Something Swift this way comes…

I just wanted to take a minute and apologize to you, my two or three readers for being such a depressing shit. Not to mention a psycho asshat who loves to dwell in misery and hurt people. Sometimes you get the elevator and sometimes you get the shaft. What can I say? My heart is filled with poetry, but it’s all dark and demented so that blows that whole still waters by the moonlight image, doesn’t it? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

So, in retrospect I’m sorry. And I also apologize to anyone that I’m going to hurt in the near future. It seems like all I can do is hurt the people I care most about and that’s the only thing I’m good at anymore. Well, fuck me very much. Screw it. I don’t need this right now.

Things to remember:

• “And if there is a hell, and those sons of bitches are from it…then there has got to be a heaven, Jacob, there’s gotta be.”
• “Those acts of God really stick it in and break it off, don’t they?”
• “They look like psychos? They were vampires. Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them! I don’t give a fuck how crazy they are.”
• That’s thirty minutes away. I’ll be there in ten.
• Normally, both your asses would be dead as fucking fried chicken, but you happen to pull this shit while I’m in a transitional period so I don’t wanna kill you, I wanna help you. But I can’t give you this case, it don’t belong to me. Besides, I’ve already been through too much shit this morning over this case to hand it over to your dumb ass.
• Oh, I’m sorry. Did I break your concentration?
• There’s a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.” I been sayin’ that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherfucker before you popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin’ made me think twice. Now I’m thinkin’: it could mean you’re the evil man. And I’m the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here, he’s the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you’re the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish. I’d like that. But that shit ain’t the truth. The truth is you’re the weak. And I’m the tyranny of evil men. But I’m tryin’, Ringo. I’m tryin’ real hard to be a shepherd.
• Hamburgers. The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast.
• Mr. Brown? That sounds too much like Mr. Shit.
• Good evening Sir, my name is Steve. I come from a rough area. I used to be addicted to crack but now I am off it and trying to stay clean. That is why I am selling magazine subscriptions.
• If we get caught, we’re not going to white-collar resort prison. No, no, no. We’re going to federal POUND ME IN THE ASS prison.
• And I said, I don’t care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I’m, I’m quitting, I’m going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they’ve moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn’t bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it’s not okay because if they take my stapler then I’ll set the building on fire.
• Oh, and next Friday… is Hawaiian shirt day… so, you know, if you want to you can go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.
• I can’t believe what a bunch of nerds we are. We’re looking up “money laundering” in the dictionary.
• Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.

These quotes taken from the following movies:
From Dusk till Dawn
Pulp Fiction
Resivoir Dogs
Office Space

Copyrighted by the creators of those movies, used without permission.

More later,

S

You’ll notice a change over on the left in my links section. Some of you who read the site (hell most of you) I had at one time or another linked your blog so that it would be on my list of links and I could access it more easily. After having a conversation with a good friend of mine about blogs and such, she mentioned that her blog was a private blog and that she only meant for it to be shared with people she knew and trusted. That sparked the thought that most of the blogs I had linked were personal affairs and it should be up to those people to choose whether or not they should be linked or not, so what I’ve done is removed all the personal blogs I had in my links list and bookmarked them instead with my browser, which is on a private account on my own desktop computer.

So, to those of you whom I had linked – This is not a slight towards you in any way, and I hope you don’t take it as such. It is my thought that if you want (or don’t mind) me linking your blog on here, then you can email me (just click the email link over on the left, or you can email me at: taladanATgmail.com – just replace the AT with @). This way no one gets their feelings hurt and I’m not to blame if some asshat comes to your page and flames you in the comments section. If you want your link back over on the left, then please do email me, if not then I hope that I haven’t hurt any feelings in the past by linking those blogs. From this point on, the linklist on the left will be reserved for websites that I find useful or amusing, and for those people that email me and let me know it’s okay to link to their blogs. Just because it’s the internet dosen’t mean you don’t have to have some courtesy I suppose.

Edit by author: Please don’t take this to mean I want anyone to remove my blog from their list of links, I do not now, nor have I ever minded being linked to, or unknown people coming to my blog. – Jamie

More later,

S

Someone is going to read this and think I mean them. I don’t. Don’t take this personally. It’s not you, it’s me. All of you can disregard everything that follows. In fact you may as well go on to the next blog without reading it. Sometimes I have to ramble and this is one of those times. If you decide to read on, ignore everything from this point on, and then forget you read it.

What do you do when it’s 3am and you find yourself laying in bed, staring into the darkness, hurting? How do you cope with that pain? What fills the emptiness inside? If I could answer these questions, I suppose I could be a millionaire. Or at least not hurt. At this point I would take either or. Physical pain isn’t the most devastating pain out there. Sometimes you can have your heart broken by your friends without them knowing they’re doing it. Sometimes this life is too much, sometimes you just want to let go. Sometimes it’s easier to stop hanging on. Sometimes it’s not worth the hurt. As Michael Stipe says, everybody hurts sometimes.

Those times you find yourself looking into the darkness, tears slowly rolling down your face, wondering what happened, what went wrong, you find yourself wondering if this is what life is supposed to be, if this is where we’re meant to go, what we’re meant to do. Some things you believe in, others you only wonder about. Sometimes you wonder if it’s all really worth it. Are we really drawing a line in the earth, or is it all shifting sand, putting all our morals and means to lie, making us fools, leaving us destitute in a barren wasteland of pain. These are the questions that I can’t answer. Sometimes you just have to have a heartbreak…sometimes you have to live with your decisions, and sometimes, just sometimes, you have to smile and accept it when your heart is being rent. Your soul wears the sackcloth, your heart the ash. The people we love most are the ones that kill us, a little bit everyday without knowing what they are doing, without meaning to. Cutting your heart up in little pieces and feeding it to you, never knowing or caring how bitter that heart is, how so very bitter it is, and you smile and take it, take it down.

Sometimes you have to sit and cry and wonder what happened. Maybe disjointed ramblings will cure a restless soul, maybe exhaustion will mend the tears that hurt so very bad. Maybe you can push yourself until it’s all numb and dosen’t hurt anymore. Maybe the person that kicked you was right, maybe you aren’t very good at the things you thought you could do. Or maybe it’s all just a childish silence, standing in a cold hall and wailing at the percieved injustice of it all. I think that we have to hurt over the small things to keep us human, to teach us how to hurt over the big things. Maybe the little heartbreaks are the ones that toughen and strengthen you for the big breaks, or maybe it’s all just pointless cutting, everytime you feel like you have a place to sit and be family, to have people to rely on. Maybe…maybe…maybe…

The answers are not forthcoming, information has broken down. The way is no longer clear, the path isn’t really there. Reach for the sky and feel the bars of your cage just above you, and know that they are the bars you wove for yourself. Sometimes you can’t stand to sit there and act like nothing’s wrong, the bile rising up in your throat and choking you on bitterness, yet you sit, you smile and nod as if everything is just peachy fucking keen, and you choke it down, burying that little poison box in the well of emotion, shrugging it off, saying that nothing can get to you. You sit, and you hurt, and the world just dosen’t fucking care. Something so small to hurt so big, it’s insignificant at face value, but your hurt still runs core-deep. You can taste the bile and the blood every time you swallow that bitter piece of your heart and feel the poison work its way down and in. Be upstanding, be there for them, don’t let them down, don’t stop being the rock when you want to just curl up and die a quiet death instead of suffer the agony over and over again. Be the rock, because you may be all someone else has. So smile, shrug it off, and go on. You forget the hurt. Except, deep down inside, you can never forget. You can’t not feel it resonate through your being for the rest of your life. You’re brought up to try and forget the hurts, but it is so very hard. Sometimes the load is more than you can bear, isn’t it? Sometimes it crushes you under the weight of your smiles and assurances that no, you’re just fine, you don’t need help. We don’t talk about the hurts because if we open our mouth to talk about it, we end up screaming. We scream an inarticulate scream, one of rage, agony, anguish, utter desolation as we mourn the hurts we have never been able to talk about.

One day there will be a reckoning, and I fear that when I stand in front of God and he asks me what I did in life, my only answer will be…my God, I hurt, and I didn’t know how to talk to anybody about it. I’m afraid that I will stand there, my soul naked to His eye, and I will have done nothing worthwhile in my life but hurt. These tears are salty, bitter. I wish I knew how to talk to them to make them understand, so I didn’t have to go through life hurting. I wish I didn’t have to push it all down inside and pack it in and slam the lid on it. I wish I could open my mouth and say how I feel, talk about all the little pieces of me that have died and why those pieces were precious. But I can’t. I never could. So I laugh, and I joke, and I kid, and I play, and inside I die a little more each day and it hurts so very very bad. You’ll never understand this, and you’ll never accept it, but it’s the truth, and it’s who I am.

More Later,
S

Well, on the heels of the news that I lost my job, I’ve got some even better news!

And those of you who know me know that I’m being serious, I really don’t mind losing it,
though I could do with a little bit extra money now that bills are starting to come due.

I got a letter today. Usually the type of letter you dread seeing – one from a company
or organization you owe. But I just opened it and read it and it said the following:

Dear Borrower, (that’d be me)

Please be advised that your federal direct student loan(s) has been transferred back to
the direct loan servicing center. Until now, this loan has been serviced by the U.S. Department
of Education’s Debt Collection Service, which services all defaulted direct loans. Because you have
rehabilitated this loan, we have notified the National Credit Bureaus to delete the record of default
from your credit record. Furthermore, you are again eligible for all of the benefits associated with
your Direct Loan before default. These benevits include various deferments and fobearances, and a
variety of repayment plan options. The Direct Loan Servicing Center will soon be contacting you to
set up a payment plan on your rehabilitated loan. From now on, all payments on this loan should
be sent to:

U.S. Department of Education
P.O. Box XXXXXX
Atlanta, GA 30353-0260

If you have any questions about this loan, you should now contact the Direct Loan servicing Center
at 800-848-XXXX

Well, they’re not much for salutations or closures, but I tell you this is one of the best letters I
have recieved in a very long time. I’m nowhere near out of debt, but I am that much closer to
getting my credit out of the black hole of shit that it’s been piled into in the past several years.
I called my parents immediately and let them know, in fact read the letter to both of them and
they were more than ecstatic for me. I think they finally see that their baby boy has grown up
and is starting to take care of his responsibilities. Pray God I can continue taking care of business.
School is the first step…

though the course may change sometimes, rivers always reach the sea – Led Zeppelin

More later,

Jamie

Okay, some of you already know, and some of you don’t. I wasn’t going to say anything about it, but I decided to go ahead and let everyone in on what’s going on in my life. What an interesting and unique idea, eh? You hippies in the hecklers section can leave now.

On to the announcement:

I lost my job July 31st.

To make a long story short and answer all the questions, I had a disagreement with my boss that resulted in my dismissal from work. He thought it’d be okay to call me a ‘Fucking idiot’ and I wasn’t so cool with that. After telling him, I was urged to depart the premises with all haste.

So that’s what’s happened lately in my life. Not something I’m really worried about, because I’ve been taking one hellacious vacation. I suppose I should get off my ass and start looking for employment, and I have been browsing through different job sites on the net, trying to find something that fits my personality and my desire to go back to school and complete my degree in CIS – Networking. Maybe I’ll find something and maybe I’ll just decide to do odd jobs here and there. Anyone need the services of a hippy computer repair person with a good sense of humour? I’m your man! Hell, I may even let you call me a ‘Fucking Idiot’ a time or two before I say anything about it.

More later,

S

This is something that I don’t normally do. I don’t pick one out of the crowd and talk to you individually, but today I’m making an exception. I know you read me when you’ve got the chance and when your life isn’t filled with the day to day rigors of just getting through, so I know you’ll eventually read this. You have a beautiful son, you have parents who love you and two brothers who love you more than they love each other (not that that would take very much, but walk with me down this path for a bit). You have a wonderful job, you have a good life and a church full of people who love and care about you.

None of it means a thing. It doesn’t touch the person inside you, wishing to get out, wishing that life had been different, that the hurts hadn’t been so fucking huge. Sometimes sitting there with the noise of the tv going to drown out your thoughts, your mind must drift as mine does and wonder, “Where did I go wrong? What did I do that fucked up my life so badly that now I can’t get a handle on it? Why’ve I just become a receptacle for others’ dreams and wishes?” the questions just go on and on, circling and circling, trapped inside, no way to let them out and free from your heart so that they’ll stop knocking around in there and bloodying up the whole mess. Those questions, they have sharp corners, jagged edges, and they cut. They cut because they are really a reflection of our hearts doubts about what we’ve chosen for ourselves. We are the only ones that can hurt ourselves so logically, so coldly cruel, so unforgiving. The noise of the world does nothing but provide a soundtrack to our own self destruction.

What he did to you can’t ever be reconciled. It can’t ever be fixed, nor can it be mended with the smiles and well wishes of others. It can only fester inside until it swells and bursts, poisoning you from the inside out. The only thing you can do is try and forgive him, and leave it at that. Simple to say, hard to do, I know. Mamma will never forgive him for it, we both know that. Not because of how special he seemed, or because he was always willing to help dad out when no one else was. All that is superficial. It’s all bullshit. She’ll never forgive him because he hurt her baby girl. He could have done no worse if he’d put a gun to your head and pulled the trigger. Mom will never forget, and I don’t think she’ll ever forgive, not until you can stop hurting over it, but how will that happen with that lethal chain of questions running rampant in your heart and roughshod over your soul?

I have no words of wisdom to heal the hurt. No one does. No mountain top experience will mend the torn places in your soul. The only thing we can do is hold onto each other, love each other and know that it will pass. I know it’s odd to hear that from your irreverant little hellion brother’s mouth (so to speak), but it’s true. As much as I hate the hypocrisy of ‘churchfolk’ and the whole tenent of organized religion, I know that God is out there and that he loves you. Sometimes He lets us deal with our own shit, and I suppose that’s how it has to be…pick your saying. He does His own thing and lets us do ours. That isn’t to say that He dosen’t care, but sometimes we have to hurt to be strong. Textbook phrases sound empty at this juncture, but it’s the truth, no matter how corny it sounds. Sometimes life goes wrong and continues to go wrong, it dosen’t just patch itself up and fix itself, healing itself. The only thing we can do is rely on each other and know that no matter what, it will pass. The thing that I want to posit is this: The longer you look back and wonder where you went wrong, the more you miss what’s happening now and will happen in the future. Monkey, the harder we look behind us and fret the decisions we’ve made, the harder it is for us to make the right decisions now. You do the best you can with what you have…it’s all any of us can do, and you do better than most. Don’t lose anymore time worrying about the past, don’t lose anymore time worrying the question of who you are. The answer is right there for you to see: You are You. No one else can cause that wonderful bigboy to stop in mid play, look across the way with a shy smile and the brilliant flame of love in his eyes but you. No one else can be the rock of the family but you. Sane enough to keep everything together and crazy enough to shake shit up when it gets a little too close to dangerous. You are more than the sum of your history, and you are who you are not in spite of everything that’s happened to you, but because of everything that’s happened. Don’t look to your past anymore and wonder why it happened or what you should do about it. Look to your past for the strength you need for today and the future – You are strong not in spite of, but because of. Let it be your strength. The asshat taught you how to be an ironclad bitch when you needed to, but you are the one that took that lesson and tempered it with love, kindness, brilliance, and true inner strength. Life isn’t what we make it, no matter what the pundits say, life just is, and we either enjoy it while looking forward, or are crushed by it while looking backwards.

As the title says, these are the words I could never say out loud to you. I love you dearly my sister, I hurt for you, not only for what happened, but what’s continuing to happen, because he’s still able to hurt you as you try to pick up the pieces and go on, giving up a little more each and every day. Our family isn’t known for its open lanes of communication, and I’m ashamed that I have to say it this way, but this way you can take it or leave it, accept it or refuse to and ignore it. Sometimes it’s hard to say the words that need to be said when looking the other person in the eye. I love you monkey, and always will. I’m always going to be here for you and your son, not just because you’re my family, but because you are also my friend.

More later,
S

I didn’t see him as I was walking through the store, grabbing the items I needed and was willing to pay hard earned money for. I didn’t see him as I was waiting in line. Unknowing the small chance encounter fate had in store for me, I grabbed my purchases and walked out the door. In the parking lot, I spied him. I watched him walking, looking about the lot. I hung back a bit, though I had somewhere to be, something to do, a small voice told me, hold back, look at the old man, see what he’s up to.

Intuition is a scary thing to those who don’t follow it. It is a force that does not allow for logic, measurements, it uses no rule to guide by, it just is. The voice of intuition is not often loud and boisterous, but it can be heard over the noise of all distractions you place in your heart to silence it. It speaks, over and over, telling you to do that thing which makes no sense, to do it in spite of the looks you’ll get, or what your nosey neighbor might think of you. It speaks on until the opportunity is lost to us, leaving us feeling saddened, and a little lessened because we failed to do what we should have, instead worrying about our ‘Image’ or our ‘Reputation’. Intuition should be followed as often as possible, and to you who cry “It’s not Logical!” to you I say: “Fuck logic.” Logic is what’s gotten us to where we are today. Dirty bombs, nuclear holocausts with the push of a button, babies strangled on their own umbilicals and thrown in a dumpster. Logic is what’s gotten us to the brink of world war three time and time again, total destruction of everything. So all you logical types out there, keep that in mind the next time you shout down your intuition and ignore it in favour of your blessed status quo.

That said, I listened to my intuition because I make a habit of doing it when it dosen’t place me in immediate obvious mortal peril. The old man was wandering up the middle of the main aisle of cars, slowly, looking about himself as if he’d lost something. People were passing him without so much as a second glance, ignoring him in favour of the all consuming urge to partake of bettering the economy. I immediately recognized the look on his aged face, and it was confusion. Thoughts of my father in a diabetes induced delerium fleetingly ran through my head and the confusion he endures when one of these (thankfully) rare fugue states descends upon him. The little old man walking up and down the row, slowly looking about himself, hot in his white dress shirt, neat tie and pressed slacks, confused and tired, wondering how he’ll find what he’s looking for, the humiliation and strengthless anger at being old, at having lost the strength that surely filled his body, and the sharpness of thought that filled his mind evident upon his face. Evident to someone who was willing to look at the man and see him as another human being, instead of following the mindless pull of retail capitalism two doors and an airconditioned lobby away.

Walking to my truck, I studied him from the corner of my eye, discerning these things and more. I unlocked my door, put my bags in the floorboard I stood for a moment, consulting the voice of intuition, pairing with that my observation of the man, his attitude and location. Finally I closed the door and approached him, a large young man with a biker’s build, hair and beard, sunglasses and cowboy hat.

“Having trouble finding your vehicle, sir?”

“Why yes son I am” his immediate smile and greeting eyes flooding the confusion from his face, finally a port in his personal storm.

“What make and model is it, and what colour sir?”

“Well, it’s a grey chevy.”

Looking around the parking lot for a minute, I finally spy it, three rows over and halfway up the parking lot, nowhere near where we are.

“A Silverado, pickup sir? Is that your truck?”, me pointing, the sun blazing down from the heavens, oblivious to such human emotions as humiliation, relief, and thankfullness. The starfire flare kicked back from the windshields as the air wavers over baked hoods causing the old man to squint, finally shielding his eyes, he spots it.

“Yes! That’s it. Thank you son, I…”

“Don’t worry about it, sir, I’m just glad I could help you.”

Walking back to my truck, sitting with the window rolled down and large fat beads of sweat running down my face, making my beard itch, I watch as the old man walks over to his truck, the humiliation still stamped on his features, but now tempered with relief, he takes a moment to gather himself, placing his cane on the toolbox in the back of his truck, mopping his own sweat from his brow with his kerchief. He finally unlocks the door and placing his cane inside before him climbs in and shuts the door. He drives off a few moments later and I sit, wondering at many things, worrying it over and over with my mind. Who was the man? Why was he alone? Why does no one else stop to offer that greatest of human kindnesses: compassion? Questions that will never be answered I suppose, but worth a worry every now and again. Driving away my one thought of the old man and the anger and embarassment on his face, hoping that he knows that for a moment, for a brief space of minutes, someone regarded him as more than just another mouldering geriatric, regarded him as a man as he once was, hale, hearty, and quick, as a man.

I hope this means something to some of you. I’ve been turning it over and over in my mind for the past week, thinking of it, wondering about it. Wondering why it happened, wondering about the old man, and if his story would mean anything to anyone. I leave that up to you to decide. I know it means something to me, something that can’t be put in words, somethign that expands the heart and saddens it at the same time. Perhaps it will touch one of you as it touched me.

More later,

S