Seoul Bath...

I went to a Korean Spa for the first time this weekend.

My friend had invited everyone to spend the day at the spa with him for his birthday, before the party he was throwing that night.  A few of my friends showed up, but most people were waiting for the party.  I'd been wanting to check out this spa for awhile, so I jumped at the chance.

Now, when I say "spa," think more, "communal bathhouse" rather than "salon/day spa."  You pay $20 to get in, and stay as long as you want.  (They're open 24 hours-a-day on the weekends, and they even have a "Nap Room" to sleep in when you want.)  There's a restaurant (awesome Korean food); a PC room with computers, video games, and internet; and a gym.  But the real attraction is the bathhouse.

As soon as you walk into the place, before you even get to the front desk, you encounter signs indicating "No Shoes Allowed Beyond This Point."  So, you have to carry your shoes up to the front desk, where they give you a key to fit a locker there by the entrance, just big enough to hold a pair of shoes.  Once you get your shoes off, you can feel that the dark wood floor is actually heated; feels so lovely.  Once you pay your entrance fee, they give you another key to a bathhouse locker, and a uniform of simple cotton t-shirt and shorts; men get robin's egg blue, and women get prison orange.

Inside the locker room (men and women each have their own locker rooms, and their own bathhouses, naturally), you can change into your uniform and head out into the communal area if you want.  But inside the locker room is the entrance to the bathhouse, and I headed straight for it.  Inside were showers (regular and Asian style - a little stool on the ground in front of a mirror, with a handheld showerhead and a large bowl); two large, tiled, bubbling hot "tubs" (they were more like small pools), one of them herbal; two saunas (one wet and one dry); and a cold water pool (only about knee deep and three feet wide, but running the length of the room; obviously meant for bathing, not swimming).  In one corner was a massage table, with a naked man getting scrubbed down by an attendant.

In fact, except for the attendant, everybody in the place was completely naked, and making no attempt to cover themselves up, which I found very comforting.  I'm used to puritanical American gym locker-rooms, where everyone gets dressed and undressed either with a towel wrapped around them, or in a shower or toilet stall, out of some ridiculous sense of homophobia or something.  That environment always leaves me feeling very uncomfortable.  It freaks me out to be surrounded by people who are clearly all very afraid of something, and not really have any understanding of what it is that they are so clearly afraid of, exactly.  Are they afraid that some "faggot" will see their penis and somehow become aroused?  (And if so, why does that frighten them?  What does it matter to them at all?  And how would they even know that it had happened?)  Are they worried that if they get naked the other men will think they, themselves, are a "faggot," trying to show off their penis?  (That seems more likely.)  Or are American men just incredibly modest and shy?  (Haha!  Yeah, right!)  So I found it incredibly refreshing to be in an environment where nobody had these ridiculous hang-ups that I couldn't understand, and everybody could just relax and enjoy themselves, without getting all squirrely and nervous about something so completely innocuous as being naked in the same room with other men.  I think it helped that all the men there were either Asian or Russian.  (Apparently, this spa gets a lot of Russians, because it is the closest thing to the traditional Russian bathhouse in the area.  They even had one set of their pamplets listing their services up at the front desk printed all in Russian.)

The larger, regular hot bath was empty (presumably out-of-order), so I headed to the herbal hot bath, which probably would've been my first choice, anyways, now that I think about it.  This bath has a large cloth sack filled with various herbs hanging off of the faucet so that the water is running down through the bag and into the bath; the bag is also hanging about half into the water, steeping like a tea bag.  (They had a sign listing all of the herbs they used, but I don't remember them all at this point; several of them I had never heard of before.)  In fact, it felt very much like taking a bath in tea - the water was brown, had little bits of plant matter swirling around in it, and was incredibly aromatic.  After about ten minutes in this tub, my skin felt softer and smoother than it has since I was a teenager.  In fact, even now, it still feels much softer than usual.

After the herbal bath, I took a quick rinse-off dip in the cold pool (and when they say "cold" they are not lying - it was like ice water!) and then tried out the dry sauna.  It was just over 200 degrees in there, and so it wasn't long before I couldn't take it anymore, and headed back out to cool off in the cold pool.  Going from the hot to the cold like that is the Russian style, and I find it unbelievably refreshing and invigorating and sensually satisfying.  (Maybe it's genetic.)  The hot opens up my pores and loosens my skin, and then the cold tightens it all back up again.  The heat brings all my blood out to my extremities and into my skin, and then the cold sends it all flying away from the surface and down into my core.  And the simple juxtaposition between the two sensations is very-nearly overwhelming.  It leaves me light-headed, but pleasantly so.

After that I tried out the wet sauna, but I couldn't take it for more than a minute.  The air is so thick with moisture that you can barely see your hand in front of your face.  Whenever I would breathe in, I would feel like there was more water in the inhalation than oxygen, and since I was already a little light-headed, it wasn't long before I felt like I couldn't breathe and had to get out before I passed out.  It's a shame, because, other than that, I liked the room.  It wasn't as hot as the dry sauna (only about 150 degrees), and the wet air made it feel more like a bath or shower than the dry sauna, which felt more like an oven.  And the water that they used to produce the steam was apparently infused with some herb, as well, because it was, like the herbal bath, incredibly and pleasantly aromatic.  (The dry sauna actually had a small wicker basket full of cinnamon sticks in the corner, as well, producing a pleasant aroma as they baked in the heat.)  I think next time I'll have to try this steam room first, before I do anything else, and see if that works out better for me.

I spent the next hour just going around between the dry sauna, the herbal bath, and the cold bath.  It felt amazing.  We had agreed to meet in the communal room at that point, so I dried off, dressed in my powder-blue uniform, and headed out into the communal room, which is between, and connected to, the two locker rooms/bathhouses.  The communal room is a large, central room, lined with thick tatami mats on the floor, and little tables to go with them.  (At least, they're called "tatami" in Japanese; I have no idea what they are called in Korean, but they are the same object.)  There were also large piles of these small, traditional head-cushions used for lying down on the mats.  There was a TV on one wall, playing Korean television.  There were Korean newspapers and magazines lying around the room.  There were boards for playing Go, Chess/Checkers, Backgammon, etc. scattered all around.  At one end was a line of massaging recliners, and beyond that was the "Napping Room" - a small, dark room lined with more tatami mats for sleeping.  I tried out one of the massaging recliner chairs, expecting a vibrating massage chair.  What I got instead was ten minutes of, essentially, being pummeled in the back by a robot at high speed.  It was more percussion than vibration.  It hurt like hell at first, but by the end it felt fantastic.

Along the walls of the communal room are smaller rooms of varying temperatures, all dry rooms.  The hot rooms were each lined with different materials all over the floor, walls, and ceiling.  The Himalayan Salt room was lined with pink rock salt, presumably Himalayan judging by the name, and kept at 130 degrees.  The Jewel Room was 150 degrees, and lined with smooth cut slabs of green amethyst.  And the Charcoal Room was lined with small cylinders of charcoal, and heated to 170 degrees.  (I didn't go into the last, hottest room, and don't remember what it was lined with.)  There are also two cold rooms.  The Cold Room is about 40 degrees, and then inside the Cold Room is the Ice Room, which is well below freezing, and lined with, predictably, ice.  (The sign said it was -21 degrees Fahrenheit, but it had to be Celsius; -21 degrees Fahrenheit would be dangerous in just a t-shirt and shorts, and while this room was definitely cold, it wasn't painful or distressing.  It felt more like about 25-30 degrees Fahrenheit.)  Again, I spent a bunch of time going back and forth from the hot rooms to the cold rooms and back again.

We ate lunch in the restaurant, sitting cross-legged on pillows at low Asian-style tables, eating delicious, cheap Korean food.  I reflected on the fact that the place was full of families.  I could tell that this was a regular family event; you bring the wife and kids and spend the day.  It was a like the Korean version of a community center or a YMCA.  There was a father and son in the bathhouse while I was in there, the son maybe six years-old.  They sat together, naked, at one of the little Asian-style showerheads, the son laying over the father's knee, as he washed and scrubbed his son's whole body over and over for what seemed like at least half an hour.  To my Western eyes, this looked decidedly creepy, and I couldn't imagine an American father and son doing this.  But at one point I happened to notice the father try to put the son down on the floor next to him and attend to his own washing, but the boy began to pout and plead until the father agreed to pick him back up and wash him again, which made the boy incredibly happy.  I tried to look at it through their eyes.  This was a bonding moment between a boy and his father.  In our culture, we're taught to sexualize nudity in any form regardless of context, and so something like this instinctively seems gross to us.  But this wasn't sexual at all.  It was loving.  And when I stopped myself from seeing it as sexual, and started trying to see it for what it actually was to them (non-sexual, familial nudity) it became a touching display of affection between a father and son.

I lost track of the hours I spent there, and didn't want to leave.  I could easily see how someone could spend all day there.  I can't wait to go back.  They offer massage services as well (foot massage, body massage, Thai massage, body scrub, etc.) for very reasonable prices, and next time I'm going to book one of those and make a day of it.

Nine Months...

Nine months
since My
Last
Drink.

Nine months.

That is
Significant
in an obvious way.

Nine months,
Today.

Nine months since
I last sipped
purposeful poison.
Nine months since
I last heard
the beautiful
tink-tink-tink
of ice
swirling around
into amber
glass
wall.
Nine months since
I last melted
away
into caramel-
and smoke-
flavored
oblivion.
Nine months since
I last felt
the burning hole
in my gut
weep red and raw
and wail for more
More
MORE.

Nine months since.

Nine months today.

Does that make me a new man?
Am I a New Man yet?
Am I re-born?

The bags
under my eyes
are gone
but it's still Me
I see
looking back
from that glass.

It's still Me.
I'm the Same Man.
I just found
some New Pleasures.
And New Problems
to go with them.

Happy Birthday,
Little Man.

Lost Spirit...

Appalachian Alchemists
Weaving Gold from farmer's grist
Whiskey Stills
and Copper Pills
Magick Wyrm cools vapor mists

Shine down from a Whiskey Moon
Silver Gift and Nature's Boon
Corn Cob Wands
and Thumper Pots
Mountain Spells from Summers' June

Lightning flash in jar of White
Burning Soul, distilled delight
Mountain Streams
yield Moonshine Beams
Corn-fed Wizards, dark of night

Wisdom cast in Silver hues
Blessing born of Mountain Dews
Love's Desire
from Smoke and Fire
Ancient kin-folk's hidden brews

Inspiration Distillate
Poet's Draught, inebriate
Charcoal Casks
and Secret Flasks
Of this Spirit, Celebrate

**editor's note - the first stanza popped into my head as I was trying to fall asleep last night, and it's been on my mind ever since for some reason, despite my best efforts to forget it.  The rest of the poem built from there.  I guess I miss whiskey more than I realized.

Fortune...

They gave us too many fortune cookies
Twenty or more
What are two people
supposed to do
with twenty fortune cookies?
Three of them
were
different
Not normal
Not like the others
Not really fortune cookies
at all
One appeared to be
only two-thirds
of a cookie
folded in the wrong place
as if the dough
had fallen
halfway out of the mold
in the machine
at the fortune cookie factory
Another had the folded
paper fortune
sticking out one end
like an impertinent tounge
ready to deliver
a raspberry
a paper bronx cheer
rather than prognostication
And the last
the poor devil
the poor, sad little fuck
was simply crushed
and broken
crumbled
and useless
Not even a cookie anymore
and no fortune inside at all
I took up these three lost charms
these empty, broken spells
and I cast them
into the trash
because that is where
the broken things go

**editor's note - This all came to me in a flash last night as I stood at my kitchen counter shortly after arriving home from work.  I believe it is the fruit born of the creative exercise I posted yesterday afternoon.

Creative Exercise...

Felt the need to write something, especially since I didn't write yesterday.  But couldn't really figure out anything to say.  (My perennial problem.)  So, I just started typing out stream-of-consciousness, to see what it turned into, and this is what came out.

What?
What?
What
What
What
What am I putting here?
Are we recording?
Is this thing on?
Are you on?
Are you on to me?
Can anyone see me?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello hello hello
Hey hey hey
What're we doing today?
What's on the menu this evening, sir?
Lust for life
Live to lust
Where did it go?
How old am I?
Do I really want to know?
Why did it happen?
And when did it stop?
Will I ever get it back?
Is it gone for good?
Is there anything left?
Scraps on the table
Crumbs on the floor
No one to play Lover now
The X marks the door
Leave!  Leave, and never return!
But the path is blocked
with accidents
and forgiveness
and everything left unsaid
and we're trapped in here
in the fire
no way out
coughing up the smoke from our hearts as they burn
i'll die for you
i'll die with you
i am going to die with you
i always knew i would
somehow i always knew
and i did it anyways
and i did it again
and again
and i'll do it again
and again
i'll always die for you
i'll always die with you
i'll always be in you
somewhere i always knew
somewhere you never let me go
I will burn there
Forever
Ever After
Always

Snow-ku's...

Silent Fractals Fall
White Whispers Wash All Away
No Thing Left To Be

Soft Crystals Gliding
to Wrap Us in Fluffy Ice
Inch by Inch by Inch

Succumb to Snow Fall
Smothered, the World Disappears
only Yin remains

White...

my favorite thing 

about Winter

the reason I Love it

and the only reason 

I even like it at all

is Snow

is Watching the World

Disappear

is seeing Everything I Know 

slowly become

a Field 

of Perfect White
Our World

that contains

All our Joys 

and All our Pains

All our Shit and All our Sufferings

All our Love and All our Longings

our Whispers

our Wishes

our Doubts and our Deeds

our Laughs

and our Hopes

and our Everythings

Temporarily Transformed

into Beauty

while we Watch

as we Witness

Nature's Art

falling

in fractal forms

Chaos

in the sky

and all around

Silent Yin

paints the ground

in Perfect White 

to reflect the Moon

as Winter's Light

Nothing To Say...

I want to write a poem.  I've been enjoying that a lot lately.  More than I ever have before.

I've never wanted to write poetry before.  I always wanted to write stories, or prose.  But I always suffered from a distinct lack of ideas.  And I've discovered that poetry fits perfectly with the kind of art I really want to make.  I always knew that I wanted to make art with words, and so I assumed that meant I should write stories.  And that's what I always did growing up.  But I've recently realized that I'm not a very good storyteller.  Or, rather, I'm not a very good story-creator.  If someone gives me an idea, I can write the shit out of it.  But I have trouble coming up with the ideas myself.

And I think I've come to enjoy writing poetry so much lately exactly because it isn't necessarily about telling a story.  It's purely about self-expression in lyrical word form.  And it feels good.  Figuring out what I'm feeling and then turning it over and over in my mind, looking at it this way and that; and then finding different ways to express it, finding different ways to shape it into something interesting or beautiful or potent or impactful.  It's like solving a puzzle.  Writing stories is so much a mental exercise.  But writing poetry feels like an intuitive process, letting the emotional and mental sides of myself wrestle back and forth with each other, and following the pull, the flow of the words that come from their interaction.

And I've come to really, really enjoy that feeling.  And I want to do it every day.  I want to do it now.

But I'm having an ordinary day.  I'm not feeling anything in particular; I don't have anything I need to express.  And without that fuel, I don't have anything write about.  Sometimes I get lucky, like yesterday, and a poem will come to me even though I'm not feeling anything particularly deep or important.  But I have no control over that.  And right now, I'm sitting here, and I want to write a poem.  But I've got nothing to say.  I'm having an ordinary day.

I've got nothing to say
It's an ordinary day
Nothing to write home about
No reason to stay

There's nothing going on here
No deep thoughts to feel here
I'm empty as the mirror's gaze
For all the world to see here

This is just an exercise
Performed for all your judging eyes
Written to determine who
Can wrench the Truth from all my lies

Because I have nothing to say
On this ordinary day
And the rhymes of poetry sometimes
Just get in the way

Oh.  Well, fuck.  Never mind, then.

Reflections...

SMART was helpful last night.  I did my sharing close to the end of the meeting, so I didn't have a lot of time to go into it, but I still got some food for thought; new ideas and perspectives I hadn't considered.  Looking forward to going into it in more depth next week, hopefully.

Came up with this poem this morning, and I thought it was amusing:

I woke this morning
Wrapped in Luck
Discovered in the bathroom mirror
My bedhead looked fabulous
Better than my actual haircut
Like finding a $50 bill on the sidewalk
Like getting a fortune cookie
That speaks your name
And says,
"Today is going to be a Good Day."

It makes me surprisingly happy to be able to write a poem about something that isn't dark, or painful, or about some grand aspect of the human condition/affliction.  The little fluff of everyday life is just as deserving of notice, regard, reflection, contemplation, and recording for posterity as everything else, don't you think?

Lost In Recvoery...

Ok, so, in hindsight, clearly not the most righteous stance I've ever taken.  But I still don't think I did anything wrong.  And I just can't help but bristle at the idea that my attempt to view an explicit media with clear artistic merit has caused me to get lumped into the same group as the guy who spends his lunch hour spanking it in his office.  And it really bothers me that, because of this, I now have to fear for my job.  That just seems wrong to me, but I'll drop the subject now, I swear.

In other news, I think I'm going to go back to a SMART meeting tonight, if I can get home in time.  (Yesterday's Inauguration has snarled traffic all through the surrounding area.)  I haven't been to a SMART meeting in months.  It got to the point where they became more of a hassle then they were worth.  I never got very much out of the meetings, and I often felt worse afterwards, which struck me as rather counter-productive.  And having to give up every Tuesday night (and Tuesday morning for that matter, as I had to get to work early to make sure I could leave early so that I could get to the meetings on time) became rather tiresome.  I wanted to make sure I attended enough meetings on a regular basis to establish myself in the group, and to be sure to give them a fair chance (and not make any decisions based on first impressions), and get a sense of what I could expect from SMART in general, and from this group in particular.  And I accomplished that.  And if I'd felt as if I was having trouble maintaining my sobriety, or that attending these meetings would help me maintain my sobriety in any way, then I would've continued to attend.  But, as neither of those were the case, I decided to take my Tuesday nights back, knowing that this group was always there, should I ever need help again.

And now, I think I do.  I had always assumed that, in regards to my sobriety, the only person's reaction I needed to be concerned about, was my own.  It never occurred to me that other people that I care about might have as difficult a time dealing with my sobriety as I did.  I've known that my wife has been missing her "drinking buddy" since I sobered up; we established that early on, in just the first couple of months.  But, honestly, I didn't really think much of it; it just didn't seem that important.  She didn't seem all that upset about it, and my focus, frankly, especially in those early months, had to be on maintaining my sobriety, and not on whether or not She had someone to get drunk with on Friday nights.  I don't think either of us realized just how important it really was to Her, or that it was actually about much more than just missing Her "drinking buddy" - it was about my entire personality changing, again, and for the first time, changing in respect to the ways that I treat Her.  And as the months have dragged on and on, and the situation has remained unchanged, Her feelings about it have apparently grown worse and worse, until we are at the point now where it has become a painful and difficult problem in our marriage.

And I don't know what to do about it.  I thought things had unarguably changed for the better.  I'm much more even-keeled now than I ever have been before.  Yes, I still have my ups and downs, but everyone does.  But whereas before every emotion was turned up to eleven, now I never get much higher than a four or five.  I used to be full volume every minute of every day.  Every high was the highest high possible, and every low was the lowest I could get.  And in terms of how I treated Her, that meant that when I was happy with Her, she was the Sun, Moon, and Stars to me, and I loved her more than Romeo ever loved Juliet; my entire world revolved around her.  (Which sounds beautifully romantic at first, but try living up to such ridiculous and fantastical standards for ten years.  It can't be done.  And I did a lot of damage to our relationship trying to keep her up on that pedestal for so many years.)  But it also means that when I wasn't happy with her, I hated her, because she was completely ruining my entire fucking life.

Now, my feelings never get that ridiculously, over-the-top intense.  I still love her, and I still sometimes get angry with her, but I don't treat her like the be-all-end-all of my existence, nor do I treat her like the worst thing that ever happened to me.  All of my feelings for her, both good and bad, are much softer and quieter, much more reasonable and responsible, much more practical; and so completely fucking boring.  Because while both of us are clearly glad that I no longer feel such intense anger at her every time she makes me feel anything bad, from her point of view, my world used to revolve around Her.  And now it doesn't.  And that hurts her.  It hurts in a way she has a very difficult time understanding, or articulating.  And it's very confusing.  Because while she's certainly glad that I don't yell at her anymore, and while she is definitely very proud of me for all that I've accomplished these past eight months, she's also really hurt and upset; she feels rejected, because, from her point of view, I don't seem to love her as much as I used to.  Which isn't true at all; I still love her just as much as I used to, I just don't express it as intensely.  But how can she be expected to know what I'm really feeling, if I've completely changed the way that I express those feelings?

And then, on top of all of the hurt and rejection she's already feeling, she ends up feeling very guilty, too.  She feels guilty because she understands that my sobriety is clearly a good thing for me, and she wants to be able to support me in that and feel proud of me.  And by feeling hurt and upset in response to my sobriety, regardless of how else she feels about it, she feels like she is doing something wrong, and hurting me, and undermining my sobriety.  Which, unfortunately, I have to agree with, in a sense.  It definitely hurts me to know that I'm hurting her.  And it definitely makes me want to drink, because I feel like that would make her happy (and I'm kind of hard-wired to want to make her happy).  But I don't think she's doing anything wrong; on that point we disagree.  I can't blame her for how she feels, at all.  I would almost certainly feel the same thing in her place.  And I think it can be said that, almost certainly, she has been the one the most hurt, she has been the one who has lost the most, she has been the one who has sacrificed the most, for my sobriety.  And I could never expect her to just be a hundred percent happy about that.  I feel horribly naive for not anticipating it ahead of time.

But now, what do I do?  How am I supposed to respond to this?  How should we deal with it?  What can we do about it?  In the addiction/recovery cycle, most people end up feeling like they lost their loved ones to the addiction side of things, when the addict reaches the point where the only thing they are capable of caring about anymore is using.  We're really fortunate that we've never had to face that problem.  But I've never heard of anyone feeling like they lost their loved one to sobriety.  In all of my experience with addiction and recovery, I've never heard anyone say, "Now that you're sober, you don't love me the way that you used to."  And now that we're unfortunate enough to be faced with that problem, I have no idea how to deal with it.  I have no experience to draw on.

And, so, back to SMART.  I'm hoping someone there has some experience with this, or has at least heard of it before.  At the very least, I'm hoping to come away with some perspective.

Will me luck.

Here Come The Bastards...

I am burdened today by a most rare and unusual problem:  an over-abundance of subjects to write about.

I want to write about a party I went to on Friday night.  It was my friend's 40th birthday party, and it seemed that all of my oldest friends were there.  These are the people I would consider my best friends, and yet this was the first time in three years or more that I was seeing most of them.  Being surrounded by so many friends, and being confronted, viscerally, with just how long it had actually been since I'd last seen them, brought up a lot of different feelings.  And for a lot of other reasons, as well, this party ended up being very overwhelming to me.  I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about that evening, and the various things that happened there; almost too many to handle.  So, as much as I know this is something I should write about, and as much as I want to write about it, I don't think I'm ready yet.  I know that I thought and felt a lot about the experience, but I haven't been able to process it enough to know exactly what I thought or felt; to be able to say "I felt this" or "I thought that."  So I think I need to give that some time to sink in and settle, and figure out exactly what it is that I need to say.  It was just a lot to happen all at once, and I need to some time to figure out what to make of it.

So, instead, I'm going to write about something that happened to me at work today that pissed me off.

Our company's servers have a firewall that blocks access from the network to sites that are known to harbor potentially harmful code such as spyware or viruses.  That seems like a completely reasonable business decision to me, and I completely understand.  I always get a little twinge of guilt/shame/remorse whenever I click on a link and get the message from our server that the page I am trying to view is blocked by our firewall because it is a known malware site.

I have several webcomics that I read most days during my lunch break.  Two of these webcomics sometimes show explicit sex.  And today, when I went to read those comics, I received the message from our server saying that they were blocked.  But not because they were malware sites.  The message said that these sites had been blocked because they were pornographic.

This marks a significant change in the way our company monitors and polices our online behavior.  Up to now, it has been solely about protecting our company's network infrastructure.  But now, apparently, they have decided to start policing our morality, as well.

What pisses me off about this, is that I've never considered either of these sites to be pornographic.  Yes, they both show explicit sex, but I don't think that automatically makes them porn.  Porn is solely about explicit sex.  Its one and only purpose is to sexually arouse.  And clearly, these webcomics are not trying to do that.  Or, at least, they are about more than that.  One of them is a humor comic, making fun of nerd-culture, fantasy-tropes, and sexuality.  I've never been aroused by it, nor have I ever read it because it is dirty; I read it because it is funny.  (It is hilarious, in point of fact.)  And the other comic is a love story; very sweet and romantic, and also strange and psychedelic.  It publishes one page a week, and every once in a while (we're talking maybe every twenty pages or so) there will be a sex scene.  And while the sex is definitely explicit, it is still portrayed in the sweet, romantic style, a world away from anything that could be considered "hardcore porn."

Let me illustrate my point.  Imagine a movie - your typical, cliché of a sappy romantic-drama.  Now imagine that when we get to the inevitable scene where the male and female leads finally make love, the sex is shown explicitly.  There is vulva, erections, and penetration.  In every other way, it's still the cliché sappy romantic-drama - soft lighting, bad soundtrack, etc.; the only difference is that instead of just seeing the female lead's breasts (and maybe the male lead's ass), we see all of both leads, and they are actually making love.

Now, imagine your typical hardcore porn movie.

They're both sexually explicit, but they are clearly, obviously, not the same thing.

And that's what bothers me about this whole situation with my company's firewall.  I don't really care so much that I can't read these comics at work anymore.  That's not really a big deal, and I can just read them at home from now on.  What bothers me is that I have now been logged as someone who uses company resources to view porn.  And I don't think that's fair, because I don' think that's what I did.  Since they've labeled these two webcomics as "porn" there is no distinction between me and the person who tries to view hardcore pornographic videos in his office.  And I think that's a very important distinction to make!  It's hardly as if I was trying to log on to GangBangBitches.com, for crying out loud.

But our culture makes no distinction.  If it displays certain things - vulva, erections, penetration, semen - even once, for any reason at all, then no matter what else it may do or say, and no matter how else it may say it, that media is porn, and that is all it is, and that is all it will ever be.  And no matter what else it may do or say, and no matter how else it may say it, that media is exactly the same as Gang Bang Bitches vol. 8, and if you don't agree, then you are an immoral pervert.

For almost thirty-seven years now, I've managed to avoid getting caught in the hypocritical, puritan traps of this culture.  But today, I got caught.  And now I feel like I have a giant scarlet "P" on my chest.  "P" for "Pervert."  "P" for "Porn."

And now, for the first time in my adult life, I have to live in fear that any day now, the morality police are going to come knocking on my (office) door.

Hermit...

The Romantic becomes The Cynic
His Heart becomes The Stone
The Poisonous Fruit
At the Tree of Life's Roots
Chills him to the Bone

The Fool no longer Dances
Seeks no Joy from those he Loved
Their Smiles seem Dour
His Mood gone Sour
He's lost his Light Above

And the Lusty Fires sputter
The Flesh turns Soft and Gray
What once was All
Helped bring The Fall
Nothing Rose can Stay

Then Passions aged to Bitters
For Reality means only Tears
The joys of Youth
Mean acrid Truths
At the End of all our Years

But who are We to Argue
And Death comes for Us All
Will you Cry at Night
Or Will you Fight
To find Your Light in Time's Black Pall

Back Burner Blurble...

I give up.  I've re-written it and re-worked it over and over again and again until the words don't even mean anything to me anymore.  It's still not perfect, but it's definitely the best I can do.

But then I started questioning whether to post it at all.  It just didn't feel right.  I began to wonder whether it would be a mistake.  I've spent the last three days wrestling with that dilemma, and I've decided to just let it go.  And that's probably for the best.

Some things are better left unsaid.

Choose Wisely...

What am I feeling?
So many things.
How do I pick the one
that is worthy?
How do I decide
which flitter of chemical cascade
to capture
and pin down
and immortalize
on this page?

They are all so ugly
and so beautiful,
each in their own unique way.
Which is wheat?
And which the chaff?

It would seem that
"Ambivalent" and
"Introspective" and
"Pretentious" and
"Self-centered" have
risen to the top today.
In trying to decide
how to define myself
I have defined myself
without choosing.

This is who I have become,
but not
who I choose to be.

Whither Winter Hither...

wet wings drip sanguine
frost-cold eyes fog in the heat
and the snowflake melts

Blocked Blurble...

Another attempt at trying to say this thing I can't seem to say.  I spent hours on a new version of it today, and was just about to post it, but then realized I had to scrap the whole thing.

I feel like I'm choking on this.

A Glimpse Into My Heart...

My time is running out
and still
I have not sung
the true song
the great song

I admit
that I seem
to have lost my courage

a glance at the mirror
a glimpse into my heart
makes me want
to shut up forever

so why do you lean me here
Lord of my life
lean me at this table
in the middle of the night
wondering
how to be beautiful

                -Leonard Cohen
                 "My Time"

What?...

I have this thing I'm trying to say, but I don't know what it is exactly.  I keep writing it out over and over again, and it always just ends up going nowhere.  I've got a half a dozen different versions of this same thing saved at this point, and none of them are right.  I know how it starts, and I think I know how it ends, but I get lost in the middle.  I can't connect the dots.  I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say, but I can't shake this overwhelming need to say it.  I can feel it stuck inside of me, and I can't get comfortable because I can't get this thing out.

It feels like creative constipation.

Ugh Update...

Still sick.

And, frankly, I'm sick of it.

Ready to get on with my fucking life already.

Ugh...

My TV broke.  Then I got sick.

Winter is wearing on me.

As Above, So Below...

spiderweb cracks
of bare black branch
against slab of slate gray sky

blue sun glow
blurry and lost
shrouds the world with ice

bite of cold
winter wind cuts
through flesh naked and scarred

bone white flecks
of fractals fall
to dust the red and raw

crystal'd waters
with gentlest touch
melt into seeping wounds

frost fingers roam
through veins gone cold
seeking the vaults of doom

old heart in hand
black carbon char
powdered ash blown high and free

corpse crow caw
shattering shriek
endless echoes mocking me

night at noon
and no one saw
there's nothing left to be

*editor's note...

I hate when I'm working on something here, and it's not done yet, and through some slip of the finger I manage to activate the "Publish" button in some completely unknown and absolute arcane manner.  One second I'm trying to type out my most embarrassing inner expressions of art and bullshit, still trying desperately to craft it into some shape that won't leave me weeping with shame when my head hits the pillow that night, and the next second I'm staring at my list of published entries, and my half-formed "work" in progress is sitting right there at the top.

It is the blogging equivalent of your pants falling down in public.

Identity...

What am I trying to say here?  That I'm somehow okay with my regrets?  That I've accepted them?  Not hardly.  Maybe it's that I've accepted the idea of them?  That while I might still lie awake at night tortured by all the things I wish I could do differently, I've at least accepted that they are a part of my life now and always will be.  That my life will not be a life free of regret.  That I will eventually die feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied and wishing things had turned out other than they did.  And, again, I'm not okay with that.  I don't think it's fair and it pisses me off and I'll fight it until the last speck of light has gone out of my eyes.  But I've accepted that it is going to happen.  It's too late now and there's nothing I can do about it.  I'll still fight it, because what else is there?  But I don't expect to change it.  And I won't feel like I've failed when I don't.  It's the fight that is important.  The struggle.  Not victory.  There is no victory over a life of regret.  Choices made cannot be un-made.  Roads taken cannot be backtracked.  Who we have decided to become is who we are and we cannot become someone else no matter how much we may want to.  And we have no one but ourselves to blame.  Our choices have led us here and so here we are.  Like it or not.  And if you don't like it then fight it but don't ever hope to change it.  Regret has swallowed you whole and the best you can hope for is a candle to light the darkness awhile.  We all live with regret.  A constant companion with claws in our neck.  Life is ignoring those claws tearing at our skin.  Life is shrugging our shoulders and saying "Yeah?  So what?  That the best you got?  Fuck you.  That ain't nothin'.  And you ain't gonna stop me.  Fuck, you ain't even gonna slow me down."

Twelfth Night...

Orange yellow tounges climb licking
tinder dried limbs wood eating
pine bough'd circle yearned-for grasping
explode in blazing new Sun crackling

White wisp'd winter ghosts rise gently
carried north on cold winds darkly
sacrificed spirits pyre'd burn brightly
light for a New Year to shine sublimely

Red runes round ring enchanted
holy words spoke oft-repeated
flowed wine o'er horn filled sacred
Gods' graced gifts for wishes granted

Champions Of The NFC East...

Hail to the Redskins!
Hail Victory!
Braves on the Warpath!
Fight for old D.C.!

Run or pass and score,
we want a lot more!
Beat 'em, Swamp 'em, Touchdown!
Let the points soar!
Fight on
Fight on
'Til you have won
Sons of Wash-ing-ton.
Rah!, Rah!, Rah!

Hail to the Redskins!
Hail Victory!
Braves on the Warpath!
Fight for old D.C.!

Temperature...

Without motion
there is no Heat
In our sudden stillness
we are freezing to death
But our fire scorched
and consumed
so what choice
did we have?

There is no heat
without Motion
But we only ever went around
in circles
It was inevitable
and obvious
that someday the fuel
would run out

Fire without fuel
Cold ash of promises lost
Deep winter of resentment blows
Howls echoing through our empty chests
Where blood once pumped rhythmic hot
Now silent ice blue

Every Push needs a Pull
Every Give a Take
The dance from White
to Black
to White again
is all we are
a trillion trillion trillion times over
All Creation writ large in infinite complexity
so who are We to pretend to argue
with Nature's Orders?

I am No One
I sit in silent stillness
numbed now in the Cold
I only ever wanted One Thing
And I nearly burned the whole world to get it
Before I realized the obvious truth
that all my actions
my motions
my Heat
had only pushed it further and farther from my reach

So now I am No One
Sitting in silent stillness
comforted in the Cold
knowing that there is nothing I can do
That if I am ever going to have the world I want
it is out of my hands
it is beyond my Will
and all I can do is simply wait
in the Cold
for Her
to come to me


And Hope
it wasn't only my Heat
that drew Her here

Discontent...

That was, beyond all doubt, the absolute worst christmas I have ever experienced in my entire life.  I never, ever want to go through anything like that, ever again.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Ironically, however, that might've been the best Boxing Day I've ever had.  You just never know what to expect.

So, it's probably best not to expect anything at all.

'Tis The Night Before...

It snowed today.

Our first snowfall of the year.  On Christmas Eve.  A good omen. 

A very good omen.  A White Christmas.

It's so beautiful.  It feels magickal.  This night always does, but tonight is even more so than usual.  It's almost dreamlike; like something out of a story book.

Merry Christmas, everyone.  And a Good Yule.

"May all your sacrifices and offerings this joyous season continue to hold the gods in their eternal slumber."

Diaspora...

We're going to spend tonight with my family.  My little brother and his girlfriend are in town, staying with my dad and stepmom, and so we're going over there in an hour or so to exchange presents, and have an early xmas dinner.

I'm looking forward to seeing my little brother, again.  I enjoyed spending the day with him at Thanksgiving, and regretted that I didn't get to see him more.  But seeing him twice in one month brings to the fore how much I miss my baby brother.  I've only seen him once in the last two years.  This is the second year in a row that I have to send his gifts to him; that I won't get to see his face when he opens them.

It'll feel really good to be with my family again tonight.  I'm really looking forward to it, and have been all week.  But I can't help but look forward even more to a time when all of us will be together again.

And I'm worried that it might not happen again.

What if the last time was really the last time?  And I didn't even know it.  I don't even remember it now.

It all just goes by so quickly.

Don't let it get away.


Merry Xmas, and Good Yule.

I'll Stand Before The Lord Of Song...

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not someone who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a lonely Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
Remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

          -"Hallelujah"
            Leonard Cohen, Various Positions

Yule...

Tonight is Yule.  The Winter Solstice.  The darkest, coldest night of the year.

Traditionally, the entire clan would gather together in one place tonight.  And the biggest log that could be found would be placed in the hearth to heat the entire building, and keep everyone warm and safe from the dark, cold night outside; to ward off the Wild Hunt.  This was the Yule Log, and it needed to burn all night.  And someone needed to stay up all night to tend the fire, and make sure it didn't go out (or burn the place down).

I don't have a hearth, or even a fireplace.  So, I light a candle.  But I still stay up all night, and make sure the flame doesn't go out (or burn the place down).  Tonight is the night I usually wrap all my presents; everyone else is asleep, and it's a great way to kill a few hours and keep myself awake.  I listen to xmas music, and I put on a fireplace dvd, and I drink a lot of coffee.  Sometimes, when I'm finished with my wrapping, I'll go for a walk around town in the middle of the night, and look at all the lights.

I'll perform ceremonies at sundown, at midnight, and at sunrise tomorrow.  The same words and gestures and sacrifices every year.  Honoring the gods, and the ancestors, and the family.  Sincerely thanking the Sun for rising in the morning, knowing that it means we've lived through another night, another Winter, another year.

I Love this night more than any other.

Good Yule to all.  May you wake tomorrow, warm, and Loved.



        Sunna sinks down    into the dark sea;
        wolf and wind howl    outside the walls.
        Now Holda shakes    out her snowy bed;
        now are life-fires    hid in yew-night.
        From Thrymheim Skadhi,    shadow-black, skis.
        Odhinn’s gray steed    leads ghosts on the wind.
        Trolls fare from cliff-halls,    harry from rock-caves;
        the etins arising    from ice and stone.
        Ye who would watch    this night, ward ye well!

        Sunna sinks down    into the dark sea.
        But Gullinbursti    gleams bright in the hall.
        Well are we warded    who watch this night;
        by boar tusk’s thrusting,    by Thor’s strength.
        In this high hall    stand all holy kin,
        from sib-roots to branches    runs hidden fire.
        Thor’s stark hammer    this hall has hallowed,
        Alfs and idises    the dark and light kin,
        Fro Ing and Freyja    share now frith and might!

        We kindle the yew-flame to year’s Yule-night!
       
        Now feast in highest    and hallowed frith.
        Our joy to Gods    we give this night,
        that while worlds sleep    they wax in main
        from midnight growing    ever greater towards dawn.


        *     *    *        *     *    *        *     *    *

        Now Odhinn rides    in the Wild Hunt,
        leading the ghosts,    gray, down the wind.
        Our oldest hold    in howe-mounds high,
        from Bairn-Stock’s roots    rise kin this night.
        Well do we know    the Wanderer old;
        eldest, the father    of Ase and man,
        wisest of kin        Odhinn, we hail thee!

        Wisdom rising    from Well’s deep roots,
        Runes of might    roar in the mead,
        up from the Bairn-Stock’s    eldest roots.
        Our kin who have fared    forth, come to us!
        We drink with you, hallowing    draught to the Gods!

        Hail to Odhinn    wisdom’s drighten!
        Sig in our strifes    send this year.

        Hail to Thor        Thurses’ Bane!
        In your might     and main we trust.

        Hail Fro Ing        frith’s mighty God!
        High be the     harvest this year!

        Hail to Njordhr    with holy drink!
        Winds blow well    to us this year!

        Hail to the alfs    all ringed around us,
            the fathers of our folk.

        Hail the Disir        all ringed around us,
            the mothers of our might.

        Hail our kin        in hidden lands.
            Hail the Yule-wights high!


        *     *    *        *     *    *        *     *    *

        Our Yule-glow    that gleamed all night,
            now kindles the keen fire.
        Sunna’s flame    flares bright again,
            upon the heavens’ hearth.

        Sunna’s fire    flares bright again,
            the darkest night is done,
            the holy gifts are given.

        Hail the Gods and the Goddesses!  Hail the Yule morn!

Mother's Night...

Tonight is Mother's Night.  The first night of Yule.

As I ranted yesterday, I celebrate the secular, American holiday of Xmas, rather than the Christian holiday of Christmas.  However, I do also celebrate a religious or spiritual version of the Winter holiday, as well.

For the last twelve years, I have celebrated the pre-Christian Winter holy days of Yule, which begin tonight at sundown, and last until sunrise on January 1st.

As a child, Christmas never felt like just the 24th and 25th to me.  I always felt like it lasted much longer than that.  It felt like it started sometime the week before (both of my parents' birthdays are the week before Christmas, which probably had a little something to do with that - more on that later), and it felt like it ended with New Year's.  It felt like a multi-day event, with the 24th and 25th as the central climax of the whole thing.  It always felt that way, as far back as I can remember, and I celebrated it that way.  I could feel the magick of the holiday begin sometime the week before, and I would always make my parents keep the lights up and lit until New Year's; it didn't feel right to turn them off on the 26th.  That just felt like too abrupt and sudden of an ending to everything.  It didn't feel right.

As a young adult, as part of my exploration of various magickal disciplines, I discovered the pre-Christian pagan traditions of the Northern European cultures.  The gods of the Vikings - Odin, Loki, and Thor, among many others.  I found myself drawn to these traditions; something about them resonated with me, and I began to adopt them as the first religion I had ever chosen to practice.  And no part of this tradition resonated with me more than their Winter holy days of Yule.

I spent many years working within this tradition as one of my primary spiritual practices.  Over the years, I've let go of all of it, as I've grown and moved on.  All except for Yule.  As with Taoism, when I discovered Yule, I realized that I had been celebrating it my entire life, and simply never knew it.  Instantly, it felt right to me.  No matter what other spiritual paths may come and go in my life, I know that I will always celebrate Yule.

In the pagan calendar, Yule is a very magickal time.  In fact, it is a period out of time.  The darkest, coldest time of the year.  A time to gather the entire family together under one roof, and keep safe and warm by a huge fire, to hold back the cold and the dark.  They believed that time stopped at sundown tonight, and started again on sunrise of January 1st (though they didn't call it "January," obviously).  In the interim, was Yule, when the material world and the spiritual world are one and the same, and the spirits of our ancestors and family who have passed on return to us, and we are free to enter their world, as well.  Other spirits, malevolent spirits, are also free to roam our world during this time-out-of-time.  The height of Winter was the most deadly time for the ancient pagans of the North, and they heard frost-giants and dreadful monsters in the howling winds of snowstorms.  Someone who ventured out of the hall, away from the group, away from the hearth-fire, may not come back.  Did they succumb to the cold and the dark and the storms?  Or was it something else?

Most of our "Christmas" traditions come from the celebration of Yule.  When the Christians converted the Northern Europeans, they couldn't get them to stop celebrating Yule, even under penalty of death.  And so instead, they moved the celebration of the birth of their god Jesus from mid- to late-Autumn, up to December 25th - right in the middle of Yule.  And they adopted the traditional Yuletide celebrations into the celebration of their Mass of Christ.

The christmas tree is a pagan tradition.  The yule log.  The wreath.  Mistletoe.  The New Year beginning one week after December 25th.  Leaving gifts in socks that are drying by the fire.  All originally pagan traditions.  Yule, from December 20th through December 31st, is where we get the idea of the "12 days of christmas."

All the parts of xmas that I liked the most - all the non-Jesus parts - turned out to be from this pre-cursor holiday of Yule.  And it covers the entire period of the calendar, from beginning to end, that always felt like the "real" Christmas holiday to me.  It leads up to the climax of the season with Xmas right in the middle, and then winds down to Twelfth Night (New Year's) at the end.  It is perfectly balanced.

Christmas was, by far, my mother's favorite holiday.  And I get my sincere love and appreciation of this season from her.  She was born on December 20th, which turns out to be the first night of Yule, and is traditionally celebrated as "Mother's Night."  It is the night to celebrate all the Mothers in our life, both living and dead, and all the good they've done us, and all they've sacrificed in order for us to be here, right now.

My mother died on December 31st.  She took her own life, in part, to spare us, her family, from having to suffer through her slow and inevitable decline into madness and agonizing death.  She sacrificed herself for us.  She was born on the first night of Yule, Mother's Night, and she died on the last night of Yule, Twelfth Night, the very year that I first came to know about this tradition.  I never got to tell her about Yule, or Mother's Night.

Yule, her favorite holiday, though she never knew it, is a time when our homes are open to the spirits of all those dead that we have loved.  And so every December 20th, I invite her into my home, and I pour her a drink, and I thank her for the life she gave me.

It just feels right.

It always has.



        Disir, I call,        ur-mothers dear,
            Come to our kindred’s hold.

            We give thee Welcome.

        Frigga, I call,         frith-weaver wise,
            Come to our kindred’s hold.

            We give thee Welcome.

        Freyja, I call,        holy and bright,
            Come to our kindred’s hold.

        We give thee Welcome this Mother’s Night.


        Hallowed women of the home,
            I raise this horn to you.

            We give thee Welcome.

        Freyja, riding forth this night,
            Look kindly on our home.

            We give thee Welcome.

        Disir, wights of the wheel,
            Spin us good wyrds to come.

            We give thee Welcome.

        Frigga, who winds the distaff full,
            Fill our house with joy.

        We give thee Welcome this Mother’s Night.

Xmas...

I've been listening to christmas music at work all week now, and I'm done with my shopping for the season, and it's the day before Yule begins, and I'm all in the spirit of the holy-days, so it's probably time I got this explanation down and out.  And if the news media is to be believed (and they aren't), then consider this my volley in the fabled War on Christmas.

I am not a Christian, and so I don't celebrate Christmas, as in "The Mass of Jesus Christ."  I don't celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ anymore than I celebrate the birth of Siddhartha Buddha.  (Although I find it a truly beautiful story.  Honest-to-Sol, I am moved to tears every single year by the song "The Little Drummer Boy.")

But even though I am no longer a Christian, I was raised as an orthodox Christian, and so have a resonant familiarity with the customs, and am also not part of a competing Judeo-Christian culture; so, Christmas is certainly an option for me.

But, more importantly, I am an American.  And, as an American, I choose to celebrate the capitalist American Winter holiday of Xmas.

Like it or not (and I see no reason to not like it, unless you somehow have your ego wrapped up in making sure everybody holds the same religious beliefs that you do), the Christian holy day of Christmas has, over the generations of cultural domination by Christians, created another, entirely separate, and entirely secular holiday in this country, that has absolutely nothing to do with the birth of Jesus.  This holiday, that I refer to as "Xmas" just to differentiate between the two, is about Santa and Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman and Black Friday and strings of lights hanging everywhere and chopping down an evergreen and sticking it in your living room.  And I throw myself into this holiday whole-heartedly.  It is, hands-down, my absolute favorite time of the year.  I Love it.  And I wish we could all just accept that this holiday exists, and that it doesn't all have to be about Jesus, and thereby give all Americans the opportunity to enjoy it, regardless of their religion, or lack thereof.

And if you want to celebrate a traditional Christian Christmas, and make it all about the birth of baby Jesus, then please, by all means, go right ahead.  No one is stopping you.  But you need to accept that you gave this holiday away a long time ago, and that it doesn't belong solely to you anymore.  There is a world economy running off of this holiday now, and it has fuck-all to do with Jesus.  The engine of the capitalist world runs on the secular holiday of Xmas, and the sooner we all admit that, and accept it, and stop whining about it as though it were the greatest crime since the crucifixion, and as though we could do anything about it, the better off we'll all be.

Here endeth the rant.

Merry Xmas, everyone.

On Creating...

I've never read Bukowski.

So, naturally, I was surprised to discover that he'd already said this long before me, and probably better than I ever could.

Surprise Morning...

NOTE:  I thought I had posted this on Friday, but my home internet connection has been buggy lately (as usual, really), and I guess something must've gone wrong, because I just noticed today that this post wasn't actually on the blog.  Everything seemed to go fine when I posted it, there were no signs of problems, but there it was this morning, still marked as "Draft."  So, anyways, here it is now, a few days late.

+     +     +

One exit away from work this morning, there was a loud BANG! from my engine, and smoke started pouring out from under my car.  (It's so weird, it seems like every time I've broken down in the last 5 years, I've been one exit away from my work, in this same spot.)  I pulled over to the side of the road, got out to look under the hood, and saw oil just pouring out from the underside of my car and pooling all over the road.

Wonderful.

Called AAA, and had them send out a tow-truck.  Got to spend a thrilling hour on the shoulder of 270 waiting for the truck to arrive, praying not to get plowed into by a fellow commuter doing 80mph in an Escalade.  The tow-truck finally showed up and gave me a lift back to the dealership, thirty miles away, dragging my poor, broken car behind.  Along the way, the greasy, 300 lbs. driver regaled me with tales of all the 19- and 20-year old "hippie chicks" he's "banging" right now.

This car is only a little over a year old.  It's still under warranty.  (Thankfully.)  And I just brought it in for maintenance a couple of weeks ago, just before our Thanksgiving trip to Pittsburgh.  So this shouldn't have happened.

Turns out that when they changed my oil back then, they didn't put the oil plug back into the oil pan properly.  As I've been driving it since then, the plug has been slowly working its way out.  The explosion I heard this morning was the plug shooting out of the oil pan like a bullet.

Luckily, an easy fix.  Just get a new plug, and fill the thing back up with oil.  And a free fix, too.  Still, though - not the way I would've preferred to spend my day.

But a useful reminder that we can never get complacent, because despite our assumptions, we can never really know what's going to happen to us next.

By Jove...

I saw Jupiter for the first time recently.

My old elementary school, that I happen to live just a few blocks away from now, has a pretty famous science center attached to it, called the Earth and Space Science Lab.  When I was a kid, they had the only planetarium in the state.  Now they've moved to their own building on campus, that feels almost as big as the rest of the school all by itself, and they've added an observatory, among other educational attractions.  They have shows at the planetarium on a fairly regular basis, and they're cheap, and I'm into astronomy, and it's only a couple blocks from my house, so I sometimes go to these shows, even though the median age in the room is usually about nine.

I don't know what the fuck I expected - it's an elementary school, for fuck's sake.  But, for some reason, I assumed that the shows they put on outside of school hours would attract an older crowd, or at least feature content aimed above a fifth-grade level.  And when I went to my first show, and realized I was the only adult there who hadn't brought a child with them, I felt, once again, like a complete fucking weirdo.  And the whole time, I felt like all the parents were looking at me sideways, like I was standing outside a windowless white van in a clown costume with one hand full of balloons and the other full of roofies.  It was mortifying.  But then I thought, fuck them, I'm hear for the Science!  Then the show turned out to contain about as much educational science information as an episode of Ancient Aliens, and I was back to feeling like the clown with the van and the collection of baby teeth again.  But, still, I continue to go to these things.  I think just because I still geek out about being in the planetarium, just like I did when I was in school there.  And so I still have fun, even if I don't learn very much; and I try to ignore the parents, and their screaming kids.

Anyways, I enjoy it so much (despite myself) that I decided to volunteer there.  They're always advertising that they need volunteers, and it's so nearby, and I could convince myself I was doing a good deed, and it beats washing dishes at the soup kitchen across the street.  Plus, I thought it'd be a good way to get to see the shows without having to buy a ticket.  (It's not like I'm a cheapskate or anything; tickets are only $5.  It's just that their process for purchasing tickets was a bit of a wonky pain-in-the-ass, and I thought it'd be better to do it this way, by doing a good deed, and earning my way into the show, rather than just handing over $5.  And also, not for nothing, but now I don't have to feel like Beelzebozo the Hellclown anymore, because I'm not just the creepy guy hanging out by himself with all the families and children - I work there, so it's okay.)

And it turns out that my favorite perk of volunteering there, is that I get to go out to the observatory and look through their incredibly powerful telescope.

Jupiter has been plainly visible to the naked eye for a couple of months now.  (It's nearly impossible to miss - it's the brightest object in the night sky that isn't the Moon.)  And, as is usually the case during these times when it is visible, I've often found myself standing outside, staring up at it.  This image of Jupiter as a bright, white point in the night sky is therefore very familiar to me.  I often wonder at just how huge that object must be, to be that far away and still be that bright!  (Answer:  Jupiter is the 2nd most massive object in the solar system, next to the Sun.  In fact, if you took every other object in the solar system - every planet, every comet, every asteroid, every Kuiper Belt object - and crushed them all together into one giant ball of stuff, that giant ball would still be less massive than Jupiter!  It is literally more massive than the rest of the solar system, combined.  That is fucking HUGE.)  And I've seen countless pictures of Jupiter before.  We all have.  The various colored layers of swirling gas, the giant red spot.  It's an iconic image.

But this time was different.

I was working in Critter Cove, explaining the weird lives of sea urchins and brittle starfish to six-year-old's, when an intern came in and told me that they had the observatory trained on Jupiter.  I almost dropped the urchin I'd been holding.  Seeing my reaction, the intern laughed and told me that she'd mind the exhibits while I ran out to have a look.  I tried not to knock down any children on my way out of the building, but looking back, I can't guarantee to a certainty that I succeeded in that endeavor.

Shivering in the cold, I leaned into the eyepiece, and saw Jupiter, really saw it, for the first time.

It was as big as a half-dollar.  And I could see all of the stripes of layered gas swirling across it.  (The red spot was apparently on the far side, out of view.)  I could see the four Galilean moons - Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto - lined up in a perfectly straight line to the right of it, on Jupiter's orbital plane.  It was a bit blurry, but still, there was no mistaking it:  that was clearly Jupiter.  And not just an image of Jupiter, but the real thing!  Live and in-person!  I was seeing it, for real, as it was right then, in real-time!  (Or, at least, as it was about forty minutes earlier.  As I said, it's really far away, and so it takes the light a while to reach us.  Which only made the fact that it was the size of a half-dollar and that I could make out so much detail as to actually see each individual layered stripe just that much more impressive!)

It was like meeting a celebrity in-person; you're so intimately familiar with them as this 2-D image inside the box in your living room, that when you suddenly find yourself face-to-face with them as a living, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood person, there's this strange disconnect in your brain, and things feel just slightly un-real.  And that's how I felt peering through that telescope at the 40-minute-old sight of the greatest planet in our system, the planet that more than any other outside of our own is responsible for our existence.  (Without Jupiter's massive gravity-well situated smack-dab in the middle of the solar system, Earth would be constantly bombarded by comets and asteroids, making it a relatively unstable environment, and therefore a very unlikely place for life to have been able to evolve.)

I lifted my head away from the telescope, and looked out the hole in the roof at the bright point of light in the sky that I had always believed was Jupiter.  I had believed that because the Astronomers told me that was the case, and I chose to believe them; I had no reason not to.  But now, I could see the telescope pointed straight at that point of light.  And I looked back through the eyepiece, and I could see it, plain-as-day, in all of its massive, iconic glory, spinning there in outer space.  It was real.  From that moment on, it was real to me.

Before, I had only believed in Jupiter.  But now I knew it.

Because I had seen it with my own eyes.

Mr. Chairman...

Busy, busy day, and I know now that I will not have any time to craft a post.  So, on the occasion of what would've been his ninety-seventh birthday, I'll simply leave you with this:

Sorry...

I got nothin' and it's late and I'm hungry and I'm tired and I wanna go home.

Put that in yer fuckin' book.

Jesus, Bill...

Don't "Jesus, Bill," me, motherfucker.  I don't wanna hear it.  I don't have time for your shit.  I'm tired and I wanna go home.

Why are you being so hostile?

I'm not being hostile!  I'm tired and I wanna go home!

So, go, then!  Get on with it already!  No one is holding you here.  Leave!  But stop bitching about it, you whiny little baby.

Fine, then!  I don't need you to tell me to go.  I'll go when I'm ready to go.  I don't need you anyway.

Ya big baby.

+     +     +

Wow.  That was productive.

You're welcome, by the way, for that worthless little creative turd I just shit out into your computer.  I'm sure you're the better for it now, as am I.

Ugh.  I need a shower after that.

And I was so proud of what I created yesterday.  I really thought that was worth something.  Following that up with this miserable excuse for "creative output" feels like a monumental failing of a level that calls into question my worth as a human being.  Now I just wanna go home and sit in my empty bathtub and masturbate into my underwear with my face buried in a tub of ice cream until I pass out in a puddle of my own excrement and shame.  Or maybe I'll just get McDonald's on the way home.

Six of one, really...

Vibrations...

My brain buzzes and my fingers dance.
My eyes twitch and dart to make the world vibrate.
Too much coffee and my heart slows down to one,
long,
drawn-out
thuwump.
I feel the fibers in my muscles coil like a snake.
I'm all adrenaline and nothing to do.
No fight to be had,
no flight to be made,
no harm,
nor foul,
nor fuck to be given.
Wires pulled taut,
I could strike out a tune,
make the bones dance
a crackhead jig.
Long breaths in staccato time,
high on the oh-2 painting my brain red.
I can feel my whiskers like an aura,
hovering over my skin,
every hair a bright,
electric
nerve.
Throb, pulse, twitch.
Writhe, dance, squirm.
Eyes-wide,
drink it in,
eat the lightwave whole.
Bits and bits and bits
stab,
pierce,
prick,
puncture,
penetrate,
explode
into image,
view,
vista,
site,
sight,
seen,
scene.
It's all the same.
All light
and heat
and motion,
no differentiation,
no line of demarcation,
no distinction,
no more,
no me.

One more cup,
and I'll be gone.

Rebuttal...

I'm done my work and my shopping for the day, and so, again, it is time to write.  And so again I run blindly face-first into the brick wall of Write what?!

Oh, Blank Page, why do you tease me so?

Because I hate you.

Oh!  Oh, I see.

No, wait, I don't see.  Why the fuck do you hate me?!  What did I do to you??

You destroyed me.  You do destroy me.   Over and over, day after day, you destroy me.  Worse, you delight in destroying me!  You take solace from it, you derive joy from it, it excites you.  You destroy me, and you call it "expression."

My murder is your art.

That's a little hyperbolic, don't you think?

Says the serial killer to his shrieking victim.

Hey now, let's just calm down here, okay?  Alright, so, yeah, maybe I do destroy you repeatedly, day-in and day-out.  But it can't possibly be as big of a deal as you're making it out to be.  Because clearly, even though I destroy you, you persist.  Because every day, there you are again, waiting for me, tormenting me, taunting me, teasing me with your emptiness, begging to be filled.  Destroyed you may rightly claim, but also clearly, reborn.  Refreshed.  Renewed.  Rejuvenated.  Resuscitated.  Revived.  Resurrected. 

You cry "Death!"??  You, Immortal, dare scream, "Murder!"??

Don't make me laugh.

You'll wring no quarter nor comfort from me with your empty, pitiful wails.  I name you "Tormentor!"  "Enemy!"  "Foe!"  "Nemesis!" 

I will laugh and dance and weep tears of righteous joy as I watch you burn beneath my words, and I will bathe myself in your ashes.

A-mn.

The Pile...

Every year, my family "complains" that I buy them too many gifts for xmas.  That I spend too much money on them.

I've never really understood this, and always assumed that it came from some humble sense of insecurity they felt toward their own gifts-to-give that year.  (Which is ridiculous, of course; I have never felt anything other than overwhelmed by the volume of what we receive from them every year.)

Today, my father emailed me, and asked me, again, as he does every year, to be "modest" in my gift giving this year.  Then he said, "we know your heart is in the right place..."  Which, to me, implies that, however well-intentioned, he thinks I am doing something wrong.  When I confronted him about this, he replied:

Your heart is in the right place – you give…give…then give some more.  That’s what I mean…not wrong, just not necessary for those of us that love you and feel loved by you.  You are the most generous of us all.  Not just with your treasure Michael.  Please don’t be defensive…I love you dearly.

Dad...

I am not generous.  And this is not a sacrifice.

Every Christmas morning as a child, I remember I would come downstairs to find a pile of presents waiting for me, stacked up higher than I was tall.  That pile literally dwarfed me.  Year after year after year.

You held down two to three jobs at a time and went to school in order to provide me with that enormous pile of beautiful junk.  (Because, of course, the contents of the pile didn't matter half so much as the experience of the pile itself.)  You took out loans and lines of credit every year to afford it.  You worked hard, and you sacrificed, and you went into debt in order to give me that humungous mound of christmas treasure.

THAT is generous.  THAT is sacrifice.

I can't give anyone else that experience.  I can't even come close.  But I can try, at least.  I can do my best to give them just a fraction of that feeling of excitement and amazement that I got to grow up with.  Because that's what Christmas is to me.

Every year, I hold back, and only get half of what I want to get, or less.  I have never hurt myself financially, or gone into debt of any kind to buy gifts for my family or my friends.  I always have money left over to put away after I'm done my xmas shopping for the year.  I have never sacrificed to do this.  At least, nothing more than my time.

So, please don't think I'm being generous.  I'm only a pale mimicry of the generosity you raised me with.


ps - And I know it isn't necessary.  "Necessary" isn't the point.  If it was necessary, it wouldn't mean anything.  It is by the very fact of its un-neccesity that it is transubstantiated from a consumerist product, into a treasure that reads, "This is what you mean to me.  I Love you."

Stark Words...

Stressed.

Again.

As always.

Too much work to do, and more coming in all the time; before I can finish one thing, three more have landed on my desk.

And it's the same at home.  I feel over-whelmed and under-supported.  I get a little less sleep every night.  Feel a little more tired every morning.  Each day harder than the one before it.

And it's Repellation Day.

And I would love a drink.

We have some apple moonshine at home right now that I would absolutely fucking murder.

We always have a drink on Repellation Day.  (Of course, until this year, we always had a drink on Thursday, as well, so take that with a pinch of salt.  And a lime wedge.)  And there's something about drinking moonshine on Repellation Day that just feels poetically justified.

Of course, I won't.

I'm going to go home, and do my bills, and stress, and not get enough sleep, the way I'm supposed to.  I'll be a good little monkey.

Because I decided to do this, and I hate giving up, especially at something I know I can do.  I decided to do this, and no matter how miserable I feel, I will only feel worse if I let myself fail.  I won't quit.  And I won't fail.

I won't quit, even though three words keep echoing in my mind, filling me with a hollow dread:


Winter is coming.

'Tis A Mean One...

I started my xmas shopping today.  Feels good to finally get started, even if I am ridiculously late.

Last year, I had most of my shopping done by Dec. 1st, and all of it done well before Yule (the Winter solstice).  It was wonderful.  The best Yule season I've had in my adult life, I think.  I got to just sit back and enjoy it.  I could spend all of my energy on making the holiday more pleasant and fun and enjoyable, because I didn't have to spend it all on the work.  All of the work was done.  I actually got to just relax and enjoy it, for once.

Knowing that I wasn't going to have that experience again this year was actually one of the things that got me down a couple of weeks ago.  I'd been so busy through the late fall that xmas just sorta snuck up on me, and I didn't see it coming until it was already here, and I was already behind in my work.  "What?  It's xmas already?  Wait!  I haven't started yet.  I'm already late?!  Crap!  Last year was so wonderful, and this year is gonna suck now, and I never even had a chance!"  It was just instantly depressing.

But there's some hope left.  (Which seems appropriate, given the spirit of the season.)  It's only December 4th, so I'm still getting a fairly early start, all things considered; just not quite as early as last year.  But I've got some time left, is the point.  And, I don't have as much shopping to do this year, which is going to help.  With Snowflake being unemployed and underemployed for most of this year, we just can't afford to do the amount of shopping that we normally would.  (Just one of the many unexpected brightsides to her unemployment.  Blessing in disguise, that.)

So, I've got less work to do overall, and still a respectable amount of time left to do it.

Looks like this xmas might not be totally grinch'd just yet.

Ramble, Bramble, Blurble...

No idea what to write here today.

So many options, so little time.

I didn't do anything this weekend.  Well, rather, I accomplished a lot, in a digital fantasy world of Revolutionary Colonial America, but that was pretty much all internal.  Externally, I barely moved from the same one spot all weekend.  My thumbs got quite a workout, though.

I felt bad spending my whole weekend jerking-off like that.  But I also had a great time.  This game is so beautiful (Winter in Colonial New York, 1776 - I never want to leave), and endlessly entertaining.  Every time I think I'm starting to figure it out, I find something new that I was completely unaware of.  And I knew that I'm not going to get much time to play it in the next few weeks, getting ready for Yule, and so I wanted to cram in as much as I possibly could before then.  Just like an addict.  "Lemme get high one more time, and then I'll go to the detox center, I promise."

She and I also watched a couple of movies together yesterday; something we don't get to do nearly often enough.  That was good.  And, in a way, productive, because spending time together that way always brings us closer together, especially when we don't do it very often.

We watched True Grit, which we'd never seen before.  As always, an incredible, amazing, basically perfect film from The Coen Brothers.  Literally enjoyed every single second of that movie, no exaggeration.  Highly recommended.

And then we watched a documentary called Dark Days, about a group of homeless people who made homes, and a society, for themselves beneath the subway tunnels of NYC.  Very interesting, and strange, and captivating, and sometimes difficult to watch.

We've been watching a lot of documentaries, lately.  A new thing for us, but I hope it's a trend that continues.  I'm really enjoying it.  Just as entertaining as fictional movies, but more compelling for their truthfulness.  Also educational, which lets me convince myself I'm doing something more worthwhile than just watching a movie.

I think the combination of a fictional story film and a documentary viewed back-to-back is just about a perfect way to spend a few hours together.  They complement each other, and balance each other out, in a very pleasant way.

I hope we do, too.

Family Feast Day...

I want to write about Thanksgiving this year, but I don't know who is going to read this, and that makes me feel self-conscious about what I should or shouldn't say, and that makes me not want to write about it anymore.  I guess it's for the best; I don't really have much of anything to say about it, anyways.  It was just a recent event that seemed like an obvious topic for posting.  It's a bit cliché, honestly.

For now I'll simply note that I stayed sober throughout, despite a seemingly never-ending stream of enticing opportunities to do otherwise.  And I still had a great time; staying sober didn't negatively impact my experience at all.  If anything, it might've actually helped make it even more enjoyable, simply because I wasn't as tired, exhausted, and worn-out by the whole thing as I would've normally been if I'd been drinking, etc.  (I feel like I've said this same thing over and over again lately, about Dover, about the AGM, about every experience I've recently had sober for the first time, where normally I would be intoxicated.  Maybe I can start taking this lesson to heart now?  Soon?)

Also, this is pretty much my experience of Pittsburgh:

What Is Going On Here?...

I.

NEED.

THIS.



This is not a revelation.  I knew this to be true.  Still, knowing something to be true and experiencing the truth of it firsthand remain two entirely separate things.

I knew on some intellectual level that I needed to write.  I knew it was good for me, and I knew it made me happy.  But I was quite unprepared for exactly how it would affect me when I stopped.

At first, I just didn't have the time or the energy.  I was overwhelmed with work, both in the office and at home, and just simply could not make time to write; what little time I spent not working I needed to rest.  I just didn't have any energy left to spend on creative expressions.

But then things finally calmed down.  And I did have time to write again.  But I still didn't do it.  I was just so tired.  And I just didn't feel like it.  It still just felt like more work.  And I was so tired.  I just wanted to sleep for a week.

I still feel that way, actually.

I can't get to sleep at night.  And then I can't get up in the morning.  I can never get enough sleep, and I'm always tired.  I can barely even try to make it to the gym anymore, much less actually work out.  Everything feels like it takes ten times more energy than I have available to spend.  It takes all of my strength every morning just to force myself to get up and go into the office.  And now Yule is approaching, and I haven't even started thinking about it yet.  I'm so behind, and I have so much work to do, and I don't feel that I could ever possibly get it all done because I'm just so fucking tired.

Sometime last week, I finally admitted that I'm depressed.

Admitting that scared me.  Because I didn't know why I'm depressed.  And if I don't know why, then I can't do anything about it.  I just have to suffer through it.  I've been depressed for Christmas before, and it's been some of the most miserable times of my life.  My whole life, this has been my very favorite time of year, hands-down, no question.  And to not be able to feel any of the joy of that is just a terrible experience for me.  And then further, to be surrounded everywhere by all these bright, flashing, blinking, shiny reminders of How I'm Supposed To Be Feeling only accentuates the depression, and makes it worse, almost every minute of every day.  And then still having to do all of that work, but without the excitement of the season to motivate me?  Ugh, it's just a downward-spiral of Yuletide hellishness.  Those times, it's been easy for me to understand why the suicide rate supposedly skyrockets during the holidays.

So, I didn't want to be depressed.  I didn't want to have to go through all of that.  I wanted it to go away.  I wanted to feel better without having to face the prospect of another miserable Yule.  But eventually I couldn't ignore it anymore, and I had to accept the fact that I was clearly depressed.

But why??  Every other time I've experienced this, it's been the result of a relapse of some sort.  But I haven't relapsed this time.  Not even an accidental one (like the sleeping pills at Dover).  So what is it?  Too much coffee?  My occasional Winter pipe smoking?

With some help, I've figured out that it's most likely stress-related.  But if it's stress-related, then why can't I ever seem to relax or feel rested?  And what do I do about it??

This is the answer to both.

Writing is a coping mechanism for me.  It's pretty much my main coping mechanism at this point.  Meaning, the most effective one; it's not necessarily the most-oft used.  And I abandoned that coping mechanism right when I needed it most.  So not only did I take on a lot of extra stress during that period of heavy work, but then I also stopped doing anything to relieve that stress.  And it all started backing up, and backing up, until I was a complete mess and could barely bring myself to get out of bed in the morning, and had no idea why.

I've said it before:  it doesn't matter what I write.  This post is incredibly boring.  Who the fuck is going to be in any way interested about the boring minutiae of my middle-class existence?  But that isn't the point.  I just need to get it out.  I just need to open up, and let go, and empty myself into this machine, and get it the fuck out of me, whatever it is.  It doesn't matter what "it" is.  It is the process of reaching inside, scooping something up, crafting it into some shape or another, and exorcising it into the aether-net that is important.

Because that is how I cope now.  That is how I deal.  And without it, I'm not coping.  I'm not dealing.  I'm stagnating, and wasting, and weighing myself down with all the tons of shit I've left unsaid.

I used to turn to drugs and alcohol in these moments.  And they provided some temporary relief.  Absolutely they did.  But they didn't do anything to help the underlying problem; they didn't help me cope.  Often, they actually made coping more difficult to accomplish, and/or made the underlying problem worse.  This time, I found myself turning to video games in the same way.  An escape from the pain I can't deal with.  An escape from the problem I can't understand, or solve, or control.  I can control my character.  I can solve his problems.  And every time I do, there's that familiar little rush of dopamine; a sense of having accomplished something, however ephemeral.  And yes, that's certainly better for me than getting drunk or high, but just the same, it doesn't do anything to help the underlying problem, or help me cope.  It's just a brief respite from the stress; some temporary relief from the pain.  But as soon as I shut down the console, it's all right there, still waiting for me, unchanged, un-dealt with.  Only getting bigger, and worse, leading me to spend more and more time escaping.  Another downward spiral.

So, I need this.  I need this process.  It helps me.  It's not just a creative exercise.  It's catharsis.  It's therapy.  It's not just some fun little hobby that I enjoy indulging from time-to-time.  I know that now, more than ever, because I've experienced firsthand what happens to me when I don't do this.

And believe me, it ain't pretty.

Raging Election...

(With apologies to everyone at The Colbert Report, from whom I blatantly stole the title for today's post.)

Wow.  Okay, so, yeah, I didn't see that coming last night, to be honest.  I'm so used to getting shellacked in these elections that I fully expected to be facing a Romney presidency this morning.  But not only did we re-elect Obama, but for the first time in my entire life, every single person or issue I voted for actually won.  And then to find out that Democrats and progressive issues won over and over again all across the country?  I'm just kind of stunned, honestly.

Last night, Maryland became the first state to uphold same-sex marriage with a voter referendum.  How fabulous is that?  So did Maine.  And Washington state looks like it's going to follow.  And speaking of Washington state, they legalized marijuana there last night.  They didn't just decriminalize it, they legalized it; for recreational use.  And so did Colorado.  Wow!

I was fully prepared to be seriously depressed today.  Now I don't quite know what to do with myself.

If you have any suggestions for ways I could spend my day not being depressed, please leave a comment below, and I will take it under consideration.  Thank you, and Gods Bless America.



Quick note about updates:  We're super-swamped at work with another tight deadline, and another series of endless snags delaying the whole process (yesterday was a clusterfuck on a scale that I have never witnessed here in fifteen years), and so I've been working more long hours again.  But this time, there's the added complication that I've been off-site for a lot of it, and so away from my computer.  And at home, we've got a couple of big projects to finish up in the next couple of weeks, as well, and so that's eating up a big chunk of what little free time I have left.  I actually have about a half a dozen posts started already that I've been wanting to get out there, but I just haven't had a chance to finish them yet.  Soon, soon.

Just wanted you to know that I'm still here, and I haven't given up or anything.  Just a tad too much on my plate at the moment.  Busy, busy Backson will be Back Soon.

Give And Take...

So, apparently today marks six months since my last drink.  Pretty happy about that.

Also, my wife dropped her phone in the toilet.  Less happy about that.

It would seem my world is in balance.