Lou and Louis Guzman Get Married

I don't have to look very far to get inspiration from people in my life.  Perfect example being my Sister-in-law.  Someone who started her life over.  I won't go into detail as I don't really have any, and it isn't my story to tell, but there was a point in her life when she could have made some decisions differently.  She could have made things easy.  Is 'easy' the word?  Probably not.  Maybe I can say that she could have accepted that life wasn't exactly as she wanted it, and then did as most of us do and settled for what she had. 

What I do know is that she made some very brave choices.  Decisions I don't think I could have made in my life.  Basically, she wanted something for herself, and she decided to go and get it.  Linda and I are very different people.  A couple of times we lived together.  My wife, her sister, and the ever crotchety quiet man.  We shared rent, and tried not to kill each other for small periods of time.  Now, we surely have things we do which drive each other crazy, but at the end of the day I think we love each other.  I know I love her.   I am ever impressed with her abilities as a person, and a mother.

Now I did play a rather key role in this life she has attained for herself.  As much as Linda likes to give credit for her meeting Mark (her husband) to my wife.  Let me dispel that myth.  It has very little to do with Susanne and everything to do with me.  I have an uncanny ability to tell good people from bad almost instantly.  On a particular night sitting across from a guy I didn't know, at a work function which was not mine (It was Susanne's).  Linda showed up (this is the Coles Notes version obviously) said she couldn't meet any good guys.  I told her she didn't want to meet good guys, she fit the profile of a young single female, which meant she wanted to meet guys that would treat her like shit, and what she really wanted was a guy to follow around like a puppy dog.  Now I know that's harsh, but I was drinking (oldest excuse in the world I know) and I barely filter what I say at the best of times, and when I drink the filter gets turned off.  She took offense to this of course, and was adamant that she wanted to meet a nice guy.  So I pointed across the table and said 'there is a nice guy, go meet him'.  And she did.

Now she has most of what I think she wants out of life.  I am sure there is a great deal more I am missing, but this is a blog and not a biography, so if you want to know the rest, then become her friend and stop nosing around.  Just kidding.

The point is, two days ago a very lucky little girl was born into a very good home, to two very good people.  Their life inspires others, just as all of our lives do.  I realize more and more that the things we say and do as individuals ripple into the universe.  Be the best version of yourself that you can be, and those actions inspire others.  They really do, even if you don't realize it.  I often feel that responsibility prevents me from following a dream.  Trying not to get in your own way on the path to your goal is diificult at the best of times, and making brave decisions at the right time is the only real way forward that won't lead to regret.  That is advise I've had trouble dealing with.  The things we want often don't seem to mesh with the place we are in, but if you take Linda's example, then one day you too could be in the place you want to be, surrounded by the people you most want to be with.  If only we could all live by the example of others.

I do take credit for everything they have.  Quite simply it is my greatness that built everything they have.  Obviously, I am kidding.  I just look back on these two really great people that found their way into each other's lives, and feel good that I said something, as often I am apt to keep things to myself.  At least at this point in my life, what I said, was completely out of character.  Today, not so much.  Maybe Linda making her first steps to a different life at that time, began the creation of the monster known as ME.  I had actually never made that connection until this moment, but watching her become who she is, has certainly helped to make me who I am today.  Now if we could only determine if that change was a good thing...

Razor Blades and Glue Sticks

I have started to discover my friends are worried about me.  Well... The normal ones are.  The ones who can't believe anyone would put personal stuff out there for the world to see.  And believe me I can understand that, but there are two things you all need to know.  First, everything here is real, and as many of you who get to spend time with me know, I haven't written anything here, that I haven't said out loud at some point.  Secondly, I am a writer, and I often say things for dramatic affect.  Don't get me wrong, I mean it.  But as my wife tells me all the time, I embellish everything.  Metaphorically speaking I sing the contents of the phone book, rather than just say the names out loud.  I read the Sunday Times using the voice of Kermit D Frog.  You need to take me with a grain of salt sometimes.  The core of what I am saying, the root of it, is completely true, but the words are dressed up like drag queens at a gay pride parade.

I have an ever growing group of Favorite People.  It's a list I keep in my head, and the list changes.  As some of you know my life is about to change in a very big way.  I am leaving a job I have long loved (and recently more-or-less hated) for something new.  It's a great opportunity for me.  I struggled with it for the past few months.  I have four people I work with who keep me sane, make my life easy, and let me talk nonsense and make a fool of myself everyday.  I have a team of people who I have long felt a kinship with that goes beyond anything I have ever experienced.  Leaving this behind guts me to the core and leaves me bleeding. 

I have felt protective and proud, laughed uncontrollably and commiserated, and worked beside the best people you could hope for.  Initially, I didn't want to leave because I thought it would all collapse without me, but eventually I realized how arrogant that was.  The truth is I have taught these guys everything I know, and they have taught me right back.  We grew together as people and fought the good fight for a common goal.  Now I have nothing left, and in fact with me removed these guys will go to the next level.  They need me to go so they can learn even more.  Sometimes growth has to hurt a little first.  I suppose you can make the argument that I am telling myself this just to make myself feel better, and I see your point.  I thought of that too, but it's not the case.

I will always have a relationship with these guys.  We will still play poker, we will still have dinner, we will always be friends, and I will always be there for anyone of them.  We just won't work together anymore.  I don't have kids, but I imagine this sadness mixed with other emotions is sort of like sending your kid off to kindergarten for the first time.  All those emotions of fear, excitement, and sadness cutting you to the core, and making you take the next step in life whether you want to or not.  The kid will obviously be fine, but as a parent you want to throw yourself down, and demand that time stop.  You want to be protective and shelter your child from possibility they may get hurt, and then reality slaps you awake again.  You realize - that for the child you love so much to grow - you have to let them go.  There comes a time when holding on only smothers the ones we love.  I honestly think this is the case here. 

I hope that as time goes by I will be remembered as fondly as I will remember them.  I hope they feel like I was a good boss, and an even better coworker.  I have been honoured and privileged to work along side these guys for more than 7 years.  I have fought and struggled against the decision to leave, but at the end of the day if you cut yourself open with a razor blade - you can't fix it with a glue stick. 

How's that for drag queens at a gay pride parade???

Vegas, the dirty underworld told by a repentant man in flannel

I sit in my underwear with little to say.  OK, I don't wear underwear.  I have to confess to you all that I did to go Vegas.  We all know the line which forbids me from uttering what I am about to, but if I were a man of faith, which I am not, and you were my Priest, which you are not, and we were sitting in a little booth...  I would have to tell you everything, and then you could judge me, tell me what to do, and I would be free from my mistakes and misgivings.  No, I am not making fun of religions.  I guess I need to state that as we all know how the entire world seems to have lost their sense of humour about pretty much everything. 

So Bless me Anonymous Internet Person for I have sinned...  I went to Las Vegas to get rich, and stake my claim on the world.  Instead, I took a handicap room (mostly by accident), lost almost everything, had a random person lick my face, and gave money away to people I don't know.  I didn't lose money, I actually gave it away as I won it.  I consumed alcohol at a startling rate, and actually was so drunk at one point I got lost in a casino, and couldn't find my way out.  I ate way too much, golfed horribly, and had a great time overall.  Being as I am old and boring that is about it.  The only vow I broke was the one about getting rich and staking my claim on the world.  Overall, job well done.  The face licking thing haunts me, and generally makes me feel ill.  Although, I do believe the person who licked my face, whom I do not know or remember her name, posted it on her Facebook.  If you know who she is, or have seen the video/picture, please tell her EW! 

Halloween Party Mark I was a great success.  We will be doing again next year - so those of you who missed it will get a second chance.  As for Hall and Oates, well they were a great disappointment to all who looked forward to meeting them.  They kept asking the male guests if 'that was a sock in their pants or if the guy was just happy to see them'.  They drank to excess, and had to be carried into their limo at the end of the night.  They didn't perform, and signed only 2 autographs the entire night. 

I am working on writing something on the fiction front as I promised last week.  However, the two ideas I started were actually too good to give away for free on the Internet so please standby.  I have too much raw stuff going on in my brain to go any further on the personal front.  Good thing I am invisible.  Lord knows no one wants to see a middle aged guy, crying, typing his life story/life issues in his underwear (Reminder: I don't wear underwear).  Oooohhh the perfect over share beginning gets retread with a perfect over share ending...

Face Tattoos and Elder Folk

I have nothing to say that can lead to any good.  There is a stillness where I stand, and yet everything in my life is moving.  Any attempt I make at a comment could end up looking premature or foolish.  So what am I writing?  I get asked if 'I am writing something new soon' quite often.  It nice to have people follow you, but the dangers of expressing true free thought do tend to catch up to you from time to time.  So what do you do?  Do you edit your true feelings?  What if people who know you professionally, but not personally stumble on your inner thoughts?  I suppose the slight anonymity I have created with a pen name helps, but that is a pretty flimsy shield in the world of Facebook.  I'll have you know that I haven't pulled any punches in these posts.  Some of them are a little too close to home, and that hasn't come without a price at times.

I suppose I don't have anything to hide, but maybe I will one day.  Maybe I do now, but I just don't realize it yet.  I don't want to run away from what I have started here, but it is daunting to release your true life stories, unedited into the void.  Especially, when you have an underused talent as a writer of fiction and a driving whim to create absolutely anything.  When you craft words they can sting, they can emote, they can also exaggerate, and outright lie.  I can't imagine any of that can be good for a person's long term outlook.  So what do you do?  Do you go all Rolling Stones and spill your blood all over the stage cause it's only Rock N Roll, or do you retreat to the "normal" world and stay silent?

I had a long conversation about being "normal" today.  I suppose I am normal (now that stings).  I have sought a life of control, and had a distaste for chaos.  Turns out that was a huge mistake in my life.  The safe road is boring, and now I'm old and stuck (how's that for honesty).  I don't intend on staying that way.  I have been quietly chipping away at the bedrock I have created underneath myself.  I am now about to blossom into a beautiful butterfly (don't ask me how).  Basically, I refuse to undervalue myself ever again.  That may be an innocuous statement, but it is a motto I intend to live by and just today I put it into action.  If it means compromising to move forward then I am going to stay still.  No more accepting the normal or the safe road.  I am going to tattoo my face, stop driving and take a pogo stick to work singing It's My Party and I'll cry If I Want To, all the way to work.  Except in winter so that last bits on hold until June (coward).  But the face tattoo that is going to happen.  Maybe a butterfly....  

I have been thinking that I could post a weekly running story of some kind.  Like the serial fiction newspapers used to publish.  Take Sherlock Holmes as an example, except mine would have no crime solving or excitement, just random fictional characters with huge personality flaws and anxiety.  Sounds delicious I know.  Let me know your thoughts.  If you want to read it - I will write it weekly or more if I can.  Why go through all the trouble of selling something when you can give it away for free?

The never ending lure of the fetal position

What I have come to realize is that living a life completely free of regret is basically impossible.  I am sure there are people far more clever than I am, and much younger, who have been perhaps reading my posts and screaming this simple message at me through their computers.  The fact of the matter is, out of the 6 billion people on earth, I would imagine that only a handful would get to the end of their lives and think ‘I did everything right.  I could not possibly have done anything different’.  It is ridiculous to think a person who really lives  their life could have no regrets.  Well I am an idiot, and I have been regretting the fact that I have many regrets.

I realize that many of you may be growing tired of these posts with their tiny revelations (to me these are often full out bomb blasts of unseen reality, scary isn’t it).  All I can say is sorry, and you have full permission to stop reading.  Turn it off for the love of God.  I get it.  I just need to keep plugging away.  How I’ve gone from someone who lived secretly hiding in the shadows and slowly gaining weight.  Successfully hiding away I might add until I reached hermit status and 320 pounds.  Fast forward to a man with a website, a book half done (and not bad), and a guy who posts the intimate details of his life for the world to see is staggering to me.  I’ve accomplished goals (small ones) and in doing so have set astronomical future goals.  In creating this vision I dealt myself an uppercut beyond anything I have felt before.  The weight of the world now resting full force on my shoulders (self-inflicted) I have been stumbling around.  Still, the man I was 3 years ago is gone.  He actually hardly exists anymore save for the ability to think nothing I’ve done is good enough.

Now this has been hard on me.  Its been a series of very high points and very low points, but the man I am now is very different.  It’s taken me the same amount of time to realize that the person this has been hardest on is not me.  Imagine living with someone for seventeen years and for fourteen of those years you knew the person well, and then three years later that person was gone.  The man or woman you lived with and loved is just gone.  What if you don’t like the new person?  What if the new person doesn’t like you?  What if you don’t know how to ask?  What if you really don’t want to know the answer?

So here is this sweet, wonderful, lovely woman standing by, being supportive, conjuring a smile of encouragement, wondering the whole time who the hell is this guy?  What happened to the guy who hated people and sat in a crowd quietly with little to say?  How do I handle a person who was happy being himself,  A man who was comfortable in his own skin, and now here is this over grown child frustrated by everything he has built?  It must be incredibly difficult.

 

I guess all relationships go through their growing pains.  There are people who manage to stay the same throughout their lives, and there are people who change at varying speeds.  I would like to talk to some couples that have managed to weather the storms.  Mostly, I would like to point out that the person I am lucky enough to be married to has been incredibly understanding.  She is honest and true to her word, and she is kind and loving.  There are no guarantees that she will want to be with me forever.  As she is the first to point out - things change and you just never know.  What I can say for sure is that I am 37 and for almost half my life I have been privileged to be with someone who loved me, and there is no one who could call that into question.  The part that remains to be seen as always is where the future will take us.  I can’t stop the changes.  I don’t want to be that person who is stuck and afraid of life anymore.  Perhaps that is a harsh evaluation of my former self, but looking back that is what it feels like.

Still, five years ago I would have told you I had everything.  I would have told you that I didn’t want anything to change, and those words would have been 100% true.  Today, I would say that I have everything, and I can’t see it staying the same.  I don’t know what that means exactly.  I just know that as things keep moving forward when I ask my wife if she still likes me, I just hope the answer is yes.  I also know that there is a very good chance, due to the fact that I have changed so very much, the answer just might be no.

Whatever she decides I can honestly say that when it comes to my wife there are no regrets.  She is crazy and loveable, she is head strong and honest, she has been my best friend for seventeen years and that time cannot be erased.  We have built a wonderful life - that we quite frankly discussed tearing down brick by brick just yesterday.  If she told me today that she couldn't be with me, it would hurt like hell, but it would be forever and always the best part of my life.  Doesn't matter how much you can take life on the chin, sometimes you end up in the fetal position waiting for the pain to go away.  

Dip me in chocolate and eat me

I don't do anything without music.  I write, I paint, I dabble, I drive, I deliberate, I annoy people, everything I do I set to music.  I have decided to set my midlife crisis to music as well.  I haven't set the exact soundtrack yet.  I figure I have time as I haven't grown the disgusting moustache yet.  I don't have any money so I can't buy a sports car.  Unfortunately, on that front, I may settle for a really bitchin' model of an Audi TT convertible and pretend I'm not a total loser while I sit on the end of my bed making vroom vroom noises out loud pretending I'm behind the wheel.   

Yes, it is early spring in the life cycle of my midlife crisis.  I am off to a horrible start really.  No money for a car, and I love my wife and can't imagine having an affair.  I am far too ugly to pull it off anyway.  God, I hate being so predictable.  There is nothing I hate more than being just like everyone else.  This is just like a man who has everything including the  luxury of sitting back and over analyzing his life wondering why you made the choices you have.  Wondering why you didn't follow through on doing the things you really wanted to with your life.  How do you stop it?  It must end on it's own.  For me all this thinking is just about work.  The crisis is my way of pushing myself to do more, try harder, make something more of myself.

What else is there to this thing anyway?  Besides the unattractive facial hair (which I refuse to grow because I may get food in it - see last post), the young bimbo (no thanks), and the car.  What else is there?  I think I am going to sculpt something.  And instead of doing it out of marble or something complicated I have decided to sculpt my image in chocolate.  I like chocolate, and in the past three months my new favorite thing to do is tell people to "eat me".  If I pull this off I can toss the person a candy version of myself.  Besides, my wife loves chocolate and after she reads about the midlife crisis and the bimbos (which for the record I said 'no thanks') it may be the only thing that keeps her from punching me in the face.  She can eat my chocolate face.  Any one else want to eat me in chocolate? 

Bodily Fluids, Vomit, and Other unclean Stories.

I have had the same editor for 17 years.  Sue has been the voice in my head for as long as I can remember.    We worked together at one point in our lives, and she continuously corrected me.  I used to write long winded emails full of grammatical errors and run on sentences.  I think I was about 20 at the time.  I remember being frustrated because the hilarity of what I was writing (in my mind) far out weighed the fact that there were things wrong with the structure.  So why she needed to point out my mistakes, forsaking my greatness, was a severe slap in the face.  I mean I was a bloody genius.  Who cared that there were spelling mistakes, or who really cared that I was in the work place and should have been working rather than dubbing myself the 'King of Coffee Land' and belittling people (including the owner of the company) using the company directory to tell everyone off for taking the last cup of coffee and not making more.  Since that job I quite often still get bored and create emails that are generally not very constructive which highlight the faults of my co-workers.  I have also used my meager writing skills to tell off a supplier or two (or a hundred-ish).  When you slowly become mentally ill the sickness in your head tends to spill out and infect everyone around you.  It's like a leaking tap you just can shut off.

This will be the first book of mine that Sue has edited (she doesn't edit my blog so don't blame her for my mistakes).  She is very particular which is a nice way of saying she is a pain in the ass.  Still, when I was young and rambunctious and the words that flowed from me had sharp edges, she helped me to realize that style meant just as much as meaning.  For the past ten years I haven't given Sue anything to edit.  Life ticks on and I got lazy, but today is not yesterday and I hope in the future she will continue to point out my flaws, I will continue to get my hackles up from time to time, and in the end she will be right and everything I do will be better because she was there to help.

Sue is the voice in my head.  The teacher standing over me tsk-ing away, and I thank her for it.  I am still not a great writer, I still don't have the elements of style down.  I just know I can rely on the voice in my head, the lady with the booming voice and the kind heart to shove my inconsistencies and errors in my face.  Don't get me wrong, she is very nice about it.  She pushes me to be better where often those that know me are just very kind.  When someone in your life has the balls (sorry Sue poor illustration) to tell you when you're wrong because they want to see you succeed, you can wilt or brace yourself.  If you can take the knocks to the ego you come out the other side a much better writer/person.

Now I need to satisfy the other editor in my life, that being my wife.  God knows that the last hundred words were somehow depressing in a way I can't see.  Every time I write a blog I envision thousands (OK 10 or 15) people weeping and tearing their hair in sorrow based on my wife's reaction (notice how well I take criticism).

I feel like the unassuming comedian out for dinner and someone wants him to 'be funny' or 'tell a joke'.  As I have sat here trying to think of a joke that would hopefully satisfy my quota, I have come up blank.  So instead of telling a joke let me tell you something about myself that most people find funny.

I don't like seeing food on people's faces.  You know those commercials where a fast food joint decides that some dude with burger seeping out of his mouth will somehow entice the world to buy their junk food.  I would honestly like to know who thinks this is appetizing.  The entire situation makes me want to throw up.  Someone asked me last week if my disgust for things on peoples faces extends beyond food.  After very little consideration the answer is yes.  If you would like a list of things I find repulsive then include spit, and anything involving children being dirty, soiled, or unclean.  In fact, if you ever need to torture me you don't need pins under my finger nails, you simply need to spit on my face, wait ten seconds, and I will tell you anything you want to know.