I believe… … that falling down doesn’t always mean getting up is the only option. … that one should always do right, especially when it hurts. … that I’ll hurt the feelings of others sometimes. … that I should always apologize when I know I’m wrong. … that some things are never meant to be said, even if they’re true. … that it’s easier to be angry than to forgive. … that being angry at someone serves no purpose other than to hurt yourself. … that some things will never change. … that some people never change, either. … that eventually, the sun will always rise. … that it’s okay not to care sometimes. … that you don’t have to be perfect all the time. … that you can only slam the door so many times before it’s stuck there. … that there just aren’t words for what you want to say. … that living in the past can be painful and damaging. … that those that you love the most are the only ones that can truly hurt you. … that sometimes all you can do is push all your chips in and lay your cards on the table.

Continue readingThe billionaires and generals all know, that we’ll be buried under the dead land they sold us…

While driving around downtown yesterday, I almost ran over a street rat. The little guy hopped off the curb, and ran across a busy four lane road. I stopped to let it pass. Yes, I’m serious. I stopped so that a street rat may live downtown. I was surprised, though, that when I stopped to let him go across, other people were trying their hardest to run him over. He had to dart under the wheels of a couple of cars that had swerved in an effort to catch him under their wheels. He made it to the other side, and waddled down an alley out of sight. I couldn’t help but smile and keep on driving. But that got me to thinking: Why did everyone try and kill him? Doesn’t that say a lot for how we value life? If it had been a cat, people would have been stopping and/or swerving all over the road in an effort to avoid killing it. But why not stop for a rat? As far as intelligence goes, rats are comparable to a cat. Take it a step further, and we can see that they’re both furry, can be kept as pets,

Continue readingAnd he sees again, just what the world is made of. He keeps firing, repeating “God is love”…

I spent today reading through some old journal entries that I’ve archived over the last fifteen years. It was all so depressing. I was amazed at how often I spoke about wishing to die, and wanting to disappear. I can’t imagine having that mentality now, but I was apparently very ready to be done with my life when I was 22. Here’s an excerpt I ran across this afternoon, from December 14th, 2004: It’s impressive to me how angry people in my life can make me. How difficult it is to ignore those impulses to simply tell everyone in my life to go fuck themselves, so I can just stop worrying if the next thing that comes out of their mouth is going to be something to hurt me. What a horrible feeling to always be terrified that someone is going to break your heart. You can allow people just close enough to get a taste of it, but you shove them away as if they were poison the moment you really start to feel threatened. You shut down. Close off, and don’t talk. I did that today, and didn’t even realize it until I hung up the phone. I

Continue readingAnd we don’t even care to shed these zipper blues. And we don’t know, just where our bones will rest to dust.

Mother’s day is a little less than a week away now. I complain about it every year because, well, I don’t have a mom. She was taken from me. It makes me sad every time I think about it, even though it will have been ten years this June. I don’t think it’ll ever get easier; I think it’ll only continue to be more and more bearable. And that’s okay. Loss is supposed to be difficult, and losing someone as important as your mother is an important event. It’s not something that one should be able to just shrug off. I was 17 when she died of colon cancer. I was resentful of God or fate or life for taking her from me. I knew I was being cheated out of knowing my mom as a friend, and not just a parent. We’d just bridged that gap a year or two prior to her dying, and I would have liked to have found a little bit more of who I was, within her. More importantly, though, I wanted closure on a few things. But before we discuss that, let’s start from the beginning, shall we? My mom was born on

Continue readingNight after night the same decisions; go drive, give in, it’s all the same to me now.

Reality is an unstoppable force which gnaws away every molecule of muscle attached to our bones. It consumes everything in its path. Only those who can perceive a reality greater than what they live will suffer; most people, apathetic, realize contentment in underachieving, never comprehending the extent of their capabilities and never knowing they’re being slowly eaten. Eventually, nothing is left and we all die. For some, the torture of unrealized greatness exceeds their capacity to live; Picasso and Poe come to mind. They were defective by choice. They chose not to see the obvious wider understanding that reality, although inexorable, is manageable. Limits are subjective. I can’t tell you shit from the keyboard; no statement will provide comfort from across this distance and the voids that we all tread. This is a lesson that cannot be learned but from experience. My experience, although the polar opposite from yours, the reader, in quantitative values, is similar in the underlying circumstances. Some of us just don’t fit. Having chosen (consciously or no) to conform or not, we, by choosing not to decide, decide a path of self-justification. I tell you, the real choice is the act of empowering us to prosecute

Continue readingThere’s a woman in the balcony weeping, licking her lips at the fall

At 9:00am yesterday morning, I received a call from my father. He said, “I need you to take me to the ER.” It’s a nightmare scenario that, with very few exceptions, we all must face. Some of us may go through it several times. To say that I’m experienced with personal and family crisis is a bit of an understatement. I won’t go in to my “credentials” as they are, but let’s say I’ve had way more than my fair share of driving those that I love (at terrifying speeds) to the hospital while bleeding, passed out, or otherwise. 7 years ago was the last time I’d been in a hospital. I was there to visit my grandmother who we thought was dying of Leukemia. She is in remission now, but it was dicey there for several months, and we almost lost her a couple of times. Prior to 7 years ago, the last hospital I was in was OHSU, and that was to see my mother through a difficult surgery for cancer (which subsequently killed her). Walking in to the ER yesterday was like a punch to the gut. It was as if I was experiencing my worst nightmare

Continue readingAnd what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

As I’m sure many of you may have noticed, I have an interest in human behavior, and more specifically, in the things that we do and have no idea why. For instance, I had a person sneeze in the cubicle right next to mine a few moments ago, and my kneejerk response was to say, “Bless you!”. I’m not religious. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in the soul, or that it’s trying to escape; I have no illusions that a demon has inhabited this person and is now escaping. And yet, I feel obligated and rude if I don’t acknowledge the fact that this person has sneezed. Why? We’ve all heard the stories and beliefs, the superstitions and ideas behind why people say, “Bless you” after a sneeze. But do you know the real reason for it? Do you know what the original reason was? No? Don’t feel bad. Nobody else does, either. In fact, we have no explanation for it. At all. There has been mention of the practice as far back as 77 AD by Pliny the Elder in “Natural History”. Sadly enough, he doesn’t say why either; He only mentions that Tiberius Caesar himself even

Continue readingAnd I wonder where these dreams go when the world gets in your way, what’s the point in all this screaming? No one is listening anyway.

I went hitchhiking a few years back. No destination in mind, no timeframe, no responsibilities. I just left and didn’t come back. And while it was good for me, and I think of that time affectionately now, it was also an extremely difficult time. There were many times that I would walk endlessly, for days, and I went without food for just as long. It wasn’t that I couldn’t find a place to eat. There were any number of soup kitchens and shelters I could have stopped at; but I never really felt like I was needy enough. I had chosen this particular path, and there were people there that really needed that help. I couldn’t justify using a service designed for people that couldn’t avoid their predicament. Not to say I didn’t eat at these places, but it was usually only after going hungry for three or four days. But that’s besides the point. I recently went through the old duffel bag that travelled with me during those times, and in it, a bunch of wrinkled, worn, dirty, rain soaked pages of writing. Each page smelled distinctly like the road and country. It was like each one was a

Continue readingSo you’re driving and it’s rush hour, the cars on the freeway are moving like slugs… when you drift off to wake up, do you always hit the brakes?

One of the smartest men I’ve ever known is my step-father. He taught me a great many things, but recently I’ve been thinking about a few small but important lessons he tried to teach me when, of all things, I was learning to drive. I’ve realized that I remember, vividly, two instructions that he gave me and that they’ve become instructions in the operating manual of my life. The first and most important thing he ever told me was, “Always be on the look out for a place to ditch.” Of course, he meant that as it applied to driving, but it obviously took on a different dimension for me. When driving, and when living, I’m always on the lookout for a place that I can pull off if I’m having trouble.  I’m always on the lookout for those places that I can stop and catch my breath, or get out of harm’s way. And, if things go really bad, I’m always looking for the best place that I can ditch everything, crash and burn, and cause the least amount of damage in the process. It makes starting up and getting back out there just a little bit easier later.

Continue readingCome on baby now throw me a right to the chin, don’t just stare like you never cared