Whole lotta hurtin'

The more people i know, the more i get to know them,

the longer my prayers get.

To all the souls i've loved before

She was eighty-five years old and she had no children of her own.  She did have thirty-five nieces and nephews.  And at one time, she and her husband had thought this might fill the void.

Only one stayed in touch.  Only one came to visit.  Only one could she call if she needed something.  

Now for all i know this woman is the bride of Frankenzilla herself when not in public.  Many people keep a face in a jar by the door but my wife told me about this customer of hers and i didn't think that.  Well, i did think that but only for a really, really brief moment.  My main thought was, "i don't keep in touch with any of my aunts and uncles."

And as i went to bed, in the forty-five seconds between becoming horizontal and the onset of catatonia, my mind started making a list.  A lovely list.  An adorable little list of all the people my mind, who apparently had been paying attention to these things even thought i thought i'd been ignoring...

• My grandmas, one of which is developing alzheimer's like symptoms.
• My father, who asked me to call him.
• My sister, who's undergoing psychiatric evaluations these days while her two remaining children hang with...
• My folks, who asked me to do a couple of favors for them that i keep forgetting.
• My brother, who just moved his family across the country and i never visited while he was in Washington, a state i really wanted to visit.
• My sister's other two kids who now live with their fathers.
• My old partner, Duke, who called me out of the blue yesterday and has been out of work for a couple of months.
• My best man, who i realized last night i never sent his family's Christmas gifts to.
• Panzer, who, like my partner Duke, calls me out of the blue every now and then.
• El Oso, who sent me a very nice Christmas gift himself.
• The Mighty and Glorious Garrett Jaxx, who, wrapped in golden chains, i had been meaning to see even before the king died and made it more of an imperative.
• Gosh, i'm glad this is not a numbered list.
• The aunt and uncle that leant Mynk and i their cabin for our honeymoon.
• The only aunt and uncle that stay in touch on my patri-side.
• Either of the two cousins i have on my matri-side.
• Any of full regiment of cousins from the other side, one of which adored me as she was growing up and had a baby who's name i can't remember.
• Moffatt, my brother in worship who moved on to another outpost of the realm.
• The Hawk, my brother in music who i've made several sad attempts to form a band with.
• Add to this the innumerable friends and relations i see once a week and act like that's enough.  Or the guys i see at work everyday but hardly speak to.  So many lives i rub up against.
• The homeless that i took blankets to once last year and haven't been back.

If you see yourself on this list, know that i haven't forgotten you but that to be remembered by me is little more than a line in my prayers.  If you don't see yourself on this list, then... damn.  Sorry.  Who were you again?

Will you tree my valentine?

There are a lot of trees here at the coop.  And i like them all.  It was really what i fell in love with that first time winding up the drive.  A little patch of forest struggling to survive in a suburban desert.  Take away the trees, like they did next door, and you uncover the ugliness of the two legged stink bugs living underneath.  Like peeling the bark back and exposing a colony of the six legged variety.  Just nasty.  Now, as much as i love this wood and these trees, i don't do anything to maintain them.  To me, God's system for forests seems to work best the less we interfere.  Death, fire, rot are not things to be fought, they're part of the system.  Like digestion, fever and excrement.  They're not pretty but without them we'd be poorer... and probably explode at a very young age.  Ewww.

So the trees i have are the ones that grow.  i love them.  i don't hug them.

Except for two.

There's a holly on the property.  So verdant, lush, green, vibrant at all times yet with berries of opposing hue adding such a splash of crimson that you know this is no one dimensional tree.  It may be a member of the forest, doing all the usual tree stuff: providing shade and cover and protection from the wind but it also knows how to party, it retains something, some secret that it only hints at with these scarlet sparkles.  This tree, i love.  This tree i want to see not just survive, but flourish!  i love to watch it grow.  i love how it hints of Christmas.  i love to just look at it.  

The problem comes when i try to get closer.  Hollies hurt.  They are fierce defenders of themselves.  Reminiscent of rose bushes.  They scratch and tear but i can't let go.  This is the tree i love.  Not an oak or a hickory or a cedar.  This tree, this holly has my heart.  

i've tried pruning back some of the sharper branches but i'm not an arboriculturist or even a topiarist.  i'm more of a ...not quite a lumberjack... um, what's the word, what's the word?  Butcher?  No, too artistic.  Barber?  Enh.  Too scientific.

Ah!  Axe Murderer!  That's it.  The poor critter just looks wounded for weeks till the bare spots fill back in.  While i fret that this time i killed it for sure.  God is gracious though and repairs the damage but... there we are.  Back to square one.  Tree and frick, unable to get closer.  Unable to be apart.  What's a poor hollylover to do?

Go to the other tree i love.  There are only four trees around the coop that i planted myself.  Three are dead, one, George, survives.  But it's not George i go to.  And it's not one of the other two Christmas trees i killed.  This tree i go to was dead when i planted it.  Yet it's the only one that can bring life.

Zwölf, Zwölf, Zwölf!

So here's the thing, no, here's a couple of things, but i'll start off with just one thing, otherwise my sentence structure will be more incomprehensibly convoluted than it already is.  And you, me and the two other people reading this don't want that.

Thingummy numero eins:  i stand accused of mopeyness.  Yeah, i know.  Hard for me to believe too.  But there it is.  Two out of my four comments prove it.  So what's a frick to do?  i'll tell ya.  Some serious drinking.  That's what.  And THEN he starts working on his life.  Analyzing it from every angle.  Getting outside opinions.  Self-help books.  Gurus.  Little old ladies with paisley scarfs on their heads and fake Bulgarian accents.  i mean, mopeyness.  This is serious.  This can't be allowed to fester into melancholy.  Next thing you know, i'd be writing poetry and wearing too much mascara.  

Though a little nail polish might make my crushed finger look less disturbing.  Anyway, that'll all have to wait as i'm still in the drinking stage.  

All dour solemnity aside.  There's two very good reasons why i'm accused of mopeyness.  Thingummy numero eins-point-one: i am mopey.  i don't really mean to be, it just sort of happens to happen.  Not that it's not my fault but here's the thing... thingummy-numero-eins-point-one-A: (you might want to make some sort of outline on a separate piece of paper) i have high hopes for life.  At the heart of every cynic is a disappointed idealist.  Which brings me to...

Thingummy numero eins-point-two: life sucks.  No really.  It's a raw deal.  You're handed a handful of puzzle pieces at the beginning and before you even know what to do with them, your family, guardians, friends and teachers are cutting them, scraping off the images, drawing on them, painting over them and basically making it impossible to tell what to do with them and then they shove you out of the boat and tell you to swim.  i'm not mixing metaphors, that's what really happens.  Nobody mentions swimming until you are out of the boat!  You would think that would come up, but maybe they are all just bitter about being shoved out of the boat themselves.  Or maybe its because of...

Thingummy numero zwei:  i just like saying "zwei."  The only thing better than saying "zwei" is writing zwei.  And the only thing better than writing zwei is saying "zwölf" and the only thing better than saying and writing "zwölf" is that i just now figured out how to put umlauts over the "o!"  You would think someone as easily amused as i am would be less mopey.  But i'm not and maybe that's because of ...

Thingummy numero drei: Which is that the world is messed up.  No, i mean it this time.  It wasn't supposed to be like this.  This is a really, really screwed up counterfeit of what it was supposed to be.  And when we're most clear is when we see it for what it is.  When we're "being all we can be" as an "army of one" and "just doing it" and being "driven" or "living life to the fullest" or " the extreme," we're just buying the lie.  Kidding ourselves.  And trust me, Satan's laughing.  We weren't meant to be wage slaves, that's part of the curse.  Work was supposed to be play.  We sinned, now it's work.  We weren't meant to seek identity, we were given it by God.  We weren't meant to seek validation and worth through relationships.  Relationships can't bear that!  They're with other people for cryin'owtlowd!  Those poor saps are at least as screwed up as you if not more so!  And they're just using you to fix them!  i can't even tell you what a true relationship was supposed to be because i'm so soaked in the muck of the mess that it is like trying to envision eternity, or the vastness of the universe or why peanut oil is more valuable than canola oil and so peanut butter doesn't have peanut oil in it.  Some things are just beyond us.  

So what happens is, i'll be there, worshiping God and it will be so clear.  Why Jesus came, why He said all those weird things and then died.  Why God raised Him.  Why we have to wait for Him to fix it and what we're supposed to live like now and that nagging little idealist in me starts thinking, "yeah!  This time it's going to be different.  I was blind, but now I see!  Life will still be life but armed with this good news, this gospel, I'll be able to truly live as follower of Christ, a person who knows his hope, lives!  This is something to be shared.  It's not babble, it's not theology, it's not religion, it's a love letter from God!  I can sell all I own and give it to the poor!  I can visit the sick, the prisoner, the outcast.  How can I not?"  

And that might last into Trusty the little, green saturn.  It may even make it up the driveway.  But then it runs right into the picture window of life, gets stepped on by negativity, chained back up to the millstone and made to pull for who knows what.  And i suddenly understand monks and nuns.  Who wouldn't want to stay there?  That's the party, the reunion, the kegger.  That's a taste of what's to come but that's not what this life is about.  And for my next trick i'm going to sum up all of what life and this horrendously convoluted post is about with...

Thingummy Numero Vier:  God's throwing a party, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe Dec 21, 2012.  Doesn't matter.  It's coming.  And a couple of our sisters and brothers haven't responded to the invitation yet.  Would somebody please conk them over the head and drag them in?  In love, of course.

Faith behind the lines.

This morning i was in the throne room of God Almighty.  Now i'm shouldering the debris of my life out of the way to find enough room to sit down.

This morning i was leading God's children in songs of praise.  Now i'm a refugee fleeing the television's blare.

This morning i knew my place, i had a home, i fit.  Now i'm stranger in a strange land.

This morning i knew my hope.  Now i'm staring down the barrel of another week and wondering how i'll make it through.

This morning i was in a family of believers.  Now doubters and mockers will be my constant companions.

This morning my purpose was clear.  Now doubt even creeps into me.

This morning the world made sense.  Now it's dark.

Belief isn't the problem.  Living the belief is.

Prick of pride by a proud prick

Pride.

Strange how one man's can so easily wound another's.

The temple of Goomu

The demon sandbox says "2." The one in Mynnie's car said, "6" and the analog one up on the back deck puts the temperature at ten. There's a paltry peppering of snow on the frozen face of the world and i lit the fire off the glowing memories of yestereve's blaze. Now i'm kicking back with a hefty mug o' joe and Buffett's Juicy Fruit on the iJukes. It's good for your soul.

Pointless homespun intros out of the way... Tuesday is inauguration day. The world's chosen messiah takes the reins. On Sunday, at the "kickoff" celebration, V. Gene Robinson will give the invocation. He might possibly use the same phrase he tried out on the host of NPR's All Things Considered the other day: "The god of our many understandings." If he was running it up the flagpole, she not only saluted, she blushed, stood coquettishly and murmured something about having no plans for dinner. A bit of a wasted effort on the bishop but my point is clear. They started using this phrase liberally throughout the rest of the interview. They latched onto it like any fool drowning in his own sin gloms to a semi-logical argument as to why it's not his fault.

And why not? It sounds so reasonable, doesn't it? The god of our many understandings. So open. So fair and equitable. So tolerant. It's inclusive. It allows all people to come and not have to conform. It tells no one they're wrong. It asks nothing of the listener. No inconvenient truths. Just blissful acceptance of all. Harmonious. Peace, love, you dope.

Here's the issue i take with it. Forget it being about God for a second. What if it were the Obama of our many understandings. The George Bush of our many understandings. Putin. Mao Tse Tung. Frank J. Applebottom. Adolf. There are empty headed, hate-mongers out there who think that the entire holocaust thing was fiction. They've convinced themselves that Hitler was maligned. That he was really a great leader who wanted more for his people and order for the world. You know, Hitler was after world peace too. Once every nation was under his shiny black boots, there'd be no more wars to fight. Harmony. Once all the malcontents were lime slathered ashes at the bottom of an abattoir's waste hole then there would be universal Freide, Lieben, du Rauscher!

There are six billion people in the world. That's six billion "understandings" of who Hitler was. And none of it changes the truth of who Hitler was. He was exactly the sum of his thoughts and deeds. There are six billion "understandings" of who Barack Obama is, from messiah to anti-christ. And only time will tell which are right. The point is, someone's going to be right and someone's going to be wrong.

V. Gene Robinson may or may not invoke his god of many understandings tomorrow but he did state clearly that he will not invoke Jesus Christ. His understanding tells him that is the right thing to do. He does not wish to exclude anyone from the festivities. He wants to throw this time, this event, this moment in history open to all Americans and indeed, to all the world.

Jesus accepted all who came to him. He forbade none: hookers, widows, children, lepers, the insane, criminals, tax cheats, rich, poor, heck, though it doesn't mention any specifically, i'd be willing to bet at least one homosexual approached him. He welcomed them all but made it fairly clear that no one comes to the Father except through him. No hoops to jump through, no laws to keep righteously, no baths to take first, nothing you have to do because nothing you could do would work. That's why He did it. All he asks is that you just believe. That's the Bible's understanding.

V. Gene's god doesn't sound like mine. There's no fair middle ground between them. One of us is right, the other is wrong. But which is which? i'm guessing you have your own understanding of that. Here's the kicker. It won't change the Truth.

Sins of the father

My eldest son, Happ, confessed to me last night that he has no idea what he wants to do with his life.  He's only fifteen and in ninth grade but i couldn't help but be worried.  

i try not to project my frailty onto my children.  i want the things i pass on to them, the lessons they learn from me to be God given, scripture based, Spirit breathed.  Too often i can see where others have given me "wisdom" or advice that was based more on mistakes they had made and personal prejudices they had developed from living here in the broken bracken of Adam's curse than from deep searches of the scripture and time spent with the Giver of Wisdom.

Yeah right.  i'm still a part of the brokenness.  F'rinstance, i didn't know that brokenness had two "n's."  Still looks wrong to me.  

i'm still broked.  i have extremely limited control over what my boys learn from me.  And that got me wondering...  y'see, Happ's confession sounded a lot like me when i was his age.  i didn't know what i liked doing.  i didn't do much.  i envied people who had their lives planned and a hobby/interest/passion to pursue.  As a result i survived high school.  Married a wonderful girl, had Happ and started making decisions based on semi-panicked expediency.  It hasn't been a bad life, despite what my whines and rants may convey but it hasn't exactly been, and this pertains mostly to career choices (i have to add that or my lovely wife starts getting upset, love you shnookums!), it hasn't been something i ached to jump out of bed in the morning to get started each day.  No, no it hasn't.  It's been more of the fall into bed with a sigh of thank-God-its-over-relief beaten together with (expletive)-it-begins-again-in-less-than-six-hours-dread.  This i would spare my sons if i could.

But now i wonder if i can?  Did i unwittingly raise my boy to be just like me or was he doomed to that particular ponderment anyhoo?  Is drifting aimlessly through life a genetic condition?  Geez i hope so, cause otherwise i'm going to feel really guilty.

God has a nosering

Naw, really, it's true.  i saw it.  A tiny little stud on the right nostril.  Coupled with the dimples and bored eyes it gave His smile a wryness that made me wonder what the joke was.

i saw Him a lot yesterday.  He was off-loading a truck and He looked disgusted with life while he smoked his cigarette.

He had a trusting, naive voice that might explain why His last contractor took advantage of Him.

He had red hair and looked really tired.

He was sitting in a tree on my way home and i have no idea why.

He was asian.

He drove a little red car.

He was putting out cones around His truck.

He was a pastor on the ipod reminding me that how i treat people is how i treat Him.  i wonder what He's doing today?

Mary and Joe's Tears

Christmas Eve is tomorrow and it's going to rain.

If I had been one of the seven dwarfs, my name would have been Mopey.  Or maybe Phlegmmy, though they already had a Sneezy.  

Just glad i don't live south of the equator.  i don't think i could handle Christmas coming at the beginning of summer.  i keep threatening to sell the station and move the family somewhere north where they still have winter.  Not just four months of March.  The missus don't hold to such talk.

Hmm, random interlude: preheated seat cushions are an outstanding idea.

It's just that Christmas in general is sort of a letdown.  There's all this build-up, all this anticipation, all this ceremony and in one short, busy day it's all done.  Nothing's changed.  Life grinds on as if nothing ever happened.  i wonder if Joseph and Mary felt that way the day after?  Did they expect the world to come bow at Jesus' feet the day He entered the world?  Instead of a handful of smelly sheep-rats.  i wonder if that was part of the reason for the stable?  So the shepherds would feel comfortable.  Mary and Joe must have had continual reminders that their son was not average by any means but did life for them really change?  Did the world?  No.  Joe went on being a blue collar schmuck and Mary kept a home in their hometown and the world went right on ignoring them.  Or more importantly, ignoring their son.

Just as it does now.  We carry around this knowledge, this gift: the son of God came to earth as one of us, took all the punishment for our sin and now we are free to have a relationship with God again, and the world acts like we're nuts.  God has done everything necessary to repair all the damage that we did when we rebelled.  And we give him the big cosmic busysignal and grind on with our pathetic attempts to find meaning in chaos.

No wonder it rains on Christmas.

Diary

Freezing rain.  Again.  Still hacking.  Snot production still at maximum discharge.  Third day off in a row.  Still no writing done.  Had two days off last week.  No writing then either.  Natives getting restless.  May have to offer Kenny as human sacrifice.

Hope ship comes in soon.

typical day at the station

It was not supposed to be my day off.  All my tools were still at work.  i wanted to take off tomorrow when she was coming home.  By ten o'clock i was bruised, bleeding, with arms full of fiberglass, had thrown out two deceased drills, borrowed a third with which i had drilled straight through a wire, arcing the bit and forcing me to try and repair it in the dark.  i only have one way of making sure it's the right circuit breaker that i have off, see aforementioned statement about tools being at work. i haven't gotten one thing done and this was one of the easy tasks.  i'm coughing up a lung, battling the urge for arson and curling up in the fetal position sticking one thumb firmly in my mouth and balling the other into a fist that i shake at the heavens, crying to God, 

"Why?  How in the name of all that's holy and good, does this enter into the Plan???"

Bullet holes along Ramble Road

i don't know if it's the white-noise jamming of life or the fractured state of my mind but i can't seem to form one coherent thought here.  My two readers can probably guess what that means...

• Bullet list!
• When did hunters go from the predominant species in Pennslobovia to a freakish curiosity that mothers bring their children outside to see?
• Relatedly, is our move as a civilization towards pacifism, anti-gun, anti-hunter, anti-fisherman a step towards perfection, presuming that Adam and Eve felt no need to kill, or a step towards feminization and are we losing something vitally masculine?  
• Speaking of emasculation, you're scared now aren't you?  Where's he going to go with this?  If i even see the word 'knife' i am out of here!  Fear not, hapless reader, i am feeling more metaphysical than that.  What i was going to say before i wandered down Ramble Road again, was that i really wish i had the gift of decisiveness.  i can never decide if my inaction is the result of a holy waiting on the Lord or a frightened staying of the course in order to avoid the consequences of stepping out.
• i think that's why i like Post-apocalyptic stories.  In my mind, the subterfuge and lies of civilization have been stripped away and life gets boiled down to a basic level of survival again.  
• In that vein, read the Road by Cormac McCarthy recently.  Loved it.  Man's a poet.  Disturbing, but great.
• And that's what makes me wonder... if life really was boiled down, stripped bare, hardened, would i still think it was so great?  When daily decisions have life or death consequences, when dinner isn't a question of what box to nuke but will we find something to eat if we travel in this direction or will we end up something to eat?  Would i long for these days when my direction is decided for me?
• Not that that makes strapping the workboots back on today for another nine or ten hours of mindless, friendless, rewardless labor any easier. 
• The key is to remember that it's not hopeless. 
• No really, it isn't.
• Honest.
• i hope.

Thank God for Spring

A smothered sun rises in a damp, gray sky.  Trees bare but for the moss, shiver in the cold.  A tailless cat huddles on it's perch and makes disturbing, human baby sounds for someone to feed it.  There's no fire in the stove.  His lungs are filled with sticky, yellow mucous.  He rasps, coughs, sneezes and blows into one tissue after another while sitting on an unsympathetic oak bench.  Life is grudgingly starting another day.  It has to but it doesn't have to like it.

Thanksgiving.  2oo8.

As is his custom, he composes a letter.  A letter to whomever cares to read it.  An open letter to God his father.  A letter of thanks.  This year it will be labor.  That makes it all the more important.  To thank in times of plenty, on rosy mornings when health, wealth and love greet you with a kiss is instinct, reflex.  Easy.  To find the blessings in the ashes of mourning, in the abscess of despair, in the full realization of the Curse, there, there are the times when thanskgiving is not an option but a need.  A rope to cling to.  A denial of aloneness.  A reminder that the dark, stones of the cell are not the extent of the world but that somewhere, love is desperately longing to be with you.  And walls of stone or despair while impervious to gentle touch, can do nothing to keep out love.

So while cat clings to it's hunger pains and cloud suffocates the sky, he looks beyond his mouldering, ailing prison to golden streets, crystal seas, palaces warmed and lit by pure holiness and one is never alone, not in body, not in mind, nor in spirit.  One is fully, completely, totally known.

And loved.  For though the eyes may not see, that has no bearing on it's certainty.  He cannot see Tokyo but he believes it exists.  He knows that while he shivers in Pennslobovia, another sweats in Peru, though he has no proof.  So it is with the New Jerusalem.  The new Zion.  It is as real, if not more so than the pain in his joints, the cold of his feet and the emptiness of his cup.  Autumn is upon us.  The Jack O' Lantern has trumpeted Winter's icy vanguard on the horizon.  The siege is coming.  With it: famine and pestilence.  Hard times, dark times are coming.  Persecution.  Suffering.  Death rides in that vanguard.  Men will become children.  Their bones turning to water.  Mothers will eat their young.  It will be a hard winter.  There will be days where it will be near impossible to find something to be thankful for but that will make it all the more necessary.  Thanksgiving in trial makes hope and faith into fact and truth.  In the dark, thank God for light.  In the cold, thank God for heat.  In the pain, thank God for healing.  Alone, thank God for being there.  

In Winter, of season, soul or history, thank God for Spring.

Quasimodo

Thanksgiving week.  Last year this time, i laid the tile floor in our upstairs bathroom.  Spent all weekend doing it.  Looked nice.  Was supposed to be the big push to get the bathroom done.  The last big hurdle.  

That bathroom has half-made cabinets in it with no sink, no countertop and incomplete wainscot half-way around.  Must have tripped on that hurdle.

Traditionally i try to think of things i'm thankful for this week.  Write some of them down.  Guess a patient, long-suffering wife is going to have to top that list this year.  

Forgotten's Lament

"Once there were two boys

one big and one quite little

Rascal were

the little cur

Plump around his middle."

from The Ballad of the Ballyhoo Gang

All Hallow's Eve has faded to unhallowed dawn. Princesses have awoke to their chores.  Traded their gowns for aprons.  Traded their dreams for yours.  The Weird and the Faerie take refuge in dream.  Goblins to their ghastly home.  Banshee and siren choke on their scream.  Ghosts retreat to chambers of loam...

All save one.

A wee spirit still haunts.  Tinkling chains in cobb-webbed halls.  A lantern, a single spark that stabs the dark.  A keening.  A child.  He calls.

Where is my brother?  Where has he gone?

Run-a-long.  Run-a-long.

Where is my mother?  What'd i do wrong?

Run-a-long.  Run-a-long.

Where is my father?  Steady and strong?

Run-a-long.  Run-a-long.

Where is my night?  Where do i belong?

Run-a-long.  Run-a-long.

Despair is muy macho.

It's getting harder and harder to stick to my principle of not writing negative posts.  In point of fact, i'd have to say i've broken it already.  Yeah, yeah i have.  i guess principles that are covered in dust aren't all that sticky.

Good thing it's a principle and not a law.

But here's the rub, a phrase i have no blinkin' clue as to the origin or meaning of, as a christian, i have the answers, i have the Way, i have the faith and the hope in a risen savior who is for me.  i am free, i am loved and gosh darn it, people like me.  Well, a few.  Does my mom count?  Never mind, she wouldn't count anyway.  The point is, all these things are true and yet... everyday is a featherweight bout with despair.  i realize it sounds better to say, "heavyweight" bout, but i don't come close to qualifying for heavyweight.  i'd be boxing the cobra-quick little latinos with all the tattoos.  And lately, losing.

And that's all i got to say about that.

Humble Pie Anyone?

They squared off as men in a killin' rage do.

i'll take a moment to say, that's not something i claim to understand.  It's not something i feel; i'm a slow wick.  The life drains out of me when the subject that's makin' me angry is human.  Like a circuit breaker trips and cuts all emotion until the moment passes.  Later, i'll be functionally psychopathic: stabbing tupperware and making death threats to Rottweilers but at The Moment, the moment of contact, during the incident, when the source of my fury is there furiously making fury, nothing, bupkiss, nobody home.  Can't explain it, but there it is.  

Duke is different.

So's the Hugh.  (Names have been nicked so that people can feel free to make stupid in their anonymity.)

The Hugh made a demand.  It doesn't matter what it was, it was something he needed.  Most people would call it a favor.  Bosses call it your job.  Nothing major, i didn't like it but i went along cause the Hugh is my boss.  That's what i do.  No big deal. 

Duke is different.  The Duke thought it was a big deal.  The Duke was no happy.  No happy a'tall.  But he held it in.  He had nothing to say to the Hugh when he showed up but for the Duke, that's progress.  i know the Duke wanted to rant and rave and defend his viewpoint.  i know the Duke thought it was unfair and would normally have told everyone within earshot.  But he was biting his tongue and going along with it.  i didn't like his 'tude but hey, he's my friend.  That's what i do.  No big deal.

The Hugh is different.  The Hugh felt betrayed.  The Hugh felt that he was the one making all the concessions and this was the thanks he got.  He needed something done and he got 'tude.

"The stage was set, the sun was sinking low down,

as they came to town to face... another show down.

The lawmen cleared the people from the streets,

"All you bloodthirsty bystanders, won't you try to find your seats..."*

When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, i was short one partner and the company's primary team, the only consistent team the Hugh has had in the three years i've worked for him, was gutted.  Cut in half.  And the Hugh was trying on rationalizations to see if any made his butthead look big.

Either man could have backed down.  Either man could have admitted he was wrong or at least took the time to see the other's side.  Either man could have been the bigger man by putting the other man's needs or wants ahead of his own.  

But the Hugh and the Duke are different.

And i wonder how proud they're feeling now?

*The Eagles, Doolin and Dalton/ Desperado Reprised

Stray bullet

Hopefully i'll get to do more with this thought later but for now this is all i got and i don't want to forget it so i'll tell you so you can remind me later....

Humble pie is not a desert,

it's a medicine.

Lament of Everything explained

17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' 
       "Cursed is the ground because of you; 
       through painful toil you will eat of it 
       all the days of your life.

 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, 
       and you will eat the plants of the field.

 19 By the sweat of your brow 
       you will eat your food 
       until you return to the ground, 
       since from it you were taken; 
       for dust you are 
       and to dust you will return."

And i wonder and write laments about how hard it is to just eke out a living.  Silly fricken.