Saturday, June 26, 2010

How I'm Feeling.

I have a summer cold. Sure, summer just started but I'm fucked for the next 4 months because a summer cold doesn't go away.

The American's are losing to Ghana 1-0 at the start of the second half. Kinda mad about that, but then again, I really have no idea about anything dealing with soccer. All I know is that 95% of the players playing in the 2010 World Cup should win Emmy Awards for their excellent acting skills; you got hit with a patch of grass, quit trying to sell the ref that you got kicked in the nuts, bitch.

Women, ladies, girls, chicks, bitches, ho's, honeys (though I've never used the term) and any other word that is meant to mean a member of the female gender. You got some who make fun of themselves because they are insecure, some that are witty with jokes but have no common sense, others who think they are the best thing in the world but have no ability to maintain a relationship (sexual or otherwise) and there are the sarcastic types who are so damn dry people have no idea if they are joking around or just flat out bitches. From now on, I'm going with the latter.

WHY DO THE AMERICAN PLAYERS TRY TO SCORE GOALS WITH KICKS THAT ARE DELIVERED 4-INCHES OFF THE GROUND STRAIGHT AT THE GOALIE? THAT'S NOT A HARD SHOT TO BLOCK, NUMB NUTS. KICK THE FUCKING THING TO THE CORNER OF THE NET, ABOVE THE GOALIE, NOT AT HIS FEET.

She gone.

I broke up with the Chicago Cubs yesterday. An end to an ugly, one sided 32-year relationship. They took what they wanted from me and never gave a thing back. Fucker.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY, TAKE THOSE FUCKING HORNS AWAY FROM EVERYBODY AT THE FUCKING GAMES, PLEASE, TALK ABOUT ANNOYING!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The Love Letter Never Written


Hey babe, it's been just about a year since you destroyed my world by leaving, taking your love and everything that I thought we were to become, away from me. I hated you for that.

How easy, or how hard, that day may have been for you I will never know because you have not the ability to speak with your one time lover...your one time friend. It must have been easy for you to forget me though. I can never forget a person I've loved. I guess that's one of the differences between you and I; I loved you with everything I had and meant it, you loved me with everything you thought you had, but only said it. I feel this to be truth because forgetting a person you love or have loved somewhere along the way is the same as trying to remember a person you've never met...both impossible feats to do.

I've hoped, prayed, wished and crossed my fingers for your return, but I know you wont be back. Maybe you will, but as a person I will not know. A person so strangely different than the body, mind and soul of the woman I loved. A person who will never know how bad I've missed her.

To take back all the things I said to you, or you to me, would take years, though we weren't together for years. One year, one month and 22 days. Or something like that. The fighting and yelling and screaming are all shadowed by the kissing and cuddling and loving. The tears wiped away with smiles and the broken hearts, both you and I, mended by a love that seemed to be not allowed.

I have forgiven you. I have let you alone. I have love for you, of course, but not like the love I once held.

Damn that woman for making you see things the way she wanted you to. Damn you for not having the courage to tell her to fuck off. And damn me for still feeling it wasn't all my fault. I know it was. Every fight we had I know was ignited by something I did, said, assumed or worried about. I pushed you away. I made you stop loving me. I scared you with my love. And with everything else that was me. Notice...WAS...me.

I'm not the guy you left anymore. I'm different now. Because of you. Thank you.


I've written these words four thousand and twenty-three times over the last 11 months, but what's one more time?



Monday, June 14, 2010

Who am I? How kind of you to ask.

I'm a guy who writes like Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs; twisted, fucked up and stoned.

I like thinking the things I write will make sense to somebody beside myself. If it's today, tomorrow or after I'm dead in the ground, I really couldn't give a shit.

I feel love is an amazingly beautiful thing, but the pain from love can be just as beautiful.

I find myself, from time to time, wandering aimlessly around the garden of Chicago known as Grant Park, pondering the idea of who Grant actually was.

I think if everybody in these United States grew a pot of marijuana on the front stoops of their homes, dealers who push the shit to the youth of the country would go out of business, the coppers would give up trying to arrest/ticket everybody for having the illegal substance and the money-sucking-cancer-causing-fuckers known as CEO's of the tobacco industry would quit lying to citizens, raping us of our cash and treating us like the dumb fucks they know us as.

Grow pot to make it legal!

I'm a loving, caring, nurturing guy who will fight to my death for the woman I love; if she realizes it or not.

I'm also a doctor-proclaimed manic depressive. But they don't call me that. They call me a person affected by bi-polar disorder. Guess they made the name a little less depressing so I didn't off myself? Though, at the moment, I am not depressed about a thing, but if I were, I'd have a good fuckin' reason for it.

I have a great family with parents who still love each other, a brother and sister who have given me great little people to call my niece (maybe nieces?) and nephews, cooler than shit aunts and uncles, pretty swell cousins (most of which are married to pretty swell people, wait, I think all of my cousins are married...I might be the only first generation cousin who isn't married...will I be depressed about that doc? Fuck no.) and a whole-helluva-lot more second cousins that I can in no way, correctly name.

I've had many critters as pets. I like calling them my friends who never have, and never will, back stab or fuck me over. Lets see if I can name all of them; Sheila the sheep dog, Bo the shi-tzu (he was about 13 when he died of old age and about the size of three, maybe four shi-tzu's put together...may have been the water in the country which made him so big), Buttons the shi-tzu and Bo's girl friend, Skunk the shi-tzu and offspring of Bo and Buttons' first batch of pups, a crazy ass Aussie Blue Healer named Bandit who chewed down the cherry tree in mom and dad's backyard, Kodi (short for Kodiac Bear) the beagle (he too was old, 14, when he died of old age and was a helluva lot bigger than what was expected of him. I wonder why that country water makes my dogs grow so damn big, but didn't have the same effect on me growing up? I should be like, 6'8...269 lbs...and playing for the Bears) and Neuman, the giant gato who lives with me in Chicago.

I've had my heart broken, crushed, cursed at, defibulated, danced on, stung, cracked, spit on, laughed at, blackened, burnt, shocked and torn from my chest all as results from love. Do I want to give up on love? Not a chance.

I feel that trying to forget someone you love is like trying to remember someone you've never met.

My birth certificate says I was born February 4, 1978, but I was born the day I met her...was alive and well when she loved me back...and died a little bit the day she left.

I'm a nice fella who always forgives his enemies, but I never forget their names. The enemies of my enemies are my friends.

I am crazy. I hear it all the time from the people I call friends and those I don't even know, but I'm just fine with it. Being crazy is what keeps me sane.

I'm a guy who can tell much about a person by the words they use, by looking into a persons eye and by the people they call friends. Tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you what kind of person you are.

I'm a guy who feels that America will never be outdone by our enemies and America will never be destroyed by those full of hate for us. We can only lose our freedoms and powers to ourselves.

I'm a guy who may or may not like what's going on in Arizona with the illegal immigrant stuff. Way too many illegals have come from Mexico and other places to do the jobs that Americans refuse to do because they feel they are too good to do the work. But as Robert Orden once said; "Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian."

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

A Somewhat Chronological Timeline of Me


I got my first job at 14 or 15, at a quick stop grill along I-55, forty-five miles south of Chicago. I worked there for a total of two hours and 17 minutes because I couldn't figure out how to make the fucking Gyros right, so I was asked to leave.

I got my second job at 16, aerating yards. You know, pushing that machine to punch holes in grass to allow air to get down to the roots and make the shit grow better. I did that for a summer before realizing I was working my ass off pushing this fucking machine around yards that seemed like the rice fields of 'Nam as I tried to dodge land mines such as kids, dogs and swimming pools.

I got my first real girlfriend when I was 17-years old. We dated for a remarkably long time, almost five years. I really had no business with her. She was a helluva lot smarter than me and knew what she wanted outta life at an early age. Why she wasted her time on this guy for so long eludes me. But I feel she got all she wanted eventually; a degree, a good job, a husband and two kids. I'm proud of you kid.

I went away for school the first time when I was 18 in August of '96. Needless to say, that was an utter failure. Drank far too much and didn't go to my classes. Thought I knew it all. In reality, I knew jack shit.

I got my third job working at a grain elevator in my hometown, where I worked at the quick stop grill I previously mentioned, when I was 19. I drove 1,000 gallon trucks of water to fields in the spring and summer to allow for the spraying of fertilizers on the crops that we eat. In the late fall, I dumped bushels of corn and soy beans into hoppers to be set in silos and sold at later dates when the price was right. I hated that fucking job. Not because of the work, but because I worked 100 hours a week in the fall and the spring. Talk about killing a guy.

I got my fourth real job working construction when I was 20. I loved it. Made great money, worked hard and played even harder. Around this time was when the first real girlfriend decided I wasn't good enough. Can't blame her. I worked a ton of hours and instead of coming home to spend time with her, I sat at the bar and drank like a fish. That was when I met my first real cougar.

I met my first cougar, I should also state that she was my only cougar, when I was 21. She was the bartender at the bar me and the fellas went to after work each day. She was 31, and taught me all kinds of things about life. That's no lie. She taught me what love actually was. She taught me that when you find it, to never let it go, no matter what the circumstances, because you never know when the one you love is gonna check out of here and go to the great big gig in the sky. She taught me how to never give up on love. Beside the ideas about love that she taught me, well, use your imagination, I'm sure she covered most of it.

I was 22 the first time I died in February of 2000. That will happen when your truck gets hit by a drunk fucker going 100 mph without his headlights on. This happened 10 miles south of the quick stop grill I worked at for two hours and 17 minutes years before. (see paragraph one.) This was also the first time I broke a bone (my right pelvis), collapsed a lung (the right) and had strange metallic parts placed into my body to keep me around (Green Field Vena Cava Filter-to stop blood clots from clogging the blood trying to get to my heart.) The reason I say I died is because the man I was up until that day, for the most part, died in the ditch I ended up lying in. Completely different I am today, and I don't mean because of the limp I have or the horrible memory from my head being bashed by the steering wheel/roof of the truck/front window or road (whatever the fuck it was that bashed into my head fucked it up pretty good) or the 72 scars I have around my body. I mean, I'm about 94.7% different than I was on that morning in February than I am today.

I was 24 the second time I went away for school in August of '02. Low and behold, I graduated in May of '06. Employed by the Sun-Times, I was for two years, writing, editing and making picture galleries of high school sporting events from all over the great state of Illinois. I lost that job because somebody didn't know how to read and accused me of claiming the same day of work twice on my time sheet. Couldn't have been because the douche's that ran the place wanted to fire me because I was always fucking there and making pretty good money. Couldn't have been because they knew they could hire some younger, still-in-college ass bags to try and do the job I did for less pay. But, the time to let bygones be bygones has passed and I'm over that shit.

I got my second real girlfriend when I was 30. She, oddly enough, turned out to be my first real love. She was a whole helluva lot younger than me and ripped the heart from my chest in August of last year. We were together for a little more than a year, legally lived together for 2 months and I swore I was gonna marry that girl. But she, or somebody else in her family, had other ideas for me and my baby. She broke our lease, moved backed to Michigan and left me in the dust to drown in my tears.

The last time I really cried I was 31. It just so happens that it was the same day I watched my first real love walk down the hallway to the elevator pulling the last piece of her life outta mine.

The first time I realized that I've been wasting my life doing things the way that I wanted to do them, instead of the ways others have instructed me to, I was 32-years and some odd months. There's no real explanation for why today has been the way it has, nor will I look for one. I just know that things gotta change.

The first time I did what a woman told me to do was two months ago. I don't mean telling me to help her in any way, or what to do in the bedroom or anything like that. She told me that I should run to get back into shape. That by doing this, I would be a happier person. I questioned why she thought I was unhappy. She told me it was in my eyes. She had no idea what I was unhappy about, but she could see the pain in my eyes. The next day I started running. She was right. I run everyday now. In the sun. The heat. The thunderstorms. The wind. The foggy nights. The early morning rains. All because it is making me feel better about myself.

The next job I have, I will love because I will be doing what I'm in grad school for (teaching high school English). The next love of my life will be the woman I marry, because I will remember what the bartender taught me about not giving up on love. The next time I die, I hope I'm old and gray with a wonderful family that I have assisted in the making of, with a beautiful wife and beautiful children. The next time my world comes crashing down on me as the ones that I care about start to disappear into the wilderness or the ones that mean the most to me have feelings not the same or whatever starts to bring me down, I will throw the plugs in my ears, lace up the shoes and hit that open road because that is what being happy is all about. Doing the thing you love.