Year-End Review

So have been reading a bunch of year-in-review articles and other assorted similar material, and I wanted to post a couple of my favorite moments from the internet this year.  Now, I know that these videos are rather common and popular, but I just wanted to do a bit of commentary on them myself.  Take it or leave it.  :)

Well, the first thing that I wanted to talk about was what I considered the most amazing moment to watch, both live and whenever I watch it on video, and that is Felix Baumgartner's record-setting freefall jump.



I had been following this story for a few months after I first heard about Felix and what he was attempting to do.  When the days grew closer, I grew more and more excited.  How often in the world do we get to see moments like this live, true moments of human strength and ingenuity, "...because it was there" moments where we as a species reach new heights?  It is rare in these days to see science in direct action, see someone put their life on the line for the advancement of science and technology.  Add this to the fact that as I watched this live, as he jump, I thought "Holy shit...no one can ever question that guy's manhood again.  He has some of the biggest balls ever placed onto a human."

I still rewatch this video with child-like wonder and amazement.  I put myself in his shoes and try think about what would be going through my head as I stand there on that platform, many miles higher in the air than is even fathomable.  Congrats to Felix and congrats to science for that one.

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My other top video of the year is one that, no matter how often I see it, still brings a tear to my eye.  They are not tears of sadness, but those of pure human joy, and this is Isaac's Proposal.



So what if this guy ruined all marriage proposals for everyone else until the end of time?  This video is not only amazingly sweet and caring full of the romance and joy that we all wish for in life, but in the end, what puts it over the top for me is to think about the effort, the planning, the logistical feat it was to put it all together.  They say it was about 60 people, family and friends, that all helped put this together.  Getting Granny to learn dance moves and lyrics to a pop song is no simple feat, but also to inform everyone involved and get them to keep their trap shut during the planning and rehearsals is no easy task.

This man earned his wife full-heartily.  I hope for them many happy years together.  Come on ladies, who could turn down a proposal like that?  Hell, I am a straight guy and I wouldn't have been able to refuse him at that point!

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My final video is a bit egotistical because it is one of my own.  I know not many people give a shit, but I like it.  When I was younger I was in various bands, playing various instruments in various place around the States.  Of all the musical work I have done, the work I did during the early 2000's with my band from the Central Valley of California named "Cheshire" was my favorite.  While we broke up many years ago and went our separate ways, recently I started getting requests from people for the old Cheshire music, so I finally took it all and uploaded it to Youtube.  As I was doing that, I recalled listening to this one song in particular and felt nothing but pride.  It is a local Valley favorite still to this day.



The song is called "Manipulated," recorded in 2003.  I played drums for my this band and overall I not only proud of my work on the song (rhythms, and overall structure) but proud of my friends that we put this all together.  The lyrics were actually written by the lead singer's girlfriend at the time which she gave to us to make a song out of.

The picture shown in the video was the base for our promo pack picture.  I am the tall one with the Samhain "November Coming Fire" shirt on.  We decided to take a series of pics in a pool for some reason which I can't remember why now.  Out of the series, the one with our backs we just thought worked so well.  We ended up editing it and added our band logo and whatnot to the top of the pic, which is not shown in this video, but is in other of the youtube videos.

With very little effort we got rather popular along the West Coast at the time.  Things were being just dropped in our lap.  While I wish we could have devoted more time and effort to the project, after a while we all needed to part ways.  At least I still have the two EPs, a long demo tape, and a live recording of us playing at the Whisky-a-Go-Go to hold on to.  I like watching this video for the song and the memories.

What are your favorite memories of the past year?

Dear Son

Some times things happen that cause me to think and rethink things over and over, and with normal adults I like to talk things through.  With a young child though it is both easier and harder in some ways.  It is easier in that I can do something wrong, say I am sorry, and they tend to act like they forget about it and become distracted with toys or whatever, but at the same time, because I know they lack some of the same level of cognition, it is harder because I feel like things are not really settled. 

 Today I accidentally smacked my son's head into a wall, which was 100% non-intentional, but caused him pain.  Accidents with children are so commonplace and children find ways to get hurt in every way possible, but for some reason today's event has caused me to lose sleep thinking about.  I wanted more than anything him to forgive me.  I think that because he is between 3 and 4, really starting to talk a lot, and becoming a good and interesting person, that I see him closer to an equal in some ways, but at the same time, he is a child and lacks some of the basic abilities to communicate and understand as I wish that he could.  I wanted more and anything to talk him through the pain, apologize, and receive some kind of forgiveness.

Since tried to talk with him and we got back to smiling and playing, I felt a bit better, but as I lie in bed I realized that I still felt awful.  I decided to write him a letter trying to explain how I felt and how as parents we try but fuck up a lot in the process.  I don't know if he will ever read this some day in the future or remember the pain of today at all, but I hope that he will at least come to learn and understand the sentiment I am going for in this letter.  

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Dear Son,

I just need to get something off of my chest and since you are still too young to fully understand, I am writing this down in hopes that some day you will understand.

Being a parent is really hard in many ways.  Some days are extremely frustrating while others nothing but joy.  Tonight I am having a bit of trouble sleeping because we had a bit of an incident today that I am having issues letting go of.  We get into arguments from time to time, as is to be expected from a child and their parents.  At this time, when you act out your mother and I use the "time-out" method of putting you into the corner.  Well today I asked you to clean up your room, you got mad at me, started throwing a fit, then when I warned you about going to the corner, you screamed at me.  This caused me to get up and charge at you in order to grab you and put you into the corner with some force.  In this event though I accidentally grabbed you too hard and you fell, causing your head to smack into the wall of the corner.

You immediately screamed and I immediately grabbed you and picked you up.  I felt so horrible as I do anytime I accidentally hurt you.  It is hard because we are so much bigger than you and forget our strength at times causing issues like this, or we don't see you below us and we end up stepping on you and hurting you that way.  In the end, we never mean to harm you, but in our time together it has happened from time to time, and in return you also have harmed us from time to time, never intentional, but due to you just playing or climbing on us or whatever.

When I saw that cut and bump on your head and heard you crying I was in so much pain myself.  I felt awful for inflicting this damage upon you.  I picked you up, carried you over to the couch, checked to make sure that you were not seriously bleeding or anything, but the bump still looked horrible.  Then there was part of me that wanted to be like "Well, that is what you get for not listening and arguing with me," but this was not your fault, it was mine and I did not want to make you feel like the cause at all.  I am the parent and need to be the one that sets an example of love and compassion, as well as an example of patience for those smaller and weaker than myself.

I apologized, put and ice pack on your head, which you played with a bunch because you are silly like that, and we sat on the couch together talking some.  You are such a sweet-hearted boy and told me that it is okay, accidents happen after you settled down some, but I still felt awful.  I want so badly to be a good and kind father while teaching you to be a good and kind boy, but sometimes I just don't know how to do that.  Sometimes I just think that all I am doing is wrong and all I am doing is hurting you in some way.

I just hope that some day you can find it in your heart to truly forgive your mother and I for any indiscretions in parenthood.  I know that we are not perfect and make mistakes, but I just hope that we teach you well enough to look past those mistakes and know that we are trying our best for you, and in a constant state of trying to get better at it as well.  I am always trying to change myself for the better, to set a positive example, and to teach you how to treat others, but I am also constantly afraid that in doing something wrong we may teach you the incorrect message.

I love you so much, more than I ever thought that I could.  My intentions are good and I am still trying to make my actions and my intentions line up as perfectly as I possibly can.  Please know that no matter what wrongs we might do, we are trying and hoping that our love and caring will be enough to make us the best people we can be and make you the best person you can be.

I love you son.

-Dad

A Busy Weekend

A Busy Weekend

When my wife and I go on vacation, it is usually to San Francisco, our favorite city in the world.  If not to SF, then normally anywhere else along the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway.  Those are my stomping grounds, where I am from, and where I dream to retire.

This weekend we partook in a planned trip to the SF area.  Back in March for my birthday, my wife decided that she wanted to get me some Giants tickets for sometime in the summer.  This inspired some other attractions and the excitement of my son's first trip to our most beloved city.

The Drive:
We live outside of Reno NV a little way, so a trip to the Bay Area is not too far, but far enough to make it not worth taking day trips.  The drive is about 4 hours with good traffic and depending on where you are going in the area.  We packed up and left early Friday morning in hopes to get checked in to our hotel after lunch.  Due to cheap prices, we stayed at the HoJo at the SFO airport in South SF.  While this is a bit away from the sights and sounds of SF, it was cheap and right near the highways to cut north quickly enough.  We also invited my older sister and her husband to come along.  Their hotel was also near SFO, but just a few blocks north of ours.  To top all of this off, a good ol' pal that lives in Seattle was down for the weekend as well for some concert.  Add these things to our already planned events, and it was a packed weekend.

The view from our hotel of the South San Fran sign.  Don't worry, that is just fog, not smog.

The drive took longer than normally because we had to stop often for my 3-year old son to use the rest room and prevent accidents in the car.  On the way down I-80 we pass through the city of Fairfield which, if people are unaware, is home to the Jelly Belly candy company.  We decided to stop and take our son to see the jelly beans.  When we arrived we took a few pics around the place and got there in time to see how absolutely packed it was and the long wait for the tour of the factory.  This inspired us to just take some pictures, hit up the gift shops for the candy, get lunch in their Food Court, and head on our way.

We got back into the car and back on the road for a bit, but once we got past the Carquinez Bridge the traffic was stop and go until we got past the Bay bridge area.  We decided to head south and take the San Mateo bridge since neither my wife nor son had ever crossed it before and it comes out just south of SFO anyway.  After the stops, traffic, and route, we ended up at our hotel around 2:30 in the afternoon.

My son and I at Jelly Belly in my TL shirt.

The Events of the Weekend:
First event of the night was a fancy dinner with my sister and her husband.  My wife picked out a Moroccan restaurant in the Richmond district called "El Mansour."  We met my family there and I was immediately struck by the open design of the place.  It was surrounded by open, small tables and plenty of fabric lining the walls and ceiling.  I had forgotten my camera, so I did not take pics unfortunately.  The service was friendly, atmosphere laid-back, and they even washed your hands for you.  As for the food, I liked it, but did not love it like the rest of my party did.  The Harira soup (spicy lentil) was great and I ordered the chicken w/ onions as my main course.  They also served us some Salade Mohammed V (Moroccan salad) and something called Bastela du Chef which was a sweet chicken pie.  It was tasty, but a strange mix of sugar, chicken, and spices that I was not all too enamoured with.

The best part though was the belly dancer that they had come out during our meal.  As I said, the room was open with the tables surrounding an open floor area where she danced.  With her sparkles and chimes, my 3-year old son could not take his eyes off of her.  He kept talking with her and smiling, then when we gave him some money to give her as a tip, he got embarrassed.  It took some coercing to get him to get up to talk to her, but he finally did.  What was the most hilarious though was when she was done, he kept looking back to where she came from and waving her for to come out.  He told us she was beautiful and he wanted to marry her.  It was great.  My son has always been rather into the ladies, but this took it another step further.


Our belly dancer, Jennifer.  She was beautiful. (I took this pic from their website.)

The next morning we were due up nice and early for our tickets on the boat over to Alcatraz.  On the drive from our hotel to the Pier, I wanted to find an SF landmark that I had never seen before, the Anchor Brewery.  For those that know me, I don't drink much.  The best way to not drink a lot is to be picky about what I drink, and as for beer, Anchor is about the only beer that I allow in my house.  I love the company, the story, and the tasty beverage.  It is the SF brew, so when in SF, make sure to order one.  Luckily, I did find the building and took a pic, but I did not get to go on a tour as you have to book them months in advance and we failed to do so.  It was a large, unassuming building in the Potrero Hill area of SF.  It was nice though to see where they work their alcoholic magic at.

The Anchor Brewery Building.  Oh how I wanted to go in and shake their hands.

While I love SF and have spent more time there then almost any other city that isn't my home town, I had never taken the boat over to Alcatraz before.  We were a bit unlucky in that is just so happened that it was the 78th Anniversary of the opening of the prison, so it was packed all over the island.  I will drop some pics for you guys that I took.  As for being there, it was cool to see, get an idea of scales and everything, but a few things that I had never realized:

1. The island is bigger than I thought.
2. I never realized that there were multiple cell blocks in one big open room.  Blocks A, B, and C were all together, while block D was separated some and contained the solitary confinement cells as well as normal cells.
3. Overall, the main prison building was smaller than I expected.
4. I did not get to experience it as slowly as I would have liked due to my son running around and my wife who gets really anxious around large crowds.

When we got back to shore, my sister and her husband met us at Pier 39 for lunch.  I am not a big fan of the pier area being not really into the main touristy stuff, but since we were there for the prison already, it worked out all right.  I had some delicious fish and chips with the fish battered in Anchor Steam.  That was awesome.

Next we all took my son to the Aquarium that is there on the Pier.  Now, if you know me you know that the Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of my favorite places to go ever, so all in all I was a bit disappointed by the small aquarium there in SF, but overall it was neat.  They had two large tunnel tanks that you walked under for a ways while the fish, sharks, and sea stars crawled and swam all around you.  It was neat, but just small compared to what I am used to.

After that my sister and brother-in-law had agreed to take our son for the night which was nice.  As anyone with a wife and kid knows, alone time with the wife becomes rare after the child is born.  We went back to our hotel for a while and rested until late that evening when my buddy who was in from Seattle was done with his event and we could get together.  We picked them (my buddy and his friend) up all the way north in the Richmond district again, and headed over to the Mel's Diner on Geary.  After chatting, eating, and just catching-up, we drove around the city for a while.  Our buddy's friend had never been to SF, so we took her over the Golden Gate, to Alamo Square to see the Painted Ladies, drove down Lombard, and just around the city.  Unfortunately it was terribly foggy that night, so we did not get to see as much as we would have liked, but it was fun for a couple of hours.  We dropped them off at their hotel and said our goodbyes.  It is nice to see old friends.

The next day we had a couple of prime Giants tickets, but first we all went out for some awesome Vietnamese food at a small place in South SF.  I had some 5-spice chicken and rice that was friggin awesome.  I invited my brother-in-law to join me for the Giants game and he was excited.  I am a huge Giants fan and going to the ball park is one of the few things that I enjoy more than almost anything else in the world.  Live baseball is the best experience for me and my wife had gotten us prime tickets on the Willie Mays Wall, front row near the foul pole in fair territory.  My bro-in-law was is not a huge baseball fan, but had only been to one game in his life before when he was young, so it was about time to head to one of the nicest parks in the major and have fun.  We had dogs, Anchor Steams, and snacks as my G-men took down the Rockies in a 9-6 final score on an 8th inner homer to center left from Hunter Pence.  It was a good day to be a Giants fan and a beautiful day to be at the park.

The view from our seats.

My sister picked us up once the game was over and took us back to our hotel.  Their weekend was over so we exchanged pleasantries and they left to go home.  We stayed one more night and left in the morning.

The Drive Home:
Overall the drive home was rather uneventful, but we did stop at Jelly Belly once more to do the tour.  A Monday morning was much less packed than a Friday afternoon, so we got right in.  It is nice to have jelly beans around because they work well as incentive for a 3-year old.  It didn't take long though once we hit the road to find out that for some reason my AC in the car was not working so well.  Damn, it appears to be time for a recharge of AC coolant.  It was cooling well enough for the drive, but barely.  Finally we reached home and had were able to settle down after a fun and exciting weekend.

God damn I love you SF.

It Takes A Lot of Pain to Make You Grow

I have made, as we all have, a large number of mistakes in my life. One of these revolves around a person that I hurt many years ago and how I wish I would have had the chance to make it up to her somehow.

On a freezing winter night in January a few of my friends decided to throw a bit of a bash at their house since their parents were away for the weekend. We were in college and of course took this offer up. Our parties were never big and crazy or anything, mainly consisting of some alcohol, occasional drug use, some sex, but mostly just friends hanging out together, blasting music by Tool, Nine Inch Nails, and Smashing Pumpkins, and holding some of the best casual video game tournaments around. We would beat the shit out of each other on Mario Golf, Smash Brothers, GoldenEye, F-Zero, or whatever the game flavor of the week was at the time. 

This particular gathering started out the same as most, but this party had a few other people as in fringe members and acquaintances, friends of friends if you will. One of these people was a girl named “Tina” who was a friend of a friend that I had met once or twice, but never really had a chance to talk with. This time though, with me being a single guy, her being a single girl, we starting talking and had one of those evenings that most of us have been through where we meet someone, become so infatuated with them, and just talk with them most of the night.

Early that morning, like around 2 AM or so, a few of our or friends head to their house to do mushrooms, a couple of our friends passed out watching TV or something, and Tina and I stayed up talking on a small couch. She decided to turn out the light, said she was tired, and wanted me to cuddle her so she could sleep a bit. Of course, this was no problem for me at all. Tina was not only smart and interesting, but quite lovely as well. She was skinny, blonde, blue-eyed, and had a certain honesty that I found intriguing. 

Well, needless to say, cuddling turned into making out and making out turned into heavy petting. After a couple of hours Tina said that she needed to head home and since she had been drinking, I offered to drive her. I was always the designated driver in the group. We exchange numbers, emails, and that was the end of the night.

Over the next couple of weeks we would call each other, get together for dinner and more make-out sessions ending with us giving each other orgasms, and that was about it, no sex. It was simple and fun until I had to fuck it all up.

See, I have that problem where I think that every woman in the world is amazing and beautiful and therefore fall in love with pretty much every girl I meet and think that we would be perfect together. This curse, I will say, has gotten me a lot of friends, gotten me laid a lot in my past life, but also left me with a lot of remorse for people that were hurt in the process, sometimes due to my selfishness, but many times just do to our misunderstanding of love, sex, life, and whatever else. Basically…just due to that thing which we call youth.

I had been single for a couple months after ending a long relationship, then a short rebound relationship, so I thought that maybe it was time to try again. This girl blew my mind at the time and thought that I loved her. I asked her if we could be together, instead of this simple dating/fooling-around type of thing that we had going on now. At first she was reluctant, citing that she was afraid to jump into a relationship. She had also gotten out of a long-term relationship recently with her high-school sweetheart and the only guy that she had ever made love to. This was understandable, but about a week later she relented and decided that we would be a couple.

At last I had this wonderful creature as my “girlfriend.” Looking back, it is silly to me how much titles mean to for certain things at certain times in our lives. This was the first girlfriend that I had who was not only smart, fun, and beautiful, but who I would walk down the street with and other men were jealous of. This is not to say that she was the “hottest thing in the world” by media’s standards, but she was striking. To a college guy, even a smart and modern guy such as me, little things like that still mattered to some extent, even though we pretend that they don’t, that we are so much more evolved. Even though she would not have admitted it, I have the feeling that she also loved the appeal of dating me, a rather respected community member who was also in a popular local-scene band. She had a weird obsession with musicians in general. Like I said, that is an assumption, so take it for what it is worth. 

Tina and I went along as normal, but overall it was not a terribly exciting relationship. We just hung out, listened to music, played games, went to band shows, made each other cum, nothing out of the ordinary, but nothing was really progressing either. I see now that it was actually rather stagnant as a whole, but I didn’t complain because it was simple and fun.

Then a day came where Tina went to the doctor to get her normal, womanly check-ups. A couple days later she calls and tells me that she needs me to come over to talk to me about something. She seemed upset so I told that I would be right there and rushed out the door. When I got there she was sitting outside waiting for me, had me come in with her, and she told me that she needed to be held. I was scared, but putting the pieces together in my head on the way over I kind of had an idea of what the next conversation was going to be about.

Tests had come back and she was told that she had a certain sexually transmitted disease. No, it was not one of the major, life-threatening ones luckily, but it was something that she would carry with her for the rest of her life.

She told me about it, and then told me that she felt horrible, she was glad that we had never had sex, she knew who gave it to her since she had only had sex with one guy, and that she would understand if I wanted to break up and that maybe it would be a good idea. Then she asked me if I wanted to leave…

Goddamn I was a scared, punk-ass kid. We lay there, holding each other for 20 minutes or so and I just could not think of what to say or what to do. She had given me an out, almost telling me that I should dump her and leave, but I knew that was the wrong thing to do. I cared for this girl and wanted to support her. I kept turning these back and forth ideas over in my mind, trying to think of questions, trying to think of ways to ask permissions, but really I think that what I was doing was stalling. I see now that I had already decided to run, but I was trying to find a way to justify it as correct and to not hurt her feelings any more than she was already hurt today. 

Finally, after what seemed like forever of us in silence, I said that I thought I couldn’t do this. She just said okay as if she already knew that was the answer. She walked me to the door, kissed me, and said goodbye.

I sat in my car for a while before I could leave. I felt awful, selfish, and just plain dirty, but I also felt that if she wouldn’t have told me it was okay to go, then I wouldn’t have done it. Maybe it was what was supposed to happen? Maybe we were meant to be together at all? It was sign. 
Those ideas were all bullshit, but sometimes we tell ourselves little lies just to make it through the day. We do things that we know we shouldn’t, and find ways to rationalize or justify them as if we made the correct decision. 

I could not stop thinking about her, the pain and guilt that I had, and the pain and guilt that I caused her. I tried to call her the next morning and she did not answer. I went to work that day and tried calling her over and over. I wanted to see her, drop to me knees, and beg for forgiveness for the wrong that I had done just the evening before. I realized that I really did care for her and to care for her meant being there, supporting, and helping her through her troubles in life. I fucked up.

I was a train wreck at work. I spent my time just trying over and over to get a hold of her with no luck. Finally I asked my boss if I could take off early because of the state I was in. Being a pal and able to see how frustrated and upset I was, he let me take the evening off.

As soon as I left work, I drive right over to her house, but she was not home. That is when I started getting scared. Did she do something horrible? She didn’t have any plans for the day that I knew of and I did not know why I could not find her. I called some friends and no one knew where she was.

The next morning I got up to find that she was online, on chat. I pinged her and asked her if she was okay and where she was all day because I was dying to get ahold of her. She said that she had called her sister, who lived a few hours away, and she had come down and they spent the day together. I asked her if I could call or come by to talk to her and she refused. She told me that I could say whatever I wanted to say there to her.

The conversation didn’t last long, but it was basically me telling her how fucked up I was, how sorry I was, and how all I wanted to do was hold her and be there for her. She told me she would think about it and get back to me soon. She also said not to try to contact her until I heard from her. 

This next chunk of time was spent with me beating myself up mentally for causing more pain to another human being than I had ever set out to do. I was young, stupid, and selfish. While it was not malicious, it was still mean and heartless. I never wanted to live through that feeling again and if this is how horrible I felt, I just thought about how awful she was feeling, and it all started back up again.

Needless to say it took a few days to hear anything from her. She had sent her reply via email and my internet was out for a week. Finally I asked a good friend to check my email for me over the phone and therefore had to confess my entire story to him. He checked and read me the email which was basically her chewing me out for being an asshole and telling me to fuck off, and to stay out of her life. I was terribly upset, but at the same time there was at least bit of closure to the situation. 

EPILOGUE:

That was the last contact I ever had with her. She not only stopped talking to me, but also accused all my friends of being douchebags and stopped talking to all of them as well. Yeah, it was a little silly to blame them for my mistake, but I see that as maybe she was so hurt that she didn’t even want to hear my name or events of my life. That may be a bit egotistical to think that I was that important, but it is all that I can really come up with while trying to reconcile what happened to myself.

This event spawned a series of events in my life where I decided to stop dating for a while. I was tired of hurting people or causing pain, so fuck it. Even if I liked a girl, I felt like I needed to be choosier and wait for the right girl. After some time this just made me feel pretentious and uptight, so I lightened up on the rule some, but that choice helped me on the path to where I am today with wife, child, and even career. 

It was one of those moments where I learned from my mistake and in the end I feel as if I am a better person because of it. I like to believe that when we are caused pain, we grow and come out stronger on the other side. This is one of the cases where I caused the pain though. While I no longer have trouble sleeping at night because of it, I do still often think that I wish I could make amends. I would be self-serving though, and therefore I do not pursue this thought for she asked me to stay away. 

The only way I can show her the respect that she deserves is to follow her wish and hope for a day that she will reach out to me, but recognizing that I do not deserve that courtesy from her.

Shifting Places

There were 8 of them at one time.  4 girls and 4 boys.  One of them is my father, number 4 of 8.  The rest were aunts and uncles.  Only one time in my life can I remember all of them in the same room together.  My cousin and I talked about this once and realized that at their mother's funeral was the only time that everyone was gathered together in our lifetime (memory).  For some years now that has been the only time that they would be too.

The third oldest was my uncle Eric who was taken rather suddenly some years ago.  I say sudden in that it all happened within a few weeks, but at the same time; we were given a chance to say our goodbyes, which is a privilege that many people are not granted in this world.  Some of us chose to be in the room when they shut off the ventilator.  I was one of the few that wanted to be there for a number of reasons.  One was because I feel that as much as we can control, we should try to never let people die alone.  They are facing death, the scariest thing in the world alone; why not try to send them off amidst loved ones if you can? 

While we were not particularly close, many in the family did not want to be there, including his wife and children.  None of my cousins wanted to be in the room either, so another reason I went was to be the sole representative from my generation of the family.  While watching a proud man die with dignity is not something that we should feel "honored" to be a part of, it was an experience that I will forever remember and be glad that I made the decision that I did.  It is one of the few times in my life that I have seen my father cry.

Where 8 once were, 7 remained.

Not long after that, the 5th in line, my aunt Helen started losing her battle with cancer.  The final months were hard and she was in a lot of pain.  In the last couple weeks she stopped seeing all of the family except one sister which she allowed to come see her at the hospice home.  In those days she said she did not want anyone to see her as sick as she was at the time, but remember her for the cheerful person she used to be.  Open cancer sores are not something that anyone would want to see anyway.

Her battle was on and off for many years, but her body could no longer hold out.  She and I were never terribly close either, but she was an interesting character from what I remember.  I attended the funeral, not the burial though as the wake was at our house so I decided to go back to the house and help get things ready. 

We were now down to 6 of an original 8.

Since that time, the 7th in line, my aunt Christy, has fought and beat her battle with cancer, at least for now.  My father was diagnosed with terminal pulmonary fibrosis, which I have gone into in past blogs and will go into a bit more later, the 6th in line, my Uncle Fred, has been diagnosed with it as well, and the youngest, #8, has also fought with cancer.

We just learned that my aunt Ro, that little number 8, is losing her battle and losing it fast.  We all thought that my father would be next as he is not expected to last out the year, so this is a bit of a shock.  The two oldest, who happen to be the healthiest of them all, are going to fly out to see her next weekend, but we fear she may not make it that long.  She asked all of us to write letters to her two sons, telling them more about her as a person.  I feel horrible that since she moved away when I was rather young, I don't have too much to say to grant her wish.  I have never even met her two sons, my two cousins, but I do wish them well.

She was able to talk to my father a bit today over the internet.  It is too bad my parents can't make it out to see her one last time, but life is like that sometimes.  She is fading, deaf, and hooked up to all sorts of machines.  She was able to tell my Dad not to worry because she would see him in Heaven, which made all of them start crying.  It seems to me that she really implied a "soon" there due to his declining health, but did not say it.  I am glad that she didn't.  Nothing gets to me more than seeing people face death.  You see true human spirit at that time and while utterly frightening, there is something in it that I feel makes the rest of us stronger.

My father is in a state where his fibrosis is so severe that he is on constant oxygen and has had pneumonia 3 times already this year.  They say that the next time he has to go into the hospital; he is probably not making it out.  Any morning he could wake up and have to go in at this point.

We will soon be down to 4.

...

It is weird to me.  Not death as a whole, but until right now, this moment that I am typing this, I have come to this realization that for me the death of my family's elder statesmen seems like one of my last links to childhood.  Like I mentioned before, we were never really close, but we were together quite a bit when I was little.  I am now 31 and it seems that while I am a complete adult in many ways, those final strings to the tapestry of my childhood are fading away, leaving room for me to weave new ones with my son and my wife's family. 

I am now one of the elders, been around the block for quite a while, and there is an entirely new generation below me of nephews, nieces, and smaller cousins.  Their lives are so new and I hope that while some of us are not close, they still can have positive memories of me from their childhood.  I hope that I can continue to live a life to be proud of...

...and I hope that someday newer generations will look fondly of my generation as we looked fondly to the one before.

How Does a Crush Work?

To set up this story, you have to know a bit about where I am from.  I grew up in the Central Valley of California, between fields of corn, rice, and cotton with dairies and orchards all around.  When your nearest neighbors are old farmers that are still a couple of country blocks away, you learn to appreciate the social aspects of school, no matter how positive or negative they might be.  That being said, all I wanted to do was to make friends and be accepted.

We were rather isolated growing up.  My parents works hard to support us and my sister was always buried in the books, so I was left to my devices which normally revolved around music, movies, and video games.

Our elementary/jr. high school was placed smack dab in the middle of all those aforementioned farms and ranches, and while we only had around 80 kids in our 8th grade class total, most of them were either the offspring of the richer farm owners, or the poorer kids which included the migrant worker's children and a few others such as myself.

While I had started going to that school since 3rd grade and knew all the kids rather well, only a few of them I would have called my friends.  We were the geeky, video game playing, rock music listening, comic book collecting few.  While we sometimes mingled with the rich kids, it was mostly because they needed us to do their homework for them.  Once we were in 8th grade, I had gotten smart enough to make some extra pocket cash off of them from charging a couple of bucks to copy my work.  This at least gave me access to some snacks and soda or whatever.  What I lacked in money, I made up for in brains.

That was all well and good, but in the end all we really wanted was to belong to the group.  We wanted to be accepted by the rich and popular kids, no matter how much we acted as if we did not care about their opinions.  Now, what made this difficult was the fact that I was always a rather tall and chubby kid.  By this time I was already 6'1, somewhat overweight, not huge, but I did not flatter much because I wore sweat pants and baggy shirts everyday.  I could not find pants that were comfortable to my awkward size, so sweat pants were the way to go.  This made me a huge target for ridicule of course.

I mean, not only did I not have decent looking clothes, they were not name-brand, top of the line stuff.  We also could not afford to get my nice sneakers or the name-brand backpacks that most of the other kids had, so therefore I was even more of an outcast.  Like I stated before, I was overall a happy child, but I just wanted to belong.  Add that to the fact that my hormones has recently started raging out of control to that point where even the slightest touch from a girl could set you off, and I was not comfortable in my on skin.

To move on though, 8th grade started off as most years did, nothing special, just back to school stuff.  While we were trying to figure out all of the new comics and cards to trade with each other, we were also trying to gauge where we stood with everyone again.  About a month into the year, a new girl appeared at our school.  We will call her Annie for this story.

I was immediately drawn to Annie, not due to a sexual attraction even though she was cute, but due to the fact that she was wearing some kind of grunge band t-shirt.  I cannot remember for the life of me what band it was, but it was that signal, that flag that we wear on our chest.  Your t-shirt was a way to signal to others things you were into, hoping to get a response.  Add that to the fact that I knew how hard it was to be the new kid, I reached out to her within the first few days.

We immediately hit it off.  She was obviously one of us outsiders that was not into designer jeans and top-40 music.  She was someone that was into rock, movies, and Star Wars.  Up to that point I had never met a chick that was into Star Wars before like us geeks were.  This was an immediate point of convergence.

Needless to say Annie and I became good at-school friends rather quickly.  If you are not aware, an at-school friend is someone that you talk to and hang out with, but only at school.  Never outside of that.  We started writing each other Star Wars and other assorted film quizzes, always trying to stump the other with our facts and useless knowledge of the film industry.  We also started recording all of the band names and singers we could think of, writing them down in a notebook.  She would go for awhile, then pass it to me to think of more.  We held this fantasy that someday we would name everyone.  We thought we were so smart, but thinking back we really only had knowledge about a small subset of music.  Mind you, we were more informed than most of the people at the school, but still, it was small in the grand scheme of things.

Being in this group of outsiders, most of just wanted to be part of something, but Annie...she was different.  She came with this walk, this air, this attitude that strongly signaled that she did not care about what they thought.  She was happy with who she was, or at least she faked it rather well.  It did not take long for her to pair off with one of the other outsider guys.  Up to that point, I did not even think about things in terms of having a girlfriend, but I knew then that I had a crush on her.  Oh well, she was now taken.

Mind you, in my mind, I had no idea what having a girlfriend really meant, or hell, I was not even sure how to handle a crush.  I just knew that I liked this girl, but she was taken, so that took a lot of the stress away from those thoughts anyway.  Up until that point, the idea that a girl would actually like me back was so far removed that it was alien.  I held this belief that no girl would ever be interested in me enough to even hug me or hold my hand.  The idea of sex with a girl was something that I thought about, but never once actually considered it a possibility in my life.  Girls were like foreign creatures to me.  Like I stated before, until Annie, I had no idea that there were even girls that were into the same things as us guys were.  What a revelation!

To move on, even though I was in a small group of outsiders that even contained a couple of girls now, I still wanted to be accepted by the "cool" and "popular" kids.  I believe the others had similar feelings, but they would never admit it.  We all got picked on and shoved around some.  Rarely did anything escalate into anything more than words, but once in awhile a small shoving match would break out.  We would all make up stories about girls outside of school, or elaborate lies about thinking that X girl liked us.  It was just a way to try to help our self-esteem by feeling more connected to those "cool" kids.  Of course most of it was bullshit and while we were smart enough to know it, we all accepted it because our lies reflected each others lies.  If one tumbles, they all do.

One day I was rather ripped-apart for the awesome sweats that I was wearing.  Then during the next class period, Annie asked me "Why do you let them pick on you like that?  So what if you like wearing sweats.  They are comfortable, fuck 'em."

Now, I did not think much about that at the time, but in the years since, I came to realize that this was the first time that a girl showed any kind of concern for my personal well-being.  She cared for me, even if only on the most superficial level.  She hated that they picked on me and wanted to try to help me through this rough time that was adolescence.

Then, as 8th grade moved along, she broke up with that guy she had dated, started dating this older guy from another school.  I thought that was do weird.  I barely knew anyone that was not from our school, so first, how did she even meet someone different and then how did they hook up?  That was such a strange and confusing idea to me, being an isolated farm kid.

So I had a crush on a girl that I only saw at school and dated a guy from outside of the norm.  How cool was she?!  How could I compete?  Well, this was the age that I learned about the powerful tool known as the "mix tape."  If you are unaware of this brilliant, yet hard to wield device, the mix tape is where you record a bunch of song on a tape, from your own collection and/or off of the radio and give it to someone in an attempt to let the songs tell your feelings for you.  You give it to the person you have a crush on, silently screaming to them "Just listen to the words...it sums everything up!  Just listen!"  We would trade mix tapes back and forth, talk bands and songs, but mine were not so much to express my feelings as they were to try to get her to realize that we were so in tune with each other that we MUST be made for one another.  We are kindred spirits, so please, be with me.

I know it is silly.  Hell, I couldn't even muster up the courage to call her once in awhile just to chat.  I mean, what if I called and she was like "What the hell are you calling me for?"  I would have been mortified!

At the end of the school year, I decided that I wanted to give her a present.  Something to remember me by, but also as a gesture of affection.  While I did not really have much money or know what I could buy for her anyway, I found something in my room that was perfect.  We were both fans of Pink Floyd and I was given, sometime before, a huge poster for their album "The Division Bell."  That was it.  I would give it to her after our graduation dance.  She would finally know of my affections towards her.

The last week of school came.  We went on some field trips to the bay area and whatnot.  In a store on Pier 39 she wanted a shirt that had the "Fruit of the Loom" logo on it, but instead of saying the brand name it said "Freak in the Room."  She was short a few bucks, so my mom, who was one of the chaperones on this trip, gave her the couple extra bucks to get her shirt.  Alright mom, more bonus points for me!

The day was finally here.  The last period of the last day we were given an extended recess period to sit outside with our friends or do whatever and let it all sink in.  During this time, some people got together, signed year books, exchanged good byes, some tears flowed.  For the most part, I sat alone, away from everyone.  I wept a bit.  I was not mourning for this thing, this society that I loved, but for the loss of a certain step of childhood.  I was about to leave the only real group dynamic that I had known, even if it was a shitty one.  At least I knew my expectations here.  To top it all off, many of us were going to different schools, including Annie.  She and a few others were going to one high school, most of us were heading to another, just due to location.  I was about to lose the first girl that was truly nice to me, that showed some form of concern for me, that tried to teach me that I could be happy without being part of the exclusive club.  That was a big deal to this 14 year old boy.

Once we had our graduation ceremony we all shuffled into the auditorium for our final dance. We were not ones to enjoy the dances much as they were too poppy and all of the "cool" kids went to them, but as this was the last moments together, we all decided to go.  For the most part our small group of friends just sat alone, danced a bit, but tried to talk the DJ into playing something that was not hip-hop or top-40 garbage.  We did finally get him to play one Pearl Jam song.  That was enough because Pearl Jam was Annie's and my favorite band at the time.  For the most part though, I counted the seconds until we were forced into the world as separate people, no longer the friends that I hoped we would continue to be.

When the dance came to a close, I told Annie that I had a gift for her.  My mom brought it with her when she came to pick me up.  When I showed Annie the Pink Floyd poster she jumped for joy, said thank you, and gave me a hug.

A hug.  I know it does not mean much, but to me at the time, it was the greatest moment in my life.  This was my first real crush, the first girl to care about me as a human being outside of family, and we just crossed the threshold into the world physical contact.  No one but family had ever shown me affection before.  My heart jumped and a smile was on my face for the next two days.

My mother drove me home, and the entire way I felt new.  Finally I understood what Annie was trying to tell me many months ago when she told me to stop caring about what the "cool" kids say.  I looked forward to the future in a new school with a positive attitude.  Maybe I could reinvent myself?  Maybe I could finally be the person that I felt I truly was, and no longer this awkward guy that planned everyday around how to avoid ridicule.  Maybe, just maybe, life would hand me new friends and people, new adventures, and a I would find more girls out there like Annie.

That hug signified the first step into a world of manhood and I am happy that she was the one to give that to me.  Over the years she and I talked a bit, wrote a couple of letters, chatted over social networking sites, but really never had a friendship again.  While I reached out for her on multiple occasions, she rarely reached back.  I don't know much about her life since as she never really wanted to talk about it, but she always accepted friend requests and chatted a little bit.

I wish that I could find her today.  She still has an old myspace page out there, but no updates or contacts in years.  I hope that wherever she is, however she is doing, she knows that she made a difference in someone's life, no matter how insignificant that may seem, or how insignificant I may be.

They Might Be Amazing

This weekend was an outstanding one.  If you are unaware, since about the age of 14 I have been a huge fan of the band They Might Be Giants while maintaining a very respectable collection of their disks and records.  Back in 1999 I went with a group of friends and first saw them at the Warfield in San Francisco.  It was one of the most amazing shows in that the crowd was great, we were near the front, and they played a ton of great songs.  The opening band for that show was a small band called "You Were Spiraling" that played a brilliant set as well with some cool old covers and original work.  It was a good time.

While I still listened to them often, I did not get another chance to see them until 2007.  This show was also in SF, but this time we were at the Fillmore.  The opening band for this show was called "Oppenheimer."  They were a 2-person group that really did well for themselves.  That show, while it rocked as well, did not recreate the same feeling for me as the first show did some years earlier.  I enjoyed myself overall, but it was not the same as it was in my youth.  While I still purchased merch and would not say I was disappointed, I started to question if I had grown away from this band that I loved so dearly.

Did they change or did I change?  It took me awhile to realize that we both had, but that the change is not a bad thing at all.

Earlier this year TMBG sent out an email selling "Fan Club" memberships which included free t-shirts, free vinyls, and 2 free concert tickets to one of the shows on the upcoming tour.  I jumped at the chance for a few reason, but mostly for the records.  It is a good thing that I did jump at the chance as they only had 1000 spots open and they sold out in about 24-hours.  I was one of the lucky few and my name is listed with the other fan club members in the digital booklet to their newest full release "Join Us."

I now started to see what they were going for here.  Once the album came out my love for the band was rejuvinated in that they were playing smart adult rock tunes again.  For the first time in years I had to take out my dictionary to find out what a song was talking about.  The music was new, while still being TMBG, and the lyrics were spot-on with their quirkiness, while still maintaining dark themes hiding inside of beautiful pop melodies. 

The album title, the fan club, their website, and everything was changed from the previous few years to reflect a band who was once something, trying to get back to those roots that made them great and they succeeded wonderfully.

For my free tickets I got a pair for an SF show, again at the Fillmore.  This time they also booked a second show that same weekend at the venue.  I picked up a pair of tickets for that show as well.  Then, just a couple of days before the shows, they announced a free show at Amoeba Records in SF along with a signing.  Holy crap!  3 shows in 2 days!  Woot!

We booked a hotel for the weekend and we were off.  First show was Saturday night.  My uncle who lives in the area met us for the sold-out concert as I had an extra ticket.  The opening band for this tour was the great Jonathan Coulton.  I had never seen him before but was familiar with his nerdy songs, so that was fun.  We stood near the back of the venue, had a good view overall, and listened.  After Coulton preformed, then TMBG took the stage and right off the bat opened with a strange set list.  In the past they would open shows with harder, mostly upbeat songs.  This was different.  They opened with an old song from their second album called "Pencil Rain" which was one of my favorites like 15 years ago.  I was floored with a "Wow..."

The set followed along these these lines.  Overall it was a strange set that was kind of weird and choppy and did not flow that well.  That was my only complaint.  The show was fun and positive in the end.  I got the feeling that John Linell was really not that on-the-ball that night though.  I came to find out that the show the night before was a huge disappointment with a terrible crowd, so it was understandable that the band was a little off the ball for this one.

After Pencil Rain they followed with a few flowing songs in "Can't Keep Johnny Down," "Celebration," and "Why Does the Sun Shine," but followed with more chop in "Snail Shell" and "Fingertips."  They ended the main set with the rocking tune "The Mesopotamians."  This led to a series of encores with just the Johns singing "How Can I sing Like A Girl," then the whole band for "Don't Let's Start," "San Francisco," "The Guitar," and ending the night with the crowd singing the softer tune "Dead," a fan favorite since it first came out 20 years ago.  Like I said, my only complain was just the strange vibe that the set brought with it, but overall a great a show.

The next day was started with the in-store free show and signing at Amoeba Records in SF.  My wife and I got there early, which if you know me, taking me to a record store with money and time is one of the most dangerous combinations.  I had to really restrain myself from overspending, but in the end I was able to limit myself to just a few albums for purchase.  We bought a copy of the newest album to get signed after the set and got a spot right up front, just a few feet from where the Johns would be standing.

On and off we talked to other people in the crowd and before the show started Flansy came out and asked us to start chanting "Boring, boring, why are we waiting!" over and over while he shot a short video on his phone to upload under the title "Amoeba Records Show Not Going Very Well..."  It was fun.  The Johns, along with their drummer Marty Beller, came out a bit after that and started the short, but rocking set.  Flansy told an amusing anecdote about him dreaming about the prosaic aspect of being on tour, like blank crowds and tuning up.



After the 8-song set was done, which finished with the song "Pencil Rain" again, we were near the front of the line for signings.  They signed my album and I told them I was glad to see them playing a good mix of older stuff and wished them a good show that night.  John Linnell told me they were trying to mix it up a bit.  My wife was a bit star struck with the Johns, especially when Flansy asked her for her name and wrote it on one of the ticket stubs she had them sign.  Linnell said something like "Don't you need these for the show tonight?" and I replied with "Oh, they were from last night" and he smiled.


This led into that night's show.  As announced beforehand, the band was going to play the entire album, cover to cover, of their breakout record from 1990 called "Flood."  Knowing the length of that album coming in at around 40 minutes, I was curious as to how they would fit this into the show.  Would they do it first, then pad the end, of the other way around?  Would they play it in order or what?  Normally, when bands play entire albums they start from the beginning and end at the end. 

Well, when the show started they opened up again with a softer song in their lament of aging called "Older."  Well, that answered the question that they were not starting with the "Flood" album.  They followed up with another series of weird songs that I was not expecting such as "Subliminal," "XTC vs. Adam Ant," "Drink!" and "We're the Replacements," along with a few others.  This time the set flowed much better though than the night before.  After about 8 songs they busted into the "Flood" set but with a twist.  The album would be played in reverse order.  At first as was a bit disappointed, but then after I thought about it for a second and I realized that this was an amazing choice because of the strength of the first half of the album compared to the relative weakness of the latter half of the album.

After a wonderful set and the completion of the album, the band left the stage.  This then provoked a couple of encores including the songs "Can't Keep Johnny Down," "Fingertips," "How Can I Sing Like A Girl," and ending with "When Will You Die."  It was an overwhelming night in all.

This ended our weekend of rock shows with a band that we grew up with and still love.  After getting home I was checking into stuff on the band's website to which they updated with a new tag line stating "Independent Music for Independent People."  This, along with talking to them, the fan club, and set list, and the new album named "Join Us," I came to realize that the band was trying to reconnect with their core audience, the grassroots movement, and the joy of music.  They wanted us to join them in finding that spark that made them great songwriters and performers in the first place. 

Once I realized that, I was all-in.  I was inspired to listen again to the old stuff and create a new mix of older tunes and newer ones.  The band had gone full-circle and I had joined them on this journey and remembered something that I missed from years ago.

Thank you John and John of They Might Be Giants.  I still love you guys and always will.

9/11 Story

So with the 10 year anniversary of September 11th upon us, I thought that it might be time to write down my 9/11 story.

During this time I was living out at our family's ranch and going back to school.  A good friend of mine was living with us at the time and we shared my room.  I was dating a beautiful young woman that had just started college away from us as well.  That is about all the set up to my life at this time.

I used to wake up early and this morning was no different.  My mother was in the kitchen cooking something for breakfast that morning.  When I entered the front room, I saw the TV with the news on, which was normal for this early in the morning.  That was when I saw something strange on the television...

This was early, after the planes had hit, but before anything else really happened.  I saw the Twin Towers on fire, tons of smoke, and just that overall feeling on the news when it is a breaking story.  I asked "Uh...what is going on here?" to which my mother replied with what knowledge we all had, that some planes had crashed into the towers.

I was immediately intrigued as to how this could happen, let alone to both towers.  I quickly realized that it must have been something planned by someone maliciously.  It was the only real explanation.  Shortly afterward, the first tower fell.  That was the moment I knew that this was more than some freak event.  This was huge.  This was something that was calculated and executed and is not only going to caused many deaths and pains, but completely change the world.  It was sickening and beautiful in a weird way.

It did not take long after that for my phone to ring down the hall.  This was before I had a cell phone and just kept my landline as long as possible.  I ran down the hall to find out it was one of my other good friends.  It was not like him to be up this early.  He just said "Hey man, have you seen this shit?"

Of course...it was good of him to call.  He needed his friends as the world had started changing in front of him.  He wanted to make sure we were both up and experiencing this with him.  I said yes and he said that there was no way he was going to school today to which I agreed and told him to come over.  I got my other buddy up, the one that was sharing my room with me, and told him come out and see what is going on.  For the next many hours, we were glued to the TV.

See, I live on the west coast.  We don't really know many people back east and the ones that we do were nowhere around NYC, so the TV was our only connection other than the direct human one.  This was where it was happening for us.

It took a little bit, but my buddy that had called before called once more and asked if wanted anything to eat.  He picked up some McDonald's breakfast sandwiches and finally made it over.  Was not long after that when the reports of the 4th plane missing along with the reports of the Pentagon were all coming on. 

The second tower collapsed.  All we could do was watch and listen to Peter Jennings on the TV.  The various camera angles, the sounds, the smoke and debris....was very overwhelming.  Never in my life before or since have I felt what I felt on that day.  I know it is silly, but looking back the best way to describe what I was feeling was like what Obi Wan felt when the Death Star blew up Alderaan.  It was like an entire city crying out, loud and fierce, then nothing.

We speculated on who and how this could have been done.  One of my buddies sworn that it was Qaddafi.  I just could not even speculate.  I assumed some kind of terror attack, but as to whom would do this and why, it was unfathomable to me at the time.  I was thinking that is was home grown though at the time. 

This lasted all morning.  We just sat and talked.

That evening I had to go to work.  During this time I was a manager at Pizza Hut.  Once getting there we had our TVs on the news, a few customers, but overall not much action all evening.  There was one man that I worked with that I want to talk to.  He was an old man, one of my part time drivers, and a very patriotic veteran.  He was an interesting man who's opinion I greatly respected even though we did not always agree on things.  He was quiet and watching with us.  Later I found him and asked him what he thought.  Like a true gentleman, he did not have much to say.  It is amazing to see his emotion through the lack of emotion he had shown, if that makes sense. 

The next day I went to school early to hang out a bit and see people.  It was a somber, solemn day and most of my classes were cancelled again.  We used to all hang out behind the campus theater because there was a large dock there that was a great meeting place.  I sat, and talked to many people as they came throughout the day.  There were various opinions and thoughts, not all I wanted to hear or had much respect for.  A long-time friend came to me and said he needed to talk to someone.  We walked a bit away and he was just confused and lost, did not know what to think.  Finally he asked me what I thought...

This was really the first time that I had some chance to really digest and reflect on my own thoughts.  In doing so, I was the first of my friends or anyone in my group to say that I was amazed and the organization and power people can exert if they feel the need to.  I could not believe that someone could believe so deeply in a cause to do such a horrific act, murder thousands of people, and maliciously tear the heart out of a city.  I speculated about the will power involved and the pain caused, even thought about the idea of some kind of metric to study emotional pain.  The direct human pain was still unknown to me.  I had not felt it in that way yet.

We discussed various ideas and thoughts, there were fears and tears abound.

It was not until many months later that I saw something on TV about the event that I really connected to it on a direct level.  This was later, once all the videos and whatnot were coming out with more human stories of that day.  I connect with stories deeply.  Seeing some of those documentaries hit me and for the first time I cried about what happened.  I finally saw people directly affected, people that were there, and stories of how that day changed the lives of millions of people in a very real way.

It did not take me long to protest even the idea of going to war.  I joined groups in college along with occasionally heading out to a group who would hold peace signed on a busy corner every once a week.  I joined a peace protest with a friend where people were reading poetry, or just talking to try to promote the idea of stopping the violence before it started.  It was of course futile, but the journey itself is sometimes just as important as the outcome. 

At that event one of the professors at the college stepped up to the podium.  He talked a bit about himself as a Vietnam war vet, a bit about his experiences, and then took out a letter to read.  This was a letter that was sent from a buddy in the war back home just days before he was killed in an unjust war.  It was a few pages and by far one of the most emotional things I had ever heard.  The crowd were all crying, the teacher was in tears just trying to finish the letter.  He knew first hand the results of unjustified violence as a scar on our collective consciousnesses.  He knew that the outcome was nothing but more death and the later pain caused by empty revenge.  That revenge is what we still have ongoing today.

I don't want to get political anymore.  The political events post 9/11 are a story all unto themselves.  As for my own fallout, I still have trouble watching the events and thinking about them, but I cannot look away when anything is on about 9/11.  It is like seeing someone die, you can't look away but looking just rips you apart from your humanity in a weird way.

That is all I want to say about 9/11 today.  This has not very well edited, so there are probably typos and bad sentences abound.  I apologize for that, but I just want to finish typing on the subject for tonight.  I want to just say that I wish I could hug every living victim of that event.  I could not imagine their pain.  I want to shake the hand of every volunteer that gave their time, their money, and in some cases their health to try to save anyone left in the rubble.  I commend you.  This was a dark time for our country, but a strong point for us as human beings.

This is A Story of a Friend

So for those that have seen, I have been writing about my various friendships lately.  The point is to start documenting my adventures and travels in relationship to those that were with me, but from my point of view.  Today I have decided that it is time to talk about one person that meant the world to me for some time.  She was not a girlfriend, but a best friend during this time...

I used to hang out at the college a lot, in between classes, or just because a lot of my friends were there.  I was sometimes seen as a glue that held groups of people together.  One friend once looked around and saw a bunch of smiling people, talking and playing games, and called me the Patron Saint of this group, claiming that it was because of my influence that this existed at all.  It was a compliment, but an overzealous one.

On a particular set of days I saw someone walking about the college by herself.  I noticed her, as you do, but not in any sexually attracted sort of way, more in a sense of how she moved, walked, ignored the world around her and lived in a happy contemplation.  Then this day came a long where, while sitting outside and assisting a friend with homework, quietly talking and smoking or whatever we were doing at the time, I saw her walking towards us.  She was still wearing that coat that caused her to not care what was going on, but this time she was obviously coming towards us for some kind of engagement.  I was thrilled.  I had found myself intrigued by her for a few days, so this was a chance to meet a new friend.

There was some awkwardness at first as she was attempting to figure out how to, well, basically how to make friends.  Come to find out she had just recently moved there, was young (17) at the time, and did not really know anyone at all.  She came from Oregon and had later told me that she was amazed by the Central Valley because she had never seen a land so flat before.

We got to talking and right away we hit it off.  We had a lot of the same tastes in music, in reading, and in movies.  We talked philosophy, friends, and the world which we grew up.  It was like finding your soul mate.  We would clash and argue sometimes, but I like to believe that she looked up to me as an old brother.  She would ask me questions, not just about the world, but about personal stuff, stuff that a parent should have taught her but didn't.  Needless to say she was extremely smart for her age, but lacked some of the normal social common sense and niceties.

Later that first day, I saw her walking around town.  I stopped to talk, gave her a ride to where she was living.  That was a strange situation on it's own.  She was staying with this person all the way across town, the other side of the tracks you might say, payed a shit ton for rent, the woman made her sleep on the couch, and refused to give her a key.

Over the next week is when we really bonded.  We argued about the nobility in the action of Socrates, what a songwriter meant when choosing certain words, and which poets are better than others.  It was fun, informative, stimulating, and most of, it was all done without a sense of pretentiousness or fuss.  It was just good conversation.  We stayed up together every day after classes talking.  After only a week of knowing her, I went to give her a ride to the place she was staying.  When we got there, it was cold and late.  I would not leave until I knew she was inside and that night, it was not going to happen.

She banged and banged on the door, kept telling me to leave, she would just stay outside and wait for someone to come home.  After awhile I just refused and told her to get in the truck.  It was 2 in the morning, cold, and I was not going to let her freeze out there.  I told her she is coming to stay at my house tonight, no arguing.  She slept on the couch and the next morning we went back to school.

This became the norm.  Giving rides and just plain being friends.  She introduced me to the music of Bright Eyes, I showed her The Mountain Goats, and we would spend so many nights just talking and listening to music.  We taught each other a lot of things.

Then she started falling for this guy from back home.  She was going to go back up to see him soon and started asking me those questions about sex.  Like I said before, she never seemed to have much in the way of common sense guidance, but a lot of good stories about her father otherwise.  I remember this night because of a hilarious tangent our conversation went on when she became confused about a certain term for the woman's anatomy and my descriptions.  She thought I was talking about one thing when I was talking about another and it caused some rather weird fears in her for awhile until we finally got on the same page.  We laughed about that night and some hilarious imagery associated with it for many nights to come.

Soon, she was kicked out of the housing situation she was in.  This caused her to become a squatter.  She stayed on my couch most nights, but was always gracious and always kind.  She was not a bum or a mooch by any means, but she always needed someone for a place to crash.  She was in college with no place to live.  All of this caused some tension between us because it got to feeling that maybe she was only my friend for a couch, maybe she only wanted to hang with me because she needed to sleep some place safe.  I got frustrated with it, got somewhat cold towards her...

I feel awful for ever thinking that.  It was not her nature and I was wrong to question her motives.  Luckily, not long after she took that trip back home and to this guy she liked.  When she got back a couple weeks later...she brought him with her.  That was a bad decision, nay, a horrible decision, but they got a place to live together.  That took all of the strain that I had felt and removed it.  She later said that our friendship was much better and stronger after that.  It meant a lot to me.  She did not blame or judge me for my feelings, she understood them completely, but I still believe they were still unjustified.

Well, as time traveled, she made friends with our whole group, she made new friends and brought them into the fold, and we were always there, like a brother and sister, close as could be in that way.

Then a huge moment happened.  I decided to move away.  I decided that it was time, with various other things falling apart around me, to move and start a new life.  I wanted so badly for her or other friends to come with me, but that was never to happen.  At my going-away party we had bands and musicians play.  When it was the end of my set, I sung and played her favorite song for her...she was in the crowd, singing and crying...I was crying too after seeing her and trying to finish my song.  I knew what I was leaving and most of all, I was leaving my best friend in a scary world where she needed someone there...I couldn't look at her for the rest of the set.  It tore my heart out and still, when I recall it today, I wish I could turn away from that image in my mind.

After I moved, we still talked over the internet and phone, but not as often.  She grew tired and wary of some of the friends and normalcies of life.  After a few months, she was done with that boyfriend she brought back down.  He needed someplace to go.  Somehow, in a weird turn of events (another story all together), he came and stayed with us.  We gave him a chance, payed for him to get his GED which he failed.  We got him 3 jobs, all of which he quit or got fired from in a short amount of time.  This guy was a complete train wreck.  The reason I talk about this is because it leads to the last part of our tale...

A couple of months after he moved up here, she came for a visit.  She had a new boyfriend she wanted to tell me about, moved on in her life, and all the things that had been happening since I left.  It was good, but weird because of the tension of her ex that was living with us.  It all culminated in us throwing a Halloween party, alcohol, and a sexual encounter between her and her ex that should have never happened.

The next morning everything seemed good.  She was leaving to go back to Merced.  We dropped her off, she hugged and kissed me, and that was the last time I saw her.  A couple of days later she called me to ask me to tell her ex to leave her alone and not talk to her again, which I agreed to do for her.  That was fine, but that was the last I ever talked to this person that means to much to me.  She never called again.

I reached out to her a few weeks later.  She was not home but her roommate answered the phone.  The conversation went like this:
Me: Hey is [girl] there?
RM: Uh, no, she is working.
Me: Oh, okay, can you have her call me later please?
RM: Uh, well, I will tell her, but she does not want to talk you.

Now, this was the first I had heard anything about this at all.

Me:  What?  What is going on?
RM: Well, she just told me she did not want to talk to you, but I will tell her you called and that you want to hear from her.

That was it.  She did not want to talk to me.  Still, years later, I don't know the exact reason for the break in contact.  All I know is that I lost the best friend that I ever had.  Just writing this gets me weeping because to me, she was my soul mate, or at least the closest thing I have ever known to such a title.  Since that time, there have been major events in my life and when I looked over to find that friend to talk to, to alleviate my fears and work out my thoughts, she wasn't there.  That was the first time I realized my isolation from the world that I knew.

Since that day I have found her on social networking sites, attempted contact a few times, but I have not heard a word in response, not even a "fuck off".  That I could handle, but this silence has been about the hardest thing in my life to deal with.  That fear, that unknown, it is a killer.  I have recently found her once more, but I do not have the guts to reach out again.  I have this extreme sense of fear that if I did, I would get the same silence and it would tear open this unhealing wound that I have learned to live with.  I tell myself that if she wanted to talk to me, she could find me.  I am not a hard man to find at all. 

I heard some stuff through the grapevine about her, some stories, some whispers of her life.  I listen intently, hoping for some clue as to what happened, but rarely do I get any good leads to work off of.  One time recently I was back home, went out to a bar that a lot of my old group frequent.  I saw a girl that might have been her there.  My heart sped and I just could not contain myself very well.  I kept looking over because I was not sure if it was her.  It has been years and she was still growing and changing.  After catching her eye a few times, I convinced myself that it was not her.  There was no reaction at all.  Mix that with the fact that I was not sold it was her in the first place, I finally settled down some.

That brings us to today where I write about pining for a friendship that I feel was stolen from me.  I have a theory that she cut ties to everyone associated with her ex and me due to the influence of her boyfriend at the time.  I have no real evidence of this, just suspicions from knowing him some and knowing things she said to me about him.  I am saddened by this though because I thought she was smart enough to not let a guy control her life, unless, well, unless she wanted to.  Maybe she did not need me anymore.  This is the most heart-breaking theory because I would have thought that she loved me enough to tell me to fuck off at least.

I wish that I had more insight to add to this.  I wish that I had some lesson to take, but if there is anything, it is this:

I feel that I will always be her friend.  I will not let her decision to cut ties so dis respectively destroy my love for my best friend.  I have told myself that if she ever comes calling again that I would treat her as I always had and be that brother to her that I liked to feel that I was.  I would not treat her with scorn and possibly push her away again.  This pain that I have is just a signal telling me that that I care, that she is a friend, reminding me that even though friends do some fucked up things sometimes, a true friend will always be there for you and accept you with open arms if that is what you need. 

Take it or leave it.  I just needed to write it down.  Thanks for reading.

There is Always One...

So here is a bit of a story.  This may turn out to be what you refer to as a "girl blog", but not in the normal way.  This is not about girl troubles, just more of a story about a journey with a particular person.

So when I was in high school, I could not get a date for the life of me.  I was the "friend."  All nice guys know the pain of being the friend.  These amazingly beautiful and sweet creatures are treated like shit and then they come to you to cry about it.  Well, once I got out of high school I suddenly became more attractive to the opposite sex it seemed.  My years of being the nice guy paid off and I could not fit the ladies into my schedule.

Anyway, I started dating this girl at this time.  She had a younger brother that I knew as well and we used to all go out together, play music, movies, whatever.  One time we all went out to eat after he got out of high school.  This time, he brought a friend that he was kind of hanging out with.  She was by far the most beautiful young woman I had met.  It was not that she was completely hot in a standard Hollywood sort of way, but she had this air of confidence well beyond her years along with a smile that could slay a dragon.  Mix that with deep blue eyes that seemed to hold a sad, human soul and I was hooked.  We never talked much then, and I never pursued her as I was in a relationship and she was still a couple years younger in high school.  Really too young at the time.  I believe I was 20 and she was 16 or something like that.  I cannot recall exactly, but it was too big of an age difference.

To move on though, that girl stayed on and off in my life through my group of friends.  She would date a friend or somehow be associated.  I always had this secret crush, but nothing outside of that.  Once she got a couple years older, we started hanging out again.  She was dating this asshole guy and she often needed a friend.  By this time, I was good friends with her.  The guy was always jealous of me because for some reason we seemed to have this bond, this deep love that neither of us seemed to want to admit.  She always smiled and hugged me and my heart would flutter every time.  She was always more happy with me than with her boyfriends, but we still were not any closer to dating ourselves.

Finally, she graduated high school and started to go to the community college where I went and worked.  All of a sudden, she was thrust back into my life.  We had occasionally talked about trying to date at this time, but it was always this situation where she was dating someone or I was dating someone.  Never did anything line up.  We even went so far as to make one of those marriage pacts.  By the time she was 30, if neither of us were married, then we would get together.  This clock was finally ticking!

Well, as we were back into each others life at this point, we finally started going out to lunch often, just the two of us, hanging out, watching movies, and running errands together.  One day in between classes, she came along with me to the bank so that I could deposit my check and take her out to lunch.  During this time I was a manager of a pizza place, worked as a tutor and councilor at the college, had a band, worked for a karaoke company, and went to school.  I was a busy guy.

Once we were done at the bank, I went to open the door of my truck for her, as you do, and she stopped while entering the truck and kissed me.  Not a simple peck mind you, but a passionate kiss.  Never in my life has my heart skipped so many beats.  The feeling is something that I remember to this day and I will never forget.  It was that amazing spark that you think only exists in film until it happens to you.  Not only did I receive a display of affection from this woman that I had feelings for for many years now, it was the fact that she came to me.  It was a signal that she was ready to move to the next level with our relationship.  We were moving closer and closer to finally having those elusive titles of "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" that has seemed to haunt as since we first met.  The only problem turned out being that it appears that she was not quite signalling that at all.

I thought this was a shoe in.  I thought we were finally going to be "together".  This was not the case.  A few days later she comes by my work with some friends.  One of those being a guy that I also knew from school.  She was all over him, in front of me, blatantly.  Later, she came to me to ask me what I thought about him, almost asking my permissions to date him.  I was hurt and terrified, but I am not one to get angry or territorial.  I just reverted back into "friend" mode, game her as honest of an opinion as I could at the time, got mopey, and that was the end of that day.  A couple more days go by and I find her at a friend's house.  We talk a bit about it.  She says she does not want to settle and wants to date a few guys.  So she was not signally that we were going to be together, she wanted us to date, but not exclusively.  I thought that maybe I could handle this.

A couple more weeks go by, we are hanging out, I take her out for some Chinese food lunch.  We stuff ourselves on cheap Chinese buffet and go back to my vehicle.  As we are pulling out of the parking lot, she looks over at me with those eyes and that smile, and I know what she is thinking.  I read her like a book.  We stopped my car right there and start making out.  We ended up blocking traffic in the parking lot for a few minutes until we got a grip on ourselves, but I did not care.  I felt that I had won the lottery.  She was dating around, but it seemed to me as if she had finally made her choice.  I was the one.

So, a little more insight into this woman.  I mentioned the air of confidence that she exuded.  This air was a defense mechanism, a strength to her, and the more she held it up, the longer she would have until she had to deal with her own pains and emotional baggage.  She never wanted to be human, never want to show people that she was anything but happy and smart.  On this front, she was never really comfortable talking about the things she did, let alone being questioned on their morality or merit.  She seemed to trust me more than anyone, but even that was glazed with this layer of saccharin.  I was a councilor in college.  I was trained to read people and I knew all of this about her.  Her eyes, which always told me so much, told me more than she even knew, but I could not talk to her about these things as she would just get more defensive.  People are quite often like great poetry.  They are not that hard to read if you really put in the time to look, but that does not mean that they are easy to interpret or fully understand the true depths of.

This leads me back to my story.  I thought that I had finally been chosen to try to make her happy.  This was incorrect.  A couple more weeks go by and she is rarely talking with me.  Finally she breaks it to me that she is going to date this other man for awhile, and see how that goes.  I was hurt, but I understood.  These were friends, and I will support them and we still had not lain out any ground-rules for our relationship.  During this time though, she would continue to hint at us, drag me along, keep me in some sort of bond where it seemed like she and I were going to be together.  More and more this frustrated me.  I knew that I was being manipulated, but like any addiction, it was so hard to do anything about it.  This had to stop.  I needed to know the truth.

I invited her out to coffee, telling her that we needed to talk.  She seemed to think this was more innocent, friendly, hanging out.  We went to the StarBucks one morning, ordered our coffee, and sat down.  She said, "What's up sweetie?" to which I stared at her for a minute, trying to find the right way to frame what I wanted to say.  Finally, it just came out like this, in a very calm and deliberate style:

"What the hell are you doing with me?"

That was all I said.  That moment I saw something that I had never quite seen.  It was like her soul was shattered.  Those blue eyes glazed over with tears.  She is someone that never wanted anyone to see her cry.  To her, this was a weakness and she never liked to face her weaknesses.  She did not really cry, but she did inside, you could see it.  She was fighting so hard to figure out what was going on and she did not quite know what to say because she had never been confronted so blatantly about her actions before.  This did not make me feel good in any way, but it had to be faced.

After maybe the longest 20 seconds of her life, those small moments that seem to last forever, she was finally able to squeeze out a "Well...what do you mean?"

She knew what I meant.  I retorted with something along the lines of "Well, you seem to care for me, I care for you, you tease me with affection, with passionate kisses, but never seem to want me as more than a friend.  Please, I can't do this anymore.  It hurts too much.  If you want us to be together, I need to know.  If not, that is fine, I still love you as a friend, but let me know.  I can no longer let myself be dragged around by you.  Please, tell me what you want with me, why you do this to me?"

This caused another stunned silence.  What answer was she supposed to give other than face the facts that she had been using me to fluff her ego and be somewhat of a safety.  She finally said something that I still to this day am unaware of it's truthfulness or not.  That being said, I like to believe it because it makes me feel good.  I was looking as deep down into her at the time, and still I could not tell either way if it was true or just something to appease me.

After fighting back tears, holding onto her strength, she said "It is true.  I love you.  I love you so much that it scares me.  I feel that if we were to be together, that would be it.  It would be set.  My feelings for you run so deeply that I know I would not leave you and that scares me.  We are still young and have lives to live away from one another.  Someday though I feel we will be together, just not today."

This eased me some.  I don't believe that she had ever in her life been backed into a corner like that.  She was always so sure of herself that people followed.  She was forced to give a hard answer and that is what I received.  It was like the chains were free from me.  I had a definite answer.  It was not to be at that time.

EPILOGUE:
We remained friends and while occasionally losing contact with one another, we always were in the background.  That guy she was with at the time instead of me, well, they were engaged for awhile.  I warned her of something that I felt about him which she ignored it and it turned out to be true.  He was gay and finally admitted it to himself and they broke up.  After that she dated a good friend of mine, like a brother, and that was hard for me to sit and see.  I knew 100% that it would not last long though as they were both very stubborn individuals.  It ended badly and shortly after.  Then I started dating someone else, she started dating someone else, moved a couple of towns over for school.  Once in awhile we would still get together for drinks.

The last time I saw her in person she brought her new boyfriend to me for approval.  After meeting him, talking to him, he seemed like a good man.  I was happy for her and she was happy.  For the first time she had a glimmer in those wonderful eyes that I had not seen before.  She honestly seemed that for once she knew something.  She knew who she was, she knew of her past wrongs, and what is clear and correct now.  She was on the right path and winning at this game we call life.

That was a few years ago when I last saw her.  We lost contact for awhile, but then one day I found her on the facebook.  It was hard because she was now married to that same guy with a new last name.  We spoke some, she felt bad that I was never let known about her marriage.  I wished I could have been there.  I always feel like I should have given her away in some form, even though I know this was not true.  I wrote her a letter telling her that our chance seems to have sailed, but I was happy to know she was in good hands.  She never responded to it, but I never expected her to either.  It is not her way to face things like that.  =)

I was inspired to write this all down to both work out my own story, but also because we were recently talking as old friends again.  She has moved away, living what she says is a happy life across the pond now.  She is restarting school to finish her dream and she posted a new picture of those eyes and that smile.  It was a face of pure joy that I had not seen on her, or on anyone for that matter, in years.  I almost wanted to weep because I was so happy and proud of her.  She made it through some rough times.  My only regret is that I was not always there by her side to help her on her way, but sometimes that is not our job, no matter how badly we want it to be.