My Birthday

I turned 39 on Thursday. Not a bad day and not the best day.

So what did I do to celebrate?

I dug into the whiskey stash and had a couple of drinks.
The running joke at my house is that the whiskey only comes out for medicinal purposes.

On Thursday I dipped into the special stuff.
I have a bottle of Wild Turkey that is at least 20 years old. Aged 8 years at the distillery and I know I purchased the bottle in 1994. So, at least 20 years old and good.

I am saving this bottle for special occasions, like birthdays. My birthdays.
I have another bottle of whiskey that is at least as old as I am. The tax stamp on bottle indicated that it was bottled in 1967.
I save that for really special occasions.
Like the birth of my daughter.

So, what am I getting at here?

Not really.
I drink Wild Turkey on special days.
Not a lot.
Just a glass or two.

Depending on the stress level at the time I drink it one of 3 ways.
1) Straight, over ice. Gotta be damned near burned out to go this route anymore
2) With water, over ice. Again, lots of stress needed. Learned how to drink whiskey this way from my dad.
3) With 7 up. This is my normal route. Sweet, but with a kick. It keeps me going when I need the whiskey.

So what am I getting at? I don't know.

Whiskey is comfort. I don't use it often.
I think whiskey is really a man thing.
Something I share with my father in a strange way, except that he drinks Jack Daniels, and I can't stand the stuff.

I found a book

More later, but I found a book.

I found a new children's book that has made my week, if not the whole month.

I will share more later, but I am in a really good mood.
Tired.
But happy.

Christmas

I think I finally figured out why I dislike Christmas so much.

Despite having all the family near and all the good cheer, it is the loneliest part of the year .
When all the presents are opened and smiles all around, it finally sinks in that no one has a clue as to who I am.

Deep down inside.
I don't want much.
I just want people to know me.
They don't seem to pay attention though.

I don't know if they think they know me or if they just don't care.
Worst of all, I don't feel like I put on masks or play games with those closest to me.

Maybe I am silly for wanting someone to look at me and wink. Like they get me. Just for a moment

This is my official holiday post.

I am happy.

The hard part of the holidays is past for me.
I will enjoy the rest of the break.

It is good to be happy.

Of course I am able to screw things up and this good mood could change.

I still have Christmas day with my parents.
I plan on it going well.

Off to bed
Sweet dreams, I hope.

Sleep is not what it used to be for me.

Disolving

There are days like today when I feel like the real me is getting erased.
As I get older everyone expects something else from me and the more and more I have to give the more and more I feel like I am loosing myself.

Part of it is growing up and having responsibilities
Part of it is growing older
All of it sucks.

I don't want to be an immature adult
I don't want to a 40 year old child

I do want to be what is best about me.
Today I feel like everyone has nibbled off their own personal part of me and their isn't much of the old left.

I like the old
it is comfortable and fun
It is warm and cozy

It is dissappearing.

Dad again

I spent all night last night in the hospital with my dad.
His radiation and chemotherapy are taking a huge toll on him.

The best news is that he is 80 years old and strong as an ox. The oncologist told him he was an 80 year old in a 65 year old's body. The old guy is hanging tough.

Except that the treatment for his lung cancer are ripping him apart. Physically and mentally.

My mom has been a cancer surviver for 20+ years and it is tearing her up emotionally.

My older sister has written dad off already.
Who knows about younger sister.

I spent last night at the hospital with him. He was admitted for low blood pressure and an errratic heartbeat.
He was in good spirits and doing well, but I wasn't going to leave him in the hospital alone.

Both of us had a long, sleepless night.

Mom sat with him today and I visited tonight.
Dad is still in the hospital, for at least another night.
My niece is staying with him. I am exhuasted, but know that I have more long nights left.

Not sure what to say here.
I see him fighting for life. He has a good atittude and doesn't feel like his is at his end.
I also see the physical toll the treatment to save his life is taking on him.

Funniest part of my day?
Seeing my dad in a hospital bed, IV in his arm, heart monitor around his neck, and pissed off about the cardiologist.

"I should cut my heart out and shove it up his ass."

Talk about tough. The old guy is sick, scared, and beaten down, but he isn't going out without a fight. I hope I have half his dignity when I am his age.

Monday Blues

I have the rainy day monday blues for sure.
Nothing has snapped me out of my funk today.
Not fishing
Not playing with the child
Not playing with the dog

My mood is bad and my temper is short, which is worse.
My father in law broke my new fishing pole on accident.

Shit just seems to happen.
I want to be happy today

Maybe tomorrow

Happy Thoughts for a Saturday

After reading my recent posts I realize that I probably come off as being full of bile and anger, but that is really not the truth.

I am a happy person. I just a ton of stress boiling inside, hence a partial purpose of this blog.

On a good note, I am on my way to put up my parents' Christmas tree. This is a good thing, kind of. My parents are both hard to please and I rarely do anything the 'right way' (their way) so there is some stress involved, but it is a good thing.

It is the typical family give and take that I expect when we are all in a good mood. There will be fun, raised voices, cursing, and probably wine and laughter. Not bad for a saturday afternoon.

Once I return home, I plan on going back on the search for my old writing notebooks. I will post somthing here tonight that I wrote once upon a time. I promise.

I have more to share than bitching about the things in my life that make my eyes twitch.

My Sisters

I have two sisters.
One older and one younger.

It used to be my "Big" sister and my "Little" sister.
Hard to call a 36 year old "Little."

We have never gotten along. My older sister is about 10 years older than I am and apparently saw me as a rude interruption to her life. I can get that.
It took years, but now, as adults we seem to have worked out a lot of our issues. We keep our distance, speak to each other when needed (I walk her dog and feed her devil bird when she goes on trips) and generally get along.

I will not claim that we are all lovey dovey with each other, but at least we don't throw rocks or scream profanities. We are normal.

My younger sister and I have not spoken in nearly two years. She has never met my daughter and is generally a stubborn, spoiled little person.

One of the things that helped my older sister and I bond was the fact that my mother forbid us to speak poorly of the younger sister (YS) for the longest time. Criticize or question YS in any way led to angry tirades from mom. That was our life. We accepted it. YS grew to realize her power in the family and exploited it.

Eventually most of this worked itself out. As you get older, things change and everyone tends to get along.

Older sister (OS) and YS eventually seemed to put most of their issues aside and cooperate with each other. It was a wonderful time.

About two years ago YS called me up and had a bone to pick with me over some imaginary slight that had been perpetrated upon her. I listened and then told her that she was nuts and I didn't have to put up with her. This enraged her. Angry emails, angry phone calls, and then I simply refused to speak to her.

It was simple. YS could apologize or leave me the hell alone.
This led to great unpleasantness because my daughter had arrived, mom was excited to be a grandmother again, and YS was ruining the generally happy vibe of the family.

As usual, she got away with it.
Mom never reigned her in (sneaky idea why, but I won't do that here).

Our first holiday together was Thanksgiving.
YS arrived, ignored my wife, myself, and the little one, and hid mom's bedroom for most of the day.

At one point my mom tried to shanghi the baby and take her "to my room to play" and I nixed it.
YS doesn't get off that easy.
She owes me an apology.

I know this one sounds stiff necked, but I refuse to allow myself or my family to suffer abuse at the hands of a spoiled 36 year old. YS owes an apology to me.

What really makes my blood boil is the fact that about the same time YS got angry with me, she also cut my father off too. He doesn't like YS boyfriend. He tells her so.

So YS stops calling my father (she called daily on her way home from work) and won't come visit. This continues for over a year. Call my parents house and when dad answers, she hangs up. Typical spoiled YS tricks.

Then she finds out that dad is sick.
Now she is the loving daughter.
She treats him like a shit sandwhich for so long, and now all is forgiven.

Maybe I need to lighten up.
But it is hard.
She insulted my dad.
She insulted me.
She insulted my wife.

My mom's answer to it all (since even she couldn't change YS's mind) is that "my children are stubborn and you have to live your life and not worry about the silly things."

Gosh I hate being so negative here.
I need some happy things to come out.
I am a happy person.

I just feel like I have a ton of crap stuck inside and one my twelve labors is to clean it all out.

A Return to Music

Music has always been a powerful force. I think it is an art form that strikes a deep emotional chord with everyone at some point in their lives.

When I was a teenager, I think music was an outlet. It let me (and many others I am sure) feel that we were not alone in our angst.

Music had almost supernatural powers to heal or to comfort. It lifted my spirits and made even good days better.

As an adult I seem to have lost my affinity for music. I don't listen to the radio. My collection of CD's sits in the machine gathering dust. Very seldom do I even attempt to listen, despite having songs stuck in my head most of the time.

With the growth of the Ipod and other music players, I have seen music take a strong role in peoples' lives again. Not just the youth, but people my age. Suddenly they are carrying ALL of their personal music with them where ever they go. They trade, they share, and most of all, it seems as if many of my friends communicate via their music collections. Almost like we were teenagers again.

Then there is me.

I just haven't gotten back on the boat of music listening.
One of the promises that I have made to myself is to start listening more to the things that I have traditionally liked.

No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes

Once, a long time ago, The Who was (still is) my favorite band. Their music spoke to me, especially at at time when I just really starting to realize who I was and what I might wind up being.

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free

Behind Blue Eyes was my favorite song, period, for a long time. Even now the lyrics speak to me in a way that I understand, but I don't think I have ever let anyone else know about.

No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through

If you ever get a chance to listen to it, The Who's version, not an Eddie Vedder or Limp Bizkit version, help yourself. Dive right in and listen.

Grab yourself a candle lit room, a nice cold drink of the adult sort, and sit back and listen.

Heck the whole album Who's Next would make a great evening.

Dad

I saw my father for the first time since he started treatment for his lung cancer.
Going to see him was good for him and for me.

Growing up I didn't get along with my father. What teenage boy does?
As both of us have grown older, we still are uncomfortable around each other, but there is also alot of respect between us. I appreciate all that he is and all that he has done from me.

When I see him with my daughter I know that he enjoyed my childhood and was a much better father than I ever gave him credit for. It also delights me to no end to see him with her. They play and laugh together. Dad is 80 years old, but he will get down on the floor and roll around with his grand daugther. Or at least he would.

His radiation and chemo dosage was cut back to help manage his naseau so he is feeling much better. It was such a challenge for me to look at him and joke with him.

I am sad on the inside.
I do not want to loose my father.
At some point I know I will, but now is not the time for me.

I do not want to see this cancer beat him. There is too much to him that I want my daughter to know before he is gone.

To answer a question

How have you handled your own sadness or depression when it comes? What has helped you the most during troubled times?

Once upon a time I crawled into a bottle or at least spent a lot of time in bed with my dogs. Oh, the days of my youth.

Now it is much harder and I am not sure that I like how I have to handle things now.

If I show the least sign of saddness, depression, or anything resembling unhappiness at work, the world grinds to a shuddering halt. My boss won't come near, the other workers gossip and stare and before you know it, I have a room full of kind faces, pats on the back, and all sorts of smothering love. What bothers me about it is that it isn't for my benefit, it is for theirs. I do not want this to come off as arrogant, but for some reason I am the only indicator of emotional health at my workplace. If things are not allright with me, then things must not be all right for everyone else.

This is burden that I hate. It means that I have to bring a smile to work and walk with a spring in my step or else. I get real tired of putting on my work face no matter what is bothering me. I can't have a bad day at all.

At home it is much the same. I can not get the blahs. This is just as hard as being at work. I have to be mr happy for everyone in the family or something is seriously wrong. There are plenty of days where I want to sit in the closet and beat my head against the wall, but that would make folks uncomfortable. Get out of bed with a smile, come home with a smile, go to bed with a smile.

This leads to too many days where I feel all bottled up and ready to burst. I have to get it out or else.

This is why I like to spend so much time outdoors.
Alone.
Watching nature.

Welcome to my little garden.
I used to keep a journal.
Now I write.
Other places than this.
But now here for sure.

I don't want folks thinking that I am sad all the time or full of angry thoughts, but I need a place to spill and it is going to be here.
Spill my emotions.
Spill my thoughts.
Spill my happiness.

It is all coming out here good, bad, ugly, and in between.

Christmas

I have the best childhood memories of Christmas. Of all the things I do remember from my childhood, Christmas always seems to be the most vivid memories.

Perhaps most vivid were the stockings. Every year I knew what was going to be in mine and it was still exciting. Our stockings were the only things we were allowed to plunder before my parents got themselves out of bed.

There would always be an orange in the toe.
Next up would be the "Lifesavers Book" of Lifesavers. A collection of various lifesaver rolls disguised as a book.
Last and best were the books.
Two to three paperback books were always stuffed in the stocking.

I loved to read.
I still love to read.

There is nothing like curling up on the sofa in my pajamas after all the presents are opened and reading while mom prepares lunch/dinner.

The other thing I looked forward to on Christmas was the present from my aunt. It was always a gift certificate to the bookstore. It never changed in amount. I always new what was in the box. The best part was wandering through the bookstore for hours finding books I wanted and deciding on how best to maximize my gift certificate.

I would spend the rest of my Christmas break reading all day and all night till the books were gone. My parents told me not to rush through them, but I couldn't help it. It was a week long orgy of reading. I loved it.

When it was over, I looked forward to next Christmas.

Prayer

Religion probably isn't the way to start, but these ideas and thoughts have been buzzing around in my head for a long time so I figured this is as good of a jumping off point as any.

Rather than go into too much depth here, let me start things off my stating that I am religious, to a point. My exact views and feelings are sketchy at best, but over the last few years there are some kinks that I have ironed out for myself and today's post is one of the 'great discoveries' about myself.

One afternoon about five years ago I was sitting next to a boulder on the side of a mountain in California. It had been a long day and I still had at least 800 feet left to climb that day. I had to get to the top of a ridge, then down the other side before dark or I was going to be in a bad place at a bad time.

As I sat next to that boulder, mentally and physically exhausted, I said a long and rambling prayer. More of a one sided monologue with God now that I look back on it a bit. I told him how I didn't want to die on this mountain and how all I wanted was to get off of it safely with his help. I asked for the strength and determination to get to safety and I made no promises in return. I just wanted the get up and go to get my ass off that mountain side and live.

I made it. The rest of that day and that night were bad. 13,000 feet high, low on food, out of stove fuel, colder than I can ever remember being, and a storm was rolling in. Part of me wondered if God had handed me what I wanted, then given me a big backhand for laughs.

The next morning was much better time. The sun was out, the storm had missed me, and I knew I was just a few hours from the car and a warm shower. As I searched for the path down the far side of the mountain, a troupe of baby Ptarmigans ran between my feet as their mother chased them around. It was an awe inspiring moment. I was alive and happy for the first time in nearly 24 hours. As I made my way down the mountain, traveling on paths that should have terrified me (I am clumsy and hate narrow, dangerous routes) I was actually looking around and making a serious inner discovery. God hadn't gotten me off that mountain yesterday, I had.

Now this is not a knock on God. I am a firm believer, but I realized that He wasn't coming down onto that mountain to help me. What did come to me is that He had given me all that I needed to get off that mountain. Call it self determination, call it what ever you will, but on my way down the mountain that morning I realized that I came equipped with all the mental toughness, inner strength or what ever that I was ever going to need. That was the tricky part. I think that is one thing that a lot of people miss. God gave you the raw materials to do what you need to do, but most people piss it away or whine about it and turn to God to save their asses when they either shouldn't be in the situation or have the resources to get themselves out of it.

So where am I going with this? Last year during Lent my church (Good Protestant here) challenged its members not to pray for things during Lent, but to pray prayers of thanks to God. BINGO. A huge light went off. Prior to the mountain thing I had always been leery of praying and asking for things. It just didn't seem right. After the mountain I realized that God had already outfitted me with the ability to get myself to where I need to be, so asking for help all the time really felt weird. It was almost as if I was asking for help and His answer was “Use what you got silly human, it is better than you think.”

So where does this leave me and where am I going with this? My ideas about prayer and my relationship with God have changed a bit in the last few years. I no longer pray for things that I want for myself or my family. Instead, when I pray, I am thankful of what I have. I try and celebrate the good things that I have already been blessed with rather than run down a laundry list of things that I need.

Is there a moral here? Not really.

My father is probably dying of cancer right now and I so want to pray and beg for him to beat it. It is an urge stronger than any I have ever felt, but I don't. I am thankful for what my father has been to me. I pray and give thanks for every day that he lives at this point.

Still not sure what all this is about.

Fate

I went digging today to find my stash of old writings. Damnit if I could not find them. They are here, I know they are here. I will find them.

What that means is that I am going to have to jump into writing new things quicker than I wanted.
My original idea called for a mixture of old and new so I could share and experiment. Looks like that one is out the window.

So now I am going to share something, or at least tomorrow I will.

A little bit of me practicing writing, a little bit of me sharing what is inside.

Characters

One thing that I always enjoyed from the moment I started writing creatively was to do what I would later call "Character Studies."

I would create characters and introduce them through a short scenario. This allowed me to flesh out my characters and get a feel for who they were. Now I am not going to post one now, mainly because I haven't unearthed my writing from years ago yet and because I am not completely comfortable jumping back into "creative writing" just yet.

I want to find some old things. Post them here. Think outloud about them, and maybe take the big leap, write new things. So if you are looking ;) Please be patient and bear with me.

Reopening the can of worms that is my "writing" side is going to take one big opener and some time.

Post Script

A mighty whisper to Meander and her wonderful blog. It took me a while to see that she was doing just the thing that I needed to do. Her courage and strength have led me here, to share as much as I can.

Once upon a time

Once upon a time I wanted to be a writer. I wrote poems and short stories and even dreamed of a novel on occassion.

I choose a safer path through life. That is the best way to describe most of my decisions. I take the safer path because it is easier and exposes me to less danger.

Here is a place where I am going to explore my old writings and hopefully my new writings. This may be a task that is more than I can handle since I haven't put a pen to paper in a creative manner in over ten years (more like 15).

I can't promise that I will be verbose or prolific, but I have plenty of ideas and feelings to share.
I do write elsewhere in the world of blogs, but this is my savage garden. A place where everything is wild and primative. A place where ideas and emotions run free and I can hide amongst the dense foliage while throwing out the randomness that lurks within me.

Please enjoy