squidbag

How to Road Trip

Friday afternoon - rent the Dodge Caliber (hereafter known as Safety Car), from a very nice lady with cool sunglasses whose signature looks like the word "Butt."  Pack a bag, fitfully nap.  Try on suit, test pockets and wrinkly bits.  Make sure you have essential items like a book, an additional stack of comic books, your iPod, and toiletries.  Burn numerous comedy CDs.  Mssrs. Izzard, Gervais, Hedberg, Gaffigan and Beaz.

Friday, 6:30pm - pack the back of Safety Car, bring some cashews, wasabi peas and sodas, comedy CDs.  Make sure that smokes, shades and suits are in the vehicle, Blues Brothers style.  Put sodas in cooler compartment, phone in cellphone compartment.  Realize car has too many fucking specialized compartments.  Unleash the mighty 4 cylinders of Safety Car (as it locks its own doors and reminds you to wear your seatbelt)!  Turn on your GPS, hereafter referred to as Tabitha.  Get on I-65 and head south.  Leave Nashville, Tennessee.  Drive for hours and hours.  Stop for gas and weird road snacks (chocolate / peanut butter Bugles, chili encrusted dried mango slices, jerky), eat at an Arby's that seems to be made out of stage prop materials and dates back to 1984.  Ring the bell.  Smoke cigarettes, piss, wash hands, feel the power of the hand dryer, at last leaving the dreaded and damned State of Alabama, after taking 113 to Highway 29.

Saturday, 2:30am - Arrive destination, more or less.  Fight numerous involuntary facial muscle tics that started when you smelled Cantonment, Florida's paper mill.  Swallow geographic hatred in the face of your traveling companion's incessant pseudo-enthusiasm.  Drive by old house, observe changes.  Chew gum.  Drive to father-in-law's home, walk around on the lawn at pitch black three in the morning, knocking on windows and ringing bells before finally just calling.  Enter through garage.  After pleasant but groggy kitchen conversations, walk around place you haven't been in for over two years, declare room assignments and then crash motherfucking hard watching Justice League movie on iPod.

Saturday, 10:25am - Awaken from best night's sleep in months.  Text person about wedding time, watch end of Iron Man on iPod, read some kung fu comics.  Drink remainder of room temperature soda.  Enjoy ceiling fan.  Finally compelled to leave bed by bladder, wander out to see how house and grounds have really changed.  Reflect for a while, chat about comic books, other random stuff.  After everyone is awake, eat a delicious homemade egg breakfast and smoke Partagas cigars by poolside for an hour.  Coffee.  Discussion about impending tobacco tax.  Walk around house, talking about it.  Converse about the idyllic parts of the past, and the harder parts of the present.  Adjourn to iron, shower, shave, primp, dress and re-pack.  Short goodbyes in driveway, start listening to that bossy tart Tabitha again.

Saturday, 4:35pm - after wrong turn, have Greek lunch of calamari & gyros at Founaris Brothers in Pensacola.  Call various people, watch cell phone video.  After lunch (?) be guided by Tabitha to nice but unhelpful police officer downtown at the bayfront.  Illegally parallel park Safety Car, tuck shirts and straighten clothes in parking lot.  Attend wedding at lovely bed and breakfast.

Saturday, 5:55pm - Wedding.  Lyla's wedding to Jason, who I had only just met, was a beautiful and intimate affair, with only their close friends and family in attendance, which was still something like a couple of hundred people.  Lyla designed her dress and made her vintage-looking headpiece by hand, and she looked perfect.  The ceremony was quick and personal and sweet, and the reception was flawlessly put together with plenty of roam / mingle spaces, delicious food, free drinks, and engaging guests.  There were some fun parallels with my own Pensacola nuptials of nearly 14 years ago: Clark and Company, a two piece strings act which has one of my brother in law's old bandmates in it played both weddings, Lyla's bouquet hit a light fixture on the way down from the second story, just as Christie's got hung up on the chandelier back in the day.  The wedding was a wonderful affair, and I was proud and honored to be invited to see Lyla get hitched to the love of her life.  I wish them all the best.  I'll have to do better than that, though.  When it was over, and the first few dances had been danced, the bugs under my skin were all screaming that it was time to leave Pensacola.

Saturday, 9:03pm - Cell calls and message checking, shoe changing occur in the parking lot.  Cigarettes.  Tabitha is reactivated, and we once again fire up the power that is Safety Car.  Just before the exit to i-65, bathroom breaks, gas, drinks - complete change of clothes.  This last leads to me yanking my dress shirt off the stall door just as a another man enters the restroom.  He is startled, and says, "Oh, I'm sorry," to which I reply, "It's alright, sir - I'm a superhero," as I walk out the door.  Drive for more hours and hours, spill wasabi peas in car.  Listen to more CDs, one of us (me) naps for about 45 minutes in total.

Sunday, 3:50am - Arrive back in the Nash.  Only partially unpack car, drag bodies upstairs, and after pointless jitteriness, fall asleep by 4:30 or so.  Leaving the whole of the next day before vacation's end for zoo attendance, packing, and laziness.  My kids woke me up at about 8:30 or so, which was not ideal, but was okay.  Safety Car was returned to its home by 1:30 or so in the afternoon.

Jimbo, I couldn't have done it without you.  Fuck me, "BEST ROAD TRIP EVER 2009!!!"  Lyla, I wouldn't have done it without you.  I can't think of many other reasons I would ever return to Pensacola, and I wish you and Jason unqualified love and happiness on the next part of your adventure together.  Ron, thanks for putting us up, making eggs, and smoking stogies.  Best night's sleep in a dog's age, seriously.  C, thanks for letting me bail for a couple of days to do it.

Manga Molester

I am sad to say that this is poem about people I knew, in Pensacola, over the Summer and Fall of 2004.  The Manga Molester, Twinkie the Kid, and the Hostess Ho were all names for these people which were coin of the realm.  I doubt that any of the principals read this, but if they do...

There once was a slimeball named Chris,
who worked at the Anime store,
but after Monday's events transpired,
he prob'ly don't work there no more.

See, Will was on duty up at the front,
when the plainclothes law busted in,
and they was looking for Chris, who was up in the back,
to arrest him and take his ass in.

As they spoke, it was clear
that Chris was rightfully totally clowned,
since he had been child molestin',
and those assholes should all be drowned.

The cops took him out, and the Anime folks
tried to give him a little support,
but we'll see how understanding they are,
when the law drags his ass into court.

"What kind of foolish subhumans,
employ a scumfuck like Chris," you might grouse?
Twinkie the Kid, and the Hostess Ho,
they let him stay with them too, in their house.

To Mothball or Not to Mothball

Play this whilst you read, at least 'til you get to the bottom.  If you're ever speaking to me and it becomes clear that I, for whatever reason, have stopped listening to you, this is the song that is playing in my head.

I've decided to officially mothball the Whining about Pensacola category, which means nothing, other than I won't be putting anything else in there after this entry unless, somehow, it invades my current day-to-day existence (like Izzard's joke about Jerusalem wherein, presumably, Pensacola would have to be builded here) via something other than the phone; or, by some trick of fate, I end up at some point in the future visiting there and once again feel the need to vent about it.  So, like I said, utterly meaningless, just an excuse for an entry.

Because I have some bookkeeping to take care of, so here goes: Those of you who saw me in Chicago on the 20th of January for Evan's memorial may have heard me mention that I had gotten some angry emails from Pensacola pastors and churchgoers that I would someday publish.  Today is that day.  I'm only going to do two, the first one I got, and the worst one I got.  The rest, when I went back over them, weren't nearly as amusing as I remembered, and have since been deleted.  I should stress that these are just the maniacs - there have been been some insightful comments left by many people of faith.  Rational believers leave comments, it seems, in public, where everyone can see.  The crazy ones send me nasty emails.  Words of the faithful in red italics.

To: admin@squidbag.org
From: docherino@(popular mail service).com
Re: Your website entires (my what?)

Scumbag, (It's right up there on the top, how hard would it be to spell check?)

It is hard for me to believe that God lets you keep doing what you do and saying what you say. (almost as though he expects the God of Old Testament to strike me dead when I go near a keyboard.)  You are so obviously an repentant sinner, and you are going to hell.  (Judge not, lest ye be judged...I think that's in the rule book.)  Your kind of hate against christians is what leads to today's persecution of them, and the toilet our country has fallen into.  (At least I capitalize you fuckers when I blast you.  Also: My hate leads to toilets?)  You should be tried for treason for talking about Jesus and the President (first, I'm pretty sure only Peter could actually betray Jesus, and second, take another look at the 1st Amendment before Monkeyface eliminates it.) like you do, and it is so bad I have stopped praying for you and your family. (It's probably best that you stopped wasting your time anyway, and went back to praying for the Ice Pilots.  Even in the off-season.)

And:

To: admin@squidbag.org
From: lvng4christ@(name of institution).com
Re: no subject

You are a sinner, and you should repent and be saved, instead of condemning good men, spreading lies, and mocking the church of God and his Son Jesus Christ.  Heretics, liars, blasphemers and silver-tongued sayers like yourself are the root of the evil, personifying what happens when people are given too much freedom and allowed to stray from God's grace.  You are only trying to bring others down with you when you spin into the pit of Hades to burn for all eternity.  Your punishment may not be here on Earth, but in the afterlife, and you should reflect, in the midst of your heady madness, on this long stretch of torture, of pain, of damnation, before you part your lips to say another evil thing against the most Holy and Perfect Lord, God our...and it just goes on like this for awhile.  I mean, Holy Rhetoric, Batman!  The next time you readers of the Squidbag are sitting there reading my "mockery, lies, heady madness and silver-tongued blasphemies," (which would make a hell of a slogan for the banner, yeah?) just remember that I'm only jealous of the saved, angel-and-invisible-friend believing masses, and I'm trying to drag you all down into Hell with me, where I assume you would be forced to read my blog for eternity.  It's like a million Christmas trees on fire, you know, and you jump right in the middle, there.  Hell, I mean.  Oh, and I should mention that this person self-identifies as a youth minister, so watch that VBS shit, too.

Finally, as many of you know, Pensacola was a dark and depressed time for me and mine, during which shit seemed to just continue to stack up in big iron crates that stunk like death, leaked all over the carpet and furniture, had thin plastic handles that cut into the soft hand flesh, and that we had to carry around with us everywhere we went.  I would say that the biggest change about the recent move is a feeling of freedom, a feeling of renewal.  (sighs) However, when I was in the dark time, I did what any melodramatic person from our era is wont to do - I made mix disks.  The one below is significant, because I actually tried to sit down and capture - in tracks I already had - my day-to-day mood about my situation, and retain some small measure of hope.  I did this in lieu of sleeping.  This is what I came up with, and according to the date on the disk, I did this one year ago Monday.  Weird.

1. This Is Not - Static X ("This is not my life, this is not my home, this is not me - I hate this.")

2. Fucking Hostile - Pantera (duh)

3. Under the Gun - Supreme Beings of Leisure (again, duh)

4. The Beast in Me - Johnny Cash (I think everyone has this feeling sometimes)

5. People Just Ain't No Good - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (very easy to believe, for about two years)

6. Mogadishu Blues - Hans Zimmer (a slow, sad, meandering track that seems to last forever...)

7. I Got a Gun - Treat Her Right (simple, pissed revenge song)

8. Superman's Song - Crash Test Dummies (melancholy as hell, but has a kind of "push on" feel)

9. All Things Must Pass - Harry Heck (pretty obvious beginning of an up note)

10. Don't Give Up - Willie Nelson & Sinead O'Connor (it has to be this version, because they believe in it)

11. Bring Me to Life - Evanescence (I don't care what you think - it works.)

12. Sittin' On Top of the World - Vini & The Demons (makes me laugh and cry at the same time...)

13. Just a Kid - Wilco (I also think everyone feels this way sometimes)

14. Tough it Out - Webb Wilder ("I won't bow, I won't bend, I won't break, never compromise.")

15. Rise - Chuck Prophet (get up and go again)

16. Hymn of the Big Wheel - Massive Attack (again, I don't care what you think; chills me right out)

T Minus 12 Hours

I am writing this entry at 10:31 at night on a Thursday, which means that I close on my house almost exactly twelve hours from right now.  Whenever you're reading this, have a glance at your watch and think of us signing documents that free us from living here, where we don't want to be.

We have spent the last couple of weeks packing, but the last three days have been the mad-rush, concentrated version, with the help of Jimbo, Matt and Lyla, and locally the Adams clan.  We could not - and I bloody well mean this - have done it without them.  You're sitting there thinking; "Ah, no matter what he says, they'd have pulled it off."  I doubt it.  I really, really do.  So - proper thank yous go out to Jimbo, who drove all the fuck way here from Chicago in one day to help us out, and who brought the javelin with him.   Special thanks to Matt O, who burped his way through the state of Alabama and in one surgical trip, brought all the moving blankets (and spaghetti) anyone would ever need (and we used 'em all), ate Chinese food, packed the library, and bound the curio cabinet - among other things - like a hostage for transport.  The Adams (I'm avoiding 'family') folks, recent friends, who watched kids, cleaned, and secured goods for travel - thank you.  And finally, Lyla, to whom I just said a fond 'good-bye' out in the driveway and saddled with a turtle.  Wonderful, graceful, loyal, driven Lyla - you are a true friend.  I appreciate you all.  (Jesse; we're just swamped.  We didn't forget you, just be patient.  Peace at your 32nd.)

I am sitting on the floor of what used to be my office, with Jimbo's things all around, and listening to echoes bounce off my newly empty house.  I am so tired my skin aches, and everytime I close my eyes, I drop into instant REM, little microdreams about someone called "Satellite Man."  We have sold things, given things away, thrown things out.  Cars are fixed and roadworthy.  Arrangements have been made, and the ABF truck with most of my stuff on it left about five hours ago.  Tomorrow is the day I've been waiting for since Winter of 2004-2005.  In some ways, it has set in, but in others, not just yet.  Excitement is the word of the day, just after logistics.  There has been some last minute drama, (including new blog readers) but I think that the change of scene is going to be the best for everyone, ultimately.  It's hard to let the past be the past when you continue to live it day to day.

I have to disconnect and move my computer, so it will be awhile, I suppose.  Wish us luck.

It's now even less than twelve hours to go.  I'm so short I could see up an ant's skirt.

The Last Days

This, from the Book of Ngyah, chapter 71, verses 9 through 28 (but skipping over the bits about whores and blood, for they are disgusting, and really, a bit much);

"...and it wouldst come in the last days before the righteous were able to escape Aviation's Cradle that all manner of delays and distractions wouldst come to pass, even unto but stopping just short of, big spikes just shooting up out of the ground in their pathways.  Those mad relations wouldst descend like unto hailstones even yet still further into madness, and thus, becoming desperate and frothing, wouldst offer up gifts of technology, diversions, and food - but all with a price.  The house at Joshua wouldst pass through the trials of consuming insects and close inspections, only to begin, like buckets on their fucking heads, to leak during a brutal and driving rain.  Their goods wouldst seem to multiply in the face of storage, and the packing wouldst never cease.  Never, ever cease.  The sound of tape guns would become a permanent noise, ongoing, and their fingers would seem as dust and cardboard.  It remained to be seen, as the Superest of Sundays approached, if they wouldst ever escape."

Today was my last day of work.  Yay, I suppose.  Due to some last minute bureauracy and nonsense, the overall feeling that I was left with was that I didn't matter.  That I had not mattered, that, since my responsibilites were covered, I could just go, and wipe the past year and change from history in its entirety.  There were people who were nice and appreciative, and others who seemed like they were making up some stuff to say, and lunch of pizza and cookies and a nice card - but it was just that last, lurking, overall, "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" feeling that lingered.  I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.  I am relieved that it's over, the place where I met a couple of my least favorite people is behind me.  Now I can turn my full attentions toward stuffing all of my worldly goods into fucking boxes.

Bleagh.  I am drained by this.

Stupid, Part 3

Yup.  If you need 'em, here's parts one and two.

This one's because I'm beginning to believe it more and more.  Today's question for the panel is this: How is it possible that a person could heap coals of anger, spite, regret and manipulation on others for over three years, and not be aware of the damage it causes?  How is it possible that someone could regularly engage in terrible (to me) behaviors, and then, when wronged parties have sat down with them and discussed it, written countless emails and several letters fully elucidating just what the perceived emotional infraction is meant to have been, STILL for fuck's sake be patently unaware of just exactly what the problem is?

"I just don't understand what the problem is."

You are no doubt thinking to yourself, "Ah, this person is a sociopath."  Or perhaps, "Subject A has suffered some sort of shocking cranial damage, like a Phineas Gage-type situation."  Or even: "He's obviously making reference to a retarded person."  Unfortunately, the answer here is more elusive than that, because I know this person's history of injury, and there is no head trauma on the list.  We are not discussing a sociopath, because she feels for others - just not very well, as if unacquainted with human emotions and expressions.  Aside from a six-lane highway-wide streak of evangelical Baptist thought, there is no obvious evidence of retardation, either.  So, once again, for the cheap seats; HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT YOU ARE UNAWARE OF THE PROBLEM?

Many of you know me; do you think that it is within the realm of probability that if I had some sort of issue with your behavior that you would not know what it was?  I might be wrong, an asshole, or way the hell off base, but unclear?  I think not.  I think that I have in all of my interactions - and especially with Patient Fucking Zero here - exhaustively explained myself, using every tool in the box for drilling, driving, and maybe even blasting the point home.  I am officially blue in the face.  Could denial be the answer to my plaintive query?  Yes, but only in part.  Denial cannot make the sky red no matter how fervently one denies the azureness of the firmament, unless other factors are introduced. Insanity, or perhaps even simple color blindness.  There is no way that denial can possibly fully explain this away.  "Perhaps the person is being fed bullshit by others, and just doesn't believe your explanations, having been swayed by those who feed out the shit," I hear you in the back with the shirt murmuring under your breath while carving pictures of your forebrain into the desktop using a dented railroad spike.  This is almost certainly the case, since I have heard some of the aforementioned bullshit puked back up and spread around as if it were a real argument, rationally submitted in response to a posit.  However, I would once again say thee nay, because it doesn't go far enough - simple non-acceptance of my POV does not constitute a non-understanding thereof. (A sentence to make many of you cringe, I know.  Bear with me.)

"Okay," my mythical Greek chorus sings unto me, "perhaps, as your triumvirate of titles would imply, the subject is simply stupid."  No.  For those of you who have misunderstood me on this, the "stupid" of the title(s) is meant to apply to the situation and the action taken, not the person who is involved in the doing.  If only it were that damned simple.

What I am left with, in answer to my oft asked question, "How is it possible - after such a long road of trial and anger and honesty and explanation, after treading on so many broken ideas and feelings and hopes, after three long years of hacking through the undergrowth of thorny dynamic between us - how it is bloody well fucking possible that you cannot understand what the problem even is?"  is this: It's not possible.  I don't believe it.  Non-belief is kind of a default for me, but once again, hear me out.  I think one of two things has occurred.  Either a knee-jerk response has been elicited, and she said this as a metaphor, or perhaps unthinkingly (because that certainly would not be new ground) or - she has gone off some kind of deep end in terms of assimilation of information.  With too much to process in terms of this ongoing debacle, the switch has slammed into the OFF position, and the circuit required for dealing with this is simply...broken.

Doesn't make it funny.  Doesn't make it any less frustrating.  But I could maybe, just maybe, buy that explanation.

Things Changing?

So...we've only been back from vacation for a little less than a week.  The atmosphere at work has changed, with one employee basically quitting (partial reassignment), another becoming more and more apathetic, and seige mentality ruling the day.   The major machine I work with was not functioning properly when I got back, it did fine for three days, and then went on strike again Friday noon.  My first task on Monday will be to take it apart and see what the fuck is going on in there.  On a work-related side note, while making a delivery of Scantron sheets (yes, we print those, and nothing is more monotonous than laying them out, though most of the surveys these days seem to be about street drugs) to FedEx, I was amused to note that the FedEx guys have a place where they collect and save their banana stickers.  Sadly, no Gorilla's Choice was evident.

C & I have both been sick with minor food poisoning since Wednesday, and now Abby seems to have jumped on the train, going through four outfits today.  The temptation to lay plastic over the floor and let her roam free-range and naked is near-overpowering.  The living room and bedrooms have suffered the most, littered with Sprite bottles, bedclothes, and various detritus that no one wants to pick up due to generalized weakness.  Max is fine, since he refuses to eat salad, and this crud seems to have come from some bagged lettuce, "washed and ready to eat."  My ass.  Literally.

I had to go to the dentist on Wednesday - one cleaning, three fillings.  My dentist is this cavalier guy who makes a lot of jokes and only seems to be sort of paying attention to you, right up until the last moment, then he's suddenly focused.  I like him a lot, actually, and when he was joking about having seen a "really fat baby, like those Oprah babies, with no arms, just hands coming out of fat from the shoulder,"  I felt the need to chime in with "A huge baby, with smaller babies in orbit around it."  This led to our first actual conversation:

DDS: That's good.  What are you reading, there?

ME: A book about the Medicis.  15th century Florence, Italy.  Lots of beheadings and weird religion.

DDS: (looking at charts & X-rays)  What's with all these spiderwebby cracks in your teeth and jaws?  You get punched in the mouth a lot as a kid?

ME:  Yeah.

DDS: Ooookay.  So, tell me this; pipes or cigars?

ME: Both.  How do you know?

DDS: Cigarette smokers don't use their teeth; yours are worn on the left side.  You also have a slight  burn mark on your inside left cheek.  What was the last cigar you smoked?

ME: Guantanameras.  Cubans from Costa Rica.

DDS:  Niice.  Got any left?

And so on.  So yeah, I like my dentist, as much as that's possible.  I'm trying to picture myself in the early 19th century, striking up a relationship with my leech applier, since I imagine I would like going to my dentist only slightly less than that.  I hate the dentist, mostly because of two things; I'm really not fond of mint, and the aforementioned spiderwebbiness always seems to constitute an issue. 

Jones' memorial was last night, and that was okay.  One of his daughters told some good stories, but I wasn't really feeling it.  It was nice to meet all of his kids, and we squared away arrangements for dog and truck and gun, and shared some memories - ultimately, though, the presence of Jim was lacking, which might seem obvious to you, but for some reason I was emotionally expecting it, and was thus disappointed, a little.  Fink failed to appear, but I guess that doesn't surprise me anymore.

Finally - wait for it - we accepted an offer on the house.  We got lowballed a little earlier in the week, but we counteroffered, and she went for it.  So - pending home inspections and any other unforeseen bullshit cropping up, I may get to retire this category.  Now - this is Pensacola, so runny shit could hit multiple burning fans at any moment - but it feels like leaves are dropping away from the tree of unhappiness, so I grant you permission to be tentatively happy for us.  Additionally, our closing date is 2/11, so if anyone has anything that they'd like to offer to help get my brain out of the "holy fuck" Moebius loop it's in currently, I'd love to hear it. 

I'm picking up boxes (found on Craigslist by C) and a Spanish language DVD tomorrow.  In the meantime, cross fingers, pray to obscure gods, anoint, project, dance, sacrifice, consult your magic fucking Ouija 8-ball of destiny, whatever you got, and think good Exodus thoughts this way.

Vacation's End

(Or, the Importance of Seeing People, Part II)

Wasabi peas are the best road trip snack ever. 

They mix especially well with Burger King french fries, if one is so inclined, and when you get to the last 90 or so hard miles of a trip, a handful of those fuckers will snap you to in nothing flat.  From Wisconsin to Florida is a long-ass two-day car trip, and I did the last part of it, the state of Alabama, on January 7th at about 80 miles per hour in a driving rain.  Some of you will understand the significance of that.  Now it is done.  My vacation from Pensacola is over.  2007 is official.  On Tuesday, anyway.  I'm taking tomorrow off, too.

We're back now, with C watching pirate movies and both the kids gone to bed.  Max dealt with a gastrointestinal issue all day that demanded three stops, and I still made Nashville to P'cola happen in eight hours.  The truck is cleaned out and resolved, ready to be returned to someone with more claim on it than I have.  We have returned to a house kept wonderful by Miss Lyla Dove, and filled with gifts and cards and mail we haven't even really looked at yet.  But enough of this!  Let us get to the props!

TO THE PROPS!

To Peggy & Bobby: for hosting Xmas morning, for Bobby's breakfasts and love and tolerance, and for not getting too awfully upset (and helping pay) when I did what took 12 Senators the first time through, and killed Julius Ceasar.  Possibly the best home away from home ever, I highly recommend Casa de Guy.

To my Mom: for hosting Xmas eve, with the sausage balls and the wonderful dinner, for putting up with a house of people (including one sick and grumpy 5-year-old and one grumpy 79-year-old) and for feeding half of Nashville fudge and divinity that thrills the soul even as it rots the teeth.  We owe you one umbrella and one VHS tape.  "Sage?  What sage?"

To Kat & Dale: for the gifts, the hanging out and the friendship.  We owe you one tarp, and we're sorry we didn't really understand the one knife thing.

To Julia: for giving up your bed and your room and your sanity and privacy, and for providing the fun space for downtime and chill time and smoking time and sleeptime.  Happy New Year, and thanks for the hair coloring, the clothes, the friendship, the pie and for letting us invade your house like Huns.  (to any Huns that read this blog: I'm sorry, but you're Huns.  There's really not a lot I can do.)  "Mmmm...towers of love..."

To Jesse: for help with the Cloud Forest stuff, and the good times and hugs and Cubano stogies and Spanish emails.  For playing Teen Titans and giving stair races, for riding around in the truck on our schedule, such as it was, for a nice, solid, lazy vacation filled with lots of good quality times.  And for making me read this fucking book.  "I don't do messages of hope.  Okay, how about this..."

To Eric & Diane: for letting us disturb your yoga, video games and quiet time, for letting us crash hard that first Madison night, for Borat and Hulk and pizza and (I think it was) Asian food.  And Tex Tubbs!  And Ricky Gervais!

To Josh & Amy & Ben: 'What's your birthday?"  For gifts when we got back, and spaghetti, and New Year's tacos, and photos and lunch, and tickling, and overall good feelings.  Have that kid yet, Ame?  Done with your nesting?  Try to hold out until we're in the area again, okay?

To JB & Colleen & Raya: for video games and bookstore jaunts and conversations and hanging out and wine and easygoing good times.  Thnaks.

To Mike and Sarah: for the afternoon of catching up and hanging out, and talking about stuff.  We will find Laurie Abler.  This I pledge.  Good luck in your race, Mike!

To Shannon: for fun stories and not getting pissed when we gave you the wrong directions to the Ethiopian place.  We have a trifle for you!

To Susan & Ron: for cemetery walks and good smoky chats and Xmas morning and gifts!

To Matt & Cayce:  for having a box of seriously cool stuff waiting here for us when we got back.  We love you guys!

To Steve-O: for the extra day.  Solid.

We pulled out of our driveway on the afternoon of December 22nd, in a haze of funk and fog and mist and uncertainty.  We came back, not really wanting to be here, on January 7th, a new year, with (hopefully) some promise of change.  If you believe in fate, if you think karma is transferable, if you want me not to take a path of evil, then send us good moving thoughts, folks.  2007 has to be the one where we escape, people!

Now, perhaps, I sleep.

Stupid, Part 2

Part One is here.

Today is Pearl Harbor Day.

When you fuck up, and fuck up huge, you should apologize, which you haven't, and won't, because you buy into some kind of Christian-therapy-late-90's absolute shit about "perspectives" on an event.  What you have done is nigh unforgivable, but there is that 'nigh,' which you have shat all over by not apologizing by now.  Often, when someone does something bad enough, an apology doesn't fucking cut it.  You have to do it anyway, as a sign that the healing is beginning, but often the wronged party could give two-fifths of a fuck about your apology and wants to see some real change from you before they'll allow anything to progress.  A wronged party is not obligated to meet you fucking halfway.  And if you think, still, that you are a victim of the sins of the past, let me draw you a picture. 

Sometimes, someone does something so bad, that there's no antecedent that matters, no motivator that could justify the action.  Terrorism is like that.  Did we put troops and hope and money and effort into Afghanistan in the 80's and 90's only to rip it all away along with aspirations and dreams when we decided we didn't really care anymore?  Yes.  Do young men in the Mideast have every right to be pissed about that?  Sure.  Does that mean we should care about any of that at the moment the World Trade Center explodes on morning television?  No.  The motivator for their actions does not justify the action itself, it only teaches a lesson about how far people will allow themselves to be pushed before they snap - and that's what we learned from you.  You're imminently snappable (in fact, you break pretty easily), you need help you won't get, and I don't trust you anymore.  At all.  You have violated everything I hold dear.  You made an intolerable situation diabolical.  You ran roughshod over innocence and refused to grant respect.  And you wonder why you are not respected.  And now you want another chance to come around.  You are not good for anyone, no matter who you manage to convert to your side.  The soft sell with grandmothers and Christians cuts no ice with me.  If you need emotional support and help during the hard times, give some during the easy times.  Seems like a basic Golden Rule-type message, yeah?

I have no interest in talking this through anymore, which for me is saying something.  Look at this blog, how much I write about you and your crap.  I don't want to hear your side of the story, because it will be self-serving, justifying, circular bullshit, and I am no longer interested you hearing anything I have to say because you can't hear me anyway, inside your bubble.  So - time to let go.  Let time do it's work, and think about how this could have been different.

Finally, I just wanted to say thanks for pushing your agenda now, when there is so much other that we should be thinking about.  It's what I've come to expect from you.

Escape From Noise

I finally understand this song.

Do you have any idea how hard it actually is to get the hell away from noise?  I am a father of two with a precocious five-year-old who talks non-stop (and when he's not talking, he's singing or making noise, which I also did as a child, pretty much constantly, so I understand the impulse) and a teething five-month old who, when she drops out of good moods goes directly into near-constant whines punctuated by Satan noises that would make Germans clear their collective throat.  I am, of course, being a big pussy, because my wife deals with this every day.  I don't think it would bother me quite as much if it weren't for some other factors.  I am supposed to be getting some stuff done and my house together to go on a trip, and we've been discussing Xmas gifting, and that's all fine, but I can't get anything done on any of it, between laundry and dishes, and trying to be good dad and also dimming the lights in my brain occasionally.  On top of all of that, there's the fact (gritting teeth until stars pop in my eyes) that this house still has not sold, and likely will not during the holidays, and Evan's goddamn fucking suicide and the horribleness of it all keeps busting into my regularly unscheduled train of thought and tear-assing around like a drag racer on meth, fucking up the furniture.  I am close to cracking open my head to remove the badness.  In fact, I don't think that I shall have to.  I think that my brains will swell until the bones in my head fracture out from their current Pangeatic state, re-structuring until they become little skull continents kind of floating over my brain, which will then continue to swell until I end up looking like one of those asshead aliens from fucking Star Trek.

Of course, just getting that down helps.  I'm fine now.  Really.

This is therapy.  And you all read it.