Ten Million monkeys typing

There are a lot of words in the English language. I have not counted them all but from the massive amount of online research I spent the last three minutes doing I surmise that there are anywhere from 20,000 to one million or more of them. Apparently there are some people out there that have spent their allotted time in the counting of the words that make up the ever growing, changing and flexing morass of words that I use to communicate with. Wow. I think I could probably come up with something more worth-while for them to do.
That being said; It's a big pile of words to chose from whenever you start writing something. Honestly though I believe that most writers, myself included, only utilize a very small percentage of the tools at their disposal. For example, I would use the Twilight rolls. I don't refer to them as books because in my opinion all they are good for is slightly stiff toilet paper. Making that point I would venture to guess that the writer of the twilight rolls only used about 567 words rearranged approximatively 5 billion times to flesh out her "stories" of the unrequited love of various supernatural and merely mortal characters.
Had she used more than that, increasing her vocabulary to say, 1000 different words used about 2 billion different ways I may have actually been able to read it without my eyeballs bleeding.
I am jealous.
The main difference between me and her is hard to define. Outside of the very obvious gender and size differences we could be remarkably similar. We were both raised in a very strict religious culture, both married, both attended college and obtained "higher education" and both of us are writers. She being, admittedly far more popular than I shall ever be. All of this aside what is the difference?
Vocabulary?
Having read one of her books to the severe detriment of my ocular capacitors I would have to give that a very firm "HELL NO"
Life Experience?
Again the above. I actually knew what the point of sneaking into a girls bedroom was and Really, although I never actually met a vampire or werewolf in the flesh I did read Anne Rice, who, if you are going to go for the supernatural lives of the really cool undead and other lycanthropish types, kicks Steph's ass all over the literary world.
Self Confidence?
Thou hast hit upon it. I just don't have the blind self confidence she does. I read what I write and I am reminded with every word that monkeys typing could reproduce Shakespeare if we gave them enough time, bananas and a typewriter or 6. Although I have always wondered why they didn't just give the primates a computer and MS Word?
I realize that the only way to build confidence is one of two ways. Believe in the crap you write so much that despite what all critics and the vast majority of learned folk in the world think and or say you just keep pushing forward until someone, somewhere, finds your niche market and actually sells a few billion of your words to the eternal detriment of the human race as a whole.
Or.
Write so well that the critics, naysayers and family members that may or may not have the cumulative IQ of a shaved polar bear actually enjoy reading what you write.
I am going to practice until I fall into the second category. Or perhaps I will just be so prolific that I will get an honorable mention in the little blue book of "at least he tried"
Either way, expect to see a fair number of blog entries from me this year. Feel free to laugh, cry or be disgusted. For the very brave, or large, or those of you trained in some murderous martial art that I don't know, feel free to be critical.
Happy new year.

Coolness

Its all about being cool. It takes either a strong human or a very arrogant one to believe wholly in their own coolness.
I have always questioned mine. Outwardly I may appear not to but I do yearn as do all other aspiring kings to public acclaim. Nothing says to your self that you are cool like someone else telling you how cool you are. My early role models made very sure to grind into my head that while I may be cool; I would never ever in a million years of ice coolness be as cool as them. That was ok with me as long as I got to be near them, bask in the reflected freon exuding from them in waves.
People change, tastes change, fashions come and go. Coolness fades to lukewarm and finally into dorkdom. Age has a big part to play in this descent into mediocrity. The young look at the old as being hopelessly lost, so far removed from the world of the young that they might as well be on another planet if not universe. The old, the cool ones, look on youth with understanding and patience. Remembering when they too were young. Those that live in the kingdom of dork get mad at the youth, indeed they get mad or upset at anyone that does not live act dress and dork exactly like they do. Blinders of Dork.
I try to be cool to the young, especially if they are relations. I want to be the cool uncle, the one that shows up to the family reunion and makes it into a PARTY! So, I do things with them. Play video games in which they kill my vidself over and over. Laughing at my incompetence. I listen to their music and I try to be gentle in providing useless advice. I never listened to advice, why in all the green earth would I expect them to listen to mine? Which begs another question for another time, what makes me think I am even worth listening to? I am no better or smarter or wiser then them, I just happen to be older. Which means, jack shit really.
anyways
I was playing with my brothers a while back, lighting illegal fireworks. The kind that shoot in the air and explode. When we were kids we would shoot them at the neighbors, at each other, at everything. It was so much fun. Whats a little scorching and ear ringing? It passes. Memories like that, fertilized with adrenaline and laughter grow into memories that last forever. I try not to think about it when I am in the middle of things but sometimes I think I may push myself just a little harder then actually necessary because that is always in the back of my mind.
So
I was lighting these rockets and watching them shoot into the air with the brothers and the children's, all the nephews and a few of the nieces. Wanting this memory for them I started to throw the lit rockets. If you time it just right it shoots up further, wrong and it ignites in your hand. Scorching a bit. Really wrong and it shoots back at you, scattering a herd of laughing nephews, dispersing them as effectively as a call to do chores or say prayers.
It was going great, I had won some and lost some. To be fair I had become quite scorched. Out of practice no doubt. I had just tried a double and my brothers and I were laughing at our youth, fuelling our own memories while planting some in the children I hoped. Keeping up with the youth as I do (riiight) I was not surprised when nephew numero 3, the oldest of my younger brothers boys said "Uncle Tom, you're on fire!" Being the expert on current teenage slang I knew that he was just saying I was cool, Really, how cool am I? Pretty damn cool for this nephew to realize it. So I lit a triple and as they shoot everywhere my nephew said again "No, Uncle Tom! you're really ON FIRE" The hero worship in his voice seemed a bit strained so I turned to see what was up.
In turning I felt and saw that I actually was ON FIRE. My shirt was spouting flames, not politely smoldering as we should expect modern tech fabrics to do (maybe that's only pajamas?) but actually flaming. I forgot my coolness, screamed like a pinched teenage girl and dropped to the ground inside the house using my moms favorite rug to smother my shirt. Did I forget to mention that we were all standing out on the deck of my parents house?
I am pretty sure that I burned that memory into their minds. The combination of flames, screams, rolling and yelling combined to make them all remember. What a goofball their uncle Tom is.
I tried.

On Being Mortal

Any one who reads this and most if not all of the people that dont. Are going to Die. Yep, we are all mortal. From the dirt we came and to the dirt we shall go.

When we are young we rush toward this event, always longing for the next Birthday, the coming milestone. We cant wait to be 12, 18, 21. Time goes so slowly. I remember very distincly a one hour math class that lasted 16 days.

Then we get older, and time speeds up. The days fly by to fast to count, the months sail away like ships being pushed by a stiff wind. The years wake as if from slumber and began to stretch, preparing it seems, for a sprint to the finish.

This last year lasted two weeks. It went so very fast. I only have 364 days until my next birthday and I am already feeling the time begining to speed up. My kids grow right before my eyes. My friends and family get older, I get older. I would like it to stop.

So, just for the record, to have it out there in the open. I am done. No more aging.
Time can go as fast as it wants, it shall pass me by. Any of you that want to join me in this endeavour. Feel free.

Mr. Dog

I have a Dog, to be completely accurate I would have to say that we have a Dog that lives with us. He is a decent Dog as far as Dogs go, a little neurotic and odd but then again. What animal isn't? I was thinking the other day about the Dogs I have known in my life, the family pets, the viscous attack dogs and the just plain odd.
We had more then a few dogs attached to the family growing up, of various shapes and dispositions. I vaguely remember "Fred" a hound dog. He pooped on my moms bed one day and was never seen again. I remember "Jensen" a small yap dog that loved to roll in yuck and raid garbage cans, he died from either a diaper or chicken bones. He probably went happy either way. Then there was "Goofy", now this dog was cool. We called it Goofy because it was, it looked like a sleek little lab with a bristly fu man chu beard. Goofy was Female and mean as a hornet. Probably our fault, training it to chase neighborhood kids on bikes was not a very Christlike thing to do, but, we were young. Goofy was also a cat killer. She would sneak out at night and return in the morning looking fit and well rested. We never really knew where she was until one night we heard a noise in the backyard. It sounded like a pack of hyenas tearing apart some luckless gazelle. When the dust settled and the noises ceased out came goofy. I went to see what she had been fighting, thinking it was either a burglar or another dog. I was slightly surprised to find the torn asunder remains of a local stray cat. Matters came to a head one night after Goofy dropped a "ball" on the foot of a friend of my Dads. When he bent down to throw the "ball" he discovered a fresh cat head.
We locked Goofy up after that.
Another Dog I had the pleasure of knowing was "Hawkeye" he was my wife's dog. We tried to take him camping once. In American fork canyon. We opened the door at the campsite and he jumped out of the car and ran away. Really ran away. Straight up the freaking mountain.It took me two hours to find the stupid dog and another hour to drag it back. Wait, I forgot to mention that Hawkeye was a Rottweiler/Lab mix. Also huge. He weighed right around 130 at this point in his career. So after I dragged him down the mountain I tied him to the bumper and tried to put up our tent in the freaking dark.
There was another couple camped in a tent about 50 feet away. In the morning before the sun was up, just barely light. Caprice heard a noise, she woke me up and I got out of the tent to see what it was. Hawkeaye had chewed through the rope, he had not run away thank all the gods but he was doing something far, far worse. He had ambled over to our neighbors tent and was "marking" it. At least I thought he was just marking it until I realizes that he was taking a really long time. 130 lbs of dog with a full bladder, dumped on a tent in the early AM. I saw a light flip on in the tent and a silhouette of a women tentatively touching the rapidly spreading stain.
I ran over got Hawkeye, bundled up Caprice, threw everything into the tent and threw the tent into the car. In 2 minutes flat. We drove off in a cloud of dust as the neighbors were coming out of their tent.
Hawkeye never got to go camping again.
Which brings me to Mr.Dog AKA "Henry". We got henry from two crazy drunk ladies that actually brought an entire litter of dogs to our house for us to chose from. They carried in this huge kennel thing,set it on the ground and opened it up. 20 puppies of various nationalities and temperaments poured out. 15 of them peed, 3 threw up, 1 peed, pooped and threw up; and one ran and hid. The one that ran and hid seemed to be the obvious choice. He was for Emma, she turned 5, I got a motorcycle and she got a puppy! Have I mentioned how cool my wife is?
Anyways, for some reason known only to God and the odd, newly forming mentality of a 5 year old she named him Henry. Seriously, I fought against it tooth and paw but I was overruled by the simple expediency of everyone calling the damn dog Henry.
From the first day he was a piece of shit. He ate everything but his food, he went the bathroom everywhere but outside, he would not come when he was called, he would actually have to be dragged if you put a leash on him, he ran away every chance he got. I really was not liking him one damn bit. To cut him some slack, if my name was henry I would not have come either.
A few months passed and he was at the point where I wasn't really looking that hard when he ran away. At this time we realized that he had IBS! What the hell? can dogs have that? YES! We discovered also, that he was terrified of power tools. I left a drill by his kennel, 5 feet away. He shat upon it. From five feet away this dog shoots a stream of IBS yuck all over my drill. I hated the little furrypants. So the next day he was banished to the back yard. I got home from work that day and found that he had eaten my hot tub cover. I know that he had eaten it because there must have been a power tool in the back yard that scared him, there was pooped pieces of cover all over the back yard. Then, too add insult to degradation, a new cover was 700.00 dollars!
So I got rid of the little creep. I called every single place I could think of. Even the drunk ladies. No one would take him. In desperation I called my wife's best friend who I hoped, would know someone. She did, a couple that Fostered dogs until new owners could be found. VIOLA!!! He was gone.
The happiness lasted until the womenfolk arrived at the homestead. Tears began, and continued ad infinitum. Even the cat acted like he missed the stupid chewer. I resolved to be manly and tough, master of the home and what not. I was not going to have that projectile pooping ball of vomit back!
One day later I called the foster couple and went and got him.
On the way Home I yelled at the Dog!! I yelled at the Family!!! I yelled at the car and the other cars and the truck that passed us!! No one was safe from my wrath!!!
Since then, he has been the best Dog ever. He comes when he is called, does tricks, barks at bad guys and goes running with me. The Kids love him, the wife loves him, and I love him. Even when he threw up on my brand new running shoes after a run one day. I just hosed them off and asked him if he was OK? He looked at me reproachfully, he seemed to say, "and you call me a dumbass?"

Perspective

This morning I realized I had not written anything for a while.
 Yesterday I was driving somewhere, I really don't recall where, and I saw a horse moving slowly across a field. It was a pretty horse as far as horses go, brown and seemingly healthy looking. I don't know much about horses, really only that they make me sneeze. I wondered what there was to make this horse move across the field so I pulled over to watch. It meandered back and forth, it seemed to me that it was acting shy, do animals do that? Did this horse feel that it had to put on a good show for the people that were watching it? My curiosity grew. I looked at the other horses in the field, they were all gathered together down at the other end, happily eating whatever it is that horses eat. Puzzled even more I looked closer at the field, it was a field. Nothing special, some grass some weeds and some hay bales randomly thrown out. A field. There was a trailer parked against the fence in the general direction the horse was moving, I reasoned that perhaps this was where the horse was going, maybe it was the hay wagon/trailer? The horse moved out of my view behind the trailer and even knowing what killed the cat I had to see what it was the horse was burning its caloric reserve to see. So I hopped out of my truck and walked slowly around the trailer to see what was so attractive.
Standing behind the trailer was a small girl, 7 or 8 years old. The horse was happily eating apple slices she was taking from her lunch box. She was happily scratching the horses head and kissing its nose. I left them undisturbed in their happiness and walked back to my truck. Content in the little joys of life.

Commute

I had a thought. More then one actually but several have fled before they were fully formed and I had to be content with the slow easy to catch ones. Yesterday I was riding my Motorcycle on the freeway during drone home hour, you know, when everyone drives slow and looks as if they were going from work to a funeral? The time of day when you look into other peoples lives as you flash by their windows and wonder briefly if they are really talking on the phone or if they are having some sort of swearing fit. I usually avoid this time of day, leaving early or late especially if I am on the motorcycle, there is something seriously wrong about your feet touching the freeway, Really. Yesterday I had places to be and people waiting for me so I sucked it up and got stuck with 200000 of my brothers and sisters on the drudge-way.
There I was, feet down on the freeway, behind a rig belching death into the air and another on my left side expelling destruction in a greasy black cloud. The people I had seen were all of a type, harried, hapless, morose, eyes straight forward shoulders slumped and hands limply on the wheel. I was not in a bad mood, but the combined gloom of all of these people who where being crushed by the various responsibilities they have was overwhelming.
Now I am sure that all of us have real problems, things that are wrong in our lives, things that we wish were better, money that we owe to the Shylocks of the world. THINGS. These things have weight; they rest on your shoulders and squish you into the ground. Driving home after work ruminating on the lies you have been fed your whole life seems to be epidemic. I was beginning to feel them, all of the THINGS that I worry about. The weight filling my brain and stealing my happiness, who was it that told me I could be anything I wanted? Well, I tried and guess what? I am not what I wanted and sometimes I can not even remember what it is that it was that I wanted and on and on and on and a girl in a Mini pulled up next to me.
She was not beautiful, but she had clean hair and clothes, she was tapping her hands on the steering wheel and singing to herself. I could see an ID badge swinging from her mirror so I knew she also had work, and here she was stuck in the middle of the world’s biggest pity party and smiling. I found myself caught up in watching her. Tapping my foot in time to the slight movement of her head as she sang along to whatever happiness she was listening too. I could feel the weight lifting from my heart, as traffic began to move again she looked over and saw that I had been watching her. 15 feet away and I could see her blush from her neck to her hairline, she gave me a tentative smile and I smiled back. She smiled for real then and my worries fled.

Weird Cousin

We were eating dinner with some friends a few nights ago and one of them said something which has really got me thinking. He said "Everybody is somebody's weird cousin." I started thinking about that, about me and my cousins and my wife and hers. I tell about things that happened to my cousins or because of them for pure entertainment. Take for example this cousin. (Who shall remain nameless) He was in California surfing and living like a vagrant, bumming food and sleeping wherever he could. He crashed a Frat Party to score some eats and somehow managed to hit on the biggest guy in the rooms girlfriend. The boyfriend was a lineman for Santa Barbara. My cousin, who has a mouth, is getting stomped. He told me later that he had never felt so weak and helpless. Incidentally he is 6'2" and about 200 lbs of solid starving surfer boy at this point in his career and the lineman was double his weight and 4 inches taller.
So the lineman has got both of his wrists in one hand holding him pinned to the ground, slapping him with the other hand, the erstwhile girlfriend finally decides to stop it and starts screaming at the Lineman to let him up, so the lineman put his hand on cousins face to push himself up, My cousin, who at this point is humiliated and not a little sore has opened his mouth to spew some more profanity at the Boyfriend and oddly enough the pinkie finger gets stuck in cousins mouth. Remember, he is A) Humiliated B) Mad as hell C) more then a little crazy D) Starving. So... He bites the guys finger. OFF! The lineman becomes a door mat when he sees the blood, the room is dead silent. My cousin stands up, spits the guys finger out onto the doormats chest and runs like hell. He did, however have the presence of mind to grab a sandwich and a six pack on the way out.
Weird cousin.
So I called him, to talk about this and to find out what he tells people about it, if it was a standard party tale, you know, the story that gets dragged out and shined up whenever you have people over? Here is where it gets weird. He told me he hardly ever talks about the finger anymore, in fact his two favorite stories to tell are about me! I am slightly flattered slightly annoyed and more then slightly apprehensive when I ask him which ones. He tells me that his favorite is when I ran over the guy in the golf cart, and the crazy thing is. He tells it better then I do! I was laughing just as hard when he re-told me the story as when I actually ran the guy over. His second favorite was about the time I got into a fight at a dance club downtown, I had actually forgotten two things, the fight itself and the fact that he was there. But when he told the story, which involves three girls, a decorative pool, a plate glass window and a bit with an UZI I was laughing even harder then I had at the first story. Then it occurred to me. I am the weird cousin.
I wasn't completely sure at this point. So I called some of my wife's cousins, they think I am off and out there. I called some of my own cousins, stories about the oddness of me abounded. So, to seal the deal I called a couple of extended cousins and finally some friends. It was pretty much a wash.
I am everybody's weird cousin.
damn