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It’s probably been a few weeks since I last posted something here. I honestly cannot remember right now and am too lazy busy to even look. I’ve had, and continue to have, so many things going on that I can’t seem to catch up. Well, for right now, at least.
I’m behind on emails I want to send. I’m behind on commenting on blog posts and contacting podcasts I like. I’m behind on working on my novel. I’m behind on tweets. I am so far behind on so much stuff that the light at the end of the tunnel is probably a distant galaxy twinkling and taunting me. I’d rather the light be a freight train at this point.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not actually complaining. In fact, I’m glad I’m so busy. If I wasn’t, I may be still partly depressed, trying to figure things out in my life. Instead, I’m so busy doing things, I finally feel like I’m partly living my life again, which is a good thing for this recluse.
Most of my attention has been going into the creation, editing, and setting up of A Cup Of Fresh Hell Served With A Side Of Heaven, the new podcast I co-host with my friend Chris. The initial setting up of the site, getting it into iTunes, learning the editing and rendering ropes, dealing with feeds that won’t let you change things when you need to, fucking things up majorly in the process, re-editing an episode that somehow got messed up during the rendering, has all been a huge headache, a huge learning process, and a huge amount of FUN!
Yes, I truly mean it. It has been headachy at times, but it has been a lot of fun as well. This initial starting up phase is the worst part time-wise. After a couple more episodes, I’ll have more time to get back to things I need to get back to, because all the hard and time-consuming stuff will be taken care of by then.
The podcast isn’t the only thing taking up my time, either. I’ve still been writing, just not working on my novel. I’ve been working on articles and submitting them to various freelance sites, even though I don’t have a proper background in English, writing, or journalism. It still doesn’t stop me from trying, though, and I continue to hope my articles will be seen by someone who will realize my writing ability and give me a chance.
I’ve also been working on short stories to submit to magazines and paying online markets. It’s my dream to be a writer and to have enough work to be able to support myself with my dream. I’d much rather write fiction than non-fiction, but hey, whatever pays works for me.
I’m busting my butt right now trying to achieve my dream. I can only hope the people and things I’ve neglected will understand. I’m 32 and feeling like it’s a now-or-never sort of thing. In the next two weeks to a month I should be calmed down and have much less on my plate and then I’ll be able to get back to the people I need and want to get back to. I’ll be able to socialize more again on Twitter* and Skype. If you’re a friend who’s been waiting to hear from me, I haven’t forgotten you! I have a list right by my computer of whom I need to contact. You’re in my heart and in my head, dear friends, but in no way are you forgotten.
*I beyond miss talking and chatting with my friends on Twitter! I’ll be back soon and look forward to catching up with so many of you.
It’s been over a year since I first thought of doing a podcast and finally it’s come to fruition, thanks to my friend Chris Guido. He reminded me of it last month and we sat down a few days ago and recorded our intro episode.
The podcast is called A Cup Of Fresh Hell Served With A Side Of Heaven. Guess who’s the hell part?  It’s about life and its absurdities. In our intro episode (Episode 0), we bullshit and laugh our way through it. Yeah, we were completely unprepared, despite having sat down a couple weeks ago and thought things out. Notes are great. Not so much, though, when they’re not in front of you. Ha ha.
Take a listen and call us, email us, comment, and subscribe. Yes, we take and want drunk calls, too! Details are on the site.
I will say the editing is crappy and the file size is way to big for only 35 minutes, but that’s my fault. I wasn’t too familiar with the recording software I used. Testosterone causes me to have an aversion to instruction manuals. After swallowing my pride, I finally looked a few things up. Things will be better in future episodes, I promise!
We hope to have the podcast available in iTunes soon. I sent in the info yesterday and got an email back shortly after saying the feed works and that the podcast in under review for consideration. In the meantime, you can listen on the site or download it in mp3 format. This will be a weekly podcast, though there may be times where we have to skip a week.
So hop on over to http://acupoffreshhell.com and let us know what you think.
I’ve died again.
Not literally, obviously, but figuratively. We all have deaths of ourselves throughout our lives, or at least, death of phases of ourselves. This death was fast, painful, and unexpected, but I’m coming to realize, good.
With every death of ourselves a new life begins. We become the people we turn into and leave behind our past selves. Once we hit a certain age, though, there are some things about us that won’t change, but there are still plenty of changes that can occur. Sometimes the changes are subtle, perhaps a changing viewpoint. Other changes, however, can make our personalities into something completely opposite of what other people—and ourselves—once knew.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve already died in this lifetime. At this point, I think it would take a supercomputer to figure that out, or at least someone really good with an abacus.
With every major death I have thought about the person I was going to become and wondered where that person would take me in life. While I admit I have done that a little bit with this new death, overall I’ve hardly thought about it. The reason being is I know from past deaths that thinking about it won’t make getting adjusted into the new life any faster, easier, or better. I drove myself crazy with questions that I had no answers to and I refuse to put myself through at least that portion again.
I don’t know how I’ll turn out when I do get adjusted into this new life I am coming into. I know I’ll be different, but not in what ways. The only thing I know for sure is I’ll be stronger. I always am after a death. Confidence levels, allotment of self-esteem, overall personality, these and more are traits in which I will just have to wait and find out how they turn out.
I’d like to think I have a say in how I turn out, but I really don’t. It’s a natural process. In the nature vs. nurture debate, which I have studied at length, I believe nurture plays only a very tiny part, if any, really, in how we turn out. It is nature, our individual souls and personalities, which shapes and defines us. I’m not trying to open up a debate here, just stating my opinion after much research over the years.
While thinking about this personal death/life thing today, I had a quantum leap of hope for the future happen inside me. It was nothing more than a cellular spark from deep within, but it happened; I felt it, and still feel it within me. From creating life, to having an idea, to even the Chaos theory, we all know that one tiny spark can lead us on a path to bigger and brighter things. This spark led to hope. Let’s see where it takes me from there.
It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Take off three zeros and there’s only one word left to describe anything I draw—crap!
As a writer, I can paint you a picture with words, creating captivating new lands, opening your imagination, making you laugh, etc. As an artist, I can draw you a picture that you would be more than happy to wipe your ass with. Although, you may want to do the same with anything I write, but that’s beside the point.
I have had an idea for a short horror story for a few years now. I tried writing it, but realized the format was wrong. I tried it as a screenplay and still the format was wrong. One day last year it dawned on me that it should be a graphic novel and it worked. The only problem is I can’t draw to save my life. Seriously, even my stick figures need work.
So what’s a boy to do? I don’t want to scrap the idea, as I really like it. I’ve tried asking friends that can draw, but they’re not interested. I don’t have money to pay anyone to draw it for me, especially something that has no promise or guarantee of ever being published, except for maybe on this site. As a different creative exercise, I decided to draw the first page panel for it. The result is the monstrosity below. (Sorry, I don’t have a scanner. I took the picture with my iPhone and emailed it to myself so I could show it here.)
Allow me to describe in words what’s supposed to be going on in this picture and in subsequent panels after.
The blazing sun was setting on the spacious country village of Salem Hills, a small farming community. I stood looking out at the horizon and that’s when I smelled it—rain. There was rain in the air, but it would be two more weeks before it would fall.
Record-high temperatures and not a drop of rain for the past four months baked the ground until it killed off almost all the flora, leaving behind only sparse tufts of brown grass surrounded by large patches of dry, cracked, hardened yellowed earth. No crops could grow as we weren’t equipped with crop sprinklers, our water coming from underground wells. What was left of our water, anyway.
The severe drought that plagued our village had claimed 73 lives, mostly the elderly and the very young. We couldn’t dig through the ground in either one of our town’s two cemeteries, so we used combines to till the hardened land in an open field. The makeshift graves were shallow, but we had no other alternative. The dead were wrapped in large cloths and extra dirt was placed on top of them to help prevent insects and wildlife from desecrating or disturbing their temporary resting places.
At first, when we could no longer dig full graves, we placed the deceased in their coffins, laying them out in the field, but soon found the scorching heat warping and destroying the coffins. That’s when we realized what we were going to have to do. As a community, we were sickened by the thought. But with no other options except hope for rain, we decided to just deal with this blight in our village’s history.
When the rain finally came two weeks later, it was not the blessing our village hoped for. Instead, it was a curse, a living nightmare that would haunt our sleepy little village for years to come.
Okay, that may not be the best description, but it’s all I got for right now and you at least get the picture of the picture. The guy in the picture is not supposed to be grabbing his crotch. Since I can’t draw hands or feet at all, he has none and it was just a weird placement where I had his one hand going. Also, it’s supposed to be a gravel road he is standing in front of. The weird shapes behind the messed-up sign are supposed to be the temporary graves.
It’s also said that practice makes perfect, but I don’t have the patience or talent to draw. Seriously, this is as good as it gets for me. While I was writing this post, I thought maybe I would draw the next couple pages as more creative exercises and post them here. I don’t know if I will yet or not. I’m still mortified over the above obscenity. Talking about this story again, however, has renewed my interest in finally getting it done, even if that means I have to draw crappy drawings to finish it, so maybe I will. Unless, of course, one of you lovely readers knows of someone artistic who would be willing to collaborate with me on this project.
Valentine’s Day is my third most hated day of the year, right behind Christmas and my birthday.  I have hated Valentine’s Day ever since Kindergarten when we had to exchange those stupid little cards with everyone in the class. It didn’t make sense then and it never did, even as I got older and understood more about the meaning of the day.
Every February 14, we celebrate the death of St. Valentine, the patron saint of love. Take your pick as to which St. Valentine’s death we’re celebrating, because there were two of them. Both men were Christian martyrs and both were killed—beheaded—one year apart from each other. I know he’s the patron saint of love, but since we’re celebrating his death, shouldn’t we all be going around giving each other freshly severed human heads instead of hearts, candy, and flowers? If we had that tradition, Valentine’s Day would be my most favorite day of the year, ousting Samhain (Halloween) from its place at number one.
I know the real meaning of the day, besides for Hallmark and other companies to cash in, is to have someone out there show us that they care about us, that we are loved in some way by someone else. But what is supposed to happen to those of us that don’t have that in our lives? I, for one, want to take a sledge hammer and pound Cupid into a bloody pulp.
Deep down I really am a romantic person, if you can possibly believe that after reading what you have so far. I would love to one day be able to celebrate a traditional Valentine’s Day with all the sappy, romantic crap that’s supposed to go along with it. I dated only one guy during a Valentine’s Day and we exchanged gifts. It felt awkward for me, almost forced in a small way, to give and get the gifts. Maybe it was because I wasn’t used to it. Perhaps I hadn’t known him long enough. Then again, it could be that I knew deep down he wasn’t the right guy for me. Also, he wasn’t all that romantic to begin with. He was nice and sweet, yes, but not really romantic.
In the end, I guess it will take an extra special person to melt the iced-up lump of nuclear waste supposedly known as my heart. If this magical man can come along and restore my heart and thinking, perchance I will let Cupid live.
In the movie Dogma Alanis Morissette plays God. I thought then, when the movie first came out, and I still think now that the casting couldn’t have been more perfect.
I have loved Alanis since her debut album, Jagged Little Pill, came out in 1995. Since then, her work has become deeper and it speaks volumes to me. She searches in all places within her, including the dark places of her soul, to bring to light the things we feel inside that we may not even know we feel.
So, like Alanis in her song, Moratorium, I’m declaring a moratorium on things relationship. I’m going to keep my emotions, but until I can let go and let the gods, I’m declaring a full time-out from all things commitment.
This isn’t a bad thing at all. This time away from the worries will help me get my head and emotions back in check. I should have listened to Alanis’s music sooner, as I could’ve felt and thought this way about a month sooner. I’m doing much better now, though, thanks to her and her music. To me, she may as well be God for all her music does for me to enrich and help me through my life.
If you haven’t heard anything by Alanis since her debut album, I invite you to check out her other albums. The older I get and the more things I go through, the more I relate to almost each and every song.
In case you haven’t heard the song I mentioned above, here is a link to it, as I’m having a hard time being able to embed it in the post. My apologies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARBLIT95Im4 – Alanis Morissette – Moratorium
When I was growing up and in grade school, I learned about proper grammar and how to use it from old teachers. Many of these teachers were so old they taught even my mom and her brothers and sisters. Being taught by old teachers is fine for many subjects like history, math, and general science, but when it comes to English, I got screwed.
I cannot and do not blame the teachers who taught me, as they were taught to teach grammar as it was when they were going to school and many of the teachers then weren’t required to keep up-to-date. Language, however, changes and evolves, yet how I was taught to speak and write proper English and grammar did not. I was taught a very out-of-date form of grammar.
That said, I am currently taking a short pause on writing my novel and other works-in-progress. I am updating my knowledge of English grammar and its current rules. I have a few books on grammar, as any good writer should have at least one, but I checked their copyright dates and the newest one is just over a decade old. The times, they have changed.
Today I bought a new book on grammar called Woe Is I by Patricia T. O’Conner. I’ve known about the book for many years and have heard and read only good reviews about it. I checked the copyright date for the current third edition and found it updated as of last year. Score for me.
While perusing the book, I found a bit of my knowledge of grammar to be so wrong and out-of-date, I began to wonder if I was taught English by Neanderthals. Sure, most things I learned years ago have not changed, but how they are used may have been. The worst part of this is I haven’t even finished reading through the first chapter.
I have won contests and awards for some of my writings. Now I wonder how the hell that is even possible. I want to go back though all my writings and update them. The pull of new knowledge for my inner editor screams to be unleashed upon my unsuspecting essays, stories, and even silly blog posts like this one. As much as my inner editor evilly grinned and laughed, brandishing about his always ultra-sharp blue pencil, I told him now is not the time. There are still things to learn and apply. He didn’t want to listen, so I had to punch him in the face and kick him in the gonads. That shut him up, the right bastard.
While all of this may mean nothing to any of you right now, it means the world to me. In the future, this will come to mean something to you as well. It will mean you’re reading something written by someone who cares enough for their audience to hone their craft and not haphazardly hack away at a keyboard, hoping for the best. As I grow and learn from writing more and applying grammar correctly, I’ll have a better shot of someday getting published somewhere, fulfilling my dream of being a professional writer.
I think I may be having the crisis you’re supposed to have when you turn 30, only I’m two years too late.
After I broke it off with my fiancé five years ago, I swore off men for three-and-a-half years. I was tired of the lies, the bullshit, and the unwillingness to compromise on their part. I only had sex three times during my downtime. It was empty, meaningless sex that left me unfulfilled in more ways than one. I had no emotions and only a spark on humanity left in me. I was a shell of a person. After one of my best friends saved me from myself and I looked back on how I used to be, I swore I never wanted to return to that state of being ever again, but I have.
This time it’s worse. After my friend saved me, I became the person I had longed to be that was buried deep inside me and silently screamed to get out. I became the strong, strong-willed, confident person who truly loved myself for the first time. Shortly after, I decided I wanted to have emotions again and that I was finally ready to start dating again. I got both a short time after that and boy was that a mistake. I immediately had second thoughts about wanting to have gotten emotions again. The pain at the very end of that relationship was unbearable to a degree I never knew existed.
Even though that relationship ended (neither of us were to blame for that. Outside forces beyond either of our control), I still wanted to try because I found out I could love somebody again. I met another guy a few months later and began dating him. We had great conversations, but that’s about all. His reclusion and severe depression from his bi-polar disorder, which he was on medication for, didn’t help the situation any. I wasn’t as hurt this time, but I still wanted to try. And then along came someone so refreshing and different than anyone else. I fell for him hard. I was deeply in love with him. My world flew into an emotional downward spiral when I found out he didn’t feel the same way, even though I thought he did.
Having emotions has caused me nothing but pain in my life. Sure, there’s the short-lived joy and happiness thrown in there occasionally, but overall, just pain. With all the guys I’ve ever dated or fell for, it seems I was only there to help them go through whatever it was they needed to go through and then it was over and they were gone. I’ve spent so much of my life helping people and the only thing I have gotten in return is to go home alone and sad at the end of the day. The guys that said they loved me didn’t and the ones I fell for couldn’t return the feeling. Emotions are what broke, shattered, and destroyed this once strong, strong-willed, confident person and caused him to be a fragile shell of his once-former self and have zero self-esteem. This gets a person thinking.
I have come to the conclusion that I am unlovable, plain and simple. I must be some kind of monster, an abomination, a waste of flesh that sucks away at the world’s precious oxygen. Really, what other explanation is there? I must be about as lovable as cancer, botulism, and the bubonic plague all rolled up into one hideous mess. I know I’m not perfect. I know I’m not the best-looking guy. I know I don’t have the biggest dick. I know I work weird hours from much of the rest of the world. But you know what I do have? I have a heart that is overflowing with love and nowhere for that love to go. I have an incredibly romantic side that is unappreciated. I have the willingness to go out of my way to compromise and help make a relationship work, even when that willingness isn’t returned. I have arms and a body made for cuddling that lay cold and dormant on long winter’s nights. I have lips made for kissing tears and pain away and making you feel good about yourself and expressing my love and care, but they grow ever more dry and chapped from inactive use. None of these things I have will ever see the light of day.
I feel like Buffy from the episode “Once More With Feeling”, the musical episode in season 6. I’m just going through the motions of life, but not living in it. I want to feel alive, but I can’t because I’ve been pulled from “heaven” and am now in hell. I have no clue if this is really me right now. I touch fire and it freezes me, not burn my skin like fire should. I troop and deal, but don’t acknowledge the million things or more I should find joy in.
So, here I am at a major crossroad in my life. Do I go back to being emotionless, having only a tiny, burning spark of humanity left in me that burns in my core so hot that I want to gut myself to get rid of it? My life was better in some ways then. I didn’t worry about being lied to, dealing with bullshit, being told “I love you, but I wish…”, etc. I didn’t feel the pain that existed within me. I didn’t feel the loneliness that surrounds me like an oversized suffocating blanket. I didn’t feel… anything. Or, do I keep my emotions, knowing that nobody out there will ever truly love me for me, allowing the pain and loneliness to build up until I can’t stand it anymore and hide away from all of humanity forevermore?
As with all things in life, this may just be a fleeting moment in time and will pass. Then again, I’ve been hurt so many times in my life and have no desire whatsoever to ever keep cycling through that pain again. Which path to choose? Only time will tell.
*Originally Written March 29, 2008*
Today I ate. 
(Well, duh! I eat everyday.)
A lot.
Too much, in fact.
When I set out for Dillar’s restaurant tonight, I didn’t plan on ordering as much as I did. I was hungry, true, but this amount of food for one person is completely ridiculous. (Unless, of course, you’re Sally Struthers, in which case it would have just been a few bites from an appetizer.) I had a cup of baked French onion soup, a four-piece chicken strip appetizer, and a half-pound bacon cheeseburger with fries. And three sodas. (Although, I had only wanted two, but the waitress filled the glass a third time without my knowledge, as I was reading.)
I am now officially terrified and this is not an emotional state I am used to being in. I keep having flashbacks to certain scenes from the movie Alien. Also, I know you can get stretch marks on the outside of your stomach on the skin (as I have a shit load of them! Oh, yeah, I’m sexy.), and I am now debating the possibility of having stretch marks on my actual stomach.
I’m pretty sure I’m either going to have an Alien moment (which would save greatly on the stomach-pump fees), or I am going to give birth to the world’s biggest piece of shit. Either way, I’m not going to enjoy the pain. This is teaching me a lesson in using the phrase “Can I get a to-go box, please?”, instead of eating everything in sight, including the other patrons. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go eat a box of Ex-lax.
*Originally Written Saturday, September 22, 2007*
I am a freak magnet. 
I have made this statement many times throughout my life and it never ceases to amaze me that I keep saying it. But, I have never actually questioned why I am a freak magnet. Until last night.
My right hip and knee were killing me last night from work. (But don’t worry - I have a spare for both!) I wanted a chance to relax, have a couple beers (read: enough to kill any and all pain I had and may have for the next several days), watch some TV, and, if the mood struck, write.
All was going well (except for the writing part, naturally), when someone clapped their hand on my shoulder. I don’t know his real name, but he introduced himself as Andy Warhol Jr. a few weeks ago. (Ok, if you’re a straight guy and you’re introducing yourself to someone with at least half a brain as Andy Warhol Jr., you’re not being funny; you’re being stupid and should expect to get questionable looks from people (me) as to any intelligence you may actually have. And also, expect to have your true sexual orientation to be questioned as well – especially when talking to an open and out homo, like myself.) He’s a decent enough looking guy (Ok, yeah, I’d blow him. I’m single and haven’t had sex in over a year. Fuck off.) and has a pretty good knowledge of music, namely metal bands and a few of the bigger-name punk bands as well. But that, it seems, is where his knowledge of anything else cuts off.
 Andy, in his sloppy, drunk way, blathered on about different bands: ones he’d seen in concert, which ones I did or did not like, the difference between music and bands from the 60’s and 70’s and the ones from the 90’s and today. I’ll admit he did make some interesting and valid points. (Either that, or I had way too much to drink as well!) (Or, I was extremely desperate and hoping one of the times he leaned in real close to me, he would kiss me. Yeah, I’m a douche.) But, after twenty minutes of his ranting, I had had enough. (And he still hadn’t kissed me…) He kept talking almost non-stop for an hour. I was too sore and tired to be bitchy (which, really, was a first for me), so I put up with it. I just made sure I was kept in beers and the yummy pink shot of whatever-the-hell-it-is. The bartender (and owner) made knowing gestures to me that I needed the drinks to deal with him, and not because I necessarily wanted them. (I always want them!) Bless her heart.
During his slurred, compulsive talking (which became more slurred and compulsive  with each passing beer he had), I got to thinking about why freaks gravitate towards me. Sure, I’m fat enough to have my own gravitational pull, but couldn’t it pull in some decent people every once in a while? I had never really questioned this before. It was always a statement; a fact. But, after an hour with him last night (and another hour the week before which he could also only talk about music – and which he didn’t kiss me, either…) and going through the list of freaks who have heaved themselves into my life – even if for a brief moment – this year, I started wondering what is it about me that these people(?) find they can interrupt my life to expose me to their insanity? Not finding an answer in my own mind, I asked a professional – the bartender.
Me: Why I am I such a freak magnet?
Bartender: (without missing a beat) Because you always sit by yourself. You look like you’re lonely and they are, too, so they strike up a conversation in hopes of alleviating both your loneliness.
Me: Crap.
 She hit it on the head. I always sit by myself, but not because I am lonely. It’s because I WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE!!! I’m not that social of a person. I haven’t been for years. Just because someone is sitting by themselves, does not always mean they are lonely. Some just prefer their own company or just want some quiet time to themselves to relax (me).
The next time Andy (fuckwad) sees me at the bar and starts up a conversation, he better switch conversation topics, or, barring that, take me back to his place so I can suck his dick. If neither occur, my Inner Bitch will be forced to come out and deal appropriately (or not) with him, in which case it will probably leave him crying and curled up in a fetal position in his beer glass. (Hey, I had to endure hours of his non-stop one-note yakking. It’s my right to issue the man a couple minutes of verbal self-esteem slicing and dicing.)
(Have I mentioned I’m a bastard at times?)
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