Day 221: The Places I Will Go

Fridays are the best day to let the brain run free, to let imagination take you places you might not be able or fit to go the rest of the week. I like Fridays for planning the escapes and escapades I plan to make someday. Hell, deep down I know most of the journeys I conjure up in my mind will never actually take place, but I have a hell of a lot of fun planning the whatifs. Life is all about the possibilities, people. 

Some day, for example, I want to attend The Gathering of The Juggalos. If for no other reason to just get funky and nasty and live among the Juggs, I would love it. I mean, what's not to love about leaving responsibility behind, entering the woods where the Juggalos congregate, and just going for it? Survive and imagine the stories you'd have to tell. Perish and at least you would have went out in a way that few can say they have or will. 

I also want to get myself to Amsterdam one day down the line. Sure, a guy can get freaky and let it all hang out there just as well as with the good Juggs of the world, but much like the Juggalos, I would also just love to observe the local scene. I'm that guy who takes a seat anywhere and everywhere and just watches the people walk by in fascination, always taking mental notes, always making best guesses about their histories, always wondering where they'll wind up. Amsterdam would be great for that. Grab a cup of a coffee and whatever else I desired and get caught up with the locals. 

Then I head over the Tokyo, Taiwan, and Tibet. In Tibet, I'd find a monastery and forgot about the world, myself, troubles, problems, quagmires, stress, tension, pain, pushing, pulling, and everything else that sucks for a good long time. Eventually, though, I'd get back in the game, and when I did I'd hike the Appalachian Trail. All of it. All at once. No breaks. 

Once that was done, I'd hop on a two-wheeled cruising vessel and crisscross the country as a snail's pace, stopping each and every time the urge struck. No regrets and no wish-I-would-haves. I'd follow that up with a summer road trip touring baseball parks across the country before heading to Australia for some surfing, after which I'd scale a few mountains in the Rockies, enter my first cage fight, and take a cruise along the West Coast before settling in for a month or so in some remote Alaskan region with the natives who adored me. 

Today, though, I'll resign myself to hole up in Lincoln, NE and do some more plotting. Someday, though. Someday. 

Day 220: Why I Believe In (A) God

I've been taking photos of sunsets and sunrises for longer than I can remember.  These photos are only the most recent. I've probably snapped 200 or 300 in the past few years on various cameras. 

I've been staring at the sun even longer (which would probably explain a lot of things about myself). I've spent a lot of time thinking about what it is exactly about the sun that especially turns me on and makes me stop and take notice. It doesn't matter where I am or who I'm with, the sun has a pull on me, especially in the morning and fading daylight hours. I know I'm not unique in this way. I've met plenty of people who feel drawn to the sun and believe it holds or provides some kind of power over or to them. For me, the sun is a spiritual gift. It gives me faith and makes me believe. 

I've tried to describe to many people over the years why the sun convinces me that there's something bigger than you and I that's at work in this world, why the sun convinces me that there is a god of some sort, if "god" is what you want to label this "something." Words never do my feeling justice, though, and they probably won't here, either. 

Simply put, a sunrise and sunset creates a very positive disturbance for me. The way the sun reflects off of water, the way it hits a window, the way it bounces off chrome,  the way it lights up a face or burns through someone's hair, the way it separates one minute from another is proof of perfection. 

The colors that the sun elicits in the clouds and in the sky shakes me to the core. It concentrates me. It focuses me. For me, those colors are the essence of beauty. They are the embodiment of tranquility and meaning. Those colors cause a reaction within, and it isn't a chemical reaction as some would want me to believe. It's a reaction to being. It's a reaction to feeling integrated with life, to being a tiny part of the bigger whole. Those colors are church. Devotion. Truth. Existence. Love. 

Those colors represent everything that is living and breathing and growing inside myself. Those colors are proof to me that something indescribable exists, and it is creating and drawing out something that resides inside me to make me aware and make me care. Make me conscious. Those colors are the gift from something that is desperately trying to deliver enlightenment to me.   

Like I said, words fail. But I believe. I'm not always entirely sure in what or what form it takes, but I know I believe. For me at least, photos like these are the evidence. 

Day 219: Welcome To High School

Last night, we attended incoming freshman orientation proceeding for my "little girl" who is entering her first year of high school. I say "little girl" because she's my baby and will always be my baby. Yet, the reality is, she's not a baby anymore, no matter how much I wish she  was. She's as nearly as tall as me now. She's every bit as intelligent and probably more so. She's witty and clever and thoughtful. She in tune and in touch. She's worldly in ways I couldn't have conceived of being at that age. The world she lives in demands kids her age be. In short, she's grown up. She's not the five-year-old kid who I told stories to at bedtime each night. She's not the little girl who stuck it to the boys by being just as good and better than them on the flag football field. She's not the little kid who learned to ride her bike with the help of her big sister holding her up and chasing after her down the sidewalk. She's the big sister now doing the teaching. 

In so many ways, I dread the first day of school. It means my kids are another year closer to being gone, out of the house, and on their own. In so many ways, I look forward to the first day of school because it means they are one year closer to becoming the adults I envisioned them as being as they were growing up. 

Every year, as another new school year starts, I still get the same nervous feeling in my stomach that I did when I was in school. Those little butterflies start flapping their wings furiously inside my stomach. The waves of anxiousness start tossing and turning with no ending in sight. The possibilities of the great unknown start to play out over and over in my head. The freedom of summer draws closer to an end, bringing with them responsibility. Those few years when one of my kids had to start a school year at a new school where they didn't know anyone only made was is already difficult even more so.  This is one of those years. 

For as many mixed feelings as I'm feeling about my "little girl" who is starting high school, I'm feeling just as many mixed emotions over my other "little girl" who is starting her last year of school. By December, she will have graduated and will be making her way into the "real world." I'm beyond proud, beyond excited, and beyond scared.  What will the real world that I know all so well hold for her? How well will the real world I deal with every day regard her? How will it treat her? Have I fully prepared her? Have I done all that I can? My feeling is that no parent can honestly say that they have done everything possible.There's too much that the "real world" does on a daily basis to interfere and keep that from happening. The "real world" is too demanding and manipulative to allow a parent be the type of parent he or she would like to be at all times. It just isn't possible. But I hope I've done enough given the constraints I was working within. 

All these emotions and feelings are only compounded by the fact that I'm not nearly done with all this. By this time next year, my baby baby, all four years old of her, will be starting her first year of school. Sweet Lord, am I prepared for 12 more years of the public school system? Am I ready at this age to tackle more choir performances and field trips and conferences and all the ups and downs that are sure to come? The answer is that I don't have a choice but to be. I must be ready. At least I've been well broken. At least I have many, many years of experience under my belt. 

Day 218: Freedom To Pop Off & Bite My Lip

On some issues I tend to pop off with little provocation. On others, I'm able to take a few minutes, mull all the issues over carefully, form my stance, and then proceed with a calculated, articulate argument. 

For whatever reason, all this talk about frickin' chicken sandwiches has me flustered and unable to do either. I want to pop off, but I can't bring myself to. I want to gather my thoughts, and in fact have attempted to do just that more times than I can count, only for them to become entangled soon after for any number of reasons. 

This dilemma tends to happen to me each an issue comes to the forefront in which a group of people introduce their First Amendment Rights into the equation. I can't think of anything that's cited more often and used with such carelessness and disregard. I can't think of anything people will pull out of their pocket and fire the trigger on, only to turn around and try choke off the words from coming out of the opposing  outh of someone who attempts to use their supposed same right to free speech. 

I know where I come out on the great Chick-Fil-A debate of our times, and anyone who knows me a little bit can probably figure that out without too much help. Deep down, I can't foresee my stance, however, from stopping me from conversing with those who oppose my view. It's not going to cause me to "unfriend" anyone or denounce their opinions or think any less of them as I've heard more than a few people do in recent days. I hope those who disagree with me would choose to work to come to common ground, but if not, so be it. It's not my job to make you like me, or for heaven's sake, agree with me. Our true right as Americans, at least in my opinion is to have the freedom to disagree. 

Where I will take more aggressive steps, however, is when bigotry, blatant or subversive, becomes the issue. I will take sides when the issue concerns inequity. I will stand firm when I believe a specific and targeted group of people are being singled out, whether it's done through the use of weak semantics that carry all kinds of connotations or through the instant use of a gun fired by a member of an extremist group out of hatred for a particular group of people, as happened over the weekend in Wisconsin. 

In the end, I'm fine if an owner of a business wants to expound on his personal beliefs in a public manner. It's my choice later not to buy what he's selling. He's a human being and entitled to live his life by the means he chooses. But please don't characterize his words as not having ill intent. Please don't say their not in some way not meant to exclude a certain group of people. Too many people in this country have become good and clever at expressing comments meant to target certain groups of people, whether for their religion, race, sexuality, etc., in a way that's politically correct and in a way that most people refuse to examine beyond the words' faith value. Words carry intent. Always. 

In my opinion, whatever that is worth, a business owner is allowed to think and say what he wants, and I believe further he can put his money that he's earned from that business where he wants, including the Family Research Council and other anti-gay organizations, if that's what he believes and sees fit. Just don't tell me that because he delivered his words in a manner that you might deem harmless and within ill intent that I don't have the right to examine his words, examine his past actions, and examine who he associates himself with to make up my own mind. I do have the right, and I will. 

Day 217: Being At Peace

Nothing beats the sense of being completely comfortable with one's self. I am right now. Not caring about caring what others think is uplifting.

Day 216: Ah, That's Better

I set today to do nothing but have fun, and for the vast majority of the day I did.

Made it to Adventureland? Check.

Ice cream? Check.

Popcorn? Check.

Icee? Check.

Roller coaster? Check?

Stomach ache? Check.

Better off than yesterday? Definitely.

Day 215: Off The Grid At Adventureland

Here's the pledge I'm making to myself this weekend: Big boy, get the hell off the grid and stay off, no matter what that entails.  

What does getting off the grid mean. It means forgetting about every last thing that is my life that doesn't something relate to having fun. I'm piling in my car, pointing toward the east, and once I arrive at Adventureland with my girls, get out and go mad-crazy wild. 

I plan to ride the roller coaster and every other ride I can physically get my old bones to possible and do it with a big, fat smile on my face. I plan to stuff my trap with as much grub as possible that's not in the least any bit good for me. I plan to waste copious amounts of money on playing games that I have no shot at winning. I plan to watch my little girl go crazy with giddiness on each and every ride she deserves to climb aboard. I plan to laugh it up with my older daughter as our stomachs drop out on the curves, spills, and 360s we'll expose ourselves to. I plan to coax my wife into engaging in harrowing adventures on the Teacups and live to tell about it. 


Maybe more importantly, I don't plan to devote a second to thinking about chicken sandwiches or Chick-Fil-A. I don't plan to spend even a brief moment contemplating gun control laws or the lack thereof. I don't plan to worry about the economy, gas prices, the lingering drought, the unemployment rate, Syria, bills, deadlines, replacing brakes, braces, loans, or anything else that can even be slightly construed as negative. I plan to revel in laughter. I plan to navigate sno cones. I plan to float down water rides. I plan to bask in the sun, come undone, make my family No. 1, and do it all with fun. I'm giving myself a break from political ideologies and the environment and health care and taxes and offshore shelters because truthfully, I need it. I need an escape from reality. I need a fantasy land full of adventure. 

I plan to go all Dragon and Inverter and Raging River on my sorry carcass. And I plan to do it all with an overflowing sense of happiness, because damn it me and my family deserve as much once in a while. No computers. No ear attached to cell phone. No cable TV. No earbuds blocking out the world. This weekend, I plan to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Wish me well. 

Day 214: Feel Free To Turn The Channel Anytime, Partner

I love America, but damn if we can't be a whiny bunch of people. Sweet lord, if I hear, read, or have to witness another person complaining about Olympic coverage I'm going stick a javelin in my eye. For the love of the high jump, people, you have too many choices to seek out badminton, track and field, basketball, tennis, boxing, gymnastics and every other conceivable type of coverage. You're problem is definitely not a lack of coverage. Online. Apps. Internet radio stations. Multiple NBC affiliates. Web sites. Newspapers. And on and on. Count your damn blesses, yo. 

As far as quality goes, short of being teleported onto the same damn basketball court that the Dream Team is thrashing Angola or some other unfortunate scrubs on, what more do you want? Back in the day, your damn parents and grandparents might have gotten one camera angle delivered in black and white and all herky and jerky, and they were astonished such quality was humanly possible. You're bitching about having to live with tape-delayed coverage delivered in pristine HD? Talk a walk around the block, oh entitled one, and get a grip. You live in the grandest, more technologically advanced period in history. Revel in it. Stop complaining about what it owes you. 

We Americans, meanwhile, live in the most privileged, overstuffed nation in the world. We expect too much because we have too much. I'm having trouble picturing scads of town's folks living in some tiny country that you and I can't pronounce all gathered around the lone  television set in a 50-mile radiance spewing out a constant stream of tweets to their legions of Twitter followers focused on what a piece of sh*t their country's equivalent of Bob Costas is. If you don't like what's being shown, here's an idea: Buy a ticket and fly over the pond and watch the damn events you want to in person or turn the TV to one of the other 450 stations on the dial and stop moaning. Your mammy and pappy had maybe three channels to "surf," ingrate. 

Personally, I don't like gymnastics. What do I do when it's on? Go out in the garden and pick weeds until it's over. I do like track and field, so I watch what is shown and am thankful for it. Seriously, the Olympics last two weeks every four years. It brings together not only athletes but citizens from a couple hundred countries all to one location where they intertwine peacefully and happily. They participate in an event that stretches back centuries. At what other time does this occur? Isn't that enough? Isn't that plenty to just be grateful for? Isn't the fact that you're sitting on a big fat couch with cool air pumping out vents in the floor with a big bad bag of chips on your lap and beer between your legs while sitting in front of a billboard-sized TV enough to look upward and say, "Whatever forces are at world, thank you for letting me born in this country, where I can watch an insane assortment of television programs at any time of the day or night, record them for later if I choose, including multiple stations' worth of Olympics action. Thank you, oh sweet forces, for I am truly blessed." 

Day 213: The Tattoo

For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by tattoos, the art of tattoos, and the general culture surrounding tattoos. My fascination runs the full gamut, covering everything from the moment of inception when someone even begins to contemplate getting a tattoo, on through the decision-making process of where to put it, to choosing the artist to do the honors, on through ultimately the moment when the vision that was  initially conceptualized becomes a reality etched on skin. In about all aspects of life, I'm all about the process, and I guess tattoos are no different. 

My fascination encompasses all forms of tattoos. Although I'm particularly drawn to the Samoan style of tattooing, I'm also enthralled by prison tats, "old school" work, military tattoos, tribal work, Japanese and Russian tattoos, and tattoos emanating from pretty much every other corner of the world. I'm also fascinated with how one becomes a tattoo artist, what their apprenticeship entailed, what training they undertook, how they learned about the different parts of the body and acquired knowledge about different types of skin and how different colors and shading combine to influence the outcome of a tattoo. I'm fascinated with the use of the body as a canvas for the artwork, and tattooing is most certainly art in my book. 

I'm not sure where or why my fascination was born. It wasn't like my parents walked around with a body full of ink. My dad has exactly one tattoo on his back, and he didn't get that until I was in high school. My uncle did own his own tattoo business for a period of time, but it wasn't as if I hung out on a stool for hours at a time watching him ply his trade. In fact, I never witnessed him practicing his craft even once. There wasn't a tattoo parlor in my hometown that I'm aware of that would have influenced me. I wasn't exposed to all that many people growing up who had tattoos, and the ones that did frankly weren't sporting work that was all that eye-catching or that wasn't fairly run-of-the-mill. And still somehow and for some reason this fascination grew. 

I've met a lot of people over the years who frown at tattoos and the people who possess them. I personally know people who view tattoos and those who wear them as being low-brow. I've met people who consider tattoos undignified or beneath them, people who pass judgement based on the number of tattoos on a man's arm. I'm not that person, but to each his own. My judgments about tattoos pretty much start and stop with what I believe to be the quality of a tattoo and where a tattoo is located on the body. Opinion on quality is something everyone forms, so I'm not unique there. Although I'm not a fan of "homemade" tattoos, self-inflicted tattoos, or tattoos that feature cartoon characters or other cliche images, that's all a matter of taste, and what I consider lacking quality others may not. As far as location goes, I may be a bit of a snob, but I'm not a fan of tattoos on the neck or face. Aesthetically, it doesn't appeal to me and I don't understand it, though I notice increasingly more people these days donning ink in those areas. 

All that said, my fascination of tattoos is primarily fueled on knowing what a tattoo means to the person who wears it. I crave to know the insight behind the tat. In the same way I want to know why a person buys a particular painting or is drawn to a particular style of music or what exactly she sees in the same photograph I'm viewing, I desire to know why a person selects a particular image to have permanently inked on his or her body. Meaning is big to me. Representation is key. Symbolism is something I gravitate to. I'm a big fan of significance, and that's very much true where tattoos are concerned. 

Take the tattoo on my left arm, for example (above). I've gotten a good amount of comments about it, but most of them have been something to the effect of "what is it?" or "what does it mean?" I like those questions. I like that people are curious. I like that they're curious enough to need to ask. When I explain what it means to them, I think it also helps them to learn a little bit more about myself (whether they're really interested in doing so or not). I know that's the case when I ask others about their ink. 

So, what does my tattoo mean? Good question. It's inspired by a painting done by an artist belonging to the Salish tribe, native people traditionally located along the Pacific Northwest coast. As legend has it, members of the tribe equated the sight of lightning in the sky to be the Thunderbird, a supernatural creature that some believed humans descended from. One legend states the Thunderbird battled a killer whale on behalf of the tribe's people in order to return to them the food supply (salmon) that a killer whale had cut off from the people. The Thunderbird's main weapon was the Lightning Snake, which the Thunderbird kept under its wings and which is shown in my tattoo emerging from the clouds. For me, the entire scene represents my willingness to strike and battle whatever enemy is at hand on behalf of my own people (my family and loved ones), as well as to provide for them what they need to survive. 

Overall, I love that tattoos and why people get them are unique to the individual. The experience is unique. The way the individual views the end result is unique. No matter the quality or placement even, the tattoo is special in one way or another. 

The tattoo above belongs to my friend Tim, who says his "love for the Sox runs deep."  I can attest to that, and this tattoo suites him well.

The tattoo above belongs to my longtime co-worker and friend Marty, who says, "i GOT ThIS IN folsoM tu MAke mee LooK tuffER." If you know Marty, that makes perfect sense. In reality, though, Jada is his daughter, and I have to say this is pretty bad ass. 

The tattoos above you'll find on the back of Shawn, a former co-worker and friend. From the left to right, the first symbol is "a personalized version of the alchemical symbol for the Perfect Red King (sulfur), the 'fiery male element' that represents potential energy." To Shawn, "it reminds me to seek the *potential* in the everyday, rather than just accepting what is there in front of me." The center (spiral) symbol is based on the Golden Ratio, which in art and mathematics is seen as "perfect," he says. "It reminds me to strive for perfection in everything I do." The tattoo on the far right, meanwhile, is a symbol from the cover of the *Hagakure*, a feudal Japanese book on living the way of the Samurai. "Specifically, it brings to mind this bit of the book: 'When one has made a decision to kill a person, even if it will be very difficult to succeed by advancing straight ahead, it will not do to think about going at it in a long roundabout way. The Way of the Samurai is one of immediacy, and it is best to dash in headlong." While Shawn by no means endorses killing anyone, he does say "when I set to a task, this reminds me to charge straight in, to keep hammering at it until the task is done." Shawn's ink is the very reason I love tattoos. 

The little girl above belongs to my former co-worker Joy, who says, "for my 22nd birthday, my husband gave me a gift certificate to get a tattoo. This is what I got." When Joy's husband was 18, she says, he and a friend got tattoos. Joy's husband, all 6' 2" of him, got a smiley face on his shoulder. "Tough, right?" she says. "Smiley faces quickly became 'his thing,' and when we started dating, they became mine. I can't tell you how many smiley face gifts we've gotten over the years! So, this tattoo is my girl smiley face, complete with eyelashes, a daisy in her 'hair,' and lips." The next time Joy gets ink, she wants it to be something that represents her kids.  

My friend Brian, who just happens to own many a black belt, sports the tattoo above on the entire left side of his back. The kanji translates to "karate." The actual work was done by a Japanese man. Brian has had the tattoo 18 of the 28 years he's trained in the martial arts. "You can imagine the significance," he says. He plans to expand on the tattoo soon and will probably add "the kanji for my school, Shorei Shobu Kan," which  itself means "school of courtesy and manners." On a personal note, I can attest to Brian's love of martial arts. Early on, he literally knocked me out with a roundhouse kick to my mug while we were sparring in his dorm room way back in the day. My face still hurts. 

I see the tattoo shown above pretty much every day. It belongs to my wife, who "got this with my best friend. It is a serotonin molecule. Serotonin is one of the chemicals responsible for making us happy. Plus it just looks cool," she says. Agreed. 

Probably the best example of what a tattoo can mean to the person wearing it that I came across while putting this post together related to Linda, who I grew up with and spent every year of elementary, junior high, and high school in the same class with. Her story is beyond touching and it oozes with significance. Linda has "two very unique matching tattoos, uncommon among some, yet an unwanted reality among others. My tattoos are my nipples," she says. "Simply put, they are what gives the skin grafting that was needed for the nipple reconstruction its color. 

Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer in the left and right breast in April 2009. "Early stage 1, thank God," she says. "To me my options were simple, remove it all whatever it takes, and if that means me getting a pair of 'new girls' out of the deal so be it. That was and is the ONLY perk because what I really cared about was my four babies." At the time she was diagnosed, Linda's four children were 17, 16, 12 and 8. What she cared most about was "not leaving this world before they had a chance to live and to watch them live and be a part of their lives."

After a double mastectomy in June 2009, Linda's last procedure four surgeries later was in November 2010. "To me seeing the color of my tattoos somehow makes my 'new girls' better," she says. "While they will never be the same as the 'old girls,' they put it all in perspective and in all honesty now complete me. However corny that may sound, they somehow made it alright. I wear my scars proudly and they are the icing on the cake," she says. 









Not everyone's tattoos carry as much significance as Linda's. Mine certainly don't. But I do believe everyone's ink is "their ink," no matter what it represents. 







If you're someone with tattoos and we should cross paths somewhere down the line, you'll now know why I'll probably be staring at your work so intently and why I'll probably ask why you got it, where you got it, who did it, what it makes you think of. . . . 

Day 212: Being In Love

I truly feel badly for anyone who has never been in love. I mean hopelessly, deeply, impossibly in love. So in love that you can’t think straight. So in love that your existence depends on the recognition of a significant other. So in love that you live and breathe solely to please that other. You devote all your energy and resources to making that other fulfilled and uplifted and beyond satisfied. I mean so in love that you willingly and readably make yourself completely and utterly vulnerable without any fear of any repercussions that could occur. I mean so in love that you walk lightly, think and speak freely, and engage in every possibility because you know that even if everything else in the world fails you, you still have the love of that person you hold in the highest regard, and that’s all that really matters to you anyway.

I know many people not only never experience such exultation, they never even get close. For whatever reason, they never even sniff love that’s offered up from another, love that holds no conditions or qualifications or limitations or barriers. Maybe it’s the fear of rejection that prevents one from making the leap into love. Maybe it’s simply that there’s no desire to even introduce love in one’s life.

Sadly, I know some people are pegged by others early on as being unworthy of love or unlovable or without merit to be loved, and even sadder, there are people who believe such characterizations and resign themselves to living solitary, lonely lives. It’s quite possible that living a life of never knowing the romantic love shared with another suits some people just fine. If you’ve ever been in love, though, you know what these people are missing.

The people I really feel for are those who so desperately want love, who so crave and yearn for it that they sell themselves out, and often to the lowest bidder. They make themselves too available. They go too far in their pursuit. In a perfect world, no one would be taken advantage of. No one would be stepped on and over and left to pick up whatever pieces might remain. But this is far from a perfect world.

Having been in love, I can’t think of a better gift that life can bestow than that of love. Meet the right person and no matter how brief the encounter is, being in love opens all kinds of doors that you can otherwise never peer into. Being in love makes possible all kind of emotions you’d otherwise never experience, including many that have no name or label. They don’t need names. They just affect. They just deal. They just develop and churn and extract and fill and mold and embrace and unite and conquer.

Having been in love, I can think of no greater pain and suffering that can come from something that can conversely be so full of potential and positivity. I can think of nothing that can harm and maim and devastate and destroy and crush and tear as deeply as love. I can think of nothing that can undo promise and expectations as quickly as love, that can rip holes in the fabric as severely as love. I can think of nothing that can drown one in such confusion and torment as remotely as a love gone bad can.

And yet, for every single negative aspect that love can induce, love is worth the risk, every time. 

Day 211: The Walk

Just about the greatest gift I've even given myself during any particular work day has been  the 3 O'clock Walk. It's pretty self-explanatory really. I try as much as possible to each day  get my arse up and away from my desk and take a walk. It's that simple. Doesn't wound like much, but some days it means the world to me. Some days, when my head is about to pop off from the pressure and stress that's pounding and pounding and pounding because I can't seem to understand this or that bit of logic, the 3 O'clock is my salvation. Some days, when the noise that is surrounding me keeps growing steadily more pronounced and omnipresent and incessant and is working on my last nerve, that walk is the cure to all those apparent realities. 

I'm a big fan of walks in general. I have been going back to my first reading of "Cancer Ward." I took a great many things away from that book, but high up on the list was not only the importance of a walk, but how to walk with intention. That was roughly 25 years ago, and I can honestly say there haven't been too many walks since down some sidewalk, roadway, or path, beaten or otherwise, in which I haven't thought about Oleg and the walks he took in "Cancer Ward" and how he took them. I've found that Oleg was correct: A man does think more clearly and with more intent when he walks with his hands clasped behind his back. His ears do open. His busy, complex thoughts do become less so. His preoccupations do tend to fade into the background, like dust in a steady rain. 

I'm a slow walker. I love walking with companions, and often prefer it to walking alone, but I've found that no matter who I'm walking with, I have trouble keeping up. My slow feet interfere. My problem is that I'm not in a particular hurry to get anywhere usually, so I fall behind. About the only people I don't have trouble matching pace with are small kids, and even then they are too quick for my feet quite often. But the fact that I tend to meander doesn't really bother me. I see and sense and feel more things the slower I go. I'm not burning a whole of calories I imagine, but I don't walk to burn calories. I walk so that I don't have to think about those kind of things, the things that make life complex and overly complicated. I don't walk to work out problems. I walk so that I can forget about them. I don't walk to escape. I walk so that I can see to new visions. I don't walk to accomplish anything. I just walk to walk. Sometimes, that simplicity is all that's required. It's all that I need. 

I'm convinced there have been days when I wouldn't have made it through without the 3 O'clock Walk. I would have melted down. I would have lost touch. Maybe that speaks to my focus and discipline, or lack thereof. Maybe the fact that I can recognize that I need to get away, if even for a few minutes, speaks more to the fact that I know my limitations and have found a way to work around them. I don't know. What I do know is that after the walk, I feel better. I feel refreshed. I feel I've stepped on better, more stable ground. Some days I wish I could just walk on forever.

Day 210: Goodbye Sunday

It's hard for to positive about Sunday nights. They've always felt vacant to me. Limited. Defeating. But I'm choosing tonight to think about what led me here. The golf. The parade. The playing with my daughter. The relaxing and extra sleep. Ah. That's better. Goodnight, Sunday.

Day 209: The Olympics

It's funny. At no other time would I watch a swimming event than the Olympics. At no other time would I watch diving or gymnastics or any number of other of sports than the Olympics. But not only that. At no other time would I watch any other sport with as much intensity and joy. There's something about watching a legitimate race with everything hanging in the balance that's beyond intriguing and fascinating. There's something about watching an event where there's so much pomp and circumstance that's captivating.

There's also an aspect about the Olympics that takes me back to my childhood and sitting in front of that tv in the living room and seeing what the world and athletes looked like on a huge scale made me feel large and small at the same time. The world was so much smaller then. So much more mysterious and full of promise. Perhaps more than anything the Olympics makes me feel a part of something bigger, knowing do many the world over are watching what I am.

Day 208: Lucinda Williams, You Complete Me

I don't want you anymore

cause you took my joy

i don't want you anymore

you took my joy

you took my joy

i want it back

you took my joy

i want it back 

- Lucinda Williams 

When I need a bit of a pick me up or kick in the ass, I listen to this song. Besides being impossibly funky (a nearly remarkable accomplishment considering it's only one chord), this song in an in-your-face declaration that I'm going to get what's mine, and if you don't like it, kiss my arse kindly, sir. Everyone should have such an anthem. Everyone should be able to decree such intent and purpose.

Me and Lucinda go way back. Longer than she knows. I meet Lucinda through Roseanne (Cash) and Shawn (Colvin). She also used to hang around Mary (Chapin Carpenter). I feel hard for Lucinda the first time I heard her belt out her songs. She wasn't famous yet. She was just starting out. Her voice wasn't even the best my ears had fell prey to, but god, she had a way with words, and if I'm a sucker for anything, it's a woman who knows her way around words. Lucinda had me wrapped around her finger from our first encounter.

I introduced Lucinda to everyone I knew, including my family. My kids fell for her about as hard as I did. Today, there's not a soul in my brood that hasn't been affected by Lucinda. Three of my kids have her music in their digital libraries, and the fourth would if she was old enough to know what a digital library is. I've danced with my wife while Lucinda played just a few feet away on one stage or another picking and singing. I've listened to Lucinda when I was happy and sad, angry and elated, dejected and rejected, grounded and high. But it's when I feel like I'm losing ground or losing my grip or slipping away that I find Lucinda most endearing. Those are the times when she speaks to me with the most feeling. Those are the times when Lucinda is able to ground me. Smell the dirt. See the sky. Feel the breeze. Sense my surroundings. Put my feet on the ground.

I have had love affairs with a lot of women--singers, that is. Rickie Lee (Jones), Ella (Fitzgerald), Nina (Simone), Bjork, Lena (Horne). None, though, make me swoon like Lucinda. Maybe it's because I can see Lucinda and I having a drink, having a conversation, taking a walk, drawing comparisons. Maybe it's because Lucinda is beyond vulnerable, and I dig people who are vulnerable. Maybe it's because she's honest and true. Maybe it's because she has been around the block, and I dig experience. Whatever it is, I'm in deep for Lucinda. I also owe her mightily. She's kept me company on many a night when I needed it..

Day 207: Beers & Cigarettes

A few weeks ago I traveled back to the town where I attended college. My daughter had a basketball tournament there, and I was excited to see the old sights again. It had been a long time. A long time. So much so that the entire experience seemed like an extended dream as I was living it. At every turn, I could vaguely remember the streets and houses and bars and buildings and sidewalks and more that I was traversing down and that had been part of my life for four and a half years, but still, everything was completely hazy and unfamiliar at the same time. 

Sure, driving past the Amigos that was still in the same spot as 20 or plus years ago conjured up the memory of Danny being banned from that fine establishment because of some drunken escapades, but I couldn't really remember any other events of that night. It seemed as if I couldn't remember many events from any other nights either. I couldn't remember the names of the bars I had spent so many hours in. I couldn't remember the names of the streets I had walked down. I couldn't remember the names of but more than a few professors that I had spent hour after hour learning from. I couldn't recall many of the names of the kids who lived in the same dorm as I did. The experience was a disconcerting one to say the least, and I felt badly because of it. 

But later on, as things soaked in and I was walking along some campus walkways, some things started to come back. I started to be able to picture myself all those years ago in some of the buildings. I could remember every so faintly how they looked and felt. I started to recognize some of the sights off campus, as well. Even the ones that weren't present any longer seemed to come back. The more I walked, the more I remembered. 

Like the night my roommate Doug said he was going to 7-11, said he would be right back, but didn't return until the next day for reasons he was eager to discuss or clear up. Or the mud volleyballs games we played in that pit west of campus. Or those long, long walks I made in the winter to west campus to that dreaded economics class I struggled so mightily in. I started to remember all the bad food I ate and stole from the PFM and all the Frisbee golf we played and all the meeting and sporting events I sat through so I could write about them in the student newspaper. 

More than anything, though, I started to remember the conversations I had deep into the night with friends, who like me, were just starting to find their way through life on their own. I started to remember those nights Connie, Doug, Steph, and I sat around that kitchen table smoking cheap cigarettes and drinking Buds. I started remembering those late nights my roommate Ray and I talked about any and everything after the parties we had and everyone else had left. Talking about anything was a talent that Ray was a master of and of which I miss greatly. I started t remember those many nights sitting alone in the library trying to study and the night Doug somehow got himself locked in and decided to use the time exploring. I started to remember the many mornings when I was walking out the door to head to class as Daryl was walking in the door after spending all night out. I started to remember the countless poker games. The countless drinking games. The countless pool and ping pong games. I started to remember the long, long walks we made to parties at some house located miles away in the dead of winter and never seemingly feeling cold. I remembered all those parties Ray, Carter, Jeff, and I had while living in that farmhouse and how much fun that year was. I remembered the semester I hosted a talk show for the campus TV station, the horrible sweaters I chose to wear, and how horrible I was in front of a camera. I started to remember how Suzanne could make me laugh until my sides hurt and how much I appreciated that. 

I used to really believe for years that I didn't enjoy my college years all that much. I guess it just took putting some distance between then and now to realize I was wrong. I grew up a lot during those years. I opened a lot of doors and got to know a lot of people. Some of those people still influence me in one way or another today. Some of those times still resonate within me. In many ways college seemed like a constant struggle that was made up of work, work, work, and more work. I realize now that wasn't really the case. I so fondly appreciate those many night sitting and drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. I miss those nights sitting across from a good friend in a bar booth, sharing a pack and scraping together enough change for another round. I miss those hours built on beer, cigs, and no discernible responsibilities. Beer and cigarettes will never appeal to me again the way they did then. 

Day 206: Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum, In A Dish

The other day, my older daughter was teaching my younger daughter this gem. Man, it was amazing how quickly those few words, "Bubble gum, bubble gum, in a dish," could conjure up such strong memories. Almost magically, I was transported back to my grade school playground choosing kick soccer teams. I was transported to the front yard of my neighbor's house picking up sides to play "war." I was right back to being eight or nine years old and sitting in a circle with my friends, all with our right foot in the middle, waiting to see who got the last piece of candy. 

Man, if only it were so easy to select this or that today using the same means. Hell, some days I'd even settle for grabbing a baseball bat and choosing an outcome by stacking one hand on top of another. There's no broad announcement that comes when the days of "Eenie, meenie, minnie, moe" are winding down to an end, but one day that's what happens. Poof! They're seemingly gone. But they're not really. They live in, in our kids, in our hearts, in our memories. Watching my little kid bumble her way through attempt after attempt of "bubble gum, bubble gum" gave me about as warm feeling as about as much hope and encouragement for her future as anything in recent memories. Watching my older daughter pass that down to her, as inconsequential as it might seem to some, was tremendous. 

Day 205: Too Many Fences

I mean that literally. There are too many fences in the world today, including my own. Despite keeping my dogs safely tucked away in my backyard, I've grown to very much dislike the concept of the fence. A fence separates. It blocks views. It divides and conquers. I look out the back windows and deck door of my house and all I see are fences. Brown ones. White ones. Chain-link ones. All there to keep something in and keep something out. 

Years ago, it wasn't that way. I could look out from my elevated deck and see across the neighborhood without a maze laying out before me created from intertwining and connected panels of wood and plastic. I could see the neighborhood boys playing baseball in the yards flowing one into the other, without any barriers separating them. I could see all the way down the block with no obstructions. But no more. There is no straight view. There is no vision that's unobstructed. 

When did we become a nation so concerned with secluding ourselves from each other? I don't know, but it definitely clears up a lot of the questions floating about concerning trust and privacy and so on. I'm all for privacy. I'm all for the protection a fence provides. But damn if all these fences don't create what has essentially amounted to a bunch of islands onto ourselves. Are our backyards really so valuable and prestine  that we need to keep everyone else out. What are we all doing behind these wooden walls that we can't let our neighbors peak in? It makes me wonder if we just assume the worst about those living among us and make them prove their worth over time. It makes me wonder if society has disintegrated to such an extent, we'll ever trust one another implicitly again. 

I guess America has always somewhat been about creating borders and barriers. We carved the land into territories and later states. We keep cattle in vs. roaming freely. We devised reservations for those we didn't want to look at any longer to reside on. We've sprung up gated communities and private properties and secluded edifices at about every turn. I suppose the proliferation of fences was only natural. Over years and years, we created the mindset that "what's mine is mine." We separate the rich from the poor. The have from the have-nots. We built fences out of stone, steel, concrete, and brick. We supplied them with electricity. We put guards at their entrances. 

Some days, I wish I had never put a fence up. It's ugly, and it's limiting. It's confining. I find it funny that we've gone to great lengths to build house after house in such close proximity, only to stick fences up in between them. Welcome to the neighborhood. 

Day 204: Why, Coward, Why?

Why does it seem when one group of people has a problem with another group, the first group never addresses their problem in a man-to-man, woman-to-woman, or face-to-face fashion? There always seems some kind of four-on-one beatdown involved. It always seems so-and-so was jumped from behind. It always seems innocent bystander never saw it coming. There always seems like some kind of weapon involved. There always seems some kind of cowardly instance of violence taking place by some kind of coward who hides his face, waits until night to carry out the deed, or just doesn’t take a step without the odds being heavily in his favor.

If you need an example of the kind of chickensh*t courage I’m talking about, just read this touching account from the Lincoln Journal-Star of a situation that happened a few days ago in my city. It’s a heartwarming telling a heartwarming hate crime in which three upstanding males bumrushed a woman’s home and proceeded to do all kinds of neighborly things to her, including carve “homophobic slurs into her skin” and attempting to “light her house on fire.” Beautiful. Outstanding. Yet another example of the human race fulfilling its massive potential and demonstrating its prowess at being the most intelligent creature on earth.

Seriously, sometimes I’m embarrassed to be human. Sometimes, I’m embarrassed to be a man. Sometimes, I’d embarrassed that these kind of stories don’t surprise me, even when they occur right in my backyard. Nothing really surprises me anymore. Nothing. And that’s not a fact I like to readily admit. It’s not a reality I really want to embrace but have been forced to. I’m embarrassed to have to prepare my children to fend for themselves one day in such a world.

I have no idea what motivates a man to even think thoughts such as the ones involved in this case, let alone actually carry them out. I have no idea how it is that more than one man can gather around in a room and actually have a conversation with another man about doing such things to someone else. When did it ever become acceptable to utter, “Hey Larry, you know what would be riot to do tonight?” “No, Ted, what?” “Whatcha say you and me get us a can of gasoline, sharpen up our pocket knives, and scare the sh*t out of that lezbo across the street?” “Hee, hee. I’m with you, Ted. You know what would be even better. We should wear masks so no one will know who we are. We can’t have people actually holding us responsible for our actions, can we?” “Oh, hell no, Larry. Can’t have people look us in the eye and see the piece of sh*t they’re dealing with directly.”

OK, so there are at least three dimwits running freely around in my city. Know what’s even scarier? They aren’t alone. There more than likely is a good chunk of people who deep down are congratulating them, others who aren’t bothered in the least by what they did, and others still who might be repulsed but would never publicly say as much. Kudos to those who don’t belong to any of these groups.

I’d like to believe and trust that there’s a hell waiting for such people who run in packs because they lack the honor and integrity to face their miserable existences alone. I’m not convinced, though. What I am sure of is that these vacant souls have never tasted anything in the way of true self-respect, self-pride, self-accomplishment. Small consolation, but sadly, it’s about all I can come up today. For me, I’ll continue to teach my children the exact opposite. I’ll teach them to act alone and come to the aid of others, to not attack, and certainly not to stand tall only when you’re in the company of likeminded others, especially when the others of fricking idiots.

Day 203: Being Sick

The past week, both of my daughter's were sick. So guess who is feeling the oncoming of being sick now? That's right, your's truly. So, what are you going to do. Fight it off the best I can, suck it up, and hope it goes by quickly. What sucks is being sick when you know there's a whole truckload of work ahead. That makes the outlook a little less bright, but again, what are you going to do? So, with that, I'll retire for the day and get myself primed for Monday.