Adam Jones vs the Staycation: Part 1

This morning I awoke from a dream where I was at a drunken con party and I was being hit on by a woman in a 19th century ball gown and sunglasses, who was also a midget. So, you know... I knew it was going to be a pretty bitchin' day.

I decided to start off my staycation with a day of Grand Cleansing. 

I shaved.

I showered.

I did my laundry.

I washed my dishes.

I dusted my surfaces. 

I cleaned my kitchen.

I vacuumed my carpet. 

I even meditated and drank a lot of juice, so it was like a triathlon of cleanliness. 

Then, in an effort to balance out that much productivity, I was compelled to binge-watch Constantine. I have to say, I like the show so far, but I'm getting pretty tired of spending 10 minutes every episode on the following exchange: 

Everyone but Zed: Hey, you should leave for your own safety.

Zed: Nuh uh.

Everyone but Zed: Are you sure? You're very likely to die horrifically.

Zed: Nope. 

Everyone but Zed: Oh, okay... I guess. We'll check back next week.

Zed: I have a mysterious past. 

So yeah, I feel like I'm off to a pretty good start. Feeling better already.

Adam Jones vs the Staycation: Part 0

I'm going on vacation!

Not a Sunning by the Beach or Gambling in Vegas kind of vacation, I'm still getting my finances together. Instead, it's more of a My Job is Starting to Make me Cry and I Have Some FDO Saved Up kind of vacation!

I'm looking forward to getting back to my roots with such activities as:

Sleeping!

Eating!

Excessively viewing pornography!

Then I plan to appeal to my higher nature by indulging in such things as:

Writing!

Crafting!

Exercising!

I have been working diligently on making my life a better place to be and all of next week is going to be a workshop in better living. Part of this project is that I've decided to write a new post for every day next week, including the bracketing weekends!

So, I'll be spending my vacation with all of my favorite people: You!

Whew, I have used, just... SO many exclamation points today. I'm going to need a minute to recover from all this excitement. I'll see you Saturday.

Hippies and Eskimos

It was just after midnight. My mother's first birthday since her murder had just passed. I went out into the cold and rain to run an errand. It had recently been hard to move for any reason at all. Any sense of purpose or passion had drained away months ago. However, hunger still seemed to be a pretty good motivator. I had no money other than the old check in my jacket pocket that I kept forgetting to deposit; that's what led me to the grocery store's ATM.

The ATM was on my right as I walked in the exit. The entrance is closed at that time of night. On my left was a computer station open to all who wish to submit an employment application for the grocery store, and as such goes mostly unused. That night there was a young man declaring his desire to move food. He was perhaps twenty years old. His hair was brown, long, and stringy. His goatee was scraggly. His T-shirt was faded. His jeans were ripped. His sneakers were green and well-worn. On his head sat a pair of enormous, old-fashioned, 80s-style black headphones.

His body jerked along with whatever music he was listening to.

As I began my deposit, the ambient noise of the universe faded away and I heard him quite clearly singing along to his music. I couldn't bring myself to move as my brain processed what it was hearing. This man was singing out loud, off key, word for word the Corky and the Juice Pigs song "Eskimo."

So, in case you've never heard the song and can't spend three minutes watching pure happiness, the chorus laments the fact that the singer is the only gay Eskimo in his tribe. This song, though delightful, is twenty years old. I don't think anyone's cared about it in fifteen or so.

But there he was.

In the middle of a night made cold by wind and melancholy was a single dirty hippie badly singing a song as old as he was to the entire checkout about being lonesome homosexual Inuit. I remained in front of the ATM long after I had finished my transaction, transfixed by the sublime absurdity of the moment.

The song ended.

He looked off at the wall behind the monitor and paused. After a moment of reflection he mused out loud to himself "Huh. That song's pretty gay."

I hastened to the back of the store, where they no longer feel it necessary to light the dairy products at 1:00am, and sat by the yogurt, and laughed. And wept. But mostly laughed.

Writers Write

The lady down below is Tessa Violet (MeekaKitty) and is one of the most populars on the YouTubes. I have no recollection of learning about her, she just sat, ignored, on by subscription bar for years. I recently decided to cull my subs and went through some of her videos to see if I wanted to keep her around. 

I found this video where she talks about being young and getting older. She talks about how great it is that she is regularly maturing and gaining perspective.

I could not help but consider that in the decade I have lived that she has not, I stopped being excited about the person I was becoming, and started making peace with the person I became. 

Writers have this half joke/half mournful plea for help that goes "writers don't choose to write, they have to." One time I asked a poet, "When did you first self-identify as a poet?" and he replied "When I couldn't stop writing poetry."As a final example of this philosophy, let me share with you a poem that writers love sharing:

air and light and time and space

"–you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,

something has always been in the

way

but now

I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this

place, a large studio, you should see the space and

the light.

for the first time in my life I’m going to have

a place and the time to

create."

no baby, if you’re going to create

you’re going to create whether you work

16 hours a day in a coal mine

or

you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children

while you’re on

welfare,

you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown

away,

you’re going to create blind

crippled

demented,

you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your

back while

the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,

flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space

have nothing to do with it

and don’t create anything

except maybe a longer life to find

new excuses

for.

© Charles Bukowski, Black Sparrow Press

I read things like that and I look at my place in life and in my darker moments I think "well, I guess I'm not a writer after all. All these years have gone by... I'm old enough now that I should be balls deep in my chosen profession... and poetry doesn't force its way out of my hand... I've had air and light and time and space... I've also had 16 hour days, been through earthquakes, floods, fires, had a cat crawling up my back, and have been demented... and I didn't create.

Writers shout at each other in no uncertain terms that writers write. Always. And, because deep down I'm very stupid, I just now figured out why that is. Writers are a cowardly and superstitious lot. Busy days, bad moods, shiny objects, or a little too much gas can keep a writer from working if they're not careful. We have to tell each other these fairy tails in order to guilt ourselves into turning off Netflix for one goddam minute and get something done. I suspect that if we didn't feel the need to write all of the time, we wouldn't write any of the time.

So, instead of resigning myself to withering away as a stagnant, non-creative husk, why not get over myself, remember that you're never too old to grow into a better person, and fucking do something.

Also, because I'm totally into quotes right now, I'll leave you with my favorite quote from a sword:

The enemy is one -- You are one. What is there to fear? Cast off your fear! Look forward! Go forward! Never stand still. Retreat, and you will age. Hesitate, and you will die.  - Zangetsu (斬月)

Untitled Death Post

Three weeks ago I got a phone call from the police letting me know that my mother was dead. She had been shot in her sleep by her husband, who then shot himself. No one found them for two weeks.

I never talked to her all that often, sometimes only once a month, so it wasn't strange that I hadn't heard from her. She didn't call me on my birthday, but I attributed that to her being a forgetful, wacky old broad. Instead she was rotting on her bed near the corpse of her killer.

I started calling people I knew to tell them. I didn't need anything from them, I just thought that it was the sort of thing friends should know about when it happens. There was a fascinating spectrum of reactions. Some were quiet, some were angry, some were startled, but all were stunned, wanted to help, and had no idea of how to do it. They would fumble over their words and tell me that they didn't know what to say. I told them that it was okay, that no reasonable person could possibly be expected to know what to say. It was strange finding myself comforting my friends who were trying to comfort me. Eventually we all fell back on our standby coping mechanism: Gallows Humor

There was an impromptu party at my place that night as people kept coming over and no one left. In fact, I barely got a moment to myself for three days as people kept coming by with pies and casseroles, as is custom in the southeast U.S.. All of it was a blur and none of it seemed real, until I got to her house.

One of the more overwhelming parts of the experience is that I had no idea of what needed to be done, how to do it, or where to start. There was no other family and none of my friends had ever been the ones to deal directly with arrangements. I realized that I needed information. Life insurance, health insurance, car title, utilities... I couldn't even get her out of the examiners office without her Social Security Number, which I didn't know off the top of my head. I was going to have to go to her house and try to find it all.

Let me start by saying that my mother had many fantastic qualities, however, she was also a slob and a borderline hoarder. Also, in case you didn't know, the police don't get anybody to come clean up when they're done investigating a murder, that's up to you. However, crime scene cleanup guys cost thousands of dollars, and I have approximately no dollars. So the blood and stink of two rotting old people as well as the cats who starved to death and the weeks old litter box were going to be a concern while we were digging through piles of papers, boxes, and knickknacks to find a few sheets of relevant information.

I find it strange that I've been saying things that I only hear about on television. Like, sometimes I mention a conversation I had with the lead homicide detective. That's not something real people do, that's a TV thing. Also, sometimes you see a person on TV go glass-eyed and say "The blood. There was... so much blood." I totally get that now. There's a lot of blood in a person and on a hardwood floor, it has no where to go. Also, fun fact, when there's that much of it, it doesn't actually dry, it just turns into a dark sludge.. which we know because one of the friends who went with me to the unspeakable horror house slipped in it and nearly fell on his bottom. We knew it was going to be bad, so we brought gloves and masks, and Vicks VapoRub to put in our noses. However, the stench crept through our masks, past our VapoRub, and into our souls.

There has been a lot of contemplation on the subject, and I may or may not delve deeper into that later, but I just needed to get the gritty horror of it out. Thanks for listening, guys.

I love you all very much.