Friction and Harmony

I’m in another funk.  Call it ‘societal overload’ – I just can’t take any more of it.  Here we are at day who-even-fucking-knows-anymore of the oil spill, which is still pumping nearly unchecked into our Gulf waters, the Fed is suing Arizona for trying to protect itself, the economy is terminally fucked, and of course  Obama is vacationing again.

So what is the MSM concentrating on?  Mel Gibson.  What the fuck ever.

Do you have any idea when Mrs. Who and I took our last vacation?  Two-thousand fucking ONE.  Come to think of it, that’s been pretty much our ONLY vacation since we started dating.  We had to “postpone” our honeymoon because of work schedules and kids, and never made it happen.  I won’t go into the seventy-odd thousand reasons WHY, and how that was just the beginning of a chain of events set in motion by the evil acts of a few… The very same few people whom I’d like to see visited by The Wrath of God®.  But that’s a tangential path already beat down to bare stone.

Yeah, we’ve had our share – who hasn’t.  And things were starting to look up, for a while.  Now it’s coming in broader waves of public and societal influence.  It’s a growing dread about our future under this administration and in this new global atmosphere of Accommodation.  Suffice it to say, I’m sick of the news.  I’m sick of hearing what’s going on in our country and around the world.  It makes me want to lock the doors and windows and clean all my guns.

Again.

I would so love to be able to believe in real Hope and real Change again.  The kind this man gave us in the 1980′s…

I wonder if we’ll ever see the likes of him again in our lifetimes.  You are so very missed, Mr. President.

In the meantime, I’m closing the blinds, turning off the TV, and opening a new jar of Hoppes No. 9.

Road Trip!  It was such a beautiful weekend – I missed riding on Saturday, but managed to hop on the bike Sunday for some wind-in-my-face therapy.  I found myself on Bourbon Street, some 200 miles away from home.  The people there are very friendly and outgoing – several folks in the hour or so I spent wandering around the Quarter said the same thing to me…  “Nice chaps.” 

"Tank" on Bourbon St.

It was a tough ride – at least the ride home.  Somewhere in the ‘just over 400 miles’ in a day is about my limit – especially when I haven’t ridden in a while.  The last 70 or so miles were brutal – the temperature dropped about 15-18 degrees.  A hot shower and a warm bed did little to cure my aching bones…  But I definitely have to do it again when I can stay the night so I can drink!

On June 6, 1999, I knelt in the surf of the Gulf of Mexico and promised her “Adventure.”  She bought it.  I guess she must have thought it sounded like fun.  On March 11, 2000, she became my wife, and it’s been nothing but “adventure” ever since.  At least I held up my end of the bargain!

Ten whole years… Wow!  Sweetheart, I can’t imagine my world without you…

I love the feel of you.

I love to touch you – to hold you and to be held by you.

I love your wit and intelligence – to talk with you, to listen and be inspired and amused, and to understand and be understood by you.

I love to laugh and play with you – to chase you through the house and tussle the sheets with you.

I love your fire and enthusiasm for the causes that move you, and your faith.

I love your practicality and logic, your love for science fiction and your voracious appetite for real books.

I love your devotion to children and the way you flirt with babies to make them smile in line at the supermarket.

I love to hear you sing when you think I’m not listening.

I love that even after 10 years, we still know and enjoy some modesty.

I love to watch you dress in the mornings, almost as much as I like to watch you undress - the vision of you still excites me.

I love to open doors for you, to guide you through a door or into a room by the small of your back.

I love to cuddle with you, to hold your hand, to brush your cheek and play with your ear.

I love your beautiful green eyes and they way they light up when you laugh.

I love having you as my wife, my partner, my lover, my best friend.

I love you.

And of course, I’m ever thankful that you even put up with me!

Happy Anniversary, Kitten!

I feel like I’m stuck in a cattle chute, and it’s not going to end well.  One thing for certain – there’s only one way to go.  Will means nothing.

All of my dreams lately have been of things or events coming to an end:  Arriving at an art fair just as the exhibitors are packing up their tents.  Walking into my own graduation after everyone has already crossed the stage.  Running up to a storefront just in time to see them turn the closed sign and lock the doors.  Waking up and discovering everybody has gone and I’m alone in an empty concert hall – only a few stagehands packing stage furnishings remain, and they’re oblivious to my presence – they just want to finish and go home.

Is it all coming to an end and I’m either unwitting or unwilling to accept that fact?  Are my doors all closed and locked, and opportunities gone?

That’s certainly how it is feeling.  I don’t feel right or welcome anywhere I go.  I’m constantly bothered by the feeling of being a burden – an extra chore…  I am the annoying relative, burdensome neighbor, or that last, unwelcome customer at the end of a busy day.

I don’t know my family anymore.

I’m cold inside and out.

And there is just one way to go:

Through.

So it’s 2010.  Now what?

Not sure where this year will take me.  So far as resolutions go, I’m setting the bar pretty low.  To borrow from an old classmate, my New Year Resolutions are:  “1.) to get another year older,  2.) to accumulate more gray hair, and 3.) to work out less.”

Okay, so that last one is impossible for me…  Divide by zero error: System halted.

Right now, my outlook for the year is grim.  I’m just out of an active “police action” (we won’t call it a war) with Mrs. Who, and now active fighting has broken out on the parent-kid front.  In the meantime, I still find myself living mostly alone in my late MamaBear’s house (blame the suck-ass weather) and getting more and more used to it.  Don’t know what that means.  But getting back to the active front…

My dumbass son “Goob” has chosen his path – one that doesn’t seem to have any room at all for stupid ass parents who lay “guilt trips” instead of pandering to his selfish whims  (i.e., enforce responsible behavior).  He’s determined he’s an adult, but acting like an overgrown four-year-old.  Had the gall (not to be confused in any way with testicular fortitude) to ask me to turn over the keys and alarm code for his late grandma’s house so he could play house with his wounded-bird girlfriend.

It frikkin’ hurts to be a parent when you want to see them do the right thing and they are so caught up in hedonism and rebellion…    I was rebellious, but I wasn’t THAT stupid.  Shit.  Okay, so maybe I was, but I was truly hoping to impart some of the wisdom I gained from my mistakes.  Not much success in that, however, least of all when parental wisdom clashes with rutting teenager.  Hell, in the few years since he discovered his “special purpose“, he’s already surpassed my own notch-count.  It’s disappointing, but not entirely unexpected, I guess.  Not that i can excuse his choices, however… since he’s choosing to be a little prick.

Case in point: he chooses to hook-up with a little tart that drops her panties on their first date – while he’s still in the process of “breaking up” with his previous g/f after providing her with a “morning after” abortion pill.  Oh – she was under the age of 18, so that’s a case of illegal dispensing – and her parents were more than furious, wanting to swipe a chunk of his ass for the piece that he got from their daughter.  He was more or less oblivious, leaving Mrs. Who and I to mop up while he went about his cavorting.  In the midst of it all, he tried to demand that I “meet” his new piece of tail with him.  Lacking a grain of respect for his little “Tragic Doll”, I declined.

Flash forward about eight or nine months, we get wind that Tragic Doll is claiming to have given birth to a baby boy – our grandson.  Right away, I’m skeptical, since just a month before, she claimed to have had an inoperable brain tumor and lay dying in the hospital, only wanting to talk to Goob one more time.  Dozens of times a day.  Oops, she died.  No, she didn’t.  Maybe the brain tumor made her forget she was dead.  Or that she was pregnant, since miraculously, she never had a brain tumor but suddenly she has a baby.  Who has “a lung disease”.  And some hell of an insurance plan, since he’s been in NICU for nearly three weeks and “all his bills are paid for and will be paid for until he’s 18.”  She just wanted him to come see her to take a paternity test, even though such tests can be done with oceans and continents between the subjects.  When we demanded to see proof of the child’s birth – of the certificate which bore my son’s name as the father, of the child’s illness…  OOPS!  He suddenly died.  Oh, and she didn’t really have a baby because she was in Coast Guard Boot Camp the whole time.  It must have been her cousin who was spoofing the whole ordeal because she wanted to make my son see how “special”  Tragic Doll has become since he left her, and that “he would take one look at her and want her, but she’s not available to him any more.”  Funny how Tragic Doll’s cousin sounds exactly like Tragic Doll in the telephone call recordings.

All the while we were uncovering Tragic Doll’s psychotic, hysterical claims and manipulative lies, Goob was getting on with Wounded Bird, who was evidently okay with the fact that his previous relationship was playing itself out with us in the middle, leaving him free to slip her some between the sheets.  All evidence points to her being totally willing to betray her own self-respect by letting him poke her.  But she’s learned sooo much from her life of hard knocks that all her decisions are intelligently and morally sound.  Because she’s…  you know…  An 18 year old “adult”.  And an admitted runaway.  Rumored to have been fired for blowing a guy in a back room at Wendy’s.  Pathetic and sad.  Tragic, really.  I feel so sorry for her.  But there’s not a damn thing I can do.

The two of them are feeding on their past histories of abuse and claiming it “makes them strong” against the world.  In reality, they’re indulging in that abuse, but they don’t see it that way.  Of course, how would WE or anybody else know their lives?  THEY are superior in their conjoined response to this terrible world – their tragedies having steeled them against the “false morality” of others…  especially parents!

Yes indeed, if there’s one thing that heals the wounds of sexual abuse, it’s a good, guilt-free fuck!

Of course, Wounded Bird has no parents to speak of.  She and Goob met in grade-school, and were trouble from the start.  The gravity of sexual abuse trapped them in a violent orbit – nearly causing them both to be expelled at one point or another.  Thank god for a tough little Irish nun who stood between them.  I admit I always felt sorry for the girl, of course for the tragedy of her abuse, the absence of loving parents, and all…  But also for the way my son had treated her back then.  She was a year behind him, and in front of classmates, he had accused her of “wanting to suck your stepdad’s cock.”  (Hence the near expulsion from parochial school.)  I was mortified and ashamed of his actions then, but I understood where he was coming from.  Then, she was a threat – she was a living totem of the abuse and the abused.  No doubt there was a physical attraction – she pursued him from the get-go, and she was a cute girl.  I know Goob isn’t blind…  So to Goob, she was no doubt a bundle of desire, guilt and shame -  and represented perhaps the part that “let the abuse happen”, and likely even the part that may have “felt good”.  He responded with venom then.

Now, having come to terms with many of those feelings, I’m not surprised to see the abuse continue to play itself out as lust and nurturing for that part that is “accepted” or even “forgiven”.  That part was evident in Goob’s indignant defense of his recent behavior, stating:

It is the past events in a person’s life that makes them who they are today, and honestly however FUBAR of a past, I am happy with who I am today, so I may not like the events, but I accept the past, I would not change a thing in it, even if that means getting abused by [ex-con felon scum].. it is something I have come to terms with and do not hide.

Jackpot!  Going through all that got me all this (i.e., laid + kindred understanding + acceptance) today!

What worries me most about this is not the acceptance, but the evident embracing of this past.  And I believe that has a lot everything to do with the sexual relationship he has cultivated with Wounded Bird.  They simply have no clue of the dangers they are flirting with.  Perhaps both are doing some rescuing, but WB is BAD needy – it’s written all over her.  Her posture, body language, facial expressions, submissive glances and clinginess.  (The unsettling way she hugged ME longer than necessary on two occasions screams her need for a “daddy” figure and goes that much further to my argument for her desperation for male attention and approval.)  Most telling of all was her defensiveness when I tweaked her by telling her I pitied her.  (And I truly do.)  But I knew, and I was right; she came out swinging at the very notion and wouldn’t let it drop.  They are both feeding on age-old hurts and new manipulations, and they’re too stupid-young to see any of it.  They “love” each other out of need and pity, but don’t recognize that, either.

It’s a Catch-22.  The more I say about it, the more Goob digs in his heels.  Yet if I bite my tongue, he infers my tacit approval.  Worse, it’s causing a rift between my son and myself that may never heal.  On FaceBook, he commented on a picture of us at his Army BCT graduation:

lol, back when he was proud… seems like those days are gone, and so is he. Fuck it. dont need family, as far as im concerned they are all dead now to me, because obviously to them I might as well just be KIA.

I don’t know what to feel but sadness at that statement.  Obviously it’s not true, but the alternative to him feeling this way is for me to accept the damage he’s doing to himself by allowing his stupid ass behavior to go un-reprimanded.  Further, doing so would be my sacrificing someone else for my own benefit; WB may or may not be a hopeless case, but allowing them to recklessly indulge their shattered pasts is a recipe for a lifetime of failed and abusive relationships for both of them.  It endangers not only them, but any children that might come about, as well as those who look up to them as role models for their own behavior (namely Buck).  Call it “Tough Love” , but it would be irresponsible of me as a parent to do otherwise.  Wouldn’t it?

I just don’t know anymore.  The thing that often scares me most is my own anger – something of which I have an abundant supply.  AT&T has “rollover minutes”, I have “rollover anger”.  It just keeps stacking up.  Of course I realize that my anger makes the things I say and do that much more difficult afterward.  But my pressure relief is faulty.  Plus, I seem to possess a flowing, predatory skill – of narrowing in almost effortlessly on the tenderest spot to land my blows.  I read body language naturally, and within minutes of observing someone can pick the two or three of the most self-consciously guarded physical or psychological aspects of an individual to launch my attack.  Heaven help you if I’ve known you longer.

I’ve had to check myself constantly in this battle of wills with Goob and his Wounded Bird mistress.  I let it slip briefly once, and the damage was instant.  It escalated into the position we find ourselves in now: after weeks of what can best be described as a “Cold War truce” since he left for Korea, we’ve recently broken-off negotiations and the hostility level has risen.

Where it goes from here, I have no idea.

Our dear friend LemonStand called our house a few nights ago to talk to Mrs. Who.  Naturally, they spoke of Christmas plans and such, during which I’m sure my dear wife bemoaned my profound lack of Holiday Cheer­®. At some point, Mrs. Who handed me the phone, and LS proceeded to tell me to “pull up my big girl panties” and start some new Christmas traditions of my own, and leave the past behind.  Fair enough.  I’ll get to that in a few.  But first, here’s a Christmas Meme, similar to LemonStand’s, but received from my aunt via email several days before.  For obvious reasons, I didn’t deliver this to my cheery aunt, but here is my honest response:

Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your friends. Okay, here’s what you’re supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!!  Just copy (not forward) this entire email and paste into a new e-mail that you can send. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then send this to a whole bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person that sent it to you…’Tis the Season to be NICE!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Shipping box from Amazon.

2. Real tree or Artificial? Settle for a picture of a tree on Google Images?

3. When do you put up the tree? When I must.  We still don’t have one this year, and probably wont.

4. When do you take the tree down? Before sundown Christmas day too soon?

5. Do you like eggnog? Love it – used to drink it mixed with 7-up as a kid – yellow foamy gak.  Now it’s Southern Comfort or Myers Rum.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Ruger 10/22 rifle, though I actually got it for my birthday on December 1st.  Got a scope for it for Christmas.  Never used it – I preferred shooting open sight.

7. Hardest person to buy for? Anyone – I totally suck at buying gifts for people.  Amazon wishlist is my yuletide friend.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Myself!  No, not really.  I usually suffer “buyers remorse”and it takes me forever to decide on something.  Don’t believe me?  Ask Mrs. Who why she won’t go shoe (boot) shopping with me.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? I have a Beartivity.  Probably sacrilegious, but I like to think Jesus wouldn’t mind being part of my bear family.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Neither.  However, I hate paper mail far, far more than I do spam.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Gee, I’d have to say the ones that were thrown at each other (there were a few of those) pretty much sucked, whatever they were.  But the first/worst I remember was when Santa walked into my bedroom and handed me a water-soaked, slobbery, chewed-up Spirograph set and a crushed candy cane…  I was maybe four or five years old, and I’m pretty sure I remember thinking ‘WTF!!  Who is this creepy fraud?!”  The destroyed gift had been left on the milkbox for “Santa” to collect before entering the house.  The dogs had gotten loose and dragged the toy into the yard, where along with dismembering a stuffed animal, they gnawed on to see if it contained any Christmas ham.  I waited a few minutes until I heard voices coming from the living room, then crept down the hallway to see my uncle Lynn (who looked a lot like Marty Feldman) wearing a santa suit, sitting on the couch drinking an eggnog.  I remember going to the front door and looking outside to see wrapping paper and stuffing strewn everywhere, and the gutted carcass of a stuffed animal staring at me from the porch with one dead glass eye.  That’s pretty much the indelible image of the first Christmas I can remember.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? The Terminator.  Bah – I don’t know, I hate that sappy crap.  I think I have yet to be able to sit through the entirety of either “Christmas on 42nd Street” or “It’s a Wonderful Life” without falling asleep.  Those old stop-motion Christmas television specials with animated dolls were creepy as hell, and I remember thinking even as a kid that Frosty the Snowman was inane.  Charlie Brown was probably the best of the bunch, even though as I kid I recognized that Peppermint Patty was butch and lucy was a conniving chunt.  (Schroeder was cool – he kept to himself and his music and didn’t fuck with people.  I can respect that.)  I had a friend that used to do the Peanuts dance – that cracked me up.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? What time is it?

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? HELL YES!

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? MamaBear’s Christmas ham, ham gravy & mashed potatoes with yeast rolls.  I’m really, really missing her.

16. Lights on the tree? I guess, since it stops being a Christmas tree when you cut off the lights.

17. Favorite Christmas song? “I Wonder as I Wander” – sung in a rich, echoing baritone a cappella by Father Z at Midnight Mass.  But every year, it’s all that incense that makes my eyes water…  I swear.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home.  There’s drunk idiots on the street!  (recalling vividly how we feared for our lives as we drove home from the annual Christmas dinner with my drunk father behind the wheel – on ice-covered roads, no less.)

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer’s? Unfortunately, yes.  Want me to prove it?  Tough.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel.  Or Star.  Depends on the tree.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning, I guess.  How many more of these?

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Obligation to spend, spend, spend, and the implied notion that one’s love is measured by dollar value, quantity, or uniqueness of gifts given.  It’s one of the biggest reasons I hate Christmas.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? One tree and one Christmas was special.  It was a “newborn” tree, a dedication to both the Christ child and His Blessed Mother, (in whose hands MamaBear placed me when she gave me up for adoption).  Pastel ornaments and white lights with a star.  It was my first Christmas with my birthmom.  We didn’t exchange gifts because we were both mid-divorce and broke as hell.   We just celebrated a new life.

25. What do you want to do for Christmas this year? Hadn’t thought about it.  Don’t really want anything, really.

26. Who is most likely to respond? Whomever hasn’t been pushed over the edge of holiday depression by my list?

Yeah, I know – I carry more baggage than American Airlines.  And yes, I do realize I need to let it go…

As for the new Christmas tradition LemonStand challenged me to start?  Well, I do recall the Advent Calendar activities from parochial grade school, and was inspired by a brilliant Scottish example I recently saw.   And while I’m a little late getting started, I think I may be able to catch up – I have no doubt that should put me in the Christmas Spirit!: More »

Somewhere on Facebook, I attempted to contribute this short story of my experience with Colon Cancer – the disease that took someone dear from me.  I don’t know if it made it or not.  When I pressed “Submit,” everything disappeared, and Farce-book crashed.  I don’t know even where I found the Colon Cancer survivors group, but I figure if it was meant to get out there, it will.  If not, that’s fine too.

Fortunately, I had the foresight to Cut-Copy my text to a document before sending it off to the bit-ocean of the Internet.  Here it is, mostly for me, but if someone needs to read my words, I figure the Holy Spirit knows how to direct a Google search: 

(I’m sticking it below the fold — )

More »

I finally got around to watching a movie that has been on my “to-see” list for quite some time.  It’s called SLC Punk!, and tells the story of “the only two real punks in Salt Lake City,” circa 1985:

“Cool,” I thought, “I wonder if I’ll recognize anybody.”

You see, I was on the punk scene in the eightes – as early as 1981.  Loved the music.  “Slammed” at the Indian Center and the Fairgrounds arena and Horticulture Building.  Fronted the attitude – Anarchy was more than a political (mis)direction, it was an expression of gritty teen angst and wanton aimlessness.  We didn’t care that it was irrational or stupid.  We were teenagers…  WE were irrational and stupid – though at the time we were certain that it was THEM, not us.  Had the colored hair.  In fact, my hair was up to three different un-natural colors at one time: blue, green and purple.  Had a blue and sliver mohawk for a brief time – they’re pretty hard to maintain, and “fashion punk” wasn’t my gig, either.

Was I “hardcore?”  Hell no.  But I was defiant.  I attended the only parochial Catholic high school in the Salt Lake valley at the time.  I introduced punk to that institutionalized populace.  I was the first to have the guts to walk through the doors with more than a fucking notebook with an Anarchy symbol on it­.  But I didn’t do it to be “cool.”  I wasn’t punk to attract anybody.  I was punk to keep everyone else the fuck away.  Punk for me was an escape, a barrier to everything I hated and feared most.  It was soul-ripping, hard driving music that told the world to fuck off and die.  I loved it with every fiber of my teen-angst ridden being.

The upperclassmen certainly didn’t understand my visage.  They called me “Devo” in the hallways, since that was the closest thing in their experience they could label me with.  Ozzy, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, Scorpion, Poison and the emerging 80′s hair bands…  Those where where the general populace identified.  They didn’t understand that Devo wasn’t even in the same music galaxy as CRASS, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, T.S.O.L., Rudimentary Peni and the Crucifucks.  “New Wave” alternative rock was just gaining popularity, and a shocking, colored hairstyle must mean I’m one of those.

I hung around the Cosmic Aeroplane book store and head shop.  CD’s hadn’t yet surfaced, and surfing the bins of imported vinyl for something new to listen to was as necessary as foraging for food – and I was hungry enough to circle the sleaziest music shops in some pretty unsavory areas of town.  Raunch Records was located under the 4th South viaduct, where the homeless often congregated around burning barrels in the winter time and slept on old shipping palettes when it was warmer.  The best music, however, came on bootlegged cassette tapes.

Drugs weren’t my thing, and though I was straight and clean, some of the people I hung out with weren’t.  I was so hardcore and daring, I got my ear pierced.  But I knew a guy who wore a diaper pin in his cheek and a rounded over, rusted nail in his ear.  I saw plenty of LSD and pot, “crosstops” and other shit.  Cocaine didn’t enter my world until I got chased by a drug dealer in a Corvette in a case of mistaken identity (he thought I looked like the guy who stole $30k in cash and stash from him.)  I even carried a gun illegally – for good reasons, though this isn’t the post for that story.

But back to the movie…  SLC Punk was actually a pretty accurate depiction of one important facet of social atmosphere in one of the most socially repressive cities on this continent in the 1980′s.  The Mormon-influenced socio-political scene was a pressure-cooker that brewed some pretty crazy shit at that time.  While I recognized a good bit of embellishment and artistic license with respect to the details, the bizarreness of it all – the people, “tribes,” the attitudes, the social atmosphere – was more or less spot-on.  Of course location names did not reflect reality, but seeing many of my old haunts on screen was just creepy.

While the characters were colorfully fictional, I could spot elements and parallels of people and lives that I had witnessed more than twenty-five years ago.  Of course the seeming fictionally-absurd but God-as-my-witness concrete elements of the story had me laughing out loud.  The beer run segment and “Stevo’s” explanation of why a trip to Evanston, Wyoming for some Mickey’s Big Mouth was so necessary had me in hysterics.  I had to wonder if I had ever crossed paths with the writer of SLC Punk.  He had obviously been there, drifting the same landscapes of my past…

As I watched the credits, my jaw dropped.  James Merendino.  Ha!  I quick ran to IMDB and found his page.  When I saw his picture, I was certain…

No shit.  So here’s what James looked like in my Senior year (1984) yearbook:

He was a year behind me in high school, and I remember him hanging on the fringe of our little group.  I remember him as a pretty cool kid – quiet and a little quirky (i.e., just like the rest of us) – he didn’t draw too much attention.  He hung out with, among others, an underclassman named Paul who lived in my best friend’s neighborhood, and who frequently hitched a ride.  (How’s that for a peripheral association?)  I can clearly picture James with braces and a porkpie hat with buttons on it, hanging out with us at some music venue – probably a school “stomp” or a minors club we frequented, but which name I can’t recall.  I want to say he was also in one of the school music groups (Jazz Ensemble?), but despite my greatest efforts, I discovered that I was dismally retarded when it came to musical talent, so I didn’t spend too much time with the people who could.

All in all, SLC Punk was a good indy film that brought back a LOT of memories, and some uniquely in the know laughs.  I can see why the movie has a cult following.

James, if you should ever wander by and see this – I’m sorry for the yearbook picture.  Though I barely knew you, the movie is definitely a keeper.  I ordered my DVD copy from Amazon today.  Congratulations on your success.

Hey, at least one of us made it out of that asylum with a future!

I ran across this while excavating some memories (more on that later – perhaps).  This irreverent magazine illustration (Playboy, as I recall) was stuck inside my Senior year high school yearbook.  It was one of the many bizarre decorations adorning my adolescent “personal space” – my locker door at the Catholic high school that I attended in the early 1980′s.  I still think it rocks:

Ah, 1984.  Miss it, but you couldn’t PAY me to go back and do it again.  Well, maybe if I could go back knowing what I know now… but even then.

Well, my blog is no longer R.I.P.

I recovered more than I thought I could, but there’s still a lot of cleanup to do around this place. My sidebars are seriously screwed up, and I’m thinking I may have to lose the look. Maybe a fresh coat of e-Paint and some new drapes. Maybe I’ll ditch WordPress altogether for a new CMS. I dunno. Something different.

I lost a post or two – not many, I’m afraid – but I’ll get over it. I moved in here at HostMonster.com back in November and had a helluva time trying to get everything straightened out. For the record, I love HostMonster. But I hate Fantastico. (More on that later.)

THEN… The “Holidays” hit. Like an effin ton of manure, they hit. I felt buried alive. And since I suck at VERBALIZING what I feel, I DEMONSTRATED it instead.

I. Freaked. Out.

The loss of my blog was the least of it all… I was sure it was gone for good, but through pieces and parts, I managed to find most of it so long after my e-Tantrum®.

To my beautiful, loving and blessedly patient wife, and to those of you who witnessed my unraveling on Mrs. Who’s blog, I sincerely apologize. I really wasn’t myself. I don’t know that I can say I’m 100%, since I really f#cK3d up big… I’m still trying to recover.

For anyone who has been reading my blog and Mrs. Who’s, it should come as no surprise that I am dealing with Post Traumatic Stress, Depression, and for the triple-play… OCD. Throw-in some pretty raw worries about MamaBear’s prognosis (she’s doing well, actually… Thank you, Lord!) during a trip to MD Anderson that I had to miss because of my new job… Oh, and the New JOB – fitting in, finding my niche, worrying about the “stress days” that I had already needed to take, etc. Then of course, a house full of obnoxious teenagers, an EX (hers, not mine) who can’t seem to get his ass off his shoulders and throw-in a little “Holiday Cheer” (no, not in the alcohol or pharmacological sense. Think steeping in sarcasm, “Merry Fuck You Too” pushing crowds and rotten drivers, short tempers and pissheads with no manners running all over ’cause you HAVE to finish shopping with money you don’t have so you *think* you can make everyone happy for, like, five whole SECONDS… Yeah, I think you get it), and before you know it, the family is huddled in the Family Troop Mover looking for a place to hide from my raging freakout.

Yeah, the face on the doc in the emergency room was priceless when I told him how good it felt to smash that effin TV with an axe. It did. It really, really did. I hated that TV.

(Tell me you never even wondered what it would be like… Liar.)

Fortunately, I was the only witness to that television set’s tragic demise. The family had already given me my much-needed space – but they did walk-in on the techno-gory aftermath. It was scary for them AND me. I still feel ashamed of myself and my behavior, even though I know I wasn’t exactly behind the wheel, so to speak.

So… I don’t know what direction I’ll take my blog from here. Right now, there’s still more Friction than Harmony, but it’s getting better. There are a lot of things I never felt I could talk about on my blog. Like, for instance, depression.

Screw that!

In spite of everything… everything that we’ve had fall on our shoulders these past years… All the tragedy, conniving asshats and EX-family, health issues, financial woes, teeth fractured in my sleep due to stress, and even more missed days from work for subsequent dental repair… I’m still here!

Hey, Lemon Stand… Can I borrow a cup of sugar? I got a whole lot of lemons that I’ve let stack up on me. It’s time to do some squeezin’!