My case is easy to see

Eamon, Jack and I took a meandering drive on Sunday, as the price of gas being at rock bottom, we felt it was an acceptable way to spend some time.
We used to see the open country a lot when we lived in it. Now it remains familiar but not an every day thing. So with that notion I was watching the world go by and it seems a strange new place.
First, there were no people outside, just cars; and second there were a ton of closed businesses and empty stores, factories and farms.
As is the powers that be want, people are centralizing towards cities and populated regions. The outlying areas are becoming less desirable when everything around is vacant.
We looked for a long time for somewhere to eat, a diner, small restaurant and it took about an hour to find a cozy place outside of Oberlin, Quick and Delicious ; it wasn't so much either of those things, but what it ended up being was a very Lynchian moment, where the waitress insisted that we all had to give her a hug because it was our first time there. Maybe, the baneful world view isn't that bad after all.

True to the dream

The Internet rules when you need to figure out where something is, or what it's called. These are obvious observations, but I can also remember printing out a tax form for an old guy about five years ago. He had looked everywhere, other libraries, the post office, and was agitated and overwhelmed by the time he got to me. After I handed it to him, he was so totally relieved that he just stood there and shook his head marveling at the enormous shift that had provided him with this previously unobtainable document.
Unfortunately, it also gives us another venue to keep looking for something; and in this case it becomes a truly endless search.
Having joined Facebook and experiencing the true meaning of the words web, or tentacles I have seen the face of evil and still check back every day.

There's nothing much left of me

Every year around this time, as I'm sure most of us do, I reflect on the past year. In doing that, there is the examination of some choices, avenues and relationships, events and things I was disinclined to look into or participate in.
Regardless of how I feel about any of the experiences, there is not much to do about any of it except to hope that I don't make the same mistakes, just different ones so in the future process I have at least some stuff to lament.
In regards to parenthood, I wish I had been someone who didn't care about being liked; because as far as I'm concerned that's what has caused most of the trouble around here. Trying to please every taste or whim and ending up losing all that made me what I am, like for instance, a spine.

The hopes and fears of all the years

Our first Christmas together, Eamon and I were in California alone. My parents were somewhere and so he and I were house sitting for them. It was glorious, we only had to be with each other and provide a simple, albeit expensive, as we both had recently gotten good paying jobs, gift.
This was the first and last time we didn't have to really be Christmas-e. The next 20 years have been spent here with his family. There are the nieces and nephews, most of who won't even talk to us, but mosey on up for the endless birthdays and holiday celebrations ready for their bailouts.
There is me, being meek and trying not to say anything too liberal that might actually mean sharing an opinion.
And, there is Eamon who will pick at his mother until she ends up doing exactly what he was hoping for, which is to spill her most right wing, fundamentalist ill informed thoughts and then he's off.
Perhaps he's waiting for her to change her feelings about abortion, the war and let's say; the Jew in the house. I'm just suggesting, that maybe after two decades of the same, there is going to be no epiphany regarding another approach to living.
Merry Christmas baby, and happy Chanukah to those of us who are counting down.

Beneath life's crushing load

And so it begins; the holiday mad rush, the almost getting hit a bunch of times in fill in the blank parking lot, the nearly getting mowed down by shoppers on a mission. Got to love the season of really bad behavior. I sometimes play aggravated but I can't sustain it because it's lame to act like this is a stressful time and you've got to buy lots of stuff for lots of people. Stay home and bake, that will make an even better impression on those of us who like to eat rather than get things that we end up re-gifting.
I only have hope this season; that what is going on in my neck of the woods works itself out. Not to be all obtuse or cryptic but there are forces at hand that are completely out of my realm, and because of that, I begin to question all that is mine. I always wish for a lot, and fantasize about the life I should be living, not the one I am. I can tell by the quantity of Romance novels and general fiction that circulates, many of us feel that same way about a lot of the everyday. But for now, I can only hope that these matters work out; otherwise the outcome may be grim.

I'm not so

So, with my 431 st post, I am still working on this dissertation apparently. Seriously, I would have that and more, or a book, a long drawn out and somewhat uneven compendium.
Two nights ago, Griffin as is his want, continued on with his Teutonic sagas. Unfortunately there is no English translation for us so all it becomes is that the fucking dog is barking again.
After what seemed an unusually long time, as he most often quits after about 20 minutes, I went downstairs to see our back door, which is right near his quarters, wide open and the world enveloped in a strange glow. I guess he was pulling a good deed for once as in letting us know something was amiss. I let him outside and followed. It was brighter than it had been all day. The moon was glowing behind the clouds and it was 50 degrees with a Santa Ana like wind. I should have enjoyed the moment and I did briefly, until I noticed that all of our outdoor furniture was still on the deck; even the Adirondack chair that Jack, Gus and I carried out of the store in a huge thunderstorm, put together and presented to Eamon for Father's day two years ago. This is after a weekend of shall I say not much activity at my house.
So instead of relishing the magical moment, I took the opportunity to go upstairs and start yelling at my sleeping mate, as if after 21 years, he would actually hear what I had to say.

Bushels of fun

Conversation between a Father and his son who appeared to be about 3 or 4 at the top
of the steps at my job;

"See, this is what's up here."

"What?"

Exactly.

And a washed out dream

I guess I am competitive, as I lost the Grady Sizemore bobblehead at the United Way auction here at work; and I feel like there are people that will go to any length to win, and they always do, and I always don't. Nothing is really ever important enough to me.
In this article in the New Yorker, the discussion is psychopathic behavior, and it was certainly provocative, but the thing my skewed mind honed in on was that all of this description and relevance is realized in so many workplaces and environments and most of these people, a million according to the author, are not in prison, they are everywhere, and many I'm betting are quite successful.
I hasten to say that now at least I have a label, besides for the requisite profanity, for individuals that get that glazed look as they promise you the world and deliver absolutely nothing. I don't mind naught, I just don't want it dressed up as some gilded nugget.

Too many factors to cover

Look, my standards are not that high; put down the seat, of course; clean up after yourself. Everything I know I learned from cleaning up after a bunch of slobs.
First I did it as a child, for my parents, to make them like me better. That didn't work. Now I'm doing it for my husband and kids probably for the same dopey reasons and I'm pretty sure the same result is at hand.
Then there's work. These are not literal messes, they are more of an esoteric nature, like do your job or I'll have to pick up the pieces because you didn't or wouldn't.
I actually get a lot out of what I do, in all of my spaces. But, when and if I begin to get taken advantage of, I become a messy soup of passive aggresive and it challenges everything that I stand for which is usually being candid and honest rather than the SOP that we get 99.9% of the time with the rest of the world.

What's on the second disc

Eighteen years ago today, Jake, Eamon and I arrived at Narita. The irony is still not lost on me . If I had to do all over again... I wouldn't have watched Inland Empire all in one sitting.
Having been sick a lot as a kid, I'm all too familiar with the feverish dream state of the Lynch movie. I've seen them all from back in the day. I am however not fetishistic about each and every moment, meaning and or allusion. Though deconstruction is part of the fun, I know the answers only exist in dear David's mind and who really needs or actually can get down to that nitty gritty.
There is no question of his brilliance and talent, just in his sheer commitment to his vision that alienates just a little bit. I want to love him, but I can't; I hate him with all my heart for breaking reality down to the nightmare state that is a real as it gets.

Dogs were barking

Griffin barked all night; actually he's been doing it for the last week, and we have a few theories going around as we ascertain the situation.
Theory #1: He's an asshole.
Yup, that's the one we're going with.

How to open doors

Full disclosure is a bi-ach. It's hard when you have to weigh what you are willing to share and what you actually have to. And this is the latter.
I have two children who make up elaborate stories that go down avenues, alleys, paths, boulevards, thoroughfares, you name it, their tales make their way through every possible twist and turn of intrigue always to end up at the same place; a big stupid transparent lie. Luckily for me, they are so bad at it, I can catch them pretty quickly. But this last experience brings in a new format and that is Jake lying to his brothers in order to subvert dealing with me or Eamon.
This comes on top of him having just asked Gus to take the ACT for him.
Yes, that's right Jake is willing to sacrifice his brother's academic and perhaps entire future so he can appear to do well on a college entrance exam. The wrongness of that had me speechless; but not for long. Then, after my parents visit, I found out he had asked Jack for the money that his grandparents had given him. Jack had it in his pocket for about 20 minutes before he handed it over to his brother who professed he needed it for a car repair.
In Jack's case, it's lying about school stuff, homework and or detentions. For me, the trouble there is that I feel an openness with Jack a camaraderie and that gets hindered when he makes stuff up. The end result of all of this, the fallout; That would be my husband and I cowering in our room last night watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, as if our lives depended on it.

To state my case

I need something for the pain; I really do. It could be a cigarette, a drink, food, drugs anything, but I have got to have something. So what is the pain, and from where does it come? Actually it's always there, I (we all) just have an enormous amount of control, I keep myself very busy with ridiculous tasks, blogs, I even had children to keep me rolling, and then even with all of that going for me, because isn't it dynamic to say, part of the reason I had children may be that it keeps me distracted. Anyway, it's either an age thing, or comes from a molecular level, but I cannot seem to pull it off these days. Maybe, that's a good thing, perhaps this is the time that I really need to be paying attention and not use all of my resources to avoid the source.
Ultimately, I have to move forward, there is no choice, but to trudge on through; though I feel a lapse in how hard I used to struggle to keep it all in check and how now it doesn't seem to matter much at all.

I have failed to conceal

I helped America yesterday, a lot. I worked hard to assist with the economic recovery; I am certainly a proud patriot today as I wear my new clothes.
On Saturday night, after a bit of a row, I left Eamon and Gus behind and Jack and I took a road trip to Akron for the Christkindl market .
The event actually looks nothing like the picture, nor does it feel anything like what one might expect based on the description. It kind of resembles a pre- WWII Germany as it takes place in a run down section of the city, and the young men that we encountered, at least, were straight out of Fassbinder, so all in all with the badly tuned merry-go-round, it was like stepping into a paranoid Jewish nightmare. But Jack put it most succinctly by asking ; "what was with the Nazi youth convention". I honestly had gone with the highest of hopes for old world fun and entertainment; only to have all of my pathos and prejudice surface in the face of disappointment.