A story without a plot

For all the Java Junkies

    The pungent odor of burned wood and melted vinyl still fills the air. At 6 a.m. Friday morning a neighboring house to my apartment complex was turned to ruin. I sat in my cul-de-sac for over an hour as the fire department doused the last embers of the blaze. More than likely the destruction was the result of a lightening strike. Neighbors stood and watched.
    That morning trees stood cleaved in half, power-lines dangled, and various debris littered the roads on my way to work. I went to sleep at 11:30 p.m. in the dark on Thursday.
    As a partial result of the chaos from the preceding storm my yellow and black duffel bag sat Saturday on my overstuffed couch filled with clothes and toiletries. I left work late Friday. Memorial Day traffic snarled the Interstates. I just didn't have the energy to drive to my friend G.'s in the 'ville for his birthday party.
    Instead on Friday evening I found myself at my mother and father's house. I delivered groceries to take to my grandmother's on Saturday. Mom and I spoke for a long time. The conversation was deep. My grandmother is having increasing kidney problems. My second cousin is starting to realize the seriousness without understanding the repercussions. He has no life skills. The reasons are both sad and self inflicted. I found myself listening to tales of family history I did not know.
    I stupidly weighed in on things like wills, executors and inheritance. Without being too smart I found myself saying things about the current executor of my parents will I wish I hadn't. My parents, being traditionalists, picked her as the sub. They never thought I would move back home.  I only added worry to my mother's plate, and perhaps not deservedly so. Perhaps. At any rate I felt bad, though it did not bring about any arguments. I need to learn to practice a little more kindness, even if my gut twinges at certain behaviors I see in certain people.
    After that I spoke with a friend. He assured me if I approached the discussion gingerly, gave only those opinions I was asked for, and tried to be honest all would be okay. I just never thought I would distrust someone so close to me. I guess it is called karma. My friend also pointed out that I needed to be careful, that it sounded like some people had a penchant for taking care of other people too much. A shared trait? A possible trap?
    I couldn't think. I went alone and saw a movie. It was disappointing. When I got home in the evening a bulldozer and a dumpster were pulling away from my cul-de-sac. Amazingly most of the house that burned had already been shipped away. A foundation and, ironically, some fireplace logs in the backyard were all that remained. The smell though, that pungent odor, still lingered in the air.

Listless

    With the pressure of looking for a home, dealing with particularly stressful times at work, and just the cyclical nature of my behavior I am finding it difficult to fall asleep recently. If I do my sleep is interrupted by vivid dreams. I'd share a few here, but they tend to be too discombobulated to tell narratively. I remember my dreams in terms emotion when I am stressful.
    Perhaps that is why I am up past my bed time right now. I know I will either toss and turn and grow increasingly frustrated, or I will have whacked out dreams that I vaguely remember in emotional after-taste in the morning. Oh well. I have come to accept this is how I deal with an overwhelming sense of self-centeredness and fear today. I also remember, this too shall pass. I have faith it will.
    I counter-acted the jibblies and insomnia with some volunteerism and action today. It felt good. Perhaps I will sleep better tonight when I do sleep.
    Of course regular readers of my blog will note there is one benefit to this sleeplessness. I discovered widgets on typepad. They are these most excellent little add ons to the ole blog. I'm interested in some feedback. Are they overbearing? Unnecessary? Should I keep playing around with them? Or are the ones on here just damn cool? Your call.

Much Ado

I really don’t have anything to write about. I mulled over the idea of another little prose piece about some aspect of my life, past or present. I thought about writing something about politics, but why? This insanity with issues of privacy, freedom of speech, and Republican congressmen defending the rights of Democratic congressmen is too much. Are these the end times that the evangelicals scream on about?

My family life is my family life. Mom’s doing better. Grandma’s the same. Sister is relatively okay and sane. Me too, I guess. The house search is driving me a bit batty. I want that one. No, I want that one. Damn, that one went off the market too quickly. Crap! Can I actually afford this? Sigh.

The only thing that really rocks in my world right now is Bruce Springsteen’s “We Shall Overcome.” Have you heard this stuff yet? Fantastic. “Froggie Went A Courtin,” “John Henry,” “O Mary don’t you Weep,” and “Old Dan Tucker” – fantastic, fantastic, fantastic, fantastic and fantastic. Great bluegrass, old timey, and New Orleans sound.

Oh, and I get some sick pleasure watching protestors outside of the local movie theater trying to save those going to see “The Da Vinci Code.” Are you serious? Do you seriously believe a Tom Hanks joint is going to influence one’s fundamental belief in God and the Gospel? Wow.

Powerlessness

    Overwhelmed. Upset. Depressed. The emotions were written all over her face as we sat in the restaurant. I could say nothing to garner a smile or laugh. Her eyes were glassy. The small lashes on her lower eye lids barely held back the tears. She looked as if she were staring at some far-off, bleak horizon. Trouble clouded her world.
    I wish I could have said, "Quit worrying your head mom. You've done everything you can. You've done more than you probably should."
    The words would have either rung hollow or fell on deaf ears. I used them before in similar circumstances. The woman works so hard to take care of her mother and makes all accommodations for the cousin who lives with my grandmother. He is 80. He's the bachelor relative, the abandoned son from another generation who always had women relatives in the family, mostly my grandmother when she was well, to take care of him. Many times he is full of fear and ungrateful. He stretches my mother thin, thinner than what is necessary while dealing with her mother's fading memory and ever present mortality. Yet she endures, except on days like these.
    Her stomach is troubling her as we eat. It has for a while now. She's afraid to go to the doctor because, "What if there is something wrong? Who will take care of your grandmother?" I worry too that there is something wrong. My mother is stubborn, so pleading with her does nothing but upset her more.
    The same stubbornness is there when asking for help. She rarely asks for it and if asked will deny she needs it. Long talks with my father as we remodeled her family room over the past couple of weeks only confirms it.
    "She won't ask you for help," he said. "And she doesn't like taking it when offered. She's afraid it will bite into your time, that you'll end up locked into the same position she's in."
    That position, for her, is one of feeling overwhelmingly responsible to those she cares about. Her powerlessness over situations only makes her try harder. That is why I just started showing up at my grandmother's and at my parents home. I grab the dusting cloth, mop, or as I did this weekend, extractor and start to work. I don't give her the opportunity to say no.
    After dinner this evening we went and drove by one of the houses I looked at. It was the only time she smiled.
    "It's cute," she said. Like most the people she loves in her life she wants to see me settled, and happy.
    When we got back to my parents house I help my dad prepare for the crew who will put on vinyl house siding tomorrow. I went inside before leaving and sat on the edge of the couch as my mom laid there watching her recorded shows. I put my head on her chest for a moment. She stroked the hair on the back of my head. When I sat up she was crying. She tried to feign a smile.
    "I'm just a little depressed."

What an effed up week

This week the stress level seemed to be to infinity and beyond. The reasons are culminating:

• Tuesday was primary election time where I live. I worked 16 hours that day and it did not end until 1 a.m. as I waited on results, coordinated and edited stories. Afterward, I could not go to sleep until 4 a.m., frustrating and tense, knowing I had to be back at work by 8 a.m. in the morning.

• Wednesday was a snooze-fest (literally at times) of meeting after meeting.

• Thursday I went out and saw two houses. The first was ridiculously in ill repair. I lurved the second house. It had new siding, windows, bathroom, and furnace. It had this obnoxiously lurvely deck off the kitchen that overlooked a sprawling backyard. Most importantly, it was within my price range.

• And on Friday? Well on Friday royalty is visiting the area. Highways will be closed and helicopters are abuzz overhead. It’s going to be a long ride home.

The years since had been kind to him. His features softened. His eyes contained a glow. I watched as he cut steak into small bits for his young son. They both shared the same mop of coal black hair and steal blue eyes. His wife, fair skinned and beautiful, sat across from him smiling while she tickled their daughter. The giggling was contagious as small, stifled laughs went through the dining area.

I saw them earlier, pulling into the parking lot of the local eatery in a smart little foreign car. It took a moment for my brain to register what I was seeing. This man with a lovely family and what appeared to be picturesque life used to horrify me. He was my childhood bully and my nemesis.

For years, as I remember, he taunted and terrorized me on the bus and in the neighborhood. Once he threw buckeyes at me as I stood in my yard. He appeared twice my size. He blooded my nose on more than one occasion. I avoided anywhere I thought he might be like the plague.

The last conflict we had occurred on the morning bus to middle school. It was my first day to school with glasses. I felt awkward and self-conscious that day. He came up from behind me and punched me in the face, causing a lens to pop out. I burst into tears. The driver saw the whole thing and sent us to the principal's office.

In that office I saw some things I never forgot. I appeared the good, quiet kid. Initially, he was treated like dirt by the principal. Without knowing the details, my innocence was assured in the principal's eyes. Suddenly though my nemesis broke out into his own tears.

"I hate you," he said to me. "I hate you because you think your mom and dad are better than mine . . . because you think you're better than me.”

He sobbed. I was excused from the office. Through the years, through my parents and others, I learned his father was most likely an alcoholic. My bully's father was most definitely abusive. His dad left the family that year.

The boy who was my nemesis was held back our seventh grade year. Grade levels protected me from any further taunts and us any interaction. We road different buses afterward. In high school I drove to school as he still road the bus.

I didn't think about him for years. When I saw him, as an adult, I wondered if I had taunted him in cowardly jest when I saw him as a child. It is possible. Mock superiority was my cloak of protection growing up.

For a second in the restaurant, in between steak cuts our eyes locked. A sense of recognition passed between us. Without pity or despair I sensed the irony there.

In the time between he formed a family of his own, something so desperately missing in his own childhood. I, in turn, had my own dark and lost years with my moment of honest emotion and pain.

I am being as compulsive as a liar, as obsessed as stalker. Stressful thoughts fill my dreams. I find myself creeping down streets in my car, hoping no one notices or calls the cops as I make multiple passes. The bug to find a perfect home is getting very bad people.

I have multiple e-mail alerts set up to let me know as soon as a home lists on the local MLS web site. I click and refresh often. The folks who are selling their homes don’t post fast enough, or they should only post directly to my e-mail.

Of course every once in a while the opposite is true. I get four or five hits of homes listed in my price range and area. Then I am left to whittle down the list and feel overwhelmed by the choices. I wish I had someone to do all of this legwork for me.

Wait, I do. She’s called a realtor. She is supposedly quite good, being recommended by a friend and recent homebuyer. She promptly returns my calls, set me up on her preferred homebuyers list, recommends the stalkish behavior before I call her, and above all that I set up visits to multiple homes to allow us one fail swoop of what is out there to make better comparisons.

Still seems like she’s leaving an awful lot up to me though. Doesn’t she know I am an obsessive freak?

For all that is holy. . .

Your Deadly Sins

Lust: 60%

Sloth: 60%

Envy: 40%

Pride: 40%

Greed: 20%

Wrath: 20%

Gluttony: 0%

Chance You'll Go to Hell: 34%

You'll die from overexertion. *wink*

How Sinful Are You?



This was a fun little quiz. I almost wanted to go back and change a few answers to just get a different result. And no Kelly, there were no questions about ice cream, so gluttony was out. What I really want to know though is who determines the percentages? 

Frustration

    What happens to be one of the most frustrating situations in the world just happened to me, again. The situation is the definition of insanity. You know, doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different outcome each time.
    The set-up is simple. Basically, I go to the super-conglomerate Ballbuster's video store where I pay nine bucks to rent two less-than-new movies. I go home, watch the first movie (Thumbsucker, a fantastic little independent film with some big names) without missing a beat. Thumbsucker was not a highly touted film in this region, therefore it was very rarely rented. A copy always sat on the shelf.
    The second movie, equally as aged (no two day rental sticker on the cover from a store that promises no late fees -- how effed up is that?) goes along smartly for an hour and twenty minutes. The Aristocrats is exactly 90 minutes long. At 1:21 the DVD player freaks out. The effing disc is effing scratched, causing the player to stop.
    The store is closed and I am p.o.ed. Oh, and wanting to use a lot of foul language. Boy, is The Aristocrats foul -- like pornographic foul without the money shot, though it is mentioned often.
    So, anyway, I'm fed up with my local Ballbuster Video Store that constantly busts my chops because no a-hole ever takes the time to screen returns for damage. About one out of every three movies craps out on me. Usually, it's earlier in the evening and I drag ass to the store. The first time I was polite about it. The second time I was frustrated. The third time it happened I balled out the same snot nosed stoner kid who is always there shrugging his shoulders.
    Now he ducks behind the counter. I'm sure I gained the rep as the crazy video renter. I hope the boy's prepared tomorrow, because I've never made it this far into a DVD and have it crap out like this. I'm sure I missed the punch line of the whole damn thing. Argh.