On the topic of: Create your day, Brave hope, Birmingham and the matters of life: An essay.

Someone asked me a question today and it triggered this whole day long, roll through self inventory of who I am? I've come to a few conclusions after some serious contemplation, rest assured, I'm just as messy and interesting as I've always been but I feel like I'm starting to be the kind of person I totally want to be. No time like the present right? I mean for the longest it's been all about figuring out who that is, that's life right? We're all just trying to live and be who we are. The vast majority of people want to be someone they can and want to look at in the mirror. Growing up I feel like one of the messages in my family was to be better, we had to be. It's taken me thirty some odd years and a world turned upside down by history repeating itself in the most combustible of ways, for me to really grasp why that message was so important for me. In finally, fully, recognizing the meaning of that message and it's link to who I am. The message wasn't simply that you had to be better but that people would always kind of be looking, friend or foe, somebody cared what we did. Fear. Fear was ingrained in this message, and I have always tried and wanted to be fearless. So you can imagine what kind of struggle this can become for a kid who is oppositional defiant to begin with. 12 year old me didn't have a clue when to be fearless, to be brave or when to shut up and listen, watch and learn or shout at the top of my lungs with purpose. 30 something year old me, is still trying sometimes, more frequently than others and harder than I ever have before (2 bonus life points for you if you even picked up that super obscure aqua teen hunger force reference!),  to know the appropriate times for any of those options as well as a plethora of other additional life skills of varying degrees of importance. Most times it comes across as awkward. Sometimes I'm a big dumb scaredy cat about absolutely silly things and if I'm being honest I think that's just to distract me from the shit I'm really afraid of,  because then I'd have to acknowledge how silly I'm really being, and then I don't have to be fearless, if that makes any sense at all. It doesn't really need to make sense either way though, because it's bullshit. The world around us is kind of crumbling in a million different directions and I'm more hopeful and aware and afraid and excited but still moderately concerned than I've ever been. Yet still I'm trying to be fearless, I'm doing fearless the best way I know how and that's trying. That's growth and work and stumbling along the way, but for me being fearless and being better have the same motivations.
I'm no better than anyone else, I get foolish and human and act like I am sometimes, but I'm not any better than anyone else.The only person I really want to be better than is myself, yesterday, and the day before that and maybe a little extra better than whoever I was the last time I acted like an asshole like earlier today. When I bugged out at a security guard for one of my least favorite big dumb banks of america who advised me I couldn't park in their mostly empty parking lot for more than 10-15 minutes. That version of me was definitely a crazy person. She sucked. In that moment I was a tiny little human throwing my own tiny little tantrum and I truly hope in that moment the security, parking attendant, guy getting paid maybe 12 and hour by someone prevent their parking lot with plenty of spaces, I hope he laughed at my crazy ass behavior. That's what I want to do every time some one does something crazy in my presence. I want to laugh, because why not, if a spade is a spade why not call it a fucking spade? Imagine if that dude started laughing not at me right in front of  me, not a mean laugh just a gentle hey relax what's up kind of chuckle, I might of calmed down, I might have gone ahead and continued to be a big mean jerk. I don't know. What I do know is we don't get do overs. We just get a chance to learn from that moment and maybe if we are very fortunate not repeat that behavior. In other words be better. Grow. Learn some important shit. In that moment I was a jerk and this time it didn't take me weeks of feeling shitty and continuing to be shitty to realize I could be better. It took maybe 2 minutes. (Which I feel has got to be a personal best and I do totally believe that deserves a little horn toot of the persuasion my own.) Within 2 minutes I knew I was being an asshole for no real reason, I mean don't get me wrong that parking lot was empty and I did need more than 15 minutes and I wasn't trying to catch a train which rationally thinking about it has to be why this establishment was so territorial about their parking lot turf that they would pay a guy to sit and be and asshole really It is either super cheap (Probably) Or genius (also kind of) but rather than pay a tow company to be on retainer to tow cars, wich is likely more expensive and requires maybe a permit or two, these guys pay a guy, to sit all day and tell people they can't park there. Keeps their lot free. I mean I could dig deeper into that hypothesis but it's not a hundred percent relevant. Point is this dude I got all crazy aggravated towards had jack all to do with anything aside from doing his job which I'm certain he barely makes a liveable wage for. If I'd just been human and honest towards him and said hey I'm NOT going to be here more than an hour over your fifteen minute rule is there any way you could cut me some slack I have something really important I'm trying to do and If you can help me I'd really appreciate it. I believe that would have, could have changed that entire interaction. But because I didn't within 2 minutes I was able to laugh at myself and pin point where that interaction went wrong. Later In my day I would be reminded again how much I really have to learn. and then in that same conversation, how far I've come. Those are the conversations and Interactions I want more of, that was the conversation that triggered today's thoughts. Only my second very short interaction with this person and she is someone I believe, I could learn how to be a better human from.
You see that conversation happened exactly where and how it was supposed to happen and for the first time in 5 months and some days, but longer than that really, I'm remembering some of the most important things about me. I didn't learn them over night. I don't learn anything overnight. I have to practice and do and redo. Sometimes shit knocks you down and it takes time to get up but if you pay attention and learn from life, it gives you life and you can get up and do the right things for you, which also turns into doing the right things for others, because, well, happy people are just plain nicer. I had to have that 2 minute realization to put myself in check but also so that I could ease my nerves and realize that even if I mess up there is progress in that. That was exactly what I needed today, a reality check, a reminder of who I want to be. I'm hoping it helped. I'm hoping it was evident immediately after  in my oh so important that I acted a fool over my plans (before realizing I had a solid and workable back up plan), moment. I'm hoping eventually today is just a funny story I get to laugh at with this really interesting and seemingly, happy, functional, feel good magical human I got to meet for a sliver in my life so far. I'm hoping that because my gut says that's worth hoping for, my instinct is, I'm on to something that works for me if I can just learn how to harness it for the better.

There we are back to better. Fear tells me my gut could be wrong, but experience tells me it's worth a try and my heart tells me to just be kind and do the right thing, to and for myself and others as long as I can, the best ways I can. That and try harder to be brutally honest with myself as to why i'm doing what I'm doing at any given time. Is it who I want to be, Is it the best person I can be, am I acting like a snickers commercial, am I taking care of myself? That shits important. I feel it should be important to all of us.
I also feel we all get distracted from this on a daily basis, by life and its bells and whistles. Everyday in this world we are faced with choices and information. Every day we make a bad one or two and every day we can ask ourselves what it's about and learn from our mistakes and mis-steps and grow into a person we like, It's all a choice to learn or not to learn, to grow or not to grow, to open ourselves up to a better standard of living, together. To find out if we can, in fact, be better.

A little over 5 months ago someone who loved, lived, questioned and felt, fearlessly made a grand exit from this world, we all have our demons and while part of me believes we all make choices the other part of me is learning to accept there are things we all have trouble controlling and sometimes it's harder with certain things than with others. Life is more complex than all the questions could ever answer. After years of trying to figure out who I am, I am the composite of my best lessons, a work in progress and still seeking to find my most important parts. What I do know so far is that sometimes within our fears is where we find our strongest voice. I am black and I am white. I am fierce and strong and sincerely afraid of failure to be a better human being than I was yesterday.
I am also fully aware I am going to fail, in some way, somehow each day. It is my belief that being fearless is knowing there may be failure and trying anyways. We can ALL stand to be better. Being taught from birth that you HAD to be better, always be better, that's some shit that fucks with a persons head. Knowing WHY it's important, that, that is the difference between being the best version of you. It's what I like to think we're all on this big ole planet for, and if we're not trying to be better in the real and raw sense of just living good lives and being good to each other then what the fuck are we really doing.

Growing up we were taught we had to be better, because my parents fight could not be allowed to be our fight. They protected us with hard knowledge and cold truths, taught us how to think for ourselves, how to be resourceful and how to live through what they knew would be hard. I'm certain they never knew our lives would be anything like they were or are. I'm pretty sure they're proud of us, somewhat sure they're still scared for us and I have no idea if any of it's at the right things, but I know they did the best they could with the tools they had.

In the time leading up to the death of the more lucid of my grandmothers she told me many harsh truths about the world, some helped, some hurt but they all taught me a piece of who I wanted to be and opened the door to a path of understanding I may never have found without the pain of her deathbed honesty. She showed me her full deck of cards and she told me in those weeks and days and moments so precious at the end of her life, why it was so important that we, my brother my sister and I be better. She loved us, I believe that because I felt and saw that too in my time with her. She also believed we were a bit of an abomination. She feared for her offspring and she feared for us, and at the same time I believe she was afraid of us, Not really of us but of change and what it meant our lives would be like. You see we had been taught we had to be better for many reasons but growing up in a world like ours we are all so often taught, to fit in and early in my life it was made clear that we were different. Not by our family but by the world around us. My grandmother had lived her life afraid for others and she was good where she could be and she tried when she could to be better, sometimes for the right reasons sometimes not.

My own grandparents struggled to see my life as ever being happy, not because they knew me but because they knew the world I would be living in. We were mixed children. Black and White. We heard questions about who were were long before we knew anything about who we wanted to be. We learned the best way to fit in was to observe, learn, trust our gut instincts and if we still had questions to look it up. We were happy, made from love and cared for but we were a social experiment too and that meant we had to work. We had to turn out ok. I mean I'm flawed as fuck, but I think I'm turning out ok. Beyond anything else I feel our skin and what some consider our disadvantages have been our advantage. We knew we had to be better and we each in out own ways have grown into people who are trying regardless of how flawed we may be at any given moment, we had the advantage of learning early, with honesty and eventually with clarity why we had to be better humans.

I am the whitest black person I know, really though,I am just myself. The skin I'm in and the color of the skin I'm in stopped mattering to me a long, long time ago. In light of recent events in this country, I am forced to confront the cruel fact that while I may see myself as just a person trying every day to be the best me I can be. There will always be people in this world who see brown, before they see ME. That is why I have to think smarter, learn more, prepare more try harder and be better any time it is possible, because sometimes it won't be enough to be myself, sometimes I will only be what people see first and while I see a growing, living breathing opportunity for a better world, while I hope everyone can see that in my eyes, in the way I present myself, how I carry myself, in my words and when I speak. 33 years after my birth, some people in the world we all have to live in together, still see the color of a persons skin or sin before they truly observe all the things that make up a given situation. So I can't always be fearless, I cannot always be alright, But I CAN always try to be, progress. to learn from the best parts of the people who have helped me to see myself.

I am alive, and therefore able to keep trying. What I know so far is I can be happy if I just keep remembering what I learn along the way and putting it into action. Eventually, I'll do all I want to with my life, from finally finishing at least one of the letters I've started to write a friend to being completely confident with all of my decisions regarding just being myself. to maybe doing something that helps the world we live in progress to better than how I found it. For now though I just keep wondering how we change anything if we don't start with ourselves, if we aren't willing to be honest with ourselves and each other, to laugh at our mistakes, apologize when we should and stand up when maybe we shouldn't. I want to be told (in the kindest of ways) when I'm fucking up, honestly and with a chance to fix it, to compromise when it's right and question it when it' not. I want to learn and I think we all should. It's the most human thing and I fear we are losing that. I fear if no one stands up and says hey how did this work out last time we just keep repeating bad behavior, as individuals but also as a society. Which is why people should act on love and work their way up from there. On the off chance we fail, keep trying. Life is too short to give up. That we live only matters if we live to our fullest potention and we just aren't doing that if we stop looking. At ourselves and each other, with honesty and trusting past the obvious.

For a Slammy...

It's not everyday people come into your life and just fit, they click, they get you and understand or at least respect, how you love, live and grow. I've been fortunate in my life to meet enough of these kinds of people to know how truly great the world can be. We don't get a second chance in this life to make certain decisions about who we are going to be and at the same time it's my belief that if we work for them, we get all the chances, all the opportunities, we wake up every day with a chance to be better, do better and learn from the person we were days months years ago. The people who have helped me grow the most have no fucking clue how they've changed my life and shown me who I wanted to be. I think people have forgotten in ways we may not fully realize as a society, until it's too late, how important that can be for someone, gratitude, genuine love and appreciation for the exchange that is friendship and companionship with each other, fellow human beans(yea, I meant to type beans, like MAGICK!). The times we are living in give us this false sense of security in the way things are. A perception of how it should be, according to a whole lot of people who don't know shit about the life you've lived and the story your scars may or may not tell. A perception of who you should be aligning perfectly with the scale of miserable to happiest person on earth in just such a way that nobody's happier than anyone else because we're all miserable together. I don't feel secure in those ideas at all but I know they're out there. I know there are people pulling strings and pushing buttons because "It makes them feel better" or gets them where they want to go. I know that the world we live in is filled with people who will push you down just to get a better view. I also know that people are capable of so much more. Imagine a world where people truly strive to just be better. A world where there's always someone you can go to and talk to because they'll always make the time because they have it, because they're able, because they know time is something worth spending with a friend. In the words of a great man, that shit would be, Radical.

I try to live my life in a way where the people I love, know it.The people who help me to get through a day, a week, a year, a lifetime aren't forgotten in the movin and groovin of everyday life. Sometimes, I fail at this. Frequently, like anyone else I say to myself "I gotta call (Insert name of friend I haven't seen in forever but really miss at that moment cuz of some weird memory only they would appreciate....), then like a human who hates the impersonal nature of the interwebs I try to think of the best time to call that person where we might be able to actually have a conversation of substance. Then, inevitably, I fail. I get too busy. Too stressed. Too full of bullshit excuses and 3 weeks to three months later I still haven't called whoever it was, and by the time I get around to having time it's generally a few months later. Not because I actually didn't have the time, more because I simply didn't make the time. We don't always realize what's important, what we need to make time for and what can wait. As we evolve we gotta stop, take a minute and recognize that we are nothing if we forget those that build us up. It's some pretty profound yet fundamental shit.

 We are nothing if we forget those who build us up.

The world is full of people who help us become better versions of ourselves. Not all of them can be repaid their kindness. Not all of them need to know how deeply they've touched our lives. If you feel moved to tell some one, in whatever way you can, then fuck it, don't look back just tell them. Be it in actions or love or words. I feel like it's the ninth secret of the universe or some shit and we've all just been fucking it up for centuries, ponder it. Simmer on this shit, people, telling each other ya know, that they give a shit about each other! I know right!?! WOW!! What kind of crazy hippy idealistic bullshit am I selling here! Think about it though, it's super basic, like a pyramid scheme and shit. People are nice to each other, it spreads, they get confident about being nice to each other and branch out now being nice to strangers who then repeat the kindness and it continues to spread! Crazy. Utter nonsense. But it could happen. If we made time. to think about how little it really takes to change someones day, attitude, life.

Today Slammy would have been 31 years old. I met him through a friend I haven't spoken with in years, he walked in on movie night and we just chilled, he was funny and real and full of fucking energy. We quickly started hanging out, he told me his story and I told him some of mine and we were friends, it was automatic and simple. No bullshit. We told each other what we thought, laughed, talked about all sorts of crazy shit. He showed me some of my favorite places in the state of Connecticut, some of the most breathtaking and beautiful views I have seen yet in my short little life. He was an explorer, an adventurer a liver of life and one of those friends you could talk to for hours about nothing or everything. He was a friend. A friend who helped me survive living below the poverty level, while unemployed and finishing an associates degree that I knew would get me a job still doing nothing I liked. He encouraged my writing helped me with algebra and showed me how to find the laughter at a time when everything was so ridiculously serious and intense and ultimately painful. He used to walk into my apartment on a Friday or Saturday night after clubbing or partying or whatever crazy shit he'd gotten into and at the time I could easily be found on either evening, watching Reba, in my house sweater, on the couch like a finely tuned 90 year old woman. Sometimes it would be just him, sometimes he'd have guests and we would mute Reba so he could tell me about the night he'd had or just hang out and be ridiculous, He'd then come back the next day and drag me out to go hiking or have a beer if either of us had the dolla dolla bills. (It was more likely hiking at the time.) He got me out of the house and out of my head, taught me more than I will ever remember about how shit grows in this world. I called him my biologist, he loved that shit, plants and nature. He loved, nature and his friends, his family, his siblings he loved a good story and a good time but mostly he loved people. He loved so damned hard, like with his whole heart and shit.

A few days ago Slammy, lost his life, I lost a friend. A mother, lost her son. Siblings lost their brother and the world lost someone who could have changed it. A biologist, A spirit, a lost soul who still had a chance. Until he didn't.

Everyday until you die you make choices. Choices that effect you and those around you, and everyday you live with those choices. Meaning every fucking day of your life you have the opportunity to choose better, for yourself. The only person who can make those choices for you is you. If it makes the majority of people around you hurt maybe it's a choice you should re-examine. If it will ultimately make your life a more positive one, fuckin go for it, fuckem if they can't see that, but if you happen to be spiraling into the abyss of whatever bullshit you're selling yourself and the world around you, maybe take a moment and check yourself. Life is just too short. If you completely stop asking yourself "Hey are these good decisions?", if you stop making time for a friend in need before a needy friend. If you stop recognizing the good in people or reaching out for those who truly love you, If you forget who you are, find a friend. One of those real ones and ask for a little help getting by, because a true friend will build you back up and help you however they can as long as you keep it real, whether they've known you 6 months, a year, or a lifetime.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but I'd like to think everyone has at least one true friend they can call when the going gets tough. Perhaps I'm a hypocrite or maybe I've just been here before but I don't have it in me to watch people I love dive head first into oblivion. I've learned the hard way to step back, I'll be around if you need me but I won't watch anyone spiral out. After spending many years being someone I didn't like, I began the swim out of my own shit and despite each of our struggles being so completely different, Slammy was there. Building me up. Sometimes because he saw that I was a hot mess and other times he had no idea, but he helped me grow into a better person and for that I will forever be in debt to him. Of course this means in his passing I find myself feeling all the feels of regret. I find myself sad over all the things you're sad about when some one leaves this world way too soon and frustrated with myself because I didn't call more, I didn't make time. Thought about that twinkle eyed motha truckin fool at least once a week but sold myself the lie that there would be more time later. I'm currently fighting my guilt with the idea that the phone goes both fucking ways and my number hasn't changed in almost 15 years now. Doesn't make it right or easier but it helps me keep perspective. At the end of the day if you need a friend, find one, if you are a friend, be one, because you never know when it might make all the difference. I think if everyone did this, if everyone just lived this, people would know they could and a whole lot of shit might be a whole lot better.  I really and truly believe we can all be better. Ain't that some shit...

Dear Slammy,
Wherever you are, it's coasters for you when we meet again. Coasters mothafucker. It's the fourth fuckin commandment and ya broke that shit so, Coasters. In the mean time, If there is an afterlife I'm sure my people have found you by now tell em Large Marge sent ya...
Love, peace and chicken grease, Slammy

Two boats, thee uh helicopter, and oh hey thee uh toilet papers gone : A Redux

I will preface this re-post with some basics for you folks, tonight at approximately 9:15 p.m. myself and those fellow fightclubbers I've grown so fond of, learned via various news outlets that our employer, sold our company, our jobs, our futures, our years of service to the tune of 17.7 BILLION. This comes after years of being told this wouldn't happen and a few recent months of reasonable speculation and some public fishing by thee uh guy in charge. In the years since joining this particular fightclub the threat and rumor of the company being sold has come to be a yearly exercise in fear based management. Tonight (Lastnight, if you happen to have slept), the yearly fire drill turned into an actual fire.
What does it mean? It means each and every employee has been lied to by omission. Some guy at whichever news outlet broke the story first, knew before us, our bosses, or their bosses, even had a clue.
It means this organizing drive is about to kick into high gear. The only employees with any security are those who are UNIONIZED! Here's lookin at you Brooklyn! Really though, what thee uh fuck does it mean for the rest of us?

It means get loud, get public get down with the facts and know your rights while you still have the rare opportunity to save your job! Right now there are workers in Brooklyn sleeping while the rest of us prepare for the worst. It doesn't have to end on the unemployment line, though it may, if we don't stand together, help each other with the life jackets and get in the boat! Let there be no mistake about it, the boat is big enough for all of us if we are simply willing to do the work! Together, as a Unit, by simply saying YES to a unionized work place we provide ourselves with a chance that based on what I've read will not likely remain once this sale is complete. A chance at securing our jobs much like our Brooklyn Brothers and Sisters have already done.

When things get crazy or when one of her kids has one of those "Duh!" moments my mother will look at us, laugh and say, "Two boats and a helicopter!". This is my take on this epic parable, by whatever name you call your higher power, whether or not you believe in one, or twenty, or none, please take from this what is important and relevant and true for you and also forgive me my swearing but for real I was a trucker once...

A man is on a roof after a bad storm because his city had flooded, he's praying for God (or as I call him Jeebus), to save him, and a boat comes by. The people in the boat say "Hey, Guy, jump down get in, lets go!" The man say's, "No, it's cool you don't have much room in there, I'll be ok, save some women and children and such, Jeebus will save me!" The folks in the boat argue a bit but eventually say ok and move on. The water is still rising and the man is still prayin on the roof when the next boat comes by. They have a few seats and the waters so high he can walk right in off the roof. Once again the people in the boat invite him in and once more the man says "No, Jeebus will save me!", and the boat floats on. Now it's getting dark and the man is clinging close to the chimney as the waters continue to rise, he hears a loud noise coming closer and then out of the sky, directly above him comes a bright light, its a bird, its a plane, JEEBUS HIMSELF? Nope, a helicopter, from which a rope ladder drops and a man on a microphone yells, "Hey, Hey you there, on the chimney, in the red suit, with the white trim, grab the ladder,you'll drown down there! GET TO THE CHOPPA, IT'S THE ONLY WAY OOOOOUUUUT!" The man clings tighter to the chimney shaking his head no and deliriously yelling something about some guy by the name Jeebus coming to pick him up with some other guy named Rudolph. Finally the copter has to go, and they do. Leaving the poor waterlogged man who thinks he's Santa, to drown on the chimney.
The man gets to heaven after some screaming and flailing and demands to see God. God says to herself, and all the Angels, ~Well, this, I have got to hear, send this dude in. She nudges the Angel to her right and says watch this, and turns herself into Samuel L. Jackson, cuz come on, what's not funny about that! The man looks at her and says, "God, Jeebus, I knew you were black! Seriously though? What the funk? Why have you forsaken me? Why did you let me drown out there?!!!?" With this, God stands, laughing, she holds his face in her hands and says, as only Samuel L. Jackson could, "MOTHAFUCKA, I sent you TWO  BOATS and a mothafuckin HELICOPTER, If you think I was gettin in that water myself, you were sadly mistaken. I don't SWIM, HA!" She laughs and the angels laugh and she hugs the man and they all laugh and eat cake and that's that.

 If at any point the man had thought outside the box of his expectation, he might not have drowned. Life  changes every day. We make decisions based on expectations, based on fear or lies or both, lies other people tell us, lies we tell ourselves. That man told himself God would save him, to the point he actually believed the sky would open and God would carry him to dry ground. Instead he got a prankster in the sky. It wasn't what he expected. The boats, the helicopter he didn't accept those and he didn't expect to see the pearly gates or Mr. Jackson that day, but it happened. If he'd had the chance for a do over, I bet the man would have hopped right in the first boat, said thanks, and been livin high off the insurance money to a ripe old age. But life is short, we don't always get second chances and sometimes you have to fight your fears through to safety even if the boat is fueled on hope alone, boats float in rising waters, fear doesn't, a teen aged lifeguard can tell you that.

When your employer sells your company, your family, your security, your future, the boat IS a Union and that Union is the CWA.

"The Labor Movement was the principle force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Lighthouses, Guilds and Unions.

When I was a kid my mother and Grammi took us to see the lighthouse in our town. It was some kind of big deal. We waited in line for what seemed like an eternity, finally made it to the top and were then advised, that we would not, could not, go outside. To which a child me, expressed my rage and disappointment to what I imagine was a member of the U.S. Coast guard, " DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I WALKED UP ALL THESE STAIRS AND I DON"T GET TO GO OUTSIDE?!?", so naturally, they let us outside. Last Saturday that Lighthouse was open for the first time in awhile. I missed it though and it's cool I had other things going on.

Back in April I made a life changing trip to church, no I didn't find Jeebus. I did, make a life long friend. Whatever happens over the next 30 or so years before the worms eat me, The person I met with, that sunny April Sunday, will forever hold a place dear to my heart. In a brief conversation I attempted to explain (with what little I knew then) how important it was to organize, to recognize our value, stand up and do the work to make 40 hours a week a little less intimidating and a lot more enjoyable, satisfying even. In what little time we had to discuss organizing I did my very best to stress to this person that it would not be easy but it would be worth it. 

Every day these last few weeks I have had to remind myself of that. On a personal level I miss the beach, my friends, my Harley (Aka Merle, whom I have finally ridden, but not nearly enough!), running around with my army of nieces and nephews and all the things that make summers better than winters. On a professional level, I have a job, so that's cool.This week, for the first time in five years I went to work early. with a smile on. Because hope. 

Hope in my personal life, that's been easy. I made changes, tried new things, figured out what worked and what didn't, cleaned out the negatives and practiced living the positives. In my professional life,it's a daily struggle. Then came hope, in the form of a union. It came crashing in like all the best adventures in life do. At the worst possible time. I made a decision to make myself available, to try and find answers to do whatever I could to help the people who have helped me survive my employment situation, my fear, my anxiety, my last hopeless place. I don't sleep as much as I should, For the last month I've had my face in my phone more than I ever wanted to texting, talking, emailing, like a jerk. A jerk on a mission though. My mission: Not lose my income. This eventually turned into: Not go down without a fight. That eventually turned into: Inspire others to not go down without a fight. The natural evolution of this, is clearly, save the world. 

I don't want anyone to walk into the place they make their living and wonder if the rules changed overnight, or if today is the day they lose that living for essentially being human. I don't want to watch people be treated badly by anyone. I know that seems pretty simplistic, I know it's childlike even, but it's true. I don't want to stand by with a fire hose and all the water and just watch the world burn. That ain't me. I want to put the fire out. I want to see the world rebuild stronger, kinder, realer. I want to see the world we live in and the people in it, live better, treat each other better, be better. Yes, I do believe we can all be better from CEO's to landscapers, Politicians, Policeman, Teachers to Carpenters, Nurses, Housekeepers, we can all be, live, experience better, both at home and at work.  All it takes is people, recognizing people, respecting each other, Listening to each other and looking out for each other on just the most basic of human levels.

Call it community. Call it tribal. Call it a guild, call it a union. Call it whatever the fuck you want but, "Never under estimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world, In truth it is the only thing that ever has!" ~ Margaret Mead said that shit long before I was even born. It's just as true, and real, and important today as the day she first thought to say it. Why aren't more of us living by this? Where are all the children inside us who wanted to change the world with whatever magical thought we believed would do just that. 

To my professional family, my work family, my brothers and sisters in the struggle to simply be heard, Thank you for getting me through my work week these past few years, months, weeks, days, Are you ready to fight though? Really. Are you done feeling hopeless? Because I didn't walk up all those stairs not to go outside, and I certainly didn't risk goin up in flames that day I walked into church to come this far and give up now. I fear spending this whole summer walking up those stairs of hope only to be told I can't go outside, but I don't fear my employer because I know there is power in facts and numbers. Who benefits from a Union? Employees. Who doesn't? People who don't have one. Who benefits from fear? Employers. Bullies. Dictators and occasionally 6 year old children in lighthouses.

The room with a view.

Someone said to me yesterday "Hey I heard you're a writer." I laughed because he followed it up with this bit about how I should write a sitcom and I thought ~ Yea, I don't really want to. I smiled and was polite - for me - then he explained how it was better with a visual expression of the things he thought I want to write about. I thought ~ What the fuck is the point then?!!! Will good sitcoms suddenly be more meaningful than Shakespeare?, what I said was nothing I smiled politely and moved on with my day. I came back to that conversation before writing this and thinking about how I haven't written on here lately because I'm doing other stuff, living other lives. I haven't stopped writing though. I write more regularly than I have in a very long time. It's a whole different writing experience to take your adventures and the characters you've met and try to find a balance between the actual factual people and the exaggerated  hilarity, humanity and humility of their stories colliding. I make that shit sound either fancy as fuck or downright pretentious. The real of it is though I have no clue what i'm doing, no idea if what I'm doing is worth anyone reading or worth trying to do. It could quite possibly all be utter nonsense. I could fail. I fuckin hate failing. I loathe the feeling of failing at anything, even things I don't particularly give a shit about. That said imagine how bad I'm going to feel if I never reach the goals I have regarding my writing.
Now, replace my writing with anything in the world. Any dream or hope you may have ventured to have any person you thought you would be when you were a kid. Think about it, simmer on it, are you doing it? Are you living the life you wanted? Are you the person you wanted to be? Are you miserable or happy? What do you want for yourself? Who the fuck are you? Are you movin and perhaps more importantly are you groovin?

 Suddenly the fact that I keep writing down fractals of ideas and beginning stories without finishing others as I go, doesn't seem so bad, because, well, what the fuck else am I working for if not to be a better human, a better me and so, a better writer. What is life, if not to some extent, a lesson in learning when to walk away and knowing if and when to go back. Bam! Instant inspiration. I want to be the type of person who is always writing something. I hope eventually something I write makes a difference somehow to someone else but also I want to be able to take care of myself. By which I mean get money. I want to write about Fuckin Bitches and Get Money for it so the way I see it I will...as soon as I stop being afraid and just do the shit.

 I have been in this intense growth spurt of awareness to who I am and mostly I think I am becoming a pretty fuckin awesome human being but I know my deepest failures and I know I can be a far better one. I think all too often we allow it to be all too easy. We say, Fuck it. this is where I am so this is who I am. We allow our fears to swallow our hopes and dreams and aspirations of being who we wanted to be before we became who we are. I could have been a million far shittier versions of myself if I had just accepted who I was at any of my past moments of doubt. I've slowly learned to give myself a healthier insulation of people who are both supportive and understanding of who I am. People who respect where I've been and can see where I'm going, who get me and love me even if they don't really know me. I relapse on that from time to time but more so lately I feel like I'm getting the hang of this living thing. I'm progressively happier as I recognize and address my flaws and failures. I am living to be someone I respect. It feels pretty good mostly.
We shouldn't be afraid of failures, of messes and mistakes. I don't want to be. That's not to say I'm not, but, the heart of it is, we shouldn't be afraid. If we are going to be, then we should pick better things to be afraid of. I am afraid of failure, it scares me more than anything in the world, but I am also afraid of not living the big beautiful adventure filled life I have been planning since I could think of cool shit to be when I grew up. I'm afraid all of the people I love not knowing how much I appreciate them even if I can't surround myself with them or immerse myself in their lives. I am afraid of missing really good sunsets and lives lost way too soon. I'm afraid of a world where no one is who they want to be and I'm afraid of dinosaurs making a comeback due to grossly negligent scientists...among other things.
You see? There's way better things to be afraid of than being a shitty writer and even those aren't worth the cost. Yes, there is a cost, there are casualties of fear, hope, dreams, adventures, love. All things that get lost when you choose to be afraid rather than keep it movin and groovin. More than that I dare say we ourselves get lost when we let fear tell us who we can or cannot be. When I die I want some one to get up and say "That bitch lived. She was one fun, fearless, fucking bitch of a cunt." I want to be remembered someday for doing the shit I said I would and even if I failed, at least I'll have done it. Not tried. Actually, done it. That. That's the shit right there. That is what living is to me among countless other equally important things. Life is an adventure and the way I imagine it adventurers need fear only to keep them moving. I'm an aspiring adventurer, writer, human. I never want to stop collecting characters and stories and moments. I want many things for my life but mostly I want to keep movin and grovin until I can't anymore.

Dangled carrots don't play guitars...

Sometimes I wonder if anyone sees half the shit I see in the world. I've been extremely fortunate to have many chances in this life to change my trajectory. To figure shit out. I will never have it all figured out, Never will there come a day where I know it all. I don't know shit really, not a goddamned thing. I know how I've lived, I know it hasn't always been roses. I know where I've been and I like to think I recognize something of that in the people I choose to surround myself with. Life isn't easy for anyone. Anyone who tells you their life is easy, is a goddamned liar. Someone who tells you their life is getting easier, that's someone to believe in, that's someone to stand with. The world we live in doesn't give us anything. we earn it, with battle scars and wounds that don't ever quite heal. Over the course of my life I have (Not always on purpose) made it my mission to keep a hard head soft butt mentality. I never learned to stop hoping, wanting and looking to the best in people, in myself. I lost myself in many ways and for a long time lost hope in all of the things I wanted for the world and myself. I still had hopes but they were pretty useless hopes, the hopes of an angry fuckin midget. The type of shit you hope for when you're not a total piece of shit just a little - broken.
For many different reasons my life got stalled for a while in a fairly broken and fucked up place. Occasionally, things would get better and inevitably something would come crashing down and I'd let myself be a sloppy mess of a person again. I still have lapses of judgement, I still fuck my own shit up from time to time, but somewhere along the way I've remembered how to hope for the right things again. It's not about expecting things to go the way I want them to, it's about hoping for the best even while preparing for the life parts.

Life will kick your ass if you let it. Sometimes we let it, we put our faces down, bend over and let it kick us with a big dirty boot and we say "Thank you". Those times can be for some people, more frequent than others. People cry about this or pray or scream from the rooftops, others silently move on with their shit. No two people ever feel the boot in the same way and while there are groups of people who may respond to this the same way, you never know why any one person is really responding to something with one emotion or another. It's endless possibilities of causes all relevant to only one person in truth. I believe in people and hope and myself after an excruciatingly long hiatus, but I am no where near done yet. I was a very angry person once for like over a decade, but the fact of the matter is I'm still kinda angry sometimes. I just like to think I handle it better more frequently than less these days.

I played Rockem Sockem Robots the other night with an extremely worthy adversary, we snorted like piggies and made a ridiculous amount of noise and we laughed more joyfully than anyone ever really truly laughs anymore, you know with bills and kids, wives, husbands, jobs, bosses, mortgages, who really laughs at the silly shit often anymore? I'm not talking the, that was funny laugh, but the deep amazing carefree laugh of life being simple. No past, no future just here, now and enjoying it. I strive to be more in that moment as I figure my shit out. It's getting simpler, once in a while to just be. To enjoy the really amazing parts of life that I might have missed out on if I'd taken the short road instead of the long one (or in some cases the extra long one with the circle rounds every ten miles or so).

 From time to time I've been known to make bad decisions as a rule, that's another thing I've really - no really, I'm totally serious, REALLY been working on. I'd like to think I've made some minor progress on that over the last few years, but change don't happen over night and a lifetime of crappy decisions doesn't suddenly get wiped clean with intentions to make better ones in the future. People have a way of either bringing you down or lifting you up but at the end of the day you decide which people can do what in your life. I can do a lot of things but refuse to keep believing people have to make each other feel shitty to feel good. I won't say I never want anybody to feel shitty, there are zillions of people I think should be thrown into a pit of lions, some for barely any reason at all, but at the end of the day even the shittiest people in my life get multiple chances before I cut them loose. I'm not talking the friends you fade out with but the ones who stay in your life but just keep bringing you down. I try to believe that they just need someone to believe in them, to hope for them while they figure out how to be - better. In some people I see little slivers of who they are capable of being and like a sucker, I give-em, Just. One. More. I have friends who get upset when other friends don't like them but the truth of it is, I don't really give a shit because I like them. Until I don't. To end up on my shit list for real, as in no coming back ever, you have to be a repeat offender and you pretty much have to cut me so deep I actually feel it. That shit ain't exactly easy, For either of us.

Why isn't it easy? What am I rambling about? What the fuck does one have to do with the other? When is this post going to finally be done?
Soon. A lot for me. I'm getting there and because to be in my life and kill my hope these days you have to be basically fucking my corpse.
 I mean my hope and joy and fierce gratefulness at the life I currently have isn't impossible to kick down a set of stairs and bruise pretty badly, but I'll still get the fuck up. I am much more agile then I look. I've lived a life not a bad one at all really, a pretty damned good one so far, but it's not been without some painful lessons. I've lost irreplaceable pieces of my life by being angry, by not enjoying the people around me and by forgetting who and what matters. I matter. The people I love matter and the people who love me matter. The rest of the world can all fall in line after those three in no particular order. People make a difference in your life to the degree you let them. I choose the survivors of real life, I choose, to hope we can all come out better than we imagined, to believe that where you've been makes you who you are, but you can always be more. Always grow and always find a way to be KINDER, if for some reason we are too weak in a moment to simply be kind. Be it to ourselves or to others.

I believe that life really could be as simple and silly and fun as Rockem Sockem Robots. It's some pretty basic shit, but what makes it fun is who you're playing with. No sore losers, no cheaters or overly boastful winners ever walk away happy from shit like that. The same goes for life, so why NOT enjoy it? Why not surround yourself with people who walk away generally happy no matter what happens. People who are hopeful despite their knowledge of real life, people who handle sadness and pain with a little humor and people who accept that sometimes you might be the weird hat girl or smiley, or an avid lover of unicorns, an Aunty, or a friend and other times you may be the angry midget, but you're evolving and it's good. Why not surround yourself with people who want you to be better because the world is full of people who want you to fail for one reason or another. Why waste love on people who don't see the slivers of potential, in people, in life. Why would you do that? Why does anyone do that? Not all of the people in my life see my life the way I do. Not a single person I choose to keep in my life would pull me down to get ahead of me. If they would, I'd like to say fuck em but really I'd still, like a true sucker, hope they'd figure it out, but not on my time. I'm too busy plotting spectacular dinner parties, having adventures, watching sunrises, laughing at knock knock jokes and remembering who I wanted to be when I grew up to let the things that hurt me define me or put me out. Nothing in life is easy but sometimes you've just got to find the fun, the hope, the happy shit, hold onto it and believe that the people and things that matter will eventually catch up. Even if they won't.

My pussy must have ate it...

Its strange the things we think of when our world begins to change, when we start out to change. The people around us do, or don't and life moves forward, we move forward, or we don't. It's strange. Life. It always ends the same way. We eventually, inevitably die. What people remember of us is how we lived and what they know of how we lived. These things are important. These things make a lasting difference in not only our lives but others too. Life and death have lessons. Lessons no one can teach you in school, things people can't buy with all the money in the world. Life is hard and downright dreary at times, but we live for the good moments. If we are really fortunate we have a person or two that teaches us not to take it too seriously. I have a habit of viewing things in a very black and white manner. It doesn't always serve me well, but i'm consistent about it, so is life. We live we die and the rest is truly details, details we have trillions of opportunities to rise or fail in. Surviving is tough but there are people in every life, every group, who truly live. Who enjoy the adventures and roller coasters that life presents. That's the kind of person I'm striving to be even in my bitchiest moments. That's a large part of who I want to be and who I am.

Eight days ago I left the gym after work, went home, took a shower and drove 30 minutes to go see a shell. I say shell because that was all that remained of the funny, bright, lighthearted and raunchy as fuck, woman I remember. I had resisted going to see her these last few months because I didn't want to remember her as the scared, lost person that old age and Alzheimer's had left. It wasn't until speaking to a really good friend and even then mulling it over that I managed to get over myself long enough to drive up there and see her. On the ride up I thought about what I wished I could ask her. What I wished I could ask all of the dead people in my life. Who did you want to be? Did you get to be her? Once I got there all I could do was just repeat in my head what my friend had said to me "You don't have to remember her like this", She was peaceful, but she wasn't the same woman who had thrown me in the pool, or tortured us with cicada shells on her finger. The crazy fun one who rode the roller coasters, told dirty jokes (even to children) and laughed like laughter was life itself, She was already gone. There was her body, there was breathing but she was long gone. I saw my grandfather be, human and real, my mother, a bit extra crazy with grief and a whole lot of weird, But I didn't see any of the light that was my Grammy. I made the right choice in going up there when I did and I'm glad I got to see my grandfather in that light and some day, I'm sure it will be appropriate to laugh a little about how my mother Sister Gloria'd me with pictures of New Orleans and asked me if I wanted some of my Grammy's hair, (because vikings or some shit like that.) Shortly after I left, so did my Grammy and I have no regrets thanks to one really smart and underpaid guy up north (someone must be paying some of these friends for them to stick around this long.), but I'll never know the answer to my question. Did she get to be who she wanted to be? Did she live the life she had hoped for?

Of all the people over the last ten years who have dropped out of this life and moved on to whatever comes next. I think maybe she's the only one who might have actually done that. It's kind of amazing that anyone could and even a little ridiculous when I think of all the shit I don't know about her or most of my family really, but I think she did. I think she lived through the bad shit, through hard times and sad ones and somehow she had fun whenever and wherever she could, I think that bitch really, fuckin, lived. If that's not what life is about then we're just not doing it right. Water Skiing, Sky diving, speeding over a bump in the road, throwing kids in a pool, dressing up as Miss Piggy for your birthday, getting a tattoo at 60 something, making faces, setting lobsters loose, letting us peel her sunburn and do her hair, sitting on the beach, having fun. That was Grammy. That was one fun Broad.

People will come and go from our lives for many different reasons, but the shit they teach us, the shit that molds us and provokes us to move forward, good or bad, these are the seeds they leave behind. You can grow stuff and make a life, You can let fear stop you, or you can jump right the fuck in and go. I don't remember learning how to swim but I know we didn't take one of those baby survival classes, I imagine my Grammy, (but possibly my mother,) tossed me in the pool, laughing. and obviously we didn't drown. Appalling as that may be to some, it was one of the best lessons she could have taught me, that and never smell a cupcake... There are all kinds of people and all kinds of ways to live, some are shitty, some are good and some are just plain fun. I hope that when I go ~ like a rockstar ~ I hope that I can be remembered as the fun one... My give a damn about anything or anyone that's not fun or enjoying their life is kinda like the mouse my Grammy used to tell us about, but could never find when she tried to show us. She'd ask us if we'd seen her mouse, she'd look for it on her leg and then when she couldn't find it she would look up and tell us her pussy must have ate it! Take from that what you will but it was years before I got it and once I did it was even funnier that this raunchy grandma would tell it to a bunch of kids, not giving a shit that we didn't get it cause some day we would and either way it was funny to her. That is how I will remember my Grammy.

~ Goodnight Irene.