Wade Boggs, Stan Musial or Joe DiMaggio?

“It’s time!” a voice inside my head yells.

I try to figure out if it’s Michael Buffer’s kid brother, the guy your event gets when it wants a cool introduction, but has a budget of a movie that would have Sid Haig in it in the 1970s, not in the 2000s when Tarantino wannabes made him cool again. Sort of.

Anyway, I sit here every night wondering when the first tooth is going to just fall out. I’ve been thinking about that for over three decades now. I think about it a lot more than I used to. Mostly because that reality is actually a reality now. It used to be some kind of badge of honor that the chicks dug. “Yeah, I wrecked my bike once, almost lost all my front teeth,” I’d say. “Ooooh, that’s so cool.” or “You’re full of shit.” or maybe they’d say nothing because they were now scared or turned on or just stupid. I really didn’t care because it was rare for me to get into a conversation with a lady.

But seriously, it is time. Time for me to make up my mind. Am I going to say fuck it and do it, or am I going to once again just get by.

Three months and a few days from now, I’m going to be a dad. That shit is starting to get real. It’s no longer off on the horizon. It’s speeding up like the Jeepers Creepers dude. And you either get sewn into the fucking mural or you kill the mother fucker.

How the hell did that go there? I have too many damn stupid things going on in my head.

It’s why I spend money on ebay for Weeble Woobles for the damn kid.

He’s going to be playing Atari 2600 at 3 and it’ll be cool. Until his friends show them their cell phones at 5.

Why the hell does a kid need a smartphone?

Get off my lawn!!!! I will shake my cane, dammit.

I don’t have a smartphone. I’m 43.

Do I want one? Yeah, sometimes it would be nice to find out exactly that fucking restaurant is that you drove 400 miles to go eat at, but can’t find it b/c you don’t have a fucking map.

I used to think I could write a pretty darn good story. Just one story, but a good one. I tried and tried to do it, but never really fully tried.

I’ve watched awful writers I know get books published (usually self-published, but fucking a, someone bought at least one copy). I’ve watched liars and shitheads get great jobs, simply because they don’t mind lying and being shitheads.

And I keep making excuses.

It’s not fun. At least not as much.

I don’t drink anymore. It actually bores me. Unless I’m with friends, but then I’ve got to worry about saying or doing something stupid.

Yesterday, a fuckhead in a giant small penis truck wouldn’t get out of the lane. Finally, I got beside him and I fucking tried to punch the car. At 60 miles per hour.

That’s just dumb.

But funny.

And if you don’t do some of that bi-polaresque shit, you can’t write about it.

Just like Ben Nichols used to say “I can’t write the fake shit.”

Well, he writes fake shit now. I think. I mean, I guess taking it from a book, script or TV show means it ain’t fake, exactly.

Fuck, it’s all fake and it’s all not real.

See, see what happens?

I might just quit my job one day in  August. Just leave. Right before my two-year. Yep that would be a Randy move.

Just like all of them.

Follow your heart, they tell you. But then they don’t do it.

You do, and you end up making less at 43 than you made at 33. And less than just about every, single person you know or knew.

Hell, my dead grandfather probably still makes more money every year than I do.

Is that possible?

Stop with the fucking Jim Gaffigan shit.

It stinks.

Hahahahahahaha.

I used to say I didn’t hate things.

I think that’s true. At least I hope it’s true.

Hate is waste.

Love isn’t, even if some don’t believe it’s enough.

Really, though, it’s everything.

We all figure that out one day. Some  earlier than others, some really late.

Hopefully, some don’t ever figure it out. They either end up being Wade Boggs or Stan Musial. I hope I don’t end  up as Joe DiMaggio.

questions and crutches

“You still love her? Don’t you?”

That’s a question most every guy has heard.

The lucky ones, or unlucky, depending on your theory or perspective, are the few that haven’t heard it.

The answer you give, and the answer you know, they’re always different.

Having your heart broken isn’t a badge of honor. It’s a tumor. Some of them fester and become cancerous. Others just sit there and annoy you. You can cut them out, but most of the times they grow right back. You can ignore them, and they may kill you. Or they may not.

As I sit here in my living room, drinking a cold IPA and listening to the rain, the ghosts dance around the house like they always do. I’m use to them now. I used to not have the ability to function when they were around, but, since they’re always there, it became necessary to learn how to.

At first, it was alcohol. Nothing else. Just drinking and drinking. You lose a lot of weight when all you do is drink. Even if it’s beer. Your body sort of starts to eat itself and you lose weight.

You also lose teeth. But that’s a long-term problem. It doesn’t happen quickly. Unless you fall down drunk one night or morning or afternoon and they get knocked out. No, they rot. Like your heart does. Like your soul does. Like your career does.

Yeah, you can get off of your ass and “make something positive out of it.” Like all your friends will say. Like the shrinks will say. Like the self-help books and web sites will say.

And they’re all right.

Just like you are.

It’s a choice, right? That’s what the good book of life says. You choose to be happy, you’re happy. You choose to be sad, you’re sad.

Well, what if you don’t choose?

That’s something to ponder.

For minds deeper than mine.

I’d rather just eat peanuts out of a can and drink IPAs, while listening to the rain.

My friends all moved away from here. They all got married, too.

Me? I fell in love again. Yeah, it was good. I got my heart dusted again too. It hurt like hell. But not as much.

I waited a bit. Got tentative again. Drifted. Drank. Drove.

Then I got off my ass. Got a job. Moved to the beach.

Allowed myself to look again.

Fell in love again.

Got really happy for a little while. Then got crapped on by God, or Karma, or whatever you call it.

Spent a night in a hospital in New Orleans. By far the worst night of my life. I can’t even imagine how bad it was for the girl who’s eyes I was looking into the whole time.

I shudder just thinking about it.

Now, as July 19 approaches, it hurts even more than it always did. But at least I have something else to be mad about on that day. Not something that doesn’t exist anymore. That doesn’t think about me anymore.

I wonder which I’ll think about first that morning.

It scares me to think that it would be the first, not the last.

It’s a guilty feeling, I know that. If I know me, I know which one will pop into my head first. And it’s the one no one would think should be first, but if it happened to them, it would be first as well.

God damn that’s depressing.

Like the song says, I hear her voice singing every song I hear. But, the voice ain’t calling me back. It’s taunting me. Making me stay where I am.

“So do something about it,” the angry mob sighs. Ha. An angry mob sighing.

Well, I do. I drink. And I write. And I listen to songs that I’ve heard hundreds of times before. They make me sad. Every, single time. But it’s a little less. Every, single time.

And that’s about all you can hope for.

One day, probably soon, I’ll have to deal with loss again. Death seems to be coming soon. Not me, I’ve probably got the DNA curse of long life. Even living out of a shopping cart, somehow my atoms won’t quit, I’m sure of that. Maybe the mind won’t make the journey. That’s morbid. Even for me.

I had an idea. Start a business with my dad. Only problem? It came 10 years too late.

Or is that just an excuse? Like the rest of it. Like the words. Like the thoughts. Like that crutch?

seagull

It’s surprising sometimes exactly what makes you fall back into bad habits.

Today, it was walking on the beach and hearing a seagull cry. That lonesome wail that come out of its beak forced me for just a second to think about what I haven’t thought about. And I started to cry myself. Alone on the beach on a warmer than it’s supposed to be day in February I stood on the beach wailing like a small child.

So, I went home and started drinking.

I don’t like drinking alone like I used to. At one point, it was a ritual. I did it out of habit instead of want. I can’t say it wasn’t a need, however, as it probably was sometimes. Sanity is a tough thing to walk the fringes of and not falling down on one side or the other.

Much like if you travel the same roads of your past, you’re going to see ghosts. Or feel them. Deep in the bones. An ache that won’t go away. It hides sometimes. But it usually knows when to show up again.

I stopped crying for a moment and watched the seagull. It hopped on one foot for a bit, adding a bit of tragi-comic effect to the moment. Then the other leg popped out and he started walking away from me. He’d done his job, I figure. Stirred up something inside me that needed stirring. So he was off to do whatever it is that seagulls do when they’re not annoying you on your beach blanket or following behind a boat looking for food.

Staring into my fridge, I see the many six packs of beer that my girlfriend has brought me over the past few weeks. It’s a tradition of sorts. There are beer stores worth a damn in Raleigh where she lives. Here at the beach, not much to speak of. I can get Shiner at the Food Lion, and for most of my two years here, that’s been enough.

I pop open an Abita and it starts to flow over the rim of the bottle. I curse the foamy remnants that cover my hand and I go to the sink and wipe it off. I think for a moment about how not too long ago, I would have just flicked it onto the carpet or just patted it on my clothes.

After a couple of beers, and some Lucero music blasting, I start to calm down a bit. I begin to make my plans for returning to the scene of heartbreak in just 13 days – New Orleans. I bought tickets to a Lucero show at Tips in December. Figure I should use them. The long-ass drive will do me some good. As will re-visiting the scene. I have a thing with returning to the places that remind me the most of the pain. I guess it’s good that I don’t go back to Gainesville, Fla. But seriously, that would be stupid. She’s in Alexandria now anyway. Working just down the street from my best friend’s apartment. Funny how that all works out.

Now, with the mind distracted just enough, the tears start to evaporate. I hope the hate doesn’t rise. It caused me to lose a friend, well, in the way someone loses a friend now-a-days with the deletion of self from social networks. But, I’ve decided that yes, I could chase after him. Apologize. But why? He is one of a very few who knows how I’m hurting right now. And he chose to be an ass because I was an ass. But taking it a step further. Maybe it’s a joke and I’m too fucking sensitive. If so, jokes on me Sasha Baron Cohen. If not, jokes on you.

The beer isn’t as effective as it used to be either. Or the words of Ben Nichols. But the pain inside right now isn’t about a girl. It isn’t about being a fucking asshole. It’s about life itself. Just not mine. Which makes it really hard to figure out, being the narcissistic fuck that I am.

So I turn my attention to finding a way to stop thinking about trying to figure it out. It never works, but you can’t say I haven’t tried. Well, some would say that, but fuck them.

The CD ends and all I hear is the ocean. Waves slowly breaking against the sand. This time of year, it’s easy to hear. Which is nice. The tourists and jarheads are nowhere to be seen, and especially heard right now.