Little Victories

Today was not a raging success, in fact, if I were forced to classify today, it would be placed firmly in the failure file, and I would quickly try to forget it as quickly  as this beer will allow me.  We are awful sometimes, and my job sometimes brings out the awful in a lot of people, usually that is not a problem as long as it isn't me that the awful is overflowing from. Today it was, and I am not exactly sure I am okay with that.

I have, when asked, likened my job to bailing the ocean out with a slotted spoon, and that is a very apt description. It quickly becomes incumbent upon me to get by on little victories.  I have to learn to get by on those little victories, because usually the defeats are quite heavy. Another problem is the world does not stop and let you enjoy those little victories. The world is, quite simply, out to destroy you, and it will. You have to know, understand, and eventually accept the fact that world is going to drive you to your knees, and eventually force you flat on you back. You are the Sonny Liston and the world is Muhammad Ali just like that photograph that made Ali famous. However, it is quite unlikely that the world is going to make you famous.

To the world you are just another person/thing that it will destroy. It will catch you when you are awful, weaken you to your knees, and destroy you. It is just that simple. The knowledge of this, and the eventual acceptance of this is something that we each have to do in our own way, and in our own time. Providing of course the world lets us.  There is no referee to stop the world from pounding you while it has you in the corner. There are no standing eight counts in the you vs the world title match. A match that you are ill prepared for, and in which the only question is in what round you will go down for the count.

The world has already dug your grave, and it is just a matter of time before it puts you in it like a newly minted mother placing their new born in their first cradle. The grave is, in many ways, the 'mother' world placing you in your last cradle. Confidence in yourself, and your pathetic, in comparison to the world, skill or talent is about the only weapon you have. You  can't really fear what the world is going to do to you, mainly because there is no point in being afraid. It's going to happen, it is going to be a surprise, and it is going to hurt, and there is the square root of fuck all you can do to stop it.  The world will catch up to you, and will exact a terrible revenge upon you when it does. It has done it to far greater people than you, Shakespeare, Gandhi, JFK, and all the heroes of our youth have been counted out by the world, there is no escape we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

That violence that some cave dweller who happens to share your genetic make up visited upon the world back when the world was young, is going to have to paid for, and you are going to be the one writing the check.  And write it you will, and you are the only who can write it for you. No one else, no matter how good of a friend, lover, or even enemy can write that final check for you. Make sure you have a good pen handy, because that check will be both the last thing, and the toughest thing you will ever have to author. It might be the only thing of any importance that you ever author, but it will be yours. Even though the world is dictating the terms, you are still, even in the smallest of ways, necessary to the cashing of that check. The world is playing a scene with you daily, and your last scene, though unimportant to the world, means everything to you. After all, it is your last scene there is no next act, next scene bit in the tragicomedy of your life. The last bill has come due, and you have to pay it.

The trick is to pay it with as much aplomb as you can muster, which, in the grand scheme of things, isn't going to be much. It never is, it wasn't for all those dead heroes, or all those dead villains, or all those dead nameless clowns that no one even bothers to grieve over anymore. It isn't much, but it is all that you have, and it has to be enough.  That last time you are awful, that last time the world drives you to your knees just before it knocks you flat on your back, and finished you off is, in many ways, the defining moment of your 'play', and while we all can't go out like Butch and Sundance in the movies, we can at least learn to get by on the little victories.


P.S. Sometimes inspiration, such as the inspiration for this post has multiple sources, and sometimes those sources can cause quite different reactions. This source had one meaning until I took the trouble to trace it back to its beginnings, and when I did I discovered a rather unhappy alternative source. It is that alternative source, and the heavy defeat that it inflicted upon me, that somehow, someway, in spite of my best efforts, continues to inflict upon me that this post, poor as it may be, is dedicated.

What a Sweet Revenge

 This post is the end game of the post I wrote October 24th, 2010. Read that post first, then come back to this one.

Cross sectioning my life, this post is a more in-depth explanation of a status update on my Facebook page that I posted earlier today. It had to do with revenge, a dish best served cold, as we all know from our Start Trek, or our Talleyrand. Meaning that revenge like fine wine, should be bottled, placed on a shelf, and allowed to mature. Mature, and grow some 'body' something that will make the revenge be noticed.  A quick, hot revenge is something that is for the school yard. A bully pushes you down, and you reply by kicking him in the junk. A simple, quick, revenge, but not something that we, as adults, need to practice.

No, our revenge must be calmly thought out, and planned with detail that would do Sherlock Holmes proud. The egregious insult that we suffered all those years ago, must not be forgotten, and most certainly must be addressed. Also, a bit of planning is in order, after all the offending party went to all the trouble to insult, hurt, or injury you, and as the Scots say, "None shall injury me with impunity."  I happen to know a couple of Scotsmen, and I hope they don't mind me 'borrowing' their national motto for my own nefarious purposes. Considering the use that I put to the motto, I doubt they will mind overmuch.

It was a long time coming, and I had to do several things of which I would not normally be proud of, but my revenge came to fruition today of all days. It was actually a bit of a surprise to me that today was the endgame of my plan, which I guess shows me that maybe I not quite the Talleyrand that I thought I was, but then again there was only one Talleyrand.   I am sure there will be a school of thought that will say that I should be the bigger person, and let the insult go, after all it has been nearly three years. Those who know me, and realize that I am only the bigger person size wise, will understand why I would never do such a thing. I do not have to forgive, nor can I forget. That is just part of what makes me such a pleasant fellow to be around. I hold a grudge. I am, in fact, holding several more grudges as I type this. Some of them will eventually pay off like this one has, and some of them I will probably be holding till the day I shuffle off this mortal coil.

The sad part of this, if there is really a sad part, is the person upon whom I revenged myself has little to no clue that it happened, or why it happened. They are so self-absorbed that they will probably never understand what they did to deserve my revenge, nor will they figure out exactly why I did what I did. That does make the revenge slightly less than perfect, but one has to on occasion settle.  The person in question has no real concept of the fact that people are usually divided into two types. Those that use, and those are used. This person mistook me for the latter, when I am, for the  part, the latter. This lovely individual, who will never read this post, is a person who likes to use people. There are ways to use people gently, sometimes we have to use people, but that does not mean that we have to use them harshly. I am not meaning this as badly as it sounds, but the overall idea remains the same. Attempt to use me at your peril. I am just not a good person, and not a good person to try to use. I am sure that I have my uses, but they are, like my feelings, mine, and I tend not to try to share either my uses or my feelings.

It is probably true that pure revenge is a revenge that people have to notice, and have that 'I knew I should not have fucked with that guy' moment, and perhaps a public serving of revenge would also allow others to understand that 'fucking with that guy' is not such a good plan. I am not such a 'bad man' that people should not fuck with me, I am sure that several million people on this rock could, at their leisure, hand me my ass. I am also quite certain that a few would be willing to try, that isn't really the issue. I understand the limits of my ability, but some people do not. I possess a very limited ability for a lot of things, math for instance, but I have an affinity for revenge that has caused me to be a student of it for quite some time. One of my heroes is Talleyrand, look him up sometime, and one of my favourite novels is The Count of Monte Cristo, the ultimate revenge novel.

My revenge is complete, and I am quite happy with the form it took, though it is not perfect, few things are, it will have to suffice. It is a dish best served cold, and after almost three years my particular helping of it is almost frigid, and there is plenty of it to go around, but like many things revenge of this kind is something that you can't really share. You can tell people about it (obviously), but at the end of the day it is a dish that you must eat alone. Which, in my view, makes it all the more tasty,. 

Either/Or

The title of this post is stolen from the title of a book written by one of my favourite philosophers. A fellow by the name of Soren Kierkgaard wrote "Either/Or" in 1843, and it contrasts two particular life views. One, is the consciously hedonistic, and the other is one based on ethical duty and responsibility. Many, many, moons ago, while I was being classically educated, I read Either/Or. The details of that reading, and the memories of it that I still possess need not detain us here, the fact that I read it doesn't mean that I've figured out which life view I believe to be correct, nor does it give me any insight into the reason of this post.

I have discussed before how sometimes my unconscious self, the sleeping self, the dreaming self sometimes wages a very dirty, very effective war on my waking self. The dreams that I have are beyond the control of my waking self, and like all of us, sleep can be considered a gateway to a lottery. The lottery of dreams as it were, where Queen Mab with 'her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs' allow dreamers, such as myself, to give birth to their dreams. A fairy that allows sleepers to experience dreams of wish-fulfillment. The unconscious self that is really in control of a lot more of your life than you are willing to admit, takes over once we sleep, and guides the mind where it wants it to go. Many times those are places that are best left unvisited, and places that the conscious mind, if it weren't 'asleep at the switch'as it were, would never revisit. 

Therein lies the rub, the conscious mind is asleep at the switch, and when that happens all sorts of shit can start to break bad. This is a glimpse into my own personal 'Either/Or', and trust me it has absolutely nothing to with an 19th century Danish philosopher, at least not that I can tell.  My dreams, as of late, have been taking two forms, hence the 'Either/Or' dilemma.  Either they are type A which is a dream about work, or something related to work. I had a long week at work last week, so part of this type of dream is understandable, and probably unavoidable. They weren't necessarily nightmares, but they were certainly not the type of dreams that inspire a desire to stay asleep. After all, I have to go to work, and 'live the dream' as it were, why should I be doubly punished/blessed by having work invade another 8 or so hours of my life. I recently made the conscious choice to try to avoid talking about my job that much while I am not actually at my job. I am trying, and failing, to not let my job define me as a human being. After 10+ years in the job, I am beginning to fear that is a problem that I might not be able to repair. My job is not taking pictures of half naked supermodels as they pose on piles of money, therefore dreaming about it isn't something that I particularly care to engage in that often. However, the good news, if there is any good news is that at least type A dreams are better than the 'Or' in this dichotomy of dreams. 

That 'Or' are what I call, for the sake of simplicity, type 'B' dreams. Type B dreams are very, very, very rarely pleasant. They involve any number of what could be deemed my 'ex's' flings, long term relationships, or fuck buddies, each have had their representative in my dreams. These are, for the most part, not happy dreams. Dreams of former fuck buddies hardly ever center on the activity that gave the particular girl her 'title'.  No these are not playboy channel type dreams, these are revenge dreams. Dreams in which an ex, any ex, plays the starring role. Sometimes it is merely a 'normal' dream about some everyday occurrence, but it has to have the ex in it just for the hell of it.  There is no reason, on its face, that the ex would have to be in this dream, other than the unconscious self deciding that she needs to be there. 

Those are the easiest of the type 'B' dreams to take the mostly normal ones. The ones were she is just there like window dressing to poke some sort of fun at my waking self.  A little nudge from the sleeping self to the waking self to remember it that the sleeping self hasn't forgotten. The other type of type 'B' dream are much, much worse they usually consist of the see the ex happy with new beau type of dreams, or hear the ex tell me what a total loss my life is since she had the pleasure of walking out of my life. Those are a little bit tougher to bear, maybe because the grain of truth in them is a bit too big for me to swallow. That grain of truth, which I must admit exits, keeps coming back almost nightly to haunt me. The leading actress, i.e. which ex my subconscious decides to torture me with, changes sometimes nightly, but that doesn't really help a lot. The only small bit of joy that I am able to get from these type of dreams is the bet with myself as to which ex will be the star of the show tonight. Not a bet that has a winner or a loser, but a bet that is both, a winner and a loser.

 The starlet that takes the stage probably isn't really the point, but the subconscious is a clever bastard. It has access to all the memories that even the waking self has forgotten, or stored away in some deep, dark compartment never to be opened again, and it makes my dreams a cinema of horrors designed especially for me. The subconscious self remembers all the details about each of the leading ladies, and is able, with seemingly little effort, fashion a dream that is very specific to the ex in question. It is an absurd bit of theatre that makes me want to stay awake as long as possible, but as I have mentioned before, sleep comes to everyone while we wait wide awake and blue.

Fuck you! Shakespeare

The title of this post is stolen from Pete Rose's reaction to whenever a fellow by the name of Jim Bouton pitched against his team. M. Bouton was the co-author of a book called "Ball Four" which is considered one of the most important sports books ever written. Feel free to read it, I never have, but I hear it is a pretty juicy book.

The reason I am stealing the title is because I stole a bit of Shakespeare myself this week, and I am not certain I am proud of that fact.  Those of you who both have the wonderful luck to know, and to read me, will know that I spent the last week in a murder trial. No it wasn't as exciting as the one in Florida that has everyone all in a flutter, but it was important to me, and very important to the victim's family.  It went as well as a murder trial can go, which is to say that every day when I came home all I could do was eat the crappy take out food I had purchased, and spend the rest of the night thinking about what I had done wrong that day, and what I would need to do the next day in order to fix those mistakes. Because, since I am actually not perfect, I made mistakes, some of them I thought were pretty important, and some of them I shouldn't have made, but they were made. And in their making they cost me a fair amount of sleep.

That was my week, half of the time I was in trial, the other half I spent thinking about trial. I did not do much else. And by that, I mean nothing else. My apartment has become a battleground between my garbage, which has taken over the kitchen, and my dirty laundry, which has taken over the bedroom. Both sides are now fighting over possession of the living room, each of them have advance scouts placed in strategic places, and it seems each side is prepared for a long struggle. My indolence coupled with my exhaustion have made it impossible for me to broker a peace agreement. In fact, I am beginning to believe that the key to the battle are the dirty dishes. They are also piling up, and I figure that whichever side they ally themselves with will be the eventual victor.

It is a sad thing to say that my life has not been my own for a week, and that cleaning up the flotsam scattered throughout my apartment is more work than  I feel up to undertaking at this moment. All I want to do is sit and stare at the walls, and to hell with the battle of the wastes.This week marked the seventh birthday of this blog, and I was so tired that I did not even manage to write my annual birthday of the blog post, it was, in case I didn't mention it, a long week.

  The week that just passed was, in many ways, the pinnacle of my so called professional career. In my world, it doesn't get much sexier than being 'first chair' on a 1st degree murder trial. Though, truth be told, my co-counsel was beyond brilliant, and I couldn't have done it without him.  It was a close as I will ever come to being what passes as a real lawyer. Not that I have any idea as to what or what does not constitute 'being a real lawyer'.  All I know is that I want to pack this week away, and not have it repeat itself too many more times, because after all if it does it means that someone, somewhere has died at the hands of a loved one, and that is the tragedy of the week. That some putative Romeo has killed their Juliet. And unlike the real Shakespeare I only want that play to happen once, but I can't seem to stop if from repeating. It is just the actors are different, the facts are a little different, but the underlying tragedy remains the same.

And it is that tragedy, or a tragedy that hasn't happened yet, but will that keeps me struggling out of my new favorite place, otherwise known as my bed, to try and save the fair Juliet from her sad fate. I know that I can't because that is not really my role. So the best I can do, the best I try and hope to do is see that our fair Juliet, even though she has met her sad fate, at least receives what some people call justice by taking our Romeo out of 'fair Verona' and putting him in a much darker place.

P.S.  At the end of the day, I realize that me and my co-counsel didn't 'win' this trial. Trials are not like baseball games. There are no real winners or losers, it is just a decision, a decision that is placed in the hands of 12 strangers, and a decision that I can only hope goes 'my way' and a one that I hope I can live with.  To all of those that helped me this week, thank you.

Konstantine

In less that one hour I will be another year older, a year that will weigh a little bit heavier due to the increasing number of them that have passed.  A day that is really nothing to the majority of the seven billion people on the planet, is, for me, something that is (in theory) supposed to be celebrated. I did manage to get the day off from my job to celebrate/mourn the day of my birth. As my loyal readers will know by now, if they bother to be either loyal or to read, I share my birthday with a fellow by the name of Eric Blair. Known to the general masses as one George Orwell. That is a tough thing for me to share.

George Orwell wrote some really fantastic books, and is one of my favorite authors. I write a shit ass blog post that might be five pages long, and is generally filled with either spelling or grammatical mistakes, and is probably not worth reading. See the difference? Perhaps I see it more clearly than other people because it is, at the end of the day, my difference. My inability to measure up to the standards that I have set for myself. I can't imagine, because I lack the imagination, where Herr Orwell got all that wonderful material for his books. Though some careful research has unearthed a couple of points of inspiration for a couple of his books. But, I still can not imagine all the things he saw, and all the things that he left out of his writing. How much of what he saw that even his genius could not capture on paper. Like it or not, I figure that a lot of any sort of 'inspiration' I have comes from my personal life, a life that has ticked over another number on its odometer.  A number that is only going to get higher until it reaches it final number, a number that I am not sure of, and am terrified to contemplate.

The 365 days that it has taken me to age another year have taught me a few things, but some things I just don't seem to be able to learn. The last year of my life has seen me make a decision that will affect the remaining years of my life, and it is a decision that was not taken lightly, and it will not be a popular decision, but me and popularity have never been close friends. I am not the popular type, and I never will be. I prefer to think of it, if I bother to think about it at all, that I am an acquired taste, and if you care to take the time to acquire me, you will probably regret it.  Regret is another thing that I have carried around with me for the last 365 days. Regrets, big and small, that, in many ways, have helped to define the last year of my life. Regrets have a tendency to do that, define things, for both good and bad, usually bad.

Regrets make us realize the mistakes that we made during the last year, but there is usually exactly fuck all we can do about them. Regret is a great teacher for students of life that are willing to listen and learn. I am not such a student, I am hard to teach, and no matter how much I listen I can't just seem to discern what I am being taught. It is a bit like listening to the last transmission of Vladimir Komarov aboard Soyruz 1. I know that he understands he is about to die, and that he is saying the last words that anyone will ever hear him speak, but he is speaking in Russian, and I don't understand a bleeding word of it, I just get the idea that he is trying his best to say all that he needs to say for a lifetime in about 22 seconds.  And all of this horror happened just over 2 years before I was born.

 Komarov didn't have the chance to die a peaceful death in his bed, he smashed to Earth at an incredible speed and all that was recovered of his body was a smashed heel bone. An entire of life of 40 years summed up in a brief transmission of rage at the damn fools that sent him to his death, and a state funeral for dying because of some other damn fool's incompetence.  Don't you think he deserved a little more? Red or not he was a brave fellow, far braver than I will ever be, and today who the fuck remembers him? For that matter, I realize that I won't die a heroes death, and the number of people that remember Komarov (no matter how small that number is) will still be more than will remember me. And that is exactly how it should be.

The truth of the matter is that tomorrow, while slightly disappointingly important to me, is just another indistinguishable day for the majority of the world. Which is also exactly how it should be, after all, the date of my birth is nothing to be celebrated, anymore than an atheist would celebrate Christmas as being the 'birth' of Jesus.  As the last seconds of my 43rd year on this planet tick away, and I am left facing a new age with its new problems, I realize that escape is impossible. We all pay for the violence, or foolishness of our ancestors, and a couple of my ancestors were very violent fools. 

 As that clock ticks away I am reliving the last year of my life at a supersonic speed. Trying to cram all of the emotions, both good and bad of the 43 year of my life into its last quarter of an hour. It is not a easy thing to do, and there were quite of number of mistakes made during this year that need a lot longer than a quarter of an hour to fix, if they can be fixed at all.  And now that the clock has struck midnight, and I am a year older, I realize that time is just as ruthless as gravity. It is a force that you can fight all you want to, but you are never, ever going to beat it. Time marches on, and you have to follow whether you like it or not, just like you hit the ground if you fall because gravity doesn't give two real shits about you. It just is gravity it takes no delight in what it does, or doesn't do, it just is. And maybe, just maybe as I thumb through my well read copy of "1984" I need to learn to realize that perhaps just being 'is' is the best I can hope for. Welcome to a new age.  

Mignon Maison

Recently, as in last week, I took a lovely little trip to sunny San Diego. It was quite fun, and I went alone, which was a bit of a shock for some people, but it was one sure way to make positive that I had as much fun as I wanted to have.  Part of going on vacation, for me at least, is the ability to eat when I am hungry, sleep when I am tired, and wear pants as little as possible. Those minor goals were achieved during this trip, and that makes me happy.

During my sojourn, a friend of mine text me and asked me 'when are you coming home?' I replied 'Sunday' but soon after I got to thinking that perhaps my friend had fallen into a similar trap that has snared the wolf that raised me.  That trap, one that assumes I have a 'home' to come back to, and one that I need to come back to. Neither of which is true. I realized that as I typed back my response. The realization that my 'home' as one would call it is, it exactly where I am at any given moment. Granted that doesn't include my office, or certain other public areas, but the truth of the matter is that I could have stayed in San Diego, and not missed one thing about my current 'home.'  Part of that might be the shit hole town that I live in, or the shit hole town that the wolf that raised me thinks I should call home, but the truth of the matter is that shit holes aside, I am a man that does not need to put down deep roots.

Those roots that a lot of people, and plants need in order to survive are not for me. For me they restrict, they restrict my movement, my thinking, my ability to breath, and all sorts of other things that I don't talk about in polite society (if I ever find myself in polite society).  These possessions that occupy my own grand maison are something that I can walk away from in 5 minutes flat. There are advantages to be a minimalist, and one of those is the ability to just turn your back and walk away. Of course, I did not stay in San Diego, and I caught my flight back to the city that I current call 'home' but there was that moment of regret as I boarded that aeroplane. That Sisyphus like moment when I realized that perhaps I could just turn away from my rock (in this case my life in this shit hole town), and be free from all of my so-called troubles. Not that my troubles are anything awful, and not something that anyone would be so frightened of as to run away from, but they are my troubles and they seem to have a great deal of sticking power. 

Troubles are like that, they have the ability to stick around and withstand your best attempt to solve them. After all, if I could solve them, then they would not be my troubles anymore. I am quite sure a new set of troubles would rise up to replace any of the ones I managed to solve, and thus the circle of life for troubles at least would continue. Perhaps troubles and I have one huge difference, a difference that binds us together more tightly the more I struggle against them. Perhaps, unlike me, my troubles have put down roots, and are here to stay. 

Polizeisptizel

My name has been lost to history. It wasn't a particularly impressive name, and there is no real reason that history should remember it. Let's just call me Otto, it isn't my real name, but what difference will that make to my story? So I am Otto a native of the grey city of Berlin, and I am nothing special. My mother, when she was alive, would have, and did let anyone who would stand still long enough to listen that 'her' Otto wasn't 'anyone that you would really want to count on in a pinch'. Well in many respects she was right, I am not a hero, nor am I quite the villain that this story will make me out to be.

At the time of this story, late 1937 and early 1938. I had been on the police payroll for just under 5 years. I was nothing special to look at, and not the brightest student in my school, and Mother's poor choice of marrying for love and not money, had left me with a limited educated, and even further limited job opportunities. The less said of my father the better, he stuck around long enough to get my mother pregnant, but didn't have the sticking power to stay around and watch me born.  I suppose my Mother did the best with what she had, but I was never going to turn out to amount to much, and as it turns out I didn't except once. There was one time where I was one of the most important cogs in the machine of state, and without me perhaps the history of my country, and the world might have been a little bit different.

By 1937, I had come to realize my niche in society, and it was not as a belle of the ball type. I was one of those 'grey' men that wouldn't attract any interest unless I was standing directly in your way. My looks were nothing to write home about, and my home life wasn't that great either. I was scraping by working on the edges of Berlin society, going nowhere fast. My life had it's routines, and its own sort of pace that I didn't really have a terrible amount of control over. I hustled money when and where I could, and I knew a lot of what most people would call 'low-lifes' the detritus of a society that was 5 years into the Nazi regime of one Adolf Hitler.

The Kripo, the Berlin police force, had found me a easy enough recruit, a simple arrest for a simple burglary, and a promise of 'making it all go away', and I was there newest informer. A dirty, stinking, awful thing to be, but to me, it beat the hell out of spending time in prison. Therefore, I began to sell that most dangerous of commodities, information. The Kripo were very careful about when and where I would reveal all of my information. There was an office belonging to some private dick on Alexanderplatz that I had to phone once a month, and make an appointment to see 'the Count.'

To this day, I still have no idea who 'the Count' was, or if he was a real count or not. I guess it doesn't matter, he treated me like the shit you scrape off the bottom of your shoe, and I am sure that to him that is exactly what I was, shit.  But, I made sure that I became a useful shit, and my information was always good, and always 'checked out'.  I preferred quality of information over quantity, and though this frustrated 'the Count' at first, he soon realized that my information was like gold, a little scare, but very valuable.  I wouldn't say I was proud of what I did, and I had hopes that someday I would be able to tell the Kripo, and 'the Count' to fuck all the way off because my informing days were behind me. However, like most jobs, informing became a sort of means of itself. I had hopes and dreams, but they just seem to be stillborn, and the money I made informing was just enough to keep me body and soul together, and to provide me with enough left over to indulge in my own, personal vices, but that is beside the point.

I wasn't and am not proud of my informing, but a fellow has to pay the rent somehow, and informing was a job that matched my disposition, and my inherent laziness. Manual labour was not something that I every felt any affinity for, and it didn't take a lot of effort to hang out at the the dives I hung out at, and just pay close attention to the rumours that floated slowly by.  My monthly meetings with 'the Count' weren't overly strenuous, and allowed me to have a lifestyle that, while not luxurious, keep me out of the soup line.  Then one day all of that changed. I came across a nice little announcement in the paper detailing the wedding of Herr von Blomberg to his former typist "Eva". Or at least that was the name that I knew her by, and knew her quite well.

That the 60 year old commander in chief of the German army married a 26 year old girl from the typing pool came as a bit of a shock to me, but once I stopped laughing at the absurdity of it all, I made my way to a little studio on Nurnberger Strasse. The kind of place that you could find all the female company you wanted as long as you were willing to pay for the time.  I knew a fellow there, his name is also not important, but he liked to take pictures. Pictures that some men liked to pay money for, and that some women, down on their luck and needing some extra money, posed for.

I knocked on the door of the studio, and the photographer opened it himself. I showed him the wedding announcement that contained a picture of the blushing bride, and told him that perhaps our fortune was made.  His smiled widened as he recognized the girl in the picture, told me that 'he'd be right back', and disappeared into the darkened interior of his studio. I remained waiting, and he came back with a nice brown envelope that contained the photos of the Generals young wife as naked as the day she was born, and posing quite prettily for the camera. I nodded, and grunted my thanks, told him that 'I'd be in touch' and left as quickly as my feet would carry me.

My next meeting with 'the Count' proved quite fruitful, when he asked if I had anything for him, I produced the pictures with a flourish, and leaned back to enjoy the surprise on his face. It was a look of total surprise that crossed his face as he looked at the pictures and began to put together what they would mean to certain members of his party. I didn't know much about the man, but I knew without really knowing how that he was a Nazi through and though.  He rubbed his hands together, promised to make me a 'very rich man' and left with a bounce in his step. I left a bit later, already spending the money that I figured was my due.

The rest of the tale is actually history, unlike me. The general married to a girl who posed for dirty pictures, and who was also probably a prostitute did not last much longer in his position. To his credit, when offered the chance to divorce her, he refused, and disappeared into the mists of history. The mists of history from which I never emerged. It will come as a surprise to no one, except me at the time, that the 'Count' was not one to live up to his promise of making me a rich man. In fact, he paid me what I considered to be a pittance, and expected me to thank him for it.  When I finished counting the money he had turned over to me, and it didn't take long to do, I made that critical error of inquiring if this was just the first installment.  The 'Count' cornflower blue eyes narrowed, and it seemed as if the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees. A smile that did not reach his eyes came across the lower part of his face as he told me 'Otto, that is all you are getting, and you should be happy for it.'

I suddenly decided that happy is what I should be, and plastered a big grin on my face as I thanked the 'Count' for his generosity. That was when I knew that my informing days were over, and my running days had begun.

The incredible noise of silence

Ever been in a situation where silence is oppressive? Of course you have, if you haven't then you probably are not living your life correctly.  Silence can be incredibly loud. It is a bit like a freight train, it might take a while to get started, and there may be only an 'engine' at first, but eventually it will lengthen. Just like that train, adding cars, and cars, some carrying hobos, some carrying coal, some carrying the hopes and dreams of random strangers.  Those 'cars of silence' will attach themselves to the engine, and the next thing you know, you have an entire train of silence, stretching out for miles into the distance.

It is that distance that you want, the distance away from this mournful train of silence that is oppressing your very soul, providing that you possess a soul (you might be a soulless ginger for all I know).  This train of silence is going to roll over you like a well oiled, well fueled Panzer division, and there is really not much you can do about it. Put a smile on your face, and wave to the crowd as you board your very own train of silence. However, it is unlikely that you are the conductor, engineer, or sole passenger on this train of silence. Single silence is much more easy to break. All it takes is the ability to talk to yourself. Group silence, and two people can be a group if they try hard enough, is a much more difficult task. It requires cooperation, and it is likely that non-cooperation is what got you on board the train of silence in the first place.  That non-cooperation probably happened way too fast for you to do anything but gawk in awe, and then sob in despair.

Dual (or more) silences become what 'they', whomever they are, will say become pregnant silences. I've never seen a silence give birth to anything that you want to wrap up in swaddling clothes and nurture. By the time pregnant silences give birth to their offspring it is generally too late. You've got fuck all to do, but try your best, which is rarely good enough, to break that silence. But, how do you go about that? Do you cough discreetly? Sneeze, or pretend some other bodily function to try to break the silence? After all, you were probably an equal party to the silence starting in the first place, and wouldn't it seem a sign of weakness if you were the first to break it?

For how long is this silence going to drag? It will begin to take on a life of its own if you or someone doesn't do something about it, and which one of you is going to blink, or draw first. You are, in many ways, like two Old West gunfighters staring each other down in front of the awed townspeople at high noon. Eventually one of you is going to either have to blink, or go for your pistol, and hope again hope that you make the right decision. Is blinking the better option? There is but one way to find out, or do you not back down? Do you reach for your iron, and hope that you get that first, vital shot in first.  It is also important, now that the chips are down, that you do not freeze. For freezing, no matter how cold the environment has become, is usually fatal.

The longer you stare across that dusty street at you companion, opponent, fellow traveler, or fellow idiot, the longer you have to think about your decision. It is an important one, one that you should not take lightly, and one that you can only hope will mesh with their decision. It might be easier to lie about your decision, but if the other person knows you at all, they will be able to see through your lies without even trying.  If those decisions are the same, well then the train of silence, that train that was rumbling over the tracks of despair laid down across your heart, will become a train of joy.  A train that we all want to catch, a train that we never tire of riding. A train that should come around your little outpost of desolation more often. Something wonderful, something quite beyond compare, and something that once missed, will cause you to regret the silence that you are now no longer sharing. 

Chains of Silver and Gold

All I do is miss you, which is quite daft of me in reality. How can I miss you when you aren't really gone? I mean you're here. Here in my day to day existence whether I want you to be or not. And I can't do anything about it, what ever magic I try to make you disappear from my life fails miserably.  I am not the type to miss people. People flit into and out of my life on a daily basis, and some of them barely leave a vapour trail.  But then there was you, you didn't really explode it to my life like some people think, no you were more insidious, like a dream that I kept having night after night until one lucky day the promise of the dream became the reality of my life.

It is like playing a scene over and over until the 'actors' get it right. It might entail a lot of 'takes' but when it works, man does it ever work. But, I am no Shakespeare and you are no Marlowe, and all I can do is miss you and be in love with you like some sad sack that knows better but is unable to do better.  There you were in my life without me even realizing how much space you took up until you were no longer there. Then the 'you' sized hole in my life gaped at me like a lion's jaws that were just begging me to stick my head inside.  The time I used to spend with you, I now spend wondering what you are doing, and who you are doing it with. Which is, I might add, a very, very unhealthy way to spend time.  As I try to ration the heartbeats that I waste on you, I realize that just doing that is part of the problem. The problem that is you are that impossible bridge too far of my life.  The problem of you that I, no matter how hard I tried, could not solve. Like my own personal Reimann hypothesis.

 You were a wild, wild chance that I just couldn't ever really take, and now you've passed me by, and I can not explain what just happened to me. Except to say that you happened to me, and I've never been quite the same. All of those cries and kisses, those first few times that we talked and realized we were falling in love with each other in spite of the many reasons that we should not have. Those reasons and reason itself eventually won out. Reason has a tendency to do that, win.  Win no matter what the cost is reason's way of doing things. After all, reason does not have to pay the price of losing. That is for me to pay. The illogical part of me, the part that I really didn't want to admit existed. The 'feeling' part of me that can only seem to feel despair, regret, and pain. All the while watching reason gloat about it's victory.

Once we made eye contact it was just all over but the crying, and little did I realize at the time that we would both be crying. Thoughts of you interrupt my day like my alarm clock interrupts the dreams of you that I can't control from invading my sleep. These passing thoughts of wondering what you are doing, and why  you are doing it make me want to take myself outside, stand me up against a wall, deny myself the benefit of a blindfold, and shoot me like the dumb dog I clearly am.  I realize that at some point, some point that I should have reached by now that I have to do whatever in my heart it takes to start to hate you.

That heart that you once made go 'thump' by just walking into the room has to, in order to survive, harden itself. It has to get past what you have done to it, and realize that I am the real problem. A problem of courage, or in my case a lack of courage. Courage to hate you, to say that it was all your fault, even if I know I am lying to myself. It is a lie that I have to convince myself to believe, just so I can continue to live with myself. I have to realize that I don't want what you want, and I can't feel what you want me to feel. I have to put that heart of mine into a cage, and make sure the key you once had no longer turns the lock.  It is really simple to write down, it is bloody hard as fuck to actually do.

I have to realize that I am not your King and you are not my Queen, of my heart or otherwise. You were a false dawn. A pretty dawn, but a false one nevertheless. It was fool's gold, and I thought it was real for far too long that is healthy for me, but fool's gold it remains. Fool's and gold are probably not a good match. So I will at some point look for silver, after all silver is a lot harder to fake. 

Not only Numb

After a small reverse yesterday, this is the result of too little sleep, and too much time to think.


Take a look around the room that you are presently occupying, how does it look? Through all that clutter and gloom, is there something, or some things that you can't live without? Maybe you need to get up, and take a look at the clutter and gloom in all the rooms of your present adobe. Take your time, I can wait. While you are doing this, think about each of the many or few possessions you have (depending on whether you are a minimalist or not).  They probably tell a story or two about you, or about the other person that you received them from either as a gift or a curse.  Ponder their back story, and then as the air gets thinner, ponder their future story. Is that story going to include you and your possessions staying together? Or is it possible that perhaps you are one garden gnome type knick knack away from being featured on an episode of Hoarders?

Do you treasure your possession more than you should? Or are they merely the driftwood of your (misspent) youth that you have just not managed to 'let go of' yet?  Is that clock really a family heirloom or is it just some ten dollar piece of shit clock you bought at Wal-Mart just to tell you the damn time?  Is that 60 inch TV really necessary? It does take up a large amount of the 'living space' allocated to you by the constraints of your budget, and do you really watch that much TV to justify the expense?  And what about the sound system? Did you really need 8 speakers and a gazillion watts just to crank it up once a year before the neighbors call the police with a noise complaint?

These things, these inanimate objects that clutter up your day to day existence, the items that you leave daily to go to work so that you can add more items to them, are they the sum total of your existence?  If you were, gods forbid, to fall over dead today, would the mourning be done by some obscure relative of yours saddened by the fact that the eldery aunt got to 'inherit' your TV?  Have you made the will to divide up your worldly possessions amongst the greedy few survivors of your friends and family?  Or are these possession that you've so carefully amassed, and so jealously guard, your own private hell? A set of objects that you feel connected to so much that you can't fathom life without them.  Is there something so important in the junk in your room that you can't imagine ever being without it again?

Surprisingly enough, I've heard the answer to that last question way too many times to be in the affirmative. People that think that some TV, sound system, or automobile are more important than even their own personal safety.  Sure that Persian rug is a remarkable shade of dark blue, and it really ties together the room, but is it worth a pint of piss in the grand scheme of things? Of course it's not, it is just a fucking rug, and no matter how unique it might be (which is unlikely since you are not the Prince of Persia) it is just quite simply at its core, a fucking rug. No more, and probably quite a bit less. There lies wisdom, understanding that even if that rug was the last thing your great-granny Marge ever gave to you, it is still just a rug. It is great-granny Marge that is the important bit, and sure she might be as dead as Montreal's chances of winning the Stanley Cup this year, it is still her that counts, not the gods damn rug that her pet dog Cupcake used as a toilet for 12 years before dying of the vapours.

Hell, why not take a wild chance, and just give that rug away? See how that makes you feel, its not like you are digging granny Marge up, and telling her that you hated her all those years for trying to feed you chicken salad that wasn't exactly up to par.  Hours will pass, and you will eventually forget that the damn rug was even a part of your estate.  Give it a shot, just for once, try to picture not caring about the things in your life, but the people in your life. There are people in your life aren't there? I mean who else would all of these possessions impress?  These people, those lucky few survivors of the college life you shared, or the professional life you currently share, or the fellow denizens of your local, are probably the important bit of your life that you really need to focus.

Don't let those people be a waste of your lungs, tell them the important stuff that you think they already know, because chances are they don't, and would fall over themselves with joy if you let them know that they are, in fact, more important than a flat screen plasma TV, or a Persian rug/piss pot.  You can almost always find someone selling a TV, people don't sell best friends at a shop for your convenience. Maybe, if you are like me, you have several 'best' friends because one just isn't enough, if so you are one lucky devil, and you should explain to each of them why they are important to you. And they are important to you, whether you want to admit it or not.  You don't have to get all maudlin about it, but a simple explanation will do. After all, they are your friends, they know that you are not the most articulate fellow in the world, if you were they probably wouldn't be able to understand the fucking words coming out of your mouth.

That is what friends do, understand the words, no matter how poorly strung together, that you use to express yourself, and the few feelings you have. It is not wasted breath, it is time well spent, and its own reward.  Remember though that life and friendships are a two way street, listening is a skill that you have to acquire, and something you must needs to learn how to do. After all, we are all in this play together, and nowhere in the script does it say you are the only leading man or woman. We all want to be the prince in the story, but sometimes being the butcher is just as, if not, more important. People to post decrees are very important, but there has to be people there to read them as well, or it all just fades to dust motes trapped in a sunbeam. 

Echec

Most of my devout readers know what I do for a so-called living. Those of you that don't well briefly speaking. I am an attorney that does only domestic violence cases. It is part and parcel of my job to prosecute men and women who are somehow even worse than I am at relationships. That bit is hard to believe, but it is all too true.  I like to think that I am good at my job, I mean who really thinks that they stink at their job? I like to think that, and I do not bother asking too many (i.e. any) people's opinion on my job performance.  After all, the people I would ask would probably be my 'friends' and would just tell me what they think I'd like to hear.

Either way that isn't really the point of this point (if there is a point at all). My job provides me all the drama that I need. TNT has nothing on my day to day existence. I know drama, and I live it daily at work, therefore I try to avoid it everywhere else. This drama filled job does provide me with enough ready coin to meet my daily needs of alcohol, which is necessary for my ability to survive the drama in the first place.  It is a bit of a never ending circle, but that is my lot in life. It's nothing awful, but I am sure that being a left handed relief pitcher is probably a bit more fun. It is a damn shame that I am not left handed.  This is a brief, and rare look into my professional life. Enjoy it because I certainly did not.

Two brief cautionary tales will serve to explain my typical week. This week I had to 'dry roast' a victim of a man that has beaten her several times over several years. The sad part of this particular tale is that the day this guy got out of jail, she ran to him like his house was on fire. After a lovely romantic interlude, and a few cold beers, things returned to normal when the fellow used her face to try to crush a beer can. Not a pleasant experience, from what the lady told me, and something that has landed him back in jail.  That dry roasting, that I gave consisted of what some people would call 'tough love', with me I focus more on the tough bit, and leave the love bit to others. I merely suggested to her, quite forcefully, that one day her paramour was going to kill her.  It was not a happy conversation for either of us, and it was not a something that I enjoyed doing. The bigger problem of this little chat was I had previously had the exact same conversation with the woman a little of a year ago. I told her then, and told her this week that one day I was going to have to explain to her next of kin why I had failed to keep her attacker from killing her.  That was failure number one.

The only 'good' thing, at least from my point of view was that I was at least able to keep the offender in jail. For how long is a different story, and when (not if) he gets out, I figure I will be having the same chat with the same woman again. At least, I hope I get to have the chance because if I can, then she will at least be alive. And here you thought TNT knew drama.

Failure number two arrived today, and it was expected which made it somehow even worse. Same type of situation. Boy meets girl, boys bangs girl, girl has boy's child, boy decided to beat the ever loving shit out of girl, rinse and repeat. This is the true American love story that I get to see on a daily basis, not the Tristian and Suzanna love of "Legends of the Fall". No, the love stories I see have there tragic bits as well but it isn't the lost my love of a lifetime type of tragedy. Our tragedies are more mundane, our feet are made of clay.  Out here on the perimeter of the world we don't have screen writers than can just make it all right in a certain time frame. 

This particular woman has been also a repeat victim of the father of her child  (otherwise known as 'baby's daddy).  And today thanks, in part, to yours truly, her abuser is out of custody, and she is probably waiting for the inevitable beating at his hands as I type this.  It was another unpleasant conversation, and while she understood (but was not pleased with the result), I still felt, and even told her that I had failed her. Once again a difficult thing to say, a difficult thing to feel, and a difficult thing to stomach. As far as failures go, it is not my first, nor my last, and it probably (I hope not even my biggest), but it was a failure nonetheless. And as far as all of that TNT drama goes, it just can't compare, and it can't be compared. Here's to the only solace that I will find this cold, April night, alcohol. I am so sorry.

The Last Outpost

Spoilers! This post is a metaphor, for what even I am not exactly sure, but nevertheless a metaphor it remains. Any resemblance to any creativity is purely by accident, and will probably not happen again. Enjoy it if you can, ignore it if you want, but read it anyways.


This was it, the last outpost on a long, dry, dusty road. A road that had led me to this spot as sure as if it had been preordained in some holy book that your basic crackpot street theologian hawked on street corners for a dime a copy.  A road that while long, was not particularly arduous. It wasn't the straightest of roads, but it was by far the quickest one that I was able to find to this, the last outpost.

The weathered sign that actually hung outside the ram shackled dwelling read something else. Something that looked like "red" something or another, but age, neglect, and an overwhelming disinterest on my part to actually read the whole sign contributed to me never fully knowing the actual name of the establishment. Not that the name mattered, not that the establishment mattered that much. The location was the important bit, and like in all real estate it was location, location, location that mattered. This tiny outpost on the frontier of nowhere was going to be my last stop for a while. The path beyond this way station led directly into the unknown, uncharted territory, a place that I'd never been, never wanted to be, and was unsure if I'd be coming back from.  It was a path that I had mostly chosen for myself, but with a small of amount on none too gentle help.

Chosen freely or not, it was my path, the path that I was to take step by step to whatever bitter, sweet, or bittersweet end there was. And this shit hole, this last outpost was going to be my last brush with my fellow humans for the foreseeable future. Most places that are on desert tracks usually have a sign warning travelers about how many miles to the next water, this place boasted no such landmark, and that was one of the growing number of bad signs about the place, that made me want to turn around and retrace my path back the way I had came.  However, that option was not really open to me, and also not actually as enticing as one one think, so it appeared that this path to nowhere was the one for me.

Opening the door to the place did not brighten my outlook over much. The door creaked, and protested loudly, like a fishwife that believed you to underbidding her for her wares. It was as dark as a lawyer's heart in the place, and about as gloomy as talking to a Cubs fan about their world series chances. Not a place that welcomed an over long (i.e. more than 10 minuets) stay. However, it was the last outpost, and provisions, such as they were, had to be obtained somewhere. 

Of course, therein lay an entirely different problem. Provisions aren't free and I had arrived at this last outpost with at least two things broken, my heart which was part of the reason I was on this path, and my purse, which was part of the reason I was staying on this path.  The meager contents of my purse where all I had to work with, and I figured that the amount of provisions didn't overly matter too awful much all things considered.  I stepped into the dark, dank room and tested out my best inquiring "hello" with more than a little trepidation. One never knows what kind of monsters you are going to find in these types of places. 

Luckily for me, in theory at least, the 'monster' that answered my call was a wizened old man that closer inspection determined had had merely a passing acquaintance with modern dentistry. He had only a few teeth left, and none of them were adjacent to each other, and the less said of his breathe the better. How could one person actually eat that much garlic?  Well there are a lot of things we don't get to pick in this world, parents, place of birth, our noses in public, and sometimes we don't get to pick our trading 'partners' either.  He didn't look like much, but as it turned out he was one tough bird to barter with, and I figure I got robbed, but at this point of my journey I wasn't overly worried about exchange rates. I got most of what I needed, which wasn't much, and decided to stay for one more drink before I waltzed out into the unknown.

One drink turned to a few drinks, and eventually, as a few drinks will do, lead me to thinking. Thinking of all the mis-steps that had led me to my current location. This last outpost on the far end of nowhere that was, in many respects, my own "Last Chance Saloon".  It's not that I rushed to this place, and I had hopes that it wasn't what it really was right up until the last few moments before I encountered it.  It was the end of a long line for me, and I guess you could say that I was slightly fortunate to realize that. It was not an overly happy realization to suss out, but it was one that I figured out eventually.  Of course, like most of these type of things that realization came too late to do me any real good.  Realization and knowledge are wonderful, wonderful things, but when they are coupled with a certain sense of inevitability, the bloom comes off the rose a bit.

And that was the situation that I found myself currently in, a place that I had led myself with knowledge of forethought, and a place that I didn't really want to be. A place out on the frayed edges of society, and of the world, and a place that I probably deserved.  However, deserved or not, the sting of finding myself here still hurt, and hurt quite a bit more than I was going to allow myself to let on.  Perhaps my washing up onto this desolate shoreline like yesterdays flotsam wouldn't have been quite as painful if I hadn't told a certain someone, of some importance, that our arrangement was my own last attempt to form any sort of lasting partnership.

They didn't believe me and our joint stock company, as it were, quickly went bankrupt, both morally, physically, and financially.  Like most bankruptcies, there was plenty of recriminations and plenty of blame to go around. Fault was all over the place, and you could have as much or as little of it as you pleased. It didn't change the ending one little bit, and made exactly no difference to direction of my path.  They, whoever they are, say that the longest journey starts but with one step, and maybe those unnamed bastards are right, but I say, and I say this from cruel experience, that the longest journey also ends with one step.  As I walked out of the last outpost on my trail, I realized that the last step was a whole lot closer to me than the first step, and that somehow made all the difference. 

Muse Wanted

I recently realized that I am the type that needs a muse. Perhaps that can be put down to a lack of imagination on my part, or perhaps I just need the inspiration that a muse provides. Though I like to think that I do posses both an imagination and an overly developed ability to lie with aplomb, I still seem to require the muse that allows both of those abilities to flourish. It was not a happy realization, figuring out that I need to, in some sense, feed off another person in order to allow that imagination to step out into the (mostly) unknown.

I also figure that the task (or more likely the burden) of being my muse is probably a job that keeps that person (usually a female) pissed off quite a bit. Such is the job of being a muse. I figure that the 'Julia' that Robert Herrick used or the Laura that so inspired Petrarch's poetry found a lot of things that could be considered (to them as least) less than flattering.  That is another hazard of the muse. The reading into everything that the person you are inspiring has written something to do with you is probably a terrible position to be placed into. The muse has to wonder 'was that last line, which seemed faintly critical, and vaguely familiar, apply to me?' They also are probably left wondering was that last post/poem/song trying to tell me something? Is this idiot writer/poet/songwriter trying to tell me something that I am just to dense to figure out, or is he or she just using me as a sounding board in order to get his creative juices flowing?

Truth is, that if the one doing the composing is good/smart enough, the muse will not be able to answer those questions, and will be left wondering if they are the cause, inspiration, or just merely a side line in the composition.  Still a muse is needed for those exact reasons. They may wonder that if any off hand comment they make can then be 'turned into' something with much further reaching consequences, but I suppose that is another hazard of being a muse in the first place. It must be a bit maddening of a position, and I suspect that not a lot of people would overly enjoy the job. Which is probably why that I, at the present moment at least, lacking a muse.

The position of my muse is clearly not something for the faint of heart. I can be a right bastard, as the temporary muse of last night reminded me when she repeatedly reminded me that she 'hated me'. Well, that sounds like a' her' problem not a 'me' problem, and that is how I divide all the problems in the world. From world hunger, to not enough hand soap in public restrooms, all the world's problems  are  placed (by me at least) on either side of that invisible line. My problems are the ones that I attempt, but usually fail, to fix first. Those are the important ones the problems that have localized themselves to and around me. The really tough ones that really need some serious solving.  There are, thankfully, a lot less of my problems in relation to the number of the world's problems, but there are a lot more people in the world dedicated to solving those problems. As far as I can ascertain, I am the only person on this rock, that is fully dedicated, using the term very broadly, to solving my problems.

Which is quite sad, because my problems, even though they might be few in number, have some real staying power. They have to, or else I, being such a clever lad, would have solved them by now.  Though I figure the muse, if she ever comes back into existence will have a high old time trying to convince me that her and my problems overlap. Which, sadly they don't, and even more sadly that lack of an overlap quickly becomes a whole different problem.  The desire to overlap our problems has been the 'death' of several muses in my past, and I figure that I should probably realize that, unless I change my evil ways, might be a serious obstacle to obtaining any new muses in my future. That brilliant insight, is of course, much easier to write or think that to implement, but one can hope that one can do better in future.


That my future dabbling in the world of writing might require the services of a muse is, in many ways, a very depressing thought. Almost as depressing as the current landscape of possible muses in my life. It is a very, and I mean no offense to anyone, barren field which I find myself staring out upon.  The job has been vacant for quite a while, and it does not look like the position is anywhere close to being filled.  Though one doesn't generally put out a 'Vacancy' sign in the world of muse finding. You can not just pop onto Craigslist to and scroll through the personals for a muse. I doubt anyone, ever, in any time or place has claimed to be a muse for hire. Which is quite a shame, but I guess that is how the world of muses works.  It is probably easier to build an atomic bomb that to unearth a muse. After all you can just bloody Google the instructions for making a bomb, which I recommend doing on a computer that you do not own, or can be traced back to you.

I also figure that if a muse is to be found, and tricked into taking on the job, it will not be from behind this keyboard in the crap hole of an apartment that is my current residence. I also figure that walking up to people and asking 'will you be my muse' will lead to me receiving a lot of odd looks, and polite refusals if I am lucky. More likely I will be called a creep, receive some withering looks, and a good slap or two for my trouble. However, one never knows the answer to this type of question until one asks, at least that's my theory, and for all of those no's that Petrarch and Robert Herrick probably received, they did manage to get one yes. And that yes, that wonderful answer, that answer that makes hearts go thump, and opens up an entirely new world of possibility, poetry, and prose, is the answer that makes everything else worthwhile..  And the search for that one yes, that one person that is just daft enough to take that wild chance that I am offering them, is in many ways, ironically enough, a muse in its own right. 

Atoms splitting and such

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you want to split the atom. You've determined that you've had enough of the drudgery of your day job (whatever that might be), and you want to be one of the few famous geniuses that can split the atom. Perhaps you want to make a bomb (that is the example I will use), or perhaps you want to own a nuclear power plant. Thus fulfilling your lifelong dream to emulate Monty Burns from the Simpsons. Both of these goals, in their own way, are fine goals, and they are going to take a lot of work to achieve.

But, you're a hard worker, the best in fact just let anyone ask you, and you will tell them how much more work you do than the average worker bee in your hive.  However, there are a few important steps you are going to have to take before you build your bomb, and show the world how pure your genius is.  One you are going to HAVE to get your hands on the raw material(s). You have that understanding that you want to produce a nuclear bomb, designed to release all of its energy at once, as opposed to a nuclear reactor that is designed to create a steady source of nuclear power. That is a good solid first step, it will help you understand what it is you will require.

And what you are first going to require depends on a very important question. Do you want to use the 'gun' method of setting off your device, or would you like to try the fancy way, and use the implosion method. If you choose the former then your starting material choices are a bit more flexible. You can use Uranium 233, Uranium 235, Plutonium 239, or more rarely Neptunium 237. If you decide to build the gun method then you HAVE to acquire some Uranium, for reasons that I don't really understand, but have on good authority, Plutonium can not be practically used in this method. Either way these types of raw materials aren't just laying about for some unrecognized genius like yourself just to scoop up like ice cream from your local Ben and Jerry's. No, sad to say, this shit is regulated quite strictly and that just doesn't seem fair to you.  Also, you are going to have to obtain quite a large chunk of high explosives, something like TNT for example. This might be somewhat easier to obtain, but you're going to need lots of the shit, because you are going to need to make an explosion big enough that forces your nuclear material to go 'critical'.

And critical is important because if you cannot get the density of your raw nuclear material to increase in density by a factor of between two and four, then you've wasted a lot of time, and are probably going to be in prison for a very long time. Since you've probably had to either buy, at some very high price, that Plutonium or Uranium from some Libyans, or you nicked it from your local nuclear power plant whilst no one was looking. Both of those scenarios are really quite unlikely, and therein lies the rub. The one fundamental problem with this idea brilliant idea of yours. You're not a fucking country like France, you don't have easy, or any, access to fucking Plutonium, and you're not ever in your life going to come within stealing distance of either Plutonium, Uranium, or that much TNT.  Even if, heaven forbid, you did. You're also not a nuclear scientist you are not Robert Oppenheimer, and your degree in some social science did not provide you the correct background in the field of splitting the goddamn atom.

Hopefully by now, if you have any sense whatsoever, you've come to realize that maybe, just maybe atom splitting is something you either need to leave to the professionals, or start the long, arduous trek that will lead you to becoming a professional atom splitter yourself. After all, you're a bright lad/lass and if you put your mind to it, and borrow about a million dollars in student loans to finance the gazillion years of schooling you will need, you too can, if you are lucky, smart, and good enough split your very first atom. I suspect that it must be a very wonderful feeling, like touching the face of the Mona Lisa, or some other great human accomplishment, but I wouldn't know after all I haven't yet split the atom, nor do I have any plans to try.

That shouldn't stop you from your stated goal, and if you get all those materials and all that knowledge maybe some nice country like North Korea will offer you a well paying job as the head of their rogue nuclear programs. A boy or girl can dream can't they?  Just remember it is a marathon not a sprint, like most things in life, and it probably not going to come in 6 months or even 2 years for that matter. But things worth having are worth waiting for aren't they?  Remember that old saying about putting the cart in front of the horse, or the other one about learning to crawl before you walk. Well those type of saying exist for a reason because if you lack a fundamental item, say Plutonium, or fundamental knowledge,(like you think that neutrons involve some sort of dance) then maybe, just maybe you need to go back to the basics. Those fundamentals that we all hate, but find necessary to accomplish our day to day tasks. You are not the Michael Jordan of nuclear fission (of fusion for that matter), and it might behoove you to try being a bit humble, and a bit of a team player. Of course team playing has it own pitfalls, and those can sometimes leave behind large mushroom clouds than the nuclear bomb you so desperately want to build. Sometimes it doing the small things that count, you master those, and then you can lay waste to all the cities you choose. Good luck, you are going to need it. 

Alice, Unchained

A bit of a step out into the unknown, bear with me.


Recently in a fit of conspicuous consumption, I purchased satellite radio for my vehicle. It was a purchase that I did not really need, but one I felt the need to make anyway. Well, after a couple of months of listening to this purchase.  I have now realized that one of the main stations I listen to has an Alice in Chains addiction. Meaning that they play the ever living fuck out of the band Alice in Chains. A LOT.  It has gotten so bad that when I tune in the station I am beginning not to just predict that it will be playing Alice in Chains, but I am now trying to predict which song by that band will be playing. It has happened three times in the last week that I got both song, and artist correct when I got into my car. That is beyond sad, and leads, however crookedly to the point of this post, prediction.

I have a job, not a career, a job. This job requires my presence during a certain time frame 5 days a week. Outrageous I know, but such is the fate of modern men that aren't independently wealthy, or that haven't married money, yet.  This job leads me to arising out of my nice, warm bed at pretty much the same time everyday, getting myself cleaned, dressed, and out the door of this coffin I call an apartment to drive myself to my place of work.  I take the same route to and from work everyday, and this had lead to two more predictions about my life (such as it is) that I can make with almost complete accuracy.  One of them is that I will catch the same light RED everyday, it has been almost three weeks since I started counting, and everyday so far, I have caught this one particular red light everyday. Now that is a bit annoying, but I do catch my fair share of the other lights green, so I figure it's a bit of a wash, but what are the odds of catching this one light red all the time? It has gotten so I expect it, and just sit there waiting for the light to change listening to Alice in Chains, and accepting my lot in life. The other prediction is that almost everyday someone will turn off of the street I am taking to work onto a certain, poorly lit and sort of a dead end street, in front of me. I am not sure what happens on this street that makes it such a popular place at 6:40 in the morning, and I am sort of afraid to find out.

All of these sad predictions have lead me to realize that I can predict other things in the circus I call a life, and I am getting quite, quite good at it. I can predict what people (the ones I know, and the ones I have to deal with in regards to my job) will do, before they do it. One of my favourite sayings is "that if people were horses, I would never have to work again." Meaning, clearly, that if I could predict the ponies as well I can predict the people in my life, then I would be in the south of France, piss drunk, typing this as a farewell to all of that type of post. Sadly, the ponies just don't seem to be as willing as the people in  my life to cooperate with my predictions.  This is why I am not quite able to chuck the job over, and live the life of leisure that I feel I deserve.

I understand the outrageous arrogance that the above statement sounds like, and I own it. I can not help that either my life is so sad (probably) or that the people are so easy to predict (less likely) that I know what is going to happen before it does. This must be what the Dennis Bergkamps of the world feel like. Being able to see the pattern of the defense, the movement of your teammates, and the path the ball must take in order to end up in the back of the old onion bag before anyone else on the pitch, teammates included, have a clue.  It is a gift, or so I've been told, but as usual I don't quite see it that way.

In fact, like most of the things in my life, I see it as a curse. The curse that Sartre saw, and wrote about so well in his novel Nausea. The curse that Camus wrote about in 'The Stranger' where the main character kills an Arab just to break up the monotony of his days.  My days, or at least 5 out of every 7 of them form almost the exact same pattern. A pattern that is so easy to predict that I can tell you Alice in Chains is playing on a radio station before I even turn on the radio, that isn't cool, it isn't neat, it isn't even creepy (though it is closer to the latter) it is just sad. Sad that I realize I am, in less that 11 hours, going to be whistling my way through "Man in a Box" while I wait for a red light at a certain intersection to turn from red to green.  Sad that I will once again wonder, but fail to investigate, what is going down on that lonely side street that all those people turn down upon at 7 a.m. every morning.

These days of 'quite desperation' that strung together represent my life. The 5 out of 7 days where I do not step out of a life so boring to entertain anyone (not even all you readers at home). The fact of the matter is that most of this desperation is my own fault, and in many ways I should be thankful for it. After all that job I possess does provide me food and drink, and those bills are not inconsiderate.  It allows me to have a car, a place to sleep, and a clothes to wear (a prospect that makes the rest of the world happy as well).  However, I can not but feel the siren's call of something else, something that I am not quite sure how to describe, a type of seven year itch perhaps, or a call of the wild. The whispers on the edge of my hearing that are saying to me that 'there is something else out here for you GI, you just have to have the courage to grab it.'

However, I have yet to screw my courage up to that particular sticking point, and so I will wait, and predict my way through another day, annoy my friends by telling them I can do it, and wait with bated breath for 'The Rooster' to come over the airwaves. Alice really, really, needs to be unchained.

Narmare

'Come closer' she murmured lazily, as if it took all of her effort to force those two little words out from behind her perfectly straight teeth. I glanced over at her, and said ' we are in bed less than two feet from each other, how much closer can I get?'  It was, in retrospect, a particularly bad thing to say, and it was a bad time to say it. But my sense of timing has never been what you would call well planned. As expected, this idiotic comment led to her getting further away, not closer, and in the cold light of the morning led to an argument that did not go especially well for yours truly.

It was not a comment on physical distance is the gist of what she was trying to say, it was an invitation for me to come emotionally closer. Closer to the ideal of what a relationship should be rather than the poor imitation that we were presently 'living out'.  It almost always befuddles me when I get this type of comment, mostly because I know exactly what kind of jackass I am, and generally cannot fathom why anyone in their right mind would want me closer, physically or otherwise.  Yet I hold on to the hope that I will one day get it right, and hope that despite my growing fears, I will be able to change my ways, and become closer to someone.

It wasn't to be her because once I made that off hand, poorly thought out comment, we both knew that closer wasn't going to happen between us. It was the death knell of a relationship that was already sailing through some rough seas, and this was the last leak sprung that would lead to the ship of our relationship foundering upon the rocks of my emotional unavailability. Quite sad really, but the idea of closer was just something I've never been good at (expect in the physical sense of course). It is a article of my (lack of faith) that when I hear that sentence (said in various forms) I hit some sort of panic/eject button, and shit starts to break bad.

It is also a sign of my immaturity, my inability to 'come closer' in more than the physical sense. Something that a person of my advanced years should be able to do. However, the valley of my heart seems to be empty, and all I can do is walk away when I heard the words 'come closer'. I am holding out the slim hope that I will find the moral fortitude to change this fatal (at least to relationships) flaw that I possess.  However, as I laid there next to her I realized that I could not confess my follies, and could not confess any sort of long lasting love.  I am not that good at expressing the few feelings that I do actually have.  Those feeling are kept very close to the chest, in a tightly lock compartment in my mind. Kept apart from the heart strings, those things that people like her attempt to pluck just to see what kind, if any, of a reaction they get.  Those strings are not ever going to become a noose that can be slipped around my neck, and that is probably part of the problem. They are there but they don't vibrate when plucked, instead they because painfully still.

And so I couldn't come closer to her, and I like to think part of her knew it. I like to think that because it takes me off the hook a bit. It makes it less my fault and more her fault. And to me that is important, it allows the guilt I should feel to slide past me like an out of control duck on a sheet of ice. It makes me blame her, even though I know I shouldn't and that blaming her is a cowardly thing to do. I am trying, and probably failing, to shoulder my part of the blame in the disaster that followed. A disaster that took me (surprisingly enough) way too long to finally process, and put away in its allotted compartment.  It was a tight fit, and I had to push a lot harder than I figured in order to get the door shut, but shut it did. And a rather large, rather clear 'DO NOT OPEN' sign was placed on the outside for future reference. Of course this compartment exists in a row full of similarly marked compartments that, in spite of the warnings, I do sometimes open. Usually to my cost.  This post being one of them. Ah, well the desire to come closer, much like wisdom, seems to come late.

Systems

Despair, that constant but not always visible, companion has driven me back to this keyboard. Back again to stay at least for a little while. In the hopeful, but ultimately fruitless attempt to alleviate that despair by putting it on 'paper.'  If  I had my way this wouldn't be true, but I am tethered to my despair like an inmate of old was tethered to his ball and chain. This despair feels as heavy as that ball and chain, and sadly just as difficult to shed.  Moonlight filters through the window as I lie (or is it lay) here stretching out into this despair that feels like a blanket. It provides some modicum of warmth, but it also, after a while, becomes oppressive.

It wasn't supposed to be like this you know. I had, in my foolishness, thought I had sloughed off this despair like a snake shedding its skin. I had put this despair in my rear view mirror as I motored my way down another one of life's lost highways.  A firm, well-reasoned, sober (for a change) decision had been made by the one person in my life that counts (i.e. me), and that decision was to leave 'despair town' for good. Little did I know that just wasn't going to happen. It seems that despair town isn't one set location, a place that you could place on a map with a big red "X" and a sign on the outskirts of the town warning people to 'be ware' and 'avoid at all costs.'

No it would appear, much to my chagrin, that much like Eeyore's dark cloud, despair town follows me around. Despair town is whatever place I am flopping at any given time. Be it my present location, Paris, France, or Brazil. It moves with me like a second skin that I struggle to breathe through.  Perhaps if I just were to sneak out the back door, I could give despair the slip. Even if just for a little while. It would be a pleasant time I am convinced to be despair-less for a while. A bit like breaking out of jail, you know you're going to get caught and shoved back into that cage the world has built for you, but for now you are going to revel in the precious few moments of freedom you have left before they close the lid back down on your coffin.

And you want that freedom to last as long as possible, so you try to elongate the time in which you are free. As if you can make three hours of freedom equal six hours of despair. Making time longer is quite a trick, and one that I've been unable to pull off with any degree of success.  I've often wondered if you can, even if for a mere few seconds make time slow down (if not stop). Despair can almost accomplish that masterful feat. Wait until something truly awful happens to you, and then you will realize that time has, if not stopped, it has at least slowed down, as you live a lifetime of despair in less than 60 seconds.

Of course all this isn't some sort of 'cry for help.' Truth be told I would not accept any help even if it was offered, which I doubt it will be. No, the exit to despair town, if such a wonderful thing does exist has to be discovered on your own. If you have help finding the exit of despair town, you might soon realize the fatal mistake you've made. If you need help getting out, then I suspect it will be all the more easier to find your way back in once that help is withdrawn. And, make no mistake, that help, no matter how well intentioned, will eventually be withdrawn. That is why you have to, no matter how difficult it may be, refuse any proffered help. It is just a temporary escape, and a bit like fool's gold. Sure it is shiny, and feels real, but at the end of the day (and there will be an end of the day make no mistake) it is a broken reed. A trick to get you to think that maybe everything isn't so bad after all.

And maybe everything isn't so bad after all, but you have to be the one to design, implement, and live with the system that gets you out of despair town. It is your town, and you're the mayor, and only you can un-elect yourself. No one else in any town, place, or time can do this for you. And your mayor-ship is the sweet revenge of life getting back at you for all the bad things you've done to both others and yourself. You know what they are even if you don't want to admit them, and you don't have to have them emblazoned upon some type of school jacket that you have to wear around the town square of despair town to show off to the other residents. No those sins, are your sins to own, and to attempt, in some small way, to fix, to make good upon so that maybe you can take the bridge out of despair town.  And it is incumbent upon you to find that bridge, once in despair town you can't just sit there like a princess in a stone tower waiting for your knight errant to come and take you away from all of this. In fact, you have to wander despair town's streets, avenues, and alleys searching for that bridge out of this shit hole. As you wander those dark (they are always dark, and it is usually raining as well) streets searching those high walls, you have to begin to wonder why wouldn't they put a gate in these walls? Well despair town didn't and whether you care for their city planning or not, you are stuck here until you find the bridge out of town.

 If you manage to find that bridge you should arm yourself with a nice container of gas, a book (just to be on the safe side, how many arson attempts have failed for want of a good match) of matches, and a handy rag. For as you walk that bridge out of despair town, you should leave behind you a trail of gasoline, which, upon reaching the far shore, you light with your match and rag combination. Watching it burn, from a safe distance of course, is perhaps the happiest you will ever be. Enjoy while it lasts because it is just possible the next town down the road could be, even though it is hard to believe, worse than despair town.

Sang Froid

This is for all of those long lost, sorely missed, and almost forgotten Valentines of mine.

It is hard to figure why I am sans Valentine this year, after all I am still the witty, urbane, handsome fellow that I have been for the last several Valentine Days.  Nevertheless here I am not quite sad but still alone for the day designed by Hallmark for lovers everywhere. Good thing that I have an imagination. It allows me to conjure up all sorts of women that are chomping at the proverbial bit for the honour of being my valentine. Alas, the imagination only gets one so far in this world, and eventually the siren song of internet porn soon becomes too much to resist.

To all of those previous Valentine's of mine I would like to say two things. One is thank you and the other is I am sorry. The reason for both of those statements need not be explained. If you were (un)lucky enough to be a Valentine of mine, you will know the reason behind both of those statements without me giving away too much information.

Therefore this post is dedicated to those previous people who, for whatever reason, decided that being my Valentine was a good idea. Perhaps it was an act of desperation rather than love, but at the time (at least) they had be fairly convinced it was love. To the one that decided that this day above all others was the day to throw me out of her apartment whilst I was in the middle of a murder trial. To the one that thought throwing a red Velvet cake at me was the solution to our problems (it wasn't). To the one that thinks this day is for women only to get gifts, which might explain why no flowers or candy have been delivered to my house or workplace. To the one that I have known the longest and understand the least that figured not speaking to me for over two years was a good idea (and to be honest it probably was). In fact, it was such a good idea that subsequent Valentines have followed her example. 

Anyone who has had the misfortune to actually know me (well) will tell you that I am not good at holidays either the real ones or the ones created by Hallmark to peddle a few million cards. I belong to the school of thought that setting aside one day to act the way that you should be acting the other 364 (or5) is just plain silly. After all, if you are so very much 'in love' with a person they should be able to tell, unless they are particularly dense, without you having to go all sappy for/over them one day a year. But therein lies the rub, no one can be that sappy all the time, if they are you should probably have them evaluated by a mental health expert. To attempt to condense this sappiness into one 24 hour period is quite simply madness. Love, or sappiness in this story in a condensed form can be quite deadly. It is best portioned out over a period of time, that is why (in theory) relationships last, and is why one night stands generally don't. 

Either way you slice it today is a made up holiday, a day that we are obligated to treat the special one (if it is only one) in our life the way we should really treat them the rest of the year. However, I guess that much chocolate or candy might lead to tooth decay, or other problems that might actually harm that special one of our choice. I prefer to pick my own, obscure day to celebrate. Like the random Wednesday night that I celebrated (mostly alone) last night, or another day 3 days hence that has special meaning to me and one other person (and no I am not talking about Michael Jordan).  Those are the true holidays the ones that mean something, sometimes only to you, that aren't forced upon us by the Hallmark and candy mafia. 

Finally to the future Valentines, if any still exist, read this post with a grain of salt (or two), parts of it were certainly written 'tongue in cheek' as they (whomever they are) say. However, be aware that my nascent romanticism does not bloom on one certain day a year, like those pretty red roses you have on your desk, but it also does not (usually) die and wither away that quickly either.  Happy Vday.

i gar

"We need to talk about yesterday" she said as she looked at me with those cornflower blue eyes whose gaze usually made me melt, and forget any sort of transgressions she may have committed. "Sure" I replied, using that dangerous word that I, despite my best efforts, have been unable to eradicate from my vocabulary.  That set those blue eyes glittering, and I knew that there was a storm front about to pass through what had been a relatively sunny day.  Truth be told, I replied with that one word because yesterday to me was already a 'closed file'. Something that had been marked closed by the librarian of my mind, and filed away in the newly created compartment of my overly compartmentalized mind.

Now, as I scrambled to relocate, open, and scan that file I realized that even if I managed to accomplish that nearly impossible feat in the few seconds allowed to me, that the scant few lines in the file would not provide me a single clue as to why we 'needed to talk'.  Those lines, if I were able to find them, would have merely recorded another day, at least to me. A day of simply co-existing, nothing major had happened, after all what sort of life changing events happen on a Monday?  Of course life changing to me and life changing to her are probably radically different things, and I really suppose I should start paying more attention to her, to life, and to change. That is a great resolution/idea, and one that firmly swore to implement as soon as possible. The problem was that I didn't have that time. This 'we need to talk' moment was happening now, and I seriously doubted that any attempt to reschedule for a time more convenient for me would be looked upon favourably. 

In fact, I suddenly realized that whilst I had been thinking the above mentioned thoughts, she had been talking away without noticing my complete lack of attention. Not a good sign, it is never good to attempt to reconstruct the parts of a woman's soliloquy that you've missed while you were wool gathering. Nodding and smiling sometimes works, but that can be particularly dangerous as you might find yourself agreeing to meeting her parents, or going to the opera on some random Thursday night (the poker night of you and your pals).  Perhaps it would be best to try an non-committal grunt, and hope that the next few sentences she speaks gives you a clue as to the content of the bit that you missed. Also a tricky strategy that women are fairly quick to realize, they sort out quite easily that your 'grunts' mean that you haven't been listening, and the next words you hear might be the prelude to what we have labelled a 'storm off.'  Those are not fun at all, and going after a woman that is storming off is a bit like running the bulls at Pamplona.  The word suicidal springs to mind.

Then came the pause, the moment when she is done with her speech, and it is now my turn to reply. That is what our conversations had developed into. One person talked, and the other person listened, then vice versa. It was lovely, and it was one of the things that attracted me to her the most (no it wasn't the deep auburn of her shoulder length hair, it was her conversation).  But therein lies the rub, our conversations were predicated one the fact that whilst one of us was talking the other one was actually listening. Not sitting there in some blind panic, trying to remember what he/she had done wrong yesterday that needed to be 'talked about' some scant twenty-four hours later.  Well they say that honesty is the best policy a theory that I've never really subscribed to, but one never knows if it will work till one tries. After all it might work, and 'they' (whomever they are) might actually be right for once.

 Therefore, I put on my best sheepish grin, and calmly said 'I'm sorry love, but I was too busy trying to remember what you could have been referring to about yesterday, that I missed what you just said.  Would you mind repeating it just to catch me up to speed?"  Several emotions clearly crossed her face, disbelief, shock, anger, and all the other usual suspects, but when she opened her mouth to reply all I heard was this beep! beep! beep!. Now it was my turn to be puzzled, had she suddenly turned into the bloody Road Runner from Loony Tunes? Why was she just beeping at me like some madwoman that has just escaped from Bedlam?  That was when the hammer of consciousness came down and shattered this dream like a large rock being dropped onto the still surface of a very calm lake.