Forgive me

Posts may be less than numerous for the next few days.
The body and mind of me is busy.
The soul is distracted in unbelievable ways. Distracted as I search to create questions for answers I don't understand.
Focusing on writing is difficult.
Sometimes I can't give 150% when I want to.

At least I'm working for the next few days.

But that sounds depressing...
And I am anything but.

This is what I will say to keep this blog in a satisfactory state for the next few days:
I love being home.
I love the here and the now of life.
I am still struggling...

And it is wonderful.

So, forgive me. I still have lots to say. I just need time for words...

Who wants ice cream?!!

I wrote the following in an email for a friend of mine the other day. Since I am notoriously TERRIBLE for living by my own words, I thought sharing it in a post would (hopefully) allow someone else to get something from it:
"Remember how strong you've been, how confident you are, and how fearless you are going to be and you'll never have to question your past, your present or your future..."

Granted, it doesn't have a lot to it, but it's still a good thought to hold onto. At least, I thought it was.

And now for the Lightning Updates Round!

-- Went with my father and Rebecca to see Daniel Wallace (of Big Fish fame) lecture at his alma mater, Altamont High. Quite an enjoyable experience. The man has a wonderful sense of humor and an undeniably unique take on his world and his writing. He's a little obsessed with glass eyes...But everyone has their thing.
Tonight from him I learned: To appreciate, explore and exploit the smallest of things when it comes to writing. It is these seeds, these unseeable, everyday things, from which the branches of the story will grow. If we are aware, and can see the small things in our lives, the subjects about which we write will choose us.

-- Hold tight kiddies! In two weeks, this fella will have been (basically) unemployed for 6 WONDERFUL MONTHS!!! Throw me a party! This is probably the longest I will go as a gainfully unemployed human being for at least the next 30 years. Soon it will be over. I sure have enjoyed it. I am tired of it, but I enjoyed it.

-- Illustration job is happening. Let's hope to the gods I am not in over my head with this one.

-- The weather could not be more perfect for our species right now. Spend no less than one hour a day in it and appreciating it before it becomes suffocatingly hot and all the old and obese people start keeling over and stinkin' up the joint.

Final funny thought: Speaking of obese people... Do you know what I love most about the country being so morbidly overweight? I love the TV news stories about it. But I don't love them because of the information involved, or the awareness it SHOULD be conveying...NO. No, I love the footage they always include of fat people below the shoulders just walking around a city during the course of their big ol' fat day. Pulling around their fat kids, eating their fried-ass chicken, stopping to rest every other block. Do you think there are ever obese people out there who happen to catch one of those stories, and they look up and see their gargantuan ass parading across the screen? Or worse yet: Someone calls them and says "Hey! Bill! I sure am glad I just bought this 32" plasma screen, 'cuz I just had to watch your gargantuan ass parade across my screen!" Don't these folks have enough self-esteem issues as it is without some schmuck on CNBC twisting the knife? And sometimes, when they want us overly-thin people to have a REAL good laugh, they run the footage in slow motion behind the statistics! Rock on!!!
I don't know what's getting fatter these days, Us or the lump of cholesterol, sugars, and water between our ears...

"Confused in B'ham"...

I have noticed something so strange tonight. And since I need someone to try and help me understand, I thought I would share...
Back a few months ago, when I figured I would not be coming back from Raleigh anytime soon, I decided to join the Yahoo Personals. I figured it couldn't hurt and it might be a good way to meet some new people (specifically, new women). As it turns out, I never had the money to want to try and date (or even stay joined to the damn thing), so all that came out of the responses I got was some emails and one IM buddy. And now that I think about it, she's probably wondering what the living hell happened to me...Oops.
Anywooooo, I haven't gone back to the Yahoo Personals since I came home. So tonight, after I did my final email check for the evening, I decided I would update my profile. After all, no point in getting messages from women 586 miles away! The first step in the process was to clean out the profiles I had saved from the potentials in Raleigh. Easy enough. Delete is a handy function. Next, I updated my bio. Again, easy. Just had to fix the town and some details in my "oh so catchy" paragraph. By the by, I HAVE to get some new pics. Sister Mary Francis, I am ANTI-photogenic!!!
At any rate, my final step was to do a match search just for the hell of it to see who came up in Birmigham. Again, it never hurts to meet new people. You just have to use "internet caution". It was during this step that I noticed it...
At first, it was subtle, almost unnoticeable as you are trudging through profile after profile...But I caught it.
The picture of a woman I had JUST erased from Raleigh, NC. And lo and behold, miracle of miracles!...
She's living in Birmingham now.
I chalked it up to my swiss cheese brain, and moved on. But then, I started noticing other strange things: Every profile of women that had only one, often pixelated, photo on her bio also had the exact same bio!
What?
Yes, the same bio. With only very subtle differences, to make sure it matched the pixelated photograph. The eyes would change, the hair...But the height, the age, the body type, the occupation, the fact that they were a "flirt" and a "sports nut", it was all coming up over and over and over again. Except for the "oh so catchy" paragraph. Every time, it changed into a different five sentence paragraph that was unbeleivably generic. I mean, you could literally taste the demographic personality they were trying to reach. "I love anything outdoors". "I am spontaneous and easy to get along with". JEEEEEEEEEZ. There was actually one poor women whose photo was used THREE times with THREE different forged profiles. Even stranger with her, they did take the time to change ALL of her information in the profile. BUT THEY LEFT THE SAME SHITTY PICTURE!!!
So here is what I have to know, here is what makes NO SENSE to me: WHAT DOES YAHOO HAVE TO GAIN BY MAKING UP PROFILES?!
What if someone tries to get in contact with one of these ghosts? Why is Yahoo making up people?!!!!
Best I can figure is, if you see one of these profiles and say to yourself, "WOWSA! That's a hot one!" (Because all of the ghost profiles are "girl next door" attractive), it's probably going to incite you to join so that you can email them and what not. (Of course, anyone who is even remotely savvy can get around joining and still get emails and IM addresses. Hell, I did, and I ain't savvy...) Then, from the way I understood Yahoo's "Try Personals free for 7 days" campaign that I got ungodly amounts of email about, once you're joined, they CONTINUE to take the monthly fee directly and automatically out of your account unless you say otherwise. Then, if you don't get a response from the ghost, what can you do? NOTHING! The ghost profile simply "chose" not to respond to you!
YAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
The bastards. Why does everyone have to be such money-hungry, opportunistic, manipulative bastards? Some of these people are using this service because they have nowhere near the confindence or the social where-with-all to meet new people in the real world. Some of them are just honestly, desperately seeking a loving, connected relationship. I mean, I understand humans have been turning a profit with the passions of other humans for centuries, but...
Is this just me? Am I the only one that is bothered by this? Please let me know!
Fake People! Yahoo Personals is made of Fake Peeeeoooooooppppplllleeee!

My cat's breath smells like cat food.

I am tired but antsy, so I figured I could get a word or two out for the poop of it.
Today was a beautiful day here.
It wasn't too hot.
It wasn't too cold.
The sun, it stayed shining.
While a breeze lapped and rolled.
All the trees are now painted in that green made for spring.
And the clouds were just drifting...
Like they don't mean a thing.

I got to have lunch with two of my favorite women in the whole wide world today, Alicia and Jazzy. Granted, all the women in my life are my favorites, but I haven't seen these two since Christmas. And it was grand. If you read this, thanks for a wonderful afternoon you two. I missed you!
I would love to work with them again. And it certainly has been put in front of me...
But, hell. That isn't right is it? How back-asswards would that be? Too much for my tender psyche?

Woe to those that return to the womb!
Whose eyes see first light and recoil too soon.
In the darkness lives comfort and the same upon same,
And to step only backwards is both fearful and lame!

Depending, of course, on how badly one needs a frakkin' paycheck.
Shit.

I did get an illustration job today, though. At least, I guess I did. The person was great, but she was a little disorganized about the whole thing. Hell, it's still really just a proposal, so if it happens, it will be over the next few months. Sigh...
At any rate, it's always nice to have a good interview with someone. She hardly had to look at what I brought to say she wanted me for this, but I personally think it had alot to do with my knowledge of comic books, which she needs to make this campaign work. Let's just say it involves Vulcan and crimefighting in the Greater Metro area. And this is just a re-branding campaign! Weird. Whatever. Still gonna have to get a job in the meantime.
But WHAT?!
Sidewalk Inspector?
Skydiving Claims Adjustor?
MooCow Farmer?
Tree Hugger?
Cat Puncher?
Packet of Kool-Aid?
Super-Fast Light Bulb Replacer guy?
Playboy Priest? (Hetero)
DJ PriestBoy Play?
Lichen Licker?
List Engineer in charge of wholly unnecessary lists?
POPE?! That looks easy.
Wait...
Escort? Perhaps, why not?
Money's good, and I already feel like a tool most of the time anyway...
And all my lady friends...
You get first dibs.

Sweeeeeet. L.Slim gonna rock yo' world.

Geez. I better try and go to sleep...

Belated entry. But still potent...

Upon returning home, there were of course numerous individual reunions of which I was called upon to be a part of. Although it has only been a few months, it's always nice to know you're in a place where you're loved. But I digress...
One of these joyous occasions happened early last week when I met my friend Clay and my friend Jeff at one of our favorite local dives (Gods bless the Plaza), for a few rounds of pool and multiple excursions into the Jeapordy category of "Potent Potables". Eventually, Jeff was forced to retire for the evening, but Clay and myself had a little short of NOTHING to do the next day, so there we remained. Sitting at the bar... catching up, chatting it up, and continuing to partake in several more rounds of the Devil's Ambrosia...until 2 a.m. By the by, I have come to the realization that the term "rounds", while it obviously refers to a circle of friends sharing drinks, may also have a direct connection to the fact that one's head begins to spin after a certain amount of time partaking...Once again, I digress.
As our conversations under these conditions often do, Clay and I began to approach the realm of "waxing existential", covering weightier, more emotionally charged topics. At one point, we spoke of his wonderful, now departed, mother, and in the course of this came an inspiring phrase which I will share momentarily. We were discussing a quote that his mother lived by, one she had written on an average sticky note and left hanging on the inside of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. That quote stayed in the bathroom even after Clay left the house, and every time I opened that cabinet thereafter, I got to read it. When I moved, he made sure he got it, and rightly so. He felt, and I agreed, that it virtually defined her existence here and that in its simplicity should define all of our lives on some level. Now, embarrasingly enough, it has been an ungodly number of months and days since I have read it directly, but I believe it said: "I virtually sizzle with enthusiasm at all the things I have to today". It doesn't get much more upbeat. It not only acknowledges that every day of life contains things that must be done, things we probably don't want to do but have to, but the language of this mantra implores one to SIZZLE with enthusiasm over it. Bottom line: Every moment of waking life is something to be thankful for, no matter how shitty it may be judged by our minds.
At the end of this, Clay said to me, "It just reminds me every time I read it of how much she struggled to live life..."
And there it is.
Another simple statement that should define the fulfillment of existence: STRUGGLE TO LIVE LIFE.
Any life that is truly worth living MUST be a struggle. It must contain hardship, and tests, and inconvienences and every other unimaginable form of the unknown conceivable. This phrase doesn't require the enthusiasm (use it if you got it, though (Rebecca and Elizabeth)), all it asks for is the effort. STRUGGLE to live life, don't stand still in Bush's Bloated Bueracracy that is this country, this land of apathy and immediate gratification, and take every easy path and make every easy choice you can. Whatever you do, don't avoid life because it's a struggle, struggle to live life...because it's unavoidable.
STRUGGLE to learn.
STRUGGLE to change.
STRUGGLE to conquer fears.
STRUGGLE to affect others.
STRUGGLE to love.
STRUGGLE to live instead of making life a struggle. And be thankful for every inch conquered.
I myself have to hold on to this now as well, for I have a long way to go before I can truly live by my own words here...
But I'm trying to sizzle, if only for a few moments a day.
It's easy to remember that the first tenet of Buddhist thought is "Life is suffering." It's harder to remember that that is not all that it is.

STRUGGLE (Merriam-Webster) v.
1 : to make strenuous or violent efforts against opposition : CONTEND
2 : to proceed with difficulty or with great effort

No need to kill the fatted calf. Milo's will do...

It still doesn't feel completely real.
Almost as though it were a waking dream, a miasma of images and feelings of familiarity through which I am simply floating...
But a strange sense of renewed whole-ness grounds me, anchors me to the fact that it is real.
I am home.
These are my streets.
These are the paths and routes I have known and taken a thousand times before...
And yet now, as I drive them, as I walk them, they are different. They have not lost their connection to my spirit, not enough time has passed for that, but the character of their beauty has been refreshed. I am reminded why I do still love the city so. Every city is an organism, a living, breathing, pulsating creature that grows and responds according to the entities that inhabit it. I am beginning to feel its heartbeat again. It is a comfort, and yet still so strange, so distant. I am not quite in synch yet.
We were less than an hour out of these borders when the first sense of home cascaded through my senses...
The sun had just set, and for the first time in a long time I saw the silhouetted outlines of our rolling hills.
I realized how much I have missed this simple, somehow breath-taking vision. (Raleigh is a very flat landscape).
That night, I heard the trains.
I had missed the sound of trains bellowing through a still, quiet night. That one sound alone defines the simple, unseen connections I have to this organism...
To the city.
I have missed the people that I love. I have seen many of them at this point, and it will be hard to dismiss that sense of belonging from now on.
These ARE the people whom I love. And I am glad to be beside them once again.
This city is home again, for now.
I can re-intigrate, re-establish, re-connect at my leisure...
But I can also simply re-explore.

I am home.
I cherish the distant echo of a train's cry.
I stare back into the starlit sky I have known so well,
the light of Orion's belt showering the city softly on a spring evening.
I await with great anticipation the sounds of tree frogs cavorting through a balmy summer night. And the cicadas with their replacement symphonies on a balmy summer day.
I await the smell of honeysuckle and freshly mowed lawns.
I am once again surrounded by great, tree-covered hills...
and a shimmering city that sits nestled in their valleys.
I am home.
And there is still much to do.