my careless contagion

Do people even use the word "irk" anymore? I don't know. But I'm irked. What was once a feeling of being bothered by my ex-spouse has turned into a full-blown feeling of being irked . All the time. In fact, I would say it sometimes turns grotesque. But we won't talk about that. Why am I so angry? I think it's a natural thing to dislike the person you divorced, right? Otherwise, why the hell did you divorce them? There are some reasons why that could happen, I realize, but eventually, in order to move on, your feelings have to reconcile with the facts. And the fact is she irks me.  I have to work with my ex-wife for the time being. I mean, I could probably get a job waiting tables, but it wouldn't pay me as much as this one (also, I'm pretty sure I don't care how you like your steak, sir), most likely, and the end goal is to save money and move away from here. I don't like where I live, and it seems like everyone here dies of cancer. Re...

I work on an Apple computer at my workplace. They're awesome for graphic work, which is a lot of my job. Anyway, the most helpful shortcut is undo, or command z. Sometimes I wish I could do command z in life, too. Last week I posted a long diatribe about relationships. I painted the woman I am in love with in a bad light. While some of the things I said were deserved, some of it may have been hyperbole. I was writing from a place of pain and frustration, clearly.  She did get in touch with me recently and said she didn't realize she had said things to hurt me, and she never meant to hurt me. It was a confusing, whirlwind time for both of us, and I admit, I pushed her too hard to have a relationship with me. We both did and said things that were unfair. Since she is a main theme on this blog, I would be remiss if I did not update my audience on the fact that she does indeed still read this blog and does care about me very much. I regret my tone in that post, of course, ...

Written in 1987 and released in 1990, the song Ball and Chain is found on Social Distortion's self-titled album. Some of the timeless themes this song deals with are addiction, hopelessness, heartbreak, poverty, failure, and suicide — all themes I am intimately familiar with — and all made life feel like a ball and chain and not worth living. I know what it's like to think, "I can't take any more pain." This is a song I know by heart but heard yesterday on the radio, which isn't entirely strange, except I'm not sure how many people are familiar with Social Distortion in South Dakota or how many of them are listening to the radio on a Sunday afternoon. That's okay; we don't have to know what we're listening to in order to enjoy it, right? Well, except Social Distortion sings a lot of "hard luck" songs, which are an acquired taste. As Social Distortion's singer, Mike Ness, has been known to say, "We don't sing no happ...

"This is fine," I keep telling myself. But, dear readers, everything is not fine, though maybe my mess of a life is what makes this blog worth reading. Traced back as far as memory allows, I've had this feeling in my gut that things are not fine, that things will never be fine. One of those things that has never been fine is my relationships with women. You may want to prepare yourself for a long post. There is an image in my mind of the kind of woman I want to love. I mean, I literally see a specific woman in my head, but the list is as such: wholesome, sweet, kind, selfless, cute (or beautiful), smart (but doesn't want me to feel like she's smarter than me), a heart for God, etc. The problem is, women like this don't exist. Okay, they're out there. But not really. They're married. They have kids, jobs. They are busy. They aren't divorced or otherwise available, putting themselves out there. They are smart, so they don't get divorced i...

When is a haircut more than a haircut? It's not really a joke. But if it was, the punchline would be, "When you go to Randy's barbershop."  Randy is the only barber in town. There are salons, but do I look like a salon guy? Randy is a John Wayne character (indeed, much of the memorabilia in his shop is John Wayne-related, and the movie he was playing when I last went featured — you guessed it — John Wayne), and he epitomizes the town I live in (tough, no-nonsense, get outta my way, ya fruit loop). His shop is full of funny, kitschy stuff, lots of war stuff, mementos. He has a framed copy of a letter to the editor from the local newspaper praising him for saving the letter writer's life; you see Randy spotted a suspicious growth on the man's neck. It turned out to be cancer. He's a hero, according to the clipping. An unsung hero. But when I walk into Randy's shop, I cower. For me, all his signs say, "Don't fuck up my day, boy."  Why...

What do I tell them when they ask: what happened to that girl the one you couldn't live without? What came of all the hours the days, the months that turned into years, the pouring out of your soul? What do I say when they ask me why haven't I moved on why haven't my skies torn open and rained down relief upon this dry, crying-out land? Why, when there are so many girls, are you hung up on the one girl who erased you faster than an August forest fire and turned your world into smoke and ashes? I could say something about the nature of hope, of desire, of love – how love is really nothing more than loyalty, which is something she showed me I could say, "You just have to take one soulful look into those green eyes and you would begin to understand." I could wade into the kind of woman she is the heart, the soul of her her unflagging selflessness her purity, her naivety the wholesomeness of her actions the power of her te...

The Vaccines released this album — What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? — in 2011. I quickly fell in love with it back then, then lost it somehow, and now own it again. I'm so glad because I fucking love this album . It brought a lot of things back to me in a way that only music can.  I was surely listening to this album a lot when I decided to leave my ex-wife initially. I had a ton of time alone (though not really free time). Always have. That's how I live. I live alone. I'm not entirely sure how other people exist without alone time. Oh, that's right. Real people have real lives, and real lives have other people in them. And, hopefully, enjoyable people. I keep forgetting that. I've posted the whole album here, though I feel the best way to listen to it is on a proper format like CD (preferably on vinyl, though). As with anything, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But, let me say, this album is beautiful to me. I'm sure all y'all are scared ...

In my dreams she's always right beside me, always touching me, holding my hand. In my dreams, she's tossing her hair in the sunlight with an impossibly wide smile on her face. Her eyes are full of passion, full of love, and full of us.  She makes love to me with her whole body and her whole soul. She lets me take her body and soul because she knows I'm careful with precious things. She breathes hot on my face and neck, and I hold her waist, her arms, her thighs, her neck, her back, her ... you get the idea.   In my dreams, she's always been mine. Our children light up our days and fill our nights with words and laughter and song. In my dreams, she has our pictures on the wall, and our house echoes with the memories we've lived.  I ache for her. Maybe she was afraid of a man loving her like this. Maybe she didn't know what to do with it. But love is a verb, and it desires, it moves, it creates, it transcends. In my dreams, my love transcends everything a...

Sunday, May 21, 2017, I was driving my pickup back from seeing the woman of my dreams. We had shared a very quick and very perfect 24 hours together. It was just us. Nothing else. And I think it surprised both of us by how good it was. We didn't do anything special. We went out to eat. We went to the high school track and walked around it a few times, talking. We reminisced. We kissed. It felt completely natural and relaxed.  On May 27, 2017, she started pushing back. It was such a short time period between those two events. One must have caused the other. What looked like rejection and betrayal to me was something else, something I don't have room to go into here. Clearly, what happened hurt, but it's all gone now, washed under the bridge. I've decided to rename my feelings and change my perspective, which has been extremely helpful and healing.  So, whatever it was, it doesn't matter now. Life goes on and we have to, too. While my conscience is clear and ...

Oh, Taylor. I don't love you, but I sure do love some of your songs. Red is one of those songs.  Red is another perfect summation of a relationship no-go. While the relationship is clearly no more, it's also not over. That doesn't make any sense, but, then again, it does. There's just something about some people that ... sticks. They stick in your head and your heart. They're just there. Forever. I have one of those people in me. Society has a lot of names for this kind of situation (infatuation? dangerous obsession?), but I don't think any of those names are true and real. And they're all seeking to name something without knowing it. From the outside. I am very much in it. Or she is in me. There is nothing dangerous or wrong about how I feel. I'm stable. I'm in my right mind. I'm just in love. I think Taylor Swift does a good job when she uses colors as labels. What is red, after all? It's the color of blood, of passion. When a wom...

Last post! That wasn't so bad, was it? I'm now officially sick of myself. I bet y'all are too. 31) I like messing with people. Not all the time, of course, because that's obnoxious. At my old job, one of my favorite things to do was to tell a string of jokes about something until someone joined in. At that point, I would turn on them and act horrified, like they had gone too far. That still cracks me up. I'm pretty sure 99.9% of my humor is for my own amusement. 32) I don't remember my first time having sex at all. I just wanted to get it over with. I waited 20 years for it, but I have no recollection. Ain't that how it goes? You wait so long for something and then it's over and you don't even remember it, like cotton candy in your mouth. Furthermore, I don't know if this is a function of my bad memory or what, but I don't even remember what sex was like, period. 33) My favorite book is the Bible. After that, let's see, t...