Put Away

When did I stop?

I turned off,

tuned out,
shut down
and left
my clothes and skin on the
beach of a previous
decade.

Two decades ago…

I put my things

down,
in a box under the bed
to gather dust
and rot.

I found other things to

pretend about,
to be annoyed about,
to be angry about.

I left my angst in the music,

my youth in wasted nights,
my joys in shallow pursuits,
but kept my sorrows
close.

It’s diluted now

in the haze of time,
but every once in a while
I peek in the box under the bed
and stare at the old photos,
the old letters,
the old trinkets of the days
before.

And wonder…

Why did I stop?

I Love Times New Roman

             Where has all this hatred for Times New Roman come from? I think it is official looking and crisp. Yet the rest of the universe has deemed it un-cool and illegible. It’s the standard bearer of my entire typing history. It’s the closest to the actual typewriter font that my heart normally yearns for. I have, however, seen several articles on the never wrong internet that Times New Roman is antiquated and should be thrown into the sun.

            I love the indent (even if my blog site doesn’t seem to care about indenting) on Times New Roman; it is clean and illustrates the movement of a thought along a page. I just don’t like the new look of things and maybe that’s due to my tenuous grasp on the past, a past that keeps getting longer as my future gets shorter, relatively speaking of course. So of course I want to keep the things that make me feel secure as close as possible. I mean, I still have my VHS copies of Star Wars and Saving Private Ryan, still wrapped in the original shrink wrap.

            That’s me though. I’ve been told I have to change the font on my resume since Times New Roman is no longer the acceptable business font. It’s something called Calibri, which looks far too skinny to me to be official in any way. It looks anemic and hungry. I imagine it crawling across the desert for weeks searching for food and water, only to waste away into thin nothingness.

Times New Roman is bold and forceful. Heck, it has the word ROMAN in it, which as you well know, the Roman people were once the dominating super power on the planet. I’ve never heard of the Calibri Dynasty or even what peoples they might have conquered in their march toward early globalization and domination. Calibri seems to whither in the mere shadow of Times New Roman.

Times New Roman is a gladiator of several computer ages, while Calibri is the new upstart on the block, pushing the other fonts around like he owns the joint, without the actual street cred. Probably wasn’t even there at the start of the whole internet thing. Calibri was probably crying into its elbow like a kid at the playground that was ironically pushed down by Times New Roman.

Although I suppose every Empire eventually crumbles and the Fall of Times New Roman has finally come. It’s a sad time for me but it doesn’t mean I have to stop using it at home. Hopefully, once I get a job and they have their own format for letters and mailings and e-mails, probably using Calibri, I will just have to accept it and smile. It’s at home I’ll get to enjoy the noble and crisp character of Times New Roman.

I just hope the unwarranted hate for Times New Roman turns into respect and gratitude, much like our human appreciation for the ruins of Rome.

And So, Here it is...

             I really wanted to commemorate this eight hundredth post with something really profound and thoughtful. I wanted it to be something provocative and indelibly interesting but my mind wanders too much for that. There’s a bunch of guys using a jackhammer across the street at the orphaned children’s home, they’re rebuilding the concrete around the play area and it’s terribly distracting. It makes it really hard to actually sit here and concentrate on saying something undeniably awesome.

            I wanted to be like, “A Man that takes the few words available to him in his life and crafts them from the mud of language into the songs of the heart… blah, blah, blah…”, but this freaking jackhammer is just not conducive to creativity like that. I mean, come on… I know it’s your job and you’re doing it, but Jesus, I’m trying to create here in my shitty apartment. And I just realized Windows is Catholic since it automatically capitalized the word “Jesus”. 

            Oh man, now they have a saw to go along with the jackhammer.  And a dog is barking. Seriously, I’m trying to write here guys. I mean, if writing 800 of these blasted blog posts has taught me anything… I’d be happy to tell you about it but since there’s so MUCH GOD DAMN NOISE I CAN’T FIGURE IT OUT.

             I’M JUST GOING TO YELL FOR THE REST OF THIS SO MAYBE I CAN HEAR MYSELF THINK. SO…, ANYWAY… THE POINT I WAS TRYING TO MAKE IS THAT I HAVE WRITTEN 800 OF THESE BLOGS AND I THINK IT’S FITTING THAT IT’S ALSO THE FIRST DAY OF MAY AND… GOD DAMN IT, NOW THERE’S A GARBAGE TRUCK OUTSIDE. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? IS IT THE FREAKING NOISE HOUR?! I THANK GOD I’M NOT A NURSE WHO HAS TO WORK THE NIGHT SHIFT AND THIS IS THE ONLY TIME I GET TO SLEEP DURING THE DAY. I MEAN, THERE WOULD BE SO MANY MURDERS IF I COULDN’T SLEEP BECAUSE OF THE NOISE.

            AMBULANCE GOING BY NOW, SIRENS WAIILING. I JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT I REALLY APPRECIATE ALL THE FAITHFUL READING A LOT OF YOU GUYS HAVE DONE OVER THE YEARS. IT REALLY MEANS… GOD DAMN IT, IT’S SO NOISY. MAYBE I SHOULD DO THIS LATER…

            Okay, it’s still noisy but I closed a window. It’s a little better. Except it gets immediately stuffy in here. And that dog, that damn dog, what the hell man…

            So, as I was trying to say, it’s been my privilege to write this blog in a country where writing is an acceptable way to attempt to live. I mean, I’m sure they write in other countries but they certainly might not have the wildly awesome blog audience that I have. Or maybe they get paid in other countries.

            So as I sit here, at my little computer desk, in my underwear, I want to thank you, the passionate reader and friend, for taking the time out of each and almost every day to take a look at the literary fumbling I commit to these pages. It’s been so fun to say, “Why yes, I do have a blog”, to so many people over the years. It’s been a real treat to laud my alleged creativity over so many. I mean, thanks so much for recognizing the genius in your midst. I’ll try not to let it go to my incredibly awesome head.

            I think there’s a guy just hitting the ground with a hammer for no reason out there. I mean, what’s he hitting. There’s no nail, or post or anything. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU BANGING?

Heheheh, banging….

            So in closing, I’m actually really proud of this 800^th blog post and I really hope to see my readership steadily increase over the course of the next millennium. I am deeply indebted to so many people, especially my Mother, who has been nothing but a Saint on Earth for me, as well as those that have supported me in my quest for literary supremacy.  Here’s to 800 more! Cheers!

The Clarity of Violence

A swelling voice rumbling
over asphalt rivers,
crashing and tearing at
pillars of silence and
secrets.

The first cracked pane,

the first remembered pain,
the shards of glass sparking
memories of fire and fury
to be torn down.

Rushes of pulses,

waves of heat,
demolish,
demolish,
destroy,
swaying with adrenaline.

Regret long gone,

pity forgotten,
power for the powerless,
chaos for the masses,
tolling the bells.

Sweat on the brow,

a growl in the throat,
the hurled brick, stick
or stone;
flames roar on the pyre of
the poor.

The moment so clear,

now muddled and muddied
in the graying light,
it was for…,
it was for?
what?

I was so angry

I don’t remember why
I was so angry. I was caught
up in the rage tornado
and I’m no longer in Kansas.

I knew what I was

after,
but now,
after;
it’s less clear
and I just want to go
home.  

Brock's Band-Aid

He pointed out the pain he’d
caused himself
and the dangers of
absent mindedly picking
at those blasted
hangnails.

“That had to hurt,” I said.

“Yeah, I just pulled too much

and it ripped right across the
thumbnail and all I could do was put this
Band-Aid on. You never realize
how much you miss touching
things with your thumb until it’s
covered up. I’ve dropped so
many things today already,” said Brock.

“I imagine so,” I said.

The conversation turned to

how we all inevitably end up
mysteriously cutting ourselves
while performing even the most
mundane tasks.

“How the hell did I do that?”

We all ask ourselves after discovering
the long scratch on our forearms after
changing a light bulb or taking the
garbage out.

Brock and I, talking about our

mysterious cuts, in the din of a
growing bar crowd. A cold Spring
wind blustering outside.

“Wanna grab a smoke,” asked Brock.

“I do, I do,” I said.

Clothes Man

He's dark in the
corner of the room.

Sitting, staring,
head of dirty shirts,
legs of dirty pants,

lit by the moon,
casting fear
across my face.

Pile of clothes guy,
just leave me be.

It's dark and
I'm tired and
alone.

Toymaker

            Ray peered through the glass window of the toyshop. The display in the window was crowded with hundreds of hand-crafted wooden toys. Four shelves of the most colorfully painted toys Ray had ever seen. His meager toys at home were cheap plastic. He felt they were sort of soulless, but only being eight years old, wasn’t able to really articulate that thought to anyone. It just seemed that the handmade toys in this new shop had something his toys didn’t.

Ray pressed his nose closer on the glass to get a clearer view at the wooden race car on the wooden track. There was just so much to see in that window. There were wooden airplanes, cars, buggies, trains, ambulances, fire engines, skyscrapers, houses, and little wooden people rushing about in a wooden style between it all. It was a wooden utopia, if Ray knew what a utopia was, but again he was only eight years old.

He looked up at the top section of the display window and there was a wooden zeppelin hanging on a wire, next to an old bi-plane, next to a space shuttle, next to a large globe. They looked weightless hanging on the thin wires from above. Ray felt amazement wash over him as he greedily scanned the wooden sky. His imagination was fired up by the wooden world and he wanted to know more, he wanted to know who made these toys, how much they were and if he could get his hands on them somehow. He thought that maybe if he looked sad enough some poor old rich lady would take pity on him and buy him as many toys as he wanted. He looked up and down the street but didn’t see any old rich ladies. He looked across the street at the park but there were only young ladies running down the bike paths in skimpy outfits. Which Ray didn’t care about because he was eight and women, girls especially, were icky.

Ray stepped back from the window a bit to try and absorb the whole scene, the whole wooden world. He wanted to remember it perfectly. He wanted to remember every single detail of the tiny world. He wanted to remember all the wooden businessmen in their grey, blue and black suits. The wooden women in their little dress hats and dresses. He wanted to memorize the little crowded crosswalks the wooden people were on hear the big wooden buildings. He wanted this world in miniature to be something he’d always remember. The figure that stuck out most to Ray was the one that didn’t seem to really fit in with all the rest of the wooden figures. It was a little wooden old man, sitting at a wooden park bench with a painting easel in front of him. The old guy had a strange little happy smile on his painted face. It was different from all the other little painted faces in the display. They were all so expressionless. The old man though, he seemed to know a secret. Ray couldn’t see what was on the painting easel since it was facing the other way. He wondered if it might be a view of the park behind him or maybe something more fanciful.

“Ray,” shouted his father from across the street at the park.

Ray turned around knowing he was in trouble. He wasn’t supposed to leave the park. He was supposed to just go to the swings and maybe the jungle gym and go right back to where his dad was watching other old guys play softball.

“What are you doing over there!”

            “Nothing,” yelled Ray back to his father.
            “Well get the hell over here!”

Ray turned back to look at the old wooden man on the bench and gave a little wave.

“What the fuck did I tell you about wandering off,” yelled Ray’s father.

            “I’m sorry. I just wanted to look at the new store,” said Ray.
            “Come here right now,” yelled Ray’s father.

Ray went to the corner and waited for the light to change. The light turned green and Ray ran across toward his father.

“Don’t waste your time on looking at that bullshit. Come watch us play softball. You want to play softball one day right,” asked Ray’s father.

            “I dunno,” said Ray and he shrugged.
            “You will, you will. When you have a regular job like me, you’ll want to play softball with a bunch of other assholes” said Ray’s father.

Ray’s father took a sip from his beer can as Ray joined him at his side.

“Now don’t fucking run off again. That pisses me off and I’m not here to get pissed off. I’m here to blow off some steam. So don’t fuck around with me or I’ll give you such a swollen ass you won’t be able to sit for a month,” said Ray’s father.

They started walking back towards the overweight, unhappy crowd of other middle aged men around the baseball field. Ray looked back at the toyshop. A wooden display world that seemed more alive than the one just a few feet away that he, his father, and everyone else was a part of.

“The little shit was across the street looking at some gay store,” said Ray’s dad to another beer bellied old man as they got to the diamond. The beer bellied man laughed.

Ray walked over to the bleachers and sat down, resting his head in his hands.