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If you DO want to know, welcome to my blog |
For those who actually want to follow my thoughts, ideas, moans, and gripes, this is the place for you! For those of you who are returning...I questions your judgment, you poor souls. 
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| I’m a selfish guy. I freely admit it; but I think many, if not most, introverts are. My hobbies are writing, drawing, creating music, and road-hiking. (And playing Minecraft. It’s my only “gaming” endeavor; I loathe most other video games, save for a quick board of Super Marion Brothers now and then.) These are all solitary ventures. The only things I do in groups are play cards or watch TV, pretty much. I’m not a very good conversationalist, either. Usually, about 5 minutes into a conversation, I’m asking myself why the hell I started talking to a person in the first place. All I really want to do is end the conversation and go away, probably to write about how much I hate having conversations. Imagine living with a guy like me, where the only interaction is about the dogs or about how much a character on the TV irritates me, where my idea of a good time involves a quiet room, my dog, a pad of paper, a pen, and my computer (because I can’t read anything I write longhand, pretty much). I’m “a dud.” I know this because I am reminded more frequently than seems polite. No dancing, no bar-hopping, no parties where everyone secretly has some axe to grind with everyone else but smiles like sharks at everybody instead. Yep, I’m in introvert, a dud…a writer. I finally came to grips with it about 5 years ago. "Quiet Little Heart"  is written about that a-ha! moment of reconciliation. I am, at last, able to admit I am stingy with my time and my thoughts. I am more likely to reach out only if someone says they need me. I am content to give what I have mostly to the blank pages before me. I keep to myself and tend to draw in…but that doesn’t mean I don’t give back at all.I do give back. I give my stories. I give my drawings and my music. At least, I offer these things. Whether they are accepted is no longer something with which I trouble myself. We all like a gold star now and then, but if what I offer is not desired, I’m content to keep it to myself, even to hoard up my stories and sketches and songs like some artistic Silas Marner. So I offer this blog of random thoughts with which you may or may not identify. I offer some stories, poems—maybe even a picture or two (if I’m rich enough to afford that level of membership—I’m a miser, too; I'll save that for a different blog entry). But I made them all on my own, in my own little cave, in my own little world. I know a little more about me now, you see, and I reckon maybe you do, too. I’m selfish and self-contained. I’m an introvert. I’m an artist. I’m a writer. And I wouldn’t want to be any other way. |
| I have several journals and notebooks: my daily OneNote notebook at work; also my daily scratch notes in a steno pad; my writing journal, which is so disorganized at this point I'm going to need Magnum P.I. to find a story I just wrote two months ago; my drawing journal consisting mostly of abstracts; and my freewrites. Oh, and now a blog. Sometimes I think I'm a schizophrenic in training. Of all of these, my freewrite notebook is probably the most interesting to me. The writing journal winds up with solid ideas for finished pieces. But the notebook contains wild and random thoughts. When I write in my freewrite notebook, I write whatever comes to mind without editing in the moment. It could be word by word, and it could come out completely random and nonsensical; or an entire story could pour out unexpectedly. But one thing that I've noticed about my freewrite journal is that it always tends toward the dark. There are some rather disturbing entries. Here's some entries from around this time for the past few years: 10/25/17 ▼ 12/8/19 ▼ 10/6/20 ▼ 11/2/21 ▼ 10/10/22 ▼ 11/30/23 ▼ 11/21/24 ▼ So many of them are weird and dark, strange and wandering. In many of them I ask myself, in one way or another, why they are so strange. But I've come to understand them: these are the random cuts that I make with my pen to let out the bad blood, bleed by bad brains clean again. Everybody wants to let the dog off the leash sometimes, let it run and see what kind of damage it can do. But we stifle it throughout the day—good lord, we have to, unless we want to go to prison. But we, as writers, have a way to get it out, don't we? Do you do it, too? Do you just let the pen lead you through the roses or the thorns, whichever it chooses at the moment? If so, perhaps you'll share some of the odd windings and wanderings of your bloody-bodied thoughts, distracted dreams, and frustrated frustrations. Or perhaps not; sometimes it's better to scream in the dark where no one knows if you're in pain or if you're a banshee. Not the usual blog entry this one, I reckon. But I have to go now. It's time for another bleedwrite freewrite. |
| "Maintain a healthy Work/Life Balance." "We work to live, we don't live to work." "No job is worth your wellbeing." I wonder to whom these pithy adages are directed? It seems to me that if I don't work, I go very hungry and very cold, with no groceries in the fridge and no roof over my head. Quid pro quo. I get neither quid nor quo if I don't go to work and be a productive pro. I work 8 hours a day. I get ready for work for about an hour a day. I commute to and from work a little over an hour each day. I sleep about 8 hours (on nights I'm not dreaming about work, that is). So out of 24 hours, I am awake and not working for about 6 hours. Of that 6 hours, I have an hour or so of chores and feeding the dogs. (The cats can fend for themselves! Just kidding. They yell at me non-stop and steal my stuff and drop it in the water bowl like feral raccoons if the food in their bowl looks like it might be empty even in three days; they are very proactive creatures.) Throw in about a half hour to get ready for bed. I'm "living" about 4 to 5 hours a day. Does that really seem like an equal ration of work-to-life? Doesn't seem like it to me. Maybe that's why people think I'm an unbalanced individual. Well... among other reasons.  A guy at work had a cold last week. A week later, we all had that same cold--and so did everyone at home! Unless we wear plague masks to work, which my boss asked me to please stop doing, our wellbeing is constantly compromised. "Well, in that case, just make sure your workload doesn't negatively imapact you mentally." Please see above: dreaming about work! I reckon we all gotta work, excepting a certain fortunate few who are retired and a certain unfortunate few who might subsist on disability compensations. But can we please lay off the inspirational poster slogans? Let's just be honest with ourselves and each other: "I see my coworkers more than I see my spouse." "An honest day's pay for an honest day's work... not a bad theory..." "The line between one's work life and their life's work is disconcertingly gray." Well, break-time's over. Time to for me to get back to work, I suppose. Maybe I'll get some sleep tonight since it's Friday. That means only a few hours of work tomorrow morning. Woo-hoo! Bring on that mythical rest and relaxation! |
| I look around me and I sigh. It "seems worn and overused," as Mr. Howe & Co. put it. My clothes are mostly second hand. My house is 50% death trap, 50% dump, 100% money pit. There's never enough cashola to cover everything. My wife's health always ranges somewhere between poor and poorer. And my cat, which seldom shuts up, is the size of a small tun. So yeah…*sigh* ...I ought to be hosswhipped, oughtn't I!? See, that's the thought that follows in the next breath after I heave that selfish sigh. What gives? I bought my house in 2021. Lost my job within days of closing the deal. When I was able to move in and begin looking into my new gem, I found all sorts of hidden issues. And I mean that literally—hidden! A main support post in the main living room had been removed, and the upstairs was slowly sagging its way downstairs. The remedy the former owner had put in place? Add a drop-ceiling downstairs so no one can see the sagging joists, and create a series of wedges upstairs to put flat floorboards across to level up that area. Instead of replacing plaster walls with drywall, the former owner simply built another wall over top of the old. Now, instead of having 6-inch thick walls, we had 1-foot thick walls! The doorway from our kitchen to the dining room looked like a passage in a hobbit hole! Electric was jenky, there was a problem with the well, the septic system was almost full. Ugh! When I finally got a new job, I was ecstatic. But after having worked from home 100% of the time for the better part of a decade, I realized I had verry little clothing to wear into the office, even as "business casual." During my first week there, my boss brought in a large stack of shirts. "I don't fit these anymore; you want them?" he asked. They were all very nice polo shirts with the company logo emblazoned on them. More ecstatic-ness ensued. It's a small company, and the CEO works just down the hall; it's not uncommon at all for him to stop in one's office to say hello. "Did they bring the 'ghost logo' back after all these years?" he asked one day, referring to my shirt. I was to embarrassed to say I was wearing hand-me-downs as a junior leader in the first days at my new job. I make decent money, but everybody seems to have their hands so deep in my pockets, they're tugging on my socks! We live from paycheck to paycheck, sometimes hand-to-mouth, singing day-before-payday blues as we heat up mac 'n' cheese and wieners once again. My wife has rotten health: bad back that's only ever going to get worse, diabetes… and me as a partner! Welcome home, medical bills upon medical bills upon medical bills!And I'm just not even going to go into details about the hairy walking tub of Crisco not-so-affectionately called Fat Bastard! So why am I bitching? What's the point? Why am I sighing live a love-lost schoolgirl? Because it ain't so bad. Truly, it just ain't so bad. Some people are so much less fortunate than me, they would kill to live in this house I call a piece of crap. There are people who have to wear the same set or two of clothing every day. Too many don't even have enough cash to buy wieners, let alone nice warm mac 'n' cheese; and when they get sick, they get the minimum of health care since they can't pay any medical bills. And some people are so lonely, they don't even have a fluffy fat cat to lay down on them, crush their thighs into tingling near-numbness, and purr them consolingly back to peace. Things could be worse. Things might get worse; I might inadvertently make things worse. But things aren't so bad. They seldom are when one looks at them in the context of how bad things could be. Things aren't so bad. Just bear that in mind as you grind through your day. Let it be a little ray of okay-ness for you, or a life preserver if you feel like you're drowning. Things could be worse, so maybe things ain't so bad. |
| Things fall apart; the center does not hold. What do I mean by that? I'm really not sure. Today has been a day of reflection...but I'm not sure what I see in the mirror. Is it the past? Is it the dirt under my nails? Is it the stains on the wall where I forgot to fix that hole in the roof? I'm really not sure; but I know there's something off. Like the smallest corner of a photograph that is folded over. It has nothing to do with the picture, but once you notice it, you can't focus on anything else. So yeah, something's off; the center does not hold, the mirror is a spy. How do I feel about that? Fantastic!!! Scratching your head? Well don't dig too deep, people will think you have mange. The reason I feel fantastic is that being slightly off is something all of us writers—all of us artists—have in common, that the world is at a perpetual cant to our perspective. How the hell do you write about a killer clown eating kids without your worldview being slightly skewed? How do you look ar war and find hope unless the mirror you shine back at the world is tainted with hope? How do you write Lord Jim without...well, bad example; all you need is some good brandy and a bag of Colombian Red for that. So I look at the page and I see monsters and angels where other people see whiteness. I look at the horizon and I see the edge of a thousand other worlds than this one. I look inside my heart and see...well, we'll save that topic for another day. What's the point of writing all this? For one thing, this is a collection of my thoughts, blurted out onto the screen for the sake of me writing something and you reading something. But there's a point to it that might actually make reading this valuable to you: Take a closer look in your mirror. Gaze beyond the horizon and then look around at the world to which you've been transported. Look inside your heart and decide who you want to win—the angel or the demon. Always refuse to see the square that only has four sides; discard the blank page for one that is already smudged with an idea. You don’t need me to tell you, but a reminder never hurts, I guess. Stay tilted; remain canted. Embrace the misfit inside you for the artist that it is. Whatever else you may do, with all of what I've mentioned, for God's sake, my friend... Write on! |
| I hate going to the grocery store. For that matter, I really don't like being around people, but the grocery store is the worst. I know, I know, this is the same complaint about 2 billion other people have; but it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to! From the parking lot, to the surrogate shoppers, down through to the oblivious zombies, enduring a grocery shopping trip is the veryest of bitch-kitties for me! The adventure begins as soon as I arrive. Where will I park? Shit, will I even get to park, or am I going to get t-boned by the guy in the beat-up old Ford who's trying to rearrange his groceries in the back seat while driving? Or will it be a head-on with the 114-year-old lady in the Cadillac who's convinced that all the lanes belong to her? Maybe it will be the kid in the Charger who somehow fails to realize that the speed limit in a parking lot is not 45 miles an hour! Well, so far I've survived, but only by the grace of Sam Walton. (I firmly believe God is currently boycotting Walmart and has been for some time, now.) But playing Enduro and Frogger in the parking lot is only the first of my travails. Upon entering the store, it seems 90% of the customers are stripped of common sense and dignity. It's all but cliche, these days, to mention it, but behold the shoppers in the sloppy pajamas, the mindless wanderers wearing tank-tops, booty shorts, and galoshes. From the sidewalk outside to the area just beyond the lobby, the public have devolved into a new breed: Walmutants! You've run into them, I'm sure. Literally run into them. They're the ones who love to stop right where the shelves start after the lobby, taking more time to arrange their purse in the cart than it took the glaciers to make the great lakes! You'll encounter one of the same ones later on, her cart parked diagonally in the middle of the aisle as she peruses every ingredient in every can of soup. She's the one who will glare at you witheringly when you say, "Excuse me, ma'am." She's the one you want to follow to her car so you can slash her tires. You've met her sister, too. And her brother, and her mom. Her 3 second-cousins, each removed one, two, or three times. Hell, probably even her foster step uncle-in-law! They're the ones having a family reunion in the main aisle, the whole group clustered together like a blood clot threatening to give everyone else trying navigate the store a severe stroke. (Bet your left eye is twitching right now just thinking about them; mine is!) Of course, they break up eventually, but only to lumber through the store aimlessly, leaning on their empty carts, selecting nothing from the shelves, only causing grocery cart traffic jams worse than LA freeways at rush hour. Sometimes, I can dodge around one of these cretins (although not without the aforementioned glare, as if actually filling my cart with things to buy is heresy). Usually, however, it is only to run smack into a giant blue cart full of bins for 28 other people's online shopping loads. There's at least three of these rolling roadblocks in every aisle. I don't have to worry about glares, though; these marionette marketeers don't even look at me when I ask them if they can move their portable semi out of the way. They simply continue grabbing and slamming items into the bins, grab and slam, grab and slam. Finally, after spending at least half of my weekend at Walmart for one shopping trip to buy 2 liters of Pepsi, a block of Swiss cheese, and a jar of miniature sweet gherkins, I wend my way to the checkout where I wait in line for 20 minutes waiting for someone in front of me to rediscover how a barcode scanner works. But when I finally do make to the checkout, I wonder if I'm the one who has forgotten how it works: How can I owe $23.88 for this?! Frazzled, exhausted, and mere moments away from assault with a salty condiment, I limp out to the sizzling pan of a parking lot, fighting the glare of a sun I feel like I haven't seen in weeks to find my car. ten minutes of Defensive Driving 301, and I'm back on the main road among (relatively) saner drivers. And finally, finally, taking a breath of relief, I finally arrive back home, taking my groceries inside the cool quiet house. I put away my pickles, set the soda aside, slide the cheese in the crisper, and place the milk— FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU......!!!!! I forgot the milk, which was really the only reason I went to that madhouse in the first place!!! Oh well, ladies and gentlemen. I ain't going back; my blood pressure cannot handle it. I've got what I got, and it'll have to work. Who knows? Maybe in a future blog post, I'll tell you what Fruity Pebbles taste like in room-temperature Pepsi rather than some wonderful ice-cold milk. |
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