Category Archives: Journal

by | June 7, 2012 · 11:28 am

The Boxer

 March 20, 2011
“I am just a poor boy but my story’s seldom told, I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles such are promises”

I am writing because I have failed again at something that just a few days ago I viewed as important. For the last two years I have tried my hand at so any different things, all bohemian. These endeavors have brought me little success and even less money. So why do I keep trying when every door I open is violently slammed in my face?

“Asking only workman’s wages I come looking for a job, but I get no offers,”

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by | June 6, 2012 · 8:00 am

Tattoos

He was perfect, well almost. I met him online. He was a big guy, 250 lbs of solid muscle and taller than me (for once). Arms. I have a thing for men’s arms, muscular ones. I find them attractive. His arms were huge. His biceps were easily larger than my thighs and his forearms were easily bigger than my calves. He actually called me a lot too, as in -instead of texting- and he even seemed interested at first. Then he added me to his Facebook. Those beautiful arms of his were not what I had seen in his pictures on the dating site. Now that I was privileged to the information on his Facebook, I saw that both his arms were tatted up with full sleeves!

In the past, I always found tattoos on guys to be sexy but two full sleeves? Not really my style… We went out to dinner where I was able to see them close up.

“Are those dinosaurs?” I asked examining the various illustrations on his arms.

“Dragons,” he promptly corrected me.

“Oh.”

He could call them whatever he wanted. They looked like dinosaurs to me and the thought of this big tough guy tattooing a family of blue and purple dinosaurs on his arms made me giggle. I tried to be respectful and bit my lip.

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by | May 9, 2012 · 12:10 pm

Loneliness and Sex

Since I am writing here about sexual feelings and the idea of finding love in this world the feeling of loneliness seems to be a big part of our search for happiness.  When you are finally quiet at the end of the day and go to bed alone what do you think of?  What stories do you tell yourself and what are your intimate moments like?

My mother says she is never depressed or lonely.  Many people who live alone claim to enjoy it and being part of a couple is trouble sometimes.  Being alone is easier than dealing with someone who stirs emotions that are not all positive.  But even lone wolves living in the vast wilderness of Alaska are always on the look out for others.  Lonely can make you crazy after awhile.

I think everyone feels lonely sometimes but it passes.  That must be what my mother means.  It isn’t so much that the Blues don’t find her it is that she moves on quickly and never gives up.  She appreciates living alone for the first time in her life.  I do too.  But I am lonely unless I have a guy I like to talk to on the internet or on the phone and the hope that I could be part of a couple again.

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by | May 8, 2012 · 6:31 pm

Becoming Whole

I remember the first day I babysat Melanie. I was in college and a local family hired me to watch her four days a week. Things went really well during the initial consultation. The meeting was arranged to see if she liked me. I did her nails and then we did a puzzle. She did like me, of course, and there I was again the next Monday morning. We waved from the window as her mother drove off. This job is going to be so easy, I remember thinking… And then as soon as her mother’s car was out of site, she burst out screaming and crying. She was only four years old at the time and I was too ignorant to realize that four year olds are essentially the emotional equivalent of year old babies.

My eyes bugged out of my head. I stared at her unsure of what to do. I grew up as an only child and lived a extremely solitary existence for most of my young and adult life. I had minimal experience with children up until that point. Thankfully an inkling of maternal instinct kicked in. I picked her up and soothed her until she stopped crying.

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by | April 19, 2012 · 7:14 pm

Now I understand love

Yesterday was my dog’s birthday. Well, it would’ve been. I know I have told this story a million times but hear me out. I had always wanted a little girl dog. My parents took me to a farm. When we pulled up to it, you could see a small play pen in the yard holding three little white puppies. We got out of the car and the lady asked me to help her carry one of the puppies. She handed me one and when it looked into my eyes, for some reason I knew that this was the only dog for me. But it was a boy dog and I wanted a girl… I debated. I knew that if I didn’t pick this puppy, based on whatever it was I saw in his eyes and him in mine, that I would regret it for the rest of my life. I am glad I listened to my heart that day.

I was so tired Saturday morning. QT Pie had been sick that night and I must’ve taken him outside five times. Well actually that could describe every night that week, him waking me up to take him outside five times… or maybe for the last month, I have lost track.  He was starting to get antsy again. I woke up and looked at him. He was staring at me. More like gazing, a loving gaze, really.

When I found out he had renal failure, a month or two earlier,  I spent the night alone crying in the living room. He soon appeared out of nowhere to comfort me like he always had. This of course made me even more upset. Whenever I cried, since I first got him as a 12- year old child, he would lick the tears off of my face and lay down next to me until I felt better.

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by | April 15, 2012 · 9:53 pm

Arizona: Photo Series

Hayley Rose 2005

Before I moved to Arizona in 2005, my father brought me my first real camera. For about a week or so I drove around taking pictures of sunrises. It wasn’t so much that I got up earlier as that I stayed out late…

Hayley Rose 2005

Hayley Rose 2005

Hayley Rose 2005

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by | March 27, 2012 · 3:33 pm

What if You Had a Fire and No One Came but Sweet Valley High?

Part 2

Life after the house fire became like the movie Groundhog Day. Every day was the same and I could not see any light at the end of the tunnel. I had no family to call and vent my grief as the only member still alive was my sister. Through constant interference not of our own doing we had not spoken in a few years. I just couldn’t seem to pick up the phone and make the first move because I was stupid.

Life was filled with menial things like picking out wallpaper and hand painting a lot of trim. The firemen had given us a couple of boxes that were decorated like Christmas presents. They had not wanted the kids to be upset so they had wrapped up the perished pets as gifts. Since it was in the dead of winter I could not bury them so I made a tiny raft and sent them down the river.

whyme

The last pet standing was Snoopy who was an emotional mess and he now slept his life away. The dog knew things were out of his control like I did and had lost his friends in the fire so he literally gave up. I would go upstairs every few hours and coax him down to eat or go outside. But most of the time I just hugged him and cried.

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by | March 20, 2012 · 10:00 am

A House is no Longer a Home When a Landslide Brings You Down

Part 1.

I started this story last Saturday after I took pictures of homes that are now red and yellow tagged and about to slide down one of the hills in San Pablo, CA. For 21 days it has rained and anyone living on a precarious slope in the Bay Area knows the dangers. One of the homes that is red tagged was actually built on the same spot that a former residence in 1973 tumbled down to its final fate. How people can build on hills or on fault lines just for a view in this area boggles my mind.

 

sinker

As I drove by and watched neighbours help each other load belongings into U Hauls I understood the feelings that everyone had. Fifteen years ago my home had been ravaged by fire and I too sat there looking at destruction that I did not have any control over. I cannot begin to tell you how one feels when devastation hits your inner core as you watch something you loved vanish in a few fleeting hours.

It was a cold January day and the kids were flooding the rink outside when I noticed our German shepherd, Snoopy racing in from the greenhouse with a huge plume of black smoke trailing him. If there is an emergency I am not the one to send to an EMT unit as I panic easily. I screamed for someone to call 911 and we simply thought a hose spraying a steady stream of water into the basement window was enough to contain the fire.

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by | March 13, 2012 · 8:45 am

I Wrote This Because You Loved Me

The hour after my sister died I found myself asleep in a hospital chair dreaming of a wall sized art painting that featured ugly trolls holding crow marionettes.  It was an awful painting and I had no idea why I was there. Right below the painting two lines of words were written on the wall:

Joy in Life
Joy in Death

Now what was that supposed to mean, I asked myself. There might be some joy in life but is there really joy in death?  There was no doubt in my mind that I had experienced a lot of tragedy through my life. From the minute I was born, to this particular moment in time, death has always seemed to stalk me. It seems to challenge me at every moment and creates a permanent sadness deep in my soul.  I had seen so many people die in front of me that others felt I knew the final secrets just by looking at me and they would ask:

“What do you do when someone dies?”

“What do you say to those that survive?”

I knew I could not stop life or death so I would silently ponder and say to them quietly:

“Joy in life”
“Joy in death”

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by | March 8, 2012 · 8:45 am

I’m Drinking Your Vodka Tonight

I had found it under your bathroom sink again. I found it behind your printer once. I found it in your file cabinet. I hated that you hid booze in the house. Once you poured it out. Once you let me put it in the cabinet. Once it killed you.

I put the last four bottles I found under the bathroom cabinet in the back closet. Then I cleaned that closet out and put the Vodka in the kitchen cabinet. It has been there a couple months. Tonight I am having a cocktail. A Pineapple/Vodka drunk. An ode to your life. A time to take you away from this world and out into the universe. Unfortunately the crash back to earth is not worth it. I don’t like the payback but you didn’t seem to mind.

It took me all this time to buy some Pineapple juice. Today at Walmart I found some cheap and that is just what I wanted. You and I had wonderful fun with our Pineapple Cocktails. We added a red cherry to mine and you switched to Grapefruit Juice because you were that kind of guy. We loved our cocktail hour. We loved to play but you had to have more. You had to have a pint of this Vodka a day. A pint. You wanted to transcend. So tonight I am transcending in your honor. Tonight I am remembering the joys of alcohol.

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