naming a baby

Blasting Turgonegro’s “Retox” album has become my favorite pastime. It’s especially fun when driving onto the campuses of the assorted Christian schools in town.

The smell of dog shit fills the air inside my 2010 Hyundai Accent. Apparently, stepping dog shit has become another favorite pastime. The waffle of my Sambas appears clean, but, they are brown in color and one could easily miss shit when just looking quickly.

If you’ve ever had bad teeth, you will always have bad teeth.

Was talking with someone at work the other night. A conversation that lasted two-plus hours after deadline. Finding your passion? Ha. A study said you’re happiest as a grownup if you followed you first true love. I wanted to be an archeologist. I didn’t follow through. In fact, I never really pursued anything until I decided to move across country and see what newspapers were all about. What a knuckleheaded decision that turned out to be.

I’m seriously debating quitting my job and being a stay at home dad. If I didn’t have so many stupid bills from stupid, yet fun, times, I would already have made up my mind. Never knew it was so hard to find a part-time position when you’ve been working the same job your whole life. Well, except for the few years in between.

The dryer is spinning around and around. Drying clothes seems silly. Washing them too. What’s wrong with smelling? If we all did, we wouldn’t feel so bad about it anymore.

Wearing shoes without socks is a good idea, until you take off the shoes.

Netflix has made me a lazy filmwatcher.

Eating snails does not appeal to me.

Redheads still make me wonder.

“Have you ever been to Spokane?” she asked.

“Why no, I’ve not been to Spokane,” he replied.

“Too bad,” she said.

“Yep,” he replied.

They both returned to their drinks, never to speak again.

Marvin is a horrible name for a kid.

Not having anything to write about  is painful. But so is writing about what you want to write.

I’m going to go on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, gangbangsrus.com etcetera and rant about something some celebrity did/said or fucked. It’s cool, and gosh, it’ll get lots of views.

Why are we all so mad at each other, but pretending to be oh, so happy? Is it the food? Probably not, but maybe. Who knows.

I stare at the window

And wonder where you are

You don’t.

I wonder if Mickey Rourke’s plastic surgeon looks like a bladder?

“I’m not surpised, I knew about it,” all the sports media folks are saying.

“Shame on you NBA,” for not doing anything about it.

Fuck all of you. Why didn’t you expose it in the 1990s when you “knew”?

George Clooney is engaged. So?

He’s also a bad drunk.

Do you have any more gum?

More gum?

More gum?

Do you have any more gum?

When you take a shit, do you look at it?

If you do, are you satisfied with what you see?

Or are you scared to look.

Hoping it’s not bloody. Full of worms.

Don’t worry if it is. We all end up with worms in our shit.

In our head.

“Do you like drinking in this place,” I asked.

She turned her head and looked at my shirt.

“Do you like wearing that shirt?” she snarled.

“Of course,” I said. “I don’t have to worry if I leave it at your place later.”

She smiled.

Why shit like that works, I’ll never know.

--- Something scribbled in a notepad years ago.

She wasn’t going to take it anymore.

He never made a decision. He just let things “happen.”

So, one night, she answered the phone when he called and told him: “It’s over.”

He never understood.

Until now.

Well, not really.

Benzene in my veins.

Fracking on my brain!

Punk rock is easy.

I wonder what it’s like to chew things without feeling pain?

It’s been so long, I don’t remember.

That is the thattiest that that I’ve thatted.

Microsoft Word does not believe thatted is a word. Fuck you Bill Gates.

The name Syl is kind of cool.

Darn it, man, he said.

“Darn it?” his buddy said before chuckling down a beer.

He punched him seconds later.

Who is he? He is who?

Donkey Kong high score in high school while getting high. That’s the opening to a script.

If you smell pot, are you cooking?

Laser beam eyes. They don’t lie, they kill.

Sleep.

unhappy anniversary

Five years ago, my life stopped being fun.

Now, I’ve had good times since. I’m not saying that. But it’s always been tempered by this feeling in the back of my brain. This nagging dripping faucet of a memory that won’t fade away fast enough.

I tried drinking it away. That didn’t work. So, I’ve mostly stopped drinking now. An occasional bender with friends is about all I do at this point.

I tried writing about it. A lot. In public forums and in private notepads.

I tried hating.

I tried forgiving.

I tried killing myself.

I tried forgetting.

I tried crying.

I tried nothing.

I guess I’ve tried everything I can think of.

I lost my ability to have fun that day. I became serious. I became lame.

When I look in the mirror now, I see an old man. A guy who gave up for too long.

Why?

I wish I knew.

The days aren’t as long as they used to be.

The nights, well, they’re still lonely.

I’ve been with one other person since then. That’s it. I fell in love too fast for my own good. I adored that girl. But she faded fast. I don’t blame her. She didn’t know what she was getting into. And I didn’t know what I was getting into. I think we both got what we needed out of it.

Now, I’m thinking back on those five years. Not a lot accomplished. A few road trips. A few new friends. A lot of lost friends. And a couple of great friends.

Could be worse.

Could be dead.

Could be in a coma.

Could be married to a woman who doesn’t love me.

Still got my teeth, shockingly so.

Still got some of my health, although I think I wasted most of that, too.

I’ll be 40 in a few weeks.

That’s weird to say. Not because I’m old, because that’s a state of mind. But instead because it means I’ll probably never have a kid. If I had one now, he’d be born when I was almost 41. Graduate high school when I was almost 60. That’s weird.

If I married someone today, we’d hit milestones at milestones. 10 years at 50. 20 years at 60. That’s weird.

My grandparents each made it over 50 years married.

My parents will hit that mark soon. Me? I’d have to live to be 90. Weird.

I think too much about her. I think too much about stuff like what I just typed. It’s not fun. I wish I could stop. It just doesn’t happen. I tell myself every night to stop. I wake up and it pops right back in there and I say it again.

If I had a switch, I’d throw it. If I had a place to cut, I’d slice. If I could drive to that destination, I’d start the car right this mother fucking god damned minute.

Instead, I just live. Day by day. Moment to moment. Each one different than the one before, yet very similar. Too similar, really.

It’s better than it was 5 years ago. Better than it was 4 years ago. Better than it was 3 years ago (except for the sex part). Better than it was 2 years ago. Better than it was a year ago. It’ll be better in a year.

I can, however, still feel exactly how I felt the moment I heard those words. The despair hasn’t left. Not for a moment.

I hope I’m not just holding on to it, for fear of not having it anymore. That is just a scary way to live.

I just think I hold on to things and don’t know how to let go of them.

It just needs to be replaced by something else. Someone else.

All I know is it also has to stop. Every beginning has an end. Every end starts a new. All that clichéd pap…

The past belongs there. It doesn’t belong in the present. Or the future. Yet there it always is. My brain must have some bright spot in it. Or a dark spot. I’d love to see a CAT scan of it. See where that spot is in me, and isn’t in everyone else. Or most everyone else. Who else holds on and won’t let go. Like a scared kid on a roller coaster?

It all starts with something, right? A smile. A frown. A kiss. A touch. A tear. A smell. A glance. A chance.

Unhappy anniversary.

neil and johnny

I put on P.I.L.’s “First Issue”. I look at myself in the mirror. I’m not a geeky kid anymore. Why am I listening to an album that only geeky kids would listen too?

There’s a reason people get stuck where they are. It’s because they decide to stay there. It has nothing to do with circumstances or health problems or their fucking girlfriends. It’s just because you decided the status quo, no matter how good or bad it is, isn’t worth giving up for the unknown.

Take my speeding ticket. It’s going to cost $290 to make it go poof. Disappear as if it never happened. There is slightly over $700 in the savings account. But, instead of using that money to pay for it, the decision is made to put it on a credit card. More debt to pile on top of the old debt. And why? To have that money available when the bottom falls out. But really, what good is $700 going to do? It’ll pay a month’s rent. Or it will allow me to drive for a few weeks. Or make a few car payments. Depends on what the priority at that moment is.

Fucking stupid ain’t it?

I wonder if she listens to Johnny Rotten yell on top of bass beats? It seems like such a simple pleasure to have. Such an awesome thing to find out about too. Will it ever happen? Who fucking knows. Probably. Probably not. Depends.

Isolation also makes one wonder a bit. That is definitely what’s going on here. This was the fourth year now in a row that I haven’t been working on Super Bowl Sunday. The first one, I went to a friend’s house for a party with the newly minted GF. It was awkward and cool at the same time. The last three years, I haven’t done a thing. I can’t remember the other two, but last night I watched the game on the computer. Kept fading in and out. Kind of reminded me of the old days of the 9 inch black and white TV, stealing away late nights watching such things. Always having to adjust the antennae back and forth to get a picture, just substitute the F5 button for the antennae. I ate some good food. Enjoyed a few beers. Listened to the club across the street rock back and forth. Then, all of the sudden I started to feel ill. Could I finally be succumbing to the awful grunge sickness that everyone else has? I’ve done all I could to avoid it. Not shake hands. Wash them all the time. Use napkins on door knobs. Shit. I can’t get sick. I tell myself. I have no insurance. No money even if I did. So, I took some Nyquil and laid down on the couch. I don’t remember much after that. I woke up with a little over a minute left in the game. Saw the end. The rest? Didn’t see it. Wonder if I missed anything? Is this what happens to you when you get old? Or just lonely?

It really didn’t matter. No interest really. Kind of wish I’d been bowling or leaping over fences or dancing in the dark. All of those things seem so much more interesting than watching a collective advertisement for how great America is, when in reality, the country is in the shitter. And the shit is getting deeper every day. It’ll be an interesting day when the bill comes due. When there’s nothing but misery for everyone.

But that’s just depressing and awful. I’d rather think that in the future we’ll all be serenaded by Johnny Lydon and roll around in the periwinkle after he’s done.

It’s a future. Your future?

As I stare at myself in a reflection in a dirty window, Mr. Rotten/Lydon yells about religion. I tried to have religion. It just doesn’t settle into my head the right way. I want to believe in it. I do believe in something. Just can’t put my finger on it.

The reflection stares back at me. It’s an older version of the me that I picture being me. I suppose that’s what everyone sees when they think of themselves. Only to be startled by the real thing when the lighting changes.

I walk outside. Maybe she’ll be there? I’m an optimist about that one thing in my life. That one day, Neil Young will be right. Those words he once sang, he believed them, right? I hope so.

love isn't enough < all you need is love

Nola was different that all the other women. And that scared me a little bit.

I watched her get up this morning. She tried her darnedest not to wake me up. Tip-toeing from the bed to the bathroom. Not flushing the toilet after peeing. Even putting on her slippers after she left the room, despite us not being able to afford heat and the floor in our bedroom being made of concrete.

She was so beautiful. She smelled of watermelon and dogwood flowers all the time. I never quite could wrap my mind around how on earth that was possible. We could have made love for two hours, then fallen asleep sweating from the 92-degree inside heat in the middle of summer. But when we woke up the next morning, I’d reek like a sack of onions but Nola, she always tasted sweet. Her secret, I guess, and probably one I don’t want to figure out.

It’s why I kick myself for not falling in love with her. Or maybe the better answer is not allowing myself to fall in love with her. I love her, there’s no doubt about it, but I haven’t taken the leap into the unknown that Yyves Klein so beautifully explained.

“Come with me into the void!”

Maybe my problem is that damn poem. The unrealistic expectations of what love should be. And what it really is.

Instead, I should take the Johnny Thunders approach. Simple and direct. When you’re in love, god damn it, you’re love.

“Oh baby I love you. I really do. There’s no one like you. Baby, I love yooooooooooooouuuuu.”

Looking out the window, I see the Spanish moss hanging from the limbs of the dying tree in our front yard. I’ve been meaning to get that cut down for a year now, “take care of it” my father would have told me. He married my mom while he was still in college. They made it over 50 years before he finally succumb to the half a pint of vodka a day he’d been ingesting for decades. I stopped drinking six years ago. Kind of funny. I feel like a Robert Duvall character in my own life. Playing a bartender that doesn’t drink. A cop that doesn’t go in the streets. Me, I’m a lover who can’t love.

Of course, the Duvall character was always a drunk before an AA member. A gung-ho crime buster before being shot. Me? I used to not be afraid of love. I used to dive in like I was a 14 year old Arkansas farm boy who just discovered a new swimming hole. Now? I skitter on the edge, hoping love finds me instead of me finding it. Knowing full well that if you wait too long, it’ll pass you by. The effort has to be there, I guess.

It’s why the words “Love isn’t enough” echo through my brain way more often than they need to. The supposed love of my life said those words to me. She never told me why it wasn’t. Just that it wasn’t. Up until that day, my only belief was the same as John Lennon’s, that love is all you need, the rest will just sort of happen the right way.

Nola knows this about me. It’s why I’m surprised she sticks around. We used to have drunken barstool conversations that began at noon and ended at closing time. Never at one bar. We’d move around a lot. We both had that wanderlust, even when it came to martinis for her and bottled beers for me. It may have had to do with our constant need for new entertainment too.

I never had any problem talking with her. Always a good sign. I remember one night we were going to see Lucero play in my old college town. On the highway driving up, there was a wreck, unbeknownst to us. This tractor trailer almost drove off of a bridge. The road was closed for five hours before we even got near it. But there were no signs. So we sat on that highway for nearly four hours. Just talking. About nothing and everything. Well, everything except for us. She did offer me a blow job. Thinking back on it, I wonder if it really was a joke? Or could I have had a nice BJ while sitting in traffic. Never had one while still driving before. Heavy petting for sure. I should ask her about it. But then again, maybe not.

Hurricane Ephiphany

I’ve never used Skype. I’ve been asked to a couple of times, but haven’t.

But the thing really makes me wonder. Wonder about how much different things may have been had I had it.

Long distance relationships live and die due to communication. I’ve been through two of them. Both of the died.

Both of them came before I had a cell phone. I can’t say they came before cell phones, because they didn’t But they came before I had one.

So what did that mean? I meant lots of big-ass phone bills. Ones that I couldn’t afford to pay. So what did I do? I used my credit cards. To make phone calls. If you thought using long distance was expensive, try using your credit card.

The most difficult time was when I was living on a couch of two friends of mine. I couldn’t use their phone, b/c I couldn’t afford to pay them for using it. What a fucking awful time that was.

Then came the calling cards of the other relationship. The dreaded “you have one minute remaining” voice that always seemed to come at the wrong time.

Of course, I never communicated how awful it was for me financially. I was a “man” and had to do things on my “own.” What a fucking joke that is now as I sit here waiting for a hurricane named Earl to come and wash away all the scum and villainy. Ha.

Communicating is hard. I remember the first time I told my parents I loved them. I was in my 20s. Yeah, I wrote it down in cards and letters and such. But out loud? Not until then. One of those girlfriends, the exes, gets credit for teaching me how to do that.

I also remember the last time I saw my grandfather. He was in a hospital bed. Dying. He was barely there, but he was a fighter, and I knew he’d be around for a long while yet.

As I was leaving the hospital, I turned back around and looked him in the eyes. He looked at me. I told him “Hey, Oompa. I love you.” He squeezed my hand and looked at me with a look I’d never seen before. He couldn’t talk, but his eyes did.

I knew I’d see him again at that time.

Eventually, he left the hospital and tried to get better. From what I heard, he actually did for a bit.

But then, he quit. Got tired. Whatever.

I was supposed to go see him one weekend with my sister. She went. I didn’t. Why? I had to work. Don’t even remember what stupid freaking game or whatever I stayed for. It may have just been because I was scared to leave two green reporters alone. Control freak.

He died soon after.

At least I told him I loved him.

That, I owe to another of my exes. She taught me to go back and say things when they pop into your mind.

That’s why I drove oh so far to say something to her after. She wouldn’t listen, though. I guess it was for the better.

Touching that warm car engine that day, I knew she was there. I didn’t make a scene. Maybe I should have. Take my fist and pound on the door. Cry my eyes out.

Instead, I sat in my car -- the one she gave me just a couple months earlier to make it easier for me to drive down to see her -- and cried. I an only imagine her watching me sitting there, confused. A complete wreck.

The more I think about it, the more I realize she didn’t care for me enough to want to help me. She just wanted to abandon me. But I didn’t come to this epiphany while sitting there. I didn’t come to it while in therapy two years later. Or while another girl smashed my heart and got me to throw away all the things that really were important to me -- my writings.

No, I realized it while I was typing this. While looking at how quiet, how calm it is outside. The crickets aren’t very noisy. They know what’s up. A storm’s a comin’. And it may just be a good cleansing thing. Like writing shit down in a notepad, typing it on a computer or scribbling it on a napkin or receipt. You never really know it’s coming, even with the weather channel.

See ya.