Archives for December 2018

Should I start by talking about the moment in Walk The Line when June screams at Johnny about his not being able to walk the line or go a more personal direction?

Because I sprinted out of Costco in Southlake and debated whether 121 would be faster than cutting through Grapevine on the way home cuz speed was of the essence.

Some of you may claim that almost middle aged men shouldn’t be able to leap over shopping carts in a pair of Dockers but the film from today would prove you wrong.

Got home in the nick of time and had an evening in which the restroom and I enjoyed the sort of intimacy I don’t share on first dates, also known as colonoscopy prep was less uncomfortable.

So I said to the dysfunctional digestive system if you are going to screw with me, I am going to give it right back and grabbed a snort of Scotch and almost went out for some Chicken Vindaloo…almost.

Took a few minutes to try to figure out what set me off and started with the moment last night that three words make my eyes bulge and my fucking head spin.

“Words we shared.”

A Combination Of Things

Took a moment to recognize what set me off and a few more to shake it off, but I shook like a dog drying itself off and when I had finished the anger was replaced by irritation and nothing more.

A recognition that 4.5 months in I react more strongly to things that might not have otherwise set me off.

Stopped and thought about what role fear has played and considered the question, should we embrace the fear?

The answer is yes and overall I have done a pretty good job of it.

But that is in reference to more recent moments and times and not a referral a past when I should have done so more aggressively. Had I been smarter and bolder I would have done so, but I didn’t and so I find myself standing where I would rather not be.

Two teenagers and I have discussed, debated and at times battled about what this means and my assertion that what happens now doesn’t get to define or determine how the future will go.

They haven’t the life experience or ability to see as I do or understand the sacrifices made because 0f the aforementioned fear and the recognition that I have to say past choices were for the best so that my head really doesn’t explode.

This subjugation of personal desire and goals to better and improve life for our children comes at a cost with an uncertain return on the risk we take.

If anything came from the recent revelation by the younger about the school situation it is recognition that her old man doesn’t play when it comes to protecting her.

That was an unexpected but appreciated factoid. I had no reason not to believe it was understood, but it is reassuring to know she gets it, even if she felt the need to tell me not to freak out.

Which by the way are words you shouldn’t use if you want me to stay calm, especially if you don’t know me well. My natural reaction is not try to maintain a poker face and figure out the smart response but my BP probably spikes immediately.

****

Anyhoo, we have reached a point and place in time when circumstances have made it clear embracing the fear is a moral imperative and without question necessary.

Which is to say when I hear the bells continually go off I don’t ignore them. I answer because I can’t stomach not doing so.

Better to try and fail than to fail to try.

Cliches are often true, aren’t they.

Strange Things On Facebook

Tonight I started getting a message that said XYZ has shared a post with you and a selection of their friends.

I got it a few times and wondered if XYZ had done so intentionally or if Facebook had come up with some new setting that had accidentally been turned on.

And I wondered if XYZ had shared posts with groups of people that I hadn’t been included in. I didn’t wonder the way people might do when they hear about a party everyone else was invited to that they weren’t because it didn’t feel that way to me.

It was curiosity, the same that drives me to sometimes ask a million questions about whatever has caught my eye.

The answers aren’t always of paramount importance but they are usually of some sort of interest.

I sometimes pick up dictionaries and encyclopedias and read them for fun. Never know what sort of useless trivia will become useful.

Lately I have been spending time watching YouTube videos on how to repair various appliances and household items.

The funny thing is since I am renting the house I am living in I won’t do as much as I am capable of doing primarily because I don’t want the landlord to decide I am liable for certain repairs and because of the time.

Time is the operative word and contradiction there.

If it is a repair I can do relatively easy and I don’t want to wait for the landlord to sent out a repairman I jump on it, but that line is blurry, awfully blurry.

Embrace The Fear

I suppose old Al has the answer to the question of whether we should embrace the fear now doesn’t he.

And I suppose it is why some conversations need to be have probably sooner than later so that the continued evolution of people can move forward in whatever route it deigns to go in.

On a side note, I don’t think I have ever mentioned The White Stripes Icky Thump song here. If I am not mistaken it is about 11 years old and it has one section that really jumps out at me now.

It was appropriate then, but is more relevant now than ever.

Well, Americans
What, nothin’ better to do?
Why don’t you kick yourself out?
You’re an immigrant too

Who’s usin’ who?
What should we do?
Well, you can’t be a pimp
And a prostitute too

Embrace the fear and roll with the change(s).

Sometimes you dance in the fire because you don’t want to get burned and sometimes you say ‘fuck it’ and stop moving because you need the pain to snap your ass back into reality.

Of course I know nothing about any of these things or maybe instead of talking about them I prefer to tell you about how I convinced someone I am a trust fund baby, part of the Aquafina water empire, which was named for my mother, Queen Aquafina.

It is too bad my grandfathers weren’t there to share in the moment because they were better at telling stories than I am and when I am on my game I am decent.

Some might say better than decent, even the Shmata Queen might concede that point, but who knows.

The thing I love about this storytelling bit is that unlike my physical skills it will not deteriorate with age. I won’t ever worry about spending extra time in the gym to work out harder just to maintain what I have.

Nah, this storytelling thing is different. I tell you I can ride it all day and all night forever and know that we’ll never be worn out.

Not if we open our eyes, hold hands and work together. Storytelling and I, we can make it.

That is a love prescription you can’t get, you have to be lucky enough to stumble upon it.

Building Castles

Got another visit with the doc coming up Monday. Guess we’ll find if he thinks a BP of 1093 over 8382 is still going to kill me.

I told him before Wilner men are made of sterner stuff and that your blood pressure only matters if you have a heart. Mine was surgically removed so I am not concerned.

Strangely enough someone recently asked if I was worried about my immortal soul and I said I traded it for an awesome head of hair and a couple of other things.

They paused and said, “you know you really don’t have that much hair.”

“FUCK!!! You mean that I am not using the magic beer googles to see life as it could be and I am seeing it as it is.”

“You shouldn’t mess around with something so serious. Satan looks for those who think they are too smart to be fooled.”

“Hell, you shouldn’t worry because I know I am a fool and have been fooled. But I also know that Satan doesn’t want any part of my kind of crazy. I’ll exhaust him because I am relentlessly exhausting.”

“Have you ever thought of going to church?”

“Have you ever thought of being Jewish?”

“No way. Why do you ask?”

“The same reason you ask if I’ll think about converting.”

“But I am not interested, I already have a relationship with G-d.”

“Must not be that solid, he says to stop wasting our time.”

When You Say Nazareth

In the ‘graph above I forgot to share what happens when people say Nazareth. This is what comes to mind.

Oh, and the actual Nazareth, been there a bunch of times, but usually when I was passing through. Reminds me of the antisemite and their recent antics.

Thus far the silence has been golden, let’s all keep our fingers crossed and hope it continues or maybe I’ll have to focus my relentlessly exhausting side elsewhere.

****

If I have to choose between chunky and creamy peanut butter than creamy wins.

Staying hungry wins over eating liver and onions and a colonoscopy is more enjoyable than The Sound Of Music.

****

I saw an ad for a ’67 Camaro for about $4500 bucks and for a moment got excited. That’s within the realm of possible, except it is not.

You see I am skeptical about the condition of the car and how much it will really cost to get that sucker to where I need it to be. But then again I love the idea of getting lost in rebuilding and restoring it.

Maybe not today, but one day…

The Conversation

The guy at the gym looked at me and asked if I always talk to myself.

I shrugged my shoulders and said I don’t know.

“You look so intense. Must be some kind of secret or story you are telling yourself.”

I smiled and told him it’s a secret story.”

“Is it a good one?”

“Depends on the day. Sometimes it is the worst thing to ever happen and sometimes it is the best.”

He raised his eyebrows and said I smiled so broadly when I mentioned it he didn’t believe it was the worst and that he almost wanted to hear it.

I smiled back and said maybe you’ll see it in a book or movie one day, or maybe it won’t ever be shared.

“Sharing it with everyone wouldn’t make it a very good secret story now would it.”

He asked if anyone knew it and I nodded my head.

If you are among the happy campers who keep score of things using what you call “social proof” you’ll be happy to know I got a bunch of likes, a sad face and a couple of angry emoticons.

Granted I don’t care much about such things, if at all and I figure the important question to ask is “did you earn the angry emoticon?”

What is the point of getting into trouble if you didn’t have a good time?

If you are going to face consequences it ought to be measured by risk against reward.

So did I earn the angry emoticons?

Nah, not really but I only care about one of them and that is just sort of because I don’t think it was meant in a mean way.

Did that last line sound like a teenage girl talking to her friends or a woman talking to her friends?

The answer is both.

Yeah, I know some of you will call that sexist but I am in what some of you would call a mood and what I term as looking for trouble.

I am trying to take that edge off so that I can relax, but it is not happening as fast as I need it to.

Got to get some relief.

Sing Along With Me

It starts here and then moves into me really belting it out.

That is what happens when you wrestle with some things. When you struggle to figure out where your equilibrium went and you want to put your arm through the wall up to your elbow because that worked really well when you were a teenager.

Confession: I am curious to see if I can still do it and if maybe this time I can get to my shoulder.

I won’t do it because it is not worth possibly getting hurt or the cost of repairs, but I am curious. That is really what drives this more than anything else.

A desire to figure out who I am becoming and what is left of me. A question of how long can I hold off time and maybe even beat it.

Because as silly as it may sound to you, maintaining my physical abilities is a big deal. I don’t have to be able to run as fast as I once did but the brute strength I have always had, well I can’t imagine not having it.

Did I mention I am trying to work on my flexibility so that as I age I will continue to be able to move without having to include sound effects every time I stand, sit or move in unusual ways.

Anyhoo, if the old man was here I’d tell him I am doing the best I can and that even though I may struggle a bit I am secure in my ability to manage it all.

It is like when I told a girl that if she kissed me there would always be sparks. That never changed because some chemistries never change.

A match can always start a fire and my confidence in my ability to manage this time is based upon having been through much tougher situations.

This is painful, but I have been doused in gasoline and danced in the fire so I’ll be good here.

Just give it time.

A Special Kind Of Pain

Some of you welcomed me to the club and said it is a special kind of pain and you were right.

I find myself wondering if it would feel different if dad had been in his nineties and wonder if people who lost their parents at ages much younger than dad look at me and say the same.

The guy who died at 54 instead of 74 is in a different class not that we ought to compare pain, but when you explore thoughts and ideas sometimes such things come up.

Given the entirety of the situation I come back to the same places and spaces where I look at my father’s life and smile.

Because he saw all of his children grow up, get married and met all of his grandchildren. He was a grandfather for more than 18 years and a father for almost 50.

Mom and him passed their 50th wedding anniversary in 2017 so he had a good long marriage on his list of accomplishments too.

That is a pretty good resume.

****

I’ll close with something I wrote in 2017 that I suspect people think I wrote today about my father. I came during a moment of frustration and introspection.

Came after I had slipped on icy stairs and dislocated my finger and the sense that it could have gone much worse. I could have broken my neck, but we’ll save that for a different day.

He was true to his word and never let us know when he had chosen to leave. One moment he was in our lives and the next he was gone.

He had become the shooting star he had always wanted to be.

For a brief moment in time he lit up the evening sky and filled the moments with magic and then just as quickly the sky was dark and the night was quiet.

If you want to make a teenage girl slap her head let her catch you dancing in your chair to Janet Jackson singing Rhythm Nation.

She’ll be horrified but what you’ll wonder is how you ended listening to Rhythm Nation because it is not what you typically use to inspire your writing.

Apple Music is to blame or the answer, however you choose to play it because when you have access to their entire catalog you end up wandering among the aisles, though you’d much rather be wandering the isles.

Perhaps the wordplay between aisles and isles is what helped me come up with the headline Friday The Virgo Came Late or maybe it is the headline about Julia Roberts and her holes.

I probably should provide a link to the story about that editing debacle so that if we read this in the future it makes sense, but I won’t.

I am not in the mood, especially since someone told me to grieve silently. They d0n’t know that telling me not to do something is like telling the Big O how to drive from the back seat.

We may listen or we may just do whatever the fuck we feel like doing.

Given my current state of care about opinions from others you can expect me to speak my mind without concern or filter.

The Dream In Which I Am Dying

New music is driving this particular stream of thought and I find myself mulling over how heavy to make this because I hear those fucking bells that I allude to and suspect that if I write what I hear and see it will make you think.

But I am not pushing that to bait or encourage anything, I am just sharing what I hear and see. Just going with my gut which will eventually lead me to the promised land.

Guess we’ll see if I get to be like Moshe and look down upon it or enter.

Anyhoo, I stumbled upon the piece below the other day and it resonated with me so I’ll share it with you.

Sixty Years

Can you imagine carrying that sort of load for sixty years?

I can’t.

I have very few regrets but those I do are significant.

A while back I made a promise to myself to take action to ensure that I don’t fill my days with looking backwards and wondering about what could have been.

There are things I have done to make sure that doesn’t happen, can’t say that it will remove all future regret or failures because that is impossible.

Hell, we make mistakes all the time because we are fallible, breakable and infinitely human.

I tried to take the frame off my Facebook profile picture and accidentally posted a picture of dad and I. Same one I have been using as my profile photo, but I didn’t want to post it again.

I just wanted to take the damn frame off and screwed up.

That is a minor screw up, but it is a solid example of how stuff just happens sometimes.

****

After dad died I took his hand in mine and held it one last time. It was a little swollen and discolored but it was still clearly his.

And since I had gotten to hospice within 15 minutes of his going his hand was still warm. In strange coincidence I was able to do something similar with my paternal grandfather’s hand too.

But there was a fundamental difference to me.

Grandpa outlived my dad by 18 years and had smaller hands than dad and I.

That is part of what I remember that final early morning, the giant hand was no longer giant because for decades mine have been just as big.

Yet for that last moment it was like the adult me was phasing in and out as the 10 year-old boy came back. My hand would shrink and dad’s hand would seem huge and then my man hand would come back.

Echoes

I keep hearing echoes of the past and echoes of the future.

Keep thinking about where I have been, where I am and where I am going. Is life really that different how I imagined it or is it exactly as it should be?

I’d say it is different but evolving and moving towards what I have imagined with some wiggle room left to adjust expectations.

You might say that is taking liberties and I might nod my head and smile. Why should I limit myself when the need doesn’t exist.

Why not color outside of the lines, tear down the walls and step outside of the box.

I can say give me your hand. I can say please give me your hand. I can just reach out and take it or go any number of other ways.

Too much of life is predicated upon limits we set upon ourselves and not enough time is spent on seeing what is possible. It doesn’t mean you should be reckless or get to be crazy but there is a place before the pines that avoids the extreme.

You’ll find me there.