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Morning confessions, afternoon daydreams, and evening wind-downs. |
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This is dedicated to my daughter, Azalea Paige Kraynak. You're half the cause of some of these entries, but that's why I love you. There's rarely a day that you don't surprise me with the things you do and say. I've changed since the start of this, of course I think that's to be expected - I'm not an overworked pessimist anymore. I'm and adequately worked, for the most part happy idealist who holds the occasional cynical view of someone whose done seen some @$*#. That said, these are the new and improved ramblings of a guy who lives a life that I find to be occasionally comical. |
| Today is the 2nd day of my 2 days off before I switch to the graveyard shift for a week. My preconditioning to the night shift schedule usually involves me staying up til about 7 or 8 in the morning, but sometimes, whiskey or just plain old tired get ahold of me and I don't make it. I made it to about 4:30 yesterday. In my eyes, that's close enough for me. I woke up at about 12:30 today and went about those routines I'd mentioned earlier. That said, it was about 1:30 or so that I got to sit down and say to myself 'let's write.' With laptop on lap, and fingers eagerly perched atop the home row, I stared at a white, blank screen. Nothing. Not one thing. Granted the story I'm working on has been kind of an uphill battle, but the idea is there, the plot is there, and the ending is there. But in this instance, the words just weren't. I couldn't place it. Most times I write, it's for a flash fiction or some contest, with a clearly defined prompt and guidelines that I am obliged to follow. Give me 3 words I need to use, and I'll give you 297 more words to put around them. a shoutout to "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge"  by Arakun the twisted raccoon  Which I'll say, if you haven't entered it before, give it a try, it's harder than you think to pull off a story in 300 words.This story I'm working on however, isn't for a contest, or a prompt. It's just me, an idea, the occasional sip of alcohol or coffee, and my ability to put the idea to paper. If this were a NaNoWriMo sprint, I'd be smashing out a couple thousand words a day. They'd be haphazard and chock full of grammatical fallacy, but they'd be there. I don't know what to call this, the lack of a metaphorical fire under the @$$, or what, but it just wasn't there. It's not block - the idea is still there and flowing - branching and evolving with other sub-plots and struggles in my head without any problems. Each time, invoking a new drive to research the subject matter further, dive into the unknowns and untapped creativity of this mind of mine, and yet I'm stared at with a blank white screen. A whole day wasted. Well, kind of. I came up with great dialogues (at least in my mind.) and those aforementioned sub-plots, but the loquacious rambling of the story getting drafted just didn't happen. There are times when I'd be bitter at myself for this, but I have taken a very long time off the habit of daily writing. It's possible that I'm just expecting too much from myself too soon, and I told myself as much. Then I sat down after making supper. One word drooled out, then another. Then a whole sentence. A few minutes in, I had a couple paragraphs. Then I sat back, read what I had wrote, and thought to myself: 'where'd that come from?' It wasn't how I intended that particular chapter to go, but then maybe that's what the problem was. I had kind of a linear direction for this story, stifling it's and the protagonist's ability to write themselves. I don't know if anyone else writes like this, but I've never sat down with the exact outline of a story and followed it to the letter. Sometimes the story just needs to do its own thing. It's a dangerous idea, I know, and can take you down a rabbit hole with no real ending and no real segway back to the original plot line. Still, it's kind of how I've always done things. I don't know, maybe I'm completely wrong in doing it the way I do. I was always told in literature class the methods of story development, and none of those lessons ever said, just sit down and start throwing words out there. What do you think? You're all far better writers than me, what's your take on it? |
| Well, I call it a morning ritual, it's more of a 'when I wake up' ritual. I work swing shift so I'm not always waking up in the morning, but the routine is always the same. Wake up, brush my teeth, make some coffee, put my lunch together, and then take care of the animals. I raise chickens and rabbits in our little corner of Pennsylvania. If you have ever considered doing it, do it! I mean it, it's a very enjoyable hobby. I don't know why I find it so pleasant, but I really like the sounds of chickens clucking. The eggs are an added bonus considering how absurdly expensive they are nowadays. We have 5 hens so we get about 2 to 3 eggs a day. My wife, kids, and I aren't daily consumers of eggs so that's more than enough to get us by. But I need to complain a minute about these eggs and well I guess the chickens. This isn't my first small flock of chickens. We started with Black Australorps and Production Reds. We had 6 of them then. Bruce, Kyle, Steve, Kevin, Kenny, and Craig. Yes, they had boy names. Those birds had the decency to use nesting boxes to lay eggs which is awfully nice considering I didn't have to pretend every morning was easter. This new batch of birds are a good bit dumber and so have dumber names: Breakfast, 2nd Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Supper (an ode to lord of the rings). These ladies have nice, literally brand-new nesting boxes. Where do they lay their eggs? On my table saw of course. Perfect place to lay an egg. But we can't forget behind a stack of summer tires for my car, or on top of a compost pile. The morning routine used to be, go out, change water, feed, get the eggs in one spot. Now its, go out, change water, feed, find the first egg, go from there. Used to take maybe 10 minutes, now it takes a half hour. I literally went 2 weeks thinking they just weren't laying because it was so cold out. That's when I found the spot behind the tires. There were a dozen and a half eggs in there, all cracked because they had frozen - it's pretty cold here right now. I wasn't mad or anything but I was a little perplexed. I tossed them all into the compost pile (eggs make for great compost,) so of course the chickens saw that as the new spot to lay an egg. Why not? I can say, at least the compost pile is a few degrees warmer so they won't freeze there. Now anyone that has had chickens might say: try putting ceramic eggs in their nesting boxes. I have tried that. They're dumb but somehow, they know. They kind of just roll them around with their feet. Another might say: Put one of their eggs in the nesting boxes. Tried that, didn't work. Someone might say: Move the nesting boxes somewhere else, yeah I tried that. Trust me, I've tried it. I've tried all of it, at this point i kind of just look at as like F%#k it, lets just have a scavenger hunt every day. |
| Today ends another week in my department at work, at least on my shift. Next week we go to the graveyard shift, but for the next two days, I can relax, enjoy a beer or whiskey or both, and maybe put pen to paper at some point. Before I do all that, I need to get something off my chest here. I'm not the guy that stresses about things at work, especially when I'm not there, but by God do I work on a crew full of those guys. I'm the 2nd oldest on my crew, granted I'm not old - only 39, but the others are a good bit younger than me and the other fella. That said, you couldn't tell. Stress beats you up. I don't share the opinions of some of the guys I work with about our company, but if you ask them, this place has beaten them into the dirt. That's the killer there. I try to say there's way more important things to worry about than how good your weld looks. You welders out there, I know I just triggered you - believe me, we don't weld for beauty contests in my department, and I've seen some damn fine looking welds fail, and absolute ugly beads hold like a champ. With that out there, the youngest guy on my crew is 21. I swear in another year this man is going to have gray hair, if he has any left. This kid is a straight worry stone like I've never seen; welds, electrical cords, cranes, fork-lifts, paperwork... this kid just stresses about all of it. On top of it all, he's a single guy who desperately wants to not be single. I'm rooting for him. Really, he needs it. Two days ago, he called off after a lot of urging from me and the other older fella on the crew, to meet a girl from his days in weld school. It took us an entire shift to convince him that he's got nothing to worry about here at work, and to go enjoy his self. Today he apologized to me like I was mad at him. Buddy, I'm not mad at you. Gotta enjoy life a little bit. 21 years old is way too young to be worrying all the time. He's a happy-ish guy, but by God I want to see that potential really get tapped when he gets himself a lady friend. It sounds cave-man I know, but you'd have to meet him. I can attest that a good partner really can bring a lot of harmony to your life even if it was nothing but stress before. That's what my awesome wife did for me. I was that kid once when I traveled for a living. If i'd have stayed with that company, I'd have given myself maybe 20 years and stress would have killed me. She brought me back down to earth. Really, she did, I don't even know if she realizes it. I'd love to see the same happen to this guy. It bugs me seeing someone put on a happy face when they're not happy. It's a tough-guy thing to do, and in our line of work, that's just kind of the prescribed method, but why be happy-ish when you can actually be happy? |
| Let me start this by saying, I've been gone a while - a long while. I haven't written in this blog in something like 8 years or so. A lot has changed since then. This blog was originally called 'Ramblings of an Overworked Pessimist,' yeah i'm not that guy anymore. I mean, I guess I'm still a bit of a pessimist kind of but not nearly the diva that I was. Work had a lot to do with that. Let me just say for anyone whose ever wondered about traveling the world, do it - if you can afford it that is. It ain't cheap. Nothing gives you perspective like seeing a different country with a different culture. Granted - I didn't do this for leisure, work told me to go so I went. After 11 years of living out of a suitcase, I don't want to look back nor do I want to really leave my little corner of the Appalachian Mountains. With that said, I'm not in that line of work anymore. I don't miss it, and I don't like wasting thoughts on it, and here I am talking about it like an idiot. I get to go home every night now. The home dynamic has changed of course. 8 years ago, I had a fiance and 2 kids. Well that didn't work out, she's now an ex-fiance. While traveling in Australia, fate decided to gift me an encounter with a beauty that is either blind to my strange ugliness, or oblivious to my eccentricities or both. One thing led to another and so-on and so forth, that beauty is now my wife. I still think she's a psycho for marrying me though. A few years passed, now we're parents - me again, her for a first time. It's weird being the one who knows what they're doing this time. I'm loath to admit it, but I sucked at babies the first and second times. So here we are in the present. We've got a baby that wants to walk but can't, so she gets mad that her balance sucks. She crawls at warp speed and has the courtesy to close the baby gate behind her which is kind of odd in 2 senses: the first being that I could have sworn I closed it, and second - it's just weird that she turns around and purposefully closes the baby gate. It's like that guy who always pushes his chair in even though he's going to sit back down in it in a minute or two. Those nuances just kind of strike me in a way that make me laugh. I legit have a daughter whose favorite hot dog topping is sour cream - SOUR CREAM. I'm not an expert but that's got to be on like an 'Am I a Serial Killer' checklist. It's funny, but it's just weird. I've got another that eats almost nothing but likes watching food getting prepared. Her diet consists of chicken nuggets and boiled eggs, but she likes watching my wife and I make something we know damn well she's not going to eat like she's studying to be a michelin chef. Now with all this in mind, they're all girls. All 3 of them. I live in a mire of "Frozen" and "Animal Crossing" theme songs, and the occasional minefield of Legos. Mixed in with all that, I'm a working class guy with a working class vocabulary that married someone who speaks metric and eats veggiemite. If you haven't tried it, don't. It's disgusting. Seriously I don't know how Australians can eat it with a straight face. It's like if salt was condensed into a black paste and then dropped outside on the ground and put into a jar. I was told once that I was eating it wrong. Yeah, like it was my fault that it tasted like crap. I was told that you have to put butter and jam on it. So the logic in the end is: Take something that tastes like pureed anchovies turned into a pudding, and cover with stuff that actually tastes good. No. That's just a lot of extra steps. This viewpoint annoys my wife, and really she's a saint for putting up with me and my idiocy, but seriously Australia, what the hell were you thinking with Veggiemite? |
| In the beginning, I was given a very vivid imagination. I mean that in a sort of light-hearted, personal jab at myself kind of way, but it is true. I was gifted with an imagination where I can picture worlds, and peoples, and creatures that don't really exist. I see it a lot in my daughter, who continues to discuss with me, her continuing saga of the shoe eating monster. (I swear this is absolutely true) I'm a bit hazy on the details of this heinous tormentor, but I know he lives at Grammy's and he ate her shoes. He's not a nice monster, he's scary, and he doesn't like purple. This is what I've gathered so far... You know, whilst reading this you might think that this is the adorable imagination of a near 3 year old. Well in all honesty it does sound that way, but truly, I'm hazy on the details because she's legitimately afraid to talk about the shoe eating monster. He's apparently quite scary indeed. Now of course, my kid is afraid of all things a 3 year old girl would in fact be afraid of... the shop-vac I have in the basement is a fine example, or my air compressor, or my router, or any of the other tools in my make-shift woodshop. But this is a different kind of fear from what I can see. It's the result of some terrible image that she just can't shake. (at least that's what I hope) And in all honesty, I've really pushed hard to not expose her to my horror movie collection, which is small, but still very much horrific. I try not to expose her to graphic content of any kind, whether it be strong language of a TV Show or Movie, or just something that a 3 year old simply should have no interest... unfortunately she does enjoy sitting with me and watching snips of "The Newsroom." Well anyway, I've rambled about the shoe eating monster, which to be honest, isn't even my original point I wanted to make, or even close to it. Well, I suppose it is in its own right, but anyway. Like my daughter, a monster haunted me for many years in my youth. I can still picture him in the back of my mind, and this figment of my imagination was the reason I was terrified of going into the basement alone for many years. This monster, of course was the result of my imagination, but it was triggered by a not so nice event that happened. I was five years old, and fishing with my dad and his cousin, R.J. We were walking the old railroad track on the shores of the Beaver River, just north of Pittsburgh, PA. It was mid-spring, but it was a cold spring that year, and a lot of the pooled water was still frozen in some places, and the last remnants of snow still lingered in patches in the woods. Anyway, it was cold that day. I don't really remember the walk too well, but I do remember we didn't go fishing that day, because we came across something that would end the trip quite early. We found a man. He'd been floating in the water, face-down, and he was on the shore of the river, half-frozen and bloated. I'll never forget what he looked like, and I can tell you with utter sincerity that I can't even describe it to you for fear of invoking total disgust. It was something a child of five shouldn't see, but unfortunately, I did. For years, I thought that man was following me around wherever I went, and I hated being alone. I don't really know what finally shook that fear, but eventually it ended... to an extent. Honestly, I still don't particularly enjoy being alone, but as such, it happens. Throughout my life, I've experienced a good deal of really cool, and often totally amazing things. I consider myself lucky to have been born to be honest. However, some of these things, I simply cannot explain with any discernible and credible scientific solution. An example of such things... I was 19 at the time, and I just recently moved out of my dad's and into my first apartment which was a duplex. My friend and former drummer visited one day to talk music and X-box, and I recall telling him, "Jeff, I'm gonna tell you right now, I think this place is haunted and it lives in my kitchen closet." An odd conversation starter, but I meant every word. I noted that my closet was unnaturally cold one day in the summer... so cold in fact, that I questioned why I bought a refrigerator. After making this profound discovery, I moved a chair into that closet, and a lamp, and that is where I did all my reading in the summer. (I tell you... that apartment was so horribly hot in the summer, I don't think Amityville horror could have kept me out of that closet to escape the heat) I was pretty up front and deliberate when I said it. I wasn't afraid or anything like that. Whatever was happening in there didn't really bother me to be honest, but it was happening daily. I considered it, either like a pet that I couldn't see, or like a homeowner who was kind enough to let me be a guest. Either way, it was a harmless haunting that made noises from time to time, and occasionally made its presence known quite loud and clear. Often times, I could hear it strolling through the apartment one footstep after the other. Other times, it would smack my television when the picture was screwing up (that was quite often.) Overall, if it was real or not, it wasn't harmful to my way of life in any way so I just accepted it. Well, my friend was quite skeptical. But, my haunting friend was an honorable one, and was quick in revealing itself to him. We were in my living room. I had a beaded curtain (I know...) that separated it from the bedroom, and I swear to you it split right down the center, and opened just like someone would do when they walked through it. It had never done that before, and never did it again, but he wasn't skeptical after that, and even asked me how I could live there, and I told him, it just didn't bother me. If it wanted me out, it would have let me know. It never did. Nobody ever talks about those hauntings that aren't malevolent, but well... I just wanted to point out that if it was real (from what I saw I think it was) it meant no harm to anyone. My landlord told me that that place used to be his mother's house. She had a heart attack in the afternoon while vacuuming, and died in that house. I assumed it was her, but honestly, perhaps I'm just crazy in my own way... I don't know. It's impossible to find reason and explanation to the unexplainable and I don't know why I'm trying right now, but at any rate, that's one of the more extraordinary experiences I've had. If you follow any of my writings, either my novels or short stories, you may note I have an attachment to the supernatural and unexplained. It's a favored genre of mine, and I try to write in the styles reminiscent of Poe and Lovecraft whom I consider to be masters of the art of supernatural and occult. At any rate, lately, I find myself getting so into a particular creation that I wonder if I don't begin to fabricate it into existence. I of course don't mean this in the literal sense but more of a sensory sort of thing. I'm sure you've experienced something similar before. Have you ever watched a scary movie, and were then afraid of the dark for the next three hours? It puts your senses and emotions on edge long after the ending credits have rolled. Writing and reading can do the same thing I think. I've been put on edge so many times in the past from a well written scene by Lovecraft, that I've jumped at the signature creaks and cracks of my old house more times than I can count. Recently however, I've taken a break from reading and writing and began to work on improving the house again. I finished installing hardwood floors in my dining room and office, and have added a lovely half-partition between the living room and dining room. The point however is, I've not put my senses on edge in quite some time. But lately, I've been having those weird sensory things happening to me that I just need to talk about. A couple months ago, on the fly, a story popped into my head, and I wrote it down. I titled it "Shadow People." The goal was to invoke a sense of fear in the tiniest but most apparent degrees. I don't know if it worked, but I hope it did. But those little pin-pricks and "Someone's watching me" sort of feelings have been troubling me for several weeks. We've had this house for 2 years now, and though I experienced it only one other time, shortly after we bought the house, I'm getting it now, so horribly powerful that I'm starting to think I could turn this into the next Paranormal Activity movie. My fiancé is skeptical as all hell, and rightly-so, she's simply never around when this stuff happens. The other day, I was at my laptop, likely watching a youtube video of a favorite wood-worker of mine, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye, in the archway between my living room and foyer. You can do google searches and come up with "Shadow People," but I tell you, this wasn't a shadow at all... This was a seriously, a person. A child, if I were to judge it by height. But I swear, I've never been more jump scared in my entire life. It seriously took my breath from me, and stopped my heart for a second. Later that night, I heard an odd sound, like a tree branch landing on the porch roof and sliding off, which is what I made of it, but I felt something right after that and it got me out of bed. When I went to go downstairs for a drink, I saw it again, right in the same spot I'd seen it before. It hasn't happened since, but hey, it's pretty damn cool if I can experience two hauntings in my lifetime! If this is real, which to be honest, I don't believe in "Scientific" equipment and paranormal investigation, at least not the ones on television, then by god I'm either the luckiest person alive, or quite frankly, the unluckiest person alive. Lately, I've had terrible feelings when I go into the basement, which is where my woodshop is for the time being. Of course, this could simply be because it's a dark, dreary basement which compliments a house that was built in 1906. There are many people who've had these feelings, and they can't explain them. I try to find any sort of discernable evidence that would suggest that it's simply a psychological anomaly that is in pattern with the things around me. This is in fact a very old house, in a very old town. Every old house has its nuances, creaky floorboards, sticky doors, and all in all, eerily constructed rooms. This basement is a glorified hole. It has walls and a floor, but that's about it. I think the ghosts from "A Christmas Carol" would be afraid of this basement. To be honest, you'd be crazy to go down there with a candle for fear of igniting the myriad of cobwebs which in itself is quite eerie. There's also a boiler down there, and if you've ever had boiler heat, you know that it too has a lot of signature noises. Ticks, and taps are pretty commonplace with boiler heat, as such, it does nothing to lighten the mood of the basement. This could in fact be the cause of my ominous feelings, but it doesn't seem that way. I don't really want to get going on the attic, but I just have to say, I can't spend more than a few minutes up there. Seriously, its the scariest place on earth in my opinion. You'd have to come here to truly understand it. It's not your typical attic. It looks as though the previous owners wanted to finish it, but they either didn't have the means, or simply lost the desire to. As such, it makes for a very quirky place in the house, and it seriously makes my skin crawl when I go up there. I have the desire to turn it into our master retreat somewhere down the line, but first I have to conquer the fear of being up there... yeah... sad for a man of thirty years, but I've never met someone who wasn't afraid of something. I honestly don't even know why, other than the thought that I might either have a haunted house again, or I'm just bonkers. I don't hear whispers or anything... thank god for that, if that were the case, I wouldn't hesitate to go see a psychiatrist :P. But I'm starting to wonder if that old monster of mine has come back for his last laugh. I wonder if we can ever really shake our childhood fears, and I wonder if I just let my imagination run unchecked for too long. I can say that when I'm alone in utter quiet, which is often as a woodworker and DIYer, my imagination takes me to all sorts of different places. Maybe I should rein it in a bit, I don't really know. But again I have to say... if I get to experience two haunted houses in a lifetime... by god that is just a statistical awesomeness that I can't even begin to fathom. At any rate, there was a sound just a few minutes ago that triggered my ramblings that damn near made my spirit jump out of my body. Never in my life have I ever truly experienced "Total Silence." Seriously, I haven't. When there's no other sounds around me, I always have a feint ringing in my ears. I've had it ever since I can remember... As such I've never said, "It's too quiet." Anyway, that's all I was hearing at the time I was reading my daily dose of political rhetoric (no offense) when I seriously heard fingernails rake down my living room wall. FINGERNAILS! I swear to god its the only thing that sounds like the sound I heard. They weren't that forceful nails on a chalkboard raking sound, but more like someone lightly touching their nails to the wall and sliding them down. It was light-hearted in tone, but plenty loud enough for me to say to myself "What the hell was that?" I immediately settled on one of my two idiot cats, but unfortunately, one is currently on my lap as he has been for the past hour and a half, and the other is lazily folded over a throw pillow on the couch. Which begs me to ask the question a second time... What the hell was that? And that in itself begs me to ask you... how many times have you asked yourself, "What the hell was that?" Or told yourself, "I could have sworn I just saw something over there." Or anything along those lines. I don't really mean the things you may see or hear right when you're on the cusp of falling asleep, because to be honest, during that time, I see and hear things that I can't even begin to attempt to imagine when I'm wide awake. I'm talking about those moments when you're just sitting there, and you get those perceptive glimpses that raise your hairs or give you that tingle in your nose. And if anything else, I'm asking you, if someone were telling this to you face to face, would you think they were nuts? If you've met me, you may think I'm a little eccentric. (Just recently we had a peer review at work, which was face to face with whomever we felt like reviewing, and two of my co-workers and brothers-in-arms, said to me, "My first impression of you was you were a wise-ass and crazy." They luckily toned it in a manner that would suggest it was a term of endearment, but perhaps I am a lunatic... A wise ass... well, yeah I am. At any rate, have a lovely evening folks... hope the things that go bump in the night wherever you're from, bump a little lighter tonight. ![[Link To User kiyasama] was kind enough to make this for me, for my 2015 NaNovel. Looks great!](https://www.writing.com/main/images/action/display/ver/1447106625/item_id/2064915.jpg "Ascendancy: The Book of Heylel (Sig) [#2064915]
[Link To User kiyasama] was kind enough to make this for me, for my 2015 NaNovel. Looks great!") |
| In the beginning, someone made me turn 30. And what a turn it was. In the months leading up to my recent birthday, I came down with a really odd sickness. It wasn't like one of those colds you get, that sort of build up. This thing hit me like a truck while I was traveling in Texas. I became so unbelievably ill, I had to pull over and make someone else drive. Well, tonight, I got it again. Out of the blue, BAM YOU'RE SICK, CONGRATULATIONS! This will be my third time getting sick this year. I don't understand it. I've gone years and years without catching anything and all of a sudden it seems I'm the catcher's mitt. It kind of sucks. At any rate, I'm huddled in a heating blanket right now, sipping some bergamot tea, and sniffling as I type this. It's not my most flattering writing style, but I just can't not write. As many of you celebrated Thanksgiving this Thursday, we did as well. Since we celebrate with her family and mine, this holiday kind of stretches itself over two days. Well, today we celebrated with mine. My family isn't your average family. We aren't all that particularly close with one another, but we don't dislike anyone. We just don't communicate as much as other families do, or I should say, I don't communicate as much as I should. That is likely the case. I'm just not a phone person, at all. I don't like texting, and I don't like phone-calls because they aren't personal enough for me. I prefer letters and face-to-face chats with someone. Letters are a little archaic, so we can scratch that from the list, but at any rate, I prefer our correspondence to be in person. That said, unfortunately, I just learned of a few mini-battles occurring in the family. When I arrived at my aunt's house, I noticed there weren't that many cars there. I recognized my sister's car, and my aunt and her husband's car, but that was it. When I came in, it seemed awfully quiet, so I went upstairs a bit perplexed as to where everyone was. Well, it turns out my dad refused to come because he's mad at my grandfather for whatever reason... I honestly don't get involved in stuff like that, but they don't have one of those picturesque father - son relationships and never have to be honest. I don't know the cause of this, but my dad can be kind of a glass is half empty type of guy. Honestly, there isn't a lot of sunny days in his world - very gloom and doom if you know what I mean. He's been like that for as long as I can remember, though he does associate with everyone, he doesn't particularly enjoy it. He does however, brighten up when he sees my kid, but unfortunately he didn't get to see her today. It was a little disappointing, but hey, I won't let it bring down the holiday mood so I don't press the issue. My first cousin also wasn't there. I say first cousin because that is what he is, but growing up, we were pretty much like brothers. We were raised in the same house, we were interested in the same things, and later on, we even worked together at 3 different companies. We're close, let me put it that way. Since I've moved up into the mountains we've grown a bit a part, but that's life I guess. He's like me, he'd rather not be bothered with "Hello" text messages and things like that, so the only chance I get to talk to him is on the holidays. That is the real downside to traveling for a living. It's very difficult to make any kind of plans, as I never know when I need to fly to San Jose or Riyadh, or Reykjavik or anywhere else in the world. It can be a little exhausting, but it's a great job and I'm very lucky to have moved up so fast in this company as I have. 5 years ago I was making $10.00 an hour when they hired me. I now make a little over triple that amount, and to be honest, I couldn't be happier. Money of course isn't everything, but it bought our house, and it keeps my kid's belly full, and if there were no other reasons, that would be enough for me. That said, you can imagine my disappointment when I heard that two of my closest relatives weren't coming. I asked why my cousin wasn't and my grandmother said, "He's a vegetarian now, and doesn't really want to be around meat." Ok... Hey, I've known him since I was 3 years old, and it sounds like something he would say. He's always had those odd phases like me, where I might draw for months, then switch to music, then switch to writing, then to something else. I cycle through all of my hobbies, but I always return to them. Jimmy is a bit different. He kind of has an interest in something for a while, and then just abandons it. I tell you, I've never seen such a great amateur boxer, but he threw that away many years ago. I think he could have made a great career with it, had he continued fighting, but I'm not going to judge him. He's older than me, so whatever he did, I respected. I always looked up to him that way. He taught me guitar, he taught me a lot about work ethics, he taught me some cool astrology things... he taught me all kinds of things that I otherwise would not have known how to do. Well, his strange, vegetarian self didn't show up, and all I wanted to do was share a few new writings with him. Oh well I suppose. I'll tell you something though. We aren't too close, but we know how to celebrate. It's not fun and games, but its a very nice family gathering, with good food, and good conversation. I have to say, we're terrible at dinner etiquette. We talk politics, we talk religion, we talk everything you're not supposed to talk about and then some, but we make it a family thing the whole time. We may get into debates over things, but in the end we're always happy enough to respect a stalemate. So despite our strange dysfunction, we make it work, and I guess that's good enough for me. So, on this Black Friday, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, and I hope you didn't trample anyone in the stores. I return now to my tea, and my heat blanket, wishing I didn't despise Theraflu. |
| In the beginning, someone cursed my daughter with a "potty mouth." My premonitions were correct in the previous entry. 9 hours is way too long of a time in this house for me not to experience some degree of bewilderment. In this case, it was caused by my daughter. When I say she has a Potty Mouth, I don't mean that she curses. I do that, in all honesty, I'm as rough as a badger. Such is the consequence of working in heavy industry my entire adult life. My vocabulary involves a whole lot of curse words... Well, at first, she was like a sponge, repeating anything that I said. Luckily we've shaken her of that array of obscenities. She now yells at me whenever I say a curse word of any kind. When I say potty mouth, what I mean to say is she likes to chat whilst going potty. To me this is fine, because it makes for some wholesome conversation with my kid, but tonight there was a specific instance that just left me completely flabbergasted. My fiancé was trying to take a shower, much to the dismay of my daughter whose been remarkably clingy today. Well, she shouted that she had to go potty, so I came upstairs just to kindly direct her to her potty. She assumed the position and then came the conversation. She began this talk with two words that left me so confused, I'm still a little shaken by it. "Bed Poop." she said. "Huh?" "Bed Poop." "Okay...?" "That would be gwoss." "Yes... yes it would." "I want my puppy." We don't have a puppy, but hey, I figured I'd humor her imagination. "I'm pooping." "Lovely." "There's a turtle over there. See it?" "Yeah, why not? There sure is a turtle over there." "Why me poopin?" "Because you have to. Holding it in will make you sick." "My leg hurts." "I think you should supplement your diet with a bran muffin then." "I don't like diapers." "Yeah I don't like them either." "Ok. Bye, daddy." That was the conversation. Honestly, I'm beside myself... It was one of the strangest conversations I've ever had. NaNoWriMo 2015 Here we go! |
| In the beginning, someone cursed me with a younger brother. Not really, he's a good kid. Dumb, but good. Who isn't dumb in their early twenties? I recall being awakened on a railroad track by four police officers and two paramedics at 23 with a vicious hangover, and twigs sticking out of my hair. Yeah I was real dumb around that time. At any rate, I've been spending the last four hours agonizing about the introduction to a contest entry when I received some news from my mom. She told me that I'm going to be an uncle!!! I'M GOING TO BE AN UNCLE!!! The youngest of us kids is finally having a kid of their own! I've been waiting for my sister to get this done, but she's a procrastinator like me. I mean, there's no shame in waiting until you're 30 to have kids. I didn't quite reach that number when I was blessed with my daughter, but I was close. I was 27 when we got the news, and 28 when she was born. We have another one on the way now, and now I'M GOING TO BE AN UNCLE! Granted, I'm a little afraid. My brother has my striking good looks, a testament to the fine Irish blood that we share, but he also has a certain childish stupidity. As I said, its not a bad stupidity, its just one of those trifling frustration sort of things. He's been rough on my mom in the past, not physical, just my mother's worry stone. I recall he vanished for about 30 days once. We couldn't find him, none of his friends knew where he was. Turns out, he ran off with a girlfriend who was almost twice his age to Arizona. Now, if you want to pursue romance regardless of one's age, I won't stop you... personally I think its lovely that people can find each other across all ages and state lines... but for the love of god tell us when you're going! Unfortunately, I probably won't get to meet this bundle of joy any time soon, as my Brother, Mother, Step-Dad, and step-siblings live in Kansas, and I'm here in Pennsylvania with the other half of my family. It's a little depressing when you think about it, but I just wanted to reflect on the great things that happen during the holidays, despite how much of a scrooge I am. If you've been following my rants, you'll know that we are expecting, but we've also had an additional 2 announcements of "we're pregnant!" Yes, my fiancé's Sister-in-law is now carrying their 2nd child, and now her step-sister is carrying her first. Are family is like a new baby boomers generation I guess. On top of this, I got the news of my brother's news, so I realize, Christmas is going to get awfully expensive... yeah I'm kind of the family member that goes a little overboard on the Holidays for the kids. I prefer big, noisy, and flashy toys. I'm considering getting my kid a remote control helicopter just because I know how much its going to get on my nerves. We're sort of like that in our neck of the woods. We try to outdo one another with annoying toys. Last year my daughter was gifted a drum-set by her uncle... you have no idea... But he was getting me back since I bought his youngest this toy that I can only describe as the most horribly and obnoxiously annoying toy to ever hit the stores. I bought his youngest daughter about 4,000 beads simply because I wanted to watch her spill them on the floor. That's what we do... I'm afraid for this year... really I am. It's hard to outdo a drum-set. At any rate, my family gets larger and my wallet gets a little smaller. No big deal to me, the money has to go somewhere, there's no sense hanging on to it for the sake of hanging on to it. And that's that. Wasn't much a rant but hey, I'm not an angry person all the time, but there's still 9 hours left in the day, and with a 2 year old, that is plenty of time. |
| In the beginning, someone cursed me with a woman; in the end someone blessed me with a fiancé. Yep, I don't say that lightly for two reasons. One, she might see it, and two because it is true. I have an awesome fiancé, and though she shares not one of my hobbies (and I have a lot) we have an odd connection that most others don't. Aside from the fact that we share a daughter, we also share a birthday. In astrology terms, this type of pairing is either remarkably compatible or horrendously doomed to fail. We are scorpios. In my case if you want the specifics, I am a Scorpio Pisces Libra Libra. If you actually understand that, that means you read too much  Honestly, I don't know what the moon, Mars and Venus signs really represent in a person, but I think its cool that I know what I am.At any rate, I was given the task today of repairing a cord to the hideous Christmas tree that now graces the corner of our living room. I say hideous for that is exactly what it is. THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A WHITE PINE TREE, maybe a genus or a species of some sort, but in the literal terms, I've never seen nor heard of a pine tree that happens to be white. As such, I hate the appearance of this thing. She tells me that its supposed to look like its covered in snow... it doesn't. If you want it to look like its covered in snow, cover it in snow. That said, it just doesn't fit with this house. When we moved in, our ceilings were about 2 feet lower than they are now. The previous owners had a thing for ugly ceiling tiles. I've since removed them, repaired the damage that they caused to the ceiling, and thereby raised it a good bit. As such, a 6 foot tree looks ridiculous beneath a 9 1/2 foot ceiling. I let it slide though, for the sake of preserving the Christmas spirit which I have supremely lacked since I became an adult, and for the sake of my kid. She loves lights, garland, sparkly things, and things that are easily broken. Just like my cats. Now getting off of this rant about an ugly Christmas tree, I'll move on to task number two. Cook Dinner. I have a mastery in this department. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I'm an awesome cook. I set out to cook dinner earlier this evening, settling on stuffed lemon pepper chicken, au gratin potatoes, and a spinach and cranberry salad with a Balsamic dressing. If that sounds gross to you, I dare you to try it! At any rate, she was a bit late coming home for work reasons, but when she entered, I was nearly finished preparing our outstanding dinner. The first words out of her mouth when she walked in the door were such an insult to my amazing cooking that I nearly collapsed. "What stinks?" Really? Would you come home to a hot cooked meal and initiate conversation with that question? I wouldn't. Well, I probably would because she isn't a very good cook, but to me, that's earned you a stabbing with my fork. I didn't stab her, nor did I want to, but I wasn't pleased with the question. "Something smells... rotten." Ok, now she was insulting my culinary mastery. To presume that I can't tell the difference between good and bad food is just insane. At any rate, I questioned my skills and took a sniff of the chicken. It smelled delightful by the way. Well, she was stuck on the idea that the chicken was no good whilst I'd already taken a few bites. It was everything you'd want in chicken. Moist, Flavorful, and stuffed with Parmesan and spinach. She did at least eat the potatoes, but in mid-chewing I noted her deplorable staring, and I stopped eating the chicken. Well its been about 3 hours, and I'm still fine with no detectable signs of gastrointestinal distress. At any rate, the chicken is in the Garbage, so with my amazing salad and au gratin potatoes, I also enjoyed a gourmet, microwaved corn dog. Yeah, I like to keep it classy, folks. Such is the story of committing yourself to a relationship with the one you love, compromise and compassion. The chicken really was delicious though... just saying. |
| In the beginning I was cursed with supersonic hearing. I just arrived home from my fiancé's mother's house. As such, I can only describe such a visit as the type of misery which begets such a profound lousy mood that I don't want to type like this. I want to type like this: aodsijfipoahgoiuerwhpoqihwegfahsiuodghpsiahgewiupoqhugiopehaiuogfvh!!!! At any rate, I'm home now, but the screaming, thumping, bumping and horseplay is still ringing in my ears. Her mother has 8 grand-children. 5 of which were there tonight. Before I go into this I want to say, I love kids. I love the funny stuff that they say, and I love the way they play around. I hate all the horrible, gut wrenching, nose scrunching sounds that they make whilst playing however, and her grandkids have mastered these sounds. I can only describe it as nails on a chalk-board, combined with a fork screeching against a plate, combined with crows cawing, combined with the lady standing in line, talking on her phone, who ends every sentence with a question mark and begins every sentence with "like." Does that paint the picture well enough? If it does not I'll simply say it's unnaturally irritating. I've been pushed to the brink of such agitation that I just want to cover my head up with a pillow and yell until my throat is hoarse. Yeah. I've never been a particular fan of visits with her mother. Don't get me wrong, I do like her, she's a very hospitable woman, and she's generally fun to talk to. I just don't like their house. It's a decent house, but it's not my house, it's an alien world for me, wherein I suffer from this strange affliction that I just can't use the restroom in another person's house. Therefore, I'd rather stay at home. I'd rather stay at home where I can sit around in my underwear if I want to, watch football, and drink unnatural amounts of coffee. Yeah they don't even have a coffee pot at their house... Let me just ask... WHAT THE HELL?! Ok, anyway, now that you know I hate visiting there, I'll add that my fiancé expects me to tag along each time she goes, which is generally every day. I just can't do it. Their house is not mine! My biggest and only real argument is I spent 100,000 dollars on this house of mine, why would I not spend my time here whenever I can? I'm gone roughly 6-9 months out of the year, so when I'm home, I want to get my money's worth. Well, I went today, if anything just so my fiancé wouldn't sigh... I hate it when she does that. I knew there would be kids there, which I really don't mind, but they were in a particularly robust mood today. At first it was nothing, I don't mind the running back and forth between rooms and door slamming. They're not my doors. Once the screaming and the shouting and the yelling starts however, I become a silent Mr. Hyde and Monty Cristo. I get this brute force anger and agitation inside me while at the same time going over thousands of ways I might make my escape. I never do though... I just sit there and take the abuse, and if you've been around this type of screaming, you know what kind of abuse I'm talking about. In the middle of all this chaos we were presented with one of those 8 year old awkward moment things. The Fiancé's brother has two sons. One is 11 and the other is 8, and that 8 year old had just spent the last half hour with a Sharpie drawing nipples on all his sister's Barbie dolls. While I think it's outrageously and wholesomely hilarious, it's pretty awkward... I mean, how exactly do you handle that situation, and where in the hell did he get that idea? He's probably a bit like me, I would have remarked that they aren't anatomically correct and done the same thing at 8... but I didn't. Still, I can't help but chuckle a bit at the notion. All this ruckus and high energy of course ignites the fuse in my daughter and she starts partaking in the uproar. The only problem there is she doesn't wind down so easily. She's home now, and running around the coffee table screaming "KITTY," I swear these poor cats must have the strongest legs on the planet. We're going to find out the sex of our next child within a few weeks, and I find myself wondering, If I ended up having a nipple drawing 8 year old boy, how would I handle that situation? I find myself wondering a lot of things actually. Scary when you think about it. And now, she just got back from K-Mart and I'm going to be forced to decorate this obnoxious Christmas tree... Yeah among other things, I'm also a Grinch. Have a nice evening folks. |
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