Life never ceases to amaze me.

Who would have thought that most of what has transpired between me leaving Hawaii and now, living back in Kansas, would have happened? Not me, that's for sure. Example: That the only plant with the potential to save the Earth and all life on it would have made such fantastic advancements at the Federal, State and Local levels (Yes, Cannabis Sativa and all of it's contents - CBDs and THCs). There might just be a very real opportunity for a woman to become the President of the USA, and quite a few other changes which bring such promise! More soon...

I guess this is it. I wish I knew why. Is it because everyone is growing older?

As of tonight - December 31st, 2018, after sending out Happy New Year texts to all four of my children, not one of them replied back. It seems to me as though Dad could be dead for all anyone cares. It feels like no one gives a shit about me anymore.

Years ago, just a few, we would all call each other (my 4 kids and even my ex-wife) and yell "Happy New Year!" into each other's ears. Then, year by year, the calls became texts.. but the replies would all happen within a couple minutes of our initial greetings. Up to and including last year - New Year's Eve - Dec. 31st, 2017, all of my children, and usually my ex-wife, greeted me back.

This year I was invited, then uninvited (in hopes of a more personal visit in the future - I guess) to the house owned by my youngest - which I have not even seen yet - for a New Year's Eve party, so I would have thought that she would be awake and would answer my text.. but she didn't. My two sons posted a SnapChat video several hours before New Years, and they both had originally thought about me being with them for tonight's New Years, so I would have imagined that they would have been awake at midnight also. Did I hear back from them with a "Happy New Year Dad!"? - no. Just silence and an empty phone screen. My oldest daughter admittedly told me she was going to sleep at around 10:00 pm, so I knew she wouldn't answer, but we had exchanged our "Happy New Year" greetings earlier.

What the hell happened? What did I do, or not do, to have this blow to my emotions? This downright hurts. I love my kids. I'm getting the feeling that they don't "really" love me back.. maybe they just tolerate me and only interact with me when they have to. You know - maybe a couple of times besides the holidays each year? I don't know, and I feel like a whiny little child, but dammit why can't you even give your father a Happy New Year text reply?

Do you really wish I would just go away and stay out of your lives.. just because I do not have an exciting life of my own anymore with trips to cool places like New York, Honolulu and Las Vegas, as I did in the past?

Well, better than nothing. My boys just gave me a text reply at 2:30am. Happy New Year sons.

G-Poppa-O

G-Poppa-O.. ! I'm gonna be one..! Wow. Honestly, I had started thinking it would never be, that is until after I had passed. None of my kids seemed "eager" or enthusiastic about parenthood. It was that way right up to the point where my oldest daughter told me that she was pregnant. Now things have changed. Now I must think about ways to spoil the little rascal - he or she - that doesn't matter, it's payback time at last! Seriously, proud doesn't come close to the feeling inside. There is a historical component now to my deeper self. One I do not remember ever demanding such attention before. One that is tying another knot in the twine that runs through my entire family. It is absolutely sublime.

All apologies.

The deepest, darkest, farthest reaches of my soul feel like they've been set ablaze and are rapidly burning to ash. Tears and ashes don't mix well. A special bond is formed that encapsulates time. Freezing forever the only heat this heart has ever known. The only things we all have to draw upon are things that happened in the past. As much as we would like to, we cannot draw from our future experiences when composing anything - thoughts, music, promises, excuses. I feel like apologizing to the future. Apologizing for the lame excuse of a life I have been living. Like saying I was sorry ever fixed anything... yeah, right. But, I'm sorry.

And so it begins. The slow fade to black.

Oct. 9, 2016 - The day after what would have been my 33rd wedding anniversary had I stayed married.

So, it seems "official" now. I can't help but feel that none of my children wish to spend time with me any longer. By "spending time", I mean besides the obligatory Holidays and Birthday visits (Birthdays have all but vanished from the list of reasons to get together, now that everyone is an adult). No, I'm talking about being with someone just because you want to be with them, listen to them.. laugh with them. My second son just left after arriving on Friday night. I suppose I could have gone with him and his girlfriend to a micro-brewery here in town last night (Saturday), but I don't drink beer and I hate crowded bars. He knows that, All of my kids know that. I don't want them to change their lives for me, I would just enjoy a little respect by them skipping the beer drinking for one night. He was gone all day yesterday and when I woke up this morning he was already packed and I got about 3 minutes with him before he left. 3 lousy minutes. I asked my mother why she didn't wake me when everyone got up and had breakfast. She didn't have an answer. Hell, she may not want to be around me either. But that pissed me off. She knows what it's like to have precious little time with kids. The least she could have done would have been to wake me up so I could spend breakfast with my son before he left. All of my children have lives of their own and jobs to go to now. I'm beginning to doubt that I'll have either. Being unemployed for 7 years has pretty much forced "retirement" on me. Retired at the age of 49.. but not eligible for Social Security for another 9 years. I'm fucked.

I don't know why my kids could care less if I'm invited to "family functions", or why they could care less about spending time with me. My oldest takes every opportunity he can to berate me for being overweight. Even though I have literally told him that doing so hurts my feelings and have asked him kindly to please keep hurtful thoughts to himself - a very important social skill. The fact that he continues to do that hurts more than he'll ever know. If he doesn't learn humility, and quick, that is going to ruin every one of his relationships.. with anyone. My twins, who I thought I had the best relationship with out of the four, come and go in a flash and my youngest never has more than 5 or 10 minutes available for me on any given day, and that's WITH planning for the visit. To be fair, she does have two jobs and is the first of my kids to buy a house of her own. Yeah, I know, everyone has their reasons. But I had always envisioned having a good, no, GREAT relationship with my kids for many reasons - I'm "cool", over the years I have paid for them to visit New York City, Philadelphia and Honolulu. When I did that, they were younger. Young enough to not be burdened with jobs and bills, etc. I also felt that I would be their choice of who to spend time with between their stepfather (a real douche-bag), and I. I ride Harley's, I'm the one every person in the world who knows me calls when they need tech support for anything that has to do with computers or technology in general. I know my shit but I'm not arrogant about it, just confidant. For all I know, my kids would rather spend time - grilling meals in the back yard, playing cards, and so on, with their mother and her dip-shit husband, than with me. If the laws of Karma are right, that would not be the case. But even that - their views on spirituality - are not guaranteed to be similar to mine.

As the time marches on during my unemployed years (which may be all the rest of my days), I'm getting turned down by old friends, ex-lovers, and basically everyone who doesn't buy their vices from me. They want me to come by and deliver "the goods", but stick around and have a conversation? I can think of only 3 people who find my company and my input valuable. Three people. Fuck. I came here from Hawaii to help my mother with her rental properties because she no longer has my dad or my brother to help get the heavy lifting done. I feel, being unemployed STILL, my 83 yr. old mother is as disappointed as she can be at my lack of success - measuring by the traditional meanings of success - lots of money, highly respected at work, loving wife and family, etc. - and there's nothing I can do about it. My instincts tell me to run. To get far away, maybe back to Hawaii to give everyone an excuse for not coming to see me. For not wanting to share time with me. I suppose it will be this way until the day comes that everyone is informed of my imminent demise from some form of cancer or heart problems. Nothing like death to get folks out of the house and to a party.

30 years ago I had my first child. I just knew that he would grow up to be just like his dad and ride Harleys and we'd party 'till I was at least 90. But even that dream has been shattered. It was shattered who knows how long ago when my sons told me that they had no interest in inheriting and owning a 1971 Sportster into their old age, so they could "cash-in" when the time was right.

My personality traits - an incurable romantic, a biker, an intellectual... those traits all stop with me. I'm not so full of self-pity that I doubt their "love" for me, but only one of my kids makes a point of telling me so. Fuck I hate this. I had better relationships with my kids when I lived 5000 miles away in the middle of the Pacific ocean.

Maybe I just need to vanish. If I remove myself from the equation, my kids won't even have to think of me. My idea of being needed by my mother to help her with her rental properties has turned out to be wrong. I'm not needed here. I'm just one more burden she doesn't need. She'll probably out-live me anyway.

Don't even ask about any “romantic life” I may or may not have. None of the women who used to love me do so – at that level – anymore. Frankly, I don't care anymore. What difference would it make?

I'm NOT having a good day. I don't know if I ever will again. I know I DAMN sure won't if I ever need to utter the phrase "President Trump"..! I feel like I need to vomit just writing that.

Aloha malama pono Cheryl, hemolele Ānela.

Through these tears I try to type my crying heart. You touched so many people's lives. So many more than most of us will ever come near. You are a healer, a prophet, a satirist.. an angel. Truly. You questioned authority and demanded equality. You entertained with but a smile, those dimples barely hiding your knowing guile.

To say that you will be missed is the understatement of the century. No. You, my dear, will live on as long as time is measured and memories hold precious jewels and treasures - times spent with you. Countless as the stars in the night sky are the tears that flow and the laughter that glows just knowing you are here eternally in the hearts and minds of so many of us mere mortals. You made my good friend happy. That in itself is reason enough for me to love you.

You know that I care what happens to you,
And I know that you care for me too
So I don't feel alone
Of the weight of the stone
Now that I've found somewhere safe
To bury my bone
And any fool knows a dog needs a home
A shelter from pigs on the wing

Wow.. time doesn't fly, it flat out blasts by at supersonic speeds.

Well, from July in 2015 to February in 2016. What's that - 7 months? Daaayum! Well, I'd like to say that my life has changed for the better with a new job, a new romantic relationship, and generally great news! I'd like to say that, but I can't. Sorry (I say to myself), things have not changed. Some may say that I am ultimately responsible and that things have not changed because I have not changed them. Maybe that's true... OK I know that's true, but I like to think that, to some degree, others have rolls to play in whatever change happens in my life (others being potential employers, potential girlfriends, etc). But as of today there have been no major ch ch ch changes (goodbye Bowie).

More to come later this evening. I'm trying to concentrate on working towards a podcast of sorts with a good friend of my oldest son. The struggle for me is trying to wrap my head around what potential audience there might be, and how I might contribute to "the cause"... film at eleven.

OK, here it is - 11 already.
I hate the fact that, in order to create and maintain a podcast you must define it - label it - specify what type of content it contains... this must be done in order for the podcast to be, in essence, "found" by any potential listener searching for content to amuse or entertain or educate themselves. These definitions of what the podcast is about simply MUST be coded into the XML file that serves as the RSS feed that is the vehicle on which your audio and/or video travel to the audience.
Such a waste when all one would like to do is discuss whatever comes to mind.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax
Of cabbages and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings."

Here's a little secret.. some of them do.

So, categorize we shall. Luring folks in with a multitude of "descriptions" and then dazzling them with wit and wisdom for the ages. Here goes..

Well then, hi-dee-hi cats & kittens.
It's 2015. It's July. It's time I spill my guts again.

But not tonight, It is getting late.
I shall write again soon, very soon.

---

Well, here we are folks. Just you and me. Oh, here's a short movie review for you. Of a film titled: Manglehorn

This is a film that physically hurt me from the inside out.

Damn truth. I fucking HATE it.

Everywhere things have been popping up which seem to be trying to tell me something - "When it's over, it's over. Don't keep watering a dead flower."

Now I see this film "Manglehorn" with Al Pacino playing a character that does NOT want to let go of a past love, or his hopes of re-kindling the flames in her heart... he knows he fucked up years ago and wishes he could right his wrongs...
(hint: the movie review is over)

The parallels with me and my life/loves (Helen, Rox, Janet, and possibly a couple others) are feeling too familiar. It hurts me. I hurt myself by holding on to hope that I might be able to hold Roxanne in my arms again. To feel again.. anything - love, joy, pain, desire, to be desired.

I need to stop trying to water my dead plant. I need to, I just don't want to accept the truth of it all.

How do I? How do I not.

Romantic love, which I admit to being completely addicted to, seems now to be the farthest thing from me in my life. Longing for, dreaming of, wanting, needing, missing, a woman to cherish, provide for and protect is like a foreign language to me. And I know it is mostly my fault for it being so.

I've lived the lives that most people wish for - I grew up in the exact same fashion as the main character in a television show called "The Wonder Years", I had parents that stayed together till death did they part. I was encouraged by my parents every step of the way that I chose to take for my entire young life. I was fortunate enough to have met and married a girl I met while I was a disc jockey, when I was about 22 years old. She and I established a family with four kids. Then after 18 years, we mutually decided to divorce. I then move in with my cosmic soul mate from centuries past, present and future, and stayed with her for ten years, two of which were spent living right on the beach on O'ahu's north shore. Fresh fish, vegetables, and tropical fruits at your fingertips. Breathing in fragrant flowers with every breath, gazing on the most magnificently beautiful island paradise that can be found on the planet. Feeling as though the world was my oyster and I could get the pearl anytime I desired, I went through personal upheaval and came home. While here I helped my 2nd closest friend of the past 20 years prepare to, and die from lung cancer. I fall further and further into debt because unemployment ran out - twice. I know I am depressed. Hey but I lost 30 lbs. in 3 months! That's a good thing, right? :(

This thing that has a choke-hold on my heart is something I could have never imagined. I guess that’s why it hurts so much – I have absolutely no control over it whatsoever. That scares me. I don’t need recognition or applause, but I do need to do the best show I can. Money is the root of my evils. Sadly, with but a mere ten or fifteen grand I can be indebted to no one. I could be free to make a daily living however I pleased. Legal or otherwise. Of course, I’ll have no legacy of financial wealth to leave my children when I die. But then again, in my mind, I will be leaving them the most valuable gift that can be passed on – that of a love of, and a desire for more of, love.
A great appreciation of adventure and experience. The deep knowledge that the true wealth of a life is knowing that time is the only real currency we have to spend, and that years, lovers, and glasses of wine are things that should never be counted. Experience is what you are buying with payments of putting yourself through the adventures in life – planned or not. The utter resilience with which we propel ourselves though the minutes and hours of our days never ceases to amaze me. Even as depressed and currently doing a little wallowing in self-pity as I am, I could still, in seconds, gather up the strength and gumption, to do whatever may be necessary. It’s just that lately, nothing is necessary from me. No one needs me. No one is loving me, desiring my touch, my gaze, my laughter or the presence of my soul. I guess that’s why they call them the blues.

HA, June 2014... more than a few months since the last "post"...

Hmm. I guess it has been about three months since I put anything here. I'll try not to make it three more. So, maybe I'll offer up some stuff on holidays with four kids in four different cities.. maybe.

Aloha y'all...

For those of you who don't know me, or used to know me a long time ago (even in Jr. High and High school), but may have forgotten, I am a free thinking individual, if you need a label to pin on me, you may as well use "agnostic" because after all, who knows for sure?. I was raised in the Methodist Church. When I was 11 or 12, I read the Bible, the Quran, and the Tao Te Ching and concluded for myself, what my beliefs were. Nothing has ever happened to change my mind. In fact the exact opposite occurred - time after time over the past 45+ years I have witnessed countless atrocities carried out in the name of religion, which only served to reinforce my way of thinking and my "spiritual" beliefs. Yes, I am an atheist. I do not hide that fact. If anyone were to bother to take a look at my facebook profile they would discover that about me. I am a member of the Wichita Atheists group and am happy to say that I've never met a better group of kind, considerate, intellectual and forgiving people in, well, a very, very long time. Not since back in my school days. As I write this, I realize that many of my "friends" from back in my Jr. High and High school days may "un-friend" me. That's they're choice and I have no control, nor do I want to, over their actions or feelings about me. The smart ones will see the utter ridiculousness of it all and remain my friends. The ones who decide that they could never imagine being friends with an atheist will do what makes them happy. Hey, whatever helps them sleep at night, I say.

As a whole (granted, there are extremists in every group), we atheists tend to be very open minded and have no problem with people choosing to believe, or not believe, whatever they want. We do not try to "convert" non-atheists to our way of thinking. We do not automatically disagree with something a person of faith says or writes. We relish the notion of coexistence - of "agreeing to disagree". Peace and love know no boundaries, religious or otherwise.

There is a saying that goes something like "Religion is like a dick. It's fine to have it. It's ok to love the fact that you have it. But please don't take it out in public and wave it around, and for goodness sake don't try to shove it down my throat."

My mother and other family members are "people of faith" and I do not love them any less. I have discovered, here through facebook, that many of the friends I had in Jr. High and High School, mainly those that never left Kansas, have evolved into super-religious, right-wing conservatives who think that George W. Bush was one of the greatest presidents this country ever had. I strongly disagree with them and wonder what must have happened between the '70's and now, that led them to form these conclusions for their adult lives. Again, I don't judge, I am simply curious.

As a group of young minds back then, we were all such free thinkers, intelligent people who did not swallow the propaganda being forced upon us in the Johnson/Nixon years, through the Vietnam war, etc. on into the Regan era. We, collectively, knew better, saw the writing on the wall, and questioned authority. We educated ourselves so that we could make our own minds up about any and all issues or ideals. We were smart. Very smart indeed. We probably are all still very smart and just ended up walking different paths that led us here to our 50's and 60's. Regardless of how we got here, I am saddened by what appears to me to be some sort of regional Christian "surrender", some sort of political brainwashing that goes with the religion thing. And I am saddened by the revelation that my old "activist" type friends are now gladly drinking the Kool-Aid which we all rejected in the 60’s and 70's. That said - I do not have any desire to "un-friend" anybody. I honestly think and feel that we CAN all get along. If you have strong religious feelings then great for you! If you feel like posting religious themed pictures or posts, then go right ahead! Wave your flag high! (Freak or otherwise).

But please don't hate me because I think differently than you. That, and the fried food, is what makes America so great. We have no control over how the rest of the world feels about us. I learned about 45 years ago to not waste ANY time or thought on things which I have no control over and instead to concentrate on that over which I DO have control. My writing this, even though I hope it won't, and believe it shouldn’t, will inevitably cause some of my conservative, religious "acquaintances" here on facebook to toss me out of their news feeds and probably stop being "friends" with me. Trust me. I'm not the type of person who feels bad or loses any sleep over that sort of stuff. You don't want to be friends with me anymore? Fine. In retrospect, I guess we were never truly "friends" to begin with.

Aloha y’all.

(Yes, I wrote this initially to post on facebook and will do so shortly...)

I’ve been thinking about this lately and I feel compelled to write it down. So I am.. here in this unknown and unseen blog. I guess I should tell someone about this blog so that, after I die, they can read my "will", or my desires for what to do with my funeral, or wake, or kick-ass party.. whatever materializes. I think I put something at the top of this blog that says "If I die before I wake", or "start here" or something like that. Anyway - on to the rambling rant I'm writing now:

I’m not positive, but I think marriage should happen while you are young, because then it really is a combined effort and shared commitment. Obviously I cannot speak about the realities of waiting until you're in your late 20's or early 30's to marry because I didn't do so. But an instinct inside my heart and head tells me that when and if you "wait", then attitudes will have already been developed, or will be actively developing, which affect, on possibly a subconscious level, attitudes and/or thoughts that cause reluctance or apprehension or whatever when it comes to the realization that marrying someone has far reaching implications. Implications that are shrouded in mystery and of going up against the unknown in perhaps one of the most important "fights" that you will ever have in your life. I think that marrying while in your 30's can lead to second-guessing other major life decisions and a general glazing-over of reality. My experience was that of marrying young, well, relatively young. I was 23, Helen was just 19. Sometimes I wonder how different things might have turned out had we waited another 4 or 5 years. My first thought is that my kids would not have come to be quite the same way they are. I mean they most likely would have been great, happy, smart, kind, and considerate people - like they really are, but definitely not the same kids. How could they be? Butterfly effect, etc...

I also wonder if Helen and I would have, by virtue of being 4 or 5 years older, been better equipped to deal with the normal emotional ups and downs of a committed relationship. Or that our capabilities to make it through the "tough times" and/or rough patches that come and go, and are a part of every relationship between two people, would have been more mature and therefore not ended in divorce for our marriage. It is impossible to know how things might have gone differently since any one of a million various scenarios could have played out.

I guess I'm trying to learn more about myself through thinking these things and questioning the merits or drawbacks associated with marrying while you are young, or waiting until you're just a little bit older before entering into such commitment with another human who has their own world of thoughts running through their head as well. I feel that I don't know what to say or suggest to my children if they ever ask my opinion or thoughts on this issue. Most likely they will never ask that of me as the events and experiences of their own adult lives will force them to ask, and answer these questions for themselves. It does not matter in the least whether I would like to be a grandparent sooner or later or never at all.

I guess the truest answer I can give myself is to just concentrate on my children's happiness and encourage and celebrate whatever decisions they may make - right or wrong, good idea or bad, because none of us has the ability to know for sure if what we are doing, or what we have done, is or was the "right" thing for our life. I want for all of my children the magic and wonder and adventure that Helen and I had. I also want for them the wisdom and possible better outcome in their lives if they wait before hitching their star to another person's sky. Time and circumstance has already sort of made decisions for each of them, and their futures remain to be seen. I suppose that is all anyone can expect and is what we should all become comfortable with. I just wish there was a way to know that everything will turn out fine for them. I think that "way" is called, simply, faith.

I love my kids with every fiber of my earthly presence and with every spark of eternal energy that resides inside of me. I hope I get the chance, or having been given that chance every time I see them, hug them or speak with them, to be able to instill in them the depth and purity of that love. Grand babies or not. Now or later. I am truly rich beyond my wildest dreams just to still be here and to be a part of their lives and to have them as such an amazing part of mine. But getting to play with, and spoil, and most of all - laugh, with my children's babies would be very wondrous indeed.

A film critique, because I have to.

Even though I have a great love of cinema and do have opinions and criticisms of films, I do not usually offer up a critique unless moved to do so. This film did more than move me. It jolted and jerked my head around like a drug. As if, once I understood what was happening, all I could do was go along for the ride.

"The Letter" starring Winona Ryder and James Franco

For me, this film is an exercise in minimal dialogue cinema, evocative of uneasy tenderness and mistrust in the realm of relationship. The audience rides along with Winona's character down the slippery slope of schizophrenia and palpable paranoia. There is tension in the details and silence of this film. I find it to be a magnificent use of characters that you don't really care about at all, but a story that you kind of do. You can't help it but you do care. You care in a similar way as when you gaze at an auto accident as you drive by. The twists and turns are simply dizzying. They are mostly psychological, but dizzying none the less. "Quirky" doesn't fit at all because "quirky" usually carries with it a sense of levity, large or small, some "lift” of some sort. This film does NOT have that "lift", yet seems to exude all the "quirk" anyone would need.

Technically, "The Letter" stirs the pot of editing tricks, and pacing, and sequence, and order or lack thereof. Carried out with excellent use of silence and hesitation, "The Letter" is an aural adventure to say the least of its sound design. Performances are genuinely hard to gauge as character traits are to be discovered instead of portrayed. Franco seems great. Ms. Ryder is stunning and magnetically pitiful in her role as New York playwright "guiding" a workshop theater group towards, well towards something I think. She provides her actors with new dialogue daily, writing as she unravels, thus confusing almost everyone. I'm not in any hurry to watch this one again, but I will definitely want to in the future.

"I felt the shadows across my skin, and I watched." - Last line of the film.

There is much more that could be said about this film, but I can't continue right now. It's all still soaking in. See this one if you can find it.

Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas

Don't worry, I'm fine.

It has been 10 months, six weeks and six days since I last had a normal conversation with my dearest friend Harry Scott Shimp. The evening of October 28th, a Thursday. We spoke of love, we spoke of baseball, we spoke of things eternal and trivial. We spoke.

The next day was not real. He couldn't make it out of the car for his chemo/radiation/kill-everything-in-you-just-short-of-killing-you treatment. That Friday morning and afternoon we went to the hospital emergency room where he carried on a polite conversation with the girl helping him. He made her laugh and smile. He made her feel good as he lay dying.

He went into Hospice the next day, then onto the morphine train to oblivia, then passing over to death at about 2:45 in the morning of November 6th, 2011, just a few hours before he would have had the chance to say goodbye to the love inside him, his daughter Katherine. Some say it worked out better this way, that she should remember him as she knew him and not as the weakened shell of a man lying in the bed with black, morphine eyes of death. I feel extremely fortunate to have had my ex-wife and my two daughters with me on the Saturday afternoon before he went. He smiled and called their names. I don't think witnessing him in his weakened state affects their memories of him at all. They loved the man, they will always hold his memory dear and close in their hearts. I miss him so much.

On the Tuesday of that last week I think it was, after a nurse came into the room and asked about his pain level on a scale of 1 to 10, to which he replied "about a 7", she left the room to go get the morphine and he turned to Ross and I and said "I don't have any pain, but they give you morphine here whenever you want it, so if it's all the same to you guys, I'm going to 'drug it up' a little before I check out." Which of course made us smile and laugh a bit, knowing that he was getting one over on the world even up to the very end.

I continued to come visit and have very short 3 or 4 word exchanges with him over the next few days, but he was so drugged up that I don't count those as real conversations.

He was the best friend ever. Ne me quitte pas. Ne me quitte pas.

Well Toto, thanks for sticking by me.

Life/happiness/purpose/etc. isn't about where you are or what you're doing. It's about who you're with. That's it. That's all. That is quite enough.

Seriously? Is it because I'm getting older?

I swear to all of the energies in the universe that I must be going through male menopause or something currently because I am so damn emotional right now that I cannot stop the tears from flowing or my malaise from growing. Almost every morning and just about every night I cry. I cry at things that normal people - anybody in their right mind - would cry at, but I also find that I cry at crazy stuff that NO ONE in their right mind would, or should cry at.

A bit of back story - pardon me if you know me and already know this part - I will try to keep it short, I promise.

I grew up wanting to get out of Kansas. I have stated that for the record MANY times over. I was able to fulfill that desire back in 1999 when I moved to Delaware/Philadelphia, and then on to Hawaii for several years. When I became unemployed in Hawaii, I began to think of Kansas as somewhere I should go to make myself available to my mother and sister if the need should arise. By then my father and older brother had both passed away, leaving me as the only male in our immediate family - not counting my nephews or my own sons. I thought I had it figured out somewhat, well, the beginnings of the probable "answer" at least. Then my unemployment ran out and after burning through any and all money I had "saved" I found myself relying on my mother for financial help again. I HATED the position I was in and the state of the economy and the lack of jobs all over the country added to my problem. Try as I did, I could NOT find work anywhere. Then an old friend of mine reached out to me and asked if I might be interested in working for the small company he was working for. I said YES! I couldn't say "yes" fast enough. That meant that I had to move back east, back to the Philadelphia area, this time New Jersey to be specific. Not that big of a deal, I had moved far distances before. I had moved many thousands of miles when my kids were young (they are all grown now). I had moved with little or no doubts or trepidation. Then I got here and "settled in". I am alone. I look back and realize that for the past 30-some years, I had been sharing my daily life, surroundings and routines (or lack thereof) with a woman. Bob Marley sang "No Woman, No Cry", but he couldn't have meant it literally because no woman equals LOTS of crying. Plus, New Jersey SUCKS. I don't know, maybe I'm just going through this male menopause thing I began this note with. Maybe, if I was 20 or 30 years younger the "No woman, no cry" would have been true… or at least more true than it now appears.

There are a few women who would come live with me if I asked them to. Honestly, I'm not sure that I would be comfortable asking any of them at this point. For some reason (or many…) I don’t know if I am emotionally "stable" enough currently to ask a woman to share my life again. Maybe that is exactly what I need. Maybe not. I always took pride in the fact that I could figure out the answers to these kinds of dilemmas on my own. Now I'm not so sure of myself. I'm 52 on the outside but still feel 23 inside. Am I just continuing the process of kidding myself? Should I try and act my age? Should I start to try, after all of these years, to take into account what other people think of me? I used to take pride in NOT letting what other people think of me color my decision making in the least little bit.

About a month ago I had an "evaluation" of my performance at my new job, (which there has been NO new work at by the way... just sayin'); the nature of the work is installing components in theaters to enable the theater to digitally project 3D movies. The "evaluation" comments/judgment was NOT even close to what I had expected. I had never - in my lifetime - received such biting negative comments. Granted, he did start out by acknowledging the fact that we have had NO WORK by which to gauge my abilities on, but that he had used a couple of "surprise tests" on me. "Surprise" because I had no idea he was scrutinizing my actions and how I performed certain tasks - with NO instruction or desired details communicated to me ahead of time.

I did what I was asked - I got the job done. Through my life - in live television, live “business theater”, etc., I learned how to get the job done” in record time and IN TIME for the broadcast or show. Because I did these “surprise test” tasks in a way different than what he expected, or in a way that HE would have done the tasks differently, he judged me poorly. That is simply NOT FAIR. I know, I know - "life isn’t fair", but c'mon, this was ridiculous.

Anyway, I digress. The purpose of writing these “journal” things was to let out what I am feeling and take a shot at figuring out why I seem to be getting more emotional in my old age. So, why do some silly little commercials start the waterworks? Why do emotionally packed scenes in movies leave my cold-hearted, but a few seconds about a father admiring something his daughter did when she was little make me weep like a baby?

I think that part of it is because of two things - I have two daughters - one who is constantly changing her mind about some pretty important life decisions - she's going back to a guy who has been abusive to her in the past. She says "only that once", but once is once too many in my book. My father raised me to be a gentleman who NEVER would hit or harm a woman in any way, and I have tried to teach my sons similar respect for "the weaker sex" because they ARE! Sorry all of you feminists out there but women are not as strong as men and should NEVER be hit or pushed or shoved or physically harmed in any way. NOTHING will change my mind about that. Now if she has a gun, sure, cold cock the bitch and take the gun away, but other than that, be a gentleman. Period.

My other, younger daughter is about to graduate from college this coming May. I could not be more proud of her. I could also not be more worried for her future as the state of this economy is terrible and it is extremely hard for ANYONE to get a good job these days, even a recent college graduate. I know that I have no control over either of the things my daughters will be facing soon and I learned a long time ago to exert control over that which I have some control over, and release - do not waste time - worrying about that which I have NO control over. It's hard, but no one ever said it would be easy. I am fortunate to have a true angel as the mother of our children; she is also torn and troubled about the futures of our children. She has done an amazing job raising our kids to be the strong, independent people that they are. I also have two sons, and there are definitely some father-son things that I witness that bring on the rush of emotion in me as well, but both of my boys are fairly deep into their respective careers/endeavors right now for me to worry too much about their immediate futures. I call them my boys but they are men, as sure as any man can be called a man. My pride for ALL of my children is immense and I know, deep down, that everything will work out and all will be well.

None of that explains why I cry at silly stupid commercials now when I didn’t just a few short years ago. Maybe I shouldn’t waste any time thinking of “why” and just let me be me. Hmm, that just might work.

See you in another few months or however long it is until I write something here again! Aloha. Mahalo for reading and understanding, even if just a little bit. Get old, have four children, and then you’ll see what I mean.

Born to Run

I'm in Jersey. It makes sense to me to have my mind wander the way it does today.

It's become apparent to me now that all my life I've taken Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" quite literally and have tried to get out of Kansas for about 40 years.

"Oh baby this town rips the bones from your back, it's a death trap, it's a suicide rap. We gotta get out while we're young, 'cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run." "..let me in, I wanna be your friend. I wanna guard your dreams and visions... together we could break this trap. We'll run 'til we drop, baby we'll never go back. Oh, will you walk with me out on the wire? 'cause baby I'm just a scared and lonely rider, but I gotta know how it feels. I wanna know if love is wild babe I wanna know if love is real."

I'm almost sure to write more here today. It's a Saturday in New Jersey after all.

East coast again.

Well, here I am. I've been fortunate to have been hired (at last) by Digital 3D Cinema. Based in central New Jersey, we travel the US and parts of Europe installing digital projection systems, most often 3D systems, in various museums and theaters providing attraction based film production for our clients as well so that the attendees of these exhibits and films experience an amazing, immersive experience.

For me personally, this is the beginning of my "third act" in life. I have chosen to try and focus on this job, my health and happiness in the years to come.

I miss the friends I have in other parts of the world and look forward to re-connecting with friends I made here on the east coast a little more than 10 years ago. I will always wish for someone special to share the remainder of my life with, but if there is one thing I have learned it's that love comes to you when you stop trying to find it. I would not have been able to reach the point I am at now without the help, positive vibes and love of so many. For that I feel truly blessed.

Changes are coming up behind me with no intention of surprising me. They are shouting at me from their distance and seem to delight in the nature of their approach. I tell myself that I'm ready for them. I have to be.

Wish me luck. Please and mahalo! - ~O~