Familia

'I love you because you're my uncle, niece, nephew, brother, etc..'  Simple enough words, and said (I suspect) with some amount of true feeling. But, let's get behind those words and ponder their actual meaning.  They are just words after all, and they need to be explored like that cave up on Fredrick's Bluff that everyone says is haunted, or the home of the guy who only says 'shit and fuck' in some sort of loop that only he can hear.  Unlike that cave, these words should not scare intrepid people with a sense of adventure that overwhelms their good sense.

Truth be told, do you really love the other person because they are your relative, and that is what we are supposed to do i.e. love our relatives (in some parts of this state people take that a little too seriously, but that's a tale for a different time). Mom might be a drunk, but she is our drunk right? She may or may not have at one time gotten plastered and left us behind the glue factory in some sort of mistake or sick joke, we were never really sure which, and by the time she sobered up to ask it didn't really matter anymore. Are we loving our relatives just because they are there? I mean if I am stuck with Wallenstein for a brother, do I still love him? Sure we have a mutual dislike of cats, and share some DNA, but he was a real prick, do I have to love him because he and I got shafted/blessed in the same gene pool lottery that each of us play without our consent?

We aren't born, and then handed a 'Welcome to the Family' playbook in which each of our currently living relatives are profiled for us like a college football player before the NFL draft. We don't get the chance to read about Aunt Julia the drama queen who thinks that TNT has nothing on her day to day life. Or how about Cousin Etienne the wonder boy of the family that can do no wrong, mainly because he does fuck all. Or, the sister Lois that was the town slut, before she 'found Jesus' and now spends her days at the Junior League looking down on all the people she used to 'pleasure'.  Nor do they get the playbook on you, whatever your relation, they don't get to know that something inside you, some internal wiring as it were, doesn't quite connect, and 'normal' feeling are beyond your ability to have. They don't get to read about that, and decide to withhold their family love from you because after reading about your fucked up nature they conclude that you are a waste of their time.

We don't get to pick the profession of either our sires, or our progeny, we may be the frustrated piano player that happens to be the child of a plumber, and a cannery worker who are unable to appreciate our talent, and if they do, certainly can't afford to nurture it the way it should be. Not that it is their fault that they got stuck with a child with the kind of talent that just isn't going to put bread on the table, and bread on the table is the daily struggle that each family among us has to win in order to remain a family. Sure, a lot of us aren't starving, and probably eat to well, but for a large percentage (too large by far) the fight to keep body and soul together is the main fight they face. We will worry about nurturing talent after we have made enough money to eat. Flights of fancy or pretty words strung together are all well and good, but the fucking light bill needs to be paid, and Corky's Auto Shop needs a shop boy.

Do we get to love our family because of the enforced time that we spend together? All those awkward holiday dinners, and weird birthday parties where Uncles Sean got drunk and almost blew out the candles even though it wasn't his birthday, are they what form the ties that bind a family together? Are we held together by our mutual awkwardness, forever stuck in the 'family' with no escape? Or, can we after careful consideration, and lots of soul searching walk away from the family? Call it quits, and tell them that 'I'm sorry, but I've evaluated you as a group, and would rather not be a member of this organization any more? You can't replenish your DNA from some blood bank, and acquire yourself a brand new family, and at a certain age adoption is no longer feasible, so what do you do? Grin and bear it, and pretend that this group of people that chance, with its perverse sense of humour decided to throw to together, is the group that you are going to cross the finish line with?

If you break away, and it ends in tears, which it is quite likely to do, what are the protocols for such a radical move? Do you write some sort of 'resignation' letter, turn it in to the family's central committee, and hope they don't liquidate you like Stalin did to his Bolshie family? Perhaps the break need not be so dramatic, in spite of Aunt Julia's hysterics, maybe you can just drift away like a forgotten plank on a high tide, and be swallowed by the sea. A sea of forgetfulness you hope, a sea that allows the rest of the 'family' to survive, and progress without you. They will you know, survive maybe not as a group, but at least individually, and they will, in time, forget you. Time heals, as well as deals all wounds, and who in the family (the alive bit) remembers great-great-great-great Uncle Konrad who managed to get his entire ass blown off in the Great Northern War, but not before fathering 11 children on long suffering, long dead Aunt Florence. No one remembers him, and unless we've done our genealogical research no of us knew he ever existed, yet without him, and some fair amount of luck, we wouldn't exist.

Or maybe we learned our lesson from Don Corleone, and don't 'ever go against the family' out of either fear of being all alone in the world like Blondie in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Or out of some sort of (misplace perhaps) loyalty to the idea that blood is thicker than water. Though we wonder if it really is, after all the 'water' in this case would be the friends that we picked once we became of an age to pick and reject the people that will form our own personal inner circle. I didn't choose Aunt Julia, or sister mine, they didn't choose me, and if we were strangers on a train, I doubt we would even strike up a conversation. I guess it is a choice without options, if you choose to walk away from the family, they have to let you go. Blocking their phone numbers and not responding to their emails, texts, or letters is a sure fire way to get more (rather than the desired less) attention. If you stay (as you will probably do) you get to try to grin a bear it as much as possible in all those family photos where you look like you've been sentenced to hang. After all, we're family right?

Il cattivo

The above fellow is Eli Wallach, aka "the Ugly" starring in his film stealing role as Tuco Ramirez. M. Wallach made his appearance as a "Hero of the Day" back when I was writing those posts, and he has become, much to my sadness, the first of my live heroes to pass on to the great silver screen in the sky. There is a saying that you should never meet your heroes because they will disappoint you. That is probably as true as statement as any saying can be, and luckily for both him and me, I never met Eli Wallach.

M. Wallach died on the 24th of this month, a day before my birthday. We all die, and few of us get to pick the time of our departure, I must confess that I was relieved that M. Wallach did not die on my actual birthday.  It is a sad enough occasion in my life as it is, and to have a 'hero' die on it would have made it even worse. Sharing my birthday with another hero, one George Orwell, is enough of a burden for me to bear, to have to share it with the death of another might be more than I could bear. M. Wallach lived to the ripe old age of 98, and still managed, in my opinion, to die way too soon. His career was mostly a raging success, and the length of his filmography would be quite long. I am not here to go through his career role by role. I am here to mourn Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez. The role that cemented his place in my hero worship.

The 1966 film that was the last of the 'Dollar Trilogy' was also, in my opinion, the best of the films and the best role in the film. It is my considered belief that Clint Eastwood, who famously said that 'in the first film there was me, the second there was two, and in the third there were three, what is next me and the 7th Calvary?" did not make anymore films because he realized that Eli Wallach had stolen the film from him.  He did with equal parts buffoonery and consummate acting skill. That skill that allows us (along with the screen play) to understand Tuco as the deepest character of the three main characters. We see his humanity, and his religion (semi-fake though it may be), we see his brother, and hear of the recent death of his father. The Good, and the Bad do not get to possess the depth of character that Tuco shows us.

Mourning is a tricky business, and mourning what is in many was a complete stranger or a 'person' that never really existed is even more tricky. Of course, Tuco is not 'real' in the sense of being a person that exists beyond the screen on which he plays out his role. But, in many ways all of our lives are our own screen be it big or small, and each of us is playing a role that may or may not be the one we chose for ourselves.  It does become imperative upon us to play that roles or roles to best of our acting ability. Much like M. Wallach we get a chance to play more than one role in our lives, and hopefully we have the chance to steal the screen from our co-stars.

Mourning Tuco is made even harder by the fact that he isn't really dead. All I have to do is turn on my TV, and put in a DVD of 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' and there is Tuco in all his glory alive and well playing the part that will forever make Eli Wallach a hero of mine. Today, while mourning the 'real' man that played the 'fake' character of Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez, I will watch that performance, and shed quite real tears in the hopes that it will make everything all right. And will that fails, which I am sure that it will, I will go out with my own co-stars, and drink a few Peronis in tribute to a man who played his role so very well. Goodnight sweet prince.

Anniversaire

Over a month since my last post, and that is way too long for a blog to go without something new to keep the massive readership happy. Mea culpa my dear readers, part of today's post will explain my 'resolution' to do better, just be aware I have made such resolutions before, and failed. Also, I have recently received some advice (freely given, and without criticism) about the 'type' of blog posts that I am better at writing, this will not be that type of blog post.

'Do you have plans for your birthday' she asked, probably hoping that whatever plans I had managed to concoct did not include her.  'Plans?' I asked. 'Well no, not unless you call going home, and crying over my wasted life into my pillow. Or in the exciting alternative, going out to a bar, getting drunk, and then going home and crying into my pillow about my misspent youth, my wasted adulthood, my quickly approaching old age, and my even quicker approaching demise. Either way my pillow is in for a rough time of it.'

Needless to say, (but I'll say it anyway) that response was not quite the one she was looking for. I am not sure what reply she was looking for, but that is because I have, even after four and a half decades on this rock, no idea what any woman is thinking at any given time.  However, my inability to understand the members of the fairer sex is (for once) not the point of this post. The actual truth of the matter that I did not share with her, was that I do in fact have plans. Another lie gliding softly by her without her knowledge (at least I hope it is without her knowledge). That 'plan' did not include some other female, or any other person, animal, mineral, or even a blow up doll (the pillow does not inflate).

This plan, which since it is mine I consider to be a brilliant one, is not the type of plan that can come to its fruition in one day (birthday or not). It is a long term plan, a five year plan that I have determined is best for me. Yes, for once, I am trying not to self-destruct and make a plan that is actually best for me. Though I suppose that doesn't mean that it is good for me just best for me, a difference that is hopefully without distinction.  I don't think that my Five Year Plan is quite up to par with Stalin's plan for the Soviet Union, but it is based upon similar theories. I have got to get 'my shit together' (a key component of Stalin's plan), and a five year time frame is a pretty good place to start. There has to be a goal to my continued existence on this planet, and this plan accounts for that. Of course no term of life is for certain, and I can only hope that I am around to see the entire five years of this plan.

The details of this plan are, for anyone not involved in it, are just as boring as the details of M. Stalin's plan are today. They are not exactly secret, but they are my business and my business alone. The plan is, as much as any plan can be, is designed to be self-sustaining, and enclosed, like a Fremen stillstuit, is it a closed system. It is designed to recycle a lot of things that need to be recycled, and I am not talking about plastic bottles, and tin cans.  Parts of the plan are still vague, and many of the details are still in committee. Like most of my plans, I have reverse engineered this plan. I have the ending all worked out, but am a little unclear on some of the paths I must tread to get there.

I do at least know why I am following this plan, which for me is a major step forward. It is not like some village idiot finding religion, and then dedicating his life to converting other idiots to his way of thinking, it does not rise to the level of a religion, but it is probably as close as I will ever come. This plan will require a bit of discipline, but most plans (game plans, life plans, dinner plans) do. It is designed to achieve a certain goal, and if production starts to lag, then slogans will have to be fashioned to make the proles (i.e. me) work harder for the greater good. Propaganda can be a very effective tool when used properly, and if I have to use it, I will use it properly.

I have actually told two people the ending to this plan, but luckily for me both were just as blotto drunk as I was at the time, and I am fairly certain that neither one of them remember it. Small mercy for them, and for me, because for this plan to work there can be no co-conspirators. If you want to keep a secret or embark on a good, solid Five Year Plan, tell exactly no one what the secret or plan consists of, that way your chances of success are dramatically improved. The plans needs to be cloaked in secrecy, pale, undistinguished colours that prevent it from standing out as too obvious, and being halted by the 'powers that be.' Even though this plan is solely mine, there is a school of thought that exists that it is a plan that does not need to reach its logical ending.

The possible opposition to the plan, makes it both more important, and more challenging. Important because it is the result of considerable thought on my part, and while I am not a genius, I am a clever man, and it is a clever plan. Challenging because it has to be carried out behind that veil of secrecy, and not spoken of in polite (or any) company. Most of the plan can be done exactly that way, there are bits that I can foresee that will need a bit of outside help, but workers don't always have to know they are building a Deathstar in order to do the necessary work. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, and this is one best laid plan that does not need to go 'aft, aglee.'  

 As I mentioned above, this plan started with the ending. I thought to myself that 'this is how I want it (the plan) to end.' And I intend to work backwards from that point. I suppose you can say with a bit of irony that today my 45th birthday, is when life begins.

Fiktion

For the most part barring the 'hero of the day' series, this blog is a work of fiction. It is not pure fiction, because I do not think such a thing exists. If a writer (and I use that term very loosely when applying it to myself) writes something, anything, it is (in my opinion) very difficult to check all of their experiences on the right side of the page.  The ability to leave out all of the experiences that have led me to the place that I currently occupy in my 'life story' is something that I struggle with mightily. That struggle is sometimes captured on these pages, and I can only hope that it is for the better not the worse. One cannot fill a blank page with blank words, but neither should one use words as weapons in wars that are better fought (if at all) in person. 



However, I attempt to make this blog as fictional as possible. I have been accused (if that is the correct word) by more than one person of writing about them. My reply, when I bother to reply, is that if multiple people can read the same story, and find parts of them in that story, then perhaps I am doing a good job. It would be much more difficult to claim the story is a work of my over active imagination if just one person could see themselves in the story. Even someone with the very limited skills at writing that I possess should be able to write stories that more than one person can identify with. They should also be able to write sentences that do not end with prepositions, but clearly I have not yet mastered that ability.



If you find a place in this blog where you are certain I am using either you, part of your personality, or an experience that we shared, then I either apologize, or thank you for the material. If that story upsets you, or makes you want to never read me again, then I understand. I do not apologize for all of my failures. If I did, I would just have to issue blanket apologizes to the world at large from the time I woke up in the morning until the time I went to bed at night. I do not have the time for all of that, and even if I did, I suspect that it would be a very fruitless endeavor. Fruitless endeavors, while they may sidetrack us from actual positive progress, can still teach us things that we need to know. I have not had very many raging successes in my life, but the few that I have authored taught me very little, the failures on the other hand gave me a wealth of knowledge that could fill volumes, an encyclopedia of failure as it were.


The small bit of me that occupies the position of storyteller does need some source material, and some times that source material is provided by the people around me. I do try to make it vague enough not to offend (too) many people, and I do not resort to the trick of giving actual people in my life 'nicknames' on the pages of this blog. I find that practice to be quite annoying, and pointless, after all what nickname could I give you that you wouldn't be able to figure out? I would rather challenge your imagination than to insult your intelligence.


Still the fictional part of this blog is the important part, the part that I have to get out of my system like cocaine before a drug test. Something that if I don't attempt to put onto 'paper' will be lost to the fogs of history, blurred by my lack of memory, and killed off by my overwhelming laziness. That poor memory, and overwhelming laziness are also, at times, the culprits that allow 'real' people and my interactions with them to seep into this blog. I do not live in a vacuum, and neither does anyone else I know, therefore it is damn nigh impossible for some of my experiences in the 'real' world not to creep into my writing. In fact, the 'real' world generally acts as an impediment to my writing. I have to pay the bulldog as it were, and that requires my time, attention, and energy (all of which are very limited much like my intelligence).  The demands of the day to day have an unfortunate tendency to snowball, and quickly overcome my (limited) resistance. Those day to day things that we all have to do just to be able to keep body and soul together, have a negative affect on my time and imagination. Therefore, sometimes it is just easier to 'steal' on of my friends, and plant them in a blog post than to attempt to create someone out of whole cloth.


It is a lazy man's defense, and not a particularly good defense at that. I have had several 'fictional' ideas of late, I have just been too damn lazy to write them down. Oddly enough it has taken my stumbling upon a very poorly written blog to spur me into action. The blog (which I shall not name or even give you a clue about) is a shambles, and it reminds me that reading bad writing is not something that a lot of people care to do. Not that I am any great shakes at this writing gig, but I know that can and do write better than the person on that blog. Sometimes it takes the oddest thing to jolt one (back) into action, I can only hope that my (vast) readership is still with me. I hope  you are, and promise not to use you (too much) in any future blog posts.

Recolte Rouge

Stick with me on this one, and maybe the candle will be worth the game, then again if it isn't you won't know until it is too late.


I recently re-read Red Harvest by Samuel Dashiell Hammett, it is a lovely, and very complex book written in the latter part of the 1920's, and it helped make a) Hammett a household name, and b) it helped to raise the mystery story to a higher form of literature. Previously 'hard-boiled' crime stories were published in 'pulp' magazines, so named because of the cheap 'pulp' like quality of the paper on which they were printed.  Hammett wrote numerous pulp stories, and created an unnamed character known as the "Continental-Op" (named because he worked for the Continental Detective Agency which was based loosely upon the Pinkerton Detectives, which Hammett had been one of before he became a writer). 


The book, in which the Op is the driving force, is a great book, with an extremely complicated plot. It has been 'redone' and or influenced movies like "For a Fistful of Dollars" and "Miller's Crossing". The latter film merely 'borrows' some plot devices from the book, but it's plot was so complex that the Cohen Brothers had to take six weeks 'off' from writing it because it was causing them writer's block. Six weeks in which they wrote "Barton Fink."  This is not a book review, nor will I attempt to explain the plot of the book in full. Read the damn thing yourself, and you will be rewarded quite richly. I figure that time spent reading a book review of such a good book is time that is better spent reading the actual book. After all, Dashiell Hammett is a much, much better writer than I ever will be, and it is his plot, and his story to tell. I figure we, for the most part, are able to tell our own stories much better than people telling it at one time removed. At least, if we try hard enough.


The point of this meandering point, if such a thing exists, is that near the end of Red Harvest, the Op (our mostly anti-hero), and a fellow detective are in search of a warehouse that they believe holds the earthly remains of another couple of main characters in the book. They are working on a 'tip' from someone that tells them that the bodies of these two fellows (a couple of villains of the piece) are to be found. And they are to be found in a state that we like our villains, dead.  Our detectives pile into a car, and go in search of this warehouse, in the first place you'd normally look for them, the warehouse district. The town in the story is not huge (it is based upon Butte, Montana), and the warehouse district is not hard to find, but being a district, it does posses more than one option.


The next scene that happens is, in my humble opinion, absolutely brilliant. The Op, and his partner come upon a warehouse, what they think is the correct warehouse, and the Op, ever so slowly, and ever so carefully enters the warehouse via a boarded up window (boards that he has to quietly remove). Since the fellow that gave him the information that the villains are dead, just might have been lying to him, the Op proceeds with the type of caution that has kept him alive this long. The tension is not overly done, and is just enough to keep you guessing until the Op meets the inhabitant of the warehouse. Which turns out to be some old fellow that is guarding a shit load of illegal hooch. The old fellow just happens to be an employee of one of the villains the Op is looking for, and the Op tells him of his employers possible demise, and suggests that a 'vacation' might be in order, and then the Op helps himself to a 'free' bottle of the illegal whisky.


Our boys eventually find the correct warehouse, and the plot continues to its lovely little ending. The point I took from the above scene is how brilliant it is. It is a scene that doesn't really drive the plot along to its conclusion, and it is in the last chapter after all, but it shows (to my mind at least) how the simple fact of going to the wrong warehouse, can be used to show how life, and how even 'heroes' sometime take unexpected, and rather pointless detours. We all like to think we have a plan, be they the five year type, or simply trying to plan some fools birthday lunch, plans are what, in theory, drive us forward. Pushing us to get out of the bed, off the couch, and forcing us to put on pants in order to face the day, because it is part of the plan.  Maybe your plan is to take over the Ukraine, or maybe it is just to get Wendy's, either way they are plans, things that you make in order to impose order upon your, and perhaps other's lives.


Life, that shit that happens while you were busy making other plans, still needs a plan of its own. It is a thing that must needs doing, and you may have a partner in the planning, or you may be a solo act. Either way, it has to be done, because without a plan you end up in the wrong warehouse, and all you have to show for it is a illegal bottle of knock off hooch. Hooch isn't the worst outcome for being plan less, there are far, far worse things that could happen to you, but is it really the reward you were looking for? Perhaps it can ease the problem(s) of the day, maybe even (if you ration it out wisely) the week, but eventually the hooch is going to run dry, and/or lose its ability to solve the problem of your lack of a plan.  Five year plans are great if you are planning the economy of a world super power, but what happens at the end of those five years? Another five year plan has to be enacted, and that is only really possible if the first five year plan went according to how it was supposed to.


Then again, no one has promised you five or even one year, so perhaps flying by the seat of your pants, relying on poor lighting and alcohol to get you through is the better solution. After all, have you ever spent a lot of time in the warehouse district. It is full of dilapidated, desolate places that are just one step away from collapse. Either way read Red Harvest, get to that one scene near the end, and appreciate it for what it is, a brilliant piece of writing by a man at the apex of his career.

Ampoule

Half-awake, and not entirely sober, I groped for the light switch in order to 'shed a little light upon the subject.' The subject that needed  illuminating is not exactly relevant to the story, but needless to say it was important at the time.  The problem was that the light that was to provide me the illumination to see what I needed to see was not in a cooperative mood. The quick buzzing sound, followed by the light blowing out was proof that today was not going to start well. Truth be told, I should have semi-expected this type of problem. The adobe which I call 'home' is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a palace. It has its quirks, and one of those quirks is the electricity can be a bit dodgy at times.  Many a light bulb had sacrificed it's light giving life to the capricious nature of the shit hole in which I live.


My usual response to the burning out of the light is something along the lines of 'bollocks, not again.' This particular day's response was a bit more colourful than that, and may have included a discouraging word or two. Sitting in the dark can, on occasion, can be somewhat entertaining (especially if you have someone to sit with you), but it is not generally how modern man is meant to live his life. No matter how bright of a day (made glorious summer by this son of York, oh wait sorry sidetracked), it may be, some artificial light is almost always required to navigate one's way around in the world.  On rare occasions darkness can be your friend, but unless you are banging an ugly girl, or are ugly yourself, or are perhaps waiting in a dark alley to exact your idea of cruel revenge upon a mortal enemy, darkness is just plain scary.


Thus, the death of (another) light bulb was not a happy occasion. Expected or not, it was still not something to brighten the day. You can't simply plan for this type of event. They just happen no matter if in the deep recesses of your mind you know it is coming, forward planning is just not likely to happen. Therefore, when that 'Pop' of yet another dying light bulb went off, temporarily blinded you, and then plunging you into dark despair, you are faced with a choice. A choice that you had been avoiding like the plague. The choice of how to replace the traitorous light bulb that has left you in the lurch.


For the briefest of moments, you have to ask yourself if perhaps replacing the damn thing at all is even worth it. In a twist on the old saying is the 'candle worth the game' you have to wonder if acquiring another doomed light bulb is worth even the trip to the store.  Not that there aren't stores on every corner offering you a dizzying array of different type of light bulbs. Because there are, they are everywhere you look, even if you are trying to pretend like they aren't there.  Eventually, that burned out bulb will begin to reproach you. Reminding you of yet another failure of yours, even though you protest loudly that you aren't to blame. Secretly you realize that your part in this explosion was not inconsiderable. 


The real irony of the situation is that I (or you if this has happened to you) am the party that is supposed to fix the problem. It is inherent in the problem that I was part of it, and sending the idiot that caused the problem to fix the problem seems to be, in general, a shit plan. Which nine times out of ten it usually is, while not quite Einstein's definition of insanity, sending an idiot to fix the problem created by the aforementioned idiot is close. However, it is also inherent that I be the one to fix the problem, while despairing of any sort of success, there is quite simply no one else around interested enough (they have their own set of problems) to fix this problem for me. Truth be told, even if there were someone like that around they couldn't solve the problem. After all, it is my problem, and it requires me to fashion a solution, no matter how ill-conceived of an idea that might prove to be.


Therefore, you trudge to the nearest, or most likely place to find a replacement for the lately lamented light bulb, only to be met by a vast wall of choices. Perhaps it has been too long since the last bulb burned its last, and you've not realized the advances in light bulbs technology, or perhaps you are just the type of person that like one type of light bulb, and is a bit blinkered about the other options on the menu. Either way here you are, faced with a choice. It is not quite higher math which I am thankful for, since me and higher math are mostly strangers to one another, but it is still way more complicated than I remember from last time.  However, it must needs doing, and to go home without a replacement bulb would just mean more non-quality time in the dark, and I have determined that the dark and I need some time apart.


But, where does one start? After entering the store to find a new bulb, one is beset by the age old problem of indecision. The last bulb didn't last, but it was still good while it did. Should I go back to what I know? The tired, and almost true type of bulb that can be relied upon to work a certain length of time, and then explode as regular as Old Faithful. At least in that bulb there lies some sort of comfort zone. The knowledge that nothing is perfect, or everlasting, and therefore this bulb has a proven track record of performance and explosion. Something to 'set your watch by' as it were. The comfort and disappointment of the same time of bulb is something that I have grown used to, and grown to expect, like the sun rising in the east, or my athletic teams failing constantly. Something that unlike horses, can be predicted without too much effort. 


Or, should one step out into the great unknown of light bulbs? Maybe try one of those fancy CFL bulbs that are supposed to last forever, maybe even a circular bulb, something that keeps the light going round and round. That might be the new wave thing to do, try for something fresher, and newer and see if it can survive the quirks of my electrical graveyard. After all, man's march through time is one of progress is it not? These new types of fancy, high flauting, light bulbs might just be the answer to my spending way too much time in the dark. They do come at a slightly higher price, but are a bit sleeker than the old bulbs, so perhaps that is a trade off. Who knew that buying a goddamn light bulb could turn into a philosophical debate worthy of William of Ockham? Life, or at least this part of it shouldn't be so complicated, but it is, and a decision has to be made, and made sooner rather than later. I wonder if two light bulbs can somehow go into one light socket?

Resolution (of a kind)

Welcome to the new year, in fact welcome to the second month of the new year. A month who's name I simply can not spell correctly. If I were to be on a million dollar game show, and the question between me and the million dollars was spell this month correctly, I would just walk off the set. It is a mental block, and one that I am not ashamed to admit. We all know that new year's is supposed to be a time for new beginnings. I am going to lose weight, I am going to get a job I love (it's called work for a reason), I am going to find Jesus, and all those other lies we tell ourselves as the calendar turns from one year to the next. Since I am the most well-adjusted motherfucker I know, and since the idea of improving myself seems well neigh impossible, I never make New Year's resolutions, after all how can I improve upon perfection?

Of course, that is bollocks. I am fat, lazy, stupid, drink too much, have not one ounce of pity in my entire body, and have about 500 other flaws that could be listed if I felt like making myself cry. Which, at least at the moment, I don't. Needless to say, but I will say it anyway, there is a lot of room for improvement in the creature known as me.  Of course picking some random date like the first of the year to begin those long over due improvements is just as random as picking Bastille Day, at least Bastille Day has some real meaning to me. However, this year I decided, against my better judgment, to go ahead and make exactly ONE resolution. Truth be told, I had actually planned to make the resolution about a month before the new year, but decided to give myself one more month of this particular vice.

And it is a vice, this thing that I have resolved to give up, a vice that I share with quite a large number of people, but also one that is still uniquely my own. It is a personal vice, a vice that each person who has it makes their own. The quirks of our individual personalities make this vice unique to the person that has it, and a lot of people have it. A lot of people I know have it, and myself and those people have spent large quantities of our time pursuing this vice together. Talking about the vice, pondering why we have the vice, accepting that we are always going to have the vice, and planning our next opportunity to indulge in the vice.  It is just that all encompassing.  A vice so prevalent that the absence of it is an occasion that is to be remarked upon. 

It is a vice that has been celebrated since the beginning of time, I know I am old enough to remember the beginning of time. A fellow sufferer (who shall remain unnamed) said about this vice that it was the reason that poetry was created. Not a bad assessment, and he was in a position to know, being afflicted with the soul of a poet, and the looks of a butcher. Millions of trees have lost their lives to make the paper upon which reams of nonsense have been written, celebrating this vice. It is just one of those vices that people can not seem to do without. And it is this vice, this activity that encompassed a great deal of my misspent youth, and wasted middle age, that I have resolved to give up. 

It was not an easy decision to make, and I struggled with the making, but it is time to give up this vice. To leave it to the fellow sufferers to pursue. I wish them luck, they will need it. The timing of my giving up this vice just happened to coincide with the beginning of a new year, I could have, and should have, given this vice up back on some random day in October. However, I didn't and here I am today proclaiming, a month too late, my new years resolution to give up this vice. Lucky for me, I possess so many other vices that I do not run the risk of suddenly becoming a 'good' or 'normal' person. And I am quite sure that some long neglected vice, a vice that has been on the 'B' team of my vices, is more than willing to step into the breach that the vice I gave up previously occupied.

Giving up this vice, back when I made the decision to actually do it, did have a more positive approach. I had resolved that the time that I spent pursuing this vice, an inordinate amount I admit, would be spent pursuing something that would actually improve me as a person. It wasn't going to be anything earth shattering like become a nice person, or acting like I love my mother, but I had planned to at least try some small improvement upon the disaster that is me. However, one thing seems to have thrown a spanner in the works, and for once it isn't exactly my fault. The time spent on the vice I am giving up, was to be my own. My own to use how I saw fit, and I had hopes that it would be time well spent. But, as with most of the things in my life, I realized that the idea of having that time to burn (so to speak) was an illusion. Life, that thing that happens while we are busy making other plans, stepped in, and reclaimed my 'vice time' for its own.

The thing that is or will soon take over 'vice time' is an obligation that I swore an oath (a long time ago) to do, and in spite of my best efforts, which admittedly are piss poor as usual, it will soon take away the time I had allotted to improve upon myself.  In many ways, important way, this makes me rather militant. Wisdom comes late if at all, and the idea of giving up this vice to become the  more of the man I (and I am the important bit) want to be was something that I looked forward to. And I don't get to look forward to a whole lot of things. The fact that it has been 'stolen' from me without so much as a 'by your leave' leaves a quite bitter taste in my mouth. There is exactly fuck all I can do about it, and as to the bitter taste, well it is Valentine's Day, and there is candy to be had. Happy VD, a mob like you deserves it. 

Iron Bars and Stone Walls

"So, you are the one they will never let out?" those words were the first (unwise) ones that the 'new guy' directed and me on his first day. New guys, they just never understand at first, which I suppose is the point of them being new.  I sighed and replied " and where in the world did you get such a depressing idea?"  He smiled and said 'everyone here says the same thing. They said look at that old bastard, he is the one they will never let out of here, try not to do as he does.'  Needless to say this did not enliven my spirits a great deal. 'Well iron bars and stone walls do not a prison make, and if you think this place is a prison, well it will become one pretty quickly.'  Truth be told there were no iron bars, or stone walls, and people have 'gotten out of here alive', it was just that I wasn't ever going to, and I had accepted that as my lot in life.

Actually, the real truth, is that I could get out if I had done one of three things. Walked out without so much as a 'by your leave', asked out with my hat in my hands (which I was never going to do), and well the final exit which awaits us all, and that I was not quite ready for yet.  Walking out without a fall back didn't seem to be a good plan, considering that I like to eat and sleep in a warm place. Asking to leave, well that was part of the reason I was were I was to begin with. 'They', in this case the bastards that had put and kept me here, knew that I would never ask to leave. My inability to play well with others made it impossible for me to go begging for a new 'prison'. The third option wasn't really an option, so I was as stuck as stuck could be.

"Look junior" I laughed 'this place is a bit like purgatory, for those of your kind that believe in that sort of shit.' Your lot in life is to undergo some sort of "purification" in order to ascend to the heavens above, where all the angels sing, and the streets are paved with gold.' For me it is more like your idea of 'limbo' the edge of hell, to which I am exiled to until the end of time, or I die, whichever comes first.'  His eyes widened a bit at my blasphemy, and I begin to realize that the new guy was as green as grass. Why do 'they' continue to send me raw material like him I'll never understand. I am not the great guru of this place, I have no more knowledge than several other of my fellow travelers, but the newbies come to 'learn at the knee" of the lifer, as I am referred to in this shithole.

"The ironic part is after you 'learn at the knee' with me, you then have to go bend the knee there." Something that is also not in my skill set." Nodding in agreement he replied "so I have heard, at least the bending the knee bit." Ever thought it might not be a bad skill to learn?"
"Of course, I've thought about it, but I'll give you one more lesson from the creation myth that your lot belief in, though it isn't from the 'good book' it is from Milton. In Paradise Lost Milton quotes Satan after he has been expelled from Heaven for his sin of pride, something him and I share, Satan looks around Hell, nods once, and says "So be it." That has always been one of my guiding principles once I sorted out that they would never let me out of here." I suggest you do as I say not as I do."

Salt Kopman (A Fragment)

I am a salt merchant, a seller of exactly one commodity, salt. Not pepper, not saffron, or sage, just salt.  It was not what I was classically educated to do, but sometimes life takes you in directions that you are, at the very least, reluctant to follow.  No, salt was not in my future as a bright young lad in the Empire's second most important city.  Back then, I was not destined to sully myself (or my hands) with something so dead common as a trade. I was the family's golden boy with locks of curly hair, and a mind sharpened on the whetstones of the best tutors my family money could buy. Granted we were not the richest family in the city, but a middling amount of money would go much further back in those days than it does now. I was also the lucky beneficiary of an odd quirk that (almost all) tutors possess (when they are paid). It is wonderful for them, or so they would say, when they find a mind as quick as my was purported to be it becomes a contest. A contest to see which one of them could fill my mind with the most knowledge in their respective fields. My Maths teacher saw me solve all sorts of complex problems that his mind could only loosely grasp, and wanted me to me the next Archimides, bringing world fame upon us both. My science tutor, pondered, and failed to understand the results of my more complex experiments, and became determined to be known as the discoverer of the next Newton. My history teacher was baffled at the conclusions I drew, but knew enough to know that he wanted to make me the next Herodotus.


It wasn't overly important to me which of these fools won the day, I knew that I was not going to be any sort of the things they wanted me to be. I was going to be my own man, make my own way in the world, and do all sorts of wonderful things.  I didn't really want to be limited to being just one of the above 'new' men, I wanted to be all of them rolled into one.  Thus, my desire to learn as much as I could, about as much as there was to learn. Each tutor, in their own way, and without their knowledge was creating in me exactly what they wanted. They just didn't realize that all the other tutors were doing the same thing.  I never claimed to be a nice guy. People have their uses, and not putting them to the use they have is just plain wasteful

However, all those tutors imparted all that knowledge at a price. Both in monetary, and other terms. The money eventually ran out, and I was not prepared to meet their other terms. Seems they wanted to create the newest, brightest thing in their field, but only if they could control it as well. I have some major control issues, and I left my tutors, and decided to take my knowledge out into the wild world. The problem was with how I left my tutors, and it was for that reason that the wild world became a little bit wilder. Some fellows with nightsticks and the funny hats merely 'suggested' that 'the wide, wild, world could use a lad like you, just not this particular corner'. This corner of the world had all the clever fellows it could stand, and it was in my 'best interest' to find a new location from which to pursue my dreams of world domination.

Hints are rather easier to catch onto when they are delivered at the end of a sharp, pointy thing, and suggestions about traveling are easier to understand when they are had at the city gates. The second city of the Empire had no more use for me, regardless of my feelings on the matter. It wasn't that I had put down particularly deep roots in the city of my birth, but being pushed out the door was quite a blow to my psyche. Not that I had any sort of 'normal' home life to bid adieu to, but still one would prefer to walk out of, rather than be shown, the door.

Once out that 'proverbial' door, I had very little choice. The 'free' market isn't really free, and charity is not something that can be reliably depended upon. Sure, there are some kind souls out in the world, who will give you a hot meal, and maybe even a place to stay, but they begin to look less fondly upon you as more time goes past.  Therefore, the kindness of my fellow humans was not going to see me through was what clearly more than just a 'rough patch' in my life. No, I very quickly realized that there was exactly one person upon whom I could rely, myself.  It was not necessarily a surprise, but this realization was still not a pleasant one at which to arrive.

The problem with that realization was that I was an unknown quality when it came to be relied upon, no one had ever had the bad sense to rely upon me before. But, here I was out of other options, and only my wits, and a precious few coins to sustain me. Those coins, some carefully hoarded, some actually earned, and a few that were, shall we say 'borrowed' from my fellow citizens, were not going to last nearly as long as I needed them to, and the horror that soon became apparent to me was that I was going to have to acquire that most dreaded of things, a job. Suddenly, the idea of being the next Herodotus didn't look such a bad idea. Unfortunately that ship had sailed, sailed without me, sailed with me standing on the dock gleefully waving it good bye and wishing it a bad journey. That decision, as I plotted where my next meal was coming from, seemed just a bit on the foolish side. The joys of hindsight, if you ponder long enough about 'where it all went horribly wrong' most of the time (stress on most) you can, if you're bright enough and honest enough with yourself (always a tricky thing to try to be), figure out that moment in time where you went left instead of right. 

Although my more immediate left or right decision was a bit more prosaic being as it was being decided in a pissing down, cold rain at the crossroads that I had been 'gently' escorted to by the burly gentlemen wearing the Queen's livery. The left or right choice that was currently facing me was much more simple. Left led to the swamps and wastes of a province that had no appeal to me. Left was the way of the desperate, the way of the men who had absolutely nothing left to lose, those that life had little use for, and those who had little use for life. Right led to the far-flung reaches of the empire, the frontier as it were. A place, where if a man was clever enough (and I liked to think back then at least that I was clever), he could find some sort of fortune, if not exactly fame. The province I was being 'advised' to leave was home to the Empire's second city. The province that I turned right to trudge towards contained (and I am being generous) the Empire's seventeenth city, and and whole bunch of nothing else.

However, since I was not quite in the grips of a mind numbing despair, I chose to go right at the crossroads. I like to think it was a good idea, but hindsight is always 20/20. Back then I just wanted to find a place to sleep that was dry, and a place where I could eat on the cheap. It is amazing how quickly your priorities can change, and how simple your goals become once you are 'homeless'.  

Mes Amis

January is, so 'they' say the saddest month. It's cold, it's windy, and it is way too long. We  all start out with more resolutions than the United Nations, and a week later we are back in the same rut(s) that plagued us in December. Maybe time doesn't pass, but we do. Maybe time is standing still, and we are the ones moving forward (in theory), and the name of the month on the calendar, and the year makes fuck all difference in the grand scheme of things.  One friend of mine says that he suffers from SAD, i.e. seasonal affective disorder, which I always thought was his way of making a joke. As it turns out, SAD is a real disorder, which explains of lot of his behaviour. Theories abound that the weather has a much larger affect on our mood that one would think, I've never cared for those theories. After all, rain clouds are just that rain clouds, they should not affect how angry, happy, or sad I am on any given day. 

I made exactly one resolution this year, but that is a tale for another time, today's tale is about my friends. Two of them to be exact, the two friends that I have 'lost' this year (and we aren't even out of January). To be precise neither of them is 'lost'. I know exactly where both of them are, where they both live, where they both work, and I still have their digits programmed into my phone. They aren't lost in the Jimmy Hoffa sense, they are lost in the we no longer can be considered friends sense. Those who know me, know that I am not a man overburdened with friends. I know 'of' a lot people (many of them through my job), I know 'about' very few people. That is a big difference, and I allow very few people to know about me. I tend to make friends badly, but the one's I make, I generally keep around.

These two 'friends' had both been around for a while themselves, and until this month there was no real clouds on our friendship horizon. Then, they both changed that, and the dark clouds rolled in quickly. Luckily for me one of them is too stupid to understand why or how they lost my friendship, and the other probably doesn't give a shit. Neither one is to be considered a great loss, after all, their actions are the reason for the ending of our friendship(s). I doubt that either one will care overmuch when, or if they realize they are no longer involved in my life. I am quite sure (in fact, I know) that they have lives of their own, lives that are full of other friends. More power to them, I hope (mostly) that those other friends can look past what I consider to be their perfidy, and continue to be friends with them. I can not and will not.

Being a man of such few friends, the loss of two people from that list is a bit harder to bear, but it is a simple fact that me and these two people can not be friends anymore. Theirs was no act of great betrayal, and I did not have to pull any metaphorical knives out of my back. It was more a drifting apart rather than a shearing that sundered our friendship(s). I've yet to decide whether to delete them entirely out of my life, their numbers are still in my phone, but I will not extend the first olive branch of any attempted reconciliation. It is not that being my friend is any great shakes. I imagine (if I were to attempt to imagine it) that in many ways these people could be better off without me in their respective lives.

Those lives will continue to rumble along, and I doubt that the speed bump of my former friendship will slow them down one whit.  That is actually my hope, I do not wish these two people ill, but I am no longer to be considered amongst their well wishers. I doubt they will be replaced on the friend list, but I realize that at the rate of losing two friends a month, I will be totally friendless by spring.

Le droit de l'homme

'I am not the right man' I said as she attempted to make coffee that wouldn't taste like rat poison. She wasn't much in the kitchen, but had other skills that made up for kitchen deficiencies. She looked up at my words, with what I assumed was a tart reply. But, before she could let loose with her verbal riposte, I said 'and neither is he.' That caused the untimely demise of some crockery in the kitchen sink, and I new that 'the battle' was now well and truly joined.

That battle was not the first of the uncivil war that we had waged against one another for slightly over a year, but it was to be the last, and as it turned out the most deadly.  'Me and him are same sides of different coins, neither of which are the currency of the realm.'  Those were not the words she wanted to hear, but I felt the need to say them while I could. I knew, and she knew that this was the last stand of a relationship that vultures had been circling for a while.  Part of the reason that the relationship was on the road to perdition was the fact that 'he' existed. Not that she had gone actively looking for my 'replacement', but it appeared (at least to me) that she had found him. Obviously, this was a bit disconcerting to me, and I am afraid that I did not react quite as well as I should have to this news.

"He's going to leave you one day, just as sure as the sun rises in the east, and you know this as well." She liked that comment even less, and the flash of anger in her eyes lit them up like a Christmas tree. It was a warning sign that I should have had the sense enough to heed, but since I figured this was our last rodeo, I blew through the sign like the proverbial bull in the china shop.  At this rate I figured the expression in for a penny in for a pound would be my guiding principle. "You arrogant prick, do you really believe that just because you lack the humanity that every other human seems to possess, that you have the right to predict my future?" she asked that with some real heat, and truth be told I guess she rather had a point. It took a very long moment for me to reply 'yes, I do.'

"I don't know the man sweetie, I know the type.' I said very carefully. If only I had exhibited such care in our relationship, perhaps this moment in time would have been avoided, but I didn't and so here I was listening the death knell of yet another failed relationship ring ever so loudly in my ears.  The sound, though metaphorical, was still quite deafening.  It wasn't that I was trying to sink my own ship, or cut off my own nose to spite my face, it was just that I could not seem to stop myself. The self-destructive streak that she always accused me of having was asserting itself, and it seemed beyond my power to stop. Very slowly she said "The type? You know the type? Let me tell you something you arrogant ass, you are the type." "The flaws you claim he has you possess in spades, and what's more you know it, and you don't seem to give enough of a shit to change."

I suspect she rather had a point, but I was not in the mood to take a hammer to my soul and help her dismantle me anymore.  My flaws, so very numerous if you were to believe her, were not something that I felt the need to bring out into the light. "But, I know you aren't going to listen to me, which I suspect is your privilege and your right. Just remember that when the end comes that I predicted, I won't be around to say that I told you so.'  I continued before she could disagree 'You seem to think that just because he's there, or rather here that he is the answer to your questions. I can assure you that is not true, the questions you have aren't to be answered by a man, any man, and especially not this one.'

The next words she directed (hurled would be a more correct way of putting it) are not quite fit to print. They were harsh words (in my opinion), they were true words (in her opinion), and they were the last words that we ever spoke to one another as a 'couple'.  The decoupling that took place that night was, in the grand scheme of things, necessary, and I would wager she would tell you (she certainly wouldn't deign to speak to me) that it was probably the best thing to happen to her in years. Perhaps I was wrong about the other fellow not being the right guy, time I suppose will tell. The odds are at present against me being correct in my assessment, but time both heals and deals all wounds. The wounds that we inflicted upon each other that tempestuous night probably aren't ever going to fully heal.  Though I suppose I should at least thank her for directing those harsh, true (if you add both our opinions together) at the right man, me. 

The Death of Time

The above picture is of what was, until about 3 o'clock this morning, my oldest most prized possession. It is a alarm clock that I have had for almost 22 years. I am not sure of the exact date or time (get it) that I bought the above item, but it was ages, and ages ago.  It was made by the Spartacus company of Louisville, Mississippi, and I have over the years almost written the company to thank them for their long lived product, and to perhaps see if they were still in business. I never wrote them, and today I regret that decision.

Coming home drunk last evening probably contributed to the death of my alarm clock. I was a bit tipsy when I fell into my bed, and I had to plug in my phone, as I did I pulled the extension cord that my clock was plugged into onto the bed with me. A sudden flash, a loud pop, and a horrible burning smell immediately took place, and I look over bleary eyed at my clock to find the face blank.

This is the burn mark the death of my alarm clock left in my blanket, but there is a much larger hole in my life. I knew the wires had a bit of age on them, and that perhaps it was time to invest in some electrical tape to extend the life of my alarm clock, but I had not gotten around to it until, as it turns out, it was too late.  The clock was beyond any sort of repair, and I was actually concerned that the electric outlet was about to explode, and take my entire apartment with it. Also, being a bit drunk, things were a lot more complicated to understand at the time. This is a sad report of the last moments I spent with my trusty alarm clock. I feel that if only I had been more cautious, and less drunk, or if perhaps I had not moved the cord the exact wrong way, then I would not be writing this dirge today.

Forget the  madman in the box, or any other sort of time machine. This clock was my companion for 20 years. It saw me enroll in, graduate college, enroll in, and flame out of graduate school, enroll in and graduate law school. It has moved with me to and from Mississippi, and back to my present town. It has seen me get married, buy a house, and then divorced, and sell that house. It has been in countless apartments with me, and has seen me make most of the tragic mistakes in my life.  Many a 'companion' have been awakened by my alarm clock, they were quite impressed that the clock and I had such a close connection that I would be able to say 'The alarm is about to go' and would hear me interrupted by the noise of the alarm finishing my sentence for me.  I was also very attuned to the nine minute snooze function. Several times bedroom activity other than sleeping was timed to that glorious nine minutes.

It remains probably the best ten dollars I have ever spent. It was the only thing that could qualify as an 'heirloom' in my minimalist existence. I am not someone who grows overly attached to my personal possessions, and yet this clock had survived almost as many disasters as Hercules had labours.  I know that over the years I called it several foul names, and slammed my fist down upon it telling it 'to shut the ever loving fuck up' and that 'I'm awake you whiny bastard.' It took all that abuse and still survived, managing to wake me up from the deepest (drunken) slumber with what is still the most annoying noise I have ever heard.

Perhaps my neglect of my longest serving bedroom companion is a metaphor for the neglect that I lavished upon the other companions that shared the bedroom with my clock and I.  If I had paid more attention to those fraying wires, and I had obtained the simple fix (i.e. tape) that would have repaired those wires, I would not be here sans alarm clock (and other bedroom companions) today. Perhaps fraying wires, and electrical tape are also metaphors for the overall status of the failed relationships that the clock has been witness to over the years. All these metaphors, and all the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put either those relationships, or my clock back together again. 'They' (whomever they are) say wisdom comes late, and maybe I hit the snooze button once too often when wisdom came calling. Good night sweet prince. 

Hiver en ma coeur

"It must be winter in my heart" ---- The Avett Brothers

The title of this post is lifted from the title of a song by the Avett Brothers, and it is with apologies that I steal.

I know that the beginning of winter was just a couple of days ago, and I suppose this post is a day or two late, but that what happens when you are as cripplingly lazy as I am. However, the date on the calendar need not overly concern us because, as the song says it must be winter in my heart. It must be because I have to make it so. Just like number One 'makes it so' on the command of Captain Picard, I have given the executive order to make it winter in my heart. That order will not be as simple as the 'making it so' seems to indicate, and it has taken quite a bit of moral fortitude to give that command. I am not overly endowed with moral fortitude, and I have had to sit myself down, and give myself several stern 'talkings to' in order to be able to with any sense of purpose give the order that will bring winter down upon my heart. 

It must needs doing because of you my dear child of summer. You were born in the hottest month of the year, and winter is your deadly enemy. Well, get prepared to face your worst enemy, because winter has arrived in my heart. The frigid air will greet you upon your arrival, like an evil Wal-Mart greeter, the air is not here to make you comfortable it is here to freeze you out. Out of my heart, out of my system, and finally out of my life. There is no room for a child of summer in the winter of my heart. It has been created specifically to rid itself of the poison that is you. The starkness of the deadliest winter your limited imagination can conjure up is what you are face my child of summer. You are not prepared for this, this is the last winter of my discontent. No bright summer sun of York will arrive like the 7th Calvary to save you from the massacre of the winter.

The leaves of spring have fallen, and all you will see as you peer myopically around the winter of my heart are the branches of trees that have packed it in for winter. The dead branches are a symbol, a symbol that you, in your vanity and your ignorance will not understand. They are just the precursor, the first sign that you have wandered into a landscape that is not your friend. A landscape created, and being created by my force of will. A will that I had to summon to expel you from the (no longer existing) warmth of my hearth. To be honest, something I am certain you've forgotten how to be, the warmth of my heart was never, even on its best (hottest) day, too warm. It could sustain, barely, a person who wasn't afraid of a touch of coolness in the air. You, as a child of summer, can not handle coolness, and you should shudder at the thought of the coldness of the winter that is fast approaching.

It must be winter in my heart, all warm things must go the way of Dodo bird, they have to become extinct. The carnivals of spring and the festivals of summer have to be eradicated, removed from the equation that contains you.  If you pay attention, which you so rarely do, you will notice the cemetery off to the side. The graveyard that contains your predecessors the people that trod this cold path before you. You will notice, I hope, as you walk this icy path that in that cemetery are many stones, if you are adventurous enough to pause before them you will see a name, or maybe two that you recognize. If you study the dates you will also detect a pattern. The starting dates are as varied as the spice choices in a Turkish market, but several of the end dates are very similar. The years are different of course, but the month and day are very close in time. Several of them have this time of year engraved on their stone.

And if you are willing to stand there in the graveyard of relationships a little longer, you will see a stone with a very familiar name engraved upon it. You will also notice a dark figure coldly chiseling today's date in the stone. That is me, this is winter both by the calendar, and in my heart, and I am engaging in a very time honoured tradition. You see, I do not 'do' Christmas, I ruin Christmas. It is what I do, what I am doing, and probably what I will continue to do long after you, child of summer, have succumbed to the long, cold winter that is now in my heart. You will succumb you know, just as the flowers that are all red, pink, and blue wither and die as the first touch of frost lights upon their delicate petals. You too will wither, shrivel, and fade back into the ground from which you sprung. Winter is the time of empty flower beds, stark naked tree branches, and pure untrammeled snow. In that crisp, clear, frigid air, you will notice that the stars look as if a madman threw them up into the sky in some incoherent pattern, a pattern that a madman such as Van Gogh would struggle to make sense of, but I realize the pattern, after all I made the pattern, I made the path upon which you tread, I made the gravestones which you read, and I made the winter in my heart. I wish you luck.

7th Place is No Place

A NASCAR racer by the name of Junior Johnson one said "second place is no place." Being a 'good old boy', Junior was at least bright enough to notice how the winners circle only had room enough for one, and he was determined to be that one, every chance he got.  I'm fairly certain old Junior also noticed that all the cameras, girls, and most of the money were also being distributed in the winner's circle, and when he finished second, not a whole lot of attention was being payed to him.  Patton once said that 'Americans love a winner', and he was right. Who wants to be Miss Congenitally? To be told well honey at least you have a great personality.  The second most beautiful women in the world, who remembers her except maybe her parents and the slug lucky enough to be banging her, and he is probably only doing that as some sort of consolation fuck.

If second place is no place then try to extrapolate that out a few more places. Does anyone, other than fans of the team involved, or punters who lost money on them remember who LOST the last World Series, World Cup, Super Bowl, or Euros? A limited few, and the only reason the number is as high as it is, is because some of those losers are entire countries.  Few of us neutrals remember the loser, the second place bastard who on his or her day just 'wasn't quite good enough.'  Third place? Hell boy, they only give prizes for 3rd place in the Olympics (which I am sure M. Johnson would find highly suspect), and horse racing.  The horse doesn't know any better, and the poor 3rd place Olympic bastard has to stand on a podium, and listen to the winner's national anthem blare out that he is the second loser of the lot. I am sure the bronze and silver medals are nice, and make a good story to tell, but they don't call it the 'ecstasy of the gold' for no reason.

Fourth place is the superfecta in horse racing, a bet that only the truly idiotic, or optimistic (which are actually the same thing) even bother trying to hit. Once again, the horse doesn't know any better, he or she is just trying to get that screaming, whip happy midget off their back, and go back to the barn and eat oats, or whatever horses do in their spare time. Fifth, or sixth places? Really do you remember the sixth fellow to climb Mount Everest (it was Hans Rudolph von Gunten, and he did in May 24th, 1956), and I am quite sure he was cursing Edmund Hilary's name the entire trip.  Yes fifth and sixth are some sad sacks, some lonely men or women who probably really shouldn't have been in the competition to begin with. What sort of excuse do you provide your fans, your trainer, or even yourself for finishing 6th? Depending on the size of the field, in theory 6th isn't that bad, but still who is going to record your feat for the sake of posterity. You aren't even going to be the answer to a trivia question, because no one would get the answer right.

This leads us to 7th place. 7th place in horse racing will usually give you a clear view of the field, from the back. Not a whole lot going for you if you finish 7th. I suppose a lot of Olympic events finals consist of eight places, so you aren't dead last, but you are a lot closer to last than you are ever going to get to first.  I was recently 'semi' involved in a competition in which it was clear that I was going to finish 7th. I was unsure of the size of the field, but even before I had a chance to 'ride the lists', I knew that places 1 through 6 were already predetermined.  Seventh place was and is not appealing to me, and I chose 'not to run' (a la Jerry Seinfeld). The candle (as the saying goes) was just not quite worth the game. I do not (as a general rule) like to lose, in anything. Play me in checkers, video golf, trivia, or cards, and you will find me a stubborn competitor. I may not be the best at anything, but I certainly am not 7th best. One could say that just because you know you aren't going to finish in the top six is no reason to not compete. Do it for the love of the game, and all that other bullshit that coaches spout out to teams they know are full of losers, mommy's boys, and myopic asthmatics. Truth be told, I have engaged in many a contest where I knew I was going to have my ass handed to me on a plate, with a side of 'I told you so' sauce.  Besides, there was no love involved in this game.

This game's outcome was long since determined before my invitation 'to play' was received. I don't like to lose, and I like pre-determined outcomes even less. The game continues apace without me, and I am no longer interested in who finishes 7th place in it.  I am still uncertain of the size of the field, but it seems to be a crowded one. More power to the people who are playing it for the sake of saying they finished the course (as it were), but for me, and the few shreds of dignity I have remaining, I will respectfully return my ticket, take my toys, and go the fuck home.  After all some of the finest competitors in the world have had enough sense to understand that sometimes it is the race NOT run that defines them just as much, if not more, as the races they ran.  God Jul.

You, of the Third part

To continue my own personal (late) holiday tradition.


Today, I have recently decided is going to be a 'you' free day. I know it is a little late to be deciding it, but better late than never. I have made this decision after some calm reflection, some deep thought, and the most important way I know to make a decision, i.e. I flipped a fucking coin.  Therefore, today the day after the holiday that I like to ruin for the hell of it, is going to be sans you. Make no mistake, it is not a easy decision, nor is it taken as lightly as the preceding sentence would imply.  A lot of soul searching, and great deal of thought, and a sustained effort has gone into making this simplest of decisions. The decision to have nothing to do with you today. 

The decision is, of course, made more difficult by the fact that it has been ages upon ages since I have had a 'you free' day. In this information/technology age in which we live, we have spent the last years/months/days in almost constant contact. There are very few places that either of us could run to (if we so chose) that would put us out of the reach of the other.  That, up until today, has be equal parts fantastic and stifling. I am sure that each of us would have, at some point in this time period, wished for a 'free' day. I am making the unilateral decision that today will be that day. The irony of it will be that you won't really know I've made this decision until the embargo is lifted. After all, it is a 'you' free day. I can't tell you on the front end it is happening or the ensuing argument/discussion would probably take most of the day. That would just be unacceptable.

It will be a tough thing to do, to make today a 'you free' day, after all, in the time we be intertwined in each others lives, I have woken up next to you, woken up wondering where you were, woken up with other people, and have figured you have woken up with others as well. Part of the 'us' was the fact that 'us' wasn't ever really just an 'us.' Other people have a tendency to get 'in the way' as it were, and both of 'us' know this. And therein lies what is mostly the rub about the entire situation. The fact that there isn't an 'us', isn't going to be an 'us' and probably wasn't an 'us' for longer than 2 hours over the entire course of 'us' knowing each other.

We were, and we remain 'seas too far to reach' for each other. A bridge too far, one step out of each others comfort zones, and that is never, ever going to change. No matter how hard either or both of us try. I know I haven't been trying that hard to change it, and when I am speaking to you again, I will ask you how hard you've been trying, though I already know the answer.  It remains an article of faith that I don't ask questions that I don't already know the answer to, and that upsets you more than you like to think I realize. 

Your phone will ring, you will receive text messages, the mail will still be delivered to your door, and unknown numbers of people will interact with you personally today, just not me. I, like most people today, have a phone addiction, but you will not be feeding it today. I thought at first just to react to any communication that I received from you, but then I realized that would be cheating, and have determined to make you person non grata for today. I am not really sure you will notice overmuch, and when/if you do, I am also not sure what your reaction will be, there is another problem that we have. After all of our time together those two things (amongst many others) should be settled or predictable. You should have noticed, at least by now, that you haven't heard from me, and I should with all the previous knowledge I posses of your moods (and their swings) know how you are going to react to me not answering any communication I receive from you.

Truth be told, you might be euphoria about it for all I know, or it may make you as melancholy as a Dane, or you might just not give two shits because it's Black Friday, and you have some other person in a headlock trying to get the watch that you both really want. I, at least for today, should not be counted among the people that care what you think or feel.  Life is a cruel, cruel mistress, and she teaches us many lessons along the way, but on occasion she needs help. She needs us to provide ourselves with challenges that we might no be able to meet. Challenges that even if we fail at doing, we gather some modicum of knowledge about ourselves.

Those lessons begin to form our experiences, and those experiences begin to shape our world view. Our world view is something that evolves over time, and with all the lessons, failures, mistakes, and even the (rare) raging successes it is something that is ours alone. My worldview, as warped or out of date as it probably is, is mine, and while 'you' form a part of it overall, I can not, for the sake of that worldview, allow you to influence it today. I hope, but realize you won't, understand, and if by placing myself outside of 'us' even if only for a day, you become aggrieved  (or happy) enough to extend the 'you free' day(s) I am experiencing, I would be quite sad for a bit. But, eventually I would 'get over it' as the saying goes. Today, at least in theory, I take 'me' back. I suspect once I get a good solid grasp on 'me' I will drop it like a hot rock, and want to text, call, or see you immediately, it is going to be a test of my 'character' to see whether or not I will succeed. Here's hoping. 

The Springs of My Soul

"You have broken the springs of my soul."

Klemens von Metternich to his lover the Duchess of Sagan. Autumn of 1814.


By all the accounts I have read, which granted is not a great many, our lover boy von Metternich was madly, passionately, unabashedly in love with the Duchess of Sagan. Those same accounts also describe the love as being returned (at least for a while), and describe the Duchess as quite a beauty. Good for him, he was a bit older than the Duchess, and it is also nice to see the older generation(s) rekindling their youth in the most simple of ways.

For the people who do not have the obscure, classical education that I am currently paying off at about 1000 quid a month, our lover boy von Metternich was at the time the Austrian Foreign Minister. He was quite the dandy/looker himself, and was a real charmer. At home in the stuffy, rule laden drawing rooms of 19th century Vienna, he was able to have several women swoon over him at once, but it appears that the Duchess was his true love. Or at least he thought so at the time, and that time is critical to the story. At the time, Metternich wrote those impossibly sad lines, he was quite the busy bee trying to get Austria as much as he could during the Congress of Vienna. A Congress that, eventually, secured peace in Europe for nearly a century. A Congress so historically significant that Henry Kissinger wrote a book about it. A Congress that for being all of that, was never officially opened.

All in all, a pretty fucking big deal, and since Austria fought about as well as a one armed, one eyed, drunken, chicken in the wars preceding the Congress, it was incumbent upon Metternich to try to salvage from the negotiation table what his white coated pansy of an army could not achieve on the battle field. It would be 'six weeks of hell', and from my understanding of the concept of 'hell' it is not a place I would want to spend six seconds, and certainly not six weeks. During those six weeks of fun, delegates from almost 200 countries, duchies, free cities, and even the Pope descended on Vienna to carve up the spoils of the recent defeat of that freedom loving fellow, Napoleon.  Like starving men around the last of the kidney pies, these worthies were set to take everything they could grab, and the devil take the hindmost.

It is this tense, pretty fucking important, setting that we find our soulful lover Metternich, and his Duchess. From their letters, and from their actions they would appear to be a perfect couple, each not bad to look at, both of them witty, urbane, intelligent in their own way, and both as rich as Croesus. A 19th century power couple. As with most power couples, or maybe with just most couples in general, things could just not last. The Duchess was not pleased by her role of 'unofficial mistress' (I wonder if there is an official mistress role?), and since Metternich was married, and not going to divorce anytime soon (or ever) she got a bit miffed, and a miffed Duchess is not someone that you want mucking about with your feelings, as our boy Metternich was about to find out to his cost.

And that cost was the "springs of his soul" she left him high and dry at a time when he either needed her the most or at the very least needed not to have his heart broken into a million pieces. I would wager that negotiating with a fellow by the name of Talleyrand was a difficult thing to do in the best of times, try doing it with the springs of your soul broken. Not going to be a fun time.  The fact that he was able to keep it together to achieve what he did speaks volumes about the steel in the springs of Metternich's soul.  Broken springs or not, he got a fairly good deal at the Congress, and I applaud him for it.

That is all the set up for the real reason of this post, because much like our boy Metternich someone chose a very important time in my life to 'break the springs of my soul.' Much like the Duchess of Sagan this person knew what they were doing, and knew that the timing of it just made things that much worse. Unlike Metternich, the steel in the springs of my soul are not quite as hardened, and if I were a time traveler (a la Dr. Who) I would go back, and make a much different decision than I did at the time. But time only travels by passing in my world, and going back is not possible, at least as far as this incarnation of me knows. Looking back in time is about the best us mortals not in possession of a Tardis can do, and that just isn't quite the same.

It is in that 'looking back' in time that a queer sort of madness lies. The madness of the (now) knowing better, the (now) knowing the 'right' thing to do or say, and the madness of watching it in my memory unfold like a bad play in a cheap theatre, where there are no 'good' seats. Rewinding those events and playing them forward and backwards over and over again in slow motion to see the exact moment when it all went horribly wrong, and the wall between us was built entirely too high for us to ever climb again. Of course, all this 20/20 hindsight does not repair the broken springs of my soul, those remain broken. Unlike Metternich, who I am fairly certain effected the proper repairs to his soul, I seem to lack the ability to accomplish that feat. Perhaps, almost certainly, he was made of sterner stuff, or perhaps, I just don't care to try. Until that Tardis comes into my (current) life.Time is only going to pass at the normal speed, and only in one direction.

That direction is, in theory, forward or at least as close to forward as I can manage. Time for me cannot go backwards, it might be possible to make it stand still, but only ever so briefly, and it might be able to go sideways with the right amount of effort, but effort is something that I find myself in short supply of, and therefore time will march on in a forward direction. Forward isn't always progress, but forward we shall go into an unknown, and unknowable future, fraught with peril or perhaps just as boring as today has turned out to be, that is yet to be decided. Though I guess at this 'time' I should apologize to the shade of Metternich for taking his ever so sad words, and using them for my own purposes. It was done out of a odd sort of admiration, and the fact it was poorly done should not tarnish the sadness of those heartfelt words penned ever so long ago. Mea culpa. 



 

 

Sept Ans

Seven years ago today, I committed the largest 'crime' in my life. Technically that isn't exactly true, but what I did was not illegal at the time, nor it is illegal today. Also, my guilt as it is probably not as a principal but as a collaborator or an accomplice.  It would be more accurate to say that seven years ago, I helped convince someone else to make the worst decision of their otherwise boring life.  Although they might, if they were still talking to me, dispute my calling their life boring.

It was, boring life or not, a huge mistake that I convinced this person to make, I would dare say that it was at the time, and remains to this day the biggest mistake they ever made, or ever wanted to make. Mistakes are sort of like fish sometimes they get bigger in the retelling of their making. This mistake was big enough the first time around to satisfy even the most experienced of tall tale tellers. It was a mistake that was a long time coming, which in theory I suppose, makes it worse. After all, a mistake made off the cuff, or in a fit of passion is a mistake that can, in many ways, be forgiven quickly enough. Sadly, this mistake was made after a lengthy period of what could be considered calm reflection. It was a mistake that took some convincing in order to be made. It was not a 'let's just hop the next plane to Vegas, and spend the rent money on hookers and blow' type of mistake.  That type of mistake, if you are lucky and your heart doesn't explode, is a fairly simple mistake that from which a complete recovery can be made.

The fact that this mistake was made is a damning indictment on me as a person. I never claimed to be a particularly good human being, and I point to this mistake as being proof of that claim.  Most people, most 'good' people make, or at least attempt to make, some sort of apology for their mistake. Me, I decide to compound my mistake (although I did wait a couple of years) by doing all sorts of other bad things to the poor fool I had talked into the mistake in the first place. That is probably the reason that they are no longer speaking to me, for the second time in their life. They have placed me, quite rightly I would say, under a communication ban. I am person non Grata in their world, and I can't says that I blame them.

This was supposed to be an attempt at a 'mea culpa', but it seems I am no good at those either. I tried, several times, to apology for my sins, and I had hopes that it was accepted. I even had some physical proof that things were if not good, at least decent enough for us to be in the same room at the same time. Alas and alack, it was not destined to last, like most of my 'successes' this one proved all too fleeting, and I am left, once again, bemoaning the fact that I am, to intents and purposes, both an idiot and a bad person.  Both of these things I already knew, partially due to the fact that there is no shortage of people in my life that are quite willing to tell me how big of an idiot I am, and exactly how bad of a person I have become.

The idea that 'you are you own worst critic' is not something that needs to apply to me. No, I have several critics that are quite willing to take the wrecking ball of their wit to the shaky house of my confidence with hardly any prompting at all.  Watching yourself being taken apart, brick by brick, it not an uplifting experience, nor is it for the faint of heart.  However, all the wrecking balls, and all the dismantling that has been aimed in my direction about this particular mistake are miles and miles short of the destruction that I deserve, and that I visit upon myself. It was quite simply (I know like I put anything simply) wrong of me to do. It was akin to telling a Jewish refugee that 'sure you can crash at my house', and then finding the nearest Nazi and informing him of the Jew you have on the sofa. Certainly, a death camp was not the result, but physical death is not always the worst thing that can happen to a person.

Seven years does seem a long time to be holding on to a regret like a drowning man holding on to the only plank in sight on an otherwise empty ocean, but in the grand scheme of things it is merely a blip in the time frame of the world. The world barely registers seven years as time enough to accomplish anything, but me and this person are not the world (well maybe writ small), and seven years is a significant amount of time in the context of the time we are allocated on this world.  In many ways it is the most important, for good or bad, event in both of our lives.  Which is sad on many levels, that I in any shape, form or fashion, am a part of the most important (or even the top three most important) events in someone's life other than my own, is quite terrifying.

Perhaps if I had felt more of that terror seven years ago today whilst standing in front of most of my friends, helping this poor sod make the biggest mistake of their life, I would not be typing this 'post of regret' today. Perhaps that terror, coupled with a thing that I am rumored not to possess i.e. common sense, would have lead me to making a different choice. A choice that by this time seven years ago was almost impossible to make, and would have taken an amount of bravery that we are taking an entire day to celebrate in others, which I clearly do not possess. Fortune is supposed to favour the brave, and I do not bemoan my lack of 'fortune' since I am far, far from being that type of brave. I have written, thought, said, and actually felt many things since that fateful day seven years ago, and it would appear that I have many more things to learn, and feel (in spite of my best efforts not to), but one thing that I can say with absolute clarity.  Je suis desole.

Baubles

Napoleon once said that "It is with baubles that men are led."  He should probably know he led a lot of men, smart men, men who were headstrong enough not to be easily led.  Making someone the Count of somewhere, or the Duke of something, is probably a good way to get some fence sitting jackass to come around to your way of thinking. Handing out baubles like they are xmas candy is a good way to get men to suddenly think you might be worth making a whole horde of infidels die for their country.

I recently acquired/backed into/ obtained a bauble. A bauble of outstanding beauty, and one that I probably have no right to possess. One look at this bauble, and you would wonder how an idiot like myself was able to find himself possessing it. Well, that is a story that I can't quite explain. It was mostly an accident, or maybe the fates are just playing a cruel joke on me. Fates like to do that from time to time, play cruel jokes on unsuspecting, idiot mortals, and in spite of my best efforts, I am all three. Unsuspecting, an idiot, and all too mortal.  None of these things, except maybe the idiot part can I really do anything about. Perhaps someday I will get around to attempt to fix the idiot problem that I posses, but today's task is to just simply to enjoy the bauble that I possess. After all that is what pretty baubles are for, and I've been told by several people that my bauble is quite pretty.

I didn't realize the possession (if that is really the right word) of the bauble would led to such happy consequences. One of these consequences has been that suddenly I am a much better person. At least to the people that see me and my bauble together. I don't know why these people seem to think that I have suddenly unlocked the key to non-idiocy, but they do. All of a sudden, with no real change to my base personality, or looks, I have become some sort of genius. Like some cosmonaut that has successfully returned alive from space despite long odds, and a dysfunctional space capsule.

Truth be told, I am still the same asshole I was pre-bauble, that I am post bauble. I have not changed one whit. I am not any smarter, skinner, or better looking than I was the day before I found/acquired this bauble, and I will be the same asshole after I manage to lose this bauble. Because, sadly, I know that I will. Lose the bauble that is. One day, probably not in the none too distant future, I will awake and be suddenly sans bauble. Then, I will come crashing back to earth like that aforementioned cosmonaut. Disgraced, and fallen back to earth, I will look around, and all the glory, and accolades that I have been basking in while in possession of this bauble will be gone. Poof! like the smoke dissipating after a musket being fired.

I could write pages and pages of fiction describing this bauble, line upon line explaining the happy effects that this bauble is having upon my usually dreary life. All of these pages, and all of these lines will not rid me of two very important things. One the, all too brief, happiness, that having this bauble in my life is providing me, and two the (eventual) crushing sadness that will come when this bauble slips out of my control. All of those lines that I could pollute the blog sphere with, will not rid my bones of that sadness that is as sure to come as the sun rising tomorrow in the right direction.

In fact, the possession of this bauble is a terrifying experience. It scares the ever loving hell out of me that some damn fool like me, and I am a damn fool, has fallen ass backwards onto this high terrain. It is an unusual position for the likes of me, and I am not exactly sure if I am quite ready to fall from such high terrain. The days are about to start to turn cold, and this bauble does not exactly provide warmth in the convention sense, it does, at times, give me a bit of a warm, fuzzy feeling. Or, that could just be the booze, I am not sure which, and am not really going to investigate too closely.  I don't want to let this bauble down, it is very pretty, very shiny, and quite bright. A bauble that is quite beyond my ordinary skill to obtain.

Though, possession of this bauble has effected a subtle change upon me, other than the fact that other people now think I am some sort of bloody genius, that effect is something I can do nothing about, even if I wanted to. Which I am pretty sure I don't. The subtle change wrought by this newly acquired bauble is simply this. I can see, off in the middle distance, the clouds that non-possession will bring. I know they are there. It is similar to seeing the dust cloud of the desert nomads that are going to overrun the fort you and your fellow 'legionaries' control. Overwhelming numbers, and large clouds are coming your way. But, quite simply put, I don't care. I  will have this bauble for all too brief of a time, and losing it will be heart breaking, but at least after all that dust settles, and the heart mends itself (because that is what hearts do, they mend eventually), I will have possessed this bauble, and all the king's horses, and all the king's men will never be able to change that fact. It is, for me at least, one of life's little victories, and I didn't have to kill one infidel to achieve it. 

Concentrated

"The men are too concentrated, sir" Wilson muttered with a sniff, he is the sickly type, and always has some complaint be it a cold or Bright's Disease, Wilson was always suffering from something. Me, I was mostly suffering from an overdose of Wilson. "Gods damn it, Wilson. Not more than a few moments ago, you were telling me they were too scattered." "How in the blue fuck did I get to be in charge of this rabble." Wilson smirked and replied "You umm were elected sir. The vote was unanimous, I might add.' That caused me to pause and ponder the day of the 'election'. "And, where was I during this election that acclaimed me the fearless leader of this rabble?" Wilson looked out over the parapet, and replied "I believe you were" cough cough "recovering from a bout of the Solomon flu sir." That was Wilson's way of saying that I had been a a three day drunk, and was snoring away the better part of a gloomy November afternoon during the time I was 'elected' to led this group of reprobates. Funny how a many can get nominated, seconded, and elected all in the course of sleeping away the day.

The sad part was, once again, the bastard was right. Looking out into the courtyard I came to the conclusion that one well placed bomb, would kill us all, and since all included me, I had a vested interest in his opinion whether or not I had solicited it or not.  Of course, being right and being Wilson, were to Wilson at least, synonymous.  "Perhaps we should created a reserve sir, some percentage of the men to hold back in another location in case of disaster."  Once again sound advice, and advice that I would, eventually, follow. In spite of my election to the leadership of this group, I realized I am not, in fact, a leader of men.  I realized this, Wilson realized this, but sadly the men themselves, clearly not that bright, had yet to figure it out. New elections should be called, and I would be damn sure to be there to reject any attempt to re-elect me to a position for which I was clearly unsuited.

However, until that glorious day when I would be voted out of the position of power that I currently unhappily occupied, it was time to issued the orders to get this mob sorted out with as little trouble as possible, which of course would still be three time more trouble that was necessary. Did I mention they were a mob of reprobates? The group of malcontents that had elected me their leader, were not the top of the line, front rank type of troops that you would cheer yourself hoarse for as they marched (using the term very loosely) down the main street of whatever village they happened to be liberating at the time. No, these fellows inspired a more "lock up the family jewels, bury the money in the back yard, and sent the daughters to another village quickly" type of troops. Not a group that would inspire confidence, unless you were confident of disaster striking. 

There lies the problem with the whole leadership thing. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and if this rabble were to be exterminated like so many cockroaches, and I was lucky enough to survive alive, my life would probably not be worth living when the letter came from the Captain-General asking me to explain myself. Never been the best at explaining myself, it's a character flaw common with all the males members of my family.  "It's always best to have an extra reserve, just in case things break bad sir. You know like an extra 8 of anchors in a game of Issam."  "Well yes Wilson, if all the world's problems could be boiled down to a soldier's game of cards, then we'd all just have a merry fucking christmas wouldn't we?" The rebuke to the reply was standard with us, Wilson fancied himself a great card player, and I was beginning to suspect that he was getting ideas above his station. Which is why, in the only stroke of genius I've managed to have in command. I immediately told him the lovely news. "You are right Wilson, we are too concentrated, and guess what I've decided to do about it?"  Waving away his attempt to protest I said "you get the pleasure of taking a third of this lot, and be thankful its only a third, and wandering off on your own for a bit, that way if disaster overtakes either of us, the other one will still be around to claim it was all someone other than their fault." The joys of command, perhaps that election wasn't as rigged as I had thought.