Dream(s)

I rarely remember mine. I generally only remember bits and pieces of most dreams, but I will remember more if they're intense or freaky or nightmarish. Maybe I'd know more about myself if I could remember them, since they're supposed to be expressions of your subconcious some say, or bits of the future others say. There's one thing that happens a lot in my dreams, manifesting itself in a few different ways, but I'm not going to tell you about it. What I will tell you about is that the other night I dreamed of my son.

If you know me (and if you're reading this you most likely do), then you know I don't have a son, or daughter. And never have. I'd like to someday, but it's not today. He was very small, maybe a month or 2 old with a head of dark hair. He was laying on his back on some kind of plastic tray, starkly lit from above. He was making some noises and moving around a little bit. I got up real close to him, but slowly as I was worried about scaring him, which he wasn't. Other than that, all I really remember is sniffing his smell. Maybe I was a cat in my dream because that's what I was acting like.

And then I got this one...

These folks don't seem to like husbands for some reason.

Sinalyomm'e' The only good husbands stay bachelors: They're too considerate to get married.
Rich folks always talk hard times.Never a lip is curved with pain That can't be kissed into smiles again.
Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. The search for someone to blame is always successful.

The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. Children are living jewels dropped unsustained from heaven.
The noblest search is the search for excellence.
Man becomes a slave to his constantly repeated acts. What he at first chooses, at last compels. The drama of life begins with a wail and ends with a sigh.

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

The proverb warns ''Don't bite the hand that feeds you.'' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.
It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to ''meddle not''.Enthusiasm... the sustaining power of all great action.

No man is a success in business unless he loves his work.
I'm never less at leisure than when at leisure, or less alone than when alone.

This one wanted me to see nekkid pictures of Britney Spears and was sent by Appositives Q. Errica. Thanks Appositives!

The most poetic spam of all time

Somebody named Products S. Blouse (email: yodeler@srv0.civ.edinburgh.ac.uk) asks me 2 questions: "What's your pleasure, squire?" and "How to have the best sex humanly possible?" Then, below the image that hints at answers to that 2nd question, wraps it all up with some crazy, random lines....

********************

Qui' b'o'tic A good husband is healthy and absent.
There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives, and remembering what one receives.
To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.
When first we met we did not guess that Love would prove so hard a master.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.

Love, you are eternal like springtime.

If you look like your passport picture you're too ill to travel.
Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavor.
I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.
The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion, but rather to know it.
Plant a seed of friendship reap a bouquet of happiness.
We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Communication is depositing a part of yourself in another person.
Evil is always possible. Goodness is a difficulty.

He who gives while he lives, get to know where it goes.
When you doubt, abstain.

Some have greatness thrust upon them, but not lately.

************************

Dig it, man. Dig it.

Gladys Delynne Light

She would have been 84 today, but she died last April 29. This is what I said at her funeral:

Gladys Light was my grandmother, and a consistent ray of light throughout my 30 years on this Earth. In my opinion, she was nothing less than a saint. As such a positive influence, my thoughts and feelings for her are innumerable... so these are but a few of the things that occur to me when I think of her. They are by no means all of the things. And, yes, more than one of them is in some way about her cooking.

The soft, papery thinness of her skin.

Her many different laughs and her ability to laugh at herself.

Working crossword puzzles with her. She'd do as much as she could and then hand it to me with an exasperated sigh and say, "Oh finish it Steve." She was one of the few people allowed to call me Steve and not Stephen.

One piece of advice she gave me many, many times:"Take 2, they're small," she would say as she sometimes passed me the biscuits and sometimes just went ahead and put 2 on my plate.

Everything else she taught me by example, by the way she lived her life. Whether it was how to make a marriage last. And last and last and last for 60 amazing years. Or how to love your family without fail.

When I'd take my last bite of lunch and she'd go, "Your plate is empty. Why don't you let me put something on it?" and even though I was really full and I knew there was still dessert to come, I'd let her do it because 1) it was some of the best home cooking ever, and 2) because I thought somehow I'd let her down if I didn't. And this would be after she'd made sure everybody else had a full plate while she would have a few bites of this and that. "Grandma aren't you going to eat?" "Oh, I snacked while I was cooking."

Playing gin rummy and giving me some haughty but playful indignation after I'd gone out with a really good hand and she was still holding everything

The shape of her mouth and the voice that came out of it.

How as a young boy I used to hate to leave the Farm so much that I would cry all the way to Henderson.

I don't want to say my grandmother was a bad driver, but the rush of adrenaline I got riding in the car with her outdid many a rollercoaster.

How her scrambled eggs were thick with many layers.

That when it came to family history, her mind held more information than the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

Fishing in the vast green waters of Lake Overton, always dreaming and talking of pulling in the "big one" and then remembering you were at Lake Overton and a 4 inch perch was the big one.

Watching Saturday Night Live with her and the awkward embarrassment I always felt whenever a somewhat risqué skit would come on.

The way she smelled.

Making sure Papa had Cool Whip for his dessert.

The sound and rhythm of her footsteps in another room.

Four kids running around in superhero underwear without a care in the world.

Eating cereal in a juice cup at night.

Sitting on the front porch, rocking in those rocking chairs as the sun goes down and the colors in the sky change. Hearing a big truck come down the road and get louder and louder, following the sound behind the treeline with your eyes until it roars past the stop sign at the end of Red Level Loop. And you're talking with her about something or she's telling you a story about somebody and it doesn't matter what it is because you're with her and she's the one telling it.

That we don't get to choose the families into which we're born. And I was lucky enough to have hit the jackpot and been born into hers. That I may be an only child but I have 6 cousins whom I love as brothers and sisters.

And finally, when it would be my first night up for a visit and we'd be done watching David Letterman or Seinfeld or Conan or whatever. Papa and anybody else who was there would have gone to bed sometime earlier and she may have dozed off her in chair for a couple of minutes already. As I'd come out of the bathroom from brushing my teeth, she would say, "I'm glad you're here," and I'd say, "Me too, Grandma." Then we'd kiss each other good night and she'd pat me on the cheek and say, "You're a fine boy." And I've yet to receive a greater compliment.

May God bless and keep Saint Gladys until we meet again.

Mmm... that's good time wasting

Interesting items found at petitiononline.com. Please note I only made it thru the Symbol, #, and A entries, barely a dent. The things I do to avoid doing other things...

Ashlee Simpson,
$1,000,000 & a Pony,
Language of the Future,
Smurfs on DVD,
Prom,
28th Amendment,
Vacation,
50 Cent naked,
64 oz Malt Liquor, Matt860,
Gackt's b-day,
Ninjas to get Saddam,
Pop Princesses,
Sexy Estonians,
A Fanbolt Mod on the OC,
Olsen Twins Nekkid,
Mike Tyson,
Kid Needs Computer,
Free Internet,
A Petition to Allow Sheep... in Suburban Neighborhoods Petition,
Request for Babes,
Ann Coulter needs food,
Nat'l Food--Cup o' Noodles,
Down w/Volkswagen Golf,
I don't Like Mondays,
Abolish the Internet(s),
Afghani Wombat Abuse,
Adam & Steve,
Add "Queef" to the Dictionary,
Add 6 hours to every day,
Steve Zissou shoes,
One-Legged Weasels...,
Let the Silly Rabbit eat Trix,
Fake Mustaches in Alabama churches,
Left Shoe is King of the World,
Bubbies!,
Amanda=Sexy,
Yo God,
Harold & Kumar,
Andy's Scary Feet,
Anti-LOL

Weak Effort

This is one feeble attempt to get me to give up the goods:

D‮rae‬ Ya‮oh‬o! Memb‮re‬,

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b‮esuace‬ s‮emo‬ of th‮rie‬ me‮rebm‬s no l‮regno‬ h‮va‬e a‮ecc‬ss to email a‮sserdd‬es on Yah‮oo‬! and t‮eh‬y n‮ee‬d to v‮ire‬fy you.
You mu‮ts‬ co‮pm‬lete t‮sih‬ proc‮se‬s by c‮gnikcil‬ on the l‮ni‬k b‮le‬ow:



    and en‮iret‬ng y‮ruo‬ b‮kna‬ ATM-De‮ib‬t Ca‮dr‬ nu‮rebm‬ and PIN t‮tah‬ you use on A‮MT‬.

Did they use some bad translation software or was this the best English writer they have? Oh wlle, at lstea I was adqutleyea ntreetainde.

misc.

This fascinates me.

Our cat is orange. Orange seems like such a weird color for an animal. Tigers, monkeys, cats, snakes, and many other things, I'm sure, are orange. My hair was what one would call red, but was really orange, up until the 4th grade or so. But sometimes I just look at the cat and marvel at her orangeness. Then I wonder if aliens have creatures they keep as pets and what they may be (probably not a cat) and would they be orange.

You’re sitting in the airport, an hour and a half before your flight takes off. The iTunes is cranked in your headphones in an attempt to block out the p.a. system, a cell phone ringing with the William Tell Overture, and a loud curly-headed kid who’s bouncing around and spinning luggage carts thru the seating area. As you finish typing that sentence, Bebel Gilberto comes on and soothes you instantly. Thank God.

It was just a few hours ago that you walked away from your 3rd funeral in as many days. This one was in Pasadena, the working-class, oil refinery suburb of Houston, in a cemetery where the ground was soft and some grave markers were submerged from the recent rains. Afterwards, you look for your uncle’s grave; he was cremated and his ashes buried there 12 years earlier. Before the service, an employee gave you a map marking his gravesite. She’s directed you to an empty plot. Idiot. Your mother calls her sister who directs her to the correct spot. It’s a not-so-bad spot in a not-so-great cemetery. You linger, wishing there was more to this moment, but there isn’t. So it’s back in the car where you wonder if you’ll come back to this place again, if this will be the last time that you lay your eyes upon the marker of this person with whom you share a name.

Later, you’re in the car again (fucking Houston) going to eat at what would be a crappy Chinese buffet (it rumbles in your stomach now). Your grandmother is telling you about her neighbor, a nurse who got laid off because she had to take time off for an operation. This woman has a daughter who’s spent time in a mental hospital or some such place. They were visiting your grandmother when you walked in the door. You could tell there was something about the girl because she was quiet in a shy way, though she was of an age that you’d think would be after that shy period. You remember the shy period because you had one yourself. The daughter is living at home now though your grandma says she shouldn’t be. Your mom interjects with what you hope is an exaggeration, that the girl tries to kill herself every weekend. As you’re just beginning to think about her mother’s hardship, your mother and her mother say she should tell the girl to go on and do it, to kill herself. You tell them you’re going to ignore that statement. They pass it off as a form of tough love and try to explain it. Another uncle used to hold his breath when he was a kid, apparently as some kind of protest or cry for attention. Finally, your grandmother told him if he wanted to hold his breath until he died, that would be fine with her. And that was the last time he did it.

Well, great for him.

But how does that have anything to do with this girl? How the fuck do they know exactly what’s going on in this girl’s mind? Nobody’s ever said anything to you about your uncle having mental problems that would cause him to hold his breath like he did. So you just don’t see the correlation. The lack of understanding that sometimes rears its ugly head in this world can be staggering. And sometimes because it’s your family and you know them better than others, you know it would be futile to go further in the conversation, so you drop it. You are, however, surprised at your mom’s lack of sensitivity, as she knows that the first funeral you attended this week was for someone who had some problems and took her own life, someone your age. Who’s to say that if things had gone differently, that it could have been you in a casket?

Grandma is a smoker so you sit in the smoking section of the restaurant. Smoking contributed to the death of the woman whose funeral you just left, and led to the deaths of your two deceased grandparents, including your grandma’s husband. It was just a few years ago that you were with them outside the VA hospital in Little Rock, watching him smoke thru the tube in his neck. Cancer had taken his vocal cords and his life would soon follow. She tried to quit a couple of years ago, taking some pills, but it didn’t work. So it’s kind of painful for you to see that three out of four of the other parties in the smoking section all have babies sitting in high chairs.

Then, the MSG in the crappy food causes your mom’s girlfriend’s heart to seize up. At first you think it’s a little indigestion and will pass, but it doesn’t. Her face gets flushed and her breathing is labored as she digs in her purse for her pills. She can’t find them and the situation is getting worse. Your mom gets up and begins to search the flotsam and jetsam inside the purse. Finally, as the moment reaches its crescendo, she finds the pills and puts a couple on her friend’s tongue. As her breathing returns to normal, you overhear the redneck smoking in his grandbaby’s face say that this place is a regular three-ring circus.

At the smoking table without a baby, an obese woman returns to the table with a plate that is not her first, piled high with food. A man at the table who might be her husband takes the opportunity to humiliate her with an exasperated, “Goddamn.” At another table, the twentysomething mom sits down with a plate consisting only of batter-fried foods. You ache to leave this hell, wondering if this is the majority of America, hoping it isn’t.

the sound of Inevitability

In a span of less than 36 hours on Friday and Saturday, I was informed of 3 deaths. I kind of feel like I've been punched in the gut. I'm going to a service today in Austin, one tomorrow in Houston, and one Thursday also in Houston. This all follows another death in NYC of someone whom I didn't know but was with some people my sister-in-law knows when she was killed, murdered actually. Her name was Nicole DuFresne and the story made some national headlines. You can Google it if you want.

Two of these people were around my age and the other two were older, in their 70s. Murder. Unknown reason (at least for me as of now). Cancer. Failing health brought about by emphysema (I think). Mortality catches up with you in a variety of ways, all inescapable.

This life we live is nothing short of an adventure, not knowing what will happen from one day to the next. We wake up and anything is possible. Even our own deaths. I think about that sometimes. Driving someplace, I get the green light, and as I pull out into the intersection, a truck runs the light at 40 mph, spins me around like a top. Game over.

So I'm grateful that these... ends... of the adventure have a balance, a beginning somewhere else, in the body of a mother. Someone new to learn all that we have learned and are able to pass on. Props to the parents, those who have been, those who are, and those who will be for doing what they do.

It's easy to forget death, or to take it for granted, until it takes someone you know. Then, you get that reminder, the skeleton in the black robe with the scythe and the hourglass saying, "Remember me?" The timing of these events for me is, well, helpful on a personal level. (I've been schooled not to apologize here so I won't, but I hope anybody reading this doesn't take any disrespect as none is meant.) I passed up this job, a job of good money for a few different reasons, one of which was that I've got some personal projects bubbling up, and didn't want to put them on hold for 6 months. Also, money isn't everything and isn't the god at whose altar I wish to worship. I am, however, a procrastinator, a dreamer, a talker, and not as much of a doer as I'd like to be. So the choice is to continue down the path I'm on, or to go another way. Each one will come to an end at some unknown point. The difference is in what I've done while on the path. Nothing or something. Something or nothing. I've had this talk with myself before. Looking at the time between then and now, I didn't change to that other path. Maybe this time is different. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe...

Got this from a friend.

"His mother had often said, 'When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action.' She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it."

-Lois McMaster Bujold, writer (1949- )

A Change in the Scenery

I'm going to try and get away from this being review-centered. I don't like the way they're coming out. There will probably still be some here and there, but hopefully not every entry. That's not who I am, and not the kind of writer I want to be so why do that?

The cat wants attention (she's laying over my arms as I type) and the Mrs. will be home soon, also wanting attention, so I'm going to go.

I may have backed myself up against a wall with a decision I made yesterday not to take a job. But I think I needed to do it, to push myself. We shall see. That earlier post about Mr. Q certainly played a part, because I passed up some money but, well, fuck it. I would have been putting myself in a position that probably would have made me unhappy and that's not what we, or more specifically, I, need to be doing. Now, to quit talking the talk and start walking the proverbial walk.

Sideways

The nominees are out, so in our efforts to see the Best Picture nominees we hit Sideways tonight. Oscar worthy? Mmm, maybe, though I'd have given one to The Life Aquatic before this. It's not bad, I laughed a lot, and totally recommend it. Paul Giamatti is a kick-ass actor; track down Safe Men if you haven't seen it. And I never thought I'd see Lowell from TV's Wings nominated for an Oscar but, well, life has its little surprises. If you asked me about Finding Neverland, I'd be saying similar things--Not bad, but Top 5? Too bad the vaunted members of the Academy forgot Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the most part. Up next: Hotel Rwanda and The Aviator.