“I know it hurts. But it's life, and it's real. And sometimes it fucking hurts, but it's life, and it's sorta all we have.” - Sam

I’m finally over being sick. It was a rough last week. My body just doesn’t “bounce back” like it used to. I remember when I was younger I would be sick one day, and healthy as ever the next. Same went for being hungover. Back in my early twenties it was nothing for me to stay out all night, getting wasted, and then be fully functional at work the next morning.

Of course, I don’t really drink too much anymore. I also don’t smoke anymore. I quit smoking a little over a year ago. I started when I was 14 years old and stopped when I was 34, so 20 years of smoking was about all I could handle. Not to mention the financial burden it was causing me. A person damn near needs to take out a loan in order to buy cigarettes these days. I was at the gas station the other day and there was a sign for Marlboro cigarettes that read: “Special Sale Price - $7.09!” Seven dollars for a pack of cigarettes?!

So, I quit smoking… I drink less… but I eat more and have gained a bunch of weight back that I had lost a couple of years ago. Now, I got to start going to the gym more and watching what I eat.  It’s hard. There’s always something. And like I said – my body isn’t what it used to be. Eating a cupcake would have no effect on me 15 years ago. Now I gain ten pounds just thinking about it.

I was watching Garden State with my wife on Christmas night (it’s her all-time favorite movie) and although I had seen it a few times before there was something about the movie that stuck with me during this viewing.  I must have thought about this before while watching the movie, but this time it just stuck with me. The theme of the movie is acceptance of life as it is and enjoying it for what it is. The main character tells his dad that he has “spent 26 years waiting for something else to start,” but what he realizes is that this is all he has. There’s nothing else out there. He decides to just start living his life for the enjoyment of what it is, rather than working towards an unattainable goal that’s going to make him miserable in the process.

I guess the reason why this is staying with me more these days is because I have been thinking a lot about the dreams I had when I was younger. I wanted so badly to be an actor. I always thought I would be and make a living doing what I loved to do, entertaining people. Now I’m 35 years old and a finance manager – the dream is long gone. It used to sadden me, but it doesn’t anymore. I have accepted the fact that I wasn’t able to be an actor like I had wanted. I wasn’t able to make a living entertaining people. But it’s okay. This is my life and I better enjoy what I do have and what I am, because the other option is to be miserable about a life that I don’t have.

 

It’s kind of interesting how a movie can have such an impact. Good thing we weren’t watching my all-time favorite movie, Pulp Fiction, otherwise I might be wandering the Earth like Caine in Kung Fu.

“When Cameron was in Egypt’s land… let my Cameron go!” – Cameron Frye

I don’t feel good today.

I made some bids on vintage Star Wars figures that I need to complete my collection today. I’ve decided to get back in to collecting and attempt to get all of the original Star Wars figures.

Other than that it’s quite a boring morning for me. I was going to write about the name of this blog (“Thanks Halsy”) and what it means, where it comes from, etc., but I guess I will save that for another time. Just remember, Spock died of radiation.

“Five gold rings! Ba-dum-bum-bum!” – Miss Piggy

I’ve never understood the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Is it supposed to mean the 12 days leading up to Christmas? Is it the 12 days after Christmas? Is Christmas supposed to be celebrated like Hanukkah, but instead of 8 nights it’s 12 days? How can the True Love afford all these gifts of birds and people? (Not to mention that the song implies slavery is going on - giving the gift of people?).

Of course, I was young when I first heard this song and we didn’t have the internet or Wikipedia. Now, a quick Google search later and we have the following:

The twelve days in the song are the twelve days starting Christmas Day, or in some traditions, the day after Christmas (December 26) (Boxing Day or St. Stephen's Day, as being the feast day of St. Stephen Protomartyr) to the day before Epiphany, or the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6, or the Twelfth Day). Twelfth Night is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking."

Although the specific origins of the chant are not known, it possibly began as a Twelfth Night "memories-and-forfeits" game, in which a leader recited a verse, each of the players repeated the verse, the leader added another verse, and so on until one of the players made a mistake, with the player who erred having to pay a penalty, such as offering up a kiss or a sweet. This is how the game is offered up in its earliest known printed version, in the children's book Mirth without Mischief (c. 1780) published in England, which 100 years later Lady Gomme, a collector of folktales and rhymes, described playing every Twelfth Day night before eating mince pies and twelfth cake.

So there was 12 days of Christmas! I feel like I was cheated outta some gifts now!

We used to play a game like this when I was in high school. Of course it was a drinking game and no one could memorize it except for me, so I was always the leader. It went, by round, as follows:

1.)    A brown hen

2.)    A brown hen, a couple of duck

3.)    A brown hen, a couple of duck, three brown bear

4.)    A brown hen, a couple of duck, three brown bear, four running hare

5.)    A brown hen, a couple of duck, three brown bear, four running hare, five fat fickle females sitting sipping scotch

6.)    A brown hen, a couple of duck, three brown bear, four running hare, five fat fickle females sitting sipping scotch, six simple Simons sitting on a fence

7.)    A brown hen, a couple of duck, three brown bear, four running hare, five fat fickle females sitting sipping scotch, six simple Simons sitting on a fence, seven Sinbad sailors sailing the seven seas

8.)    A brown hen, a couple of duck, three brown bear, four running hare, five fat fickle females sitting sipping scotch, six simple Simons sitting on a fence, seven Sinbad sailors sailing the seven seas, nine nude Nubians nibbling gnash knuckles and nicotine

9.)    A brown hen, a couple of duck, three brown bear, four running hare, five fat fickle females sitting sipping scotch, six simple Simons sitting on a fence, seven Sinbad sailors sailing the seven seas, nine nude Nubians nibbling gnash knuckles and nicotine, I am not a fig plucker nor a fig plucker’s son, but I will pluck the figs until the fig plucker comes.

Each time you mess up, you take a drink. If you need something repeated, you take a drink. It could get a bunch of teenagers drunk off Boone’s Farm rather quickly as I recall. My cousin, who was having a tough time with the game once, finally made it to the end. She was so proud of herself that when it came to the last sentence she stood up and yelled the final line: “I am not a pig fucker, or a pig fucker’s son, but I will fuck the pig until the pig fucking comes!”

I remember countless parties and get-togethers in which me and the rest of the drama club nerds all sat around playing drinking games. I think back on those parties and say, “Those were good times.”

Then I snap out of it and think, “What the hell was I doing?” It’s no wonder I wasn’t getting any. Do you think the popular kids and football players were playing drinking games? No, they were out getting laid, not moderating a game of “A brown hen, a couple of duck” for a bunch of theatre wannabes. 

Man, I was lame.

“They say that ‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.’ Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled, ‘BANG,’ I don’t think you’d kill too many people.” – Eddie Izzard

By now most everyone in the country knows about the massacre that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT last week. A despicable and vile excuse for a human being murdered 20 children and 7 adults before taking his own miserable life. It makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it all. Words can never express how my heart goes out to all of those affected by this tragedy.

Mike Huckabee - King Douche Bag

And then there’s Mike Huckabee. What an asshole this guy is. Here’s what he had to say following the events on Friday:

"We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage? We don't have a crime problem, a gun problem or even a violence problem. What we have is a sin problem. And since we've ordered God out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn't act so surprised ... when all hell breaks loose."

And now, on Monday, Mr. Huckabee has come out and made a follow up statement:

“I’m not suggesting by any stretch that if we had prayer in schools regularly as we once did that this wouldn’t have happened, because you can't have that kind of cause and effect. But we’ve created an atmosphere in this country where the only time you want to invoke God’s name is after the tragedy.”

His first statement is saying, “These shootings happened because of a lack of God in school.” His second comment, which he made in a back pedaling manner, is saying, “I just meant that we all need God in our lives at all times, not just when we want something.” These two comments have nothing to do with one another and I call BULLSHIT on Mike Huckabee. You meant what you said, Huck, so don’t try to cover up your asinine statements and beliefs by placating to the majority when you get called out for being the buffoon that you are.

But Mike does bring up a point - where is God in all of this? How can anyone think there is a creator who cares for humans when shit like this happens all of the time? How can people have such faith in something that clearly is non-existent and makes itself known as being non-existent on a regular basis? Faith is one thing, but blind faith is something quite different and it’s what all religious people have. 

There is no God… there is no special place that souls go when their human form dies… there are no angels or demons… and magic does not exist. Fucktards like the one in Connecticut are sick in the head, and I am sure we will learn more about him and what drove him to do such a horrendous thing in the coming days. But NEVER say that it’s because of a lack of God in school (or anywhere else, for that matter) that caused innocent little children to be murdered. Children, mind you, who were looking forward to their winter break and spending the holidays with their loved ones – probably celebrating the “birth of Jesus,” no doubt. No loving God would take away such precious lives. No loving God would allow such heinous acts to happen. And if he did allow this – why would anyone ever want to follow such a God? I certainly don’t want to be associated with anyone or anything that would support such actions or act in such a way.

Again, my heart goes out to the parents, family, and friends of those affected by the events at Sandy HookElementary School on Friday, December 14, 2012.

“In Beverly Hills, they don’t throw their garbage away – they make it into television shows.” – Woody Allen

I own two television sets. I pay an exorbitant amount each month to have all of the channels offered. I have two DVRs which record a myriad of shows for me nearly every day. I need to have the TV on while I’m trying to go to sleep and I turn it on the first thing in the morning when I wake. The problem? I can’t stand  the television shows airing these days.

With the exception of sports, most everything on TV is crap. The news, sitcoms, dramas, game shows, reality shows… oh the reality shows – all crap. There are about five shows I can watch on a regular basis and enjoy: Jeopardy!, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Comic Book Men, and Dexter. Other than that (and sports) when I watch TV I am usually mindlessly watching some crap program about nothing. And not good shows about nothing, like Seinfeld.

So why do I watch? I don’t know. As I am sitting here writing this I am trying to think about what I watched on TV last night and why I watched it… and I really can’t answer either question. The only thing I can think of is that I’m an addict. The networks are like a pusher, luring me in with small doses of great television shows until they have me hooked. Then, the barrage of bullshit programming comes and I need to watch it all. My eyes glaze over as I flip through the channels, back and forth, watching mind-numbing  programs about such things as the quest to find (blank), cute little (blank), and a mysterious (blank) where people are brought together by and unknown (blank). *fill in the blank with nearly any noun and you have a TV show that is currently on the air.*

I should start reading more. I have about five books that I am currently reading. I’ll start one, get really in to it, read about half of it, then put it down and move on to something else. It’s my personality, I guess… or maybe it’s the many years sitting in front of the TV that has shortened my attention span…? That thought just came to me as I was typing. It’s quite possible that I get bored easily because I have been conditioned to have everything happen in front of my eyes within ½ hour to an hour – depending on the program – and reading a book requires me to invest more of my time than my body/brain is used to? Makes sense, actually. My attention span has never been great. I am one of those people who likes to start projects and then never finishes them. I have these grandiose ideas… ideas that, I think, are really good and would be very well received by all… but I end up saying, “Meh… I’m bored with this.” Maybe it’s laziness, but I really think that it’s the lack of immediate satisfaction. The same type of immediate satisfaction that I could get from, say, an episode of The Office. I’m actually surprised that I haven’t given up on this blog yet… after all, it’s been four days. 

This is something I need to work on and I think going forward I am going to try to stick to things… finish what I start… see things through…

...right after I finish watching Gold Rush, Ancient Aliens, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

My friend came over and looked at the heating unit last night. He turned it on and it worked perfectly! Of course a half hour after he left, it started blowing cold again. Who knows what’s wrong with it?

It’s Friday. It rained last night and they are calling for showers today and tomorrow as well. The Packers play the Bears this weekend… if the Packers win they win the NFC North, so fingers crossed on that one. Oh, and the wife is starting to feel better.

“Last night, Darth Vader came down from Planet Vulcan and told me that if I didn't take Lorraine out, that he'd melt my brain.” – George McFly

I grew up watching Star Wars movies, but more importantly I grew up playing with Star Wars figures. I absolutely loved playing with them. I would set up scenes from the movies, change bad guys to good guys (and vice versa), make up new scenes… I would spend hours in the basement of my parent’s house creating and playing.

One year (I think I was seven years old) I got in trouble. I don’t know what I had, or hadn’t, done – but it was enough to warrant a punishment: all my Star Wars figures were taken away from me. My parents put them in a shoe box and hide them away. I was told that when I had proven that I could behave I would receive them back. 

When you are a child a day might as well be a week… and week might as well be a month… and so on. Those first few days without my figures seemed like an eternity. I somehow managed and believe me I was on my best behavior. But, as the punishment went on I started to do other things to pass my time. I wasn’t punished from playing with friends (and their toys)… I wasn’t punished from watching television, or riding my bike, or playing board games. My parents took away what, at the time, was the most important thing to me, but I learned to adapt and replace those Star Wars figures with other things. So much so that I forgot about them all together. 

Months passed and soon my eighth birthday came around. I received a lot of cool presents, I am sure. One present was about the size of a shoe box. I opened it slowly and saw the familiar Nike swoosh. I didn’t need a new pair of shoes… especially a men’s size 10 ½. I opened the lid to the box and there were all my Star Wars figures. I guess I had finally proved to them that I could behave. At least that’s one way to look at it…

What actually happened, I realized years later, was that not only had I forgotten about the Star Wars figures while I had been out discovering new things, but my parents had forgotten about them as well. They hid them away in the same closet that they stored the wrapping paper and what not so when my birthday came around they must have discovered them and said, “Oh shit! We forgot to give him these figures back!” I can just picture my mom and dad laughing about it and then deciding that they would just wrap up the box and make it another present for me – it would, after all, save them some money on gifts.

This, ultimately, led to me not really being interested in Star Wars figures anymore. The movies were no longer being made (although rumblings and rumors of Star Wars actually being a nine part saga ran rampant on the playground) and I had moved on to other interests. Star Wars toys were no longer being given to me as gifts for birthdays and Christmas, so when my mom told me to gather up some toys to give to Goodwill those were the first to go. I wasn’t sad about it as I wasn’t playing with them and thought, “If I get rid of these it makes room for toys that I actually want.” And just like that the Ewok Village, Millennium Falcon, and a vast arrays of action figures were out of my life.

Years passed and it was now the summer before my Junior year of high school. I was hanging out with some friends and we got to talking about Star Wars. I still loved the movies and was telling them about the toys I had when I was young. Just talking about it (and now writing about it) got me very nostalgic. Playing and creating with those figures were some of my best childhood memories. I decided then and there that I would reclaim my collection. I got my first job that summer and used nearly every dollar earned to go out and buy Star Wars stuff. I searched at antique malls, toy shops, flea markets… you name it… until I finally had more than what I had ever had when I was a child. Then, just as quickly as I started, I stopped. Much like when I was a child other interests took over. Other things became more important to me so I just packed up the Star Wars collection in a box and there it stays.

I have a five year old son now and he loves Star Wars. He spends countless hours in his room playing with his action figures and creating new and exciting adventures. I go in there and play with him as often as possible and it makes me feel like I did when I was his age. Because of this I recently decided to dust off the old figures and complete the collection I had started years ago. I’ll probably have to convince my wife to let me display it somehow in our home (this is what I had always intended when I was younger), but she’s pretty good natured about such things so it shouldn’t be too difficult to do. But the thing that I have realized from this is that Star Wars, to me, is not just a series of movies. It has literally been in my life since I was born and has been a part of me at every stage of my life: childhood, teen years, and now as an adult and parent. I am able to watch the movies with my son (and someday my daughter) and play with him just as I played when I was young. I can share with him my fondness for the “old school” collectibles as he collects the new stuff. And although I have changed over the course of my thirty-five years, Star Wars has always been there – ready to take me back when new interests fade away.

When the recent announcement came out about Disney purchasing Lucasfilm and working on new Star Wars movies I read that a lot of fans were disappointed and angered. I’m not. I can only imagine the happiness and joy that new Star Wars movies will bring to some young child in his/her years to come, and if it’s half as much as the happiness and joy it has brought to me then it’s well worth it.

The heater is still out and the wife is still sick. Hopefully at least one of the two can be fixed tonight… if it’s the latter then we can generate our own heat, if you know what I mean! Bow-chick-a-bow-wow!

"...[E]ven a bad cup of coffee is better than no coffee at all." - David Lynch

This is most definitely true.

I hadn't been a big coffee drinker until I met my wife. Before meeting her I would get an occasional mocha from the Starbucks at the bookstore in the mall, but that was rare. In my post-high school/pre-bar age days I would hang out at coffee shops (this was also in the mid-nineties when coffee shops were a dime a dozen) smoking cigarettes and trying to wax philosophical on subjects of great importance, such as "What cereal character's would win in a fight?" or "Could Superman lift Thor's hammer?" You know, really deep stuff. I drank coffee back then, but as I grew out of that phase of my life I also grew away from coffee.

I meet Christina at a local coffee shop. We had been "chatting" with one another online and via text message for a little while (a story for another time) but finally decided to meet at one of her favorite spots. I have been drinking coffee ever since. More so recently. I don't know what it is, but every morning I desire coffee. I'm not a coffee connoisseur. I don't know the difference in blends and beans and color and smell... but I know that I like coffee and I drink some every morning.

This morning I needed that cup of coffee more than ever. The compressor on our heating unit went out. Yes, we live in Arizona and having a heater is not that important for most of the year... but this time of year it drops down to less than 40° F (roughly 4° C) at night and inside our house it gets cold. Not to mention that Christina is sick with flu-like symptoms. So, I made sure that she and the baby (who will be 5 months old in a couple of days) were tucked in and comfortable in our bed... put and extra blanket on my son's bed and made sure he was nicely tucked in... and then I slept on the couch.

The idea of sleeping on the couch doesn't much bother me. In fact, I virtually grew up sleeping on a couch. When I would visit my dad on the weekends I slept on his couch. When I shared a studio apartment with a friend in Los Angeles I slept on the couch. When I had my own apartment I would very often sleep on my couch instead of my own bed. But I was much younger then and, although the idea of sleeping on the couch doesn't bother me (and I am happy to do it because my sick wife needs the rest), my body isn't as accommodating as it once was. My back is sore, my neck is tight, my legs ache... I'm definitely not the younger version of me who could sleep in such cramped positions and feel revitalized the next morning.

So, I got both children ready this morning; one for daycare and one for kindergarten. I kissed my wife good-bye, told her to get some rest and that I loved her, packed up the kids and headed out the door. On the way to drop my son off at school the baby fell asleep. I could hear her little moans and grunts from her car seat in the back as my son talked to me about Star Wars and which action figures he is hoping to get for Christmas. I listened, sipped at my coffee, and enjoyed every minute of the drive... as this is my favorite part of the day.

“Life moves pretty fast…”

Indeed it does, Ferris.

Well, a relationship with one of my oldest friends has all but died. It’s an odd feeling, losing a friend. Part of me longs for his friendship and wishes for the days of years past to return. Another part of me realizes that those years are behind us and as we grow older we also grow up… and grow apart. Lifestyles change, priorities shift, and interests alter. What’s important for him, no longer is for me. What interests me still, not so much for him. Like I said… an odd feeling.

I've seen friends come and go in the past. Maybe what makes this odd is that there was actually closure. Before I would just slowly stop hanging out with someone. Calls get returned less often… emails sent more sporadically… it’s all part of life. With this most recent friend the exchange went something like this (and I’m paraphrasing):

“Hey – I don’t really like how you’re living your life. It doesn’t mesh with my ideals.”

“Well, yours doesn’t mesh with my ideals.”

“I guess that’s that then, huh?”

“Guess so.”

“See ya.”

And that was indeed that. As strange as it sounds, it’s kind of freeing. I feel free to do my own thing… I feel like a new person. I’m not burning the book that was my life before, merely placing it on the shelf and starting a new book. The old one will always be there, collecting dust. Time to time I’m sure I’ll refer to it, and maybe even thumb through the pages once in a while, but that book is over and I got a whole library full of unread ones that I need to get to.

I also called my father-in-law a “loser with a little limp dick and no balls” recently, so that was fun. It feels good to tell people what you actually think of them. It might do everyone a little good to tell people their actual thoughts from time to time. Of course I am sure there are a lot of people (besides my aforementioned father-in-law) who would like to tell me a thing or two. Maybe I just be the honest one and everyone else keep putting on the charade.

All in all it’s been a productive week… and it’s only Tuesday. 

‘Tis the season to be merry.