The First.....

''I saw the young man over there with eggs Benedict, with hollandaise sauce. And I was going to suggest to you that you serve your eggs with hollandaise sauce in hubcaps. Because there's no plates like chrome for the hollandaise.''  

~ Mitt Romney

The first time I had hollandaise was a bit unfair to the wonderful world of sauces. I'm not saying this because I dislike a sauce (or condiment, for the laymen), quite the opposite in fact. It's just that the first time I ever experienced such a thing, it came prepared over stuffed lobster. Stuffed lobster is a damned hard thing to beat if you're a city boy from Charlotte, NC. I realize that up here in good ol' Maine, lobster is sold in some form or another everywhere from fine retail markets to roadside shacks, but it's not like that where I come from. And even if was? Well, hell...make it stuffed, please. You stuff a lobster by taking all of the meat out if, mixing said meat with various items, then placing it back in the shell over several cooked shrimp and then baking that mixture for a bit. Not the most illustrious of explanations, granted, but you'll live. After all is said and done, you pour a light drizzle of hollandaise over it and that's pretty much the culinary that of it. 

I've had hollandaise on a lot of things since then. In fact, I'm somewhat over the whole thing these days. What with Eggs Benedict, sauted asparagus, any kind of fish that you can think of...it's pretty commonplace for the world I live in. 

But this assignment got me thinking about it a bit. Was the hollandaise really all that good? Truth be told, I don't really remember. It could have been the fact that it was on the lobster that did it. At the time, I was nowhere near as versed in cuisine as i am now. Nor was I aware of how drastically my tastes would change with time an training. I wasn't exactly eating such things on a regular basis back then, so it may well have just been the ravings of an unrefined palate. 

Regardless of what may or may not have been, I don't think that I could have had a better experience with the stuff. The hype of my memory in no way replaces the fact that it's become something like mustard to me over the past ten years, but I chose to write this simply because the memory of it stood out among "first-time" memories that I have. 

It was the first, but not the best? Nah, it was the best, even if I wasn't the one making it. 

The Stuff.....

"I didn't play at collecting. No cigar anywhere was safe from me."
~ Edward G. Robinson

I would never say that the things that i own define me. Not in any shape, form or function. Though I am an avid collector and the things that I own can define periods of time, they do not mark any right of passage or great travel that my life has undertaken. That being said, you can certainly tell a few things about my tastes and the time I have spent on such trivial trinkets. 

As I look around the room, I see an evolution of interests. I wouldn't necessarily say that my tastes have evolved as much as I would say that things that I enjoy have evolved over the duration of my collecting them. My small but powerful little group of Transformers is a prime example. When I got my fist, it was 1984. Without researching, I believe that they were introduced around this time. As a child, I was amazed by these damned things. They were, at once, both a puzzle and a play thing, as you had to figure out how to make them robots, despite whatever form they came packaged as. Some were cars and trucks, other were jets, guns, even insects and mobile fortresses. They were amazing (and still are, if I'm to be honest). I do believe that my most recent was...right around the start of last semester. The evolution come into play at any given time in between those two periods. I have some that don't transform at all; they merely stand there as robots, fully poseable and immaculately detailed. On the other hand, I have quite a few that bear the stamp of the 1980's and are cheaply made children's play things. These are worth quite a bit of money, but I'd never get rid of them. They're all a part of this "missed childhood" thing that I have going on. 

My collection isn't merely limited to the physical figures, either. At one point, I had the entire run of the original television series on DVD. I have a tattoo of the Decepticon (the "bad guys") emblem on my right forearm.  At any given point, I've had computer wallpapers, icons, sound bites, key chains, ect. Hell, about 20 minutes ago, Erica ordered me a black t-shirt with a bunch of Sharkticons displayed around the bottom of it. 

I guess that in a sense, my love for this series has at least followed me every step of the way. I wouldn't go so far as to road map anything based on this enlightenment, but I am...obsessed. In some way, I think the entire world is probably obsessed, as well. They keep making movies, cartoons, figures, car decals. So it's not just me. 

Or is it?

Photo Album

"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." 

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

As I sit atop a giant cement crucifix, my best friend Brandon sulks about the cemetery with a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon in his hand. The box containing the other nine of the original twelve is resting against a headstone not far away.  Somewhere not far from us, is a sign that reads Funeral Route, and has an arrow pointing the way for the uninformed.  He's wearing a small grey t-shirt with a giant Decepticon logo on the front of it, and has grown a massive beard since the last time I physically laid eyes on him. As I look at these pictures, I realize how many of them were taken in or around this same spot. It is the oldest cemetery in Charlotte, NC and is in the middle of what is now a sprawling urban monstrosity. Oddly enough, you'd think that it was completely hidden away. From the photographs, you'd never believe that a quick walk would take you right into an upscale apartment community, or a Johnson and Whales University.  The darkness hides all but whatever is nearest the camera, and though they are not time-stamped, I realize that without a doubt, almost all of these were taken somewhere around 3 am. The cemetery is always the after-hours spot for us. After the bars close down, we would take our box of Pabst (smartly purchased hours before) and peruse the century old headstones, murky mausoleums and explore the gated crypts. I'm not really sure what we were after. Maybe it was that little bit of solitude in a city filled to the brim with concrete, lights and the cacophonous drone of automobiles. Maybe we were just exploring our own mortality. Perhaps the silence just reminded us to take that bit of time to remember those who came before us. Ours was an adventure into that part of town where people usually came to mourn, but for us....the joy of freedom. There's something to be said about being under the night sky in a place where there is little to no light. It is truly majestic. 

In some of these pictures, you can see a red brindled whippet running around. On some, she is perched atop one of the headstones. Sometimes, she's cuddled with one or the other of us, giving doggie-kisses. She would be the late Stella Blue, my one-time life companion, and one of the greatest regrets of my life. Unfortunately, I never got around to getting her fixed, which eventually turned her uterus into a poisoned weapon that would take her life. The pictures remind that life is a beautiful, if not fragile thing. When I look at her seeming smile, I am reminded that even though she is gone, I raised her in the best life an animal could have for nine years and that comforts me. 

I see the passing of time. Clearly, a lot of these pictures are several years apart, yet taken in about the same spots. Some are with and some are post-Stella. I guess I'm reminded of the fact that even though a lot of things change, a lot of them stay the same. Which is something that I greatly admire about life in general. I guess even though my rational mind tells me that there is no such thing as an irony to existence, that the perception of one is just as good. 

Ultimately, though, I see the promise of a future. I see empty spots where more pictures will go. New memories will mingle with the old ones, making a time-spanning epic, telling the story through my eyes and experiences. 

Theme Week Two

"For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself."
~ Winston Churchill

I don't really remember Jimmy Carter. He took office the year before I was born and held that office for the first three years of my life, but I have no recollection of him doing anything for the greater good, or for the detriment of man. I'm fairly sure that I could look him up; give the skinny on what he was all about, but that's not history living through me. That's just me spewing someone else's rhetoric. In fact, I don't really recall much of that point in my life at all, which may or may not be cause for alarm. 

I was born the year after Elvis Presley died. While it is certainly true that I was never a part of Elvis' life and he most assuredly was never part of mine, I can't help but look back on that. See, in my lifetime, there has never been an icon of such magnitude. I'm willing to bet that someone out there will challenge that statement with a clever reminder of the late (debatably great) Michael Jackson, but I don't think that he impacted the world in any way remotely close to the way that Elvis did. I say this without bias, as I am at once a "fan" of both, yet of neither at the same time. I just think that music is influential, iconic, and other than government, has the most significant impact on worldwide culture as a whole.

After Jimmy Carter came Ronald Reagan. There was just something that I never liked about the man. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that his term in office is directly responsible for the current crisis that our country faces the very day of this writing. But I'm not here to meander about politics. I was merely just pointing out an observation. As the fate of this writing would have it, at the same time the Reagan Administration was taking place, so was the rise to fame of Michael Jackson. So was something called Music Television. It changed things in a way that I was previously"not hip" to. With the introduction of MTV, came the loss of any free will that teenagers may have once possessed. As far as the eye could see, from the 80's right to Thursday, January 26th, 2012, that industry has been the business of making culture any way that it deems necessary (and, consequentially, making ludicrous mounds of capital in the process). 

In some form or another, I "slept" through all of this. My childhood was a nightmare of divorced parents (goodbye, 50's sensibilities) that absolutely hated one another and used me as some sort of instrument of mutual destruction. For my part, I mostly collected music of my own finding, destroyed vast amounts of Transformers and played my Nintendo. I don't recall a lot of those early years, either because I don't care to, or because they were all the same. Today, much like then, I find the American Dream boring and fruitless. The mediocrity of doing the same thing in a different sequence every day of my life is about as palatable to me as rotten meat. And let's face it; what other options are there for a child, really? My choices were go to school, come home, do homework, have some sort of free time and go to bed. All of these in a different order, give or take. The only thing that seemed to change at all over this time was my mother's alcoholism and my tastes in music, which ranged from classic R&B such as Ray Charles and Little Richard, to Motown hits such as The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, etc. Now came Prince and the Revolution and the like. I was an old man in a child's body. Although I didn't know it at the time, I was growing in reverse. 

It was about the time that George Bush showed up that I really started having issues with the future.I was blissfully unaware of global tensions during my days under the Red Flag of Reagan. I knew that something called The Cold War had ended, but I didn't know any solid or real thing about it. And why should I? Politics is no place for a child. In fact, politics is no place for anyone, so far as I can tell. With "Daddy" Bush in office, however, came the "war that would not end." There was no real getting past that one. It was on just about any channel that you could turn a television to.  Even good ol' MTV had something to say, and said it in a way that would somehow make you want to go out and spend money on shit you didn't want or need. I remember being uncomfortable a lot. This was my first big crisis, and I didn't know much about invasion at the time. Could it happen on American soil? A lot of people my age were scared and confused. The issue with "the commies" had us all under the impression that WAR meant Annihilation. Though it wasn't all bad, I suppose. I remember to this day the elation, the elevation and the extreme emotion that came with the toppling of the Berlin Wall. It was a stark contrast indeed to the "storm" in the desert, where the "Scud" was king. My Motown roots were being mowed down by this new thing called "Alternative" music. I was caught up in Nirvana and Alice in Chains, while sipping Smashing Pumpkins on the side. If I had only known more about Bob Dylan, I would have been well aware that "Times, they are a changin." Seems like MTV didn't need to get to me directly. It got to those around me, their television induced opinions somehow gaining a foothold in my own. I was inadvertently coming into a time which would represent the only era of my life in which my body and my mind would be the same age: my teenage years. 

In 1993, I would witness the first actual hero that I had ever been privy to. Looking back on it, the man may well have been a superhero, save for the fact that he had no otherworldly powers and no brightly lit and caped costume. On January 20th, 1993, Bill Clinton became the 42nd President of the United States. I could probably sit here for another hour and prattle on about how much good this guy did, but I won't. Suffice it to say that at any age, I would have been amazed. The only thing that stands out about the history of this country since I have been alive in it other than his presidency, is the darkness that has come over it since his departure. I can honestly say that I was glad to be around in a time when this country was flourishing. It was truly a wonderful thing to behold. Sure, we always have our issues (as a nation), but this was a relatively peaceful and prosperous time to be an American. And it was in that time that I was happy to be one. I wasn't told to, or forced by society into believing that our country was a good one. It was an era of pride because we were actually proud, not because some dipshit went on television amidst the ruins of New York, telling us that it was our "duty." That didn't happen until...
September 11th, 2001: A brutal day to be an American, for sure. A brutal day to be young in America, to say the least. I say this because at the time, I was 22 years old. I was bleakly aware that this would have no resolution for the foreseeable future. As if this disaster and the realizations that came with it weren't bad enough, people started marketing the disaster in the worst possible ways. In a country where freedoms are integral, our right to speak out against this war called revenge was simply banished. Flags and stamped coins, photographs, catchy tunes; all of these made paupers millions. The American Flag had become an outright symbol of the capitalism that it was hitherto just playfully painted as. I watched, awestruck, at the thousands of ribbons that started donning cars and shirts and stationary. We were sending people off to die by the thousands and people wanted me to support that decision, but I simply could not. I was also faced with the knowledge that while most countries had assumptions and jokes at the American expense, our completely bumbling and inept president outright confirmed our faults to the world. Here was out leader, unable to read a simple book. This was the man that "we, as a people, elected to lead." And the worst part about all of it was that everyone fell right into line. Everyone did exactly what they were told. While our nation plummeted into debt with stocks crashing left and right, while home ownership became some horrible burden and while the memory of the people who died in those buildings gave way to the new ones dying for oil and revenge, we became complacent. And this is exactly where we stayed. Somewhere in the course of that time, I traded in my suburban rock life for the urban expanses of gritty New York hip-hop. It wasn't a hard thing to see coming, if you know the minute details of my life (which I have kept out of this verbose landslide for a reason). As a writer, as a poet, it was just the next logical progression in my attempt to find and use my "voice." I traded my "Come As You Are" for a "And if you don't like it, then hey fuck you!" The irony, angst and determination just spilling off of me. I understood that facade of the peppermint suburban outfitter's dream was about as compelling as defecating thumbtacks. The kid from the broken home finally returned to his roots, as though it was all just a matter of blinking. Those hip-hop tones and scores are nothing more than mixed, mastered and well marketed rhythm and blues. Hell, most of it is made of samples or reconstructions of that exact music.
These days, I am a child in a man's body. That doesn't make me feel the slightest bit sorry about myself, or the position that I'm in. I never got to be one when I was one, and my teenage years were basically spent the same way almost all teenage years are spent. MTV has become something that resembles a snake eating it's own tail. I'm not even completely sure that they play music anymore. Michael Jackson and Ronald Reagan are both dead, like Elvis. And much like Elvis, they have stirred up a lot of debate, flat out argument, side taking and nostalgia. With my reversal complete, I have thrown in the political towel for a more direct approach as far as music. Aside from making my own, my tastes have found a sort of "solid ground," in that I have finally discovered something that not only speaks to me, but through me. Now the tones of Aesop Rock can be found floating throughout my inner and literal hallways. Talib Kweli taught me that "life is a beautiful struggle," and that I didn't need to be "Tougher than Leather," like RUN D.M.C. I no longer keep up with what my government is doing, because all it ever did was make me miserable. As of today, I cast my vote for what I want for dinner, and only get political about whether or not chicken or salmon tastes better in a teriyaki taco. For what it's worth though, I did finally find Bob Dylan. And as far as I'm concerned, "Don't think twice, it's alright," is almost perfect advice.     

Mag Light the 3rd: The Final Chapter

"I would normally never set out to write a trilogy."
~ David Brin

If there was something missing, he didn't see it. Not for a while, at any rate. Life was something to be experienced to the fullest, and because of this there was a large fraction of time that he spent simply living. The affairs of the daily routine were about all that mattered; putting one foot in front of the other, worrying less and less about whether or not there was actually anything greater taking place. After all, bills must be paid, food must be procured, clothes must go on  ones back. These are inescapable facts, and no one was more aware of this than he was. 

Life cannot continue in this fashion for too long for someone like him, though. At some point, he discovered that the only way to break free from the dismal gray that life had become was to pursue the things that he found most interesting; to explore beyond what had, until this point, been self-taught, or learned through some sort of social means. As this new reality became clearer to him, it seemed odd that this had taken so long. It seemed strange that this wasn't always the case, and so he spent a lot of time looking back on life as it was before. Alas, looking back to things as they once were is always a tricky thing to do. The mind doesn't always recall things as they happened, putting words and situations into an order that they may not have actually happened in. Luckily, he was beyond worrying about such things. 

This was the moment. This was the exact time and place that he needed to be in for the dice to roll and come up in that perfect set of numbers. This could not have happened at any other point in time, or in any other geographical location. In some way, he knew, it had all been leading up to this. 

So without hesitation or worry, completely free of regret or uncertainty, he opened the door and stepped through it....

Seven Up.

"Makin' people happy, that's my favorite game.
Lucky Seven is my natural name.
Slippin' and slidin' my whole life through,
Still I get everything done that I got to do."

~ Schoolhouse Rock

It's early. 

I like stating the obvious, because it helps me look back up and understand where I'm going  with all of this, plus it lets whatever readers there are understand what is taking place. I bring up the reader today, because I just got done reading the entirety of the combined class's writing. In an odd way, it made me wonder who all is reading what I write. It also made me realize that whenever given the chance to freely write about the day's events, almost everyone starts bitching. I'm going to take a (coughcoughclichecoughcough) stab in the dark, and assume that it's because people don't get enough bitching done in their day-to-day routine. I, however, do not have this issue, as I like to bitch and moan all the time. In fact, one might even go so far as to say that I have made it into something of an art form. Am I saying that I didn't take the time on these posts to bitch a little? Nope. But I got the distinct feeling  that aside from Erica and probably Kate, that a lot my fellow writers don't take that little bit of stand when it is needed. Which isn't always a bad thing. I think it is..wise..to pick your battles. Unfortunately for me, wise often times gets thrown under the bus. Also, please take a moment to realize that I am neither critiquing anyone's posts, nor throwing jibes, cheap shots or accusations in any way. I'm merely remarking on what seemed to be the case to me. My opinion, if you will. 

This marks day seven of my weekly journal. I wish that I could say that it has been a fun trip, but I most certainly can not. In doing all of this, it has remained in the back of my mind at all times that this is all just warm up bullshit, which makes it all seem a little pointless and time consuming. There's nothing worse for me than for the professor to tell me that I clearly don't need the practice (which both of my collegiate writing professors have done) and then proceed to have me do them anyway. I'm not pointing my bony finger at you, Mr. Goldfine. I'm just letting you know that I'm aware of your shenanigans. I'm ready for week two. I've already looked over the details of the assignment and am quite pleased to realize that you weren't joking when you told me that you were about ready to hand me not only my ass, but my words, slathered in mustard and crow, right back to me. A challenge is always a good thing, assuming that it doesn't end up killing you. Just think of all the bad "Goliath" anecdotes and references we could have all been spared had he just done what he was supposed to have done, and dropped David's little ass right there where he stood.   

On a more honestly personal note, I got up and made breakfast today. I have to say that out of all of the ways that I know how to cook an egg (and there are many), that none are quite as appealing to me as frying them up in bacon fat. I mean, if I'm going to be self-destructively hedonistic, then I might as well just be as blatantly pleased with myself as humanly possible. Then again, I wasn't the one eating the egg. 

Well journal, that's about it. You've served your usefulness and I thank you for that. However, seeing as you were but a ploy to break me from whatever writer's torpor I may have supposedly succumbed to, I'm afraid that I must now toss you into oblivion, never to be spoken of again. May a million worms rend the flesh from your bones, as your soul is cast into the pit. 

  

I think today is Day Six.

"Reckon the number of the beast
For it is a human number
Its number is six hundred and sixty six"
~ Iron Maiden (and possibly the book of Revelation)

It finally happened. I skipped around so many days that I have no idea whether or not I'd be done now. Oh sure; they're all numbered as posts, but some of them were not done on the day that they should have been, so now I'm sitting here thinking about the fact that I may or may not have been done with this little segment of the assignment yet. But none of that really matters, does it? I still have another day to do!

I went to class today. I'm not exactly sure why, either. I went all the way up there to only be in the room for 20 minutes. Seriously. I suppose that it wasn't all bad. I got to talk to my professor after class - we will call him Mr. Nameless- and I found Mr. Nameless to be completely different than he is when I have him for other things. He informed me that my ability for levity and the fact that I have an extremely extroverted personality will suit me well in his current course. In other words, he's given me Carte Blanche as far as talking during class and arousing the interests in the other students to do the same. As with any situation where I get to talk a lot, I think I'm going to find this to be a spot of fun. I feel the need to go on record (as I often do) and say that in lieu of what others may think, I don't actually enjoy the sound of my own voice. Indeed, I just like to share the ideas that are in my head and I may or may not have some sort of of hyperactivity disorder, which may or may not cause me speak at great length, without taking breath, or publishing run-on sentences to a writing instructor that will undoubtedly grade me poorly on such things. But I digress, yet again.

Tonight, there will be meatball subs. They seem to be a house favorite, though for the life of me I can't understand how this house eats so much ground beef and acidic tomato products. It might be that I'm getting old, or it might be that the culinary profession is wearing on me, or whatever...but I honestly just can't stand it. Sure it tastes good, but it makes my veins feel like they have frying oil pumping through them and anything with any form of acid in it (citric or otherwise), just makes me feel like I'm trying to digest glass, sand, liquid razors and a school of piranha. Aside from that jazz, I do like the way that said products smell as they cook. Italian food, real or faux, smells absolutely magnificent, should you get the combination of ingredients right. Regardless of my willingness to put up with it or not, this particular dish seems to make the entire household happy, so I consider it my duty to partake of it with them. After all, the whole reason I learned to better myself in the pursuit of culinary mastery was to make other people happy. Well....I have about 20 seconds left on the timer for the meatballs. That doesn't leave me a lot of time to come up with a particularly clever closing quip, so I will simply say that it has been a pleasure, and that I look forward to writing again in the morrow. 

The Belated Day Five.

"I never work just to work. It's some combination of laziness and self-respect."
~ Harold Ramis

Twas a bout of cold and laziness that fought me away from yesterday's posting. In some form or another, I honestly realize that skipping a day of this whole journal business only means having to work twice as hard the next day. I just don't care. With the last leg of my autobiography looming over my head, having to write two posts in one day (or simply just staying a day behind) just doesn't seem all that bad to me. Perhaps this is the issue with writing and I. I can honestly picture myself as some sort of professional wordslinger and literally doing nothing with my time until the very last day or two before my deadline. And y'know what? That thought doesn't hurt my sense of being in the slightest. Anyone that has ever worked with me in a kitchen will probably tell you that during the downtime before and after each rush, I'm a slow-moving, pain in the ass. These same people will tell you that when the tickets come flying in, that there is no one on this planet that they would rather have helping them. I seem to "work" well under pressure. I say that because whenever in any sort of professional environment, I can get the job done when it needs to be done. I'm one of those lame assholes that is only magnificent when the chips are down. At any other point in time, I'm practically useless. Imagine how bright my core will shine when zombies take over the planet. I'll be radiating awesomeness 24-7. 

Yesterday was my first day back to class since the break. Man, was it something of a let down. After all of this writing, thinking about writing, focusing on writing, reading writing and discussion of writing, I was not shocked at all to realize - as I sat there taking in the second semester of the finer points of the culinary arts - that I would much rather be writing. Now, I love me some food. I love reading about it, I love cooking it, I love being the smug, arrogant and knowledgeable jackass after the endless praise of people eating my food. I just don't love it as much as I love being free to create whatever it is that pops in my head, no matter the ingredients that are lying around. Here, I create the ingredients. I am restricted in no conceivable way. As far as the page is concerned, I am God and it is a lifeless void without me to breathe life into it. So that's what I was thinking about yesterday while I was supposed to be listening to Chef Boyardee as the course description was laid out before me. And here I was thinking that my days of daydreaming during class were long behind me. Actually, y'know what? I like writing classes because I'm supposed to daydream while I'm in class. So today, I actually said those words out loud. And I didn't get scoffed at. I looked at Erica and said, quite simply, "I think I'm going to finish out this culinary thing and then focus all of my attentions on writing." So suck it, culinary profession! You are too uptight and I hate your damned uniform. 

Other than that....Yesterday was just one of those days. Aside from pestering various agencies to give me money, not a whole went down. It's good to have a schedule again, but I have a feeling that things will just keep changing.

And that doesn't shock or bother me one bit. 

Day Four. Week One.

"Before I got in this business I was in the chicken business."
~ Chubby Checker

So...there they are. The little pile of bones, tendons and gristle that used to be some fairly delicious mango-habanero chicken wings. Looking at the plate, I find it completely understandable how someone could be put off by eating meat. What's left of them is just awful. They look as if some fairly large carnivorous beast with crooked teeth has mangled them in what can only be described as a feeding frenzy. The way the grease has pooled into a congealed blob, mingling with the remnants of the sauce isn't helping the cause to turn vegans back into omnivores, either. I especially like the way that the little cup of blue cheese dressing looks, though. It has greasy, sauce-colored fingerprints on it, little bits of flesh and sinew floating in it, and has taken on a delightful orange sheen. Damn. Just describing it is making me want to eat the remaining two wings, fullness straight to hell. Anyway...they were pretty damned good. I'm sure that somewhere before all that, I was going to launch some sort of anti-vegan-vegetarian propaganda or smear, but the happiness that I have garnered from writing about the plate of death has made all of that seem pointless. 

It's cold in here. Damned cold. I know that I've bitched and pissed and moaned about this before, but that was when we had heat in the house. As of...yesterday?...we seem to have run out of oil. I guess that didn't matter so much earlier today. We had a bit of running around to do and we we didn't, we were curled up under a blanket with the space heater on. I feel that this is as good of a time as any to admit how easy it is to lay around when your spouse is recovering from surgery. Aside from doing what needs to be done on a daily basis to keep the household running, I get to lay around all the time with her. I mean, she is basically bedridden after all, so why not join in the fun? But seriously. This cold bullshit needs to stop. At least in the house, for heaven's sake. I'm afraid that as a human being, my pampered white ass has become far too domesticated to not be able to control the temperature inside my domicile. It's almost as bad as being without running water, which we thankfully still have. And don't think that I haven't thought about transplanting our lazy asses into the warmth of the shower, either. 

Today has been a fairly pleasant day, otherwise. I spent a lot of my time today watching short films on Killer Whales. It taught me something very important about how life actually works. It taught me that Erica and I have completely differing views on Killer Whales. This is important to know, as I now realize that watching a group of swimming gangstas mob a Grey Whale calf and slowly drowning it to death before eating only it's head is something that I can absolutely cross off of any to-do-list that I may or may not have been secretly plotting. This is me becoming enlightened.

Well, them's the highlights. I could probably continue on in this fashion were my fingers not becoming stiff from the cold. But they are. And that, as they say, is that. I do believe that the kids need showers and have a serious bout of lazing around to accomplish. 

Until tomorrow.... 

Day Three. Week One.

"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." ~ Hamlet

Yesterday.....Oh, sweet yesterday. 

Yesterday was an odd day for me. I honestly don't know what was taking place for a lot of it. After getting literally no sleep, I look back on it with a mix pride and horror. I say that I look back on it with pride because at my age, it's amazing that I could literally get no sleep at all, yet go out into the world an pretend to be a completely functional citizen. On the other hand, I look at some of the things that I wrote yesterday and completely understand how writers like Philip K. Dick can willingly trash a novel because they hadn't finished it before whatever drugs they happened to be on had worn off. Don't get me wrong; some of it didn't turn out too far from what I had actually planned to say. But some of it was just shockingly and pointlessly abstract. I guess the important thing to take away from the experience is the fact that I can at least tell. 

I didn't really do a whole lot, yesterday. Aside from having to interact with some professionals at a ludicrous hour, most of my day was spent making sure that the others that reside in my house were taken care of, sleep or no sleep. After all, regardless of the hours that I sleep (or lack thereof), the children need to be fed and my spouse needs to be looked after. Errands need to be run and the ebb and flow must maintain some semblance of normality. After all, the facade that we build up for the way are lives run is actually more important than whatever may be honestly taking place...

The only other thing that I did yesterday that is of any import, is drift in and out of sleep. I found that for a lot of the day, I had no real concept of time or what was taking place in the bouts of it that I was missing out on. Come to think of it, if clicks of it were passing me by with nothing really out of the ordinary taking place, then I guess that it wasn't really passing me by at all. What made it interesting were the various different horror movies that were playing throughout the day. It seemed that every time I drifted back into the land of the mostly conscience, there were soldiers turning into dog-people, some sort of fraternity locking people into a haunted mansion full of deformed lunatics, or some sort of disgruntled citizen running around with a sharp object, punishing the populace for whatever reason. Call it Reason X. It certainly made for a surreal state of being, as I'm fairly sure that my semi-functional mind was absorbing all of this in some form or another, both affecting my resting and waking states. Indeed, it wasn't until about midnight that I was actually able to fully look back on the day for what it was, and even then I ended up going back to bed for about another seven hours. 

Oh, I'm forgetting the part about the French Toast. 

At about five-ish pm, I did manage to stay functioning long enough to do the dishes and make French Toast. Which is noteworthy because the colder the climate seems to become, the higher the temperature of the water from any given faucet in the house. I'm not sure if that's just a matter of perspective, or not. Meaning, I'm not sure if it just feels that way because my hands are cold, thus making the water seem akin to molten iron, or if the water is actually physically warmer. 

The French Toast was a hit, too. Admittedly, French Toast is always pointless to me if I don't have Challah to make it with (I'm not Jewish, by the way, I just like the bread). I suppose that "Texas Toast" is a wonderful substitute, but we had none of that lounging about either. 

For what it's worth, yesterday was interesting day, filled with unique sounds, thoughts and textures. I suppose that on some level I'm glad that I did a bit of cooking and writing, though the learning experience wasn't worth the sluggish way that I went about each task, nor was being hazy against my will really much help in anything or any task that was set before me. I think that in the future, when I decide to do my writing without my wits about me, I'll just use bourbon like a writer is supposed to. 

I know you are, but what am I?

"The way to do is to be."

~Lao Tzu

What do you hear?

There's some sort of ruckus taking place outside. I could go investigate, but the mystery of it is far more interesting than anything that could possibly be taking place on Autumn Street. My stomach is growling, due to the fact that I haven't put anything in it this morning other than nicotine and caffeine. It's pissed. Severely and rightfully pissed. The kind of pissed that they claim "God" was when he decided that the mass populace need a good ol' smiting. Perhaps I should mosey on down to the kitchen for a hearty bowl of Frankenberry..

For once, Yorrick isn't making some sort of awful sound. Most of the time, he sounds as if he's about to expire. That reminds me- I need to use that turkey downstairs before it goes bad. 

There goes my stomach again. 

What do you see?

Don King is standing beside Superman and there's a giant skeleton of a seal bearing down on them while a Stormtrroper sits idly by. A manatee is sitting behind a microphone, and they're both lounging on top of a Ninja that has an electronic blue light shining out of the bottom of it's silver face. There are various articles of mail strewn about the room, which reminds me of a melted version of Marjory, the great trash heap from Fraggle Rock. All of this is contained within four red walls that are covered in madmen, sharks, zombies and tied together by a wooden floor that looks like you could probably fall through it, given the perfect timing. 

How did you get here?

I come and go as I please. My brain sends electrical impulses to the muscles in my legs, which glide me swiftly over almost any terrain. Occasionally, I slip and fall. 

Public transportation makes some people uncomfortable, but not me. I've come to realize that someone with headphones and the right music could probably take over the world, given enough time and quarters. Not that I use public transportation, mind you. I'm guilty of doing my own part to poison the atmosphere and promote the use of fossil fuels. I take killing the planet I reside on very seriously. 

But what's really happening?

In some form or another, I'm delaying the inevitable. As a smoker, I realize that each breath that I take is just one inhalation away from oblivion. I waste a lot of money and energy procuring something that benefits me in no conceivable way, yet it remains the central focus of almost anything that I do. 

Somewhere in this house, there's a sandwich with my name on it. It's probably lonely; wondering when I'm going to come along and give it's existence some sort of meaning. I plan to. I really do. I just haven't found a reason to stop my fingers from dancing across the smooth black of these keys just yet. 

Return of the Mag Light (Auto 2.0)

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
~Seth Grahame-Smith


You have to start somewhere. It's as simple as that, not to put too fine of a cliched point on things. So go ahead. Move your left foot. Now your right. See that? You're walking. Now I'm going to ask you to run. As soon as you get started, someone is going to pull the rug out from under you and laugh as you fall down. Relax. All of this is quite normal, I can assure you. 

Now stand up. 

Take a look around the room and try to focus on the light that sits on the table. That light will be an example of everything that you think you know about a given topic. In ten seconds, the light in the middle of the table will go out. 

Now focus on the darkness of the room. The darkness of the room will represent what is missing from your formal education. If you start to notice that you are being beaten about the face and neck, please curl into the fetal position and accept what is taking place. Beatings will begin in ten seconds. 

Now that you have been efficiently pulverized, please take a moment to register the taste of blood in your mouth. This sensation is meant to help you understand that with everything taking place around you, only that which comes from inside has any real value. 

Now stand up.

 You have to start somewhere. It's as simple as that, not to put too fine of a cliched point on things. So go ahead. Move your left foot. Now your right. See that? You're walking. Now I'm going to ask you to run. As soon as you get started, someone is going to pull the rug out from under you and laugh as you fall down. Relax. All of this is quite normal, I can assure you. 

   

Week One. Day Two.

"Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm."
~ Blaise Pascal

 I like to bitch a lot, and today is no different. Upon rousing my head from the sanctity of my pillow this morning (against my will and my better judgement), I looked over at my 42" computer monitor and was shocked to realize that the weather staring back at me said that it was -2 degrees outside. Negative. Two. Degrees. Let me tell you all a little something, okay? I'm from the South. Not as far south as Georgia or Florida, but I have to say that North Carolina does not even come close to reaching the ungodly and miserable temperature of negative two degrees. On top of all that, North Carolina does not have inches of ice under inches of snow for you to slip and fall and break a hip, or smash whatever is left of your after college brain right out of the paltry safe that is your skull. As I stated yesterday....dreaming of beachfront property. 

Anyway, being the naive and stupidly optimistic human being that I am (despite my rants and bitching), I did manage to get a fair amount of things done today. While going out for mayonnaise and mustard may not seem like a great thing, I can actually say that in this weather, anything is better than nothing. I also managed to pick up some eclairs, some pudding, milk, bread and this demonic truffle bomb, which I can only describe as taking a large bite out of a black hole, losing part of your soul in the process and knowing that you will return to this madness because as a human being you are prone to doing stupid and irrational things. I can't help but think that there is some sort of milk heaven out there somewhere, created just for sinners of the truffle bomb persuasion. But I digress. 

I still haven't managed to do shit around the house, though. I guess that doing the dishes is somewhat of an accomplishment, but that's overshadowed by the fact that I cooked dinner for four, thus creating another dismal pile out of what was once pristine. Truly, these are the best of times. Oh, in case you happened to be wondering: Dinner was a slightly underwhelming chicken and bacon Alfredo with frozen garlic bread. That's how we do things around here. 

In other news, I'm thinking about cutting my hair and doing something with this dead squirrel of a beard that laziness has allowed me to let permeate the flesh of my face. I'm not much of a beard person, so I'm not ashamed to admit that at my age, I have no idea how to properly maintain one. It seems that trimming it with clippers is just a waste of months of growth and looking foolish (which I take extreme pride in), but due to hands that constantly seem to shake from the ever present chill in the air, I'm afraid that I'll come out looking like something from a Roger Corman film should I decide to take a set of scissors to it. Indeed, the little things are my burden in life. 

In yet another breathtaking and newsworthy event, Erica is doing much better. After yesterday's events, she's functioning enough to give me that "you bastard" look and able bodied enough to try to shove me down the stairs. Life just isn't worth living if death isn't lurking around every corner and I'm about 90% positive that at any moment a magazine might collide with the back of my head. In all seriousness though, she's recovering faster than I could have hoped for. Among being one of the most interesting people that I know, she has a majestic fortitude to her. It is both awesome and destructive. Truly a blessing and a curse...so to speak. 

I'm afraid that's about all I have in me for the day. I was hoping to get cracking on that 2nd person part of the autobiography, but I'm afraid that the only thing I'll be cracking into this evening are a few relaxation beers and some R & R. I don't like the cold, but I like having to function in it even less. 

Mag Light Masterpiece (Autobiography)

"It was Saturday night in America, and I felt like a native son." 

~Hunter S. Thompson

I have always loved the written word. As far back as I can recall, I loved to read. I cannot explain in words (which is an odd thing for a writer to say) how much enjoyment I have received, and how much I truly care, about the written word. As a matter of fact, the only reason that I don't pursue it as a career is because I'm a goddamned coward. 

I guess that my first experiences with writing came at an early stage in the middle school "development cycle." I understood words and how they fit together better than most of my peers. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that all of my best times in any of my schooling years were the times when I was doing some sort of writing or literature class. I loved reading the books that were mechanically handed out to me by Mr. and Ms. Whoever, and the fact that I had to write papers that not only explained that I was fully and cognitively aware of what I had just ingested, but also damned near blew whatever poor bastard that was teaching the class away. It was like my own personal middle finger to the rest of my teachers in whose classes I was miserably failing, either due to lack of interest, or whatever happened to be going on in the nightmare of my life at the time. Not only were these things important to me, but on some level reading and writing were not only a means of escape, but they were a way to completely express myself. I was at once free of all inhibitions, yet completely escaping the madness of the yahoos around me. 

As we take a trip forward in the Way Back Machine, you'll notice that I have brought us across the days of youth (which was ripe with ideas, fantasies and poorly conceived short stories), and landed us right in the middle of bad poetry Hell. I'm sure that if Dante had still been a functioning member of our planet, he would have edited his great work to include one last circle of the Inferno: my teenage poetry. This was the worst kind of slop that you can feed swine and have it survive. I'm not exactly sure what made this acceptable to me at the time. Perhaps it got me somewhere, but I don't recall it all at this point. I just remember that it was a dark time. A time when the page all but pulled back from my approaching pen in horror and disgust. Oddly enough, this was probably the most important thing to ever happen to my writing. Through all the bourgeois and bullshit, I actually found out (though it took me quite a bit of time) that I loved to write poetry. I guess if I'm to be honest, I could basically just write whatever collection of sentence fragments and lopsided ideas that I wanted to parade to people of that (the poetic) kind, and they would always find some deep and intrinsic meaning in it, even I was just completely wasting time. I was a goddamned folk hero to these people and it was quite a thrilling sensation. Through this walkway of smoke and mirrors, I finally found a group of people who were actually good at doing this sort of thing. The poetry, I mean. I should probably take a second here to explain that I was actually making rounds in my home town, reading this awful jazz to people and even doing open mics, slams and whatnot. Through these individuals, I gained a bit of knowledge on how to actually pulverize people with timing, alliteration, metaphor, clever subtext and specific writing style. It was then that I knew....I just fucking knew, that I would be doing this for the rest of my life. And not much has changed.

To be honest, if it weren't for taking ENG 101 because I had to, I probably wouldn't be here. Denise Wilson basically talked me into taking this course because I had such a great time with writing again after such a break from it. Well, not really a break. I write. Often. I still write poetry from time to time, though it has all seemed to take on this "Me vs. Whatever Is Out There" tone to it. I'm an active maker of music and writer of lyrics, as well. It's something else that the gentlemen poets of North Carolina got me into. So there is plenty of practice going on. I guess I just hadn't written anything about anything in quite some time. While I fully appreciate the artistic side of writing, I feel that there is much more that goes into writing something that is meant to be delivered on a deadline and with a content specific theme to it. You really have to understand what you're trying to convey and form it into a manner that is understandable by anyone who happens to pick it up. That being said, as of today I am taking another step into the growth of one of my favorite ways to spend time. I can only hope that my level of skill and my ability to function within said parameters are the better for it. 

I fail at punctuation, my grammar is absolutely unforgivable and I don't have an objective bone in my typing fingers, but this is the time when I feel the most alive. I actually lie to people and tell them that it's when I'm cooking (don't tell that to my culinary instructors, though), because I just don't have it in me to pursue a career in writing. I don't know where to start, that is. Perhaps I'll write a cookbook. Or become one of those assbag food critics. Either way, I'm in this for the long haul. Professional, amateur, "artist." I am writer. 

Week One, Day One.

"All I can say with absolute certainty is that I have never before tried to kill it with a nuclear weapon." ~Mr. Quinlan

I should be working on music. This isn't really surprising, seeing as I should probably be doing a lot of things that I don't. I should clean the room. I should do the dishes. I should buy a better car. Instead, I find myself reading and wasting a lot of time playing video games. It's like being the Peter Pan of the 21st century, but instead of some historic bad ass like Captain Hook as my villain, all I get is procrastination. Which, all things considered, isn't all that bad. I think the fact that I haven't actually had to do anything in a while is what really bothers me about it. A routine is a wonderful thing, and since the end of the school year all I've had as a means of routine is lazing about on my ass and wishing that I could afford beachfront property. Don't get me wrong, though. Killing Orcs and shooting fire from my digital hands isn't all that bad, but whenever there's a break from the vast void of the magical pixel, I notice just how much things have been let go around here. 

Is that sarcasm I imagine in your way of response? Stop bitching and get up off your ass and clean, you say? You want me to open up Reason and make a new recording? I hear ya. And I just might, too. Well, get up off my ass. We all know and realize that I can't actually hear anything that you may be shouting at me from behind the comfort of your dark room and monitor glare. I guess what I'm getting at is that if I have to write a journal entry for the next week or so, I may as well take the time to do some of the other things that need doing around here. There is a lot to be said about habit (though I refuse to be lulled into  that debate). 

I guess that's it. I can't think of anything else that I wish to discuss in agonizing detail with you fine folks in the world, just yet. I do believe that it's a bit early on in the process to start gushing at you, so I'll do you the service of easing into it slowly. After all, you can't make wine overnight. Well, not good wine.