Yeah, still alive...

But not for lack of trying otherwise.

I sit here trying to organize a few months worth of back paperwork of my own, an attempt in futility at its finest. I know when my bills are due, I do all my business online, could care less about hard copies. But it's recommended I keep up with all of it and since this is the start of the new year for my Jewish brethren, I suppose it's as fine a night as any to try a new plan of attack.

I haven't written a meaningful word of fiction in over a month now. I have reams of text in my head but the disconnect between my mind and the keyboard is still in place. Tried a blog a few weeks back and the words tried to cut my throat. Wasn't time I guess.

I'm lifting again, enduring self punishment on a level that would make de Sade smile with glea. No junk food, no Dr. Peppers, more vegetables than I probably ate in my entire college career. My motivation is simple. I'm 35 and a fat bastard. I feel it will all be worth it come April. If nothing else I feel better now. I realized today how far down I've slid. My daughter asked me to jump on the trampolne with her. No, it didn't break. But after two minutes of jumping I felt like I had shards of glass in my knees. Jumping will now be a daily thing for me. Part of the universal truth, pain means life.

In the past month I've had the experience of dealing with two dead people, one who was dead when I got there, the other who died while I was working on them as an ECA. In both cases I didn't feel shock, grief, horror, what have you. I felt almost nothing at all. Anger that we couldn't do more perhaps. A moment of doubt in my self, questioning did I do all I could. But other than that, nothing. It was simply something that I was part of, it happened and now it's over. I don't know if this is a good thing, or means I'm seriously disturbed. Please don't think I'm unemotional, I wish I were so at times. I think it comes down to the fact that I have no fear of death or it's forms and faces. Any thoughts from you, oblivious reader?

I am seriously enjoying the new music feature on here. Currently I am flashing back to my childhood and listening to Doug Kershaw and Joel Sonnier and all kinds of Cajun music. I grew up in south Louisiana, Bayou Vista and Morgan City. Long time back. Throw in some Texas music, some Rodney Crowell, Billy Joe Royal, Dwight Yoakam.

I'll come back with something serious on here in a month or so I'm sure. For now, y'all take care.

Later.

 

It’s not me, the mojitos are talking

God bless the poor Cuban people. Not only have they been hammer slapped by hurricanes in the past month, but they never get credit due for creating such perfect things.

The Mojito - a mixture of lime juice, mint leaves and good rum. Seems odd at first and is truly an acquired taste. But once you becomea convert, it rivals the margarita. It's purer, no strawberry or peach desacration going on. It's refreshing, clean and when mixed right, will rip you apart.

Black beans and rice - I am a man of simple tastes. Dark beer, 2" steaks cooked medium rare and frijoles negro. I love black beans. A truly unique taste, totally unusual. Combine them with rice and grilled meat. It's a epicurain high,a gourmands orgasm.

*this random blog brought to you by Hurricane Ike, Roses Mojito Mix and Old New Orleans Rum.*

Shout out to the distillery master, Chris.

Later...going to surf the storm surge

Trying to reason with hurricane season

It just turned 11 pm. To the far south of me friends, family and Galveston are getting the hell beat out of them by Hurricane Ike.

The Weather Channel is doing their usual live coverage, the reporters on scene in near orgasmic glea as they stand in the wind and dodge flying debree. I know these guys have a job to do, but I secretly route for and loudly cheer when the wind knocks one down and you see his ass roll down the street.

Up here in East Texas, we're boarded up, ice and food laid in, plenty of water and back up plans. Rita was a hard lesson three years ago. Something no one had ever been through and most had ever doubted could happen. I simply point back at history and mathematics. Big storms hit the coast of the eastern Gulf all the time. Just our turn. And if the storm is 300 miles wide and you live 120 miles from water...you can figure it out. Yesterday was madness, the roads packed with evacuees, people running from misery. I didn't run this time. I plan to watch it come, catch a mild buzz from mexican beer and mojitos and let what happens happen.

The wind is gentle right now, maybe 20 miles an hour. In six to seven hours they say it will be 60+ possibly. Last time it came from the NE, the two trees that hit my house falling almost perfectly along the compass lines, parallel in their paths. This time they say it'll be from the south or SE. The south side, the front of my house, has six 100' tall longleaf pines and a cluster of elm and black willow that could hit us again, maybe really do damage this time.

So I shall drink, and I shall wait and watch. Sleep little I think. I don't fear what could happen. It's a big house, solid and my family sleeps knowing we'll be okay. Tomorrow I'll be dragging trees off the road, helping my neighbors, doing what i do. Possibly heading south to help out with family and friends.

To my friends in Houston, stay safe. To those out and about, pray for Galveston and the coast. Theres a town called High Island east of Galveston. I have my doubts it will exist after tonight, just concrete slabs and wreckage.

Despite what Jimmy may have said there is no reasoning with hurricane season. You deal with it as it comes. Then you follow his advice.

Breathe in, breathe out. Move on.

Later...

Later days...

I got nothing. Nothing in the pipeline as some would say.

No words worth typing, no stories of my own worth telling. Only thing I'm writing until otherwise advertised is my novels.

I've tried three times this week to write a clever and meaningful blog. All three died a quick savage death. 

Time to take a break, see what comes of it

Later friends...

Rolling hard, rolling fast, rolling by...

Respect to REK for the title theft.

That song talked about a small town in west Texas that was dead and didn't know it. Much like any number of small towns anywhere in rural America. Towns that were once booming 50, 60, 70 years ago and now hang on to some industry or way to keep enough tax revenues coming in to keep the schools open. They settle into a routine, a sleep and slowly fade out.

This has nothing to do with those towns. So no, I'm not slamming on the little town I live in, which by the way is not Time, Texas, as listed on the profile.  Time no longer exists, few even know where it was.

Last week I turned 35. Thanks to all who noticed. And like the Bellamy Brothers once sang.."In his hair he found some gray." Actually the gray came in last year, just at the temples. Catherine has commented she likes it, some rambling about making me look sexy. Despite her obvious mental instability and possible blindness, I do love her.

Turning 35 does not really phase me. It feels little different from turning 30, just without the surprise party that was foisted on me that year. Some guests have still to be forgiven, due to the fact they still live. It was much nicer than turning 29, for explanation go see blog entitled Wreck.

Looking back at the last year, mainly the 2008 section, it's been a good year. Got a house, two cars and about several thousands in debt paid off. No major accidents. Got my ECA certification. And thats about it.

I look at my life and I notice I'm booked through February. Football games, committee meetings, band concerts, church stuff, a threatened vacation (WHAT?) to Disneyworld and the BBQ cook off in Houston.

Side note: I'm now officially on the Go-Texas comittee, get the gold badge, all the perks for Houston, the BBQ cookoff and the rodeo. No, I can't get you Miley Cyrus tickets.   

Same as it was last year. Non stop activities for the community, for the kids, for other people.

All except me.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy helping out, I want to be at my sons football games, basketball games, etc. But what I don't want is to cruise through the next ten years, have two kids out of HS and look back and go WTF? Where'd it go? I don't want to be like Bryan, sitting on a couch while Stewie pesters me about the novel I've been writing for the last ten years. Or look at my wife and realize without the kids we have nothing in common and can't really stand each other. Go do your research, lot of folks split once the nest is empty.

We go though life doing what we have to do to keep the lights on, food on the table, the marriage intact, the kids well adjusted and mostly ready to be let loose in society. Along the way though, we forget about the things that make us who we are. Or were. The dreams we had, the goals. We settle into a routine, we live through others, we allow the status quo to define our glory.

We die one day at a time. Instead of living like we don't have another day to waste on dieing slow.  

later...

Last look.....a short story

The view from the window never changes. The colors of the grass vary of course, season to season, month to month. As do the flowers that grow along the edge of the woods. Occasionally a bird or rabbit will come through the picture to add variety and the weather of course brings rain and wind and even on a rare occasion snow.

            But the scene never really changes.

            He stares at it throughout his day almost all day. At the grass; now a light green, turning to brown as the heat of summer beats down. At the trees; a stand of long leaf pine and scraggly yaupons, growing low. He never speaks of his thoughts on what he sees. If he did you might hear in his raw high pitched drawl complaints about the thin grass. "Why I can tell you about grass. Went to the Carolinas once on vacation and we played golf on these great big country club courses. And they had grass, so think and green. Like a shag carpet, you just sank into it. Just made you want to take you shoes off and walk barefoot, not like that bunt up centipede we got here."

            The trees would bring up a different rant of sorts. "Them ain't big trees, just a little stand of young plantation. Why my granddaddy, he worked the woods, he cut some big trees. Seen some as a boy, so big two men couldn't wrap their arms around them. I can take you to building now, walls and moldings made from he cut and hauled ot that mill over in Pineland."

            He would tell you all this and anything else he knew about whatever you might think you knew something about. At least he would…if he could talk.

            Or he might walk outside and criticize the grass and point to nearby houses and tell you of their owners and residents and share some negative comment or slanderous tale about each of them…if walking were still possible.

            You see he sits and looks all day because that is all he can do. Call it a stroke, call it an embolism, say what you want. The simple truth according to the doctors is his brain betrayed his body and has trapped his mind inside a shell he can't move. Why it happened? The course of time, old age, too many bacon sandwiches and Marlboro reds maybe.

            Or maybe something else.

            I know all this because I come a few times a week and see him in this place, this nursing home. And I've known him a long time, most of my life, him seeming to be old when I was young though only 15 years separate us. He married my cousin, and so he's family of sorts. But the reason is not for family; I come because is I feel I owe it to him. That's it part of my contrition.

            You see I put him here.

            Oh I know, a stroke, an embolism, I said all that. But even modern medicine can miss things. Things that come from old ways, old recipes, things handed down. Things that could go in your food or your iced tea and not be noticed till your bodies paralyzed and you can't breath and someone is standing over you asking what's wrong and you realize you don't know what's wrong, but that smiling face in front of you damn sure had something to do with it.

            I figure he knows I did something. Despite what they say, I think he knows everything thats going on around him. He genuinely likes to look out the window at the trees and grass. The nurses discovered that when they  moved him away from it. Keeps him calm to look outside. And as long as he's calm, they say he'll live a long time. My coming around initially agitated him so I quit, or at least I quit letting him know.

            As long as I'm out of his line of sight and quiet, he never knows I'm there. In fact he has no idea I come by like I do, that I act the concerned relative and talk to his doctors, talk to his nurses. That I watch them adjust the machines hat make him breath, keep him alive. The machines that delay the inevitable. Machines that have kept my vengeance from being complete for sixteen long months.

            So I'm here now, watching him watch the world through his window. I stand behind him, listening to the wheeze of the respirator, the beep of the monitor that tells us his heart still beats.

            "Hello Frank"

            The beep increases, the rate of respiration goes up. I walk around and now my face fills his field of vision. The beeping continues to increase in rate until I reach over and push a button that cuts off the monitor. I see his eyes widen as he realizes what I'm here for, what I'm doing.

            "Accidents happen Frank. You know all about that though don't you. Maybe the wrong buttons about to get pushed. Or maybe it's just your time, maybe you're wore out.'

            I reach for the respirator control and step back where he can't see me. I lean down close though, so he has no choice but to hear me.

            "Look out your window Frank. Take a good long last look. Keep that sight of green grass and the clouds and those pine trees fixed in your mind. There's no blue sky in Hell."

*********

Later...

Viva la Vida..a short story inspired by the song of the same name..

"I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word.
Now in the morning I sleep alone,
Sweep the streets I used to own."

He was an old man that liked to sit outside of the local feed store when the weather was good and inside the coffee shop when it was bad. He was a professional people watcher, a sometimes philosopher, a political expert if asked. Actually an expert of whatever you happened to ask him about it seemed. No one knew where he was from originally. He hadn't grown up in the town, hadn't moved in young and raised up a family. He'd simply appeared one day, no one could say when or how. He had turned into a local fixture, a predictable part of the landscape. He didn't seem to work, but was helpful to a fault. The local garden club that maintained the cities flowerbeds praised his green thumb and tireless weeding. The little league was grateful for his help selling tickets and keeping the infield mowed and the lines painted during baseball season. He helped the PTA with bake sales and attended every city council meeting, sitting in the back observing, never saying a word.

            Then one day he was gone.

            No one noticed at first. He'd been gone before. Had a doctor's appointment over in the next town, or come down with the virus that was being passed around. But he'd always mentioned to someone he'd not be around, or been seen at the pharmacy and made sure to tell a local gossip of his maladies so soon the whole town knew. After he'd not been seen for two days the owner of the feed store began to worry. The old man had to be in his late 70's, maybe his 80's. Anything could have happened to him.

            The feed store man called the coffee shop owner. No, he wasn't there. No, he hadn't seen the old guy. And no, he wasn't sure where he lived. Come to think of it, did anyone even know what his name was? A dozen possibilities, half remembered scraps of conversation. More people were contacted. None could recall more than few vague details of the old man. The barber that cut his hair every two weeks. The local grocer who recalled a request for steaks cut extra thick once. In all a whole town of people could tell you a hundred things about the old man, less than half of which could be agreed on by everyone and in total described a man who may as well never been real for all the substance it provided.

            The police were called. But with no name, no address, no car clearly recalled or a direction certain as to where he might have walked, they could do nothing. For a week or more people searched around, they speculated. Then the local tire shop owner's house burned, his young wife dieing in the fire. And the mayor got a divorce. And all the goings on of a small town swept away the memory of the old man no one ever knew and he was soon forgotten by almost everyone, save the food store man, the coffee shop owner, a few people who noticed the flower beds needed weeding.

             A month later someone walked in with the day's news from the nearby big city. On the front page was a story about how the exiled former ruler of a country in Eastern Europe few of the towns people had ever heard of, let alone been to had been found dead in his home at an advanced age by his daughter who had come to see him. The house was about five miles from their town. It was an out of the way place that no one ever noticed, set back behind a screen of big oaks and huge azalea's. A place only the older members of the town remembered even being a house, let alone anyone living there.

At the bottom of the article was a picture of a man in a thousand dollar suit, a younger man, but without a doubt, the old man. But instead of the friendly smile that he had perpetually seemed to be wearing, a scowl creased his brow. The article described a man known as the Tyrant from the Hills, who had come to power through a military coup and increased his power by crushing all opposition. He had been vilified by most of the world for his action and cared not a bit. But after 20 years of rule he had stepped down to allow a democratic government to sweep in and and went into self imposed exile for reasons that were never clear.

The people of the town were stunned that this man had been among him. Some couldn't believe it, some expressed self grandizing opinions that there was always somethign odd about that old man. Some dismissed it all and said he's dead, so what. Two men cried over it, at the feed store and the coffee shop. They cried not for a tyrant they had never known, but for the old man they had called a friend.

A week later a black BMW pulled into town stopping at the feed store, the coffee shop. Folks saw a well dressed woman get out both places and go inside, staying for thirty minutes or so at each place, then leaving town. Who she was, or what was said was never known. But the next month the feed store owner took he and his family on a two week vacation to Hawaii, the coffee shop owner went on a cruise.  And at Christmas that year both men combined to give a free dinner to all who wanted to eat Christmas day and a thousand dollar bonus to each of their employees. When asked how they could suddenly afford this, both men simply shrugged their shoulders and smiled a bewildered smile. 

Sometimes the people you never know know what you need the most.

Later... 

 

 

*edit* after bowing to pressure, I corrected a few errors in spelling. knot lieke it wos a biig deel.

Wreck

It happens fast.

You look down at the radio, a glance at the station number. One hand on the wheel, one holding your morning Dr. Pepper. Suddenly, no warning, no sound, the car skids. The back end kicks around. All those things you learned in drivers education, in the one defensive driving course you had to take in high school, all the bullshit Hollywood movies and Discovery Channel specials on stunt driving; all that absorbed random knowledge on handling a car.

It vanishes like fall leaves whipping over the windshield at 70.

The back end keeps coming around, you trying to steer out of it. Do I hit the brakes or gas? Steer in or out? What the hell? Then it's backwards, facing North when you were going South. A thought occurs.

There should be a chip truck coming over that hill right now. Or a log truck. Something. Something should be hitting me head on right now.

But it doesn't come. God and the angels watching fools smile on you. The skid continues, the car seeming to accelerate, leaving the laws of physics in its wake. You've rotated 270 degrees from when this ride started and now the edge of the road appraoches. And the ditch. And you sail over it, feeling a strange lightness as the car leaves the ground.

Then.

The first hit. A tree, the car still in mid flight, off the ground a few feet. Back corner, right side, straight into it. The sudden stop that kills those who fall from on high, a bone jarring boom that breaks the locks on your seat adjuster and sends you backwards on the rails. Then your own fall. Down into the valley of the ditch, sideways, the car ricocheting off the longleaf pine.

The second hit. The whole car settling as one in the ditch, the front end bending up, the sound of metal and fiberglass shearing and buckling. Your head lashes sideways into the door pillar. A sharp crack, not enough to knock you out, a guttural shout from you at the pain. .

You sit there for a long moment; the only sound the radio and your own breathing. You unclench a hand from the wheel and feel your head, checking for blood, bone, grey matter. Do a quick wiggle of all extremities to make sure they all function. Then you call the office, you call a friend at the police department, you call your wife.

They all come. They all ask why. They make sure you're okay, they all offer theories, they all hurl accusations. What can you say?

It happens fast.

*EDIT*

For those who's first thought after reading this was to my welfare and health, I thank you. Yes, the story is true, happened in 2002, on my birthday.

But to my main point...how'd you like the story?

By the numbers...

35 - how old I'll be in 13 days. No happy birthday needed, save them for my soul brother Fidel Castro, born the same day.

235 - a number that is pissing me off....see earlier blog for details

200 - number I have to find if I want to see 35+64 one day

4 - number of months I have to find 200. Place your bets folks...

6 - the minimum hours of sleep I need to be functional and mostly non-violent.

5 - hour at which the day will now begin.

3 -  number of novels I am writing simulataneously. Bit masochistic aren't I. 

1000 - number of words a day I have to produce come Hell, highwater or the Gathering.

approx 85000 - number of words I have in the longest work right now.

whats it all mean?

People set goals, make plans and never reach them. Our culture seems to encourage this and as long as you keep trying, it's okay.

Bullshit.

Tomorrow is an option you may not have. While it is necessary to make long term plans, deciding what you will do day to day, moment to moment to make something happen and forcing yourself through it is the only way to suceed.

If you know the numbers, the math involved, any problem can be worked out, solved, eliminated.

Later days...much later

 

Tales from fireschool

Fire school was last week out at A&M. It was nice to get to go back and wander around. The town and campus have changed and are steadily growing. But one thing is still a constat. The Egg Roll House is still there. And as far as anyone knows has never been open. At least not since 1991.

 

As to what happened out at fire school. as my last blog indicated it was pretty tame this year. All carousing, drinking and genral misbehavior consisted of a few beers in the room, me staying up late studying and dinner every evening after classes. Jeff, Bob aka Tim, BC and Adam the Pimp all had to leave by about 6:15 every morning to get a descent parking space out at the fire field, I had class till 6 every day and thus no one felt the desire to go out.

 

Sunday we all met up at the Dixie Chicken, my former employer. Place has changed little besides a bigger back porch. Freddy is still there, Roger is still at Chicken Oil Company thus proving short order cooking can be a 20+ year career.  

 

Jeff is a man among men, sucking down a large chicken fried steak (approx 20 oz in size) and all the trimmings at Sodalaks Steak House in Snook, TX. We went there Moinday eveniong and Thursday. This place also has chicken fried bacon on the menu. Served with cream gravy. It will kill you, theres nothing else to be said. 

 

Bob got ambitious and tried to eat the large sirloin  appox 32 oz of beef. He lost. I took discretion over valor, ordered the small sirloin, only 16 oz, medium rare, was damn nice. Bob also donated a PFD shirt to the collection of FD shirts they have on the walls of the place and in return was given a Sodalaks t-shirt, in hot pink of course. Bob has no doubts of his masculinity and wore it proudly. The shirt also led to us getting invited to partake in the passing around of a half gallon of Crown Royal with a bunch of guys I think were instructors at fireschool, one of whom was wearing an apron made from empty Crown Royal bags. These kind of things just happen in Snook.

 

 Wednesday I took Jeff, Bob and Adam the Pimp to downtown Bryan for some hole in the wall Mexican food. Los Nortenos. Hadn't been there in about 12 years, place hasn't changed, foods still great. Was one of those perfect meals, tejano playing in the background, a sort of cute if you had a few more beers Hispanic waitress, hot sauce that had moments of lighting you up, cold beer, and huge homemade tortillas that burned the hands when you unwrapped them.

Afterwards we wandered around Bryan and wound up at the Bonfire Memorial. I will admit it took me a lage amount of effort not to break down while reading the Last Corps Trip which is inscribed on the walls as you entire the memorial site. I helped build two Bonfires and know what was going on when it fell and why those Ag's were out there doing it. I tried my best to explain what it all meant but as the saying goes, from the outside looking in, you cannot understand it, from the inside looking out, you cannot explain it.   

 

It was a long week, a lot of work. Most everyone seemed to enjoy it. Maybe next year I'll be like 70% of the attendees and drink to excess nightly and suffer for it for three days.

 

Then again, thats what New Orleans is for. 

 

Later