AND THE WAVES IS CHOPPY

I don't know what I'm going to write, but I am going to write. I need to. I'm bursting. I just got done reading my sister's blog from the first day of December and, I have to say, I have not recently read more emotive writing. I was leaking from my peepers and my nose was jammed with the requisite mucus.

[It is called crying, Adam.]

I'm wearing Dad's Adidas fishing/safari hat right now. It is a blue hat, 360-degree-rimmed, with brass holes and the logo on the front. I clipped it from my Mom's house, when I was over there to help my 66-year-old mother, with a pulled hammy and a pre-operational knee, bring the Christmas "stuff" down from the attic.

I only mention my mother's physical maladies because I am glued with guilt over the fact that, though I live only 15 minutes from her house, I am an intermittent visitor, at best. Conjoin that with this: She visits her mother in the nursing home every damned day. Who is more selfless?

No. Don't answer that.

Anyway, like I said earlier, I don't know what I want to write about. I think I have given you readers a snippet of what is on my mind, but there is a virtual iceberg beneath.

And the waves is choppy. And the waves is cold. Frigid. Brr....

Okay, here's a metaphor for you all: Right now, I feel like the Titanic, two days before her maiden voyage. The ship appears tip-top, she's had many people compliment her on her physical appearance, she's said to be bullet-proof and ten feet tall, but is hapless, is helpless, is doomed to smi-zash into that iceberg.

And the waves is choppy. And the water is cold. Frigid. Brr....

But. Like I said, I was at my mother's house today. and she said that she'd sent me an email about an--in my opinion--an overly-optimistic fellow. From what I gleaned from her conversation (I was hung-over as fuck) was that the said dude "made a choice every day" to be happy, to think positively.) Besides being an obvious writer--narcissistic, selfish, ego-maniacal, I am also, at this point, I think, clinically depressed. I slop around in my doom and gloom and, somehow, feel...better.

But, what my mom was saying was that this guy--this guy in a forwarded email which I have not yet read--this guy gave himself no leeway at all to feel sorry for himself, to, as I said, slop around in his doom and gloom. The guy fell two or three stories, I heard, and he survived. And, though he was a pin-cushion for, well, pins and epoxy and whatnot, he maintained his sunny outlook.

I say, "How?!"

People are different, obviously. Some people, who seemingly have it good, are constantly miserable. Others, who have not, are happy and buoyant. What gives?

I call it Faith. I think it is Faith. Hope. I think it is Hope, too. I think that some people just have a built-in neuron to maintain a happy face, throughout whatever may come their way.

And, others, myself definitely included, have a built-in neuron to see the glass as half-empty.

Now, neither faction asked for this mindset. It is just the way they were built. Who the hell would ask to live in gloom and doom and shadows and rainstorms? ("I would," says the masochist.) But, seriously? Who would want to put on a sad face every fucking day? ("I would," says the masochist. "And, also? Can you pass me that red ball-gag? I'm getting too much oxygen, right now. Kthnx.")

I have heard someone, before, implore another to "get off the pity-pot." Why?

I'll answer. This, this, is why: Because life is short and life is beautiful and life deserves--no--needs to be explored and sometimes one has to fake it till he makes it and sometimes one has to grin and bear it and sometimes one has to angle on to a better life and sometimes one has to row up the river with only one oar and sometimes one has to leap before he looks and sometimes one has to revel in his talents and avoid his peccadilloes and sometimes one has to forget/forgive the Past and not approach the Future and sit, instead, in the Now and sometimes one has to just remember this: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference

Truer words were never spoken.

The very first word brightens me. God. Though I may take His name in vain--often--and though I may violate the Commandments and Seven Deadly Sins multiple times a day (as most human beings do), I feel--I know--this: God is the Creator, God is the Father and God is the Way to salvation. It is just what I feel, what I know, what I believe. Shoot me.

No. Don't.

So. Shit. Hmmmm. So I started this soul-gutting by stating that I miss my dad. I do. I still do. I always will. But, through the process of writing, I worked some shit out. On your time. In your ear. In your eye.

Said shit is this: Life.

Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. But, you know what? It's mostly good--sometimes great--and the bad times? Look in a mirror. If you have a computer with which you can navigate the Internet, you're probably doing, at best, okay. Life could be sooooo much worse.

But, hell, Life is so much more. I'll give some unsolicited ass-vice: Get laid. It'll brighten your day.

More ass-vice: Volunteer. It'll make you feel good.

Ass-vice: Find your Center. How? Fuck! I don't know! Just find it.

AV: Every day, make a list--be it mental or pen to paper--about the things, people, events, thoughts, animals for which you are thankful. Thankfulness helps the heart. It broadens it; it enlivens it; it makes one's heart swell. Plus? Plus, it gives the thankful person a rush of dopamine and norapinephrine and serotonin. The best drugs ever made; thank God.

And I thank God.

Peace.

ELEVEN-TWENTY/TWO-THOUSAND-NINE

My sister turned 40 today.

Alexis.

Forty.

My! How Time doeth fly! Right? Heck.

Heck, I remember being 10 and Alexis being 14, at the house on Smith. Even at that age, she was showing brilliant flashes of artistic brilliance. (I know. "Brilliant" in its forms, twice. Read on.)

Alexis has always been an artist. Poetry, painting, colored-penciled drawings, prose, short stories, sculpture, artistry of musical instruments--she can pick up an instrument and make sense out of it. Piano, dulcemer, guitar, drums....

So. She turned 40 today. It is her birthday.

I say to her, "Happy birthday!" And I grin like the Cheshire Cat. Because I feel that way. I love the girl. She is an inspiration to me. She truly is. Is.

We have not always seen eye-to-eye and I think I know the reason: We are far too similar in many aspects of our personalities.

But, the fact remains that I love her and I miss her--miss her. She lives in Duluth-fucking-Minnesota, a fourteen-hour drive away. That's far. I am without vacation daze at work....

***

Meagan intervenes (and I type)....

For Alexis's birthday, Meeg came up with the idea of 40 things (for the years accumulated)--randomly chosen from the dictionary, in alphabetical order--that we'd like to give her for her 40th birthday.

And it so goes:

We give her 40 adorable anoles.

We give her 39 blue blankets.

We give her 38 cute cat calanders.

We give her 37 doozies.

We give her 36 ethos...um. Um.

We give her 35 forklifts. Damn. Much work to do, huh?

We give her 34 germy gerbils. (Annie and Nikki.)

We give her 33 heterosexuals. (Back down, Sean.) ;-)

We give her 32 insomniatic nights. Sorry. That's the way the page unfolded.

We give her 31 jowls.

We give her 30 Karmas. (Peace, my sister.)

We give her 29 lifeboats.

We give her 28 malamutes. (You wanted a dog, right?)

We give her 27 Norsemen. (Sean?! Back off, man! It's just an alphabetic exercise.)

We give her 26 obsidian rocks.

We give her 25 precious pandas. (And China is pisssssssed.)

We give her 24 Quakers. (Enjoy your oatmeal, sis.) =0)

We give her 23 rest areas.

We give her 22 sitars. (Be the Beatles, uh?)

We give her 21 tender tendrils.

We give her 20 umbilical cords.

We give her 19 Vermeers. (He's a famous Dutch painter. She got 19 of his works for her life-changing 40th birthday!)

We give her 18 weathercocks. (Whence does the wind blow?)

We give her 17 xenophobes.

We give her 16 Yuppies. (And she will hate that gift.)

We give her 15 zoologists.

---

[We start back at "A" for the remainder of the 14 years.]

We give her 14 apostles. (Meagan and I will round the 12 out to 14.)

We give her 13 bibs. (Red Lobstah, anyone?)

We give her 12 comedians.

We give her 11 deja vus.

We give her 10 entertaining entrepreneurs.

We give her 09 forests.

We give her 08 guest workers, a foreigner permitted to work in a country on a temporary basis.

We give her 07 howitzers. (Aim carefully. Please?)

We give her 06 ideals.

We give her 05 jackals. (Sorry.)

We give her 04 Korean Krishnas.

We give her 03 lobotomies.

We give her 02 megaliths. (Think...Stonehenge.)

We give her 01 neophyte. (Meegie says, "Have fun with that!")

And, for zero, we give her the Love of Language; we give her the Mastery of Mastication.

Chew on, dear sis, chew on.

Love you,

Adam and Meegie. =0)

THANKSGIVING? LET'S...

Hey, it's only November 12th, but Thanksgiving is coming up soon; it's just around the proverbial corner. I figured that I would--in no particualr order--write about some things for which I am thankful.

* I should word this one carefully (one never knows who is reading) but I am thankful that, sometimes, a split-second decision grants one documentation in the stead of a boot to the ass, out the door.

* I am thankful for my immediate family, my Mom and my Gramma and my sisters and my late Dad, and my "other" family, my Meegie and her/our Naomi--from all, love does show and flow and Grow.

* I am thankful for my dogs--they're always there for me; and it is up to me to reciprocate.

* I am thankful for my job. In this economy..? I shan't even finish that thought, lest it germinate, come to fruition. Thankful for a good wage and--generally--good co-workers. Even though I am not the best at, well, anything at that job, I still have it, and it pays a good wage, and I actually find it stimulating, sometimes.

* I am thankful for my strong body. I mean, seriously, the shit I have put it through? And the heart still ticks? And the lungs still fill? And the bwane still works? That says something about Divine Engineering, doesn't it? I am kind of at a loss to explain how this is. But, actually, maybe I already have--D.E.: Divine Engineering. I am 36 years old. 36.76666666, to be somewhat-exact. This ain't a kid's body, anymore. (It may be a kid's mind, but I digress.) God makes many bodies. Tall, short, fat, thin.... Doomed to die young, doomed to die at age 93. I am only 36 years old--perhaps I should not count the farm fowl before they crack through their egg--but I feel thankful that, until this point at least, God has made me a Seiko--I take a licking and keep on ticking.

* I am thankful for the Internet. Because, that way? I can spew, from my fingertips, misplaced hubris.

* I am thankful for sports.

* I am thankful that the world does not have to revolve around liquor, spirits, or beers. The world is a much bigger place, keemie-sabo. (Spelled wrong, on purpose, kemo sabe means "wet bush" in some other language--perhaps Navajo?)

* I am thankful that my brain still has the capacity for Denial. (See above.)

* I am thankful that many people love their cats. I, however, am not one of those people. Cats? Never been a fanatic. But...cats can be cute.

* I am thankful that my car still runs, though through shoddy maintainence.

* I am thankful that my mother instilled in me the love of the Creative and that my dad instilled in me the love of the Ethic of Work.

* I am thankful that I was granted a gift from God to love words. They've lulled me to sleep, they've been exclamations of pain and worth and love and greed and hurt and acceptance and unabashed Hope.... Words are Lifeblood, sometimes. And I thank God that I love them and understand them and use them as I can.

* I am thankful that...the List could go on and on and on.

Thanks.

MEEGIE, MY MASTER MECHANIC

So...here was the situation: my 2002 Ford Focus's left headlamp had burned out. Yesterday, I walked out the door, after work, armed with a screwdriver, ready to make things right...make things...illuminated.

Now, the catch.

You either have to be a rocket scientist (or Meagan) to change the damned lightbulb. I know, I know...how tough could it be? Well.

Like I said, yesterday, I walked out of my door, armed with a screwy, thinking--obviously!--that to change a lightbulb is child's play.

The 2002 Ford Focus is a bitch when it comes to changing bulbs. First of all, it isn't the old-skool way of lighting one's way. You have to pull off a "weather protective" shield--easy--but then you have to, basically, free the burned-out bulb from its shackles by touch alone. It is so inconveniently-situated, it is ridiculous. It's basically upside-down and blind lightbulb-changing.

Some fools on the Internet suggested using a mirror. Hum.

(They were right.)

But I couldn't hack it. I tried (briefly) and then I said fuggit, I'll take it to the Ford dealership, where they would charge me from between $50 and $70 to "get 'er done."

I happened to mention to Meegie that my plan was such, and she blew a gasket.

"Fuck that!" she ejaculated. "No, no way. Uh-uh. That's bullshit."

I said, "But, Meagan, I can't do it. I'll just fuck it up."

"Then I'll do it," she said. And she got off the couch and slipped into her slippers and lit out the door.

I sat there, looking blankly at the front window, thinking to myself, If she does it, again, I may have to become a eunuch. You see, earlier, before I had brought up the imminent rape of myself by the Ford dealership, I had been running water for the dishes. The dishes! And, later, I will pop Ping-Pong balls....

And, when I say, "If she does it again..." it means that she is very very very good at figuring things out. I? I tend to say fuggit and meekly hand my money to the greasemonkeys. Or the geeks. Or the Men-Who-Can-Do-It-All.

Fast-forward.

Meagan took a mirror and a flashlight out to the car. I walked out a minute later to find her fingering the lightbulb encasement.

"It's got a clasp," she said. "I just have to figure out how to unlatch it."

I mentally shook my head. No fucking way. It's impossible. It's bullshit, is what it is. Aloud, I said, "So, how do you want me to hold the flashlight?"

"Wait a minute," she said. "I think I know how to do this."

You have a snowball's chance in Hades of doing this, I thought. I did not think she could do it...again.

Long story.

Short.

She did it. She figured out the Hell-Clasp and she extracted the dead bulb and she figured out how to install the new one and connect it to the wires, and--then!--she figured out how to re-clasp the motherfucking worst idea for a car headlight bulb ever.

(She is reading over my shoulder. She wants me to let y'all know that I had mentioned that, maybe, we should get the bulb in its place before she hooked up the wires. I was just thinking, hell, the clasp is the hardest part. We need no distractions, like wires.)

Yeah.

I'm a boob. I was completely ready to hand $50 to $70 over to Ford mechanics who'd probably have snickered at their rotund snookering of my dumb ass. But! Because of my love, Meegie, I have not to pay for a...listen now...a lightbulb change.

I'm here. I have a dish towel over my shoulder. I am washing dirty dishes. Perhaps, later, I will show you my....

THE CAMERA VORTEX AND SIGNIFICANT DATES

My house is a camera vortex, a camera maelstrom, if you please. I--we--have lost two within the last two months. A camera a month; we're battin' a thousand.

The thing is, we know the optical refractors/savers are here, in the house, somewhere. The other thing is, we can't find them. They're both Canons. One, the original one I had, was a $300 camera a couple of years ago; the other, a red Canon, is a $100 POS that I bought about, oh, a couple of months ago, if that. They both took shots.

And that is the real traged--sorry part of this yarn. The images that was cap'chud is goan.

Gone for all eternity...untill we find the stupid cameras.

(At least Meagan found the rocks that she collected from Martian City. Um...Marine City, Michigan.)

***

On to significant dates.

My Daddy, Robert, God bless bless bless bless his soul, passed away, died, a year ago two days from now. Tomorrow, my sister and my Mom and I are going to have a Dad Remembrance Day. I love him; I miss him; I want him not to be gone. I am not one--seriously--to whine and caterwaul and carry on, shit, but I miss him. He left faaaaaaaaaaaar too early. (Not his design; His.)

And so I may tell myself that this is a part of life and that "the show must go on," but I miss my dad. I miss him. I love him. I miss him. I lovingly miss him.

A year ago, I was fresh out of rehab--not like it helped a damn--and I came out into a situation of seeing a Power Figure sick and dying. It rocked me. I had been in denial. I hadn't dealt with the significance of the situation. (I don't know, actually, if I have, yet.)

When a son sees his Booming Father shrunken and ailing, it tends to--fuck, at least for me--it made me see the world in a different light. I think it is the loss of the so-called safety net that really gets to a kid.

I am 36. I am not a kid. I am a man. (And I should be more successful.)

The point is, though, when I saw my dad dying, it sent a shiver through my bones. (Apropos, considering it is Halloween.) I saw Death. Death is ugly. Death is shit. Death is Pain. Death is diapers. Death is waiting in a line for one's number to be called. Death is always busy.

On the plus side, Death relieves a human being (and all other beings) from pain. From strife. From chaos and anarchy. Death is the great equalizer. All go to the Promised Land.

The thing that pisses me off, though, is that I wanted my father around longer. Am I a brat, throwing Lincoln Logs at God? Maybe. 'Cause, seriously, God knows best. Shit, even if you're a non-believer, Time knows best.

Who are we to question pre-determination? Who are we to question Fate?

Tomorrow, my sisters and my Mom and I will remember my dad. I remember him every day.

As we all do.

But I tend towards the dark side. I remember his pain, his paralysis, his thrushed breath, his neotonical mouthing of mashed pills in apple sauce. I remember all these images in vivid detail.

I have a photocopy of a picture of my dad that my sister Alexis painted. It is stunningly photographic. In it, Robert Raymond sits, his coffee in his right hand, his glasses perched down on his nose, his eyes winking, his shoulders broad, eyebrows tilted in just his way. I look at that picture often. I gain strength from it. I glean some of--a small percentage--of the strength that my father had... up and through his final day.

I have never met a stronger man.

It took universal malignancies to bring him to his knees. And, even then, he was stoic. He was strong. I can't even imagine the psychic and physical pains he was enduring. Yet he stayed. He stayed. He stayed Strong.

Almost a year ago, I bid farewell to my dad.

And now I say hello.

=0)

Peace, Dad. I love you. I miss you. You're always--always--in my heart.

Peace.

SATURDAY MUSINGS

It is around noon on October the 17th, a Saturday. I am downstairs in the comfortable leather La-Z-Boy and Meagan is upstairs, rearranging the bedroom. I shifted it around on Thursday, but my fine woman was not a fan of how I'd done it. So now she is putting her female slant on the project. I had rearranged it so that our feet wouldn't be right up against the window. It's getting chillier, you know. She wants to surprise me with the results. I'd wanted to help her--had been prepared to help her--but she's all about the pleasant surprises. I'll like it any way she ends up shifting it. I'm easy that way.

Exciting blog post, huh?

***

It gets more exciting.

Kind of.

Well...not really.

As I walked out through the kitchen to let the dogs back in, I noticed that someone had called my phone and left a message. The number, as I looked at it, was instantly familiar. My doctor's office. What the hell would they be calling me on a Saturday for? I wondered to myself. I listened to the message and the girl on the other end chirpily informed me that it was Doctor H___'s office calling and could I please call them back at my earliest convenience.

I gotta be honest: Morbid thoughts were floating through my head. Why would they call on a Saturday if it were not important, perhaps even life-changing? Thoughts of the Big C or the Hiv or failing kidneys or high liver counts zinged about my head. That's silly, I told myself, I have just been there a month ago and got blood work done and the results came back with a big check-mark through "Normal." Still, though, I wasn't quite at ease as I called the number back.

Hell, they aren't even open on Saturdays.

I got the chirpy girl and she put me on hold. I waited for about two minutes, thinking death-thoughts and/or being stuck with a medical bill that my insurance would not cover and then I hung up and called back.

"Yeah," I said, "This is Adam; I was on hold earlier? Can you tell me, please, what the call was about?"

"Oh, yes, Adam...um, you're due for your tetanus shot. We need you to come in. When would be good for you?"

Tetanus shot? Ahhhhhh.... A load was lifted. Fricking tetanus shot. And there I'd been, thinking the worst. Ah well, that's the way the Adamnator's mind works, sometimes. I scheduled an appointment for Thursday at 5:15 and hung up, life still intact.

***

So, in summary, just another Saturday. I saw Meagan's finished work upstairs and I am duly impressed. My rearrangement was sophomoric, hers looked professionally-done. She's got the bed up against the opposite wall and the desk in the corner near the window with the computer and the TV atop. Her dresser is at her side of the bed and mine is at mine. She's got me lying on the side closer to the window, which is just fine. I am hot-blooded (check it and see).

I am very pleased with the finished product, and I love my girl and never want her to leave me for warmer climates (such as Virginia Beach). But, as some sage poet once uttered, Love is like a little bird, held in a hand. Squeeze not tightly, or you may crush it. Hold not too loosely, or it may fly away. But, you know, true love is loving someone enough so that one does not oppress the other with chains of the heart. I, in no way, want my love to pedal off into the sunset. I want her here, with me, forever. I, too, want her not to be miserable. Do you see the quandary? Time will unfold, as it always does, and questions will be answered, as they most-often are.

In tetanus-related news, I did some E-searching and I discovered that, yeah, maybe a tetanus shot is not a bad idea. I'd rather not have my back bent like a Beckham free shot. I'd rather have my jaw unlocked and I'd prefer not to be a helpless victim of spasms, ones which contract and crunch and bunch my muscles and skeletal structure into shapes that belong more in the family Homo Pretzelalius than the family Homo Sapiens.

I work in dirt. I get cuts and scrapes. I could step on a rusty nail. A little prevention goes a long way, you know?

IN PROGRESS, WORK

"The first thing we do, we kill all the lawyers."

I looked at Bill. "The Bard, nice. Whatever. What you meant to say was, 'First thing, we kill all the zombies.'"

He looked at me blankly. He opened his case to his .45. Dribble drooped from his lower lip.

***

Man, it'd been quick. Exponential. From a few bleeps about "Cannibals in Sandusky?" to mass chaos. It was exponential. We all learned quick.

***

I'd had this friend Chuck, Charles, since I was seven. He and I grew older and we drifted apart, as friends so-often do. We stopped hanging out when we were, like, 15 or so. He'd started smoking and drinking--at 15!!!--and I still hit the books. We were like grease and water. In the halls we still said hello to each other, but it was low-class teenage bullshit. We'd spaced. I knew it; he knew it. Man....

This is difficult. I hope you--whoever the fuck you are--knows that it was tough to see him that day. After the Alarm-Sec-2009-09.

I do not like zombies. I hate their slack-jawed expressions and I hate the omnipresent fact that they want to kill me and eat my brain.

I'm just not down with that.

Charlie the zombie.

Fuck.

There is no room for error with these fucks. They scratch you, you die an agonizing death. They bite you? You die an agonizing death. They eat you? You're fucked.

Whatever. Charles came after me. It was after all the government's shut-downs and shit. But, yeah, he still was hungry.

He had knocked at my door. He'd still had the modicum of Humanity in his diseased networks.

"Chuck. Not home," I said as I parted the curtains on the door. "Zee-Chuck. Go bite someone else."

He hammered his head in to the door and--goddamn if--his head didn't