How did I get so lost?

At 43, one would assume to know his/her self pretty well. I am always amazed that upon occasion I discover something new. Somethings are simple like finally aquiring the taste for a hated vegetable or stumbling upon a new hobby. Other things are more complicated and weird like developing a taste for unusual sex or finding out that you don't really like people. I am talking hypothetically of course..wink. Are these things that present themselves as new, ...really new? Or are they just the sum of my experiences catching up with me? 99.9% percent of the time, I know how I will act in most situations. I know what makes me mad. I know what makes me cry. I can recognize situations that will induce certain emotions and choose to avoid or embrace them. More often than not, I am surprised at how little I have really changed in my core. I have always been hyper-sensitive, prone to bouts of depression, and had a penchant for silly humor. I think by the time I turned 15 (or more likely even earlier) my die had been cast and my mold set hard. Is it even possible to change a life set in stone? I guess the whole psycology industry is based on the premise that you can change and I agree...with a caveat. Changing is a lifetime battle. You have to recognize your triggers, avoid and learn to bail out of certain situations and probably most importantly learn to forgive yourself when you fail...and you will fail a lot. I still love, hurt and laugh much the same as I did in High School. I like to think that I have had time to polish off a rough edge or two but I know there are still bristles in the places where I do not want to look. I really could not tell you if I am a better person now or was a better person then. I guess it all depends on what facet of myself we happen to be talking about. Can we ever really grow up and what in the hell does that mean anyway? Is it paying bills, raising babies and TCB baby (taking care of business)? Maybe it is taking responsibility for your own happiness without treading on the happiness of others. All I know is that in a few minutes I will be driving home in the dark with a head full of worries and wondering how I got to this very moment. How did I get so lost?

A new atheist's lament

I spent an hour this morning walking around the Bethesda Church Cemetery. I wandered around in no particular pattern snapping pics with my iPhone: a little Angel, a Holly branch with red berries, Acorns and Walnuts, some mushrooms, a weathered tree stump...anything that caught my eye. Between my pictures I would glance at the dates on the stones and do some mental math to calculate the life span. Young children, middle-aged men, elderly couples and no one any more dead than the other. After reading some of the epitaphs I could not help but wonder which is better: to go young and innocent or old and full of life? There are some people that are brought into this world that do not have enough time to cause any harm whether intentionally or not. Lets face it, the older you are the more time you've had to F' things up. A bitter lesson of my life is that the nature of life is hurting others and being hurt. It is damn hard to live in this world without your life touching others. It seems sad to say but selfish people are happy people. Put the oxygen mask on yourself before you help others... It makes sense but why do I feel that there is some detail missing that would negate this generality? Lately my life seems bombarded by similar sayings of the kind: it's all good, the heart wants what the heart wants, I don't know what people say but I know what they do, wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first...sorry that last one was just for fun. I look around and I see people taking themselves out of the big world and entering the 'me' world. Maybe this is just growing up and I am not ready to do it yet. Maybe I will never be happy until I put my happiness about others. Maybe all we can ever be is alone, no matter how many people you have milling about. A brain trapped in a skull, trapped on a body, trapped on this earth, trapped by time. I sure picked a bad time to not believe in God.

A short piece from Maia's Well

Little stepping stones of joy

I’m crossing the river and that’s what it is

But I get some choice as to where to put my feet.

There’s a gem of a rock, the taste of sweet cereal carried by a lover’s hand.

The next stone rings, and I step and answer and I hear the voice of a friend who is on his way.

This next one is big enough to sit on and rest a moment, and the little dog upon it puts her face next to mine because she knows I can’t reach for her right now.

And the noseeums dance and laugh and the river flows and

Really

There is nothing wrong here.

A Flower for my Hoe

Morning glories... they use to invade my fathers garden and wrap tiny finger-like vines around the squash and corn stalks. Many of these grabby little lifeforms fell victim to my hoe on hazy hot Saturday mornings when the rest of my friends were basking in the AC, eating cornflakes and watching the Super Friends. It is funny how only recently I noticed that morning glories are... flowers. Last Saturday I even felt compelled to take a few pictures of some vines clinging to a chain link fence that surrounded a vacant lot. The flowers were the color of Nerd's candy: glowing purple and pink and seeming to pop out against the dull green backdrop of barren, dusty honeysuckle. I am not sure what made me walk over and take notice of them. I think it may have been because somehow I knew that this little patch of morning glories was blooming for the last time. The thought of the summer ending made me feel both sad and relieved. All of my friends know me as an Autumn person, however if you were to ask me today I could not give you an answer. I am afraid to let go of the heat and the sunshine this year. Time seems to be flying and who knows where I will be the next time I blink. Morning glories do not care about such things. They are just as beautiful on the last day of summer as the first. I know they will be climbing up that fence again next year unless some kid like me whacks them with a hoe. I hope he doesn't.

A Breach of Trust

In relationships there seems to come a pivotal moment. More than likely it is un-noticeable. It is as slight as a mosquito landing on your wrist or an autumn leaf getting tangled in your hair. It is the moment that everything changes. I can't help but wonder if change befalls us whether we are ready or not or somehow we bring it about with a troubled heart. Let's take friends. We all start off as friends and if we are lucky ( or not ) we blossom into something more. At this stage, we trust or associate with no ill intent the words, facial gestures, and intentions of our potential partner. We are in fact EVEN at this point. In short it can be said that I have determined that you wish me no ill and you do not perceive that I wish anything evil on you. So, even the most questionable response, the oddest twink of the eye, even the out of place comment are taken...innocently. This is crucial to our foundation...our friendship...this most important assumption. After the years pile up on your relationship and hardships wax and wane, this fundamental base "that I wish you no harm" can become blurred. It is like a little worm ate it's way into our hearts. Once the foundation is compromised, it is doubtful that the best construction work will repair the damage of the infestation. I don't like to think that this corruption is inevidible. I like to think that the most compatible of us are immune to this disease...however I really don't fucking know. You hear things like, "don't go to bed mad" and it seems like such a simple thing to maintain a trust. However, it is as fragile as a pink antique ballerina rose. Relationships are friendships but at their heart they are more than that... they are friendships that aspired to "go to the moon"... they are friendships turned up to "11", they are friendships on acid at a Grateful Dead Concert...At least that is the way I see it.

Wildflower Blues

I once pulled up a dying man’s flowers and lied about it. I was living in Tigard, Oregon (which is not too far from Beaverton and the Nike’s headquarters), and working for a landscape maintenance company. Actually, it was a company that took care of the grounds of low-income properties. There was really not much landscaping to it. Pretty much you just cut miles of grass and walked around with a backpack blower all day long. Oh yes, and there was lots of raking and filling trash cans with the result. Funny, I can’t even remember the name of that fucking place, which is poetic in it’s own way. Anyway, the day I pulled up the flowers was my last day at the job and three days away from my flight out of the great, rainy, shitty North West. My work crew had been assigned to cleanup the construction debris at a new apartment complex. The grass was knee high and the land swampy in places as well as there being lots of dirt every fucking where. I was the leader of my crew… after all I was highly qualified: I could speak English and had a valid drivers license. I also had managed to get certified in tree identification and I prided myself in being learn-ed of plant knowledge in general. Notice the word pride in the last sentence…we all know what comes next. Well, my band of vagabond bushwhackers and I were sentenced to walk the grounds and whack the tall weeds that infested the place. My crew followed me obediently and sentenced to death any and all living things to which I pointed my boney Grim Reaper like finger. All was going along swimmingly until I came to a small front porch stoop and a patch of what I assumed looked like weeds. Notice the word assumed in the last sentence. Now really, there is no such thing as a weed. A weed is in the eye of the beholder. I reached down and gave one a tug but it held more firmly than its predecessors that day. I searched my plant lexicon for the appropriate name and species but came up empty. I had to make a decision…to deal death and destruction to this little patch of greenery or pass it by on my way out of Oregon. I made the call…not my best. My crew descended upon those wildflowers like Spartans against Persians. In no time flat, what must have taken months to grow was withering in a cheap plastic garbage can. Luckily for the other innocent flowers in the neighborhood, the owner of the newly renovated dirt patch called my boss and dispatched what we used to call the straw boss to the property. I lied, my men lied and we hid the corpses of not yet bloomed flowers on a truck loaded with dirt and trash. I can still remember that poor mans face when he looked me in the face and asked me, “Why did you do it”. As if that was not bad enough, I found out later that the man was ill and planted that flowerbed as part of his healing process. If my life is every reviewed upon its completion, I will have to look away when the record of that day is read back to me. The truth is that I know why I did it. I had been trained to bust ass and leave the thinking up to my boss. To me the repercussions of not pulling those weeds was more severe than pulling them. Me working man…you give me task…me finish…real simple…no too much talky-talky. I was 23 years old. Three days after I killed a dying mans flowers I was on a plane back Georgia and hoping that three thousand miles was far enough to put my shame behind me. Evidentially, not.

There are no bad dogs...just bad dog owners

It is funny how you can understand something intellectually but that it does not mean anything until you experience it. Kinda like being told the stove is hot verses putting your hand on it. Burning the fuck outta your hand is real knowledge, being told that the stove is hot is mearly information.

I am a walking hunk of heart meat. I cry until my eyes sting and I can't see the road. I reveal all of my secrets and bare my soul in the hopes that it will have some effect on whatever is happening to me. I lay in bed and stare at the ceiling and sweat under the covers. I sneak shots of tequila in the middle of the night. I write emails that I can not even remember. I stare out my bedroom window onto the rainy streets and into windy nights. I will do anything to distract myself from what the pain wants... It begs me to acknowledge it. And of course, I do...I want it take over management. The pain awakens some kind of primitive force within me and it is so glad to get out... the primordial monster I keep locked tight in my medula oblongata. It wants to break out and howl and the moon, and chase gazelles and eat them with its face buried in the bloody meat.

It is no puffer fish. It wants to protect the outer,softer me from the world and even myself. Sometimes I will let it bark a few times and then with all my might kick it's snarling drooling mouth back into it's spongy cage. It feels good to hurt people when you hurt, just like it feels good to listen to sad sounds when you are sad...but the joy is sour, short and totally sick. How quickly remorse and sense take back control of the brain reigns and the boys at corporate are back in charge of things. If there is one rule about being a human, it is to keep that inner dog under control. One of the few arguments that help me to believe in God is that we seem to be the only animal that is unhappy being himself. A dog loves being a dog, and if you want to see contentment look at a cat basking in the heat of a summer's day. Humans, however...no way, no how. For some wonderful reason we want to rise above our animal. I have no doubt that the inner dog would consume us if we give it an inch. But we are not evolved enough to let it go either. Your dog is there to save your ass. I wonder which half is the greater: the dog or the person holding the lease. And I wonder if there is no such thing as a bad dog, just a bad dog owner.

The Weight

We all walk around with an invisible weight. We smile at each other, go about our days and draw no attention to the little bird on our shoulder that is pecking at our jugular vein. We are all waiting on the proverbial shoe to drop. Some of us are waiting on a fucking boot. We are all waiting to loose our jobs, our relationships, our health. We wait because we know that it is coming like a fast train out of hell. To say that our lives are fragile is to indulge in the understatement of the year. The tiniest little germ will fuck us up. A minute of bad timing and BOOM you are crushed by a tractor trailer. In fact, even if you are the healthiest mother fucker alive, you can die. Flo Jo died of a fucking heart attack! I will never be as healthy as her...EVER! I don't really want this blog entry to be another death rant, because LORD knows I have enough of them...see my collected works. However, whoever said that we all live quiet lives of desperation was fucking right. We label people assholes to the left and right of us, and maybe more than a few are...but the truth is life will make you an asshole or at least seem like one. Weight...there is no escaping it. To live on this planet at this time is to take on weight. Gravity is a constant pressure pushing you down until you collapse under the pressure. Of course some of our weight is imaginary. If we loose our jobs, the sun will still come up in the morning. If our partners leave us the sun will still come in the morning. Even if we die, the fucking sun comes up in the morning. I just hate the fact that we are aware on some level of the weight leveled by all human beings and we choose to ignore our community pain. How quick the old bird finger pops up when someone breaks traffic manners. How quick are we to judge those who do not follow our particular slice of life. Republicans are hate mongers, Democrats are out of touch with reality, why do we have to label ourselves. Why can't we all just be human beings diagnosed with the terminal illness of life? Why don't we look at each other and go, "that mother fucker is going to die, give him a fucking break". I know life is messy. It is impossible to wrap things up in a neat little blog entry. I just wish we had the common courteousy to acknowledge and respect someone for their humanity. I am afraid the truth is that we secretly like to be ugly. We are more animal that we ever had the courage to acknowledge.

The Wreck of The Endless Summer

The legend lives on from the Chattooga on down
Of the big lake they call Lake Lanier'ee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead.
When the Bass Fisherman of June they come Early.

With a load of beer n bread,whiskey and hotdogs 24 or more.
Than the "The Endless Summer" weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the hicks of June they came early

The ship was the pride of the Chestatee side
Coming back from some beach party an hot son.
As the big cruisers go it was bigger than most
With a girl crew and the Captain well seasoned.

Concluding some terms with a couple of tequila worms.
When they left fully loaded for Lanier land
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the tequila buzz they'd been feeling.

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a beer bottle broke over the railing
And every girl knew, as the Captain did, too,
T'was the Bitch of a Hangover come stealing.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the bitch of a hangover came slashing
When afternoon came it was a throbbin headache pain
In the face of a Hurricane and Bacardi dry heavin

When supper time came the old nausea came on deck
Saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya
At 7PM a main player caved in
She said girls it's been a bitch to know ya.

The Captain wired in he had bottled water coming in
As the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the "Endless Summer".

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the dry heaves turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Chattahoochee Bay
If they'd fifteen more miles behind her.

They might have spit up or they might have vomitized
They may have broke deep and drank more water
And all that remains is the mess and the names
Of the girls and the guys and the daughters.

Lake Oconee rolls, Sinclair sings
In the ruins of her mixed drink shore mansions.
Old Hartwell steams like a young man's dreams,
The islands and bays are for Bass Bastards.

And farther below Lake West Point
Takes in what Lake Lanier can send her
And the Pontoon boats go as the mariners all know
With the hicks of June remembered.

In a musty old Walgreen's in Gainesville they prayed
In the aisle of stomach discomfort.
Their heads they chimed,, 'til it throbbed 6 times
For each one on the "Endless Summer".

The legend lives on from the Chestatee on down
Of the big lake they call Lake Lanier'ee
Lanier, they say, never gives up her dead
When the hicks of June come early.

Dead, Dead, Dead

This is just a short rant about life and death. There is a lot we don't know about life. There is less we know about death. Shakespeare referred to death as "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns."

Having recently seen the DVD of Bill Maher's "Religulous," I am more certain than ever that we can't be certain of anything. Actually, we can be certain of one thing. If a slick looking dude in a $1,500 suit tells you that he's certain about what happens after you die, and that you can have the same amount of certainty if you just send him a fat check, you can be certain he's full of crap.

Here's something else I'm fairly certain of: the book "90 Minutes in Heaven" is a malodorous load.

Which brings me to a more specific point. You know how people who claim to have had so-called near death experiences talk about how they floated up out of their bodies and looked down at their recently vacated corpses? And then they talk about seeing a bright white light which they feel strangely drawn to as Enya sings in the background?

Well, as it turns out, there is -- surprise, surprise! -- a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation for this phenomenon. These are the illusions brought on by an oxegyn deprived brain.

Check this out. This is an except from Radio Lab -- www.radiolab.org.

Out of Body, Roger

I was there. But I, like, wasn't there. I was floating. I was looking at myself from outside of myself.

If it hasn't happened to you, it's likely happened to somebody you know. And whether or not you believe it, about one in ten people report having had one. "Out of body" experience, it's a dirty word in many circles. Which is perhaps why pilots call it "G-LOC" (gravity-induced loss of consciousness, pronounced "G-lock" not "glok"). Turns out this kind of experience (call it what you want) occurs quite frequently among fighter pilots. Producers Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler bring us the story. We'll hear from pilots Tim Sestak, and Col. Dan Fulgham on what it's like to lose yourself, unfortunately for us skiddish passenger-types, while flying a plane. Finally we'll hear from Dr. James Whinnery, who simulates G-LOC by placing pilots in giant centrifuges. His research monitors their brain activity as they accelerate to speeds inducing this loss of consciousness. But Doc Whinnery isn't just a scientist, he's a subject. And his research has taken him to some surprising places.

This is a very interesting podcast.

And with that, pleasant dreams...

A Poem

This is a poem I wrote my wife as a Valentine's day gift in 2008.