There’s a passage from my favorite book, Cold Mountain that to me is the deepest insult anyone can ever say about someone. It’s when Stobrod and Pangle are set upon by the home guard who ask them to play some music:
“Stobrod did not much want to. He was tired. And figured that his audience had no thought of music, lacked entirely what was needed to love it.”
That is devastating. Do you know how broken you have to be inside to not enjoy music? I know that for some people, music is not that big of a deal. That they don’t keep up with particular bands or artists. But this feels like something different. An empathy and joy that they just can’t access because of what they’re missing.
I feel the same way when I see people complain about people not speaking English in America. Every language and I include English in that, has its own music, rhythm to it. I’m fortunate that I live in an area where I get to hear many different Asian languages. I can go to a store and if I turn off my headphones, I can hear people talking in whatever they speak.
I’m sure there’s some kind of insecurity in not knowing if people are shit talking you. But people can shit talk me all they want because this is America.
I know that it’s not just the hatred of music that makes people not want to hear other languages. It’s pointless bigotry. You want people to comply and become as miserable as you are. It’s just so boring. Language is how we express our hearts and you want to change that when you tell someone to speak in a language other than their own.
If you hear someone speaking in a different language that you don’t understand, maybe it’s best to do something that these people who tell them to speak English, don’t do. Listen and mind your fucking business.
Followers of this blog will know that I’ve been trying to get into shape and be healthier. To that end, I keep trying to find the perfect workout routine. The one that I’ve fallen into is going to the gym and doing some weight lifting and then the elliptical for an increasing number of minutes. The other two days of the week, I go swimming and because that only takes a few minutes because I can only do a few laps right now, I head up to the track at the community center… and power walk.
This is where the bravery comes in. Because power walking is goofy as hell. It’s a great workout. I really feel it in my legs when I’m done and with my swimming, I’m getting a full body workout. But the way my but wiggles, the way it looks. It just feels embarrassing.
I wanted to find a power walking image to show how goofy it is and instead I found that badass lady with tattoos
I’m never one though to turn away from embarrassment as long as it’s not me being a jerk to someone. Being racist or homophobic would be truly embarrassing. So, the other week, I just hopped on the track and started power walking. And you know what I realized?
No one fucking cares. No one said anything besides to nod good morning to me. I boogied my way around that track for thirty minutes, worked up a sweat and left. No one said anything.
There was a woman that was twenty years my senior and she dusted me though. Lapping me multiple times. You might think that’s embarrassing but I assume she’s been doing it a lot longer. You know what she is though? She’s my rival. I have to get better at power walking to make sure that I can beat her. She doesn’t know about our rivalry but it exists. Oh yes, does it exist.
Just to be clear about my workout plan, it’s this:
Monday- Swimming/Power walking
Tuesday- Weight lifting/elliptical
Wednesday- Rest
Thursday- Weight lifting/Elliptical
Friday- Swimming/Power walking
Saturday- Yoga if I’m around for it, a walk if not
Sunday- Pedal machine under desk while I play video games or watch TV at least 45 minutes
I’ll let you know how this goes. I might change up some things so that my body doesn’t get so used to the routine. I also have daily exercises that I do just as a little added bonus. Those are:
25- Bicycle crunches with ankle and arm weights
10- Bird dogs with ankle and arm weights
25- Side jumping jacks
10- Pushups(Admittedly, I can only do these on my knees so far but I’m going to work my way up)
30 Seconds total of planking
5 Minutes of Dance
These numbers will increase with my endurance and other things. I’ll post my dance mix tape in another post.
I’m not a parent but I know that it’s a tough job. I remember seeing the movie Inside Out with a friend that had a kid and they started crying towards the end of the movie. I asked them what about the movie made them upset and they stated that they had realized that no matter what they did, their kid was destined to be unhappy. Not overall but there were going to be moments when their kid was going to be miserable and they had been responsible for that.
It was a tough conversation but the fact that they had had that thought made me think that they would be a good parent. Their child was fairly young at the time. But it got me thinking about the role that parents play in the mental health of their children.
While I know that’s a heavy and gigantic subject, I wanted to highlight two moments in media where I think that some parents could really learn. They particularly feature mothers and their daughters. The first involves Marge Simpson, the long suffering matriarch of the Simpsons family dealing with Lisa whose having a long running bout of depression that she can’t quite shake.
Marge trying her best to help, gives her the following advice:
It is horrific advice. Not acknowledging your own feelings and dealing with them in a responsible manner and also turning yourself into a smile and nothing more. The boys immediately start taking advantage of her and her trying to follow the advice is willing to go along with it. Finally, her teacher tells her he doesn’t want to another burst of “creativity” and Lisa replies with a respectful “no, sir”. Perhaps seeing her own trauma being enacted on her daughter and what it would mean for her spirit to be destroyed, Marge becomes enraged, throws her car in gear and grabs Lisa.
She then does two of the best things that a parent can do for their child. She at first, acknowledges that she was wrong. She’s willing to say I messed up and I’m not always perfect. That’s a big thing to admit to anyone but especially your child who might have put you on a pedestal of some kind. For you to come down to their level and to see that you make mistakes too is good. It makes them more able to make mistakes.
Secondly, she tells Lisa that not only that her feelings are valid and that she is allowed to have them but that she her family will be there the entire time. They’ll ride it out with her. This cheers Lisa immensely and she starts legitimately smiling.
It’s one of the best scenes of the early Simpsons. Right up there with “DO IT FOR HER”
So, we got some great parenting right there. Let’s talk about another mom and her daughter, Claire and Alex.
Alex much like Lisa is the most intelligent member of her family and that makes her feel like an outsider when she doesn’t feel able to get involved in their antics. She pushes herself to the breaking point academically and professionally, which results in all of this:
We see a child in crisis and her parents are concerned but she knows how to take care of herself and schedules a therapy appointment and how to get there on her own. Her mother goes to her school’s open house and sees the workload that she has on her shoulders including the six hours of homework that she has to do every night.
When Claire and her daughter meet up, Claire says that being her for two hours was exhausting and she didn’t know how she has a breakdown every day. Alex begins weeping and hugs her mother. What we see in this moment is the acknowledgement of a burden and her mother seeing her for who she is and what she has to go through. It’s a big thing. Everyone has their own burdens and much like with Marge and Lisa, saying that you’ll be there with someone and help to carry it, it means a world of difference.
With Lisa and Marge we saw the pain of generational trauma coming to bear on the next generation. Alex and Claire don’t have that as Claire never had the same expectations put on her as a child. But still, they’re both helping their children find the tools and support that they need to get through their troubles. They’re good episodes that I think are worth watching.
Sometimes I can’t think of some dumb, nerdy shit to write about so I just want to give an update on something else. I’ve been trying to work out more again and this has taken the form of going on more walks as well as using my under desk pedaler more often. My legs have been feeling better, like they feel more energetic if that makes any sense. It’s like they’re constantly asking me to let them kick through something.
I’ve neglected my arms so they get much more achey these days when I have to lift or exercise them. I’m going to be working on that so that I can get them back into punching shape. Not that I want to be able to punch people but there’s nothing quite like having a bad day and then taking it out on the bag. Better than taking it out on a person, anyway.
As for my belly, I’ve started doing daily bicycle crunches and my word they hurt. I know that’s where I got most of the air in my spare tire and I also know that crunches alone aren’t going to fix it. You have to do everything so that my body will start pulling from other fat sources to power me. I added bird dogs, push ups, jumping jacks and this weird cross leg thing to my daily workouts as well. If I do nothing else, I do that.
I’ve kept up with the beet juice from a different post and that led me to a very interesting doctor’s office visit. With my newfound vegetarianism, came an unexpected side effect, intense internal gas in my stomach. I had a doctor’s appointment and told my doctor about this. She mentioned that eating healthier does lead you to have more gas. It was like having your dentist praise how well you floss. I rode that high for a few days.
She told me to stop the beet juice for a week to see if that fixed things. It did but she wanted me to continue it because of how healthy it was. It was then that I learned what the issue actually was. The night before my doctor’s appointment, I had realized I had forgotten my daily beet juice so I drank it and went to bed. That was the issue, the gas in the beet juice had nowhere to go. So it just made my tum-tum all upset. Since then I’ve been using the beet juice basically as a pre-workout drink so that I can keep it moving through my system. It’s really helped.
I haven’t seen any results because why would I? This has only been like three days. It’s like that baboon said to Bojack Horseman. “It gets easier every day. But that’s the trick, you have to do it everyday.”
I’m six foot tall and it doesn’t feel that it should be that way. Like I think I was supposed to be short but then like puberty got it wrong and I shot up like a weed. I don’t think I have tall guy energy. I think I’m just gangly and awkward.
It is useful of course for the ability to reach up and pick things off tall shelves. It’s very rarely that I need to use a stepladder or anything like that.
Also, I don’t like to fight because I don’t fight fair or clean. It’s fortunate enough that I have the height on me that most fights end before they start. I remember there was this one time that I was on the train and my knee accidentally bumped into the seat in front of me. The man behind me must have been having a bad day because he told me that if my leg bumped his back again, he was going to beat my head in.
My dad told me to always stand up against bullies. I stood to my full height and towered over him. He said “Yeah!” and sat back down. Didn’t bother me again but I did try to make sure that I didn’t bump the seat in front of me. There’s no reason to be rude.
In my head, I think that I’m much smaller than I am. Maybe that’s something I need to talk about in therapy. Or maybe it’s okay that I know it’s better for me to not to take up as much space as other people. I don’t think that being tall is an achievement, it was just the cards I was dealt. It’s just an aspect of who I am, just one small part. Or a tall part. Lol.
I started this blog and meant to update it every day of the week and have off on Saturday and Sunday. I managed over the last year to do a little over half of the days. I think that’s pretty good.
I’m not going to give an excuse for why I haven’t posted more. Instead, I’m just going to explain where I was this last year and why I won’t have the same problems that I did this year.
When I started this blog, I had just started a new job. I was nervous the entire time. Because of my anxiety I was constantly on edge that I was going to be fired. I had just moved into my first solo apartment. It took me a minute to figure everything out on that. I’m still realizing that I’m lacking in certain things here and there but I just pick them up and move on.
In short, I spent the last year dancing as fast I can. But now, my feet are below me. I’m established. I have a schedule that I can keep to. It feels good to be in this position. The chaos that this last year was has left me now feeling strong and capable. I want to spend this coming year getting back into shape and really focusing on my writing. I think that I’m going to be able to do it and I have the drive to do so.
Stick it out here and we’ll go on this journey together. Happy New Year, my friends.
I hadn’t updated this blog in quite a while. I just haven’t had the heart to do so. It’s because a friend of mine has passed away recently. I won’t get into the details. I won’t say his name because I want the family to have their privacy. I know I’m not popular enough for a bunch of people to try and find them but you never know.
The death was sudden. We didn’t see it coming. He was there one day. I was texting him about when the next time we were going to hang was and then I got a text message from his mother that he was in the hospital. I went to see him that night. I heard the news and said my goodbyes. He was gone by that Saturday.
As I said, I don’t want to talk about the details. But I will talk about who he was as a person. He was a man that had been put into an absolutely terrible situation. One that would cause any other person to feel rage or anger. Him on the other hand, he was always patient, always kind. He had lost his father when he was much younger, when we were teens. When my own passed, I told him I guess we’re in the same shitty club.
I’m reminded of a line from Cold Mountain, where Stobrod sees the grave of Pangle. “If God was to set out killing every man on earth in order of their demerits, that boy would bring up the hind end of the line.” It’s suitable for him. He was kind, always. He was gentle, always. He loved his nieces and nephews. He loved his family. He loved everyone.
He had a love of movies that I think was more of an extension of that love. I think that he was just interested in people and their stories. Because of that, I constantly think about the movies I’m going to see and how we won’t be able to talk about them. The shows we were watching that I have to finish on my own.
It hits me in bits and pieces. I think it’s going to start hitting me more as time goes on. When I come down to visit my mom and I know that I’m not going to go see him. It hasn’t happened yet because of holidays, which always screwed up our hang out schedule as well as it’s only been about two weeks.
I don’t have much else to say about this. Usually when I make posts that aren’t about the stupid nerd shit that I like, I offer some kind of way forward. Some little thing that you and I can do to make our lives a little bit better. I don’t have that.
Grief is like nothing else. There is no path but forward. No way but through. It’s a vast ocean that you float in and have to keep your head over water. The waves will hit you and you will feel yourself get overwhelmed. But if you kick your legs and fight to live and honor the people you loved. You’ll get to shore.
It’s been hard to not make this blog solely about this little man. I’m obsessed with him and he’s just kind of middling on me. There are updates.
The main thing that I knew about former feral cats is that you have to take your time with them. I’ve been doing so, every morning, I spend an hour just quietly being in his presence while he sits in his cat tree. I got some churus and put them on a plate to draw him closer to me. I don’t reach out yet because I’m sure that would freak him out. But he is now willing to eat the churu in front of me within inches of me.
I took him to the vet on Monday and I can’t be sure if I told them that he was a feral but I do remember asking for Gabapentin. I had prepared myself for getting him into the carrier by putting on safety goggles, gloves, a hooded sweatshirt and a scarf over my mouth. Turns out I didn’t need all of that as after not feeding him for an extra three hours, he was desperate to get at his food, which was in the carrier. I snuck up on him and closed the door.
I brought him to the vet, he got taken back and I was brought to see him after five minutes. Turns out he was buck wild in the room, running around, hissing and being scared. The vet though was a champ and offered me a later appointment that day where they would sedate him so they could examine him. Turns out he’s in perfect health with good teeth, clean ears, good weight, clean coat, no flea dirt, clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose.
That brings me to the other thing that’s happened, in which on Thanksgiving, I came home to find out that he had vomited worms on the carpet. It was gross but beneficial that I was able to tell something was wrong. He has to take a powder in his food for the next few days to clear them. This is the benefit of having a cat that lived in the trash. He will eat anything that I put in front of him. He’s two doses down and hopefully he’ll start shitting worms.
I’ve also bought him a pheromone diffuser and that’s calmed him some, so that feels good.
In conclusion, I think that he has the makings of being a snuggle bunny. I think that the main thing is to have patience and give him time. I revel in the little victories like yesterday where unprompted he hopped on the couch with me. He didn’t stay long but it was still more than he had done in the last thirty days. I love him so much and even if we end up being roommates and not best buds, I’ll love him anyway. He’s my little man and nothing will change that.
I’ve been writing for what will be twenty-seven years next February.
I worked in pharmacy for twenty years.
It’s a strange thing looking at those numbers. When I was younger, I met people who would describe the businesses or occupations they were in, in this way. It was insane to me that anyone could do anything like that for this long.
And now I’m one of those older people. I’m going to be forty next year. I’m looking back at half a life time in pharmacy and more than half a lifetime pursuing the dream of becoming a writer. The closest I got was someone asking me to give them an extra thirty pages of one of my manuscripts.
So, do I look back at those years with regret?
Not in the slightest.
It would be easy to do so. I’m not rich in a financial sense. I’m not a writer in the acknowledged sense of someone offering me money for my works except for the time I got twenty-five bucks for selling a story where Teddy Roosevelt had sex with a male yeti.
(You can do that by buying my book of horror short stories here: https://books2read.com/u/3nJPzP my plugs are nothing if not shameless)
The reason I don’t have any regrets is because in those time periods I haven’t wasted my life. I have loved two women with everything I had. Kissed a fair more than that. I have climbed mountains and seen both shores of this great land. I’ve eaten delicious meals and made some too. I’ve laughed to the point that it hurt and erased hurts of the past with my friends. I have felt loss so deep that it scars my soul.
See, defining yourself by the money you earned or the time you spent doing a certain thing, it erases everything else. It makes it sound like you’re a robot in a tube waiting to go back to work. It’s just a piece of everything. All those other things are what make me who I am. And I’m proud of them.
Now that I’ve written this out, I look back at the times people have told me who they are and I didn’t ask followup questions. I should have been more curious and tried to round out the person I was talking to. I still have a fair time on this world, hopefully. I’m going to take that lesson with me and be more curious.
