The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for November 2009

The Morning After

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Needless to say that last post was both painful and cathartic. It took a lot out of me, much of it being frustration and anger. That is not to suggest or say that writing removed the elements that are creating issues, it just helped me regain perspective.

That is something that I try to pass along to my children, perspective. Perspective is a very useful tool. It helps us place the challenges we face in a context that we can understand and deal with. Imagine jumping into ice cold water. The shock of the cold temperature can leave you breathless and focused solely upon trying to find a way to warm up.

But if you can stay calm and take a moment to become acclimated to the new situation things will look different.

It is easy to say, but not always easy to do. I struggle with it. It is a constant battle not to just react, but to think and consider carefully what choices to make. Obviously we are talking about the bigger events and occasions here. The question of how to appropriately respond to health and or financial issues is far different than determining what to eat for dinner.

Perspective makes it all easier to do, sometimes. You can tell me about starving children, homeless people and or the terminally ill and how they have a harder life than I do. I’ll agree that they do because that is truth. However it doesn’t completely remove the sting and or pain of my own struggles.

I feel badly for those people. I can empathize and sympathize about their situation, but it doesn’t pay the mortgage or put food on my table. It doesn’t remove the bureaucratic red tape that I am currently dealing with in other situations. Do you really think that because some one died I am going to say that I don’t mind that a 30 day process has taken almost six months.

Not going to happen. So perspective is useful, but it is not a panacea for all of the challenges we face in life. At least this how I feel today. I expect that 20 years ago I might have felt differently just as 20 years from now I may also have a different opinion.

If I am still blogging then maybe I’ll remember to come back and re-read this and see if I still hold the same opinion.

It Was Very Good Year- No It Wasn’t

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I am guilty of blogging while bitter. I am BWB with a dose of angry, cantankerous, curmudgeonly and a dash of STFU.

To paraphrase the dark haired beauty 2009 has been a very, very, very, very, very, very troubling year. Back in the early days of this blog I would have laid out all of the reasons why. I wouldn’t have thought twice about displaying all the goods, warts and all.

Back then when I had complete anonymity it was easy to say whatever, do whatever and go on. But it is different now, life is different.

Now, I am beset and besieged on all sides. The castle is under attack and I don’t see the white rider on the horizon. There is no calvary coming to the rescue, no hope from the outside. The situation I find myself in is the sort of thing that lends itself to the phrase that heroes are made, not born.

The ambiguity is intentional. I use this place as a refuge but some people aren’t entitled to seeing all that goes on behind the scenes. Some people don’t deserve to know it all. In that recipe above I forgot to mention that it should include stupid and defiant. Consider that rectified.

Anyhoo, as we are in the midst of the holiday season I find myself casting a dire glare at it all and I don’t like what I see. If I were the captain of a ship I’d say that I am in the worst storm I have ever found myself in. That is not melodrama, it is fact.

I cannot think of a time where things were worse. There were some very bad moments, but none of them compare to the extended play version of Jack as the Ancient Mariner. There is a fucking albatross tied to my neck I can’t shake the damn thing off.

So much has happened that doubt and questioning have become regular companions. I look in the mirror and see a face that I don’t recognize.

He stares back at me and dares me to try to make him go away. He is accompanied by a little nagging voice that whispers in my ear, questions my ability.

This is a test of will and desire.  I accept responsibility for the things that I did that placed me here and I curse that which happened because of the stupidity of others.

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It is funny, as I sit here typing about being the captain of ship I find myself feeling dizzy. Really, the screen is rolling back and forth and I can feel the floor moving beneath me as if the house really were sailing upon the sea.

So I’ll continue for a moment with the ship analogy, I’ll be the captain, albeit without my Tennile as she is off doing other things.

What will our intrepid captain do? Does he have a plan? The answer is sort of, maybe and I hope so. I am working on a number of projects that may yield some big dividends. I have taken specific actions that I hope will help chart a course that ends in smooth waters and not dashed upon the rocks.

I really don’t know if it will work. All I can do is try. This much I know for certain. Three friends died this year. Three 40 year-olds aren’t walking the earth any more. They were taken. Their time is done and that is all she wrote.

For better or for worse  I am still here. And I will fight because if there is one thing that I know how to do it is fight. And that is all there is left to say.

I Will Never Fall In Love Again

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This is part seven of the project I am working on for National Novel Writing Month. Here are the links to the first sections.
Who Broke Your Heart- Things You Might Not Know
The End of a Marriage
A 21st Century Break Up
“I Don’t Want To Kiss My Husband Ever Again”
Once Upon A Time
Hanging Out With Hairy

I pulled into a parking space, turned off the motor and cursed out loud. The weather outside the car was perfect. Blue skies and just enough heat to make you feel warm were all the reason I needed not to be here. It is a good thing that my skull isn’t transparent because if it was my dear friend Harold would be able to see storm clouds heading his way. With any luck he’d be struck by lightning.

Ok, that is probably unfair. I was semi responsible for this meeting. The company had a funny policy about paying people only for the work they did and not for work that they might do. I had a long conversation with one of the bookkeepers about that one. We got stuck riding an elevator together and since I haven’t a clue what pasty faced number boys are interested I talked about paychecks.

We both learned something that day. He found out that a two minute ride on an elevator can feel like a week in cleveland and I found out that I can babble at length about anything. I know, you already knew that.

By the time I had walked into the office I had figured out that the topic of my next submission was going to be why marriage was the devil’s greatest invention. In my experience it was the closest thing to hell that one could find. Before you go off half cocked you need to understand that the classic definition of hell is wrong. It is not a place of fire and brimstone.

Hell is seeing the love of your life unhappily living with someone else, but pretending to be happy. Hell is being granted a taste of the most incredible relationship and experience of your life and then having it taken away. It  is like being seated at a table with the greatest feast you have ever seen. The food looks and smells incredible. You look around the table and see that the other guests are having a culinary experience that borders n the orgasmic. Just as you are about to join the  festivities you realize that your arms are tied behind you and your jaw is wired shut.

Hell is the real world and that is much worse than anything Dante can come up with.

Well, if there was ever any question about my being a bit bitter there isn’t now. Life is sometimes funny in a way that makes you laugh and sometimes in a way that makes you want to cry.

The first time I had my heart broken was hard. The second time was rough and the third time was ridiculously painful. It was bad enough that I swore that I wouldn’t fall in love again. And for a long time that is how it went. Various women came into my life. Some of them tried to break through the walls that I had erected but none really succeeded.

And then one day she did. One day the wall was up and the next day it was a pile of rubble. It scared me. I was frightened and excited by it all. But she took me by the hand and promised to just love me. I think that was part of what caught me, the “I just love you” bit. It was so simple and yet so powerful.

She did and so did I. We just loved each other. It is a cliche, but it felt like a dream. Somewhere along the way we got lost. If I didn’t have my meeting with Harold I might even take the time to tell you how and why. At least I think that I would. Can’t say for certain because I don’t know if I understand it.

So in the time we have before I go off to the meeting let me fill in some details. We fell apart, sort of. Not sure that we ever stopped loving each other, just found ourselves in unfamiliar territory and went separate directions.

She got married and I got married.

I thought that I was in love. I really did. It seemed like it. I guess that it must have felt like it or I wouldn’t have done that whole ring thing.

But here I am today, ringless, wifeless and until the other day very happy. Things were great until they told me about her. I was perfectly fine and now I am not.

Now I find myself on fire for a woman I haven’t seen or spoken to for what seems like forever. Now I find my heart pounding for a woman who probably thinks of me as just another ex. I am sure that she thinks of me fondly, but what are the chances that she feels like I do.

And this sort of talk is part of why I am pissed off with my daughter and the friends. I didn’t want to look at this corner of my closet. I didn’t want to explore the lost ruins to see if any treasure remains.There is a reason why you let sleeping dogs lie.

Sigh. Well, I’ll put this frustration to good use and go needle the hell out of Harold. If he doesn’t go off on one of this interminably long speeches I still might get to the beach.

Americans Toss Out 40 Percent of All Food

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This story is more than a little disturbing. People go hungry while others throw it away. Something needs to be done.

U.S. residents are wasting food like never before.

While many Americans feast on turkey and all the fixings today, a new study finds food waste per person has shot up 50 percent since 1974. Some 1,400 calories worth of food is discarded per person each day, which adds up to 150 trillion calories a year.

The study finds that about 40 percent of all the food produced in the United States is tossed out.

Meanwhile, while some have plenty of food to spare, a recent report by the Department of Agriculture finds the number of U.S. homes lacking “food security,” meaning their eating habits were disrupted for lack of money, rose from 4.7 million in 2007 to 6.7 million last year.

About 1 billion people worldwide don’t have enough to eat, according to the World Food Program.