Ranting, Gay Neighbors and Kitchen Creations

Why is all shit so hard?  I just got off the phone with a new dentist office. First off, I should explain why I'm on the prowl for a new dentist.  For sake of not getting myself into a slander law suit we'll let this cat remain nameless.  My first trip to see him I schedule because he's the only one that doesn't require xrays for a damn cleaning (but there is no free lunch). At the end of said cleaning he comes in, introduces himself, starts poking around in there, says something about nice teeth.  Then he asks if they are real...Um...you're the dentist...shouldn't you know??  He then proceeds to EYEBALL about 5 places that need filling...but "they are small so we won't even need Novocaine".  WTF.  I did a filling replacement one time without Novocaine.  I'm one tough chicky but trust me I used that as a learning experience and ain't gonna do it again.  I make a mental post it to find new dentist.  Luckily when I check out the computers are down and the tech guy is there trying to remove the porn, so I just say I'll call back for my appointment to fill the zillion cavities sans Novocaine.  Fast forward about 9 months cause who are we kidding I don't have dental insurance and every 6 months is just crazy talk.  I call around to get an appointment somewhere else only to be beat down by a self overrated receptionist.  Apparently the other option dentist won't even make you an appointment unless you agree to the xrays beforehand. 

F my life people!  I just want my teeth cleaned!!  So I'm back to the "are your teeth real guy"...again.  Fast forward to today.  Trying to set up the appointment somewhere new...yet again.  March is the soonest they can work me in.  So I book it, explain that I do not have insurance and ask how much money to bring. 275 fucking dollars.  Yo, I didn't ask when your car payment was due.  All you dentists stop poking me in the ass with your big dental dildo....I SAID I DON'T HAVE INSURANCE!! I don't want anything for free...just some nice lady to scrape the little shit off my teeth.  Not to mention if your next available appointment is in F-ing March I think you're already making bank off the insurees and you could cut me a break and skip the goddamn xrays!! I feel better now.  Giving up...gonna stick with the"are those real" guy.

Story from the trailerhood.  The stoner neighbors (pot smoking ones, not to be confused with the crackhead)have the most annoying dog ever. And you know me...I love, love, love animals but Sparky is wearing me out.  We have Sparky, Spot and Shorty...all within a block radius and all apparently with unimaginative parents.  Sparky though is gay.  Not gay like hey its my preference and I decorate and dress nicely, but like GAY all up in your face.  Poor Roger can't even step out the front door, walk or potty in peace.  This guy is all over him..trying to hump him and give head.  The head portion of the show has my dog WAY confused.  He's on the leash, I'm yelling "Just keep walking or bite the fucker!"  and he's looking at me like "I know its wrong but it feels good mom" all the while still  trying to walk.  Which I'm sure is difficult at best...I mean I can only imagine...I've never exactly tried to walk while getting head but I would guess its tough.  We finally loose him when Roger finally breaks away to pee, narrowly missing his head...we leave him licking the puddle.  Years of therapy ain't gonna help this dog...he's jacked up.

Finally...onto my rockin' culinary skills.  Last week, out of sheer necessity, I discovered a new lunch time treat.  My creativity flowed mainly because I was down to a pack of ramen noodles, one can of beef-a-roni, tuna and gatorade.  This is no exaggeration, trust  me.  It's not that I'm poor, it's just that  I possess the meal planning skills of the average everyday buzzard with ADD or possibly a drug addiction.  So I open the tuna, dump it in a bowl with some ranch dressing, shredded cheese and hot sauce. Even with no real groceries I still have a corner market on condiments.  Throw it in the microwave and eat it with some tostidos.  OMG I AM GENIUS!!  It's a Tuna Miracle Charlie Brown!!  Needless to say I went to the store for more tuna and have had it 3 more times since then. 
Watch out Martha Stewart...I'm hot on your tail chickadee.

Finally

This is attempt #3 of getting my angry Grinch thoughts on paper.  My first two sounded like whiny my pussy's broke melodramatics...and you know how I feel about that.  My realization came yesterday on the drive to work.  It's not the first time this week that I've said this, but its the first time I realized it also applies to me and my fa-la-la-la-la funk.  If you don't like something there are only 2 things you can do.  Either change your situation or change your mind.  I think it goes without saying that I can not change the situation of virginal birth nor the widespread two thousand some years of acceptance and the resulting over spending and hall decking and reindeers.  I have no other choice than to change my mind.  That does not mean that I'll be rushing out to hunt down the perfect million foot tall tree or load a shopping cart full of dust collectors for my great aunt so and so, my mail lady or my gynecologist.  Just that I am letting go of expectations.  Expectations of feelings...the same feelings that have always plagued this time of year for me.  I'm not going to rehash memories of past...I'm not going to try to avoid or ignore.  Just taking my hands off the wheel.

Oooh Oooh Blame Me...Blame Me

I for one and, almost exclusively, only do not have a single thing that causes me to point an accusing finger and shout "THIS IS FUCKED UP AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!"  I am fully aware that although I seldom feel like it, I am an adult and I all by my wee little self create my life...the good and the questionable of it.  I am responsible...for Me.  That's unfortunately the extent of my magical super powers. 

It's been brought to my attention via email from Mr X that Mr Man's Ms X is on yet another tear.  This one as with all the others has one center of all gravitational pull.  Me.  What I'm sick of is sheep minded people crying over spilled milk, skunt knees and questionable relationships.   Shut up, stand up and everybody take responsibility for your own lives and your own choices.  The Heather has nothing to do with any of it.  I suppose it helps people feel better to be able to devoid themselves of any cause of the effect.  And maybe not looking in the mirror is therapeutic but you run the risk of walking out with you skirt tucked into your undies...and you wind up showing your ass.  I only wish I were as powerful and influencingly hypnotic as people claim that I am.  I feel sandwiched somewhere between being grateful that I'm not an idiot and are more enlightened than most and just wanting to swift kick the world in the f-ing nuts.

Once Upon A Time I Showed My Ass...Most Literally

Fuck my life...today ranked among the top 3 most embarrassing moments of my life.  And at the present I can't tell you the other two...or anything close as a matter of fact.  I went furniture shopping with Mr Man at the Ashley Furniture store.  I sat on almost every couch in the showroom.  After about an hour or so he landed on one that he liked, picked the coffee tables, rug and whatever and went off to do paperwork.  I found a fluffy chaise lounge and did a diving flop...that's the best guess I have of when it happened.  Of course true to form, I can only sit still for a second and got up and wandered about the store some more before coming back and waiting for him to finish up.  When I was headed to the front door...he's behind me and says "Oh my god, the ass of your pants is completely blown out"...now by completely, he actually meant COM-FUCKING-PLETELY...and proceeds to start the dog in cartoon laugh.  Out the front door and he is now fell over at the waist horse laughing my ass...literally.  Not a chance in hell that I'm wearing a shirt long enough to begin to cover it.  Wow.

A- How the fuck did this happen??

B- How in God's name can I be so blissfully unaware??

C- Yes those are my blue undies.

D- Guess in a way this is a good thing 'cause these fuckers were definitely not ass flattering...in hind sight..ha.

I'm sure that that somewhere in the back room they are drinking beer, rewinding and replaying the security tapes and peeing themselves.  I relive the whole scene to Nanner...telling her I can never go back in there and probably in all likelihood need to burn the shirt and hat I was wearing for fear of being recognized in public.  Nanner being the true friend that she is says "Hey if its one of your pink hats I'll take it." 

I think this is something like the Seinfeld episode where George is at the book store and takes the book into the bathroom and they make him buy it and its flagged as a bathroom reader so he can't return it.  Yea, so as soon as they figure out how to find me I'm going to be the proud owner of like 15 or so sofas.  Ya know...I can't make shit like this up.



Bath Mats & Stepping Stones

Sometimes I guess all you need to feel at home is a bath mat.  Warm fuzziness between you and some else's cold floors. Linoleum cock blocker of sort.  I met a neighbor today.  Spot's biped.  Spot is the Boston Terrier equivalent of Earnhardt reincarnated.  Last night we were pretty sure we were being attacked by the fastest raccoon on record, then the "SPOT" screaming commenced and I realized that I was safe and no longer needed lay down my life and heroically tackle a rabid 300 mph raccoon to save my dog. 

Spot's mom was missing at least 4 of the major 8 on the dental front.  She welcomed me to the neighborhood, excused her appearance since she had just removed her teeth and proceeded to warn me about the crackhead around the corner.  Pot...Kettle...Black.  I endured one cop / n epitaph story with a straight face and peaced out.  I asked Roger on the walk home to remind me we needed to get out of the trailer park and to floss before bed.

 At the same time I try to remember to never assume you know some one's story.  You have no idea why or how people manage to end up where they are...and it makes you a raging asshole to assume.  Maybe her story is as interesting or as boring as mine...Maybe so is the crack head's.  Don't get me wrong, I'm by no means ubber empathetic.  I just know that not every book can be judged by it's trailer park squatting cover. 

It's good to know that a fuzzy green bath mat makes you feel grounded.  And it's good to know that every step and every person in your life is there for a reason...some kind of stepping stone to get you to the next place where the fuzzy mat makes it feel like home...at least for a while.

Transition

Life blows.  I can't hear the voices that I rely on for guidance.  I have no idea what I'm doing or where I'm going.  I am for all intents and purposes homeless and I don't know whether this is my big chance to uproot, run and change my whole life or if it's just all a big fuck up.  Haven't felt this lost in a really really long time and I'm trying hard just to lean on myself, but self is scared. 

This was written a few weeks back when I was obviously obliviously in a panic.  I had just schlepped most of wearable belongings out of Mr Man's house and into my shu.  As is par for my life, I didn't have a pile of friends in it for beer or a well laid plan.  Just me dragging my shit around like Linus' tired old blanky.  I was feeling like the little girl that I am lost in a grown ups body.  I normally filter out this part of my existence.  I seldom get this way and even when I do I don't wear it around on my cuff for others to see.

I've since made some decisions and taken some steps that are making me feel a little more in control.  I've decided where I'm going to live, at least for the next few months, gotten a storage unit for some things that need to be swapped out and have gotten my mom to pack up about eleven hundred pounds of chatkas so I can breathe and move some of my own stuff into her beach house.  Can't claim homeless anymore and I'm no longer driving around with three quarters of my worldly tethers in the back of my car.  I guess we'll call that progress.  I am however completely incapable of giving any form of answer for my "plans".  There honestly aren't any...lots of thoughts still banging around in this rock hard gourd attachment, but nothing I'd label as a plan.  To bogart a line from CAP- "My life has no set trajectory and if I think about it too much it makes me panic"...some days.  And some days after a few rum drinks it almost makes me slightly giddy at the endless possibilities.

So here's to rolling with life...finding reasons to laugh out loud everyday...smiling over the simple things and the wide openness of my world to come.

12 Hanger Therory of Relativity

A lot of thoughts have been banging around in my head and I don't know what to do with them except to purge and put them on paper...so to speak.  On paper I was, at one point, successful.  I had a "real" job and made lots of money and had a few too many houses.  I was married...on paper.  I'm not sure if it was how I was raised or just society's influence that molded my thoughts, but now what I look like on paper is what I use to consider a train wreck.  Strange how I don't feel like a failure.  I actually feel unencumbered and somehow enlightened. 

Mentioned a lot is my ever increasing need of minimalism.  I create a very small footprint on the earth. I am aware that I have big feet and actually make very odd footprints...but that's in sand, talking big picture here.  At the bar this week was a couple that travels all summer to avoid the desert heat where they live in the winter.  The subject of living simple came up.  Pretty sure I quoted some Fight Club (note- not a week goes by that I don't find a conversation to mix a little Fight Club quoting into.)  Anyhow, she introduced me to the 12 Hanger Theory of Relativity.  Actually its 12 hangers and 2 boxes.  You can get all you truly need to live on and in that. I think that this theory would work best if you lived somewhere sans season changes of course. Counted my hangers earlier and guess what...only 12.  Granted I have some shit that needs purging in another closet.  I have a winter clothes mass exodus planned for the coming weeks.  I'm ditching most everything and if I start getting cold then I'm counting it as Divine Intervention that I need to head souther til the weather suits my clothes.  Live small enough and you can fit just about anywhere.

I've been struggling lately.  When I was a kid I was led to believe that we grow up, get married, have kids, buy a house, be responsible.  I only knew a few divorced people and like most when things go south they would crash back in with parents, get their shit back in one sock, then take off again only to wind up hitting a big replay button and doing the same thing different version over again.  Back to how I was raised...I was brought up to think of this as being the wrong course of action I suppose...I'm not sure.  But here I am...37 years old...looking incredibly bad on paper doing pretty much the exact same thing.  I have a very different opinion of my those people now.  The ones that's lives looked messy.  I think I see the world the same way they all did.  Maybe my parent's very structured settled "normal" life is what makes me struggle so with my polar opposite version of life on this spinning ball.  If I had no built in perception of normal I wouldn't feel so unnormal.  I've been trying to think of it as squatting in Daddy's paradise.  Given the chance he would probably trade the world to have my life right now. Today is his birthday...third removed.  He would have been 65.  No idea why it all still shakes my head up so much. Crazy how time goes by.  Crazy how grounded I still am at being ungrounded.  And all I really hope is that he wouldn't see me as a loser.  Tell me I don't need more shit to worry about.     

Back in the Faraway Married Land

The other night I had a married land flash back, it occurred when I proactively set up my coffee for the next morning. I was draggin' ass like a poodle with worms and was fully aware of my next morning need for caffeine to make it to Bob. And it happened, I Hot Tub Time Machine transported back to another lifetime. Every night in my semi buzzed stupor I would load the coffee pot, set out 2 upside down cups balancing the little required sweeteners and spoon on the bottoms. Frying pan on the stove with spatula, spray olive oil, plate with folded paper towel beside. Plates and knives and forks at the bar stools. A cereal bowl with either instant oatmeal or grits based on the previous day's consumption. This was everyday. I didn't do it because I was required, I did it just to keep myself sane. Although seeing it in print doesn't seem so much so now. Pancake Saturdays and omelet Sundays.


I would come home from work and the gym and throw the ball for Roger. Drag my little hose across the yard to the flowers and pick weeds and dead blooms and water and throw and drink. And drink. Then I would light the grill and domesticate further. A phone call would eventually come requesting bath water for the off spring and I would put food on plates and plates on the bar. I trimmed twisty trees to be twisty. I made mosaic flower pots. I picked up sticks in the wheel barrow from the gazillion shedding fucking trees, then I'd mow. And drink.

I was very content. Content because I'm always content when I spend time alone. Honestly it was better than when they were around. But I was always waiting for Someday. Someday when I could move to the beach and not have to deal with baby moma drama and a mouthy 11 year old. When I didn't have to fold paper towels just so or turn cans in the pantry a certain way to feel in control of my life.

One day it just became too much, I quit running the bath water and I quit plating the food. I quit eating the omelets. I realized I had gotten completely and totally lost...nothing of my life was Me. I tried to remember who I was before I fell into this pseudo stepford existence. It was handled badly to say the least, it's hard when you jerk the proverbial domesticated rug out from under someone, I may as well have spun the world off its axis.

I cried when I picked Roger's toys up from the yard when we moved out. Instead of admitting it was a stepping stone we rode it so far into the ground that it's taken me 3 years to remember any of the good. Not a very adult way of going about things I'm sure.

All of this because I put coffee in the maker the night before.

p.s. I still will not touch omelets.

Bad Beagles...Bad Sniff

Roger wanted to do a guest blog, but between the oppossing thumb issue and all of his words starting with R's we thought it best that I just do a recap for him.  My very attractive boy bird dog with the feather boa plume of a tail got rolled by two vacationing hater beagles.  Yes, beagles...of all dogs to get your ass kicked by...beagles.  Of course my maternal instincts kicked in and I immediately wanted to break out all trailer park in the trailer park and go kick some Ohio beagle ass but fortunately I lost my steam before day light.  Which is much the way with me...note to self there folks if you ever make me batshit crazy livid (an almost impossilbe feat minus rolling my dog) just get away from me and in almost no time it will loose it's legs (no need in worrying if I will chainsaw the pilons of your waterfront house Mr X).  So outside of feeling bad because I raised a gay dog and that he took on my passive (aggressive) personality there are no scars to show.  They didn't really hurt him...just pushed him around on the playground a little.  I've been there, trust me, and I lived through it too.  Doubt he'll be a big tail wagger around the little O mouth barkers anytime soon though.

In other news from the hood, my keen dog senses dog completly missed 2 deer that were in the field on his dog walk yesterday.  They were still barely bambi spotted but tall and leggy and about 40 feet away from us.  In his defense he's never been much of a hunter/gather type and he was tied up with handling his dog business so to speak.  Poo...spin...sniff.  They just stood and watched the spinning pooing dog...probably saving their deer jokes for after he walked away.  Then one of the deer made dookey of his own.  How many of you have seen a deer poo before...exactly...I rest my case of how cool I am.  I can not speak for the oblivious dog.

I have a little list of blogs that I read, some a lot more than others, but none the less they are all saved in my favorites folder.  That is, until today.  I even purge my favorites.  One went because she got all goddy on me...meh.  And two more others went because they went from witty clever writers to doing nothing but posting baby pics.  I get the idea of a journal that one day your kids will be able to look back at and understand where they came from...I honestly wish I had one...but damnit ya'll you don't have to get lost.  Delete...Peace out...gotta go.

And finally...bad sniff.  Last night after a particularly grueling almost 11 hour day in the trenches, I was standing in the kitchen at 11:30 having my delightful chef prepared meal of Ramen noodles, when I make an out loud statement that even I didn't see coming "Fuck...I stink".  And then thought to myself...I don't even care.  Yep, that's what it's come to.

Another One From the Archives

This one was written in apparently 1994, judging from the age it says I am. Back before I dated my thoughts or let anyone else see them.  From somewhere late year '93 through somewhere in '97 I had quite the run...I would consider it among the best times of my life.  I escaped and traveled and lived.  Best of all I turned into myself with no apologies.

1994
Tomorrow...What's it going to be?  Everybody I know is so far away from who they were and where they were when they were 21.  It makes me think that some how my life's going to be so much shorter than any of theirs.  Where will I be in 15 years?  Will I even BE at all?  The hell with 15 years, where will I be in 2.  Two years ago I would have never believed my life now.  Isn't that weird, it's nothing like I even dreamed.  So, does that mean that what I imagine maybe in 2 years isn't even close?

The adventure of life.  I guess that's it.  I don't guess you're supposed to know.  I don't think it's even planned yet.  It could be, everybody could have their life's story, kind of like our very own novel, and its already written.  That would be kinda cool, you know if you could show it off or something, instead of living it and being 90 years old trying to tell your story.  Either  you don't remember it or nobody believes you because they think you're too damn old to know what you're talking about.  No body's really interested in your "story".  Only a very few people will ever really care about your life.  Minus your parents, you're lucky if one or two your whole life, or that's what I think anyways.  I guess it shows how we're really alone through life.  Having someone who cares is neat, but it's not nearly as guaranteed as having yourself.

I'm sure I didn't think that more than a decade and a half later I would still be that raging little case of myself, that I would be thinking almost the same thoughts every day or that my life would so closely mirror what it was back then right down to the amount of water that I find myself playing in and the amount of Ramen noodles consumed every week. Funny how little I've chosen to grow up.

From the Dystunctional Mind of Heather Woo - 1993

This is kinda like a guest blog.  The guest being me circa 1993. Not a lot has changed, either I was pretty damn advanced for a 20 year old back in the day or I'm pretty unadvanced at 37...you be the judge.  This was uncovered yesterday, tucked in the back of a 1990 Rand McNally Florida Road Atlas...one of the few things that have managed unpurged over the years.  It was from before GPS and mapquest...back when you actually had to pay attention to your surroundings and not just some monotone directional nazi.  Nothing has been edited including the title. 

Well this has been the year of years for me.  I guess that old saying about whatever you're doing at midnight on New Year's Eve is what you'll be doing all year has about as much truth to it as good smelling cow shit.  Last New Year's Eve as I sat miserably in my miserable little house, watching the stupid apple fall with my beyond stupid husband, I honestly believed that I had arrived, that this is it.  My God, this is how my life is going to be.  The really sad part of it all is that a lot of people would have accepted it, figured they made a mistake and just lived with it.  There is no way that life is supposed to be so unhappy.  It can't be.  There's so much more to it all.  I can't help but believe that our sole purpose in life is to sustain happiness, not existence.  Way too often everybody gets so caught up in the details of life, and loose touch with the meaning, kind of like not seeing the forest for the trees.  Simplicity has got to be the key.  Everything is so complex, but complex is made up a whole lot of simple things.  Everything has to be taken for what it is, not always what it seems.  Don't worry about it if you can't do anything about it.
Happiness is the whole point of our existence, not only survival.  I can not understand how people can get so caught up in the bitch and moan rut that they let their entire lives pass them by without ever even knowing themselves enough to like themselves.  Life is so incredibly short, how could anybody not see that?  I never want to go through even one miserable day.  What it that was my last?  We can't be so intent on planning for tomorrow that we forget that we have today.  Today is the day that I want to live, tomorrow is a gift.

I guess now I realize that I have yet to arrive, I've not even come close to my dreams.  But my dreams, whatever they may be, will never hold me back from living today.  My short term goal I guess is to have fun with life and to always, no matter how bad I have the Chinese Dude, be happy.  I really think it's possible.

Basics

I'm a bit random and all over the place with this, but that's how the thoughts came to me.  There were already ideas and notes written then I saw, of all things to inspire me, a church marquee.  I think I still pay attention to them because of all the years of watching my dad try to come up with clever shit to put on them.  Most make me want to vomit in my mouth.  But this one said "What would you do if this was your last day on earth?"  When it comes down to it, all the basic necessities you need can fit in that top dresser drawer of the beat up donated Hospice furniture.  Here's my top drawer list of all that I need to be happy, in no particular order.

Laughing, the ocean, clams and rum. 
Music, time by water doing nothing but thinkin'.
Stars and the moon on the water.
Being the only person on earth who knows where you are.
Peach vodka and cherry rum.
Wet dog nose.
Lying on your back in a tidal pool watching clouds.

Outside of the clams and liquor, none of them cost a thing, come with any obligation or depend on anyone else. 
So it says the age old song, we are gone before we recognize that we are there.  Night turns into morning, and there without a warning is another day.  Another day to dream...another day less young.  (Lyrics from the Big White Undies)  I don't know that I've always been this way but I'm tapped into being in the moment right now. 
In the big picture it takes very little to make me happy and for that I feel pretty fortunate. At the end of that last day on earth, I think the best you can hope for is to be able to say "Absolutely nothing different".

A Rebel Child and A Preacher's Daughter

Change...What everyone given a long enough time line will inevitably want from me.  It's also in all likelihood what I will never do.  How I am or you are in essence is all that we have.  I own it.  I own me.  I have always been exactly what you see.  I have no agenda, its all right there on the surface.  I am black & white.  I am middle of the road even keel.  I am fiercely independent and hard headed.  I am a socialized hermit...a zen white peaceful calm in the middle of most any storm.  I say what I think, but not all that I think and the things I say are thought out.  I exist in my head and feelings are about the last thing I'll find necessary to tell.  I think actions speak loudest and in general talk is cheap. I don't argue and push my point or beliefs on others.  I will give you plenty of rope, if you choose to hang yourself with it then that's your choice. I like to drink alone.  Alone time, written words and music calm me and connect me.  When I get off center I can not realign around people. 

The things that attract people the most in the beginning are also the same things that they tire of eventually.  I am painfully aware of this...I warn in advance.  I still rebel against the basics of society.  When backed into a corner I cat up...even if I was curled up sleeping contently in that corner.  I'm one stubborn block of a skinny white girl and there really is no changing me.

18 & Sun Baked

The need to write isn't the same need as normal.  Normally I have words running all over each other in my head causing thought traffic delays.  This is more of a pile of post its and bar napkins and various shards of paper with one liners from either me or random others.  The pile was starting to get out of control so here's a post dedicated completely to them.  I will try to give credit where credit is due and disguise some players cleverly with dark rim glasses and black fuzzy mustaches if necessary.

"Isn't it funny how things that have tails don't have butt cracks?" - Me on the subject of trust and if people had tails how much easier it would be to spot the crack pots.  You can't fake a wag and if its tucked you'd know they were up to something...you get my point.  I'm aware there is argument with the tail/crack statement but really horse-ish creatures are the only real exception that I can see...moving on.

"I'm a skitzoid and maybe I'm a man" - Said by Carter...not sure of the context...not even sure if context would matter.  Whaaatt?

"I can almost swear that I've never fucked anybody from West Virginia" - Said by Mr Man after apparently one two or seventy too many shots.  It wasn't until later that I brought a reasonable doubt to light.  He happened to live in Ohio for a questionable man whore stint.  Last time I checked it borders WV...the odds are there, that's all I'm saying.

"Heels mean  you paid for it...Tennis shoes mean you found it" - Credit to L square.  Comment on the upside down tennys I'd witnessed sticking out the passenger window of a big truck earlier that day...obvious head in traffic action.  We deduced from his cleverness that the guy had in fact just gotten lucky most likely for free.

On that note "I've never slept with a hooker" - break return from potty- amends statement "in this country" - Anonymously said.  For future argument sake if you only did it once or if said act takes place outside of the continental US you have a hall pass.

"Anybody that fights with their feet and fucks with their faces ain't for me" - Dukeism on the French.  Have to gather that he's not a fan...ya think?

"You are aware...Both of us have gone to a bar with a book in the same week."  Me to Nanner.  We are both reading some version of sex memoirs.  Chelsea Handler for me and Blanche the Golden Girl  for her who's real name escapes me at the moment.  Book exchange in the immediate future.

A very serious faced Roblet (this draws attention just in itself because let's admit it...it never happens) says "Hey guys, I've got a question for you...(dramatic pause) WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?!"....deep sigh.

"Crabs don't poop...they don't even have butt holes" - An ongoing argument between me and my favorite vet.  Trust him with my furry son?  Absolutely.  But there's no way  in hell I'm gonna let him do a lobotomy on my pet crab if I ever decide to get one.

"The lack of awareness of the hotness is hotter than the hotness" - Me to Nanner(because let's not kid ourselves...who the hell else would possibly say this besides me) I was on subject of a hot Shemar Moore look-a-like that she went out with, who was a little too aware of the above mentioned hotness. (This is my general opinion of all hotness and hotness people know...you know who you are)  As it turned out for ole Shemar, hot awareness is quite counter productive....another deep sigh.

Since Roger has no real voice he has to make notable quotes best way he knows how...through poo.  This was yesterdays rather substantial poo...in the perfect shape of an 18.  I was sans camera so I found it again today.  One day of 5000 degree heat and direct sun and this is what we have...

This one comes from someone I obviously don't know or associate with...you can tell by the sheer depth of the quote that they probably don't hang out with people who photograph and share dog poo accomplishments.  "I asked for a miracle.  And I considered the possibility of another possibility." - Marianne Williamson

Father's Day Minus the Integral Part

Last week on the beach I tried writing something for Daddy.  It started off as a letter of unanswered questions.  I got one written and for the life of me couldn't come up with another.  Then yesterday I got a magazine in the mail and immediately opened it up and ripped all those little sewn in postcard thingys out of it.  Its the first thing I do every single time, and I realized where I got it from.  Him.  So I started writing down everything that I got from him.  I have his thumbs, I think it was the first thing they checked  when I was born...I never noticed how strikingly the same our hands looked until he was sick and his hands were more the size of mine.  I have his dimples and even though our smiles are different we both smile and make fun and dork off most of the time.   I drag my right heel when I walk...same way he did.  I have the same nervous energy that refuses me the ability to sit still and not at least pick my nails constantly.  He had an eye for pictures and was always in the yard in spring trying to catch the humming birds on his zinnias.  I got his sense of money and his way of making what you have be all that you need and still save some.   I have the forehead crinkle, that before I figured out where it came from almost had it botoxed out.  Apparently our brains are wired similarly because only a fraction of what happens in here makes out to words and sometimes they come out as complete flying non-sequeters that no one around can figure exactly how the randomness relates to whatever is going on.  I always thought that he lived inside head.  He would talk for my stuffed animals when I was little...I think he gave Beaver his voice, I take full responsibility for it attitude and language.  Belief in the unbelievable...as far apart as we were in what unbelievables we believed I think the blind trust in something more than what can be seen came from him.
I don't want to disillusion and make it seem that me and Daddy were super close or inseparable...that was more his relationship with my Mom. But an awful lot of who I am is a direct undeniable line to him. He was an emotional man and had no proudness when it came to expressing feelings and crying in front of anyone, as you well know I  did not get this trait...but I cry as I write this.
Probably the most important thing that he taught me came in his early exit of stage left.  He taught me not to wait to buy a bicycle, not to wait to move to where you want to be, not to wait, or chance, or regret not doing anything.  He taught me that we don't have tomorrow to live...all we have is Now.

Heavy...Now Hand Me My Camera

Bullshit digital photography has ruined my life.  An out loud proclamation after finding and pilfering through my old black and white film albums.  Somewhere over the last several years of everydays I've desensitized.  Whether it be out of necessity or self preservation or involuntary reaction to keep on even keel, I really don't have a clue, but I've lost my passion.  Passion for things that actually register feelings. People joke about me being a guy emotionally...in actuality I'm some where between that and an emotional concrete wall.  Pretty much nothing creates a ripple.  So as I was looking through the black and white past, I felt something.  Looking back at me where people being rawly who they were.  I could almost see their souls.  No cheesy posing camera smiles.  If it wasn't captured on paper you would never have known there had been a camera present. 
I've lost my way...but I'm close behind. Its a song lyric that's been stuck in my head. I feel like I'm missing something. That portion of me that's always the first to get gone.  The portion of me that makes me different.  That part that still feels like a rebellious kid even though its fully aware that it's some how gotten trapped inside a 37 year old body. The need for purpose is weighing heavy on me.  I need something of me back. I remember sitting on the beach more than 10 years ago thinking almost the exact same thoughts as today.  The What Now side of brain is still screaming at me. I think at this point I can honestly admit that I doubt I'll ever stop asking What Now?  Doesn't speak much to progress but at least I'm consistent in my own fucked up way.  I drug my real camera out of hiding, enough with the stupid point and shoots and fucking camera phones. I've started seeing things through a camera eye again and the moon on the waterway was amazing last night.
I'm off to find a ripple.

Freedom and My Resulting Restlessness

I think I should rewind slightly and give you a quick peak back to my new resolutions for this year.

#1- Stop eating like my dog. Not meaning kibble and floor droppings, but like as in, quit inhaling and not chewing. For that one…I get a big ole check mark of accomplishment. However, it was brought about not by sheer will power but by forcing myself to eat left handed. It started off feeling like I was more likely to poke holes in my face than actually land a bite. The bad news is that the ever adaptive clever little left hand is getting quite dexterous (as in chopsticking sushi) thus my eating pace is picking back up. I’m thinking foot feeding is next.

#2 – Write more. I guess I don’t even need to say how that’s going.
So I’ve decided I’m going to do a mid year check in and revamp a bit.

Lots has happened….I ate a pig eye ball and wigged out about everyone in sight along with most that I’ve told about it since. I had a huge test of honesty at the Homo Depot where I actually stood my ground against a minimum of 4 different people that “NO, I did not give you $50 cash even though the (bone head) cashier (who’s job I was trying to save through all my heroic efforts) put it on the receipt!! I still owe you 50 dollars!!” Finally I left the store, drove to an ATM…paid the fee…drove back to the store to take them the 50 bucks the insisted that I’d already given them. Did I mention I also lost a precious hour and half of my life trying to give away money?!! I’m insane. Also, for the record, I have not noticed the sprouting of any wings on my back nor the faint or any glow for that matter of my halo, but rest assured that I am the least likely person alive that will steal from you. Then again I’ve never been addicted to heroin and my rum supply is at a safe level. If prohibition is reinstated all bets are off.

For the last year and half or more most of my thoughts have apparently been consumed with my house and my furniture and stuff that was still in my house and my lack of ever seeing said house or said stuff. And the money that was pouring to the elusive house bladdy blah and what I was going to do about it. Every day I obsessively checked my morning activity report on how many web hits it had gotten and calculated and recalculated what I could take for it at this particular nano second since the principal had dropped 2 cent. And how long I could let the grass grow between paying some one to cut it and obsess, obsess, obsess. Welp…the house sold, my shits all here in the one proverbial sock. My bank account is all fat and happy. And me? Well, let’s just call it anticlimaticism. Look at that, I’m now described with a word that wouldn’t pass a scrabble test. I’m not a real excitable person good or bad, but I honestly didn’t realize just how devoid of emotion I’ve become. I haven’t been free of dramatics in more years that I can say. Bad divorces…houses… trashing renters… job loss(x2)… death. All the calmness has me terribly restless. I have no idea what to do with myself, which would probably explain how I can be engulfed in a 1000 page novel, a US travel guide and Crazy Aunt Purls new book “Home is Where the Wine Is” at the same time I ripped the fenders off my jeep, tackled a new bathroom floor (assisted by Mr. Man) and mutilated a pigs head for a snack….and I still need for more. 

Don’t get me wrong…I am absolutely happy to be over the house/stuff drama…but what now?? My mind is wearing me out! And beware…I will eat your eyeballs if I get bored enough.  I am in dangerous place right now.

Here's What I Know

It took me years of fighting my own head and the beliefs that I was force fed growing up to come to terms with what I know. (Notice I am foregoing the "what I think" and going all in here.)

I know that we are not bound to just this one human suit and one trip around to either make it or break it. I know that the intuition that has always guided me is my larger self sitting somewhere directing the show. I know my larger self is my soul. The soul that has been housed in all of my earthly selves and the only part of me that remembers all of my accumulated learning. That's why when I blindly trust the voice inside me things go right and when I go against it...well, not so much.

I know that we are here to learn and progress as a soul more so than as a human. Each life time has a set of challenges and you either accomplish them and move forward or you get next round to try again. I have places that I am drawn to for no reason, but I have no real idea where I've been before or who may have been or whether or not I made a big impact. I may have been a pirate or an Indian or a Roman soldier; Or maybe I was a housewife in the 1850's with one hell of an imagination. But I know I've always been a free spirit.

I know that everyone's soul is a different age. I know that I'm an old soul. I know I have a cluster that are my soul buddies. We pass through every life and manage to touch each others lives either for a while or just a minute. Whether we hold hands for the journey or meet just to reassure each other that our beliefs are right and we are exactly were we need to be.

You know instantly when you cross paths with a cosmic litter mate. The feeling of knowing a person before you know them. The familiar effortlessness of conversation. I know there are places and times that we manage to get to with no real effort or explanation...And there waiting is our just as unsuspecting cosmic buddy with the same tattered appointment card. Even the passing acquaintances, in parting you know that your larger selves are somewhere high fiving each other that the dumb little human suits were able to find each other in the murk and madness that is this spinning ball.