Bits

Writing is like anything else you need to practice and keep practicing the craft. I equate it to sawing off a log with a hand saw. You have to keep going until you run out of steam, rest for a bit then get back at it. I’ve been keeping a journal for many years. On occasion I would fill it with songs, poems and stories along the way.  Mostly I used it to work through stuff that was going on in my life.  Grab some coffee, my smokes, a spiral bound notebook and a pen then go to town. Sometimes I would fill 5 to 6 pages before I put the pen down. The time spent was really helpful at different points along my path.  Thinking on paper I suppose you could call it.

Now I am at a point in my life where things are good, very good and I find that I want to use those writing muscles in a different way.  I use little exercises to keep the creative juices flowing and I find myself collecting things and ideas here and there. I collect things like a phrase that becomes a thread in an old sweater that keeps unraveling as you pull it or an unusual name for a street or a person, a chance glimpse that brings to mind a connection to something old relating to something new. I find myself looking forward to being home to write after work at night. I do have some time in the morning so I take advantage of that too. Every little bit is another little bit and those bits come together bit by bit.  And so I continue to practice and collect bits. 

Zombies R Us

I’ve made a point of separating myself from the fascination with everything zombie that has exploded on the scene the past few years.  I just never got it. The Dawn of the Dead series of movies, and the original Night of the Living Dead were train wrecks you almost couldn’t stop watching. I actually went see World War Z at the theater with a group of friends I hadn’t seen in a while because I wanted to see them, not because I gave a shit about the movie.  I left there thinking that was the first zombie move ever with a little intelligence to it, though I have to admit Shaun of the Dead was a great parody and really funny.  I remember seeing a brief article on the web about a town that had made preparations for a zombie apocalypse. Seriously, what the fuck is in the water there.

I’ve been a science fiction fan for many years and thoroughly enjoyed post-apocalypse novels like Dhalgren, Earth Abides and The Stand. Those were great stories for me because they were really about the relationships between individuals thrown together in the aftermath of epic catastrophe and their reactions to the stress of carrying on in the face of impossible odds.  Seeing how everyone found their own way to cope and manage to find enough inner strength to keep going really made for great reading. The line between good guy and bad guy definitely blurs, stretching the limits of things which we’d never believe ourselves capable in the quest to survive.

 I’ve seen all manner of zombie apocalypse related things popping up and I always had a feeling there was an allegory in there somewhere.  The typical zombie scenario of zombie bites or scratches someone, they die then turn into a zombie and the only way to stop them is take out the head one way or another. The hook is we all have that wondrous potential to be zombies. Makes me wonder where does it come from?  Zombies are rampant consumers of brains and flesh, mindless dedication to just consuming brains and or flesh.  No thought involved just gimme what I want, somewhat like our consumer driven society.  We are lead around by our internal noses for everything from the latest phone, electronic device, or game on the market.  Then we are given the option to live vicariously through lives of the Kardashians, The Housewives of (insert city here), or the collection of sad people that want to air their dirty laundry on the Jerry Springer show.  Seriously are we so unhappy that we have to watch someone’s life that is more ridiculous then owning a pet rock to make us feel better about ourselves?  Granted everyone is just finding their own way, whether on TV or in the living room watching it, though where do we draw the line on some of this stuff. If there wasn’t a market for it, it wouldn’t sell would it?  That is a rather disquieting thought to me, then again what do I know I ‘m just a dude with a blog.

This post started off about something else before that rant jumped in the way. So I’ll have to say I’ve surprised myself and actually gotten hooked on watching the Walking Dead.  It has a lot of the elements of some of the great cacotopian[1] society stuff like that I mentioned above.  The lines are blurred constantly for what good people will do in a bad situation.  Despite the fact that the storyline hits some flat spots and seems to move at a snail’s pace it is rather thought provoking story telling.

So that’s my two cents, well probably closer to 1.2 cents with the current inflation, though I do want to add something that made me laugh the first time I heard it many years ago. Enjoy.

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[1] ^ Beaumont, Matthew. (2006). Cacotopianism, the Paris Commune, and England's Anti-Communist Imaginary, 1870-1900. ELH, 73(2): 465-487.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yasin1ULLvI

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[1] ^ Beaumont, Matthew. (2006). Cacotopianism, the Paris Commune, and England's Anti-Communist Imaginary, 1870-1900. ELH, 73(2): 465-487.

Going Home Again

The big news on the sports pages the past few weeks is where is Lebron James going to sign. Finally the speculation ends and James announces he is going to sign with Cleveland again. Over the next few weeks the news will be predictions on how well Cleveland will do this year and what other free agents they can grab. Thank you David Stern for creating streetball with refs that promotes the idea of individual players being bigger than the game. I pretty much stopped watching the NBA about the same time I quit playing myself. I will tune in occasionally, maybe at playoff time though that is about the extent of it.

                As infrequently as I watch it is obvious Lebron is a great player who has made the effort to expand and strengthen his game and also those around him. You're not going to be the leading scorer on a championship team without putting in the work. When The Decision hit the sports pages then TV a few years it was a real what the fuck kind of moment. Now it’s 4 years and a couple championships later and he’s going back to Cleveland. Maybe Thomas Wolfe was wrong, maybe you can go home again. Only time will tell.

Just Say No to That Guy

Training camps for all the NFL teams will be starting soon and with it the analysis and predictions for the coming season will take on new meaning for us armchair jocks. In other words, Fantasy Football is upon us again. When I first heard about fantasy leagues for the major sports I always looked sideways at them they just didn’t make much sense to me. I figured I watch the games or not so what would I get out of it? Well, I was wrong big time. A good friend who now happens to be my wife had been playing for a few years and convinced me to try. Needless to say I was hooked, hooked like a degenerate gambler at the roulette wheel. The fun isn't in winning week in and week out, though it is nice to make the playoffs at the end of the season. The fun, the rush of adrenaline comes from the buildup to the games each week. Making decisions on who to start, looking at your team’s matchups, your opponent’s matchups, who is on a bye, what teams might be looking ahead, and the big one - hoping that one player you're not sure of doesn't have a dud game. Insert the name of your "that guy" right here, one would think we’d know better after previous seasons. Nope, at some point when you need to pick someone up up to cover a bye week that happens to be available again and you pick them up and they tank like a gut shot duck. Then you spend your Sunday screaming at the Player Tracker again. This season we both swear that will not be anywhere near the roster. Maybe

                I stopped being a die-hard fan of any team a long time ago. After the strike seasons and all the free agent moves from team to team I realized I didn’t know any of these guys. I only knew what I saw or read that was spoon fed to me by the media. We all were witnesses to OJ’s 4 hour Ford commercial so we know perception can surely lie like hell. I started to keep track of favorite players and would watch their games if I could to see them play. That to me is the whole point of signing up to play. It adds something different to watching the games, because they sure do need it now. Sure scoring is up and also the number of TV timeouts, really to the point of ridiculous. I don't often sit and watch a whole game anymore, it's too big of a time sink for me to justify. If you've ever been to an NFL game you experienced those TV timeouts and they seem really odd in the flow of the game. All of a sudden the players just stop and mill around for a few minutes before they get back to playing. I’ve been to a half dozen games over the years and it is definitely not an experience to pass up if you have the chance to go. Just bring your wallet or leave it home if you want to eat, drive your car and have lights for the next month.

My wife and I have played in the same leagues and after 3 seasons of head to head games we are tied 2-2. Those games always make for an interesting Sunday of football because we are both rather competitive.  It would be great to play each other in the championship game at the end of the season. What would be worse finishing second or sleeping on a lumpy couch? Someday I’ll sure I’ll find out, hopefully after we get a better couch.

Arizona Rain

 I've lived in Arizona for 20 years and I still smile when I'm driven to go outside and watch or stand in the rain. It happens so infrequently that it becomes an event. It rained two nights ago and my wife and I went outside to watch the lightning and the rain. It had been over 100 days since the last rain of any consequence, at least at my house, that we also experienced another Arizona phenomena. If you've ever smelled a pile of dirty socks in a damp basement then you were right there. That first rain after a long dry spell STINKS! All the collected dust on everything from just normal everyday occurrences plus the additional piled on from our dust storms makes the air smell really bad when it gets wet. I am still waiting for that first hard rain that clears the air and makes a lake at the end of my driveway. That first big rain nearly begs for you to go stand outside in it or as we do,  just take a walk around the neighborhood in it mainly because it feels good. Coming from New England as I do I never thought I would miss the rain or want a break from almost continual sunshine.  Guess I was wrong.

The Right Fielder at Fullback

 

 

            World Cup fever is dying down a little here in the US of A since we lost recently in the World Cup.  I was able to watch few minutes of the USA/Belgium game at work during my lunch that day.  Much better than dodging the Communist News Network that is perpetually on in there.  I actually watched some of the other games on TV at home, which is rather unusual for me.  I’m pretty much a football only kind of a guy so that stretch from Super Bowl Sunday to Hall of Fame game leaves a big sports gap for me each summer.  I didn’t used to be that way though that’s a story for another day.

              The skills these soccer players have honed are so amazing to me it’s like watching art, unlike Kobe taking that previously illegal extra step before he dunks which isn’t.  I’ve never been a big soccer fan even though I did play very briefly way back when.  When World Cup soccer comes around it manages to tickle the memory banks of another time and place.

I spent the first month of 6^th grade attending school in a small schoolhouse in Townsend, Vermont.  How small?  There were 4 rooms with 96 students in grades 1-8. The town population at the time was less than a 1,000. You could dial just the last 4 numbers of a phone number to call up a friend down the street.  I am pretty sure the only fall sport was the soccer team for 6th-8th grade boys.  I was pretty good athletically at that time but soccer was definitely not in my wheelhouse. I think I was asked to play based on the touch football games we played in the town square park. I really had to work to convince the kids I played with that football didn’t have a goal like soccer, just a goal line. Sometimes one of the teachers or some of the other kids would watch us play after school. I must have made some kind of impression on somebody because they asked me to play for the school team. I had no idea what the hell I was doing.  I usually was stuck in the back row as fullback and spent most of the games talking to the other fullback and the goalie.  The school team had a couple of really good forwards who managed to keep the ball in the other teams end most of the game, which really helped our defense.  If you don’t have to make a play what can go wrong?  It was my first taste of being the Little Leaguer the coach has to play so he’s stuck in right field because the ball never goes there, thereby minimizing the potential for any damage he could do.  I was used to being picked early in pickup games and being in the thick of the action so this was something new to me.  My soccer career lasted 3 only games, we won 2 and tied 1 before I had to go back home.  My stat line was zeroes across the board, though most importantly no dumb plays to allow an easy goal.

When the month ended I didn’t want to go back home. I kicked and screamed and made a big stink but being 11 I didn’t have any say in the matter. I really can’t point to any specific thing that made that little town so hard to let go of.  I just felt really good being there. Most of the names and the faces have been lost to the passing of the years, though that brief sojourn in very small town New England and my equally brief soccer career will always have a warm special place in my heart.  It’s been quite a while since I went through there by car but the mental photographs I’ve kept I can pull out and peruse any time I chose.  They always manage to make me smile inside.

My Dogs Meow

      I have dogs that meow, really. Well they are actually cats but they act more like the dogs I've owned. Both of them are almost always under foot requesting attention of some kind. I’m accustomed to dogs being almost constantly underfoot requesting pets, pats and acknowledgement, but not cats. imagine having two short furry doting moms follow you around the house whenever you go after getting up to do something and all the while you're regaled with a steady stream of kitty conversation. They are the most talkative cats I have ever had. Both of them have a rather extensive vocabulary of questions, rebukes and demands for food and other requests, often in stereo.

      After several years of not having a dog or a cat I have a pair of litter-mate sister Tabbies. They were hard to tell apart when we first got them leading to numerous conversations that started with, “Which one just did that”? It took some time for us to be able to tell them apart at a glance.

                            Top - Water Cat Bottom - Grumpy Girl

        As kittens they lived in shelters and foster homes after being abandoned in an apartment. My wife’s importunity shattered my resistance to getting another cat. So of course we ended up with two! She convinced me we needed to rescue them from a return to that fate again. After hearing their story repeatedly I was putty in her hands. My wife worked with the couple that owned them and they needed to find the pair a new home because their new apartment didn’t allow pets, though they were hoping to keep them together if possible. I knew after hearing their story they would require some work and patience, though my reservations were met by assurances to the contrary. It hasn’t really been all the difficult other than being woken up by being walked on or to the sound of a toy being thrown around in the middle of the night.

The first couple of days we knew they would be skittish and just set out food and water and sat back and observed. They did the same to us. They each camped at opposite ends of the living room for a while before they decided to explore. Little by little they seemed to relax, though it took time before they stopped hopping away when we tried to pet them. And even now after 4 years they still dance away when if we move to fast whenever going in for the pets. Miss Grumpy Girl still does that, though it seems more like a game with her now and they have both figured out that getting pets is a good thing.

After we had them a few weeks I started to pick them up briefly. Of course they struggled to get way and I’d put them down immediately. I kept at it and left them to define the terms of that situation. Eventually they both got to a point where they now realize it’s a good thing and ask for it their own special way. They each demand their own one-on-one with each of us every day.

The shy one we dubbed Grumpy Cat, due to her perpetual scowl is surprisingly the one most likely to ask to cuddle. She also never really got rid of her kitten voice either. It's odd hearing such a soft voice coming from a cat her size. Water cat has a good sized handful of various intonations to let you know you need to pay attention here. 


They are different as night and day. Grumpy Girl seems to only prefer toys that are designed so we have play together. Water Cat will play with anything she finds and can amuse herself continuously it seems. Her tail can be a great source of amusement for her and us though her sister will watch while crouching and shoot her a disgusted look as if she's thinking, "nothing like furthering the dopey cat stereotype sis?" Water Cat will also race you to the bathroom and jump to the vanity expecting the faucet to be turned on a trickle for a drink. We finally had to put a stop to that when every time we headed in that direction she'd hustle to the vanity and scream for us to turn on the water. 

It has been great having them here and I expect them to be around for a good long while. They have added more laughter into a house that already had its fair share. They are the little door greeters when we each get home from work at night. They are masters at finding missing hair-ties, though I'm sure they are responsible for the missing part.. Time to go now my presence is being requested at the bathroom sink.

Funeral for a Friend

     My wife and I are fans of Rizzoli & Isles on TNT. One of the actors on the show recently committed suicide and the show wrote his death into the storyline by having him die in a car accident. The follow up show was about continuing on with life and the tribulations friends and family go through in the aftermath of such a sudden event. I thought the show did a good job within the time constraints it has in presenting a glimpse of how some of us react differently to the death of a friend or relative. The show  lead me to thinking about the way some funerals I attended affected me and how my attitude toward the entire idea changed.

     The first funeral I ever attended was my Dad’s four days after my 14^th birthday. Between the wake, the funeral and the people that came by our house I ran the gamut of weird handshakes over that first week. I don’t think I’ve been graced with as many dead fish handshakes combined in all the years since those few strange days. I really hated the whole experience, though we did have some lighter moments that week thanks to some of the folks that spent a lot of time there in the aftermath. Little did I know then how important those moments really were. I decided I would never go to another funeral until my own and was steadfast in that way of thinking until a close friend passed on almost 20 years later.

     I was asked to get up and say a few words at his memorial service and the request really surprised me. I spent time putting words down on paper figuring it would help me focus on the difficult task at hand. I still have the pages I wrote for that day and recently stopped to read them while digging through some old scribbles I've kept. I’ve kept them around for their significance because that experience changed me. It changed the way I looked at the strange rituals we humans have around death and presented me with a new attitude toward them going forward. I finally realized that day that funerals are not for the departed. What do they care what suit you put them in or how fancy the casket is because we can’t ask them anyway. The important part of the whole ritual I came to see is the bringing together in one place those people who had their lives touched by this man. I spent a good part of that day sharing stories about him with people I had never met previously that come to appreciate him as much as I did. It was truly a noetic experience realizing that this was what the ritual was about. Our common bound shared through one individual and the lives he touched by being who he was allowed all of use to come together to celebrate and remember our friend.  I'm sure others have come to a similar conclusion , so I guess I'm a little slow on the uptake apparently when it comes to some things. We can only understand what we can understand. 

     My views on many things have changed since then though I'm still not the first person in line when the time comes for a funeral. The one thing I do know now is a funeral really is an opportunity for those of us left to carry on a chance pool our spiritual resources so no one ever truly dies. So keep sharing stories of those who have moved on to keep their memory alive. I 'm going to.