Envision

What I imagine and what happens in the real life, well, its rarely the same.
Its the difference of a few inches, a few seconds, a mis-timed jump.
In my mind I am magnificent. I have impeccable timing, vastly superior reflexes and inhuman speed.
However I usually become the victim of some vast cosmic conspiracy to stymie my excellence and stupendous athletic ability.
For those of you that don't know me, I am kidding.
Sort of.
See, when I was a kid, younger anyways, I used to try things that were probably a bit above my abilities. Ok, a lot above my abilities.
In my mind however, previous to the actual event, things always went flawlessly.
First time I got on a motorcycle, a little Honda 50 trail bike, I played it over and over in my head. Hop on the bike and roar off with a cloud of awesome wallowing in my wake.
I never for a second thought that I was going to lose control with the first twist of the throttle and ride directly through a fence. A tommy shaped hole in a splendid wooden fence.
Awesomeness.
The first time I tried to balance my way across a single strand of barb wire fence. I had this crystal clear vision of my cat-like balance and quickness running like a ninja across the top of the fence and jumping with a single leap to the top of the playhouse.
I still have the scars on my ass from that one. Three little lines from the top of the chain link fence that stopped my rapid descent to the ground after the barb wire snapped like soggy linguine.
Excellence.
Looking back it surprises me that I did int learn. Actually I'm still surprised that I haven't seemed to have learned yet.
In high school I belonged to a singing and dancing group. The fact that I can neither sing nor dance didn't seem to dampen my hubris. I was the MC and introduced the folks that actually could sing and dance. At the end of our silly little intro I was supposed to calmly walk in and take the mike, introduce the talent and fade off.
I had this great idea though.
Remember the knee slide? I used to see it on MTV and various other forms of mind numbing media. It was so damn cool.
So I had to try it.
Live performance, in front of some community center geriatrics or something. I don't rightly recall. I got a run from offstage and proceeded to power slide on my knees.
In my mind I came to a perfect stop exactly where I needed to be, snatched the mike and to thunderous applause stood to the jaw gaped gaze of the talent.
I slid across the highly polished wooden stage at mach 6 or thereabouts,  knocked two of the smaller girl talents base over apex and shot of into the air on the opposite side of the stage. I landed in the lap of the director.
She did not catch me.
delightful.
All of these memories came to me in flash one morning driving the child #1 to school. We were talking about things you want to do but probably should not.
Like wearing roller skates to school.
As a responsible parent I should have discouraged her. Mayhap given some well meaning but ineffective lecture on rules and safety and the other bull shit that adults impose on kids to keep them from reaching their sum-total ability to be excellent.
I am a failure as a parent.
I told her instead about when I took roller skates to school.
My sophomore year.
The school was freaking perfect for it. Long sloping hallways that curved and meandered with nary a staircase to be seen.
One run in particular from the bottom of the stairs at the south end of the main hall to the drama room. Or all the way to the registrars office if you timed the corner right.
At least, that's how it was in my mind.
It never in a million years occurred to me that the night elves who cleaned the building also waxed and polished the floors. To an ice-like slipperiness. Pretty sure they used the Zamboni.
As I went around that corner I became a human bowling ball. I don't know how many pins I knocked down.
I lost count.
Best bowling score of my life to date on one roll.
The child and I laughed at me. At far in the past me.
Hearing her laugh, that joy and electric youthfulness spilling into the still morning air.
Makes me hope I never learn.
Stupendousness.

Methadventures

A sordid confession blog.

I was young(er) and still feeling bulletproof.

Having just borrowed a house from the bank for a thirty year loan I was feeling like a responsible adultish sort of person.

Until I met the neighbor.

His name was Steve.

He had graduated from painting houses to dealing in a much more lucrative market.

The manufacture and sale of Meth.

He also taught Steve-kun-do.

The first time we met he told me how Bruce Lee himself peed himself in fear when faced with the mighty steve in battle mode.

Chuck Norris? Not a challenge for the Steve.

He had really bad skin.

I learned later that when you cook chemicals without the proper protective gear you can get residue buildup in your pores. It creates a sort of "plastic pimple" on exposed skin.

Nasty.

I like to keep to myself, let others leave me alone and I leave them alone.

Sort of.

It was the traffic that did me in.

A constant 24-7 flow of cars, foot traffic, vagrants and bicyclists would come to his kitchen window and trade grubby money for little plastic packets.

And the noise. Loud music, Loud cars, Mowing his lawn at 2am. Always the noise.

So I phoned the gendarmes.

This is when we discovered the boundary dispute. 

We lived exactly on the border between M-city and S-city.

Neither of them wanted to come out, so they sent H-county cars.

Who didn't want to deal with it.

So they left.

And the traffic continued. Day and night. 

So I asked him to stop.

Very nicely.

I even politely kicked on the front door, rather than knocking on the kitchen window.

I may have kicked a little harder then I meant to.

He called the cops on me.

Who showed up and informed me, whilst the traffic never abated, that since there was no "proof" of my erstwhile neighbor dealing drugs that there was nothing they could do.

Oh, and if you bother the Steve again, you get a ticket.

So I pondered.

Shoot him? Torch his house?Accidentally run over him? Squish him?

options and options.

I was at a loss.

So I called about the noise. Every night.

He started getting tickets. Warnings. He would cast me dark looks.

I am afraid I was not subtle.

Standing in front of steves house with a cell phone at 1am calling the cops.

He received a FINAL warning.

It only took a month.

Jail for noise violation if he had one more call.

So he got quiet.

Really quiet.

Damn it all.

The problem was beginning to look insurmountable.

It was solved, miraculously, by the sweet Dutch lady down the road.

She called Protective Services.

Apparently, the Steve had a six year old child in the house.

So, they came, they saw, they took the kid. The policia took the Steve and I figured all was well.

Nope.

The Steve had a Lawyer.

A really good one.

He was out and cooking again in less than 24 hours.

But he got smarter.

He moved into his garage/karate studio in the back yard.

He rented the house to these nice young men.

College age.

Quiet. Polite. Respectful.

Best neighbors we ever had.

The traffic continued to some extent, but since it was going into the backyard and off the street.

Well, live and let live.

Until 3am one morning when the SWAT team raided the house, shot one of the nice young men and let the dog use the other one as a chew toy.

They were cooking for steve.

He escaped. In the confusion and amidst the growling and screaming the steve got away.

At 4am I was out talking to the coppers.

What could I do?

Could I get steve evicted?

Well.

In a word. No.

He owned the house.

They really didn't have much on him.

And he had a really good Lawyer.

So.

The next day, under the cover of a bright noon day sun.

I took his electric meter. I turned off the water and the gas and put padlocks on them.

I took a hammer drill and three inch screws and fastened every single door, window and opening shut.

Then I stripped all the screws.

That night steve tried to break into his own house.

I let him play for about an hour. Banging and Cursing and generally making a lot of noise.

Until he had a fine froth of rage going.

Then I called the cops.

Who arrived just in time to see steve, in a meth induced frenzy of stupidity, trying to beat his own front door in with a decorative rock.

he was making a lot of noise.

They say confession is good for the soul.

I say, only after the statue of limitations is up.

Don't mess with us

evil-doers beware

And the wall, wins.

Whats the worst pain you have ever felt?
Mommies, no fair bringing up the whole birth thing. That's a hands down winner.
Give the rest of us non-mommies a chance and think of the NEXT worst pain you have ever felt?

Whats the silly little law? The one that states something to the effect of  "an object in motion will stay in motion unless it pisses a bigger object off who then stops its motion with a well placed forearm?" Anyone? Bueller?
I forget the law, in fact, the immutable laws of physics have always seem to stretch a little bit for me.
But not always.
I was once running away from this really big scary person with white blonde curly hair. I am pretty sure it was female, either that or a guy with very high estrogen level wearing a sheepskin hat, and I know that whatever it was chasing me for was more than likely well deserved.
Actually. It was going rather well.
I was 10 or so and fleet of foot, especially when terrified. The sheep-thing was screaming at me and looked really scary so I was making  good time towards home. I had just about hit 88 miles an hour and turned around to see if my feet were kicking up flames when a giant brick wall jumped out of nowhere and smacked me in the head.
It was extraordinary. One second I was moving at light-speed through the sir, my feet barely touching the ground and the next.
Splat.

The sky looks really pretty when it spins.
The sheep was nice enough to let bygones be bygones and carried me home.
Sheep must have known about my parents aversion to livestock because it left me on the front porch in a pile of Tom and doorbell ditched.
That wall kicked my ass.
Fast forward. I am a grown-up man. Married, with children and a dog.
My dad calls and says "Hey! Your Uncle Bill's water heater went out. Go and stick a new one in for him."
He was The Boss at this point, so I hopped to it and bustled over to Uncle Bill's.
I know just enough about a lot of things to get really hurt.
Keep that in mind.
I had cut the old heater out, schlepped it outside, grunted the new one in and was just in the process of soldering all the joints together.
Quick plumbing tutorial. Back in Ye Olde days before PEX we used to have to use flux and solder and propane or mapp gas torches to stick the copper plumbing pipes together. New construction was fairly quick and painless but remove and replace was always an adventure.
Now, the Solder is a mixture of two metals (Antimony and Tin) that both have a fairly low melting point, the heat combined with the flux you spread on the joints creates a vacuum and pulls the molten solder inside the joint.
Did you catch the word MOLTEN, as in HOT!

So, I was working on the last joint, it was above my head but being a safety conscious young fellow I had safety glasses on. Well, safety conscious and still paying for the surgery to remove metal splinters from my eye...... Another story.
The glasses were kinda fogged up so I did not see the large drop of MOLTEN solder that dripped off of the pipe and landed on my lip. My upper lip. Just to the right of the little divot thingy I have.
I screamed.
 Like ten little girls all at once. High and piercing, shattering glass for miles, Dolphins around the world heard me and wondered who had just gone to the big glass bowl in the sky, Millions of bats were blinded forever and I have  unconfirmed report of two submarines colliding with a giant underwater spaceship sent by future us back in time.
It hurt.
Living the life I have led developed two things, a fear of water and a high pain tolerance.
This hurt.
 I can honestly say that it was the most concentrated single spot of pain I have ever experienced. This from a man who as a wee boy zipped his wee-wee into his corduroys.
Solder melts fairly fast, it also cools fairly fast. But not fast enough. I was screaming and laughing and the glasses were fogged and I could not really think. It was more of instinct. Running really fast upstairs to the sink, hoping for an ice cube, hoping for a fairy freaking godmother, anything. I was blazing up the stairs as fast as I could, screaming in gasps now but still at a very high pitch.
I reached for the door handle just as my Uncle Bill opened it from the other side.
I didn't even slow down.
That wall jumped out and hit me right on the head.
Even after the ice cube melted and Uncle Bill kindly picked the now solid solder out of my lip with a needle, I  really had only one thought.
That wall kicked my ass.

Civil Disobediance

I have problems with authority.
I should probably start a support group, or a biker gang.
It was bad when I was a wee-un.
Respect? For who? Some fat old dude that whistled when he breathed and smelled like unwashed lemming? Call him Mr? For what? Living?
nope.
Obedience? Just because he had a swell uniform and a silly hat? Wait a second, this is the same guy that got us lost and let us throw frozen cans of pork and beans and a can of mosquito repellent in the fire? I am supposed to "obey" him?
right.
Believe? Why? Because she has hygiene issues and a hatred for children? Possibly feel saddened for the fact that her brain was frozen in 1971 and she hasn't learned a damn thing since? But Believe?
death first.
As I have gotten older I would like to say it has gotten better, that I toe the line with the best of them.
OOOOOO I am going to hell for even thinking that.
I have gotten worse.
A lot worse.
It probably started when a rookie cop beat the living shit out of me when I was 12, for walking on the side of the road. Or it could have been the fistfight with a teacher (he won) when I was fourteen. For saying that Reuben didn't throw the hot tamale at his head. (it was Matt, but I wasn't gonna tell him that)
No matter.
Its these fantastic things that form and shape a human, from a wee-un to a not so wee-un, almost a big-un.
I would say that I am all grown up but if you have read any of my blogs or spent more then an hour with me you would spot that lie in Milli-seconds. I dislike Grown-ups. Boring and staid. Concrete brains. Line followers and punctuation Nazis. LIVE A LITTLE people.
or just let me be.
Two years ago I was out with the Fam. Me and the Wife and the numbers 1 and 2.
My number 2 (the wee-un) is a mini-mommy that looks at the world in a way that no human could ever hope to understand. Picasso maybe, or possibly Dali, but they are both a little normal compared to #2.
#1 is perfect. A follower of rules and a respecter of humans. She amazes me.
We had just seen a movie and enjoyed a pizza at the CPK.
Walking back to the car, well, the wife and #1 were walking. #2 and I were having a skipping contest and she was kicking my ass. I may be a rebel but I cant skip for jack turd.
We came to the escalators.
You know. Moving stairs. Fat America HELLO!
So I yelled to #1 "RACE ME DOWN"
The wife and #2 waited for us at the bottom.
#2 yelled "GO" and we goeth. #1 down the down and me down the up.
I mean really, its only fair.
It was a close race. #1 is fleet of foot and stretched out to break the tape milliseconds before me, A photo finish. Phelps and his fingernail could not have been any closer.
We were laughing and just living. Smiling even.
Then Bluto the Fat American security guard had to whip out his wee teenier and pee on our campfire.
"HEY YOU! COME HERE"
He was pointing at me, I gave him my best innocent face (sneer) and said "Fuck that" and grabbing #1s hand sprinted away from the chubby with a star.
Two fine upstanding police officers of the law chose this moment to walk around the corner.
So chubby, winded after his 25 foot sprint/roll wheezed at them "stop that guy!" and pointed his whole fat hand right at me.
I gripped #1s hand and really sprinted. It was hard, I was laughing and she was having hysterics.
as we passed the other 2 who were (wisely) pretending not to know us I underhanded wife the car keys and said "pick us up, bottom level" sotto voice.
The porkers were gaining at this point so we took evasive action, ducking and dodging in between cars and floors and eventually we pulled the old "hide behind this corner and let the flatties run by oblivious" trick.
Its only failed me once.
Not this time.
With my hand over #1s mouth to keep her absolute terror quiet, they ran right on by.
We started doing our best nonchalant walk back up the ramp and wife and #2 pulled up.
At this point I should be able to drop a pithy saying to tie it all together and leave you laughing for the next few minutes.
Sorry, maybe next blog. We were fugitives, and chubby was not going to let us go so easy.
They were stopping cars and shining flashlights into faces.
This may be the understatement of the year when I say I don't Blend in. This night my hair, very long, was loose and I had on a masculine Salmon (BrightFCKNpink) shirt. No blending.
Thinking quick I made #1 take of her lime green tank top thingy that she had on over her shirt and #2 handed over a spare pony (silver and glittery) for me to tie my hair back.
So, dressed to the nines in space traveling transvestite fashion, we passed the inspection.
Tom Cruise magic saved us.
Success!
The gestapo was foiled and we sailed out into freedom.
I laughed all the way home, #1 had absolute hysterics and #2 lamented that she had not been able to trip the police chaps. Wife just smiled and shook her head gently.
Live a bit Today Folks.

AMBIEN

I don’t sleep much.

 Not really.  5-6 hours a night is more than enough for me to function semi-normally. Semi only because I could sleep for a year or two and still not behave “normally”

I read an article in the 8^th Grade about how much of our lives we spend in bed, sleeping.

It’s A LOT.

It had a profound effect on me.

 I just quit sleeping. I would go go go until I pretty much passed out from exhaustion.  Or I would just sleep during school. I figured why not? It’s not like I was doing anything important. Life is pretty short, too short to sleep through.

Fast forward a dozen years or so, and suddenly the habit of not sleeping becomes a concern and a problem.  One of those things that seem normal to me but all of a sudden it seems to the people around me that something is “wrong”.   like all of us are bombarded constantly by things that tell us we are sick, we need drugs, we want to be normal we want to be normal. Billboards, commercials and advertisements selling wellness. 

What a crock of shit.

Anyways.

I fell for it. Hard. Went to five different doctors to find out what was “wrong” with me and they all got a chance to practice their witch doctor hoodoo voodoo on me.  All I got out of all of it was a sense of panic and a prescription for AMBIEN. It’s a sleep drug, helps you sleep. They say. Knocks your ass out is what it does.

It works really really well.

Then I started having weirdness.

Waking up in strange places. It wasn’t every day, but it was strange.

I woke up at 330 am in my truck at short term parking in the airport. I woke up walking down the street by my house holding a dog leash with no dog.  I woke up on the sidewalk in front of my old best friends house with truck keys in my hand and no truck in sight.

And then.

I woke up naked on a bench in a strange gym.

At 3 in the morning.

This was something that most certainly was not covered in the boy scouts handbook.

So.

I searched the lockers until I found an abandoned towel, I was hoping for my clothes or keys or phone but no such luck.

 A towel is what I got.

  Clad thusly in towel I ventured out into the gym. It was mostly empty, a few fellow insomniacs (pre-Ambien) working out and a pretty little girl at the desk.

 With really big startled looking eyes.

 I approached her a little warily; she was looking at me kind of funny. The conversation went something like this.

Naked but for a towel me: HI!

Desk Girl with Big Startled Eyes:

Nbfatm: um, did you see me come in?

DGwBSE: a nod

Nbfatm: Great! Um, did I have clothes on?

DGwBSE: a nod

Nbfatm: Excellent! Did you notice if I had a bag?

DGwBSE: a nod, then a point

With a rapid turn I followed her finger direction and saw Child #1s school bag leaned against a wall. Snatching it up I discovered a padlock key and my shirt inside. I went back into the locker room and found the little pink heart padlock that matched the key and discovered some clothes, my keys, my phone and a DVD.

Two problems.

No pants, and I had never seen the DVD before. “Bad Boys 2” was not really on my must see list.

I put on the clothes I had and clad in my (it was mine now) towel and wearing a child’s backpack strode confidently (right) out to the desk again.

Partially Clad me: Hi

DGwBSE:

PCm: Um, by any chance did I take my pants off out here?

DGwBSE: Huge emphatic nod and another point.

I followed the point and found my pants. Safe and sound folded neatly on the leg press.

Three things.

 I never have been back to that Gym, I quit Ambien cold turkey, insomnia is FUN. Oh, and the movie?

 Really sucks.