WANTED: SWF, 23-30, for low-key romantic relationship. Should identify strongly with Mary Magdalene in order to compliment my Christ complex.

I’ve been having random dreams this week, mostly nonsensical from what I can remember, but there was one about Melissa the other night. The gist of it boiled down to both of us deciding that the divorce had been a mistake, and so we were going to get back together. But then she turned around to leave, and I noticed the black wings that had sprouted from her back. A blazing sphere of chaos materialized over her head, and through the nightmarish unlight, I could see the voices of a thousand tiny children screaming as they were woven into the flesh of virgins. A skeletal cat pounced through the opening and told me stories of hate engines being constructed from fire and bone and the tears of angels, and how these dark machines would burrow into the headmeat of every living being until the trumpet signalling the coming of the Dark Lord sounded across the lands.

And I think we still ended up getting back together.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not to eat Cocoa Pebbles right before bed anymore.

I’m not entirely sure why, but we all worry about Pete. Probably because he’s the smallest and youngest of us at the Bar (strangely, although we’re more protective of her, we worry less about Mariel), but maybe it’s because he’s also the nicest.

JP, Garth, Tyler — they’re all scrappers (Tyler less so these days, but still…). They love to get physical. I’ve seen many nights where Garth is all but itching for a fight to start in his vicinity. It’s dangerous, sure, but that’s maybe why he’s behind the bar instead of working the door these days. Better to have his hands full of beer cases and clean glasses than working the security angle.

Jason and I — perhaps due to age, or experience — are less apt to fight. Not that we won’t or haven’t, but only if we don’t have options. Pete’s the same way. He’s not afraid — I’ve seen him step into the middle of two guys who both towered well over him and had enough alcohol in them to make logic and reason as incoherent and unintelligible as their pickup lines were. He’s just quiet, unassuming — and damn it, nice. I don’t say that in a bad way, I should add.

Garth and Pete are the first ones that people tend to turn on at Bailey’s. If surrounded by the six of us (sorry, Mariel, but I’m leaving you behind the bar for this), they’re the smallest of the two. And the other night, there was a guy who had the option of turning to face me or Pete, and he chose Pete. Words commenced, and it was here that I saw Pete’s only problem: inside a bar, late at night when the alcohol has already flowed freely, talk gets one chance, and then it’s gotta go outside.

And so as I hear Pete telling Joe Schmuck that if he’s gonna give him grief about leaving, then he can say it to his face — that’s the point where I start to put the drink that I’m making down and head for Pete’s position, surrounded as he is by what may be innocent bystanders or possibly friends of the Schmuck. Before my glass hits the bar, and before Jason can head out (well, over is really the direction that Jason takes) from behind the back bar, Garth zips by, a flash of blue jeans and black tshirt and cigarette still hanging from his mouth. Schmuck has an arm behind his back and — to quote Garth, at least — is being led out to the sidewalk by his mop of hair.

Jason and I laughed. It was funny. You have to trust me on this one.

It’s moments like this, though, that make me feel ultimately comfortable in my bar (not to mention the sheer volume of regulars on any given night that will stand behind us in a tense situation). No matter what happens, no matter what goes down, I think that any one of us (including Mariel, thank you) is more than capable of taking care of not only ourselves but each other. And there’s a good balance, too — not just between the readiness to jump into the fray, but among personalities, as well.

I thought about this today because my sister asked how I was enjoying my return to the world of bars, and it made me think about the past jobs I’ve had, the past crews I’ve run with, the past contexts. All things considered, I can’t imagine ever working a better bar with a better group of folks. I’ve certainly never done so in the past.

I’m taking this week off from a few things — most notably, as much as possible, forward motion — because a few things have occurred to me recently (as recently as the past thirty minutes, in fact).

I was listening to a Porcupine Tree compilation disc that I made myself not too long ago, and Stop Swimming came on.  I’ve always read the lyrics to be about suicide (and let’s ignore for a moment that you can infer a lot from the interpretations that listeners make about lyrics, etc.), and listening to the song as a whole doesn’t stop me from coming to that same conclusion.  But my favorite bit comes right in the middle of the song, and tonight’s frame of mind put the words in a new context for me:

Maybe it’s time to stop swimming
Maybe it’s time to find out where I’m at
What I should do and where I should be
But no one will give me a map

And then, reading over a few of my favorite blogs, I was struck by how few stories I feel like I have to tell.  Which is weird; I’m thirty four, and I genuinely feel like I’ve lived more life than most people ten years my senior.  It’s not that I have nothing to say (although the validity and importance of which can easily be argued amongst yourselves).  It’s not that I’m intimidated by other writers, or have no voice of my own.  It’s not that I’m not experienced in plenty of areas — hell, right now, I’m a designer, a computer nerd, a bartender, a musician, a filmmaker, and a writer.  A single guy.  A Southerner.  I’m many, many things, giving me many, many perspectives on life.

And it hits me: I’m too busy living to appreciate any of it, to enjoy any of it, or even make notes of any of it.  Head down, shoulders squared, I charge through each day just trying to make it to the next one lately.  I’m passing a hundred stories a day without hearing or seeing or living any of them on any more than a cursory level.

Maybe it’s time to stop swimming.  Just for a bit.  No map required; just a little reconsideration…

Seamless pictures

If anyone finds any of these in large print sizes (frameworthy, that is), then add this to my birthday list.

12:30, Monday, I’m heading out of my parking deck, getting ready to make an unrecommended-if-not-illegal left turn. I pause, checking left and right to make sure that no traffic is coming from either direction; not much, just a single SUV coming from the left, slowly, up the hill. As it nears me and is almost past, I start to edge forward, and then realize that the SUV isn’t actually going to pass me. Instead, the driver chooses to park in the middle of the road, in the middle of the hill, effectively blocking traffic and me.

I turn right, instead, and here comes that driver again. It’s a slightly different shade of blue, and more sedan than SUV as I had thought, edging well over the center line into my lane (ostensibly to avoid the line of parked cars on that side of the street?), not slowing down, not returning to the proper lane, apparently expecting that I will stop or somehow magically move the cars parked on my side of the street to avoid them.

I’m less calm about this instance of poor driving. The poor students waiting at the next corner to cross can vouch for that, as well as my expanded vocabulary of insults.

I finally make my way to the bank, where my nominee for Bad Driver of the Year waits for me yet again. I was wrong; it is a sedan, compact, but more tan than blue, two doors (not four), tinted windows. Backing up in a one-way alley that leads to the drive-thru tellers, sees me coming and brakes, and then sits there, waiting for me to — well, I’m not sure, actually. And then leans out of the window to wave me either backwards or around them (ignore the fact that the road is barely wider than our cars). And then sits more. And then honks at me. All before realizing that I’m staring blankly at them, throwing the car in to a forward gear, and peeling out inside the alley.

I would have made up more words for them, but the tire damage they did to their own car made that unnecessary, I felt.

Deposit dealt with, I pull out of the bank and head for the Cantina, one of my favorite lunch places in Birmingham (home of the best damn Cuban sammiches in town). Headed down 7th Ave South, I turned the air-conditioning down and opened my moon roof (I’m still puzzling that distinction, by the way). A beautiful day, if a little warm — but the city felt good. And then, suddenly, I realize that I need to stop, fast, or I’ll be hitting the car in front of me. This is surprising only because we’re on a three-block stretch of road that has no lights, there’s no pedestrian traffic — point of fact, I can’t even begin to guess why the person in front of me is stopped.

And then I realize it’s him again — Birmingham’s own traffic jam. He’s changed cars again, from tan compact sedan to white pickup truck, but it must be him. No one else can be this bad, right? There can’t possibly be that many people in one small radius of town that are this ignorant of the roads and drivers around them, can there?

Maybe he’s turning left, I think, though there is no oncoming traffic to give him pause. Or perhaps there’s a dead or wounded animal in front of his truck? But the sudden release of brakes and forward motion reveals that neither is true; this guy has just become bumper sticker inspiration.

“I Brake For Nothing.”

Ooh, double meaning. I like it.

Somehow, I make it to lunch. Even though the Cuban tastes great, even in the heat, I’m still watching the roads, waiting for the driver without a clue to pass again.

Makes me wonder how bad to trip to Crestwood will be tonight.

Devin Townsend comes up with some of the best song titles ever. From the first Strapping Young Lad CD, there’s “Cod Metal King,” “Skin Me,” and “Goat”. Oh, and “Filler – Sweet City Jesus,” too. Glorious, glorious mp3 of “SYL” is even free for download…

The name of the album? HEAVY AS A REALLY HEAVY THING. Pure, unadulterated cornball brutality. And Century Media has just rereleased it in expectation of the upcoming sixth SYL disc The New Black, and it’s such a glorious reliving of the mid 90s. Angry, brutal, harsh, and creamy like chilled pudding.

Yes, really. Pudding. Sure, pudding that could kill you with a single punch to the throat, but tasty, tasty pudding. Chocolate, even.

It makes me wish that I could grow a full-face beard (instead of the dust spots that I can cultivate, over time and with much effort [and a Sharpie]). I’ve always wanted to be able to pull off that Miami Vice five o’clock shadow. Granted, I didn’t even hit puberty until the age of 28, and even today I still only shave every three days. So maybe that’s just envy speaking.

The invisible segue, by the way, is that Devin (who is my age) has quite possibly the bestworst look in metal: long, nasty hair with a receding / male pattern baldness hairline. I remember Melissa seeing it and just rolling her eyes — which of course makes it infinitely cooler.

Yeah, I know. It’s not much of a transition. My writing ability has taken the weekend off, starting last March. So this is what we’re stuck with. But at least we can be happy that my writing is enjoying a hard-earned vacation, chilling on the sandy beaches of Aruba, chatting up young women and seducing them with tales of decadence and hedonism barely disguised in a thin veil of overly big words.

And I’ve still got my iPod, so all is well with the world.

“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”
Jessica, age 8

“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”
Billy, age 4

History is written by the loudest voice.

In a room full of people, in a crowd before the news cameras, the scene of the crime is described by people who are willing to come forth and speak, faces on air, names and numbers taken for followup contact by the detectives. There are three sides to every story (yours, mine, and the truth); the more sides that are heard by the outside observer, the closer you get to the truth; but not every side is heard, and eventually, the observer adds his own perspective.

We all have the power to repeat something enough times that it becomes the truth, Gospel from the lips of god. We have this power not just as individuals, but as groups, collectively changing the past until our chanted murmurs overtake reality and replace the words found in books of the times.

Bits of history are forgotten. Other bits fall victim to the game of Telephone or, if you prefer, Gossip, spreading from mouth to ear down the chain until all but the basic facts are morphed (and sometimes even the basics lose their identities in the process).

Some things can never be known for certain. The truth is lost to the perspective of the singular witness, or to the he said/she said duo of observers.

Five blind men describe a snake, a tree trunk, a rough wall, a rope, and a cool and sharp cone of ivory. Without the fable, the elephant in the room is never a part of history.

History, too, is written by the strongest fist, by the generals of the largest armies, by the ruling forces with the power to crush dissenting voices. How many scrolls and books have been destroyed by the despots and dictators that wanted the past to read a certain way that countered what was documented to come before? How many times have the words been tweaked or omitted to fit the dreams and schemes of overlords? Or just the majority?

We all have our own views, supported by convenient facts and sources. If you are careful and selective enough, you can find evidence to support any past you choose. It’s important to remain open to other possibilities than what you accept as hard fact.

There are no rules, only expectations.

Intelligent Design? Possible. Evolution? Possible, as well. Flying Spaghetti Monsters? Not likely, but possible.

The past is, in some ways, no different than the afterlife: beyond a certain point, our beliefs are nothing more than opinion, informed as they may be. Odds are we weren’t there; certainly, beyond a lifespan. And even if we were, our account of history is colored by context, by perspective, by the shadows and winds of time and the decay of memory.

Ignoring the evidence that six million deaths can be blamed on the Nazis is a fool’s game. Claiming that the South won the Civil War flies in the face of documents and present conditions. Claiming that historical figures never existed is selective perception, at best.

And yet, what if all that we know about what came before, about all but the things that we’ve actually experienced and witnessed for ourselves, with our own senses, is a plant by a louder voice, a stronger fist?

Can any of us prove otherwise, beyond any shadow of doubt, to the satisfaction of all but the most mentally unfit?

Nope.

Which is to say, I suppose, it all depends on you, and what you define as love, and your background and experience and expectations and hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities and neuroses.

Not terribly long ago, in the greater scheme of things at least, I would have said yes. That’s the hopeless romantic in me, though, which has become – er, less hopeless, I guess is what I’m trying to say. I used to believe that, but I’ve come to recognize that, for me, such undemanding behavior is an extension of the codependence that I learned growing up, and a sign of the martyr complex that exists (hopefully) somewhere buried inside me.

Expecting selfless behavior of myself works in very limited contexts, but eventually, I need something back. I think, probably, that we all do, to varying degrees — whether a simple bit of recognition, or perhaps a full return of the attention in whatever form it was given. Without some return on my investment, though (and again, the ratio of give and take is entirely contextual), I become resentful and bitter.

Not to mention reminded of the person that I was, a person that I worked long and hard through my twenties to not be.

Not to say that this sort of thing — a totally selfless, one-way street sort of love — doesn’t exist. I’m sure that it does, although I have to imagine that it is rare. Mother Theresa, for one — I suspect that she wanted nothing in return. But then, there’s a reason that she was called the Living Saint.

Nor would I say that people who are capable of this are ill in any way, neither codependent or martyrs or anything else that you or I might try to classify them as. That, I think, is an outgrowth of the human conditioning, to automatically label something that we can’t relate to or understand as damaged in some way (when, really, it’s the person who can’t take the time and effort to understand who carries the burden of damage). If you’re one of those people who can love without expectation or condition, then more power to you.

Don’t hold yourself to standards you can’t live up to, though, as noble and ideal as it might be. The damage that that sort of self-expectation can cause is immense, and the scars it can leave are not something that people in your future will want to deal with.

I guess what I’m saying is that the world would be a much better place if we all got oral sex on at least a weekly basis. And a free steak dinner afterwards. Unless you’re vegetarian, in which case I guess a salad would do.

* Today’s subject helpfully provided by one of many pieces of spam mail that I received throughout the course of a sngle day. If you wish to send thanks, I understand that many spammers really like to receive bricks with sharp edges. At high velocity, of course.