It’s raining. The sound to me is like thousands of tiny feet slapping against a plastic floor. Thwap, thwap, thwap. I always loved the sound of the rain. I wanted a metal roof on the house she and I owned so the sound of the rain would be magnified. It brings me peace to hear the drip, drip, drip of the water as it runs down the multicolored shingles on the roof hitting the ground in the chaos pattern once described to us by Malcolm in Jurassic Park. I remember our first night in our first apartment after our first son was born. It poured, buckets. We lay awake together just listening like it was a symphony playing just for us. Once in a while the thunder would boom like the bass drum just to keep the beat of our exhaustion from the previous days of moving. The melodies that played throughout that night made me want to get up and dance, had I not been sore from the forehead down from the lifting, carrying, stepping, placing down, and repeating. I wonder if she felt the same excitement when she moved in with him for the first time. Do adults feel that childlike excitement?
We buried a father today. A small wooden box that held his ashes were carried by a single man while he held a picture of the departed. It is weird to think that a man, who seemed larger than life, could be carried as he was to his final resting place. What we are reduced to. This man who produced a son who was also larger than life (genetics?), full of enthusiasm and zeal, lay inside an 8″ by 12″ box carried, not by six strong men, but by one out of shape guy whose sole purpose was to not trip for the next 20 minutes. Thats a lot of pressure. You just cannot control when you are going to be clumsy. The picture was of him in a trucker hat smiling, blue skies behind him, and eyes full of the love that he showed to everyone. He was a strict man, god loving (I hate the term god fearing, even as a non religious person), family before all, and kind. His son had many issues in the past but he loved him throughout them all. They are together again for the first time since 2005, that makes me feel so warm inside to know that he isn’t alone anymore. If I could have been anywhere these past few days it would have been to be a fly on the wall seeing their first embrace in 12 years. I cannot imagine either one letting go first, I mean they were both stubborn and competitive. I think an entire book could be written on that moment alone. A father and sons reunion in the after life after being a part for over a decade, with an M. Night Shyamalan twist at the end of course. I am glad I was able to see him, making it down there the day before he passed. His biggest concern as he lay there dying was his wife, he wanted to know if she was okay. That is the type of man he was always making sure everyone was okay. His last words to me “Drive safe”.
I had to purchase a new toothbrush today. I left my old one at a friends house. I stayed with him and his new girlfriend last night so I wouldn’t have to drive 3 hours to a 10 am funeral. I had time to head back to get the toothbrush after the funeral but I received an odd text. It read “I left my vibrams at my mothers house. Would you mind getting them for me?” It was from her. This text felt like the flame flickering from a lighter as it grazed the underneath of a spoon, gliding back and forth turning the powdered substance into a boiling liquid in the concave side of the spoon, I dropped the piece of cotton in and grabbed my needle then lied to my friend about not being able to make it back to his place after the funeral. I went and got the requested shoes because you never know what the reason will be that she comes back. As I was there a strange phenomenon happened. Her mother and I sat down for lunch together and just talked. Like we have never talked before. We both cried, shared, and consoled. Her husband passed away, he was the only person I have ever watched take his last breath. I was a pall bearer for the funeral, I was scared to death. I switched with someone at the last second to make sure I was using my dominate arm to carry the casket only to have us pull the box out in a different direction making my weaker arm responsible for not dropping the love of my life’s father onto the ground. Her mother and I spoke about anger, love, sadness, and the future. For two hours we shared with each other in a way that we had never before. I miss being a part of a family.
I watched a movie today called The Adderall Dairies with James Franco. It was a pretty interesting movie and surprisingly good for the ratings it got. It made me think of how interesting it would be to sit back and watch my life from the view of people around me. Would the areas I feel I am the victim actually portray me as that? Or would I be the villain? Was my childhood as lonely and depressing as I remember it to be? Or is it that I was a quiet, reclusive child who didn’t seek the attention of others? My teenage years were pretty standard pot, masturbation, poetry, and loud rebellious music. There is a line in the movie that basically says we don’t trust the memories of others as much as we trust our own. This really struck me because I remember things about my childhood, teenage years, and marriage years that have been disputed. Am I wrong? Or is it, as I have said, that the truth lies some where in the middle? Can there be truth with memory? Or is it just that a persons interpretation of their own memories leads to their own personal truths? I have always believed that the only truth out there is mathematical, so memory could be anywhere from non-fiction to complete science fiction. I want someone to make a movie of my life so I can see their interpretation of it, I am so curious of the differences. What if I led this perfect life that my inner (quoting James Douglas Morrison) clown decided to fuck up at the most inopportune of times, which would in the end would make me the asshole?
I went and saw two friends of mine while I was down for the funeral. It was a couple that she and I used to spend a lot of time with when we lived down there. Our kids were friends and we were as well. While I was down there she said something to me that really struck home. She said “You are an amazing guy when you aren’t trying to impress.” This really made me think and reflect and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Her view of me was that I was trying to impress someone, which is in my mind never the case. I don’t feel that anything I do is “Impressive”. As I have previously written though, I have this internal conflict that happens and it happened when I was there, they were all looking at me. I take this as they are waiting for me to be funny so I oblige, but I don’t want to. I never want to. I am quick, witty, smart, and sarcastic. This aides in my ability to think of funny things quickly. I would rather be a wallflower. She was right though. Her views of me were spot on, it comes across as trying to impress. She took it as I was trying to impress others when really I am simply trying to hide the fact that I am wholly uncomfortable, or in so much pain that I want to bite through my wrists and bleed out in front of them, so I turn to comedy. I don’t want her kids to see that love is a hopeless pursuit, at least that is how I feel currently. I would rather them believe in the fairy tale that true love can happen. Just the same as I would never tell them that Santa is just a group of exhausted parents trying desperately to hang onto their kids fantasy that magic can exist. So I turn to being funny instead of showing their daughter, who is sitting with her boyfriend, that the guy who was so in love with his wife, now just wanted to reenact Leaving Las Vegas Vermont style. I am a nice guy though, I know how to treat people, I just don’t know how to treat myself.
I am going to end this as I have already written the title which says “three vodka tonics” and I just finished my third so if I poured another one I would have to change the title and that just seems like a pain in the ass. It has been a long week, a long month, a long year. I have had too many weeks of minimal sleep to the point of hallucination, which is kind of cool, I used to have to pay for the visuals I am getting lately. I think I am at 6 weeks averaging 4 hours of sleep or less. 3 a.m. seems to me the calling hour for me lately. This past week though, planning drives for dying friends, funerals, the possible move, the lazy job interviews lead to a begging to fall a sleep at a reasonable hour with a prayer to sleep through the night. These feelings of exhaustion lead to a breaking that I have never experienced. Mind you I am not broken, it takes millions of rain drops to break a rock, but I feel their feet thwap, thwap, thwaping on my head each night. It is 1 a.m., I may wake up tomorrow, read this, and take it down prior to it ever being read or I may leave it just to garner a reaction, who knows. We will find out tomorrow or later today I suppose. I will start the end of this with a quote that rarely ends a letter or video but I have seen from hollywoods elite since I was a child “If you are reading this, it means I am dead.” Or maybe I am just sleeping or eating my oatmeal and drinking my cup of tea, or thousands of other possibilities. I hate that line in movies, it is a bit….one second I have to pee……..thanks for waiting….absurd, what if no one ever reads it, does that mean that person never died (Ah, the “if a tree falls in the woods” comparison. This is gold people)? Or what if they did die but no one read that letter, or what if the letter was full of crap like this blog post that meant nothing to everyone who read it and the writer who died just wasted everyones time as I have writing an article after three vodka tonics? That isn’t a professional way to do things. Is this why I am still unemployed? Oh well, I don’t care, I paid the $100 for the rights to my site, you all are reading it for free, you are only wasting your own time. I will leave you with a real quote from someone who was WAY smarter than me……….
“It always seems to me so odd that when a man dies, he takes out with him all the knowledge that he has got in his lifetime whilst sowing his wild oats or winning successes. And he leaves his sons or younger brothers to go through all the work of learning it over again from their own experience.”…. Robert Baden-Powell
Learning my new life, 
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