Can I have a 2nd Opinion? Ok, You're Ugly as Well!

I'd like to thank the people who invented the premise that bad things can only happen on Friday the 13th. It tends to make people more pensive in their actions if only for one out of 365 days in a year, and that's only if you're prone to put any credence into the premise. Albert Einstein worded it simply, "Time only exists so everything doesn't happen at once". For those people with real life experience and a bit of insight or hindsight, time line speed is what changes a ride on a merry go round from a frolicking event that a child remembers fondly into something akin to 'shaken baby syndrome', an event that a child will probably not remember too fondly if at all considering the damage that can be done. They're the same motions and movements, just forced into a shorter time frame making those actions more jarring and injurious.

While traversing life's floor routine you're only as stable as you were completing your last action as you head into your next action, depending on your rate of speed and recovery time between those actions. Landing a bit askew in your footing and you're not in a perfect position to focus on your chosen future path, and in life we've been told that our movements should be a fluid perfect motion, our actions to be exacting and occurring as though planned in advance with the absence of effort. This is the performance we want all to be witnessed and attempts to disguise imperfections should go unnoticed to anyone else's perception.

If you land your last event on shaky ground take the time to regain your posture before your move ahead to your next endeavor. This pause may or may not go unnoticed by only your perception but your future landings will be more precise to the one's who continue to watch your performance in life.

This entry may be buried in pretension but it's not hard to understand why we don't always land where we're supposed to, why we don't have proper footing when instigating our next move, and why we find ourselves landing outside our targeted mark as often as we often do. We're not perfect machines and this is something we should be aware of and never have to apologize. That we move in any direction is by choice and not by force of anything other than ourselves. That we continue to recover and pursue our direction in spite of variables we cannot control is courageous and that we all do it at our own pace or not at all if that is our choice is our individualism. That no one can credit himself for  all of someone else's success or put blame on someone else for all of his own failures is more than likely factual. That no one has the right to judge what is a success and what is a failure to anyone but themselves is even more likely factual.

The next time you land poorly in life? Don't look at the calendar, look at the position your feet are pointed.

"So you think you have Demons?" - A Survival Pamphlet

I was thinking of a friend we'll call Molly for anonymity's sake that I hadn't talked to for years and then was remembering that I probably wouldn't hear from her anymore for a plethora of reasons that seem to ooze effortlessly from my mouth during conversation. I guess sometimes when you don't know what to say, going with your gut instincts and spouting whatever comes into your head first can have it's repercussions. 

One of the many now famous conversations that pass through my head when I lie awake thinking about everything like I do have me convinced that humor does have it's limits even though I believe it will always be my compulsive urge to find it in any given situations. It can be summed up in this brief dialogue.

Molly - "So, you know how I told you my Mom has breast cancer? Well, we just found out that my Dad has lung cancer. He starts his radiation treatments a week after my Mom has her surgery and starts chemotherapy".

Me - "Wow, you're parents really DO enjoy doing everything together, huh"?

It was supposed to be a take on how they were probably the most functional couple I've probably known up until then or maybe even now; After how many years and how many successes and failures and children and Christmas's they were obviously still very much in love. Even Mr. Idiot with the long hair, beard, and glasses could see that. Add in that Molly's Dad was a very attractive guy, a little tidbit that I was constantly reminding Molly whenever it seemed oddly appropriate, it'd be no surprise what my comment would be on my next visit after both parents had entered into their mutual chemo/radiation treatments and would settle into the 'Edith and Archie Bunker' chairs in the living room they watched tv from, ate dinner at, and watched life pass by next to each other within radiated hands distance at any opportunity given to them. You really can't make this shit up. They are that close. 

"So, now you're Dad's 'hot' in more ways than one, ain't he?" - Even I wince when I remember saying that one.

That I take away a lesson from this now broken beyond repair friendship is important. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely convinced the lesson should be 'You can make fun of my parents' cancer, but please stop telling me how attractive you think my Dad is'... I think the lesson I came away with should be "Hey, I stopped your sadness long enough to divert it to anger at me, and I got you laughing during a very stressful series of moments in your life because it's something I'm good at".

Before you ask, both of her parents fully recovered and now spend all their free time still enjoying each others' company while chances are Molly and I will never speak to each other without yelling and free associating some clever adjectives to define how we may or may not feel about each other until we wish each other dead in one awful way or another. If there is a bright side, neither of us has ever wished cancer on the other. We both still care at least that much about each other.

Core Values vs. Schizoid Paranoia

I have beliefs I was born with and some of the mirkier/quirkier ones I've picked up along the way.

Lying and stealing are wrong, don't hang with people who do, unless you believe they won't anymore.

Have friends that keep you out of trouble, not get you into it. If they'll accept half the blame, that's okay too.

Someone teaching you a lesson is never as much adrenaline fueled fun as learning that lesson first hand.

If you can be happy without money, you can be even happier with money.

If you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to be sitting in the chair of a bar, a restaurant, or a barber.

Don't gossip. You'll eventually have to hear at least one bad review about you.

If everyone around you disagrees with you it doesn't absolutely make you wrong; well, maybe it does.

Be careful about what you wish for, you might get it. Wishing you had rent money is always a safe wish.

Life is a merry go round, not the universe. No one can be at the center of either of them.

Horrible things can turn funny afterwards. Funny things can turn horrible afterwards.

Drugs make it impossible to walk a straight line; Literally and figuratively speaking.

You never know what life has in store for you. You can't plan for surprises; if you do, it's not a surprise.

If you think magic doesn't exist, try explaining why two complete strangers can meet and find true love.

 Push the limits of comedy, time continuum, and survival safely only if you're a cartoon character.

Villians sometimes look like good people; it's then easier to take unfair advantage of good people. Good people sometimes look like Villians; it's then easier to avoid giving Villians unfair advantage. Look beyond looks.

Brian Meets John

I first met John in 2006, I want to say I was in Boston at first. I am a member of a chat site that I use almost exclusively for keeping in touch with friends. I spent time in California, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts again. Phone numbers change, addresses change, but profiles on this site seem to stay, and if you're looking for someone to send a message, it's pretty much guaranteed that eventually they'll get it and return it, unlike email. The website shows people who are in your state depending on what you put as your address, and you can have a friend list to keep in touch with people everywhere. Once you have looked at everyone in your state, the profiles jumble, different locations, different people. This is how I met John, or should I say I found John? I don't have a type per se, but when I saw his face, I knew I had to look at the rest of the pictures. This being a gay site, standard protocol dictates that you say something along the lines of a pickup. You can choose standard greetings such as 'you're hot', 'woof', 'you're sexy', 'nice honker', but immediately I wanted to separate myself from the rest of the pack. I usually do this by sending something nonsexual, and wait for either question marks or 'whatever' or a pat on the head and a 'thank you'. He was Australian, he was polite, and he had a very handsome face, one that made me stop, pause, and pursue.

We started chatting in full sentences right away, and it was very comfortable to meet someone who was married but wanted to talk to someone from overseas. We had similar tastes and backgrounds, and John even showed my picture to his husband out of respect. We weren't  doing anything but chatting, just like the site said it was good for. Since the time difference was over twelve hours, it turned into weird hours for both of us when we saw each other. I looked forward to our chats, we even got clever and would have wine or drinks while we talked. It was always weird hours for one of us, the other would be drinking during regular business hours. We carried on like this for years, we were miles and miles apart, but friends. It was unlikely we'd ever meet in person, but we could talk like good friends about anything, offer objective opinions when we were having problems, and I have to admit it was nice to have someone who I could anticipate seeing online.

We were both experiencing problems that we didn't address. John's partner was sick but they'd been together for over twenty years, and believe it or not, I was homeless for a good portion of our getting to know you banter. If either had talked about these issues, we would have known exactly where we stood, but fear of the unknown made us keep our peace. Rather to have what we had than rock the boat with hardcore life issues. We both say now that it was odd that we didn't discuss these things.  I don't know about John's problems, but I can tell you the least attractive thing you can probably disclose to someone it that you're homeless and live in a shelter. Who needs or wants elaboration on that? Let's face it, it's ugly.

After John's partner passed on, he developed a traveling bone, and visited different continents, countries, and locations. It was only a matter of time before he came to the States from Australia. Unfortunately, I was also unsettled, and moved around from state to state, working, not working. We nearly missed each other one year when he visited Las Vegas, I was in Wisconsin. We laughed about that. He said he was visiting New York City, in nearly ten months, and we planned for a maybe meeting. I counted the days, really hoping that I wouldn't have to leave, and believed him when he said he'd travel the additional four hours to meet in Boston. I showed his picture off, I talked to my friends about him. I purposely didn't meet anyone close and neither did he. We had friends that couldn't believe we were planning something ten months in advance. It seemed  as though something would  screw us up. It didn't, we made our plans online to kiss as soon as we saw each other on the train platform. The Amtrack came and through the glass, facing the opposite way I knew it was John. He grabbed his bag and came through the door and indeed two bearded guys shared a kiss in South Station. John will tell you he fell in love with me on the train to my house, and I'm telling you when I saw his hat, and how tall he was, with the face I'd imagined animated and not a snapshot I knew I loved him before he came into the station.We were only supposed to be together two days, but that turned into five chaotic, spontaneous, dreadfully romantic days. The powers to be were working hard to dissuade us, we were oblivious. Once he'd left and returned to NYC, we chatted and it was different. It didn't take long for both of us to know that something wonderful had happened.

We had a real connection. He asked me to visit him for a month, I accepted. Before I left, we decided we couldn't be apart that long and he came to the States to stay with me. September sixth he came and within a few weeks we planned our wedding. We postponed the date til Halloween and each would ask "Are we really going to do this?" We were married in my sister's living room before the eyes of God October 28th. It wasn't a hasty decision if you consider how many years we'd been talking back and forth and imagining that we knew each other. Unbelievable is the fact that our imaginations were accurate. The man of my dreams and the sweetest human I know wasn't a myth at all, he was even better in person. As an added bonus, he seemed to have the same inclination towards me. How I could be so blessed I'll never know, but it must be because here we are.

Zombies Vs. the iPhone

People all over the world think Florida is a synonymous for both life and death. It's the retirement location that most of the United States citizens dream about, and nowhere else do you think of when someone says 'Neon Graveyard'. I find it funny that the fashion population of South Beach, Miami hasn't made this connection, since the disco queens  have invented, upgraded, and financed the ability to stay looking as young as possible under an unforgiving fluorescent light that is the sun. Vampires do exist, and they come out of the closet once but by their fifties only at night, sunlight is the enemy. This tends to hide the scars, wrinkles, and flaws of what once was a picture of youth. Anyone who looks past the surface can see a look of history past in someone's eyes, and convincing someone you're younger than you actually are is supposed to be the goal of both middle aged men and women. I know this isn't exclusive to Florida, but it's more obvious than even in Las Vegas where a fifty year old 'dancer' will compulsively tell you she's 29 because she's convinced herself that the reason she's stopped menstruating was due to her eating disorder rather than menopause. Age is something we all have to deal with, whether we do it in gradual steps or fight it every inch of the way til the steps become a cliff that you fall off of one night and wake up appearing 70 as if it had occurred overnight. I quote Andy Warhol's Bad - "Look's aren't everything."

I can't even begin to recreate the events that led up to quite unsavory fodder for tabloids this week. A man who's been called everything from a sweetheart to a person with real anger issues eating someone's face? I've been around for nearly 45 years and I don't think I've heard anything quite like it. Who knows what goes through someone's head that would deem this action worthy or thought in the first place. Turning the thought into action is a real stretch of what has to be psychosis, and to hear this escalation could be caused by bubble bath, or 'bath salts' is an indicator that the world has taken a most radical turn. It pains me to think that a Mother drowning all her children in a bathtub can be one upped so easily these days, and that the tabloids raced to one up the zombie apocalypse in Florida. Someone pulled their intestines out and threw them at the police? Really?

When the fear of death starts to dissolve in the heart, when someone's life has reached either it's zenith or nadir and your conscious thought has you convinced that you've seen and done all there is to do, the rational person sits and weighs his options and will generally find any direction to make forward progress in this spiritual realm, maybe by learning a musical instrument or making a career change. These can be seen as erratic or eccentric changes but who's to judge how one gets from point a to point b in their path to a complete person.

A zombie story has the ability to make the common man prefer death to a front row seat in an altercation like this and it's this trait that makes it such a dangerous event. It's one more image added to the unwritten list in people's minds in a subconscious game of "I'd rather die than..." that we play around the campfire, laying awake at night before sleep overcomes us, or while we're walking back to our cars from horror movies that have evolved from a man stitched together from spare parts of the dead.

Is it the public media that has us convinced that we should be trying to look far younger than we should lest we be unhappy or is it our decision? Is it the movies that make us think that our death has to to be a historically grotesque event lest it be remembered or are we simply bored with common passing? I like to think the world isn't that much different than when I first came into it. The desire for things I didn't need flashing on television, at the movies, and in the music I listened to didn't overcome my common sense to possess them. What more can we be convinced we need whether invented or discovered to make life worth living? 

I just want to wake up and live and laugh, know that I love and am loved by someone, and when I feel full and tired? I want a goodnight kiss before I doze off to sleep and dream of doing it again.... and maybe again and again.

"Haven't you ever lost anything Bronx? your wallet? your car keys? - Medicine Man

John and I were drinking wine on the veranda <porch> yesterday, when we decided to take a break and go to the shops to pick up lunch, essentials and what nots when he looked on our dining room table and didn't see his wallet. Of course our cocktail function quickly turned to a search party, one that ended quite dismally when it was called off until the following day. At dinner last night, we both had our theories which we could not back up with any solid proof. There was no accusation in either of our voices when we ultimately surrendered any and all hope that it would be discovered, and it was suggested that we just considered it gone. Gone, gone, and gone. To do otherwise would have been the futile, spastic, somewhat psychotic overturning of every object in our home, whether it be likely it could hide a wallet <the couch> or a bit less likely <under the soap in the shower>. Ce la vie, indeed. It's best to relinquish pride to retain whatever you have left of your sanity.

The natural thing to do is to find the optimistic side, for me anyway. I'd had absolutely no money before, it's got to somehow be better to have money that you can't possibly access for a day than to be down and out with no prospects of a better future, and then I remembered what I wanted to talk about over the wine.

I had a dream. No, not an awe inspiring dream such as those of Dr. King but a dream none the less. I was working at an old location of a printing company in downtown Boston, more or less a sale satellite. There were no presses, minimal machinery, but we were in a large pair of office buildings, and our customers were somewhere in the 44 stories of each tower, where we would smile, offer excellent customer service, then jump through hoops to ensure the promises we made in the morning were upheld by closing time. In my dream, I broke my thigh, not easy to do, and had to walk around with my femur in my hand until I had my surgery the following day. I know. Believable so far, right? I had a clear and lucid conversation with my boss as well that stood out in my mind, a boss I learned a lot from in many different ways, and I woke up happily discovering that both my legs were in tact. They were larger than I'd like them to be, but hell, I guess that's another dream entirely.

Being the kind of guy who normally wakes up and reads and writes, I decided to do a bit of sleuthing. After all, Lisbeth Salander isn't the only dragon tattooed person who knows how to do a bit of  'hacking', be it on social sites or Google. It didn't take me long to find an obituary of my old boss. Damn, I have such poor writing skills. He was three years my senior and at 45 I'm reluctant to call anyone old....  my past boss. I was depressed we hadn't kept in contact as we said we would, I was sorry that he'd passed away, and in a fit of selfishness I had to acknowledge that death at 47 of natural causes was possible... ack! As one of the extraordinary people who've entered and now left my life, I could take this information and proceed two ways. Appreciate the people who are in my life and make an attempt to contact them more or I could get bitter, health conscious, and grow wary of people whom I may become attached? I'm a glutton for punishment, and my boss was a perfect example of someone who could give me constructive criticism, let me call him a dick, and not fire me. Good people have a way of turning you into a better person. Hold these people dear.

Any Given Saturday, Military Style.

It's Cinco de Mayo and I'm half reminded of every drinking event that I may or may not half remember in the first place. When reality makes a hasty retreat if you're a lucky soul the imagination takes over and sometimes lends itself to a much better version of events, if only for story telling purposes. If you're willing to totally commit you can spin a yarn that may ultimately have you committed but the only story worth telling is one that is probably a mixture of fantasy with a smidgen of truth to keep it grounded.

It was 1992 in Northern California and it was any Saturday. Vallejo was a Navy town and if you didn't have to serve extra duty on the weekend you were allowed out in public to mingle where the Zodiac killer  had historically found victims roaming the semi quiet streets, ones that were frequently punctuated with biker bars and fast food restaurants, but had really not other ambition other than to eventually put you in the wrong place at the wrong time while being under the influence of the wrong beer and in the wrong state of mind.

As an elder <over 21 years of age> in our military school, I was more prone to hang out with the dorky teachers than the students; these people were more my age and intellect in a world where half the students were too young to drink and the latter half were too busy getting drunk in groups.... in a virtual reality card game called Dungeon's and Dragon's. How's that for a social order? Sad, more sad, and most sad...

I could fall asleep standing up, I could stay awake until four in the morning knowing that our muster was at quarter past five, and I had a whole slew of home remedies and superstitions to keep me out of the barracks petty officers view and more importantly, off their report rosters. I had toothpaste in my pocket for breath, quick responses that were nearly reflexive, and more importantly, I was a funny drunk guy so most of my defense team was comprised on the guys in my room, in my classes, and more importantly on the staff that had been out the night before with me. While standing at attention in line, it's got to be difficult to report someone who you were pouring a beer for the night before, even more difficult when you were pouring the beer into an imaginary glass in your mind, while you were dumping a pitcher of beer all over the pool table in reality. It was a reality you didn't want anyone to bring up during work hours or even in the bar the next night. A gentleman never throws past events in your face, and a drunken gentleman never remembers them in the correct order of events anyway. We were under a lot of stress and we had our method of decompressing; it didn't need any modifying. It was the alcoholic version of 'Don't ask, Don't tell'. No one asked, we weren't telling.

There was a student in our class I'll call Louis, and from every perspective you looked he was an inadequate person who was not fit for military life. While out with my teaching compadres I had been warned that he would come to ill fate if he ever made it onto a ship in active duty, and that they had devised a plan to ensure that he would never reach graduation and deployment. In their scheme I was supposed to put a trash barrel over his head and push him out a window. I'm not sure if it was because they thought I was easily suggestible while drunk but I'm certain it's because they knew I was physically adapted, I went to the gym every day for two hours and ran five miles four days a week, feats that will never occur in my life again or that you wouldn't expect that I'd ever been capable of judging by my appearance now. Schemes like these were a near nightly event; they would dilute and the act of returning to the barracks in one piece would become the common goal by closing time.

I was returning back to our barracks with my drinking buddy, a great big tall Polish guy who was also a Marine. Marine's and Navy guys had an unspoken 'no fraternizing' rule that neither of us paid much attention to; he was old enough to drink, I was old enough to drink and we had a great vibe out at bars, if that vibe was that neither of us knew how to keep our mouths shut but at the same time we were both too large and ominous to be told to shut up... or be shut off. We stumbled into the barracks and we headed to the vending machines, we'd returned too late for the McDonald's to serve us food on the command, and we had to rely on the machines for a crappier alternative than fast food; we also had to rely on what change we had in our pockets. Zoom pulled out a ten dollar bill and found the change machine broken, our class leader came out to survey the damage we'd caused ourselves and was snickering standing next to us. Zoom turned to him and asked if he had change for a ten, and he said yes, took his ten dollars and put it in his pocket, gave him nothing in return. Zoom thanked him, then the unbalanced exchange registered in his mind and he fumbled with the nothing in his hands. He looked over to me for backup, and I'd put a dollar in the vending machine that was not being accepted, instead it was entering and exiting the bill slot while I was trying to no avail to grasp it. Times like these were not times for defense, instead we'd be in tears of laughter trying to decide who'd had too much to drink and who's fault it was. These were fun nights, soon replaced by less fun nights, but who wants to talk about those???