Shameless Plug

It has been a hell of a week for me. However, it seems to be ending on a high note. You see, a few months ago I was invited to write a short story for a speculative anthology that hadn’t even been sold to a publisher. Which in this day and age, is pretty crazy, after all, there was no guarantee of getting paid, no idea who’d else be involved in the collection or even when the book might be produced.

            Everything about the deal had red flags going on. It was the brain child of two free-lance editors. But I dug the idea, so I agreed. How they got my name, well, it’s not a mystery but it is almost suspicious in nature.

            You see, a friend of a friend who had read something someone else had done that liked something I did in some other publication referenced me. I know, convoluted, right?

            So within a few hours of being asked I had an idea. Three days later I had a story written. Three weeks after that, my beta-readers and editors had gone through it. During that time, the books editors found a publisher, told the invited writers to get working and send what they had as soon as possible.

            I sent my story, they liked my story, they edited my story, they sent my story back to me, I fixed everything they asked me to fix and then they sent me a contract. I signed the contract and sent it back to them. Now, in a few months, I will get published again, then a few month later, another book with my name in it will come out.

            When I started writing I never thought I’d be writing fiction. I never thought anyone would pay me for my words or ideas put to words. But here it is six years into beating my fingers to nubs on keyboards around the United States and I’m getting paid and published.

            Strange how this all worked out. Now, mind you, I don’t write novels, I don’t know if I ever will write a novel, but I do like writing short stories. I have more than my share of them written and saved on flash drives. Few have been published and I’m sure that if I keep doing this, more will follow. At least I hope so.

            You see, I started to write as a way to relieve stress in my life. Then, it became a habit and now, it is an obsession. To me, it matters not whether I’m writing fiction or non-fiction, just that I’m writing. That I’m conveying ideas, purging my mind of all the crap that seems to fill it up on a daily basis.

            It’s quite cathartic.

            Well, that and it allows me ample time to sit on my porch and smoke my cigars and not be bothered.

            So, where is all this going? Simple, I want you, my dear readers to buy the books that I’m going to be published in. One comes out in July and the other comes out in October. They aren’t going to be expensive nor are they going to be difficult to acquire. Heck, if you have any sort of tablet you will be able to download them.

            Or, if you’re like me, go on the internet retailer and buy the dead tree book. I’m sure it won’t cost you much money. Heck, you’d most likely spend more money on lunch or dinner than you would the book. Besides, I want you to read my twisted little tales. They are much different than the stories and thoughts I post here.

            Okay, enough pimping for now, I will keep you all posted when the books become available and I hope you do purchase the books. Also, leave a review or comment on what I’ve written after you’ve read the tale. I want to hear your thoughts too.

Have a great week.

Disillusionment

Look, I get it, I understand, okay, maybe understand is too strong of a word, but I sympathize with you. I don’t like it much either. I feel similar to how you feel.

            Oh, sorry, I’m talking about the current political situation in our country.

            Recently the state I live in, no, not confusion, although there is something to be said about the vast differences of beliefs and opinions in Virginia, we had our primary election. On super-Tuesday no less and as usual, I went and voted. Like I have for the past thirty years of my life, and as usual, at the end of the day, the candidate I voted for did not win. This of course, was no real surprise to me.

            You see, I can’t say that I’ve actually voted for a winning candidate at any level of politics since the 1980’s. That is a very long losing streak for me. Almost something to be proud of actually, for lots of reasons, the primary one; I can always say, yes, I voted, yet my candidate didn’t win. And then I can move on to speculate how the candidate that I voted for would have handled the political situation better or worse than the seated elected official.

            So, moving on… when I woke up on Super-Tuesday, I still didn’t know who I was going to vote for. Even when asked by no less than twenty people leading up to Super-Tuesday I didn’t know whose name I was going to put my “X” next to.

            You see, none of the candidates, and I mean not a single living soul running for president, actually has said or done anything to prove to me that they have either been in my situation, understand my situation or even sympathize with my situation. This of course is a generality. A generality that most people seem to not realize for themselves during this time of hype in our season of rebellion.

            As a general rule, I don’t trust politicians or anyone who wants to be in charge of anything. I don’t believe any promises or platforms they stand on. I’m tainted by life. Yet I dream of a better living for my child and a future where people get along, listen to each other and leaders willingly admit they don’t know everything and have the answers to all questions. What I suppose I’m saying is, I want a leader who will listen.

            Listen to their advisors.

            Listen to the poor.

            Listen to the rich.

            Listen to the manufactures.

            Listen to the sick.

            Listen to the well.

            Listen to the right.

            Listen to the left.

            Listen to the middle.

            Listen to the employed.

            Listen to the unemployed.

            Listen to the angry.

            Listen to the forlorn.

            Then, when they’ve listened, they sit back with smart people and try to figure out what the best solutions to the problems they’ve just encountered and move forward.

            Instead, what I get to see and hear are people with inflated egos talk over each other about how great they are and how many accomplishments they’ve acquired. I get to hear them insult each other in smarmy tones all for the laughing public.

            I get to witness wedges driven into American people and divide those same people into categories and then watch them point fingers at each other in disgust and hate. I get to see loving and caring people turn into hate mongering name callers and others turn into media martyrs. I get to hear from all sides that if “So and So wins, I’m moving to Canada, or Brazil or Costa Rica.”

            I’m sick of the division our so-called leaders are forcing upon us. I’m sick of the rhetoric and I’m sick of the vitriol on both sides.

            Where is the great unifier? The person or people who want to bring us together instead of drive us apart. Where is the person who talks of love and forgiveness over fear and apathy; a person who’d rather do what is best for all and can convey that sentiment for all to understand instead of trying to build walls and canyons between the classes in our country?

            T.H. White said “The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.”

            Which it seems is happening throughout the caucuses of this year. Everyone seems to be pointing fingers at everyone else and saying the problems we are experiencing lie with the current or old administrations. Maybe they have a point. Maybe they don’t. All I know is that if you or I pointed a finger at a co-worker or supervisor at work and said the things the people who want to be our leaders are saying then we’d most likely be fired or at best sent to Human Resources for sensitivity training. Yet when the talking heads do it, they are applauded. They hold themselves above the masses and the rules the masses follow and are offended when they are asked why they don’t have to follow the rules. Or they deflect the question by pointing out the shortcomings of someone else or point to an individual or group of individuals and state “that’s where the problem is. Blame them.”

            I hate this mentality.

            We are supposed to be better than this.

            We are supposed to be great in all things.

            We are failing.

            I want to be able to change our society for the better yet wanna-be leaders only seem to want to make us hate each other. I hope we as a society are smarter than what they are giving us credit for. I dream of a country that has put to rest the demons of its past and work toward a better, happier and more peaceful future.

Eleanor Roosevelt Said “Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.”

Disillusionally yours,

Skip.

On Modern Strife

Wow, I’m stunned. Just stunned. And I really don’t know what to say or how to say it. So, what do I do? I try to write about something that has plagued this country for ages. I really don’t know how it is going to go but this topic has been gnawing its nasty little teeth at the back of my mind for quite some time and I suppose it is about time I address it. So, here goes.

            Yesterday I was sick and spent most of the day lying in pain and loaded up with all types of cough and cold medicine. I’m better today as I write this. However, during my interim, I had endless hours of television to watch. Mostly I watched “How the Universe Works” as narrated by Mike Rowe. I like this sort of programing. It lets me know that there are larger things in the universe, galaxy and solar system, than me. It grounds me and gives my life a perspective I don’t normally have. However; as the day waned and darkness took over the hemisphere where I live, I lost control of the remote to my wife.

            She flipped channels for a while and then settled on the movie “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” with Kathryn Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poirtier and Katharine Houghton. Sure there were more in the cast but those are the four main characters. It’s an amazing movie and one I know my wife and I have watched at least a dozen times. Yet each time I see the film I walk away with a new perspective, a new thought or idea. The film makes me think. A lot.

            Also; my wife was flipping to a re-airing of the Grammy awards. Now, as a general rule, I avoid any and all award shows. Especially ones where people just give themselves awards. So, when one show was on commercial, the other show was flipped to and watched. Which means I could tune out the awards show and become attentive when the movie was on.

            The movie… I have two favorite scenes in the movie.

            One of them, I’m sure is everyone’s favorite scene. It is at the end, where Spencer Tracy makes his speech about his feelings towards the interracial marriage of his daughter and all the crap the couple would receive from a world full of ignorant people. SPOILERS: He was for it for the simple reason the two people loved each other.

            My second favorite scene is where Sidney Poitier says to his father “You see yourself as a black man, where I see myself as a man.”

            I like to tell myself this is the line in the movie that won the writer “William Rose” his Oscar. But most likely, the gold on the statue was poured for the ending speech alone.

            We, as a country that is, have tried for over 70 years to try and put race relations to rest and it seems to me that in 1967, when Sidney Poitier said that line to his father about seeing himself as a man, we were on the path to equality and understanding.

            Now, fast forward to 2016, with the horrific utterings of the word “racism” at the drop of any hat or misconceived slight, we are all guilty.

            Guilty of not learning from the past. Guilty of not learning. Guilty of even the slightest prejudgment. This is not just blank on blank prejudice. (Insert your own race or creed in the blanks).  It seems to go deeper.

            Not just in our neighborhoods or cities. Nor is it a national problem. This seems to be an international problem. We have elected and non-elected leaders telling us that our problems come from this type of person or that type of person. We even have self-important people with access to social media and millions of followers talking about slights based on race. All of these actions seem to be step backwards and not forwards. It all hurts my head and worse, it hurts my heart.

            In a country where marijuana is legal, where homosexuals and lesbians can marry each other, where an African American man has been elected not once but twice to the presidency and even where a woman is running for president, we are still mired in the sins of our fore-fathers.

            I say for-fathers even though I come from a turn of the 20^th century immigrant family. Yet, this is my country and I’m proud of it. I’m just not proud of the actions of some of my fellow countrymen.

            This also makes me sad. I thought we were better than this. I know we are better than this. We have to be in order to survive.

            Which brings me to one of the performances on the Grammy’s. I don’t know the artists name nor would I write it if I did. However; his lyrics and song made quite an impact on me. He came out in handcuffs along with his backup singers and dancers. They were also dressed as inmates. I understand the point he was making. I also understand that as an artist you have the freedom to express your feelings, good or bad, in your art. I also know that there seems to be a great chasm between crimes and criminals in our justice system. A system that is not perfect but it is a system that has changed over time. Slowly it seems but there has been change.

            There are actions that are not excusable committed by people in voice and power that make me ashamed to call myself an American. However; I’d like to think that as our country grows older, we also become wiser. I hope that one day, like the great actor Sidney Poitier said “You see yourself as a _______man, while I just see myself as a man.”

            Or, in the lingo of the new enlightened world “You see yourself as a _____person, while I see myself as a person.”

            After all, we are all people and we are all sharing this journey together and while we may not get out of this journey alive, it’s easier and nicer to be together through the joys, the pains, the success’s and the travails of life than struggling through our own misguided prejudices.

            Have a great week. And remember, try and understand and love your fellow travelers. We all deserve a little of both.

Reason not Excuse

Last October, okay, maybe it was September; I received a jury inquiry letter on my front door. I assume it was put there by the local deputy sheriff. It is after all, their job to do such things. I quickly filled out the paperwork and turned it in. And then my waiting began.

            In December, when I still had not heard anything from the clerk of courts, I called them to inquiry about the status of my potential of being a juror. I was informed by one of the clerks that the paperwork I’d filled out and turned in was for the year 2016. I was relieved. Then, in the midst of January I received a subpoena for the month of February. Upon my first look at the paper I was a bit elated. Which is an emotion most people don’t have when they get summoned for jury duty.

            You see, I’ve been a voter for over thirty years. Local elections, state elections and federal elections; I’ve tried to vote in all of them. As a matter of fact, I believe I’ve only missed one turn at the polls in all that time. In all this time I’ve seen friends and family get called for jury duty. I was always a bit stunned I had never been called. I want to serve on a jury. Not to judge the innocent or guilty, I just want the experience. I want to be part of the judicial process in an impartial manner. Hear the stories from both sides in a legal and litigious manner. Talk over the facts with the eleven other jurors. It just seems like it would be a pretty cool experience. Well to me at least.

            Now, through this entire hurry up and wait experience, I finally received a new turntable to play my albums on. Okay, the turntable isn’t really new. It’s an early 1980’s Sears model. It needed a new belt and the needle was bent so I ordered both from a large online retailer. The belt arrived within a week and when I put it on the machine it fired right up. I then tested the bent needle on The Blues Brothers “Briefcase Full of Blues”. The music sounded amazing blasting through my JBL studio monitors.

            This small addition to my office has actually improved my work productivity. Since I don’t want to leave my office and working while spinning your favorite records is a great way to lose yourself in the pure enjoyment of music while you work. Seriously, you spend about twenty five minutes of working, then get up, flip your record, drop the needle and go back to work for another twenty-five minutes. You literally get a break from work while choosing what you want to listen to while you work. It is quite pleasing.

            As of the writing of this blog, I still have not gone through all the records I have in my office, let alone what I have hanging on the walls in picture frames. I’ll get around to pulling them off the wall one day and putting them on the turntable for endless hours of listening pleasure.

            Amongst this mess of jury duty and record listening, I was asked to perform in another play. Much like the one I was in a couple years ago. I get to play an angry, abusive father and husband. Basically, I get to be the bad guy. Again. Which is cool. I know it seems almost stereotypical but at least it is something I can do. As a matter of fact, my first practice is tonight, after my doctor’s appointment. An appointment that is going to be primarily dealing with my heart.

            Oh? You didn’t know about my heart? It’s swollen. Inflated. Inflamed if you will. Which means, to me that is, I care too much. I need to stop caring about anything and everything. I’m the Grinch at the end of the movie and I need to get back to being the Grinch at the beginning of the movie. But in all seriousness, I do need to take care of my heart better. I’ve spent too much time in the hospital as it is and I don’t want to spend any more time there than I have to. Seriously, who does?

            On top of this, I’ve got two stories being published this year, and I’m also scheduled to do another public reading. A reading of a story I have not written yet. We’ve already had two meetings about this event and a third is quickly approaching. So I guess I need to get busy.

            I’m sure you’re asking yourself right now, “Why is Skip divulging all this information?” The answer is simple, I missed last weeks blog and I barely have time to write this blog. So I figure I’d give you guys, my dear readers, the opportunity to see what sort of insanity is going on in my life. This blog is not an excuse, it is a reason why I have not written much lately. I just seem to be so busy that I can’t even find time to sit down and be creative.

            It seems to me that my experiment of slowing down has failed and I need to reinstitute a new practice. If I can figure out how to implement that new practice I’ll let you know. Or, if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Have a great week.

Lennon to Newton

Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. –John Lennon

            We live in quite an amazing time. Instant everything it seems is at our fingertips and yet we still don’t know what is in our own oceans; or the full workings of quantum mechanics; or even how large our universe really is.

            Some say our universe is 46 billion light years in length and still growing. To put that in perspective, a photon, which is a particle of light whom I think I’ll call Gregory, if leaving our sun at this very moment and traveling at the speed of light, as is Gregory’s nature, then he would have to travel for 46 billion years just to reach the current edge of space as we believe it is now. I think Gregory should pack a picnic basket of food for this journey. However; since our universe is still growing, there is very little hope that Gregory would actually reach the edge of our known universe.

            I know, it stills seems a bit hard to visualize the immensity of the universe. So, hmm, okay, how about this, our galaxy, the Milky Way contains over 100 BILLION stars. You know, like our sun. Only some are larger, some are smaller but they exist. They are there. You see them every night you look up into the sky and make a wish. No, you don’t see all of them, you can’t. That’s like saying you can see your entire city from sitting on your front porch. You can’t do it. But, you can see some of the buildings near you. So, imagine our galaxy is the size of a grain of sand on a beach, how would that compare to the scaled down size of the universe?

            That answer is quite interesting. The universe would be the size of a cathedral. But how big is a cathedral? Well, Saint Peters Basilica in Vatican City is almost 50,000 square feet on the inside. Now, considering your average house in America is about 2,400 square feet you’d need about twenty one houses to even come close to the size of that Saint Peters interior space. That’s pretty big. I know from firsthand experience. Now, fill up every dump truck in the world with sand and then unload all that sand inside the cathedral. Can you imagine it? The entire basilica filled with sand from the floor to its 136 foot tall dome. That is a lot of sand. Also, I’m sure the Pope would have you excommunicated, exorcized, condemned, evicted, arrested, flayed, drawn and quartered, beheaded and burned at the stake but this is a mental exercise so none of that is going to happen.

            So, we’ve filled Saint Peters up with sand, because Saint Peters represents the size of the universe, and each grain of sand represents a galaxy. Now, somewhere in one hundred and sixty-five million cubic feet of sand lies our own grain of sand, the Milky Way. (That number is based on the fact Saint Peters dimensions are 730 feet long, 500 feet wide, 448 feet tall. With the exception of the dome which is 136 feet tall.) So, yeah, it’s almost inconceivable as to the size of the universe in comparison to us, but I hope this visualization gives you a good frame of reference.

            Now, another interesting fact is that less than fifteen percent of the smartest people in the world believe in God and the creationist story. (I say story here because I have yet to see evidence to prove the biblical tale.) This intrigues me. You see, I don’t think being smart, curious and eager to learn should be cause for a person to lose faith in religion. That is, if you had faith to begin with.

            Also, over the past few decades, scientists have started to give the theory of a multi-verse credit. No, there is no concrete proof or evidence that there are more than one; however; when you look at the universe, life, planets, suns, atoms, and everything, there is no such thing as one of anything. Even singularities, black holes, we know are not singular. Nope, they seem to be as plentiful as the galaxies they fuel, create and destroy. Which is kind of funny, because in a biblical sense, there is always more than one of anything; I’m not saying that this is a coincidence or even inferring it. This is just the way my brain works. It compares information.

            Where does this leave us? Well, we live in a pretty big place and a small piece of ground and go about our lives dealing with petty issues as if they are the most vital of all details in the grand scheme of things. When in truth, they aren’t.

            Even our loves, our wars, our trials and our success’s really don’t matter on a cosmic scale. I mean, think about it, our universe is almost 14 billion years old and we, mankind, have only been on this spec of space dust for about 2 million years. There have been births and deaths of entire galaxies even before we came around. Hell, even entire species on this planet have come into existence and then disappeared before we even started grunting at each other and bashing each other’s heads in with rocks and sticks.

            Yet when we finally did come into existence and when we finally calmed down, started building, communicating to each other and try to figure out why we were even here in the first place we came up with some pretty crazy ideas. Don’t believe me? Check out the Norse mythological gods, or the Greek ones or the Egyptian gods or the Native American Gods or any race that was around before Christians started spreading their news across the globe.

            Which is funny to me, because it seems that every time I read up on a religion or belief system that can be traced back before Christianity started, they seem to have some sort of creationist story in place; like some native Americans believed in a pair of feathered serpents whose very thoughts became reality and that is how the earth was created. In Greek Mythos chaos reined until love was born and order followed in creation. In Africa, one tribe believes the god of the sky lowered a chain down to the waters and a boy climbed down the chain and started dropping sand into the water to create the continents. I could continue on and on with different examples of creationism, but I don’t need to, you can do some simple web searches and come up with as many as you want.

            Through all these stories the Christians evangelized their own version of creation. They converted a lot of people to their way of thinking. Those old belief systems, those religions soon became myths in the light of the new truth.

            Now, in the 21^st century, the Christian creation story is coming under scrutiny by the scientific community and losing. Okay, to be honest, this is not a 21^st century predicament. This is only one of many biblical stories that have fallen under the logical thinking and testing of a systematic method. I believe most faith will fail when approached by logical means. But, then, Faith is not logical is it?

            No, how can it be? Hell, being human is not logical when you think about it and faith based systems are never logical. They can’t be. Because faith is more than logic, more than facts, more than understanding the how or they why of things; no, faith is more than the codified knowledge of all the genius’s in the history of mankind.

            Faith is the one thing that tells us to stand our ground when logic tells us to flee. Faith tells us to forgive when logic tells us to cut ties or seek vengeance when we are wronged. Faith affords us grace when logic tells us we deserve nothing. Faith fills us with hope when logic tells us there is none. Faith tells us there is something more to our lives and the existence of our universe when logic tells us we are doomed to die in a fiery crash with the Andromeda galaxy. Faith contradicts science without explanation or reasoning and in some cases, faith has given us miracles that science can’t explain.

            I understand the science of our creation. I accept it. I welcome it in fact and, I am continually fascinated by each new discovery we make. Faith however tells me that there is a great creator somewhere, some when and somehow making sure everything worked when this all started.

            Faith is the one thing I seem to have left at the end of the day, when I’ve read all I can, when I’ve written what I needed to, when I’ve worked as much as I could and when I doubt the future, the past and even my present. It is there, to assure me, to tell me I’ll be okay and so will you even in the light of all evidence to the contrary.

            Yes, I do believe in a scientific creation of everything, yet I also believe there is a larger force at work. One that started it all, I choose to call that force God. It is a belief I struggle with everyday and I’m sure a belief I will struggle with for a long time, however, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because if I didn’t struggle with it, I wouldn’t hunger for knowledge or have the drive to learn, to understand, to question just about everything in existence and if I didn’t have that, my life would be pretty damn dull.

            So I guess what I’m saying is, I believe in a creator, but I don’t necessarily believe in how the story has been told.

            Have a great week.

 This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being....This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God -Sir Isaac Newton

Laughing at Lumpy

Today is a birthday of sorts. Well, if you consider birth as the removal of a body part that is unnecessary and unwanted after a certain amount of time. Then, that body part costs you money, time, energy, worry, hair color and lack of sleep. Yeah, it’s a birthday.

            Today is the official date of birth of “Lumpy”. My unwanted son of sorts.

            You see, Lumpy is not a living, breathing human being. Nah, that’d be too easy. Nope, Lumpy is a lump. A one centimeter mass of tissue living inside someone I care about. We don’t know when Lumpy came to being, but we do know he is about as loved and cherished as the perverted, just released from prison, drunken uncle that shows up at Thanksgiving with a meth-addicted hooker with several cesarean scars on display under her too large tube top.

            Yeah, Lumpy is “that guy”.

            Yet in my family, where most people talk about the seriousness of the situation, look up all the crazy medical information on the internet, pour over insane “natural” and holistic healing methods. Nor are we concerning ourselves with endless treatment options. Nope, instead we joke, we laugh, we design obtuse and inane scenarios with each other where “Lumpy” becomes a sentient being but with no arms or legs and has to live inside a bell jar on our mantle and he can only communicate through rolling around on a small touch screen computer that is hooked up to a speaker. He’d say things like “Hello? Anyone there? I don’t’ have any eyes, ears or internal organs? Am I alive? What is my purpose? How the hell am I supposed to eat if I don’t have a mouth or even a digestive system?”

            You know, shit like that. And we try to one up each other. Come up with scenarios where strangers come over for a party and Lumpy starts typing “What is that thumping? I thought I was alone? Who’s there? I just want to be loved? Why won’t anyone love me?”

            Then, when the visitors question us as to where the disembodied voice is coming from we show them the bell jar on the mantle with a little yellow post-it note on it with the name “Lumpy” scrawled across it in purple crayon. Yeah, that’d be cool.

            Then we could pump some EDM and have Lumpy try to rap about all his woes. How miserable and emo he is. Or, he could become some sort of death metal singer. Lumpy and the Tumors! That’d be awesome.

            Okay, okay, I know, I am going overboard here. I can’t help it. It’s the way I’m wired. When I get stressed, when I’m nervous, when I don’t really know how to handle a situation, I make jokes. I laugh. I make light of the situation at hand. Be it a loved one in jeopardy, danger, pain, suffering or distress, I joke. Same with my own health. Same with any issue or problem I come across.

            Call it my base survival instinct. I have to joke, I have to laugh, I need to release the pressure inside me or I’ll explode in rage. Not a good thing.

            I’ve been told that both of these reactions, rage and humor are improper responses to stressful situations. I disagree. I used to rage, but it only made me exhausted and hurt more. With humor at least I laugh and feel better afterwards and no one is hurt. Offended? Yes. Hurt? No. Score one for Skip.

            I don’t exactly know when this survival mechanism kicked in, but I do know that I like it. I enjoy being able to crack jokes and make obscure references at the most inappropriate time. Offend the sensitivities of people who demand I keep quiet and show respect for the situation I’m in or around.

            To them and their ideas of keeping quiet and showing respect in the face of adversity I say “Ha! Yeah, right. Have you met me? I’m about the most impertinent person you could meet. For me to be courteous and respectful I’d actually have to have some sort of idiot. I’m insolent on a good day and discourteous on a bad day. My sarcasm and wit are what keep me from losing my mind and falling into a rabbit hole of general hate for a planet, a solar system, a galaxy and a universe hell bent on killing me and the ones I care about. Don’t believe me? Google things that can kill you in your home town or state. I’ll wait. Or better yet, google where in the solar system can humans survive besides earth. I’ll wait.

            Done? Good. See. Scary stuff. Now you could curl up in a ball of humanity and cry. Or, you could joke and laugh in the face of your imminent death. Because that is what I plan on doing. Sure I’m going to have weak moments of introspection, but my humor, my sarcasm and my wit are tools that keep the nastiness of life at bay. It gives me strength in the face of assured doom. It warms my soul and brings daylight at midnight. It makes me who I am and I’d have it no other way.

            So, ya, today is Lumpy’s birthday, the unwanted, unneeded bastard of flesh that has come into my life illegitimately. But that’s okay. Why? Because I’m hoping the doctors will actually allow me to take home this new addition to my family. I doubt it, but I hope so. Why? Cause it’ll make me laugh every time I look up at the mantle and see it slowly drying out and rotting away. Its birth and eventual death will make me feel as if I actually have some control over my own life.

            Control, we really don’t have any. We live, we survive and we die all on some unseen clock and we never know who the timekeeper really is or where they reside. The only control is over how we react to the life we exist in. We are here, we are present, and we are experiencing history as it occurs. We have a choice in how we handle those experiences. Do we curl up and die? Do we become overwhelmed with stress and shut down? Do we charge into the madness and fray and let loose with furious anger? Or do we step back, take a moment and realize the comical nature that life really is. Do we take into account that none of us will get out of life alive, that our influence is really no influence at all. That when it comes down to it, the only thing we have is the people closes to us, no matter who we are, and that eventually, we all feed the worms and no one will remember us.

            We are here now, let us live now, let us enjoy the good, the bad and the terrible. Let us laugh in the face of danger and strife, not because it is crazy, but because it will make you feel better and give your brain a few moments to assess the situation and allow you to react in a more thoughtful method. Well, after you’ve stopped giggling yourself silly.

            That is what I choose to do. I choose to laugh, I choose to joke, I choose to be inappropriate in the face of proper etiquette. Not because I’m arrogant and believe I know better, but because I don’t want to be the one who fails at life by being so proper that I’m forgotten. After all, do you remember the guy who got drunk at the party and made an ass of themselves? Or do you remember the guy who sat quietly in the corner drinking club soda all night?

            So laugh in the face of danger, in the face of adversity, in the face of strife and in the face of death. I’ve been doing it for years. And I’m going to do it today. So Lumpy, you crack me up, you’re small, insignificant, you can’t see, you can’t breathe and in the future, when you’re dead and gone, the only thing we will have to remember you is the laughter at your expense. Oh, and happy birthday and happy death day too!

            Have a great week.

A Jonas Heart

So, this past Tuesday I woke up with a minor irritation in the left side of my chest. I didn’t like it, so I ignored the persistent ache. What else is one supposed to do?

            I went on about my days, working as best as I could and telling myself that I just had a bad case of indigestion. To be truthful, I knew something was wrong, the machinations of my daily routine were limited by the chronic, constant pain that radiated from the center of my chest to under my left arm. Picking things up and putting them down, part of my daily routine, caused me to pause each time the need arose and to derive a new and unique solution to the task at hand.

            By the time Thursday arrived, a day I don’t have to work two jobs, I was glad I would be able to basically sit in my office, work on small motors and mechanics or just sit at my computer and do curatorial work. The day went by pretty smoothly, I listened to some great music on my record player as I went about my duties. The pain, still constant, was not irritated at all. When I got home that night, all I wanted to do was lie on my couch in a semi-comfortable position and try to breathe.

            Oh, did I forget to mention the pain with every breath? Ya, there was that too. If I took a too deep breath my body would be wracked with a series of sharp pains. I found a position, partially sitting up, partially on my side, a blanket to keep me warm and the television clicker in my hand I quickly found myself dozing off into the land of nod.

            Friday marked the arrival of snowstorm Jonas. Everything in my area closed early, I was summoned by my offspring to pick her up from school. I drove there, in pain and against my better judgement. When my child asked to go to a fast food place for lunch, I asked her if it was okay if we went straight home. I didn’t feel good. She accepted this and to home we went.

            By five pm, the pain was worse, my daughter, my wife and my mother all pestered me to the hospital. I did.

            Within thirty minutes of being in the emergency room I had received an EKG a chest x-ray and the privilege of expedited service. It wasn’t long before I was escorted to a small room, hooked up to a bunch of machines, poked, prodded, ultra-sounded and visited by doctors, nurses and several assistants. Eventually, one nurse, I’ll call him “Blondie” came in and administered me a shot of morphine. It took the edge of pain away with a dizzying head rush that shook the foundation of my reality. This feeling only lasted a moment, then my body acclimated to the toxin and allowed it to do the job it had been injected for.

            My pain subsided, but not by much. I still couldn’t get comfortable. The lights in the room were too bright, the painting on the wall, a watercolor of a beach scene, had streaks of paint on it where some type of fluid had been splattered all over it. I tried to not think what fluids had caused the streaks. However, looking up from where I lay I could see where the small, colorful, dried drips had ended their journey on the bottom of the frame. The paint had mixed together when it was wet, and when it dried, they formed round, black spots with a pale blue corona around them. They looked like a dozen little eyeballs staring at me, mocking me in their smug dried fashion. As if they knew my future and I didn’t. Black eyes with blue coronas withholding the knowledge I needed to make it through the night. I flipped off the disembodied eyes in my mind and tried to ignore them. What the hell did they know? They were born in a mass market paint shop where the artists are given only one color to smear across a never ending conveyor of canvases. Yeah, what the hell does a ruined painting know?

            Not long later Blondie comes back in, injects me with another shot, tells me what the drug is and walks away.

            I send my wife and child out for food. I sit in the room and hope for the best. In almost no time I began to feel better. By the time my family came back from getting food, I was sitting up and moving parts of my body did not cause me undue pain. After an hour or two the doc cut me loose and I was on my way home.

            Seven hours had passed.

            I arrived home with a prescription, a note to rest and not exert myself and the so called storm of the year bearing down on us. So I did the only thing I could do. I went to bed and slept for twelve hours.

            Throughout this whole ordeal I tried to be as cordial as I could. I even thought long and hard on whether or not to post what was going on in my life on social media. I eventually decided it couldn’t hurt, so I did. The outpouring of concern, care and interest was overwhelming to me. I thank everyone who reached out and expressed concern and are still expressing concern.

            That is it for now, I hope you all had a good week and that the storm Jonas did not affect you too badly.