Merry *&%$#ing Christmas!

I've been planning this blog for over a week.  Therefore naturally, as I sit down to write it, nothing is flowing easily.  That's what she said.

I'll be the first to admit; I'm a particular guy and a lot of things seem to piss me off.  Abnormally so, and with the help of good-hearted and patient people around me, I work to calm myself down.  I'll blame it on Italian.  In particular this season, it has been the hubbub surrounding the "reason for the season", Jesus vs. Gifty gifts, commercialism as a bad thing, and the like.

Allow me to lay some ground work.  I think a lot of current commercial notions and promotions of Christmas would make Jesus roll over in his grave...  I can't stand nearly all modern Christmas music, I want to punch stores collectively in the face for over a month of steady Red and Green barrage, and yes, you Black Friday bargain hunters are both thrifty and absolutely out of your damn minds.  To boot, I am what Christians would recognize as an apostate, which tends to make loving some of my favorite Christmas (read: worship) songs a little awkward.

Alas, I am what I am, and to get to my point in the fourth paragraph (Mr. Paynter would be so disappointed), year in and year out, Christmas is the single best and most important day in American culture.  Or at least my little slice of it.

Zealous Christian types, before you get your hopes up about this post, allow me to reaffirm that it is despite your efforts to ruin my holiday that I enjoy, neigh thrive on its existence.  And for general audiences, without diving too deeply into historical roots of this winter holiday, pagan ties, church agendas, etc., allow me for the purposes of this blog to dismiss them as irrelevant.  This blog is about how Christmas affects my family and I.  How it affects my culture.  How it perhaps affects you.

Oh my gorsh, this is such a complex topic.  Let me keep it down to anger and joy.  Anger that church would use it as piggy back marketing*, as an excuse to segregate themselves by defining themselves as Jesus focused while us degenerates focus on presents, as...  well, these things tend to sound better in threes, but I appeared to have wrapped it up in my second point.  Joy.  Joy in spending a month hunting for the best way to use my little budget to put the biggest smiles possible on the faces of those closest to me.  Joy, in knowing that for a day, most people are outward focused, excited more about the happiness they bring to others than the happiness they will receive themselves.  Joy that society will behave in a bit more of a civil manner (i.e. I will not cuss and gesture towards drivers whose heads can be found in their very asses.)  Joy in knowing that this year I get to spend Christmas morning with my children, who slept lightly in the next room waiting for Santa.  Joy that my Dad would give so much to see the faces of my brother and I as we open up our matching Eddie Van Halen signature guitars.  Joy that my Mom would go completely overboard on food and presents so that every last person in her house knew, scratch that, felt, owned, imbibed, lived that it was Christmas that day.

Listen, I know I'm coming off as grumpy with a lot of what I've written, but it's because my Facebook news feed is pissing in my Wheaties.  It's because people are actually confused as to weather they can say Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas.  It's because I want my favorite day back.  Christmas is C7 painted colored glass bulbs illuminating the room as I steal a kiss from my woman.  Not sleeping the night before and waking up at 3:30 to get shit started.  It's about lying for a month, then spending all day Christmas telling people how you lied to them in order to maintain the surprise of their gifts.  It's about family, it's about the best in people, it's about love.

If you tie that to thanking god for the birth of your savior, excellent.  Just keep out of my Wheaties.




* I posit that Christmas has grown beyond the ostensible intentions of the Church to celebrate the birth of Christ, and has morphed into a social construct more similar to the one as laid out by my rant.

Who am I.

I am an asshole.

At least it seems that way sometimes.

Just got back from dinner with a friend.  A dear friend.  We got in a big fight awhile back over some stupid things.  But really we were fighting about a decade of us not meshing.  We just never really let it come to a head before.  I thought us meeting up was going to be a chance to apologize, catch up, converse like men.  But he showed up with friends and wanted to hang out as if nothing ever happened.

I had expectations, I planned my evening around it.  I was inconvenienced.  He asked me when we could hang out again to get a chance to chat.  I, with great lack of emotion, told him "I don't know" and walked away.  I probably hurt him.  He hurt me too.  Misunderstanding will probably prevent a timely reconciliation.  And if I'm honest, in this moment I don't care.

If I do the basic science, the basic math, I find that I am the only constant in a string of equations that equal broken relationships of one kind or another.  Maybe I'm letting people off the hook, maybe I'm an asshole.  It's hard to judge.  People close to me say it's other people's fault.  I'm sure the other halves of the broken relationships would say otherwise.

I sat down to write some song lyrics in a journal a dear friend gave me before I left on a year-long journey to Chile.  As I looked at the pictures and mementos she included, I lost my desire to write music.  I felt as though I should just write.  Be sober, not filter, just think on paper.

I miss her friendship.  I miss my asshole friend who avoided having a real heart to heart chat today over some beers and pizza.  I miss an old friend whom I unwittingly caused a lot of real grief.  I miss innocence.   I no longer have the luxury of innocence.

Maybe that is why I struggle.  I am no longer innocent.  I am too old, too wise, and have had too many chances to be forgiven.  I miss what seems like a former life of being Mike, the guy who could do no wrong.  I feel mortal now.  I'm not an exemption, I'm not special, and it makes me feel dead.

Maybe I've lost touch with reality.  Maybe I'm finally standing up for myself.  Whatever the case may be, something just doesn't feel right.  I'm missing something, and I don't think it's god.  I think I want my friends back.  But was I the one that drove them away in the first place?

Never again

I had built my general world outlook on one simple principle.  At heart, people are good, and if given the chance, they can be trusted.  *warning- you are in dangerous proximity to an emotion fueled rant about my ex.

It's been a year since I've read over my divorce decree.  At the time it was all taking place, I had made some foolish decisions which led to my underemployment.  I had no money.  With help of her family she had hired a lawyer, ostracized me from my children and home, and found a technicality which allowed her to move to northern Ohio with our children.

At the time I felt helpless.  I couldn't afford representation.  Even if I could I refused, money spent on lawyers was better spent on our children I surmised.  So when restraining orders, support orders, notifications of relocation, modified custody orders reducing standard visitation, support modifications and the like poured in, all I could do was grin and bear it.

Now, with time passed, I'm realizing that I'm dealing with someone who has no capacity for compromise.  Someone who is incapable of admitting wrongs.  Someone who has been told she is right for so long, that she has lost all construct for seeing otherwise.

I wronged this woman.  I did.  Rather than break it off years earlier than I did, I stuck around.  I let my frustration build and watched our love die and pretended it was all ok.  When it came to a head, she was surprised and hurt.  While I feel I had adequate reason to be just as hurt, I know I hurt her, and we should have had a knock down drag out fight about it.  About each other.  About how poor our relationship really was.  But that fight never happened.

She lawyered up.  Instead of calling me names and smacking me in the face, she hit me where she knew it would hurt: my children.  Suddenly words like "visitation" were in conversations.  Then conversations couldn't even happen without lawyers present.  She did well, she struck blows that cut me to the core even to this day.  She is an artful assassin.

But her ways are blunt, crude, unrefined.  It's the Hiroshima approach.  While her retaliation caused me maximum devastation, there was collateral damage.  The worst damage of all in my opinion.

I find myself constantly asking why she can't attack me, just me?  Why does every bicker have to involve our children?  What good did it do for her to move back home to regain her family support?  Is it a good that outweighs our children regularly having their father in their lives?

This latest rant comes from our latest discussion over custody.  My work schedule cutting into my time with the boys, and her being unable/unwilling to make adjustments thus limiting my already short time with them.

While there exist an endless array of word groupings I could use to describe her, she is simply no longer deserving of my time.  My true concern and heart goes to my children, my amazing boys.  I'll never know why you were thrust into this situation that separates us, but I hate it.  I love you more than you know.  I want you back.  I want you with me.  I want you home.  God dammit.

Writing and I have a love-hate thing.

Once, in sixth grade, we were told to free write for 2-3 minutes.  Just write anything that comes to mind, my teacher said, and if you get a pause or mental block, literally write "roadblock" on the page.  I naturally feigned a pause in creativity to form sentences such as "I was running down the street when I accidentally tripped over a...roadblock."

Oh to have that swagger tonight.

I sit to arrange, color, and write lyrics for a song this fine pre-summer evening, and I find myself conflicted as to what I want the song to be.  And, sho nuff, the song also sounds conflicted.  My music often shifts gears, probably more than the average bear would like, but this song is sounding like The White Album if it were recorded by anyone other than the Beatles.

I want to pull the trigger on one direction.  I want it to be edgy and daring.  Alas, I keep hearing flutes and freedom music.  The trouble is, the contrasting musical styles are meshing very well, but the juxtaposition of edgy lyrics and wishy wash is coming off like bad Linkin Park.  The finished product will sound clean, but anything beyond a casual listen will reveal how completely nonsensical the lyrics are.  What do I do?  Where does my swagger come from?

The crazy thing is, I know I'll make it work.  And I know I won't have to compromise the integrity of what I want.  It's just funny how some nights it just flies off the cuff with ease, and nights like tonight I find myself crashing my musical car into a... roadblock.

Longevity.

Yesterday I planned to finish and post a song that I've been working on since 2008 called Longevity.  It is a terrifying process in giving it away.  I realize my limitations with my hobby of music, I become terribly self-conscious when sharing my art, and I fear more than anything the realization that all of my arduous labor and passion will go unnoticed by most.

Today, I took a day off to erase a great deal of items from my to-do list.  One of which was to run 10 miles.  Making myself suit up to go run long distances is also a terrifying process in and of its own.  I never know how my body is going to react.  Will it be hell?  Do I feel like doing it?  In the long run what's it good for?

I did both.

Longevity is and was a song about the need to persevere when life gets difficult.  I think its started with me trying to make my ex-marriage work out when it felt like I was at a loss.  I changed my mind and decided to end my marriage, but the song and its idea persisted.  Regardless of whether I feel like it or not, it behooves me to get up out of bed and make something of myself.  When I'm making headway I love my life and I love myself.  And headway requires the simple determination to continue to stand up even when it's the last thing I want to do.  I can't give up.

I am still in the process of shaping myself after some major changes.  But I still have the chisel and I still have the marble.  I think continuing to create music will help me to take shape.

I have to make music.  I like the way I feel when I run.  That is Longevity to me.

Have a listen to my song if you'd like.

-M

The Big and Scary Cat.

"You know what my dream was about?"

"What, Ray?"

"I was at school, and there was a big big cat.  And we all put those tie things (motions around eyes) on our heads so we couldn't see the cat.  We were all scared.  Then we went to (friend's house)."

This in the middle of a heart to heart with my three year old about the previous evening.  E and I woke up to the sound of him crying at 4a.  When I went to investigate he said he was scared, so I took the chance to snuggle him up so he could fall back asleep.  

This, among many other moments, is what I miss.  I get nothing but frustrated when I think about my kids having been taken to a city 2 hours away.  They have a papa up there, but what they need is a father.  I pause even now, wondering whether or not to fully vent.  I'll sum up the thought by saying it is a great tragedy to take kids away from eager, willing and able parents. 

Ray is cuddled up on the couch with me right now as I write this.  That should be the norm.  As much as I cherish this moment because of its rarity, I want for it to become mundane, I want it to lose its magic simply for the fact that it would happen so often.  I want to be sick of my kids.

On today's docket, we hit up an indoor playground to keep working on Sam's athletic side.  There may or may not be ice cream involved.  As it lies, I am a sucker.  I have my boys 4 days a month, I intend to spoil them, and anyone who thinks otherwise can kiss my ass. 

What are you doing today?

8 mile

"Ohhh everything burns!"  I exclaimed as I stepped in the shower.  Was the water too hot?  Nope.  Am I a wuss?  Not completely.   No friends, the burns were burns of stingy* triumph.  Badges of honor if you will.  Tangible evidence that I completed an 8 mile run today.  

I rather enjoyed distance running for a few years.  I found it to be a great way to shed some pounds, find time to listen to music, and probably most importantly to get a break from a completely hectic lifestyle.  Ok, I'll be honest, it was great to go run for a few hours and not have to sit in a house with my ex.  Ahem..

Fast forward a year and a half.  I entered a relationship at a high-school-esque 148 pounds.  Eliz makes me really happy.   So happy in fact that I stopped wanting to run and work out because we love spending time together.  We also love eating pizza together.  Which is good, because now she has more of me to love.  36 pounds more of me in fact.  24% more Mikey, who wouldn't love that?

I don't.  So I've been doing my best to disappoint my Wizzy and reduce her boyfriend by at least 10%.  

Running is a bitch.  At first anyhow.  My first 4 runs were huffly puffly death conjuring lung burners.  I wanted to quit with every step.  Then last week I decided to bump up to 6 miles.  And I did it.  I don't know quite what it was, but something clicked, and when I finished, I felt good.  I felt like I could do anything.  

So today I ran 8 miles.  And I'm chaffed in places I forgot I owned. 

*Stingy, as in like a bee, not like Scrooge

A dabble of fun

So yestereve I delved back into my broken laptop to reopen a nearly finished music file that I have been putting off since 2009.  Putting it off because of fear.  Putting it off because I know what I want to hear, and I'm afraid that I can't quite pull off the sound.  Fear of having what I think is one of my finest works fall under judgement, or more likely and worse, being ignored.

Music has been my most persistant and faithful of lovers.  She's like a few of my old friends, whom I can walk away from for years without explanation, only to find their welcoming arms awaiting me upon my return.  For this reason she is the only tattoo I would ever consider getting.

It felt great to man the workstation again, open up the editing pallates on tracks that have long needed attention, add new sounds that ill likely remove the next day, waste an hour to get five minutes of useful work.  Only time spent on music is never wasted.

Today, I recalled a memory from sixth grade where I was asked to participate in a stock market simulation.  They lured us in with talk of riches, houses, sports cars and the like.  I quit after a week.  I couldn't keep guitars and Kurt Cobain off of my brain.

I don't like where I find myself career wise, almost strictly because I shudder at the thought of not being able to provide for my loved ones.  But I am happy.  I enjoy my work.  I enjoy my kids.  I enjoy my woman.  And last night, for the first time in awhile, I remembered how much I enjoy my music.

Music, I can't quit you.

What I want.

Feeling in and out of things for the past few years, it has been difficult to retain any kind of real focus on what I want out of my life.  For a time, I was out more than in, so living from one thrill to another was an acceptable way to be for me.  Anything to keep my mind away from overwhelming thoughts of failure.  Anything to abet the anger.  Anything to get myself to get out of bed.

While I'm far from where I want to be, lately I think that I have been in more than out.  And to me, this seems a signal to go ahead and start asking myself again, "what do I want?".

I'm 30 years old.  I'm divorced.  I don't have a career.  I'm tired, and I'm tired of being tired.  So without any further ado, here's what I want.

-I want my kids to be with me.
-I want to be a good father.
-I want my kids to grow up well. 
-I want a real job, neigh, I want a great career.
-I want my current relationship to work, long-term, the way I know a relationship can work.
-I want to see my friends... more than just on Facebook.
-I want to be set loose on projects that matter, because I'm capable.  Extremely so.
-I want confidence.
-I want my past to die. 
-I want my own business, and I want it to be creative.
-I want to write music, and I want to do it in a community of like-minded musicians.
-I want to control my own destiny (no offense to the amazing people who support me).
-I want to make an amazing pizza.
-I want travel in my life.
-I want to be downtown in Columbus more.
-I want to realize that achieving these things does not necessarily hold the key to my happiness. 
-I want me back.
-And I want my musical tattoo.


Welcome friends.  I need you.