Month: January 2016

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Meh. It could be worse

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The other half came home with some serious junk food.

They are tasty and the other half justified the purchase by pointing out that these taste very good with berry flavored tea.

But the classic statement was;

“Besides, they were on sale.”

Which apparently justifies the purchase of four packages.

I was reminded about a friend of mine.

His other half loved bargains. Shoes, Jewelry, you name it, if something was on sale it was in their house shortly there after.

Everything was pretty much fine until…

Luxman d 08

What has since become known within the US Government and NATO as;

The Luxman Incident.

I vaguely recall waking up, the day after Thanksgiving at my friends home.  I staggered to the kitchen following the smell of awesome coffee.

Ahhhhhh Coffee!

Then I smelled that distinct smell that comes only from New Electronics. The unmistakable smell of rosin, and board cleaning solvent. Then I heard the rustling of styrofoam, and plastic bags.

There, in the living room, was my friend looking like a kid at Christmas in the middle of cables and packing materials.

It was 9 am.

My friend had showered, shaved, gotten dressed, left the house, driven to Van Nuys, made a purchase, driven home, re-entered the house without disturbing the dog or anyone else and was in the process of having a geek orgasm induced by a new electronic toy.

My friend didn’t roll around in the packing… His control was remarkable, (which is not to say he hadn’t done this prior to my entering the room.)

Alien by buchemi

Enjoying my coffee, I was looking forward to watching Alien on this brand new LaserDisc player, later in the afternoon. (It’s a Thanksgiving or day after Thanksgiving tradition, leave it at that.)

At which point… His other half came in and frankly lost it.

At the time, I wondered if I was watching Alien live!

I headed for another cup of coffee. I was not wanting to be drawn into this under any circumstances. Best to not be present.  My friends other half looked at me “Did YOU know he was going to buy this?”

“Uh Nope… where’s the coffee? I’m going to put on another pot,” continuing to the relative safety of the kitchen.

At which point I don’t remember too much. I do recall the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard for about 30 minutes then it got quiet.

A few moments of silence and the opening sound effects of the score of Alien could be heard from the living room.

I looked around the corner. That now infamous opening line appeared on the screen.

In space, no-one can hear you scream.

Clearly a vacuum had opened somewhere between the front of the house and the rear of the house. I knew no-one had been “spaced” but there was some serious space in that house for the next day or so. I don’t think they spoke the rest of the weekend.

It wasn’t funny then.

Many years have passed, and I think it’s funnier than hell now. My friend may not think so but I hope he takes it good-naturedly.

Of course this is the same friend that gave me the single most EPIC ass chewing I’ve ever received. I deserved every word of it. I was an asshole!

I’m hoping that I’m not cruising for another EPIC ass chewing with this post.

It’s strange how memories are linked in our heads.

My other half saying “They were on sale,” as I was trying to rearrange the pantry to accept a 3 cubic foot block of cookies, put a smile on my face and allowed me to relive that “Black Friday”.

My friend has a much lovelier person as his wife now. She’s awesome, I genuinely like and respect her. She brings out the best in him, and the imp in me.

(I love trying to shock her and watching her reboot for just an instant when she processes that I really did say what she thought, but never imagined, I’d say. In truth because she’s made my friend happy and truly loves him, well don’t tell her, but I’d do anything in my power for her.)

I’ll throw myself on her mercy if he’s really mad at me.

I should point out that I’ll buy her mercy if necessary with tales of a blue Mustang, a green Monza and a certain church parking lot!

It pays to be a very old friend to someone, you know literally ALL their dirt.

Ahhh Chooo!

What was I saying? What Mustang, I’m not a church going person, what’s a Monza? I’m so old my memory fails at the most inopportune moments.

Cookies or over priced bedazzled sweat shirts.

I’ll take the cookies and funny memories.

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Now I know why TV sales are good this time of year

I watched the State of the Union address last night.

There were several points where I thought I was having a stroke, or that I’d passed into some alternate dimension.

There were some amusing tweets during the speech.

Joint Chiefs

The Joint Chiefs of staff didn’t look happy at all! Of course they must have been concerned about the 10 sailors being held at that very moment in Iran.

Yeah, Iran, you know the country that we’ve brokered a deal to reduce sanctions with? The country that regularly paints our ships and aircraft with targeting systems as we maneuver in the Gulf? The country that has nuclear aspirations and has repeatedly stated its desire to not only destroy Israel but the United States as well?

You know, the helpful friendly nation of Iran, our friend…

I’ll tell you what, if I were Obama I’d make sure I wasn’t alone with these guys. I felt the heat through my TV when Obama said he’d made the military stronger.

Trey Gowdy

Then there was Trey Gowdy. I guess that 7 years is just too long to be able to hide your true feelings and I can’t help but think Gowdy is right up there with the Joint Chiefs.

“Is that a mixture of hatred and disgust sir, or did you eat some bad baklava?”

I can’t imagine how many televisions were shot last night. When Obama leaves office, several things are likely to happen. Gun Sales will fall, Television sales will fall, and cord cutting will level off.

It might be a good thing this is President Obama’s last year.

Below is a small sampling of the tweets that caught my attention.

SOTU1

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Strange Tears

I’m a mean hard bastard.

I’ve been that way all my life. Which is why I find myself in this very strange place.

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I feel like my world is slipping away.

It was David Bowie’s passing that popped the bubble for me. Or maybe it was a combination of seeing Leonard Nimoy in Star Trek Into Darkness and Bowie’s passing that managed to pound through my defenses.

Th 1These entertainers are people I’ve never met, so it shouldn’t be personal.  But they are touchstones in my life. Their loss is a sign of unrelenting change.

I heard the strains of Space Oddity on the radio this morning and was suddenly singing along & crying. It was weird.

Unintentionally, I started tallying the losses in my personal life.

I’ve seen my share of death. In the ‘80s and ‘90s the tally increased weekly. After a while I stopped going to funerals. It wasn’t because I didn’t care about or want to remember those folks. It was that I couldn’t bear any more losses.

61260414Time is catching up with me.

I know in the not too distant future I’m going to have to bear more losses. The numbers are probably going to increase faster too.

Folks in my family are getting up there in years. I have friends who aren’t in the best of health and while I love them, time and distance have made us into very different people.

You see, time takes its toll on relationships too.

Why am I crying? Even hard assed warriors cry. I’m not ashamed of my tears.

The catalyst of music or movie is one thing, that’s the trigger.  What is the underlying cause of my tears right now?

Is it that I’m not as good as surfing the winds of change as I once was? Is it sadness that some days I feel like a dinosaur watching the last sunset? Is it fear of being left all alone?

I know these feelings aren’t unique.

There are books and plays, movies and TV shows that have explored these feelings.

Dracula, Dr. Who, and at least one book by Heinlein pop into my head instantly. These stories ask the question:

If you could be immortal would you?

Could you bear the mounting losses while continuing to walk endlessly into the future?

How long before the transient nature of life made you a monster, disconnected from all the things that make us human? Would you, after a few hundred years, stop being human because you can no longer keep count of those you’ve loved and lost.

How long until the voices, faces and lives become background noise, and your interaction with them is limited to nothing more than furthering your agenda? You agenda would likely become an agenda, the normal lived couldn’t see and one in which their life or death is but a drip from a leaky faucet.

Images

Perhaps it’s normal to think of these things at points in your life. We know we’re mortal, we know we’ll end.

Maybe the lesson is to just cry.

Maybe from time to time, we should let it all out, not hold anything back, and don’t dwell on it.

When our tears have finished, then we’re supposed to pick up the less brittle pieces of ourselves and move on with grace earned by our successes, failures, and even our tallied losses from years of living.

Like everyone else, I’m clueless. I can tell you this;

Time keeps moving on and so probably should we.

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Goodby Mr. Bowie

David Bowie

Thanks for the music and showing those of us who didn’t always fit in, that it was okay.

You showed us reinvention and being unapologetically ourselves were good things.

Godspeed,

Ground control out.

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SCRATCH!!!!

Brain falling apart

I was working on a post. Then my brain just stopped…

The entire point fell apart and I was left here with my hair blown back and no clue what I was doing.

I didn’t smell toast so I know it wasn’t a stroke but nonetheless it’s annoying.

I’m giving up. 

I’ll try again tomorrow.