want to write a story called "genius or bust" about my brother. Unfortunately the title comes from a car commercial for Mercedes, I think,  that I keep seeing during the US Open. This is my brother who just died. There has been no shortage of shit storm in my family since his passing. At least for me it's been a bit of a wake up call.

I've spent most of the past weekend and much of the week chasing my brother's demons. His daughter has something wrong with her, she seems infected with his demons. I picked up the phone and talked to her today for a solid hour. She really wanted to be talking to her dad, she got me, poor bastard.

My brother was a hoarder, Not too bad. When he was a kid he was picked on, somehow he retreated from it in books. He went to the local, very rural, library and the librarians were encouraging and would help him request special books from other libraries that they didn't have. This sparked a life long love of books. His escape was feeling smart by accumulating books, Buying books fed him emotionally. When he died his hoard was books, and movies. He literally suffocated under the the weight of his accumulation. Unable to fill a clean cup with water or refrigerate food under piles of refuse. Unable to use 2 of his 3 bathrooms, the third was accessible if he sort of moved around some stuff. It was also one of 3 places one could sit in his apartment. The toilet also served as his music room where he probably didn't play one of his 6 guitars. When he didn't play them, that was where it was.

(imagine this without chairs... and with garbage on the floor)
   My sister in law called me last week, she seemed to be very caught in his problems. I get that.... I though, well sometimes crazy is crazy... they just want to suck you in, drag you around in their madness and convince you that you can't escape either. You can escape, but you have to stay off the train, cause it just goes round and round.

Simplify, simplify, simplify......

Story... Office Depo

  This is seriously my life. This is what it is like to be me. You have to remember that my job... everything I do is centered around Fixing things. There is no bullshit with me. It is broke... it gets fixed. I do it as quickly and cheaply as possible.

   I needed an adapter for my stereo. I ran off to target, where I couldn't find it. The I delved into one of my local office depo. OH I hate that place. It's great if you want some paper... or ink. I walk in and sure enough there is the vulture sitting there
"Can I help you?"
My first instinct is to say "No, there is almost no fucking chance you can help me in any way.". Only today, and evil smile crossed my lips. Today I know the exact name of exactly what I want. "Sure, I need an 1/8 inch TRS connector which is the same as a headphone jack, to an RCA connector which is also known as a stereo component connector, do you have that?"

Confused... bewildered.... She said... " I don't know"

I said "now could you show me the various places connectors and audio stuff may be"

"well, here and here", she said as she asked the manager, if they had any 'audio stuff'

I said, "well is there anywhere else they may be?"

"no, but they say we don't have anything like that"

I replied "well if you don't mind, can I still look around... just in case you know... maybe you have it... and don't know it" I wanted to say 'just in case you are as totally incompetent as I think you are.'

I wandered around... found exactly what I needed. Walked up to the front counter where she was 'found it', I said.
"oh good", she said
"sure am glad I kept looking, you could have cost the store a sale"

It's ironic that there are these idiots sitting there at work. Trying to help the store... yet... there they are Losing the company money..... "can I help you?", me "you can't even help yourself"

Harry times

I had to look up "Harry". It's a great word.

I'm oozing Beer and wing Sweat, what a charming visual that is. This blog ... it's for all the things I can't say. Maybe my goal should be to not have things that go on in my life that I can't say.

 My intent last night was to just drink some Gin and then go home. Some things escalate when they shouldn't or maybe they should have. Hopefully I just needed a good purge. Hopefully it's done. Not like anything happened. There was beer and wings that were too hot, and a conversation with some nice woman. Some times, for whatever reason the idea that some night drinking, got out of hand, brings frightening images to mind. I've never had a night like that, worst case is a night where you end up puking behind a dumpster. Series of awkward conversations, mostly where your breath smells so much of beer nobody wants to talk to you anyways..... Regretting every moment after the point you said "I'm going to go out".

My intent this morning was to get up early and ride my bike, feel like I'm not a lump of 200lb shit. Like I"m trying to become athletic..... I hiked for 4 hours yesterday, that was brutal. I wanted to get up this morning and ride my bike and maybe take it easy today.... maybe love myself some... Now here I sit, sweaty... indigestion... wanting to just go back to sleep for a few hours and feel better then....

I have to remember what I learned as a kid, nothing good ever happens at a bar.

woman with the tatoo

 Enter woman on the edge of being a white trash crack head. Putting her life back together... She gets a tattoo of all her children's names.
"see I love them so much I have had their names tattooed on my back", she says.

Little do you know she lost the first because she couldn't provide food and left her at her mother's house for weeks at a time.
Little do you know the next two she gave up for adoption, the new parents deciding not only to refuse to allow the mother any contact, but also the grandmother. Regardless of their declarations of love. Grandmother abandoning all three of her kids at about 12 years old, mostly because the kids poor behavior was interfering with her finding a decent man... Of course dad ... both of them were pedophiles. But... she loves her kids. CPS took those two after abandoned them to go on a crack binge with dad.
  The next two... well after managing to stop cps from taking them. Dad and his father decided that 3-4 years old was good enough to satisfy their sexual desires with the young girl.... Those two children are now with dad's mother. Tattoo woman's mother exclaims with no irony, "but she is the one who let her kids get molested in the first place".....

The jaw dropping irony... the kind that can only make you sit stupid and drool.... "I know how to be a mother!!!" but two of your kids are in jail for felonies... and being child molesters....

She couldn't take care of her kids, couldn't feed them, Couldn't keep them safe, couldn't be bothered to watch them on the weekends.... but she loves them.... She has a tattoo.

life and limb

   I went to bed early last night. Woke up this morning, I think I was hoping to wake up with a renewed sense of life or excitement. I just woke up refreshed but with the same pain. I don't deserve this. Yes save me the platitudes about how we don't get what we deserve. Yes, I should stop settling for less. I should demand more out of my life. Well that was easily said.

To look back on 40 years of life, to even reflect on other lives. Even say accomplished people and say, "is that all" This is what we are here for? That is life? I have had more sex than anyone I know in the past 3 years. Yet it's been miserable. I remember what it was like when I wasn't dating. I think, that wasn't that bad, it was at least more pleasant than this. or it was less unpleasant than this. .It doesn't make sense that life should be like this. I sometimes reflect that some peoples lives are more like bacteria, or fungus attached to this planet. They just kind of grow and consume what they can. I'm not sure you can call that a life. It's not surviving it's just consuming.
That being alive is so unremarkable, that it is so pedantic. It makes me sick to my stomach... makes me be even less interested in this thing y'all call life. Whooo hooo your toddler pooped in the potty.... Wow... we really are reaching for the moon there. Worse, to have such a low bar and be bad at it.

cure cancer.... but what will be the result of that? more bacteria.

Letting it all go.

I was asked about my year the other day. I will admit I feel good, I'm getting back into shape. I feel good. That being said my reply was, "This is about the worst year I have ever had." My oldest brother died in april. My other brother fell off a roof two weeks ago and has been in the ICU until just a few days ago. Ridiculous fights with just about everyone. Yet in some ways my family is getting healthier, much healthier. Through all the fighting, through all the drama... everyone is responding. Tooth and nail blood feuds.

   In all this, I seem to have shed both my unhealthy love interests. I really think I have done it this time. I've accepted that though they love me.... Their love is hollow. That as one person says "the juice is not with the squeeze". I've been haunted by this all day. For some reason I have also been haunted by the blade runner sound track This was really the theme to.. to the romance I had that I should have kept.... The one that I should have married. I let her go, she moved on, had 2 kids. Great husband.... That is life. But this soundtrack reminds me of getting high and being in love.

I'd like to do all of that again....

I've seen things you wouldn't believe.....

The invasion.....

Her name was Normandy. Before I met her the floor nurse said her name, I asked.... like the "beachhead"?

she said, "Yep, and oh she doesn't hear that all the time"

I laughed, my entire family heard the conversation. of course they missed the sarcasm and then when she showed up they proceeded to ask if her father was in WWII or her Grandfather... I imagine there were jokes about her sister being "Iwo Jima". I'm not sure what it is that we all make the most obvious uncomfortable jokes. I'm not a big fan of the "teasing"... I find it to be a just a mild form of cruelty.

oh blog.... where have we been

   As I sit down I don't know what I am going to write. I'm filled with anger and rage.... my blood sugar is fluctuating, that isn't helping. Nothing seems to be able to go right for me... I'm asking very little of the universe, I get exhaust fumes in return. I'm putting in hour after hour trying to get the ship righted.... it's just not working. Boat is sinking.... where are the life rafts...

  Sick of complaining about it, sick of bitching about it....There is no help possible... no rest for the wicked I guess.

Hypervigilance

.... I was a bad man today. I was descending today, and didn't take my headphones out. I came 6 inches from a car. I'm sure they were freaked. It was a moment where I had resigned myself to being hit. I didn't need to over correct. I was certainly spooked. It's where my head is at right now.... Edge of the envelope.

   I've become Hyper Productive. I haven't seen this since Pre-Girlfriends. I'm hoping this time of year is Post girlfriends.

One of the blog readers will know what I'm talking about here. Met this woman today, I'm thinking.... Well you have to meet more woman, I hear there are healthy woman. Her posture said she was friendly. Of course then went the teasing. Yes, I feel bad today... I'm going to drink water. I know you feel bad for whatever, but don't get me involved. I'm just nauseous. Making fun of my health, does not make me like you. It's also a bit of a red flag.

  I realized today I was kind of a confrontation hound. I saw someone victimize then try and become a victim all in 30 seconds. I hate people.....
You haven't heard from me in a while..... I'm working on that.

 

The wee hours of the morning

It's 3:30 am. This isn't good.

The old demons have be by the Heels ....

can't I have a boring life.... why have y'all rejected it.....

Rejected the one thing I crave.....

Where is my boring life

Living in a cottage..... taking care of the garden....
Where is that boring life..... why is that so hard?

It's the old wounds...

Chased by demons, fairly aggressively, today. I don't know what it is, well sort of. Watching Black Swan Didn't help.... WTF a stabbing.... but I digress.

Lots of memories, unkind memories... why now.... why today... Just to remind me I guess. I must need a reminder.

Why am I chased by all these demons. I don't deserve them. It's like being locked in another person's hell. Foolishly I tolerate it. I said.... a few years ago.... Life is like a great melodrama. Those were the good old days. Those were those halcyon days, when I felt like it was all in front of me. I guess it was, who knew it was going to be like this.... I guess you never know.

There is a duality in people. Someone said there are 3 people. Their Self then their Secret self.... I think the third was the crazy self. I don't buy that. The duality seems like "the person" then the things that person does to survive.... I think someone said Morals are not things we discard when things get tough, those are hobbies. But in that duality... are they rotten..... or broken...

I just want to get some sleep.... just want it all to go away... never does.

I can't even drink enough to really make it go away...

chasing demons. .... it's the old wounds.

Filled with hate

I'm still ..... Well, filled with hate.

I'm just tired of it..... Tired of all of it..... I'm liking my bike rides.... I guess I"m getting fitter.... hard to workout and get less fit.

Fed up.... I don't really have more words for it. I was sitting here hoping I could come up with 100 words on how I feel.... I'm irritable, Don't really want to be around anyone..... Just want someone to hug and love me....

if only one could eat enough pie to fill in all the emotional holes.

How do I make a pie full of hate....

My perfect day.

This is my version of a perfect day.

Awake Coffee, yogurt.... fruit... maybe some some light grain.

a good 6 hours of productive work and 3-4 hours of exercise.

Exhausted, one's significant other is there.  "you help clean up, then help me with dinner".

Quick meal prep... Exhausted eating and some cuddling and falling asleep watching some movie or other....

That is a perfect day.....

Exhausted into sleep...  Wake up.... and kick the world in the ass again....

Somehow ...... this is difficult. ..

one day at a time....

It's a fairly ugly world I see these days. I was out this evening, Imagine this.

You meet someone they say "Hey! I'm in a band."
"That is awesome! What kind of band?", you reply
"Well it's sort of Cover band Tribute band"
"What sort of stuff do you play? what bands?"
"Well; Kind of .... The Monkeys, beach boys, maybe some Herman's Hermits. "

These guys were playing in some shopping center today. Watch out, one of them had his Jazzy parked next to him on lead guitar...... Yes... they do play weddings.

As I sat there assessing the crowd. 1 in 12/15 of y'all are too fat to have sex. I mean.... .maybe you manage.... but it seems like it would get ugly. Is it the steroids in the meat doing it..... WTF...... it's like being Neutered by BigMacs and fries.
This is your life... and it's passing one day at a time.

I still really fucking hate you.

   A few days ago I had that feeling. The feeling that the future was in flux. That there was a future out there that    was not anything I could imagine. A future where the players are unknown, where the board is not one I've seen. I think I just hope that somehow the rules I recognize   I realize I had become groundless. Which is good to be honest. A clean slate for the future.....

    A day ago..... things started to flow. The flow of the world started to pump it's breath back into me. It felt like a cool clean glass of water had finally touched my lips. Like my feet had hit the trail.

Like moments of lucidity. Feelings of clear and centered guidance a world which moved under my feet, where the sun shined, where clear healthy winds blew and filled my lungs with a delicious elixir. Head held high..... a body stirred.

Still some of the darkness lingers. It still holds me in it's grasp... Still I can see and feel it's tendrils. Still they make me tremble.... They still startle me and stop my breath...... Just breath..... Just breath.....

refrain the title.

Bitter

..... She read it. Finally, she bothered to check the old e-mail and read what was inside.

I know what was inside, I wrote it. Nothing angry, nothing bitter. There was a time when I would concern myself with how someone would feel reading something I wrote or hearing something I told them. That isn't my concern..... that is life.... Life is .... people have feelings. People make decisions..... People make choices. It's not for me to take any of that on. It's for me to deal with my feelings, to make my choices. Beyond that..... let the chips fall.

   I know it sent her spinning. I know her brain is on fire. Somehow this wasn't her game. Somehow this... isn't what she wanted. She wanted to roll along, her rules.... her game..... Suddenly, like a truck it hit her..... the melodrama has spun out of control .... no longer is it the game she thought she was playing....

   The lying the manipulating..... all of it... teetering again. All I wonder now.... how do I deal with the response. If there is any.