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 February 2011

Valentine’s Day Music

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In case you are wondering my feelings regarding the day haven’t changed in the slightest, I despise this day. It is only made worse by falling on a Monday. While I am waiting for the day when the majority of people agree with me, that has happened yet. I know because I checked. I took a cursory look around the blogosphere to see what is being said.

There are bloggers out there of every stripe who write about the day and share thoughts and ideas about the day. They’ll offer all sorts of different advice or  for you to read and reasons why you should or should not do XYZ.  I once said,

Gentlemen of the world, lend me your ears. I come to you as the man who would help spare you pain. I bring you tidings of a movement to end your bondage and to help you rise up as free men. You need not participate in the foolish pipedreams and fantasy that the slavers have placed upon you.
You need not worry about flowers, cards and candy. There is no reason for you to concern yourself with the trivial and the meaningless. There is no reason for others to dictate when you will be romantic.
If we act as one, if we work together as a single unit we can destroy the oppressive entities that have heaped this silly fiction upon us and once again know true freedom.

I stand by those words. Anyway, I am buried in work and have been writing this post using the “prairie dog method.” You know, you poke your head up once every so often and add a few words to it. The “Prairie Dog Method” can be an effective tool for writing but it makes it far more challenging to ensure that your voice is consistent throughout your work. I use it on posts like this where I am less concerned with flow and more with other things. More on this later. For now here are some songs for the day.

Tainted Love- Soft Cell
Love Stinks- J.Geils Band
Go Your Own Way-Fleetwood Mac
Love Bites-Def Leppard
You Give Love a Bad Name-Bon Jovi

Stay tuned readers, more content coming later.

Sunday Afternoon Reading

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Stuff you should read and comment upon:

My latest post at Odd Dad Out is called The Golden Age of Blogging. Over at Fatherfolk my two most recent post are called Blogging and I Can’t Stop Laughing. My friend The Rebbetzin’s Husband was not thwarted by technical issues and has constructed a very fine edition of Haveil Havalim.

Back home I submitted my first entry to The Red Dress Club called And Then The World Shifted. The Hollywood Housewife included one of my posts in her Friday Links roundup. And as usual I am banging out posts with ridiculous frequency, don’t worry if you find that you can’t keep up or have been left behind as I am about to provide you with more links:

If that is not enough for you than you might want to take a look at:
The Tex Files: The Episode Where Mulder and Scully Have Words With The Ever Elusive Weatherman
That’s My Brand
“Poop, Poop, Poop!”
4-star general, 5-star grace
Valentine Poems to Avoid Sending Your Pregnant Wife

The Past Is The Present

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Some people never develop any coping skills. The wounds of their past never heal, scabs and scar tissue build up and momentarily halt the bleeding, but it is a temporary fix. And like all such band-aids are prone to being ripped off. Sometimes the exposure to air is good for such hurts and sometimes they remind you that the pain is never far from the surface.

Physical pain can be debilitating, but it never will hold the same sway as mental pain. Mental pain hangs over you, a banshee whose wails of pain and sorrow remind you of past failure, the scream a bitter reminder that there are times when you just didn’t get it done or that sometimes your best just wasn’t good enough.

So the question comes down to how you deal with those moments. Can you accept your shortcomings and move ahead or do you get bogged down in the what-if moments and spend time replaying the moment in your mind searching for a better outcome.

The greatest professional athletes learn how to overcome this. The Michael Jordans of the world don’t remember the shot that they didn’t make or the play that fragmented. They live in a space in which the rarified air they breathe doesn’t allow that. Supreme confidence that they will change the outcome to one that is more favorable allows them to move past the failures and they do fail.

Jordan’s dream of becoming a professional baseball player didn’t quite materialize. Only a few remember Nick Anderson stealing the ball and the eventual loss to the Magic in the playoffs. It was a momentary setback, but one that spurred more work and more effort to reclaim his spot at the top of the pyramid.

But there is a reason why the world is populated with fewer more Michael Jordans and more ordinary people. Before Georgie I had been much more like Jordan able to just move on and forget. But that was the past and now I lived in a world that was not so bright, the light was much dimmer and the prospects less interesting.

I live in a place in which I yearn for instant replay, the prayers in which I beg for a referee to come out onto the field and penalize the other guy for an illegal play. A chance to gain yardage that was unfairly stolen from me. An opportunity to ignore Georgie’s advances and to take the other path.

It never happens, even in my dreams, even those moments in which she is still by my side I always witness her departure and relive her loss.

And it is all because I let myself be taken in by that asshole Georgie. Georgie who stole all that was good and holy in my life and replaced it with shit. In the fantasy books of my youth Georgie was the demon whose magic made him appear to be beautiful but to those few who could really see he was always a hideous repulsive maggot eaten mess.

The long arm of Father Time eventually wraps us all in his embrace, but it is a hug that is neither tender nor loving. The claim that time heals all wounds is a myth, it merely dulls the pain.

A Dog’s Life

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My children like to listen to Florence sing about The Dog Days being over or should I say that they like to sing and dance to it. Can’t say that there is any real significance to that other than it offers a nice segue into a conversation about the dog. Read that last sentence twice because it is important. Technically you are reading this but I view my blog as being more like a coffeehouse or house party so we are having a conversation. My blog, my rules. And well, the dog part is simple because I want to talk about our dog.

The rascal that lives here made his appearance into this world 365 days ago. You might ask yourself why we are acknowledging the dogs birthday. You might wonder if it has anything to do with his sharing the day with Thomas Edison and I would answer that there is significance there. I looked the dog in the eye and said, “Thomas Alva Edison, reveal yourself to me now!’ He wagged his tail and licked my face. I said thank you and then repeated my command, only this time I did it with my hands extended and with more authority. There was more tail wagging and some licking, but no answer.

I shook my head and muttered “rats” and wandered into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. Moments later the silence was pierced by the shrieking of children. They were happy shrieks that should have shattered the windows and blown out the eardrums of every adult within a country mile. You see, my kids were home from school and more than a little excited by the birthday of our canine companion. Home courtesy of a faculty in-service day at their school they were only too happy to run in circles and dance around the dog singing “Happy Birthday.”

It would be wrong of me to say that I was unhappy with this or irritated by their intrusion on the silence of my morning. It would be bad for their dad to say that he might have raised an eyebrow or been irked because his caffeine fix hadn’t been taken care of so I won’t mention any of those things. Nor will I talk about how hard it is to work out of a home office when everyone is home. Conference calls are always joyous and only made more exciting by the loud screams of a little sister who is enraged with the actions of her older brother.

Might I say that it is never wise to try to torture your younger sister by doing anything to her American Girl doll. And might I add that as an older brother I would never admit to laughing at this because I never would have tortured any of my sisters in this fashion. I would have been far more clever, but I have far more practice than the ten year-old boy does so there is time for him to learn how to do it right. Of course as a father I would never sanction or encourage this behavior because ultimately I am forced to referee.

On a side note I have to share the insights of my son who looked at me and asked, “do girls always lose their minds when they get angry?” It was a sincere question and one that I wanted to answer but fear of a large black purse dampened my enthusiasm for responding with a broad smile but that would be wrong and untruthful so I told him that we are not supposed to tease our sisters. Damn if that boy didn’t look at me and tell me not to lie because he knew that I teased my sisters when we were kids. I asked him if he was certain and he said that he has seen me do it as a grown up and then added that he thinks I am good at it.

Have I mentioned that he is smart or that he should have asked me to buy him a Lego set right then and there. Fact is if I don’t tease you it is because I don’t like you. Not to mention that all of my sisters understand that their only brother loves them and that my benevolence has extended from childhood into our adult years. Ask my BILs and they’ll tell you that while I might pull their legs once in a while, I won’t let anyone else do it….much.

In between the the screaming and the shrieking the kids gave the dog his birthday gifts. Yes, he got two but they were purchased by the children. More importantly the kids insisted on buying the gifts with their own money. It was their own idea and something that I am quite proud of. These children are sweet, compassionate, caring and giving. And that my friends is worth a lot.

They Paid me $500 For This Post

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If you are among the 17 long time readers you know that when the angels sent me down to earth they gave me a double dose of insouciance and attitude, or at least that is what I tell my parents. Don’t bother asking me if the supernatural creatures who created me have ever bought that tale because I would have to lie and say that they most certainly did. My parents would never doubt my words or my sincerity.

That would be inconceivable.

Yet the rules of the blog have clearly established the provision that I be honest and say that upon occasion they might have wondered  if I am stretching the truth or engaging in some sort of misdirection. Personally I like the idea of being talented at the art of misdirection. It makes me think of Houdini and well, who wouldn’t want to be like him. Ok, I don’t want to be like Houdini because the dude is dead and I am not ready to be dead yet. Got too much too do and see. Besides it would make my kids cry and though I have done that on more than one occasion this is the sort of thing that might crop back up again, my dying that is.

I think about it sometimes and I wonder what would happen to them. I wonder if I have taught them enough about life and the values that they should hold. I wonder if I have shown them enough about who I am and what is important to me to have a real understanding and picture of who I am. I don’t present that last sentence for the purpose of being arrogant or narcissistic. Rather I mention it because most people are interested in learning more about their parents and the kind of people they were/are.

That is part of the purpose of the blog. It is a chronology of my life and my thoughts/ideas/opinions about many different things. It is something that my great grandchildren and their great grandchildren can read. I don’t know about you, but I wish that I had that sort of history to rely upon. My great great grandparents were born during the Civil War. It is surreal to realize that you don’t have to go back that many generations to get to that point either.

Confession: Any time I think about dying and my children I can’t help but think of Inigo Montoya.

Disclosure: Inigo Montoya did not pay me anything to write this post, but I digress. I have been thinking about this dying bit again not because I expect to do so any time soon but because we just picked the date for my son’s Bar Mitzvah. I think about that and I am blown away by how fast time is moving. I see him heading towards a place where life is going to accelerate for him too and I wonder what I need to focus upon. It is bizarre, surreal and incomprehensible. This is the boy who played with blocks while the bodies fell from the towers.

Intellectually speaking I know that he hasn’t been that kid in years and not just because he didn’t weigh 75 pounds at ten months either. I know precisely hold old he is but at the same time it doesn’t feel like enough time has passed for me to be thinking or worrying about these things. Hell, I just got a note from about his 529 and a minor adjustment made in his investments. Of course I can’t even begin to conceive of him being in college but if time moves as quickly as it has that will take place next week.

Although that doesn’t scare me as much as the idea of listening to some kid talk to me about his plans for the future and my daughter.

Damn if I don’t find myself quoting Superchicken, “you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.” Yes, I did know that but I didn’t know how much fun it would be. Nor did I know how scary it  could be at times either. If these little people only came with a manual life would be so much easier, but probably not any more fun. I kind of dig this fatherhood thing.

And then the world shifted

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So it turns out that I wear the hell out of a red dress. Here is my first shot at it based upon the writing prompt they gave this week and a 600 word limit. If you like this post feel free to sift through Fragments of Fiction.

I could never have imagined that one day I would wake up and not have you by my side. It still seems improbable, inconceivable and simply unbelievable.  This can’t be real because the Greek tragedies aren’t true stories. They are myths and tales that are man made- not reality.

Yet, here we are living life alone and apart. Separate homes and separate lives. You were the guardian of all my secrets and the woman that I allowed to walk unfettered and unencumbered through my heart. I had every opportunity to treat you like a piece of meat but I didn’t.

It wasn’t because you prevented me from doing so. You gave yourself so willingly to me that I knew I could ask you to do anything and you would. It was part of the magic of our bond. Sometimes I think that you were offended that I didn’t take advantage of the situation. Sometimes I think that you were offended that I didn’t take every moment to ravish your body.

That didn’t happen because I have never seen a woman who is more beautiful than you are. I have never been closer or more intimate with anyone than I was with you. You know this because I told you so but I would like to tell you again.  Not by phone, text, email or IM but in person.

The things we did and the experiences we had were real. They were magical and mysterious. They had a depth and purpose that cannot be properly expressed through words alone.

You are the song of my heart. Even now so long after we parted I still hear your melody being played in places too deep to ignore. I can still feel your touch and taste your lips. Your scent is not forgotten nor have I forgotten the grace with which you move.

Remember how I used to stare at you and how I enjoyed just listening to you breathe. Sometimes you would shy away from my look and tell me that I was too intense but you always said it with a smile.

There are so many stories that I could tell and so many memories that I could share with you. I still can’t believe that I have started listening to some of those Barry Manilow songs you used to talk about. Remember how I teased you about his elevator music and said that thirty somethings weren’t old enough to listen to him. You rolled your eyes at me and accused me of having no taste.

Now I find myself quoting his songs and wondering if maybe they foretell a future that is yet unwritten. When he sings about finding the right love at the wrong time I nod my head in frustration and ask why us. When he talks about walks down long rocky beaches and starting a story whose end will have to wait I smile.

Yes, I admit it. I smile because it gives me hope that maybe we’ll find our way back to each other. But sometimes I don’t let that hope inside my head or my heart. Sometimes I stuff it back down into the cage it came from and think of reasons to be angry with you. That anger helps to hide the sadness and makes me forget how much I miss you.

I am just a boy asking a girl for the chance to hold her hand again because I can’t imagine not having you in my life. I’m just a man who remembers a time when he kissed a woman and then the whole world shifted.