R&R

Soaring through the darkness.

Gentle Loneliness

Stumbling into a bar, midday, alone and without any sense of urgency, albeit aimless.  The male bartenders in anytown, USA, pretty much look the same, but it’s their distinguished dialect that differentiates between the regions.  I remember a handful of bars because of their bar speciality, like the Greek tavern by Port Authority in New York City where the owner makes his own stout red wine and generously keeps my glass full without a bill.  I remember other bars for different reasons like Bar of America in Truckee, California, due to embedded nuanceslike the assymetically placed clock beside a large hole in the wall that could easily be covered up by that damn clock.    It’s not really about the bar, itself, that captures the aesthetically pleasing side of my loneliness.  No, it’s the ambiance of life’s vibrations and the romanticized connection to all those sentences I’ve read about characters that have sat on the same type of stool, in the same type of bar, experiencing the same synapses of mood, that connect me to these places. 

It doesn’t end at bars.  There are a series of places that come to mind like some scene of a coming-of-age movie where the shadow of loneliness envelopes the main character causing them to reflect and move forth in life, back on track.  Right off the interstate in Dallas, Texas, there is a grassy knoll hidden by an overpass that is across the street from a well-known hospital.  It was there that I would sit for hours just looking into the vastly lit wide open Texas sky at night, waiting for an epiphany.  I’ve used the term ‘epiphany’ so much that it’s often spouted out from my mom’s mouth in reference to wise stories from a strong-lived life as what my mom calls, “what’s your term?  I had an EPIPHANY.” 

I counted it up once and I had moved 32 times give or take a couple houses during my parent’s divorce, 5 different states, 20 different zip codes, 7 of those were in a NYC burrough, and 3 different towns in New Jersey.  That’s a lot of unsettledment in one lifetime.  I wasn’t running from anything per se as much as I was running toward this idea of a life that I only knew from books and movies. 

Nowdays I can’t really concentrate in bars due some latent A.D.D. that has me more interested in people watching than sitting with my gentle loneliness that brought forth much of my writing.  Other than my pickiness of not sitting by a kitchen or facing the crowd in a restaurant, I don’t really notice symmetrically conflicting items like oddly placed decorative ornaments.  I also just bought a house so there’s no need to go anywhere but home to find myself anymore. 

Genius Email Chain

Random thoughts from people our age…

-I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.

-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.

-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

-I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?

-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-That’s enough, Nickelback.

-I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

-Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the “people you may know” feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.

-There is a great need for sarcasm font.

-Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f was going on when I first saw it.

-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it.

-How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

- I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

- A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.

- Was learning cursive really necessary?

- Lol has gone from meaning, “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”.

- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

- Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.

- How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using ‘as in’ examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss’s last name to an attorney and said “Yes that’s G as in…(10 second lapse)..ummm…Goonies”

-What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

- While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.

- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

- I would like to officially coin the phrase ‘catching the swine flu’ to be used as a way to make fun of a friend for hooking up with an overweight woman. Example: “Dave caught the swine flu last night.”

-I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

- Bad decisions make good stories

-Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!

- Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

-If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I’m from, this shouldn’t be a problem….

-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.

-There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

-I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this ever.

-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There’s so much pressure. ‘I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this. It’s only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?’

-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

-When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

-I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

-Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles…

- As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

-Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

-It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

-I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

-Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn’t know what do to with it.

-Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…

-My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day “Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How the hell do I respond to that?

-It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

-I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

-I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

-I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

Webcomic #5

From The Archives: This Weight Is A Gift

Bruises on my hands from being held so tight I must have thought I was losing myself.  Marching around so confident but I’m just a scared little girl looking to be saved just like the others I know that parade around wearing their insecurity on their sleeve.  Waking up alone and naked to stare at my ceiling for an hour before my day begins and I reflect on my rapid ups and downs wondering who will peek through my window of duality.   My phone call log looks more like a manic punch line rather than hospitable hellos. Another morning of fearing that my tongue misbehaved and hoping my words collapse without a ripple.  Worrying starts to hurt.

Disappointment weaves my soul and leaves only a few crucial moments to prevent the darkness of my storm cloud but my masochist wind breaks open my veins releasing my solace in disease.  It’s my cycle and I peddle faster down hill because eventually the momentum will fade and I don’t even know how to coast but I envy those that can enjoy the breeze.

My chest hurts, my liver hurts, my lungs hurt, my heart must hurt and when expressing doesn’t carry much weight and treading lightly becomes too difficult I suppose we all lose our charm.  Maybe we’re all held back by something.  Life gets tiring, love gets harder, innocence gets taken or lost along the way, purpose gets misplaced, people come and go, and sometimes my words tend to get stuck between my lips, but I know what I know; no one stole my soul.

Coolest.Dad.Ever

Disillusioned Fan!

It was like a Bostonian watching the Red Sox lose the World Series.

The Soul Patch of War

My brother has been heavily on my mind and the calendar shows that it’s nearly the third week in August already.  His birthday is next Sunday and each and every year he knows I’m waiting for him to come home as though he was off to war.  I figure I’m probably heavily on his mind too, wherever he may be, but as he hiccups or feels the air of melancholy blowing on his face he doesn’t really remember why a patch of his heart belongs to me.  Someone will probably tell him what his hiccups mean; someone is thinking about you.  He may have an outlet like exercising, writing, or painting, that dissolves his unexplained loneliness.  Whatever he is doing; I am there.  Whatever I am doing; he is here. 

Sisters would go years without seeing their brothers that went off to war, but off in the distance one random day his mature body returned with stories of another world.  She would pull out the letter collection that he had sent her over the years just to show him her respectful sentimentalism.  He had walked many miles and seen things she couldn’t even imagine, and she would ask him every question that came to mind as he took off his shoes.  They only have a few moments before the family cut into their time, so every moment mattered again.

There’s the sister that longed for her brother to return from war and ran nearly a mile when she saw a uniformed figure in the distance only to run up to the postman, delivering death.  Her eyes read the words a few times before her heart got the message and broke on the spot.  There would be no more letters from the war, but in the end should could recite the few she had word-for-word. 

I live 1,500 miles away from home, but my brother can find me pretty easily in those unique times when my house is silent, my heart is open, and my mind can imagine him walking in that door.  His tall mature frame parading around my new house with an ear-to-ear smile.  We would catch up and he would tell me stories from another place, another world, another time that he would show me when it was time. 

I never got a letter and my brother will never return from war, but I got every  moment indexed, every archived thought, and imagination on hand for his birthday homecoming.  He may never return but every August he has a patch of my soul.

 

 (Jeffrey Lee Ben)

8/23/1982 – 01/29/2001

Electronic Breakfast Table

Breakfast was a symbol of  something pure that products of divorce, such as myself, used as a compass to happiness; a happy family.  While my own family ate wherever they lingered in their solitude and typically only ate together at one table on holidays, there was this ever-present dream of a wholesome family meal; untainted and a ‘what if’ attainability.

The few times we wrestled with sitting down at the table for a family breakfast or dinner, the only thing served was silence or resentment; not much of a variety of tastes.  Instead, we could watch Leave It To Beaver reruns at dinner time and watch the Cleavers, loving and virtuous, communicating and eating a full bird.  I didn’t get to eat a full bird until recently and if you’ve ever seen a full bird during preparation it’s enough to make you wonder if even June Cleaver, America’s most perfect mother, was a deviant.  Looking back, her obsession with kitchen activities and ability to do exceptional card tricks may have just been OCD and a gambling problem.  I guess even the All-American family has their imperfections, but it didn’t keep us from looking up to them and wanting a little slice of Cleaver pie.

We watched the Jetsons and heard the media projections on the future, but it came and went without flying cars and watch computers.  We didn’t experience the Apocalypse in 2000, and I’m pretty sure the one in 2012 is just a ploy to sell more batteries and water.  However, I can’t deny the digital age in front of me and the lack of simplicity all around me.  Why would children ride bikes when there’s an app for that?  What will become of imagination and pretend when it comes from a device?  What will double entendre become but acronyms and symbols like OMG PIG : p  (Oh My God Pretty Intelligent Girl–sticking tongue out) .  I failed in college at learning another language and luckily Ebonics didn’t stick, but I may have to noodle on text language.

I’ve got to finish this blog posting soon though because my iPhone is blowing up, but the point is that the NY Times came out with an article about electronic breakfast tables (my term, not theirs).  It’s a sad reality that my wholesome symbol of family will be as extinct as playing house in a real tree house and not on SIMS.