all good things

All good things 

On vacation at Tybee island, GA, bout 3-4 hours drive southeast from Atlanta. Cool place. Water so warm, and the light on it. Bright, but not squintingly bright light making you wonder, Is this a dream? Eating your 1rst of two budgeted meals out on the first night. Got this giant plate of seafood. Yum for all, Sal jr. trying and failing, they all failing, to get the nuggets of sweet crab meat that only Daddy can provide. Getting labeled “good at this” when it never occurred to do anything other than get this food in my mouth. Walking on the beach, with the sunlight behind you, remembering months ago seeing the sun set over the water. Now you see things from the other side. Remembering your foot still lifed against the surface as you backflipped into the waves, the aliveness of the moment. Walking by the waves as the sun sets behind you and the pink sky, illuminating the ground that Sal jr. runs on, chasing birds, running on light under ribbons of color set motionless and yet in motion, as a minute walks by and the light changes. Finding sea shells and washing them in the ocean, so warm even when the sand has lost its heat. You remember, writing, after a smoke and a smoke with your babuh on the porch in the night air, you remember thinking what was it? what was it that lost its heat first? The sands heat was gone, but then the ocean was warm.

It was a good day. All worth remembering.

sorry

My Jess,

I'm sorry I wasn't there for you today.  What is more I'm sorry for all the times I haven't been there, like last night and the night before, when you were getting ready to go to Antonio's party.  I know I can 'help', and that when you ask for it and its not there that is painful.

The pain is not the point. 

Me not being there, unfortunately, is the point.  I am essentially trying to do whatever it is that i want to do.  What i need to do.  What i need to do is climb.  I do not need to climb so much.  What i need to do is work.  I need to work more.  What i need to do is make sure that the children are taken care of.  What i need to do is make sure that you are taken care of. 

There is no ordering on needs.  That is, no need is better than any other need, in particular there is no ordering that says what is the first need, the second need, the last need, and so on.  They are just all needs.

Here's my problems: Right now you feel you need me.  You need to figure out a lot of stuff without me.  Without me is not alone, although that is a HARD one.  I shouldn't put needs on other people, like you.  I really, really shouldn't put needs on other people that would destroy them.  I do not like this gamble.  At all.  The problem is that for whatever reason we don't seem to be able to be around each other right now, approximately 40% of the time.  The problem is that when we shouldn't be around each other we, inevitably, are.  I understand that this is not what you are mad at me about, or at least not solely.  These are my problems.

I promise i will do my best to meet all my needs except the one where I need you to do more without me.  All other needs I will do my best to achieve; each one given the consideration all needs deserve.

Like an apology, this one really comes off more as a lecture, more of an explanation than a conveyance of regret or admittance of wrongdoing.  And for that, at least, I really am truly sorry.


L,

S

a bit of insanity

my wife is mad at me. because "i don't get her".  How mad is it that one may feel justified at being angered with a reasonable person for not understanding their insanity?

Last night i watched the children.  We've been having some serious problems of a completely new nature recently, rather big problems in my book.  But, more on that later, if ever.  Last night I watched the children, and Jess went out with friends.  I was with them all, Doug Jessica and Jess, a bit last night, but retired to my apartment (I'm living with Kyle last few weeks and for several weeks to come i imagine).  I was tired of their company, the insanity of company and the insanity of the combination of moods and persons who were present at my house last night.  So, I went home.  I read a book.

Jess called.  Can I come over to watch the kids so she can go out?  Sure.  Why not. I'll read over there.  When I get there I say, into her eyes, "you don't have to go".  Rather than the answer I was expecting, she seemed not tired and rather forced into going, but eager, excited.  I had seen this behavior and thus experienced the uneasy feeling I got from it repeatedly several months ago, but I discounted it, ignoring the fact that I had overheard Jessica talking about 'getting someone on the phone' right before I had left earlier.  After a moment, outside I asked Jess, cautiously, who was it that she was going out with.

"Oh, my friends to a bar".  Avoidance, deflection.  "Jessica and Doug have already left to go".

Well, that suited me fine.  Later find out that Justin was there too.  Not that she was alone with him, which creates all sorts of other problems for me.  Why not mention it when she was leaving?  Obvious reason #1: I might say, "fuck that", and turn my tail around and go home.  Obvious reason #2: I most likely could not have went to bed peacefully a half hour later, laying in my bed hoping Jess would come home soon to kiss me goodnight.  Completely-non-obvious-bull-shit-excuse Jess gives: I didn't think to mention it?  It didn't seem relevant?  I forgot?  I wasn't thinking about Justin at the time you asked me?

Definition: If you are reaping rewards which would have otherwise been impossible by being misleading about information that would cause the rewards to be revoked or lessened, then you are taking advantage of someone.

Axiom: Sal does not like to be taken advantage of.

Corollary: Friends who take advantage of Sal are not Sal's friends.

So, I confront Jess this morning with my pain, anger.  I tell her the cause because she is either not understanding the cause or purposefully ignoring it (another thing Sal doesn't like very much, burying problems usually leads to problem trees).  Her response, essentially: "its not like it my fault for not telling you".  What is further her response: "I'm mad at you too".  Why are you mad at me? I ask.  "For not getting me".  How mad do you have to be to feel anger at a reasonable person for not understanding your insanity?  Must I be insane to not feel the displeasure of my wife?

The path we are on is uncharted, and there are no lights.  God help us.

No me MC

this talent show tonight should be o.k., but how o.k.? I'm a little worried. The plan is this:

as people come in i'm going to play harp, and when everybody is seated and we're ready to begin either me or bobby will announce the acts in the talent show. In between acts there will be a short 1-2 minute musical interlude on the piano, which should be enough time to switch acts but not too long that people get sick of it. i'm feeling a little crappy lately just because i'm freaking out that i can't "find" an adviser. of course, by "find" i mean that the two people i have talked to didn't jump in my lap to tell me that they would love love love for me to consider them as a possible adviser. I'm not really sure, but i think that if i don't find an adviser soon that i might go completely crazy. you know, the kind of crazy where you can't stop talking to yourself in the quiet of your mind when nothing else is happening (in bed before sleep, for example, or sitting between classes, or spacing out during class and thinking the same question over and over and over: "what am i going to do?!")

my experience with experiences is that the things that are meant to happen happen rather easily, without too much teeth pulling. granted, i haven't even really got out the forceps yet, but certainly the pain is not restricted to my teeth right now. i feel like an imprisoned tiger, yearning to get out and tear the ground with my 4 inch claws into the soft peat as i run run run in the sparkling daylight, under the trees. but the prison bars are the trees, and the fear of which tree to run under is the jailer. the indecision and unhappy consequences resulting from my lack of direction are causing me to stay up late lately, but rather than make me tired in the morning i just take naps in the late afternoon, usually around 7 or 8 pm for an hour. the result is some kind of late siesta where i actually feel pretty good during the day, if i could just stop asking myself the same question over and over and over....

that smell

i was driving a lot the last couple days. we had spring break, and i went to a cool waterpark where I got to surf on this big thing called a "flowrider", and i visited my old town and got to play video games, i worked for my dad, and i went to a few great restaurants. but that's for another time...

i was on my way to my dad's, after dropping of j. and m. at my mom's place. i was speeding, a little too fast. doing 68 in a 55 apparently. so when i saw the cop pulling into the turn around in front of me, i knew he was for me. he didn't leave much to the imagination since he put on his lights early enough before i passed him that there was not much of a chance to think anything else.

i always get tickets, and never warnings. j. is cute, so when she gets pulled over, you better believe that she gets a warning. as an aside, one time when she was going like 25 over the limit, she got pulled over and the cop was like "look, i'm really sorry but I just can't let you off with a warning". you know you got it good when the friggin cop is apologizing to YOU for having to give you a ticket!

anyway, the cop came up to the passenger window, so that he didn't get creamed by a passing car, i'd imagine. i rolled down the window, which is only possible since i was in my mom's car. maybe this is a good time to mention that my moms car is stinky with lingering cigar smoke from her husbands bad habit, stinky from hay and barn smells from my moms job working for $10/hr cleaning cow crap, and that the backseat was filled to the ceiling with junk. old cups, things she picked up at thrift stores, garage sales, gift shops, extra clothes, blankets, picture frames, boots, old recipts, old mail, ....

so the cop comes up to the window and i roll down the window... license and registration and proof of insurance ... can't find the shit in my moms car, man this sucks ... can you step out of the car ... that's weird ... come back here to my cruiser , here sit in the passenger seat ... oh shit, wtf man ... son, do you smoke?

"what, like cigarettes?"
"..."
"i smoke cigarettes, but I don't have any on me right now"
"the reason i ask is that i smell marijuana in your car"
"what? no way, there is no pot in the car sir."
"o.k., well, it smells as though you have been smoking marijuana."
"sir, there is no pot in the car, i have not been smoking pot in the car, there is nothing in the car sir"
"well, we'll see"

by this time i'm not exactly freaking out, but i'm not exactly not freaking out either. the good news is, there really is nothing in the car and i have nothing to worry about. you would think that this situation was humorous, maybe, or maybe not. it does get better, though...

"10-niner fourty-seven, radio dispatch is there any units in the area?"
(radio responds in chalie brown type squelches)
"i'm going to need a two-niner-one on 24 near route nine"
(10-4)

so i'm just sitting here, thinking how stupid this whole thing is, i'm considering where i was headed (to go work for my dad), and how i probably shouldn't speed, and things like this...

"you might as well just tell us where it is, because we are going to find it"
"sir, there is nothing in the car, i haven't been smoking, there is no pot in the car sir"
"when i walked up to the car I could smell marijuana,"
"sir, my mom's husband smokes cigars, maybe that is the smell that you are mistaking for pot"
"i know the difference between cigars and marijuana smoke"
"sir, there is no pot in the car, sir"

he goes back to writing my speeding ticket. a few minutes later a cop with his cruiser lights on pulls behind the cruiser we're in, the hwy cop comes to the window, and our captor asks him...

"go up to that car and tell me what you smell"

without responding, the hwy cop walks up to the passenger window, which is still open, he takes off his hat, sticks his head entirely in the window. he holds in there for a few seconds. when he comes out he has a slightly displeased, pensive look on his face. he doesn't move for a moment, deciding apparently what to do at this point, does he smell anything?

nope, can't decide, better go around to the driver's side for a better whiff. takes off his hat, puts his head in that side. comes out, walks to the window of the cruiser our hero currently occupies the front passenger seat and our hero's captor sits still writing out the ticket, not looking up, not even questioning the outcome of his request...

"somebody been doing a hit?"

i look up, the hwy's countenance is jovial, amused, friendly, not oppressive.

"no sir, there's nothing in that car", then, our captor,
"he says that he doesn't smoke anything at all and that there is nothing in the car"
"sir, i said i smoke cigarettes"
"..., now your changing your story, "
"no sir, " im a little mad, if you know me you might understand "i said that i smoke cigarettes, but that i don't have any right now"
"well," the hwy says "we're gonna find it, so you might as well just tell us where it is"
"sir, there is not any pot in the car sir, there is nothing ... in ... the ... car."

the hwy walks to the car, opens the passenger door and sticks his torso in the car. as i sit in the passenger seat of our captor's cruiser. i think about some moderately random stuff. i think about what the chances are that they actually do find something in the car. after all, i give it a 99.9% chance that my mom doesn't have anything illegal in the car, but... i think how mad i would be if she sent me out with a dirty car ... i think 'what should i be acting like right now', probably i should just act like i am, am i fidgeting ?

"you might as well just tell us where it is, we're going to find it"
"sir, there is nothing in the car"

well, theres all that crap in the backseat. earlier i was thinking about cleaning it out for my mom, but now i realize that these two guys are going to be looking through all of my moms crap if they want to search the backseat. i almost smile, but not quite. actually, this is kind of funny if you think about it, maybe if you don't know what a full backseat of junk (i mean FULL, like definately up to the back of the headrests) ...

here we go... i think to myself

the hwy has just finished searching the front seat, both sides, he walks around to the back door, opens it and whad do u kno, a pair of socks, a green plastic planter, a small gift of unknown origin fall out of the car as he opens the door. i'm having trouble thinking of anything but how funny this is, im tempted to make a joke to the cop sitting next to me, but of course that is unwise, i tell myself maybe i should have wagered the cop that if they didn't find anything then i shouldn't get the speeding ticket.

it doesn't take long for the cop to give up on the backseat.

he stands up, looks at our captor, still sitting in the drivers seat next to me, and he shakes his head in defeat. i won't be bothered about that anymore.

well, to wrap up, they let me go after we chatted for a moment,

"what is all that stuff in the backseat?"
"that's my moms stuff"
"what is it all?"
"its junk."
"does she have animals?"
"oh, you mean the straw and stuff in the trunk? she has a job that she takes care of some cows"
"well, somebody has been smoking, not you, but somebody"
"sir, i hate to keep disagreeing with you, but nobody smoked pot in that car, you are probably just smelling the cigars that my moms husband smokes...maybe the smell of the hay too"
"well, maybe her husband smokes the 'roll your own' cigars"
"sir, i really doubt that he smokes pot, i really don't think so"
"well, you are free to go, here's your ticket"

godammit.

everything we love goes away

so...

on top of the fact that VCR's are quickly going the way of the beta tape, now my local grocery store stopped selling melba snacks and stoned wheat thins. wtf. this behaviour is unacceptable and will NOT be tolerated. the good news is that i just bought $30 in crackers for about $6.

of course, i used the U-scan since as you will see it has some very nice advantages. like the friggin crackers were'nt scanning right since they were on some super discount shelf for 75% off since they are being discontinued (bastards!). so instead of costing like 60 cents, like it should have, it was going to cost 2.30 which is like a 70 cent discount. so, being the thrifty shopper that i am, i went up to the gamma minus at the u-scan register and was like, "this isn't ringing up right, its supposed to be 75% off". it turns out that by the end of my checkout this girl was leaving, so i think she just wanted to be home and wanted this annoying customer with way to many friggin boxes of crackers to go in a corner and die.

"well, how much are they supposed to be?" she says, and i'm like "well, they scan for 2.30, and they are 75% off, so 25 cents a dollar plus the last 7 cents makes 57 cents." "ok fine," "but I have two boxes of those" "how much were they?" "57 cents",

"ok fine, there"..."i have more boxes like that", "ok bring me one of each"...

so the good news is that i just got a bunch of crackers and now i just need some cheese...

are you kidding me?

so, by some strange series of events. im really, really happy right now. that isn't to say that I'm not normally happy, but just right now its mentionable. that is, the series of events that led to my being happy are kind of out of the ordinary, so I thought I would share them with you.

it all started when I was on my way back home today. I found out that the local video store by my house, which I go to when I am short on cash since blockbuster is friggin expensive, was having a sale to get rid of all their VHS tapes. ok fine, so you say. but I was driving fast, because they were selling them for 50 cents!

I was worried that when I got there, the shelves would be totally picked bare. boy! what a noob I was. I just sorted the 16 movies that I just got for the measly sum of $7.98, and I thought that I would give you in what I would call, order by favorite. I'll include some brief descriptions so that if you don't know one you can go rent it.

1. Being There- Peter Sellers and Shirly MacLaine in a f-cking hilarious movie about a strange character Chance, played by the outstanding Peter Sellers of course.

2. Wayne's World - 'nuff said

3. Highlander - booya! this classic from the 80's is a must have for sci-fi movie lovers

4. Raging Bull- Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, this is a great film, see "Directed by" and "starring", about a boxer in NYC.

5. The Truman Show - Jim Carrey circa Dumb and Dumber without the slapstick, but still funny and somewhat poignant.

6. Immortal Beloved - Starring Gary Oldman, like the Truman Show, a music movie in some sense (I always thought that the Truman Show had a really great score).

7. Goin' South- Jack Nicholas in a 1978 western/comedy with Mary Steenburgen, very interesting movie I think.

8. Stakeout - classic 80's comedy staring Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez.

9. Devils Advocate - NEO!

10. Highlander 2 -sean connery!

11. Mission Impossible

12. Mission Impossible 2

13. The Paper - it has some stars: michael keatonm, glenn close, marisa tomei, and I've never heard of it.

14. Vertigo - one of hitchcock's best.

15. Angkor:Cambodia Express - impulse buy...for 50 cents !!

so i guess there are 15. well, this got me to thinking...



i really do like VHS more than DVD, you know. all that crap about ... but now you can pick the chapters , and the clarity and sound is better... hooey. you never see a VHS skip, or be unreadable. and if it were you wouldn't have to turn off all the shit and start it back up and then try to find the same spot that the thing f-cked up at. and if you want to stop watching a dvd, you cant turn everything off and go away doing something else and then come back, turn it on, and expect it to start back up where you left it off. NO, that's too obviously way to convenient! so some f-cking as-hole comes and says, "boys, we need to make shit worse". jerkoff. do you remember friggin beta tapes? holy shit, now there was something. talk about pre-dating VHS. oh that reminds me. I asked the guy at the video store I was like, "wow man, i thought there wasn't going to be many movies left, so i guess nobody came by today to take advantage of all these , huh? " he goes "nah, i woulda bought some, but i dont have a VHS machine".

!!!!

A VHS MACHINE?? its called a VCR you friggin noob. holy crap...

walking in the woods in the dark

do you remember?

that time back in grade school? the class spent like a week in this old BIG house, in the total middle of nowhere, completely wood-huggy shit. at least we were'nt in the city at all, we made jokes that we couldn't breathe 'cause the air was "too clean".

they had a piano in that house, couldn't play the damn thing of course, too out of tune and you probably were'nt too good anyway, and too loud most of the time even through all that other stuff you wanted to play it and they wouldn't let you.

that one night, with the sparking life-savers (wintergreen? wasn't it?) and the 5 minute walk in the pitch black, in the middle of a path in the cold/dark woods, with no moon and no stars. silent. no sounds except the scratchy patter of your feet on the cold ground. what did you think about? did you think that it was kind of scary? or that you would probably think about this when you grew up? it was kind of disappointing, wasn't it. even though you did miss it when it was over, only because it really felt like you were actually DOING SOMETHING.

what was the preface? to get outside of all the social pressures and the family pressures and just to be alone with your thoughts, a little 7 year old walking alone in the woods. safe since where you were and the teachers just around the corner, with flashlights.

woods. alone in the woods. not the same, you really gotta bounce off of something alive, not trees. Trees are only alive in some f-cked up definition of the word. im not saying they don't get to keep on living and being happy trees, i want the trees to be happy, really i do. just don't tell me you feel sorry for me that it's not enough company for a little kid walking through the forest with the silent, cold woods to keep the minds eye from wandering.

man i wish i could remember what i must have been thinking...

ok, so first off

ok, so first off, let's just get to the bottom of everything. of course, i'm talking about REALITY. yeay, that's a good one tall, you gonna tell us about reality. well, i'm agonna try.

here's something i wrote down today, or something approximately what i wrote down, i gave the original to a friend and i'm still waiting to hear back from him.

here it goes:

the emotions we put into things are more real than the things themselves. without us, the thing is nothing more than the homogeneous stuff that all matter and energy is made from, uniformly bound to be that sameness that characterizes all of existence. but with us, it is a bottle, it is empty, it is love, it is friendship, it is music, it is light, it's a phone, a book, a lover, a river, a rock, a woods, a tree, a falling leaf, a feeling, happiness, love. so the thing that we say is empty is not empty the way that we say it is...it is more empty than we can say it is, the fullness that things have is only our perception of them. the empty beer bottle on the desk is empty because the only difference between it and the air surrounding it and inside it and the desk it's on and the beer that was in it but now isn't and everything else, is that I gave meaning to differentiate between the empty beer bottle and everything else...