You are far and away

There is something about being in the midst of an experience that makes it seem less insurmountable. If you're in the thick of it, usually it doesn't seem as bad as if you were looking in from elsewhere. An example would be driving in a snow storm. When it's just the snow, and the car and you in the car; even on my worse driving nights out to my previous house in the country, down unplowed and overblown roads, when I got home and I'd look at the storm from inside, I would realize how truly dangerous it had been to be driving in it. At the wheel, it was just lots of snow flying at my window, and my shoulders hunched up around my ears.
I think it's once we take a moment to reflect and ponder what we've been through that things go south and we feel like it's something we could never do again, but usually do nevertheless.

What I've already had

I'm medicated and pretty bland this week, hence the lack of postings. I have little to say that I am thinking mostly about Spring and what goes along with that.
When my family moved here when I was two we started what would be come a forty year tradition by going to Burton for a pancake breakfast at the Fire Station.
When Jake was just a few months old, the three of us, went for the first time together and reignited what is really one of the only traditions that has no religious basis that lives on with my family. I've convinced others to come with us, and wait in the lately diminished line, watch the fire chief do magic tricks and then go up the stairs to the vast dining room and eat way too many buckwheat pancakes. There really is very little to it and I think my friends expect it to be something with a little more kick.
What Burton is to me, is one of the few memories of a pleasant and simple experience. Nothing more; which makes it a rare thing indeed.

Waiting for a smile

Step away from the computer if talk of menstrual cycles and such makes for uncomfortable silences.
As I've entered the middle age stage of my life, there have been a few missed periods over the last two years. Not many, but for someone who has had the constant for thirty some years, even one or two seems odd. So last month was one of those that was overlooked by the hormone calender. And two nights ago, right in the middle of the lunar eclipse, not even close to adhering to any particular schedule, I got it. I am a Moon Child for those at all in step with that wacky newfangled astrology stuff, so there it is. Another bit of evidence that this shit can get weird and, somewhat messy.

Find out early

On the cover of New York magazine, the headline asks; "Why do Kids Lie?" Because they're smart, recognize and can intellectualize the truth, and create an alternate reality and then sell it of course, duh!
I saw and got sucked into the vortex of the Zorbeez commercial and thought for a femtosecond that maybe those things actually worked. Then, I went to some consumer sites and read comments which quashed that fantasy tout de suite. Basically lying is a natural part of our cultural and social makeup and, it's easier to do than tell the truth. Lying is advantageous, and an accepted part of most transactions both social and financial.
That just sucks. It does; it's disappointing that we have to have a structured way of dealing with the untruths. But, it is what is, the most important part I am trying to work with, is the trying to convince ourselves of the lie, and how weird and awkward that gets to be at the end of the day.

Who needs the darkness

Sometimes, and I think that it's mostly in the winter months, the demons really start to get the best of me. I 've noticed it this last week especially because I 've been taking care of the old man which means a lot of staying at home and less activity allowing me to be distracted enough to keep things in check. Eamon has always said that I live at a high idle, and the description works and applies to almost everything that I do; lots of pans on the burner of life. The issues remain the same, they've been unchanged since childhood. Unfortunately, I have yet to befriend or even learn to tolerate them, as well as I'd like. In fact, it's as if I will never get used to the idea that there are forces of which I have no control, yet all internally generated and modified for your viewing pleasure.

Long time passing

So, Eamon is here, in bed, much worse off than I am health wise, and we sit on different floors, me stenciling brownies with powdered sugar hearts, he watching bad daytime tv. Both of us know the other is here, and it's rare that there is not a conversation going on, I appreciate that it's not a usual thing and the silence, besides for the furnace kicking in, the dryer and Griffin making his rounds, is unusual.
My mind has been on just a few things of late, getting used to being middle aged and what to do with the next portion of time. For the first, I know that we all have an image of what we think we look like, and then there's the reality. It helps to see people you've known for a long time and if they've been absent for many years, because the shock of how old they look, is mutual.

In the window

My old friend pleurisy is back for a visit. I've been in bed for three days so now I feel worse, because it's an enormous strain to lay around and watch the entire fourth season of the Wire so that you actually feel like you live on the West side of Baltimore; and I don't know if I'm a cop or a corner boy but I do know that there is nothing like that show just in terms of the gritty aspects of poverty, drugs and in this season the morass that is middle or high school.
Then just when you think your coming out of the abyss, there is a snow day for the boyos, so they're here to spread the joy and wonderment of teenagers. I'm going to send them out and see if they can sell some stuff I cook up, although there are never people outside here except to mow, shovel or walk a dog or two.

Nuttin like the old school

As far as I'm concerned, two death threats get's you, not just a Happy Meal, but, A Mighty Kids Meal.
The child, and I saw him today so I can at least put a face to the nightmare, that has been making Jack's life miserable, said to him upon his arrival back from a ten day suspension; "That wasn't very smart for you to snitch on someone who sits next to you in home room and can easily find out where you live." Okay lets' disassemble this one piece at a time. First, he was sitting next to my son in homeroom which enabled him to say what he did. Second, the teacher was on "hall duty", so she wasn't even in the classroom writing in a journal to help her to figure out why she would be a big enough asshole to let this kid sit next to Jack ever again. Third, though they said they were going to, the school never filed a police report about the first threat which by the way was said in front of others, so we know this kid is an idiot. So, when Jack came home and told me, I called the school and found out they hadn't done what they promised to do in order to keep Jack safe, and that's when, dare I say, I went Rambo on their ass. I called the police, called the superintendent and then called the principle to listen to his excuses and make a note of where I'm going to put the new stuff I buy with the millions of dollars in law suit money we are going to collect because these people don't have any of their ducks in a row or plug in any phrase that defines the behavior of people who are walking around acting out their job, going through the motions rather than actually accomplishing anything.

My troubles all away

All of my favorite loved ones have left the library and gone on to bigger and better jobs. I don't want a bigger or better job, I just want not to have to say goodbye to all of the people that make going to work more enjoyable and somewhat fun.

I will still love what I do, even with the drunk guy who fell on my desk as he was trying to ask me a question at 2:00 in the afternoon. Even with the men who watch us walk across the floor or ask for help on their computers so they can glimpse a look down my shirt. Regardless of all of the gross elements of working in a public setting; I don't mind it.

The loyalty you feel for the organization for which you work is challenged when they are compelled to keep people moving from one building to another, one begins to feel disenfranchised and less apt to do as much because there is nothing to prove, and no one particular person to impress. I value friendship and love more than career, and that is indeed why my situation is such, grey and bleak; at least for today.

If they were me

I've been having an affair. It's been with Eamon's surprise party, but it's still been full of deceit manipulation and lies, and I had to stay in bed all day yesterday and most of today to recover. Bridget is my favorite girl next door, she by far has the most personality and the least fake boobs. I watched back to back episodes yesterday afternoon inbetwixt sleeping and talking to Eamon about how I had pulled the wool over his eyes, flummoxed him and made up all sorts of shit to keep him in the dark. I couldn't even blog about it and therefore I lied to all of my readers as well. The party was well attended with all sorts of people from Eamon's multiple lives including old tormentors-slash-best friends, and people who came from far away to regale the man turning 50. The cards were requisite old man funny and one included his application to the AARP. I have two full pans of Rigatoni left over which will feed us into Easter. I have a mentality that drives me to make and buy too much to overcompensate for my small ass, I guess that's not the worst thing in the world; overcompensation I mean.