Much Nothing

"...nothing much happens. Much nothing happens..." - Chuck Palahniuk

It's been nearly 6 years since I wrote. Six years since I hit that "publish" icon on here, this blogging platform.

It used to be so knee jerk, so automatic. This publishing of my thoughts out there. For your eyes. For all eyes.

And old age has made me timid. Into a reclusive old soul, an old man who is old before his time.

Truly, as my 46th anniversary of rotating around this sun approaches, I shun the sharing. I shun the telling funny stories and being around others.

I've truly become the curmudgeon I once joked I was.

But the real of the real is that I work. And I count my days till I get away from others in my escape pod.

I run. And I bide my time preparing for races where I can gauge my fitness against other, over the hill men in my age class.

So the non point of this post...the thing I've wasted our time on is just what Chuck started this with saying.

Nothing much is happening. Much nothing is happening.

Life happens one day at a time. One commute to the office to the couch to the office to the couch to the grave. If I may quote some Rollins Band.

Routine, rut, routine?! Who decides?!

Number 40

Today is the anniversary of my entry into this world.  And it strikes me that birthdays are different for you as you are different ages.

A shit ton of candles!

Up until 30, I eagerly anticipated each birthday as a chance to celebrate and rejoice.  Well, I also used to look forward to drinking for free all weekend, but that's another story...

So we shall say, I am 29 today.  Again.  It's my annually recurring 29th birthday.

I'm THAT guy!

I had a mild panic attack a few years back on my birthday.  I felt I was blowing it.  That I'd wasted my life and my chances.  That I'd squandered opportunities to have deep, life long happiness.  That I'd wasted relationships I should have kept.

They're walking to the end...to jump off!

 And, in general, it was a pretty depressing and pessimistic way of looking at things.

But the upside to that Debbie Downer moment I had is that I got to change my course.  I got to change my outlook, change my trajectory, get myself right.

Since I'm not 12 and won't be getting my G.I. Joe with Kung Fu Grip I requested, birthdays these years are generally about taking stock.  About seeing where I am, and where I want to be.  And most of all, about being thankful for the things I have.

Because I know the last time I tried to post anything on my birthday, it was all full of "glass half empty" shit.

I sit here today and I know that every need in the world I have is fulfilled.  My life is lacking no necessity.  That's a fucking AMAZING thing to write.

Let's look at that again: there is no need in my life that is unfulfilled.

I am a homeowner.  I have a good job.  My bills are all paid early.  I have money in the bank and retirement accounts that are doing their jobs.  I have a small, but very awesome, tightly knit network of protective friends that love me and would do anything for me.  I have passions in my life that I get to devote my time and energy towards that keep me healthy, sane and in shape.  I am in good health.  My family is still mostly intact and alive and a great asset.  I look and feel much, MUCH younger than I am given my year of birth.  I am Jack's raging sense of contentment. Despite my whining.

In general, I enjoy the hell out of my life.

I can't even look back and say the things that didn't work out as planned, that engagement and marriage that didn't materialize like plans had been laid, is really all that bad.  Because would I be here now, doing my thing had it?

I'm not prone to loneliness.  My life is pretty full.  Which isn't to say "never say never".  I almost said "till death parts us" in the recent. So there's a door sitting there (a door standing on the beach for you Stephen King Dark Tower types).  And it'll open when and if it's supposed to.  I know that.  I'll not force the square peg into a round hole.

Not that my peg is square. Because that'd be an odd sight.

Sadly, my peg IS square!

It'd be easy to sit here and say, given all the luke-warm water, new aged hippy bullshit vibe of my life and this post, that I'm going to just keep on keeping on with what I'm doing.  Because if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?!

There are always goals.  There are the wants.  There are always the wants.  There are the passions.  There are always the hills and mountains from which you WANT to see the view.

And there are fires lit all the time.  And I still have wants...I have fires.  Thankfully.

Sometime it takes an appearance by the most unlikely person with the greatest kindness and passion, like the member of some club, for you to realize that you have it great, sure, but HOLY SHIT, MAN!  There's this other great stuff still out here waiting for you!  Get off your ass and go get it!  Get off your fluffy chair in your den, get out of your house, get training and go get that shit!

It just takes being reminded, sometimes.  Sometimes you get reminded by some incident.  Sometimes you get reminded by someone.

So here's to being thankful, grateful and content with what I have.  But here's a huge THANK YOU the fire starter for lighting the passions and reminding me that there's still life to be lived, there's still greatness out there to be seen and done. There are still some best "firsts" still out there waiting to be had and experienced if only you're willing to get out and go get them.

Pyro moment!

Life is too short to be spent in a state of need...lacking what you need for happiness.

I look forward to moving forward fully lit afire.  And may you do the same, my friends.

Woman's Work

I love me some BMX racing.

Getting their pull on!

I've raced and ridden since I was 15 years old.  Which explains my scarred carcass of a body.

And I've been announcing races since I was 18 years old.

Totally not me

I'm a much better announcer than I ever was a racer.

I have the gift of gab, I suppose.

Some people get impressed when they find out I get to announce national races. That I get paid and get to travel around the country to run my mouth.


But you see...what most folks don't understand is that BMX is, at its heart, a red neck sport. Go to any local track below the Mason Dixon Line and you'll see some good white trash.


And love being white trash. I can't lie.

(And don't forget about the story about the kids with the shit filled diapers who used my Honda Civic as a slide at this same track!)

A while ago, I was at a race at my home track here in Georgia on a Saturday night.

I didn't race, but rode in practice and announced the first race of the two scheduled for that night.

I was packing up my stuff in the announcing tower for my exit.

When this kid who was a new BMX grommet came up there to talk to me.

BMX Grommet!

 He asked, "Why are you leaving?"

"Well, I have to get home...I got stuff to do!" I retorted.

"What's more fun than BMX?" he asked.

I thought this was a really good point, because there isn't much that's more fun than BMX.  "Well...I have to go grocery shopping tonight," I stated in all honesty.

Without missing a beat, the 8 year old BMX grommet shot back with full conviction and knowledge, as if he were stating a universal truth only I didn't know, "Grocery shopping's woman's work!"

I laughed my ass off.

Here I was being called a pussy by a kid because I was leaving to be domestic. 

And I loved it. Being called out by a spunky kid is pretty awesome in my book!

Because I couldn't deny it. I love grocery shopping. Especially when there's no one there. Like on Saturday night.


But as I drove home...my mind got to thinking. This kid was VERY local. This BMX track is out there in the country. And lots of the folks who live out there, although as nice as the day is long, are country bumpkins.

My BMX brothas and...(I suppose) sisters!

And here was this kid...at age 8, who knew, was SURE that shopping for groceries was something that a woman was supposed to do.  He knew that this was a task that was somehow below a "real" man to do.

And it got me thinking that this kid had been crippled by his dad (I know his mom didn't teach him that shit!). He's been taught that women have a place...that certain things are beneath the man.

I got bummed because this likable, funny kid was likely going to spend his whole life in rural America fulfilling his role his daddy had set up for him. And he'd likely pass this ignorant bullshit on to his spawn.

So...if you see me at a BMX race announcing, having the time of my life...and you think I'm the bee's knees...thanks! Don't be too impressed, though. Because BMX is a relatively small pond.

And I'm just that guy who revels in doing the woman's work.

Polyester Life

"I'm sick of this terrycloth existence" - Hank, 2.13.61

It's July and I already see the Back to School ads popping up here and there.  How does that happen?  The summer's only a month old for most kids!?



The summers used to be what I lived for back in my former life as a teacher.  Any teacher who tells you they don't love their time off isn't being fully honest with you.

At the end of each summer, I have a birthday.  My mother loved this for me.  Well, she loved this for her. She loved the fact that she had an excuse to go spend a day with me to take me shopping and buy me new teacher clothes.  Mom was very proud that I was a teacher back then.

See, kids get the back to school shopping...teachers aren't all that different.  Each year mom and I would go to The Gap and stock up.  And each year it would pain me to shop there.  I felt like such a fraud.  Like it was going to cause one of my testicles to go rolling out of my pant leg.  Because in my macho-bullshit mind, shopping there was somehow beneath me.

(totally not me walking out sans testicle)

I'm going to make a bold statement here.  I will never shop at The Gap again.  Nothing against them...or against people who shop there, but it's not my bag.

(not my bag, baby!)

I'm not white collar anymore.  I'm blue collar.  And I think people can smell it on me these days.  I walk and work among the mechanics and men who have their names stitched on their clothing, and I'm one of them.  I'm accepted and un-judged and unscarred.

I know that these are good folks, for the most part.  These are the fellas (and there are a few girls I come in contact with that fall in this category) that'd buy me a beer, who treat me as an equal, who get by with the sweat of their brow.  These are the people I feel more comfortable around these days after working my job than the teachers I spent 7 years with in my "career."

(I'm in the very back if you look closely)

Back in some former life I put myself in a hairy, rough situation, and I learned really quickly that standing out isn't such a good thing.  Belonging can save your ass.  If you come across as the overly educated white guy from the suburbs when you need to look like someone who can take a punch or stand his ground...well, that can have a way of ostracizing you that isn't always pleasant.

(Johnny Burden...the leader of polyester club)

I suppose the big revelation ('cause aren't you always supposed to hit with that in your conclusion paragraph?!) is that it's nice to be comfortable in your skin...to be comfortable in your place in the world.  Even if it took you over 30 years to get there...even if it's not with summer's off anymore...even if it gives me shirts that have my name stitched to the tit...finding your niche is a lovely thing indeed.

Standing comfortable in your skin and who you are is a good, good thing.

That's Shitty

People seem to be impressed when I tell them that I race BMX. That I’ve raced for decades and years and that I’m old as dirt.

  

As if there’s something sexy and impressive about a middle aged man with arrested development and spritely energy engaging in a kid’s sport.

 

But the uninformed masses don’t realize that, at its heart, BMX is a pretty white trash sport.  If I google images of “trash BMX”, I can have my pick of what I’m talking about.  If you thrown in the term “Florida” as well, you get a treasure trove of great images.

 

And where I live in Georgia isn’t much different.

 

At some point I realized I was much better at running my mouth, entertaining people at the races and announcing than I ever was going to be as a rider.

 

A few years ago, I went to my local track which was tucked away in a rural pocket of south Atlanta.  This track had taken to racing at nights, which I liked since it made things cooler in the waning summer heat.  I would come and ride for free in exchange for running my mouth and bringing what limited skills I have to their BMX party.  A fair swap, if you ask me. 

I had gotten into the habit of driving my Honda Civic around the track and facilities and parking it directly underneath the 25 foot announcing tower along the last straight away to save me from lugging all my clothing and bikes over there.  I would back up to the fence, put my bike together and make the whole announcer’s tower area into my area. 

 

On this night in August, a new family to BMX set up next to me about 10 feet down the way.  They had one son racing who was about 6 years old.  And they had two other sons aged about 2 and three.  What stuck me was that the two younger boys were both wearing nothing by diapers and a t-shirt.  They were filthy, covered in the Georgia red clay.  And they were both WELL beyond the age when kids should be wearing diapers and nothing else in public.  Welcome to Georgia, folks!

 

Their parents seemed to not even know they were there as they were focused on their oldest spawn’s BMXcapades and nothing else.

The race time approached and I settled into announcer mode.  The two dirty troglodytes noticed me walking up and down the stairs and me announcing over the PA system, and this seemed to intrigue them a bit.  I’m known for my shock and awe antics over the microphone.

I announced and ran my mouth as usual and all was well when my nose was assaulted with the most vile, unclean abomination I’ve ever smelled.  I looked on the bottom of both my shoes as the smell was clearly inspired by Satan’s ass hole.  I’d not stepped in shit.

 

I heard light giggling from behind me at the door to the announcing tower and I saw both young boys with their heads poking through it.  As soon as they saw me notice them, they started sliding on their asses down the wooden stair case. 

 

When I looked outside to see them making a getaway, I noticed that both of their once clean diapers were covered in a much, MUCH darker brown on the ass that had spread like a huge black eye.  Yep…both “toddlers” had shitty, full diapers. And their parents couldn’t have cared less.  Over the course of the night, the boys climbed the stairs again and again, always announcing themselves to my nose long before they started giggling.  It sucked to be assaulted by their WMD asses before they interrupted my announcing with their noises.

The race progressed and we got to the one scheduled break.  I had to go to the bathroom, so I turned on the music and went to exit the tower.  When I left the tower, I looked down at my car that was directly below me.  Perched atop my roof, sitting between the two rails of my roof mounted bike rack on my bright red car were two semi-nude, shitty bottomed boys.  They had climbed atop my car from the rear bumper with their dirty, bare feet, they had sat between the rails for my two bikes and each had an arm propped on the bike rack as if to say leisurely, “Just another boring night at the BMX track!”

 

I was awestruck.  A mere 10 feet away their parents sat talking to their other son who was racing.  How could the mom and dad (who looked to be about 25-ish, and of inbred, small town stock) not know their kids were defacing my car with their shitty, mud covered diapers and feet!?  Then again…they tolerated and seemed oblivious to the stench, so what could I really argue?

I went down and asked the mom (red-neck dads have a notoriously short fuse) if she could help me get her kids off my car.  She acted embarrassed and as if she were going to whoop them.  I could see that she clearly didn’t care all that much.  I figured it wouldn’t do me any good to blow my top…it would only run a family away from my sport that I love so much. 

The race concluded, the circus packed up and we all filed out of the community park.  I had to get gas on my way home, so I stopped at a QT for gas and a taquito which was my post race ritual.

I stood there in the late summer humidity and heat pumping gas, and I could SWEAR I still smelled the shitty diapers of those two kids.  I inspected my armpits, which were innocent of the offence.  My next thought was that the smelly boys were up in the tower so much that their stench somehow got embedded into the very fibers of my hair and my clothing. 

I checked my clothing and I was clear in that area, too.  I resigned this to being one of those mysteries that remained unsolved, like the Loch Ness Monster, or Area 51 when I went to go re-rack the gas nozzle.

And that’s when I saw it.  That’s when I saw THEM.

Glaring off the arc-sodium lights of the QT were the two very distinct dirty scratch marked trails that indicated that the boys used my rear window, my trunk and my bumper for their very own shit-n-slide.  The rocks and dirt ground into their moist, feces filled diapers had left scratches that remain there unto this day (I eventually sold that car to a boss I work with) on my window and on my trunk.

The worst of all this was that the “mud” still on my window was a diabolical mixture of shit, dirt, sweat and what appeared to be urine.  And that’s what I kept smelling.

I stopped by a car wash on the way home to get that stew off my car, all the time livid.  I vowed to confront those horrible parents when I saw them again at the track, but they never came back.  But in reality, what could I say?

So, if you meet me (or anyone for that matter) who tells you they race BMX, don’t be all that impressed.  There are the rare few gems out there…but you’ll come across quite a few lumps of shit…er, lumps of coal out there doing this kind of stuff before you get to the good.

 

I’m a BMXican fo’sho!

Independence Day

Independence Day

I spent last summer sitting quietly on your deck.  We discovered the secret that no one else was privy to.

That this was our place.

Our secret place where we could stare up at the sky without having to say a word.  No one could touch us, and the world’s hands couldn’t reach us.  It was magical out there in the quiet, under that giant north Georgia sky.

Hours and hours we sat there.  We spent entire vacations, that were merely canceled because, just sitting out there.  Talking.  Silent.  Looking up at the sky.  That space on your deck became our sanctuary.  Our place that nobody else knew about.  Our great, beautiful secret.

And we spent Independence Day out there.

All around us, the neighbors and parties celebrated us.  They lit their fires and explosions in exuberance for us.  The night came alive for us.

Because of us.

In celebration of us.

 

 

They celebrated because they knew we were there watching…waiting.  They celebrated for us.  For you.  For me.  But mostly they rejoiced because they somehow knew we were sitting out there and they were in the presence of greatness.

I’ll never forget the hours that night exploding and popping and booming.  Long after we had made love and fallen soundly asleep, they continued.  Because they knew.  They had somehow known we were there, sitting and watching.  And they were thankful.  

Just like I was thankful.

Some great mysterious riddle had been solved, and some planets had aligned…something had gone so very right in the universe.  They all sensed it.

Now this year the fourth of July comes and goes.  I’ll be somewhere and you’ll be somewhere.  You’ll be surrounded with polite people who were kind enough to wait their turn.  Ever so kindly.  You’ll be at a celebration.  And you’ll be “on”…and it’ll be fun.  And exciting.  And everyone there will wait in line to meet your beautiful face.

But you should know this: the party you’ll be at will be a party with you, not for you.  The celebration you are at…you will be attending.  The celebration won’t be in honor of the place you’re sitting, observing.  It won’t be in honor of the knot you’ve untied.  It won’t be in honor of the great riddle you’ve solved, the great mystery you’ve somehow unraveled, that beast you’ve tamed.

This year, we’ll both celebrate Independence Day more independent.

But less so.  

This day will come and go and be less.  It’ll be the 4^th of July.  And we’ll be more dependent on others than we have ever been.  But utterly independent in the most intimate and sacred way.

I’ll mourn for the loss of last summer’s dependence.  

6.29.2011

Finding Your Fort

I am a homeowner. I've spent the last four months filling this box I bought with real, adult furniture and things.  It wasn't nearly as painful as I had feared it would be. 

My Rented Dog and my Rent-To-Own Furni!

Which is funny to write, considering I'm damn nearly 40.

I have to say, I see myself changed in the strangest ways through this process.  I've filled this space with all the things I want.  Anything I wanted for my home, I purchased.  I've decorated it with all the things I want to surround myself with.  

Shots from around the world!

It's turned out well.  And it's turned out like I had hoped it would.  And it's turned out like a man's house.  Or it's turned out like a 39 year old man who has never been married's house.  

No Caption Needed

Now that the boxes are gone, broken down and stowed in the attic...now that the moving experience is over, I live here.  I will re-write that...I live here.

I have a home.

I found it odd at first when people at work would ask me what I did with my freshly spent weekend.  My answer sounded foreign to me: "I sat at home and did nothing." It sounds lame and reads lame on paper. I felt like Peter Gibbons from Office Space.

"I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it would be!"

But I find these days that I look forward to coming home.  I look forward to sitting in the silence of my box and reading.  I look forward to having my own space to come home to.  I love walking in my door and it smells like my place.  My house isn't so much a house as it is a fort for me.  I mean that in the most 10-year-old-kid kind of way.  

My House

My house has become my fortress of solitude.


Because not all that long ago, I was rendered homeless.  And everything I thought was stable, permanent and the bedrock of my world was shown to be fleeting.

I feel safe here like I never have before in any other place I've ever lived.  I belong here.  I'm needed here.  Because let's face it...those scratches on the wall ain't going to fix themselves, and those repairs that a house seem to constantly need...well, they have to be done by someone.

Handy Harvey

At the age of 39, I've found my place.  And it's a beautiful thing.  It's amazing to have a place where you can be utterly yourself and un- judged and untouched and safe and just be comfortable in your existence.  My fortress of solitude has given me that.

And my meager mortgage payment is worth every cent.  Every month I pony it up with a bit extra just 'cause I love it like that.

And this is my wish for you.  May you find your own fort to maintain and to defend at all costs.  May you find your place where you're comfortable and needed and can breathe easy in the knowledge that you know you'll never have to hear someone say to you, "I love you, I'm in love with you, we're best friends, we have a great time together, we never fight, we're buddies...but I don't want this thing with us.  I need you to get your things and move out."

Dump truck

Because hearing that sucks.

May your fort always be warm and welcoming to you every time you turn that doorknob.  It's not about the space where you find yourself...it's about how you find yourself.  

You'll know you've found your fort when you get there.  Maintain and defend it at all costs.  No matter where it is.  No matter when it is.  No matter who it is.