I remember two pets from my childhood.  My family had pets probably before and definitely after, but I never really thought of them as my pets.  I only had two pets, both of them dogs, both of them, at least in my memory, looking quite similar to each other.  From what I remember, I had them at different times.  Their names were Mikey and Mickey, and I cannot for the life of me remember which one was which.  In my mind, they’re the one that ran away and the one that got ran over by a school bus in front of me.  That was when I around eight or nine, and as far as me and pets went there was nothing doing in my teens and twenties.

Saying no to pets is pretty easy when you’re a single Senior Airman in the Air Force, living in a small apartment with your daughter.  We didn’t get a pet until we moved to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, at which point we essentially got two.  We got Strickland, who soon unfortunately we had to put to sleep because of feline leukemia.  And we agreed to watch Jaden, my friend Martha’s cat, while Martha was deployed.  Martha came back and we had suffered through Strickland’s loss and Martha also saw how attached Robyn and I were to Jaden, and long story short, we had a cat.

Jaden wasn’t like other pets I knew.  She wasn’t like other cats I knew.  In fact, I think Jaden was what I would have been if I was a cat.  People say sometimes owners and pets look like each other; Jaden and I sometimes acted like each other.  She didn’t put up with bullshit easily, even as a kitten.  Give her a string or a laser light, and she would give it a few bats, but eventually she would look at you, as if to say, “you know, I’m not going to dance for you.”

She also didn’t suffer fools easily.  Everyone who came into contact with her, including other animals, had to earn it from her.  She didn’t seek out fights (at least not in my presence; others might tell you differently), but when her zone got intruded on, whoever was the intruder, whether it be Strickland, Eponine, Beetle or Oy, got the famous Jaden paw.  She wasn’t antagonistic; she just didn’t trust easily.  But when you earned her trust, you earned it.  Strickland did.  Beetle did (we would sometimes joke the two of them were an old lesbian couple, often lying together wherever the sun shined in the room and grooming each other).  I did.

Jaden was my cat.  Martha might have given her to us with the intention that she would belong to Robyn.  But she was mine.  It just was the way it was.  She wasn’t the attention whore other cats are, although she became more friendly as time went by.  She would come up to me and present herself as if to say, you can pet me if you want; if you don’t, whatever.  And she slept with me.  Countless nights I would wake up to the little gray ball of fur lying on my chest, her face against my face.


Jaden was a cautious adventurer.  I can’t tell you how many times she’s taken the opportunity to run out the door if you let her--only to stop at the edge of the sidewalk, as if to say, okay, I did that, what now?  One time during another horrible dust storm in Altus the back door came open, allowing her out.  I went outside to find her standing under my bedroom window, waiting to be let back in. 

In recent years Jaden became...well, I won’t say friendlier, but more open.  When people came over and sat down on the couch, Jaden would jump up  and put herself across their legs, waiting to be petted.  Maybe I’ve become more friendlier as I’ve gotten older, and she is just following suit because of our symbiotic E.T./Elliot  relationship.  I haven’t figured out which one I was.


I got Jaden in 2001.  In the last month or so I noticed that she had been losing weight.  I noticed it, but didn’t necessarily take any special note of it.  After all, Beetle was roughly the size of, well, a Volkswagen Beetle, and we had recently gotten a new cat, Oy, who liked to eat and who also liked to “play” with the other cats as they attempted to eat.  So I could see Jaden losing weight.

Things happened very quickly over the last week or so.  I realize now, but didn’t make any special emphasis on it, that she wasn’t running around the house a lot, not getting away from Oy or chasing him down for annoying her, not jumping into my bed to sleep with me (that I could blame on Oy, too, since he seemed to take a deliberate pleasure in “playing” with me around three in the morning).  Then I noticed her eyes appeared to be watering.  Two things I saw last Friday were what showed me there was something terribly wrong.  First of all, when Oy jumped on her and wrestled with her, Jaden just lie there and took it.  She didn’t give him the paw.  She didn’t chase him off.  She just endured.  The second was she attempted to jump on the couch to be with me...and she didn’t make it.  She just fell back.  I looked at stuff online.  I told myself it was something simple, something that could be fixed with a pill or a shot.  I was going to go to the vet on Monday, and she was going to be all right.

I came home that Saturday and she attempted to get on the couch again.  I helped her this time, and she lay on my chest, softly purring, barely moving. 

I took her to to vet Monday.  I put her in the car.  Jaden in the car was quite a sight to see, usually.  She would pant like a dog, and usually get up on the dash or up on her paws to look out the window (I hated putting her in a cage).  This time she just rested on the seat and then flopped on to the floor.  She didn’t jump down to it; she just flopped.

The miracle pill/shot never came.  Within seconds of holding her, the vet told me, “we’re in trouble.”  I knew it.  He told me her organs were failing, pointing out the way her bones stuck out, the jaundice on her ears and eyes.  He could, he said, do a lot of test and have her there for about a week, going through surgeries, and all he could give me was about a five percent chance she would live another six months. 

I didn’t cry much in the vet’s office, but enough so that this grizzled old veterinarian with hearing loss and fingernails like sheets of fogged glass offered me tissues.  I signed the papers, allowing them to put her to sleep.  I could have taken her home and buried her here, but I thought about all the dogs around here and how I would feel if they dug her up...so I let her be cremated.


Robyn cried when I had to tell her Strickland would have to be put to sleep.  I didn’t.  I liked Strickland, but he just wasn’t my pet.  When I called Robyn to tell her, we both cried.  I cried more in that conversation with Robyn than I did in the weeks following when I found out my father had died.  Nothing against my father.  Jaden had just been a bigger part of my life.  I lost a friend.

Rest in peace, Jaden.  You were the best pet I could ever hope to have.  Beetle and Oy are here, and I hope that Tatiana will look at them the same way I looked at you.  But I never will.  They’re just not you.

I was originally going to write 61 of these, one for each year of my father’s life, but I started to find it more difficult to write, especially given the parameters I gave myself.  So here are the ones I wrote on Facebook, plus a few additional ones.

Heart Truth #25: Anne and Beth, with all due respect to my other aunts, you have always been the ones I have been closest to. Unfortunately, time and distance have made it more difficult to communicate as much as we used to, although I hope to change that. I miss seeing the two of you in South Carolina. I hope one of these years I'm able to go back again. I love you.

Heart Truth #26: Kim, I'm pretty sure everybody has those people they encounter in life who aren't going to be THE one, but with whom you still are glad they're in your life. I was having many issues after my separation, and you were the first person who helped me get past that. Since then, I think you're an amazing friend and an amazing person, and I'm sorry I still have your Mentalist DVDs. Here's hoping you have a long life with the prince you deserve. Love and thanks.

Heart Truth #27: This one is a bit of a scatter-shot. I don't want to thank one specific person, but all those people who have been instrumental in my love of books and writing, from my mom, who first installed in my love of reading; Mr. Moody, who was willing to discuss books with me and whom I finally forgive for introducing me to Billy Budd and that damn whale novel; Stephen King, who is the first person I remember reading, specifically the stories The Mangler and The Boogeyman when I was eight years old (so, yeah, I was destined to be a little warped); and anybody who has talked about books with me or recommended one, and all the authors over the years who have provided me hours upon hours upon infinite hours of joy.

Heart Truth #28: Marsha, you are really the only connection I have to my father before I existed (except for my mother, of course). I appreciate your friendship, and I appreciate that you made the attempt to bridge that gap between my father and me. Even now I sometimes wish when you said he was there and asked me if I wanted to talk to him that I had actually agreed to. Links are easily broken. Thank you for strengthening this one.

Heart Truth #29: Kelly, we've only known each other a few years, but I already know that you are one of the people who I can talk to at any point and you would be there to give advice or just listen. I appreciate your friendship. Love ya.

Heart Truth #30: Teresa, I met a few people after I separated that were friends for a short time, and others who I still count as friends today and with whom I see being friends with for a long time. I count myself lucky to have you as one of them. Love ya, and I still owe you a hike.

Heart Truth #31: The Air Force, there have been times, especially in the last few years of my enlistment, when I wasn't terribly fond of you. Because of you, I had to endure people I shudder to think about and I've spent roughly a quarter of my career in meeting after meeting. But also because of you I have people who have been (and will continue to be) my friends for 5, 10, 15, 20 years. Because of you, I found something to do when I was working in a chicken plant with a pregnant wife, and because of you I have my college degree. So, thank you, Air Force, and my good thoughts are with those of you still in in (except for a civilian or two...shudder).

Heart Truth #32: Cory, I knew when I met you getting off the plane in Germany that you would be a lifelong friend. I just didn't know that life would be so short. Here are some things I learned from you: never think there is no pain behind the smile; speak up (I never would have had that fun but short relationship if not for you); sometimes people use drunkenness to say what they're afraid to sober; watch what you say (nearly 18 years later I still want to kick myself thinking about us joking about the suicide information in the PFE; if only I'd known...). I only knew you three years, but you will always be a part of my life.

Heart Truth #33: Eventually on social media someone will mention a song or musician who "changed my life." That's not me. However, Bruce Springsteen has enhanced my life. I cannot say the number of times I've listened to "Jungleland" (the last two minutes of the song are the best you could ever listen to) during dark times. I know that for any mood I can find a song to enhance it. Thank you, Bruce, and thank you, music, in general.

Heart Truth #34: I've written this before that I don't remember much about my grandfather, even though he didn't die until I was 10, almost 11. What I do remember is he was a full-blooded Frenchman who served in the Navy during the second World War, had a thing for redheads, and was the father to many daughters. He took my mother, sister and I in, and we essentially lived with him for three years. I wish I could remember more than the flashes I have of him, but I cherish what I do remember, and thank him for all he's given me, especially my mother and aunts.

So now some additional ones:

I want to thank everyone who’s ever insulted me, beaten me down, held me down, looked down on me, from the bullies at Chaffin to Mr. Holyfield who threw my notebook across the classroom to the family member (technically) I saw last week who looked down on me because I was working at Walmart (hey, I don’t want to be working there, either, but at this point it’s a job), because all those people help me strive to prove them wrong.

To all the women who have been in my life, from my first crush (and likely the beginning of my fascination with redheads) Ruby, to Dawn and Melinda at Eastside Elementary, to everybody who were, often unfairly, rebounds after my long relationships, I thank you for what you taught me.

To all my family, many of whom have been there for me over the years.  We probably don’t talk enough, but I love you.

It’s days like this when writing is difficult.  Working a eight-hour day (nine, since I get an hour for lunch) and driving one hour to and one hour back (because of construction), so I don’t have a lot of time.  I suppose I could have gotten up earlier in order to write, but my present and persistent yawns suggest that might not have been that great an idea.

I’ve been thinking about what I want to write after I’m past this week of blogs.  I don’t want to write blogs just to write blogs; I’ve actually found myself a bit dissatisfied because my blog is not as structured as I’d like it to be and I am writing sometimes when I don’t have the knowledge about the subject or the interest.

I feel like I’m dead-ending here.  I get pissed at myself because I put all that time and effort into getting an English degree, and I’m not doing anything with it.  I want to write for a living, so I am just going to have to put forth the effort to break this cycle.

I’m scared of the novel I’m writing, because I am already finding myself criticizing myself for things I should have done.  What I should do is realize that I need to get through the first draft and understand that it is a first draft, that’s is going to be...well, essentially a blueprint.  There are people who can write their first draft and basically publish that.  I’m not one of them.  When I write I get so caught up in the story that I tend to overlook things like setting the scene.  It’s like I have a novelist’s heart, but a screenwriter’s fingers (and no, I don’t want to be a screenwriter). 

I’ve been thinking about some of the things I want to write, and although the stories I have in mind are different, you can definitely see the link through all of them.  The novel I’m writing now could be a thriller or a supernatural novel, based on your point of view (if it’s a rather morbid one, you might think it’s a sweet Christmas tale), but essentially what it is about is family.  I won’t go into more detail about it, because I don’t want to spoil anything, and if I do it right, you should learn things slowly throughout the novel which make you question what you thought before (or you could figure out by page ten everything that’s going to happen).

The second thing I plan on writing (although it’s been in the forefront of my mind up until recently) started to form after the miscarriage of my son.  The problem I am having with that, beside any emotional issue, is that I have to find a way to make the novel my own, because there are elements of it that are similar to other stories, and if I can’t find a way to differentiate it, I’m going to have to scrap it.

And there’s the vampire novel I am thinking of writing.  Of course, there are way too many vampire novels right now.  The problemI can see with that one is that it is going to involve a lot of research, because the novel is actually as much a political novel as a vampire novel.

And the last thing I want to write (or the last thing that is somewhat fully formed in my mind, besides bubbles of short stories that drift in and out of my cerebellum) is a ghost story, one that I’ve been thinking of a long, long time.  How long?  Well, the original title of the novel was going to be Jeremy after the protagonist, but then the Pearl Jam song came out...after I had thought of the novel!  So, yeah, it’s been something that has been in my mind since high school.  It involves fathers and sons, and maybe I’ve gotten to the point where I can actually sit and write that from a good place.

I wrote nearly 400 words of a blog before finally giving in to the fact that it wasn’t very good.  Honestly, it’s a subject I feel I have something about what to say, but I don’t think I really have enough knowledge to really say it with any type of conviction.  So until I feel I can, I’m going to table that one.

I wrote yesterday about spelling and grammar, and today I read an article about a woman who protested her seventh grader having to read The Diary of Anne Frank because she felt the description of genitalia was “pornographic.”  Imagine, a fourteen-year-old girl was explicit in details about her own body.  Thank goodness nothing like that ever happens these days. 

Obviously, I have many issues with this.

First of all, I don’t believe in censorship.  I believe it was Stephen King, but he could have been paraphrasing someone else, who said to find out those books that people don’t want you to read and make sure you read them.  I don’t care what somebody reads.  I care that they read.  Even bad writing teaches us something.  When I was a kid I read everything I could get my hands on, and honestly some of the things I read by the time I was a seventh grader would make Anne Frank blush. 

Secondly, in reading about this woman’s complaint, I discover that she doesn’t want children to not read the book at all.  No, she just wants them to read the edited version which doesn’t have any mention of genitalia or other sexual thoughts Anne (as many young teenagers do) was having.  So she didn’t want her kid reading about a clitoris, burt reading about hatred and violence and the Holocaust was okay.  Because you have to remember a young girl’s description of her clitoris is too graphic, which means you should ask parents’ permission beforehand, but the Holocaust, yeah, give ‘em as much of that shit as you want.

Of course, this also falls in line with some of my comments in my last blog.  Basically, we’re raising a generation of idiots.  I shudder at the thought of allowing all schooling to the public school system.  Not only do they force-feed them history which in many cases has been proven blatantly false, but most schools now “educate” with nearly the sole purpose of having students pass evaluation tests, so they are pointed towards doing that and not really learning and certainly not learning how to be critical thinkers, how to be explorers of the mind.

It may be this mother thinks she’s actually protecting her child, but she’s not.  She’s a destroyer.  A destroyer of thinking, reading, learning.  She’s a small hammer among thousands of small hammers pounding away at the beauty of reading, a cacophony of senseless noise that becomes a drone.  As her child will.

I have been making a conscious decision to try to accomplish something for a week at a time.  One week it was as simple as deciding not to use a word I realized I had been using too much.  This week I decided that I was going to write a blog a day for a week.  Usually when I went through blog-writing periods I would write whenever something struck my fancy.   Sometimes I would end up writing nearly a dozen blogs a week (although several of them were short).  Before this week I averaged less than a blog a month over the last year or two.

When I don’t exercise my writing muscles I find it hard to just go.  How do I write when nothing really comes to mind?  Sometimes I just drop some stream-of-consciousness.  Sometimes I have a nugget of an idea what I want to write, but, since it’s only a nugget, my writing is not so much linear as a stopper being pulled out of the sink and the water circling and circling and circling around the goal without just going straight to it.

So I asked people for ideas.  Give me something to write about, I said.  The first one was about “assholes at work.”  I’ve written about co-workers plenty over the course of the years, but nothing has really happened recently that would be deserving of a blog (nothing beyond some of the same bitching I’ve already done). 

The next request was to write about my grandfather.  Honestly, I don’t have full memories of him, even though he didn’t die until almost my 11th birthday.  I have snapshot memories of him, little seconds-long bursts of him, but nothing fully concrete.

The friend who had suggested the first one (assholes at work), perhaps annoyed that I nixed that idea, shot back with a few more ideas.  I’ve touched on all of them previously, and nothing recently makes me feel like I can make a real blog out of them (which you can probably guess by reading this far, since I’m doing what my daughter did in school and padding with words before I finally get around to the point).

“People who cannot spell.”  That was one of her suggestions.  Honestly, I don’t have a problem with people who cannot spell.  I’m not immune to it myself.  I always want to add a “d” to “refrigerator” or remove the “e” from “ninety” or add the “u” to “forty.” It might not be politically correct to say, but some people just don’t have their intelligence wired to be able to.  No, what I have a problem with is people who either make no effort to spell or, much worse, don’t believe it even matters.

Does it matter?  Often, especially online, people suggest it does not.  “As long as I get the point across, that’s all that matters.”  But if you can’t or refuse to spell correctly, do you really get the point across.  Not with me.  For example:

The amount of grammer and usage error’s today is astounding. Not to mention spelling. If I was a teacher, I’d feel badly that less and less students seem to understand the basic principals of good writing. Neither the oldest high school students nor the youngest kindergartner know proper usage. A student often thinks they can depend on word processing programs to correct they’re errors. Know way!

I read that and I assume the writer is an idiot, especially considering the topic about which he or she is writing.  I am able to easily dismiss everything he or she writes, because if he or she doesn’t care enough about what they’re writing to actually write it well, then they obviously don’t care. 

But, you might say, I have spell check, so everything is just fine.  Sure, unless you write something like “this is two crazy.”  Spell check won’t catch that. 

Of course, if I point these things out, I’m a grammar nazi.  Of course, I, along with many of those accused of being grammar nazis, don’t go out of my way to correct people for each and every mistake.  I understand that often it’s just that, a mistake (of which I am often guilty myself).  What ticks me off is when it’s not a mistake, when it’s just someone going “eh, close enough”...or “close enuff.”  If you put something online with glaring math errors or science errors or just plain old fact errors, someone would ding you on it and be right.  If somebody dings you on grammar or spelling, he or she is a Nazi.

What really gets me is that so many people don’t seem to appreciate that language is beautiful.  Even the coarsest of language has its own beauty.  And when somebody uses that language the same way a toddler might treat a priceless vase, it’s the same to me as if they took a beautiful painting and ran a streak of shit down it.  Yeah, you can see the beauty of the painting or a good ninety-five to ninety-eight percent of it, but really you just find yourself concentrating on that shit you see.

You hear a lot about free speech these days, often from people who in a breath’s time are telling someone else to shut up.

The problem with free speech is that too many people throw it into a conversation (usually as a way to end it and get their way) without truly understanding what it is.  I am in no way an expert on free speech, but when compared to the cyber lawyers I’ve run into, I’m a freakin’ genius.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That should be pretty simple to understand.  Obviously there are restrictions to free speech, including fighting words, true threats, incitement to to crime, and some others.  Nobody really seems to argue about those.

What people do argue is that they have the right to say whatever they want with no consequences.  That’s the sticky glue trap so many people step into.  The first amendment protects people from the government for what they say.  Yet, much as people have with the second amendment, people have decided to reinterpret the first.  Now people think they can say what they want and not face employment consequences or judgment consequences.  I see people all-cap “FREEDOM OF SPEECH!  FREEDOM OF SPEECH!”  But you already have freedom of speech.  Freedom of speech doesn’t protect you from being fired because your employers don’t think you represent them well.  It doesn’t mean people can’t judge you.

It doesn’t mean you can tell other people that you’re using your freedom of speech and they should shut the hell up about it.  You can do that, but it’s not freedom of speech.  It’s you being an asshole. 

I’m probably coming across as a luddite or perhaps just one of those cranky old man standing in his yard with his black socks and slippers, shouting at “you damn kids,” but I do think that modern technology is something hide behind in their “freedom of speech” cries.  Not only do people feel they should be able to say whatever they want, but now they also have this nifty thing, the Internet, which allows them to say whatever they want to whomever they want without having to face a possible punch in the nose for it. 

Warning: some of these topics might pertain to you.  Rather than be offended, you can do one of two things: don’t read or comfort yourself with the fact that I’m an asshole.

Sometimes I have something to say that I know is the TRUTH.  There is no doubting it.  There is no arguing it.  It simply is. 

Other times I have feelings that I really can’t justify as true, but they also simply are.  Even when I know they are not necessarily right, I still have them.  Hell, I still stand behind them.  Today, in perhaps a bit of exorcism, I will list some things, large and small, that bother me.  Some of them I might argue about the the death with you.  Others I will completely agree that, yeah, that’s a strange thing about which to rant--but I still stand behind them.

Small talk: now I’m not talking about a “hey,” “what’s up,” or “how you doin’” every once in a while.  But I can’t stand people who decide they need to take about banal things for no other purpose than apparently to hear themselves talk.  There is a woman at my work who I’ve heard say essentially the same things every day for over a year.  A year!  Seriously, I don’t care about your lame pun for your last name.  And if I’m going to be greeted with “hey, trouble,” you’re going to be hit with “greetings, major annoyance.”

The Bible: I don’t mind that people use it as a guide in their lives.  I’m a big believer in being able to enjoy something even though parts of it blow or make no sense.  But I have a major problem when people use the Bible to make judgments on other people.  If we took everything in the Bible as absolute, then we’re all going to Hell because we haven’t been spending enough time measuring things by cubits. 

Gay marriage: I don’t have a problem with the concept itself, just the name.  It’s not gay marriage, it’s marriage.

Labels: I think one of the biggest problem in the states is people feeling the need to define themselves as part of a group.  Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Democrat, Teabagger, Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, Gay, Straight.  Can’t we just encounter each other as individuals and not somehow dismiss each other because their label is diametrically opposed to our label?

Opinions: Like an asshole, everyone has one.  Also, like an asshole, there’s a time and a place to share it.  You don’t always have to share your opinion, especially when it serves no purpose, beside allowing you to vent, or when you force your opinion on someone who for whatever reason cannot counterargue (for example, if I had expressed that one person was a racist asshole, I would have lost my job).

Guns: holy crap, people.  I support the Second Amendment, but damn.  First of all, most people don’t really consider the “well regulated militia.”  But second and even more amazing to me, it’s much easier and legal for a person to get a gun than it is to get marijuana.  Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.  But, although it seems to be slowly changing, marijuana is illegal mainly because it’s considered a “gateway” drug.

Prostitution: Okay, first of all, before some smartass speaks up, no, I’ve never been to a prostitute.  I’m just really trying to figure out how porn (paying to watch two people who were paid have sex) is legal, while paying someone to have sex with you is illegal.  A man was charged recently for trading McDonald’s food for sex...or as it used to be known, a date.

Facebook: Sigh...okay, I’ve mentioned this before, but my lone voice in the wild is sometimes hard to hear.  Look, if you see some post or picture on Facebook or some other site, especially one that might be controversial, it doesn’t take too much effort to snopes.com to see if maybe, perhaps, possibly what you’re about to post is actually complete bullshit.

Congress: Fuck them.

Dead people: It happens all the time.  Somebody (usually famous) dies, and on some website (mostly Facebook) somebody points out how we shouldn’t be celebrating such-and-such when somebody else (usually a soldier or police officer) died (being a hero!) and didn’t get anywhere near the attention.  First of all, if you do this, you’re an asshole.  That person who died still died, and all you’re doing is pissing on the grave.  Second, I didn’t see any of that shit from you before (in popular Facebook terms, 98 percent of the time), so you’re just using that dead soldier or police officer for your own less-than-noble goal, which is pretty shitty.

Veterans: This is probably one I’m completely alone on.  I see veterans around here wearing their WWII, Vietnam, Desert Shield hats and jackets.  I guess it’s more the quiet hero mentality I prefer, rather than the in-your-face-ness of it (of course, I had a bad experience a few months ago with some guy mentioning all he’s done, as proof he should get his way).  Of course, I’m also the type who was never completely comfortable with people thanking me for my service, so on this one, I might be projecting a little.  I’ll be that guy who has all his plaques and ribbons hidden somewhere in the attic.

Cats: Seriously, you’re watching me pick up your food bowl.  If you are going to meow like that when I’m obviously getting your food, get it your own damn self.

Grass: I have to fix my mower.  Could you stop growing for a while?

Internet: An excuse to be a dick without consequences.  Ain’t it great?

Cynicism: As I was writing this, I read an article on the Entertainment Weekly website about Ben Affleck living on $1.50 a day for food for the Global Poverty Project “Below the Line” campaign, and about 80 percent of the comments (29 pages worth) were full of snide comments.  He’s a big star going out of his way to raise awareness.  It might be a small thing he’s doing, but he’s doing something. 

Spelling and grammar: Seriously, folks, they do matter.  When you pull out the “grammar nazi” stuff, all you’re saying is “you know, Scott, I prefer to be an ignorant, backwards asshole, and I don’t cotton to all that fancy talk.  Now I’m gonna go plow my sister and my wife.”

It’s interesting that I started to write this in order to release some of the tension some of these things have given me, but now I feel myself just getting even more angry.  I probably shouldn’t have ended it with grammar.  Damn.

These were the things I was afraid of when I was younger--the beast under the bed and the beast in the closet.  For a short period of time I was also concerned about about the scratch at the window, because I knew when I looked up I would see the curdled-milk look of the recently undead, calling for me to open up, to invite them in.  And I would...

These, of course, were not the only things of which I was afraid, but they stick out in my mind.  I grew up during the time of the Vietnam Conflict, gas shortages, and the Iran hostages, but at the time they had as little effect on me as the Boston Marathon explosions have on my own five-year-old daughter.  Except for an semi-abusive quasi-stepfather (and I can only remember one incident with him, and while I think it was incredibly fucked up, it was actually kind of mild, especially considering what he could have done and how I believe he treated my mother) and one screwed-up incident with photographs I actually had a relatively stress-free first decade.  The second decade, on the other hand, more than made up for it in stress.

I don’t know what it was like for adults who lived during the time I was growing up.  I know, from a lot of reading that people were afraid.  After all, a few generations before mine spent quite a bit of time preparing for nuclear attack (of course they prepared by hiding under school desks, so I think that we can agree they didn’t necessarily have all their shit together).

My daughter is going to grow up in a culture of fear.  You can’t escape it.  When I was a kid, a television had three or four channels.  And you actually had to go to the TV and physically change the channel if you wanted to watch something different (or have a kid do it, which is why I think a lot of families did have children).  Today, you have hundreds of channels.  You have channels dedicated to 24-hours-a-day news.  When I was a kid, the news was at 6 and 10.

The funny thing is that we are safer from violence than we were ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, one hundred years ago.  Not that you would know that by watching television or getting on the Internet.  These have replaced the boogeyman or the monster under the bed.  If you really want to scare a kid into behaving (which is what the boogeyman was often used to do), sit that brat in front of CNN or Fox News or MSNBC, and he or she will never ever want to leave the house again.

It’s a wonderful time.  We have so much at our fingertips.  But maybe, just maybe, what we need to do is occasionally take our fingertips away, turn off the computer, turn off the TV.  Maybe check under the bed.  See if that monster is under there.  He’s probably starving by now.

If you haven't read the first part of this, let me just recap that this is something I am writing to give thanks, love or appreciation (or all three) to people.  It was prompted by my father's death last month.


I first started writing this with a clear idea of who I wanted to write about and when, at least for the first dozen or so, starting with immediate family and then breaking into a chronological list.  It hasn't stayed like that.  Honestly, I write about a person that day because there is something that made me want to write about them that day.  It is not because somebody listed near the beginning is any more or less important than someone near the end of the list, only that they crossed my mind in particular that day.  I had a couple of other rules for myself, one of which I've already broken.  Maybe when I complete this I will let you know all the rules I broke.

Heart Truth #13: Scott (or as I know you more, Beeno). This is a different one. When we first met each other, we were friendly, but never the best of friends. I consider myself closer to you as a friend now, and we only communicate here. But you are the only connection I have to Cory, and for that alone, I appreciate you (it also helps you're a funny fella). More times than I can say I've felt guilty, wondering what I could have done, although I don't know I could have done anything for Cory. Thank you for being that connection and helping me to never forget.

Heart Truth #14: Kat, I don't make friends easily. There are few I would call true friends. For sixteen years, you've been one to me. You were my Wonder Twin, who helped more than you know get me through my job. When I moved out of the section away from you, it was nowhere near as fun. Although we've let time (sometimes years) pass by without communicating, I know that I can always turn to you and hope you know the same. I love you, you pint-sized Artemis, server of deer calzones.

Heart Truth # 15: Martha, you are seriously one of the coolest people I know...dude. I know i can always turn to you for hard advice, even if I know I might not enjoy the blunt truth of it. You are an amazing person, probably the only non-family person I could see letting watch my kid for a serious amount of time, and you're going to be a great mother when you get the chance. You gave Robyn more than her own mother ever did. I'm glad I had a chance to make up for opportunities I didn't take before, even if it didn't work out. I love you, my favorite candy-thrower.

Heart Truth #16: Sara, you were such coolness I should have known long before I did that you were friends with Kat. You were always awesome to hang around (and I still need to get a Lovesac). Thank you for all the conversations, and being one of the few people I could talk to about Dane at the time. We don't talk nearly as much as we did, but I know I could contact you at any time and talk about anything. Love ya.

Heart Truth #17: Greg, I have had some friends I've known for years with whom I communicate occasionally, sometimes letting weeks or months go by. You probably hold the record for times between communication, probably about 18 or 19 years. I want to thank you for something that hasn't been fully realized yet, which is my re-dedication to writing. I let myself get away from it. The class I had with you was my favorite, and I still have copies of our poems (and my horrible story). Also, thank you for introducing me to Dramarama and They Might Be Giants. "I walk along darkened corridors."

Heart Truth #18: Chad, I want to thank you for being the first and best person I supervised. I don't know that I was ready for that type of thing (and I'm still not sure, as I think I'm better at being a lone wolf, a solitary soldier, a...sorry, got carried away), but you made it unbelievably easy for me, despite your hatred for Christmas trees. I hope one day Seattle wins a World Series...but I won't hold my breath for it.

Heart Truth #19: Carla, you are my cheesecake goddess, my diva of decadence! More importantly than that, though, although we've only known each other a few years and have never met, I consider you a good friend and the person who always pops up whenever I need some good old Facebook volley. Whenever I bring up some trivial or massive event in my life, you are one of the first to lend a voice or an ear. Your cheesecake earned my love, but your friendship is what keeps it. Thank you.

Heart Truth #20: Tracie, there's so much about the Internet that's tedious and soul-sucking, but it can also be amazing, such as when I met you because of it. I know neither of us wanted our journeys to go the way they did, but I'm glad I found someone who always seemed to know exactly what I was going through and with whom I could share tales and advice. Thank you.

Heart Truth #21: Travis, this is a little strange. Our father didn't give either of us much, but at least he gave us each other. I don't know if this is a family trait, or it's just me, because communicating has never been an easy thing for me, but I hope someday we do get to talk some. For now, I appreciate having you and Danette as my Facebook friends. Thank you, my brother.

Heart Truth #22: Chris, many parents say that little matters more than their children's happiness. I count myself among them, and I've not seen Robyn as happy as she is when she is with you. Thank you for bringing joy and love to my daughter's life, and I hope the two of you a lifetime of happiness, and also I'm pretty sure I can completely dispose of bodies of people who disappoint my daughter...but I don't think we have to worry about that.

Heart Truth #23: Lance, I was glad to have someone like you around after I first joined the Air Force. You and Doug always provided me some laughs, especially when I was going through my divorce. Thank you.

Heart Truth #24: Ryan, of all my cousins I used to identify with Eric the most, but over the years I’d say I’ve come to know and appreciate you just as much.  When I think of you, I don’t think of you as brave or strong for being able to live as a gay man.  Maybe it’s not the point of view others might have, but I just think of you as you.  You shouldn’t have to be brave to be who you are.  When I think of you and other friends and family, I find it impossible to think that people take so much guidance (and I apologize to the religious among my friends) from a book which, quite honestly, I find so contradictory.  You deserve all the happiness in the world.  But, seriously, you’re an English teacher--you need to read more.

I don’t know about you, but one of my greatest fears is exposure.  I’m not talking about someone showing I’ve created some heinous or diabolical crime, because my crimes tend to be of the jaywalking and speeding variety.  Nor am I talking of physical exposure, of people seeing my naked form in all its flaws.  Now, believe me, I’m in no hurry to display my love handles or to explain how “I’m a grower, not a shower.”  But enough people people have seen my goods (and bads), whether it be lovers (yay) or doctors (boo), that I’m used enough to it.  As with most people I have things I want to change about myself physically, some of which I’m fully capable of doing so, but I have nothing of which I’m ashamed.

No, when I think about exposure, the thing I’m afraid of is people seeing inside my mind.  I think of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Earshot” and how it almost drove Buffy insane to constantly hear others’ thoughts, and I understand that--I have enough issues with my own thoughts that thinking of others adding onto them is just too much.  When I think about death, which I probably do much too much, especially recently--and when I say death, I mean specifically my death--it’s not the thought of being on cold steel with my chest sliced open, my organs being weighed, somebody snickering about how I won’t be a “grower” anymore, that bothers me.  No, it’s the thought of people browsing through my private things, my private thoughts, that really freaks me out.

Because I think sometimes this boy ain’t right in the head.

Which, no, I’m not hiding any dark secrets, no bodies buried in the backyard, no strange obsessions with playing ring toss with donuts. 

But my mind works in strange ways, I know that.  And sometimes I write about what goes on in my head (such as I originally wanted to say jelly donuts, because I liked the sound of that better, but I don’t know of any jelly donuts with holes in the middle). 

I was thinking about this recently when I started writing what will hopefully become my first completed novel.  I have had several ideas recently about what I want to write.  And I will be likely exploring some of those ideas eventually.  Two of the ideas involve Christmas. One of them was going to be a fairly short, sweet story about how Santa manages to bring presents all over the world in one night (although Santa was going to be a character mostly offstage).  I thought that I would self-publish the book and send it to friends and family for Christmas.  Maybe, if it came out as well as I hoped, parents might read it to their children in the days leading up to Christmas day.

I might still write that someday.  Because, you know, I love Christmas.  I have a room in my house right now that is still set up for Christmas.  I have presents wrapped under the tree.  I listen to Christmas music throughout the year.  In the month before Christmas I watch all the great Christmas movies and specials.  I also watch the sickenly, cloyingly sweet movies that show on Hallmark and Lifetime.  I believe Christmas is a time of kindness and love and sharing.  I believe that if people acted like it was Christmas every day, the world would be a better place.

So why is it that the first thing I choose to write, the first thing I choose to write ABOUT Christmas, is dark?  Why do I, the lover of all things Christmas, start my Christmas tale in a police interrogation room?  Why is the story filled with murder?  Why is there mutilation?  Why are most of the main characters sad or lonely or angry (or all three) people, many of whom proclaim to dislike Christmas?  A novel with a character called the Westland Butcher (which will probably not be a different name by the time I’m done, as I’m not in love with the name) doesn’t really scream “and Merry Christmas to all.”  But it does scream.

You can call it, per Dexter, my Dark Passenger.  Or, per Stephen King, my Dark Half.  I wouldn’t even call it looking at things as a glass half empty.  Instead, I go through life optimistically, but also...well, that glass could be half full or empty of poison, right?  Poison that could course through my body, making my skin melt off my bones or burning me alive from the inside.  It’s not.  Probably, it’s not.  But it could be.

I know how my mind works, but will other people.  After all, I’m not going to be around to explain the absolutely plausible reasons there are Google searches for “bunny sex” and “porn star candy” on my computer (actually, I have no idea why “porn star candy” is there, although I probably had a good reason at the time.  I have many older things I’ve written, including some godawful stories and many poor, violent poems.  What would people think if they found them? 

I don’t know.  All I know is I love Christmas.  And that I didn’t laugh at the movie Gremlins when Phoebe Cates’ character explained how her father, dressed as Santa, had died trying to climb down the chimney.  That made complete sense to me.  Of course that happened.

I thought about what I’m about to write, and I was going to write that, except for my Heart Truths, this would be the last thing I wrote about my father.  Thinking about it, though, I know that would be a lie.  I’ve been writing about my father ever since I’ve been writing.  There’s no reason to think just because he’s deceased that I’ll stop writing about him. 

And honestly, you wouldn’t know it was about him, unless I explain it.

I don’t want to, when I do talk or write about my father, constantly belittle him or make him appear as a bad man.  I don’t know what type of man he was.  He wasn’t a good father, and you don’t have to rely on just my testimony for that, but as a man, a human being, in his entirety?  I don’t know.  I can only go by what I know, which essentially comes to a molecule or two in the whole of Steve Cutlip.

My father was a Polaroid man.  Understandable, knowing the time he lived in.  The types of pictures he had, you really couldn’t take to get developed.  The pictures I saw weren’t bad, simply nudes, nothing more graphic than you would have seen in the Playboys of the time.  For all I know, they could have been the only pictures he had, but considering I discovered two different books, with different women in them, I feel safe in guessing it was a bit of a tradition with him.  Polaroid hadn’t taken off in the late 60s, or else my father had made effort to hide or destroy photos, so luckily I did not run across any of my mother.  Whether or not it is true, I over the years had pictured the photos as some type of trophies for my father.

I don’t know if my father really got into the Internet or cell phone technology.  I do know that over many different years of casual searching, I never found him on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter.  Google searches did not produce much information on him beyond his birth, marriages and divorces.  Perhaps if he had been born when I was or later, his photos would be saved on a SD card or hidden in an external drive.

Today, it’s much easier to see flesh.  Many of my female friends have told me they’ve received more than their own share of unrequested penis pictures.  It’s hard to say what this means.  Honestly, I have no issues with nudity, and I think America as a whole is too squeamish about the matter, in ways many other countries are not.  Yet, much of the time, I also think the allure is missing in that two-dimensional form.

The first nudes I had were of my first wife.  I had them in a small photo album which I mailed to her some time after I moved in with the woman who would be my second wife.  That was about thirteen years after the pictures had been taken, ten years after the divorce.  I mailed them because they bothered the person I was with, not because I thought there was anything wrong with me having them.  It wasn’t like, I thought to myself, I had even looked at them in a long time.  But to keep peace...

Which brings me to now.  I often say I know who and how I am.  So it comes as a wallop when something points out that maybe I don’t know everything, and that one of the things I didn’t really grasp was how I was like my father.  I divorced in 2011.  After the separation I did what probably many newly separated or divorced men and women did and dipped my toe in the online dating world.  I received my share of risque pictures during that time, probably not as many as One Direction or whomever the heartthrobs of the moment might be in the time it took me to type this.  And generally I have not looked at them in the time since they were sent to me.

But I saved them.  Upon a sharp figurative poke in the eye, in which I didn’t look at myself in a good light, I realized that, though I may have not meant to, I, like my father, had my own trophy book.  With me, it was just digital.

I cleared out everything I had, all the pictures I had received, except for one person (and porn...I mean, let’s not get crazy here).  Because what is the point of it besides a prize to show that this person was willing to send me a picture.  It’s hard to look in the mirror and realize you aren’t as right as you thought you were, but all I can do now is realize there is a problem and fix it.  I don’t want trophies.  I don’t want to be a collector. 

My father passed without us talking for about 17 years. Never give up a chance to share your heart, even if you are only doing it for your own sake. On that note, I’m going to take the opportunity to tell people that I love, thank and/or appreciate them.  I’m doing 61 of these, which was the age of my father when he died.  I’m probably going to break it up on the blog into five different posts (I will usually do one a day on Facebook, which means the last one will probably May 26).

Heart Truth #1: Robyn, Bella, and Tatiana, no matter how much time goes by, there will never be a moment I don't love you, even those when you frustrate the hell out of me. And I you.

Robyn, you’ve been the biggest constant in my life for the last 22 years.  You have been my road-trip partner, my beautiful daughter, who, despite the fact we’re told not to have this type of relationship with our children, my good friend.  I’m sorry for the fear of clowns, but I’m still going to exploit it.

Bella, it’s never been fully easy between us, but I want you to know this.  This is what I believe, whether you think it or not.  I am your dad.  Someone else may have been biologically responsible for that, but I am your dad. 

Tatiana, I look so forward to what you do with your life.  Already, at the age of five, I know you are a force to be reckoned with.  You and I will always be Super Awesome and a Goober Smooch, roles changing depending on who is saying it.

Heart truth #2: Mom, we've never had the easiest mother/son relationship. There have been times of anger and long silences. In the end, you and I both know that we can and have turned to each other when we needed somebody to hear us. You've probably pissed me off more than any woman I haven't divorced (and I know I've given some of the same feeling, too), but I know you will always be there for me when I need you. I love you, Mom.

Heart Truth #3: John, this year it will be 30 years that you've been my best friend. Excepting family, I've known you longer than I've known anybody. More than anybody else, I know I can go to you when things are rough, and you always have my back. You and I can say to each other what others might think are very harsh things and know that what we say comes from love...and that we ease our wounds through laughter. I love you, my brother. I'm just glad airport security is better, so you don't get on the wrong planes.

Heart Truth #4: Coleena, for the longest time I felt you were around only to test my patience, as if I were a modern-day Job. Sometimes I wanted to roll you up in that carpet like I did...and keep you there. You were annoying. Looking back, I realize I was probably just as annoying to you. I'm amazed at the woman you have become, at the mother you have become, and I'm proud that you're my sister. I love you.

Heart Truth #5: Patrick, for most of your life, you were somebody I saw a few times a year at most, when I visited. I didn't really get to see you grow up much. I want you to know that I admire you. Not because you're a Marine and serving our country (which is admirable in and of itself), but for overcoming the obstacles that have come your way. You display a strength that has nothing to do with physical ability, and you encourage me to try harder when I run into my own obstacles. And you married well. Erin, you're pretty great, too. I love you, brother.

Heart Truth #6: David, I got to spend even less time with you than I did with Patrick, as I moved out of the house (that sounds more voluntary than it was, ha ha) soon after you were born. The truth is I tend to view you more through my daughters' eyes than through my own experience. But what I see through their own eyes is amazing, as you you show a patience I don't know that I would ever be able to muster. You are an amazing uncle, and I've been glad you've been in my daughters' lives, and I only wish we had more opportunity to spend together (doesn't help I don't like fishing or Razorback sports, I guess). I love you, little brother.

Heart Truth #7: Michael Kent, most of my life I never really felt like I had a dad. You're the closest thing to it, and probably the only reason it never crossed into that type of relationship is we entered each other's lives too late. Although we've not been as close as you and Patrick or David, I still cherish you in my life. I know you're a great dad. I see that every time you're with the boys or Coleena. I'm glad you are my family.

Heart Truth #8: Brandy, I haven't communicated with you in over four years. I haven't seen you in 10. I'm okay with both these facts. But I have much for which to be thankful to you. You're the first person I loved. You taught me that love is great, and that it can be foolish. With you, I learned that if you're determined enough, you might get what you want. And that you might realize you didn't really want it. You allowed me to be a father, the one role I would want to be remembered for more than anything. And you, more than anyone, led me to realize it's okay to forgive. Thank you.

Heart Truth #9: Missa, it's been a long, hard road. You showed me love can happen again after so many years that I didn't think it would. The end result doesn't take away that fact. If it were not for you, not only would I not have Tatiana in my life, there's a good chance that I would never had another child, and in retrospect, I find that difficult to stomach. No matter what, we will always be connected through Tatiana and Dane, love and loss, hope and sadness, and I want to thank you.

Heart Truth #10: Katie, I’ve told four women in my life that I loved them. You were the first who wasn’t somebody I had married. I truly loved you, but in retrospect, it’s probably good things went the way they did, because I don’t know that my love would have been sufficient enough to make up for taking from all you had where you were. Thank you for being the person to pick me up when I was feeling down, when I was feeling unloved and unworthy. I mean it now more than the first time I said it that you deserve the love I know you will find.

Heart Truth #11: Tammy, you're the last woman who I have told I love, and the only one with whom that is still true. I feel a lot of responsibility in being the person to whom you have given your heart, and sometimes I haven't met the mark. There is nobody I could laugh and talk with like you, nobody who seems to know what's on the tip of my tongue. I've sometimes been afraid that I wasn't the person you thought I was, and I sometimes have been afraid you thought I was less than the person I really was. Through everything and anything, whether we never meet again or we spend our lives together, I will do as I promised and make these the last words you get from me, no matter what: I love you.

Heart Truth #12: Julie, Bill, Mitch, and Matthew, the very best things I got out of my marriage were Tatiana and Bella. After that, it was having you in my life. Even after the divorce, I still think of you as my in-laws. I don't consider you family; you are family. There's not a moment when I think I can't turn to you for something. I appreciate all you've been in my life. I love you.

I wish I had a didactic memory, that I was able to recall with precision every moment of my life.  But I don’t.  If my memory was any type of photograph, it would be a faded Polaroid stored carelessly in a closet box.  The memories I do have are blurry, captured moments shaded by whiteness.  These are the things I remember.

I got Christmas presents from you when I was young.  I believe my mother actually addressed them from you, but at this point I don’t recall if that is a memory or something  that actually happened.

The first time I remember seeing you, meeting you, was when I visited you in Las Vegas.  I think it had to be 1979 or 1980.  I remember being in a casino and being a little shit and reading my stepsister’s diary and talking about it and I remember discovering you kept nude photographs of your wife/ex-girlfriends.  Apparently I had quite the thing for snooping when I was younger.  I remember we went to a drive-in movie.  I think Zulu Dawn was playing on our screen, as well as some other movie I no longer recall, but there was some type of sex movie being shown on another screen I ended up paying more attention to.  But when I think about you and me, that’s when the photograph fades.  I can’t recall anything particular about the two of us then.

The next time I saw you was at my great-grandmother’s funeral, when we stayed with you for it.   I had to be 15 or 16. Somehow it was agreed that I would spend the summer with you.

I was your son.  But I heard you say that you really didn’t get me.  You felt I was lazy and strange, which was not untrue, but what I was most of all was a teenager, and you hadn’t had much experience with one of those.  It’s almost fitting that of all the things you could have given me, I’m left with this: without you, I would have not been able to be that close to hardcore drugs or VCR porn.  The cocaine never again wandered into my life, but I guess I can thank you for Kay Parker.

I don’t remember how much longer later, maybe a few months or maybe six, but you had agreed to come see me in Arkansas.  The day you were supposed to be there, my mother talked to me after school and said you weren’t going to be able to make it.  I no longer recall if there was a valid reason or not.  Perhaps there was.  I do know that was the last time I cried about you until last night. 

One last memory.  I know you talked to my mother on occasion in the following years, but you and I never talked until 1995 or 1996, when I received a call from you out of the blue.  I know I wasn’t the most cordial.  And I know I took it out on my mother for giving you my phone number.  That was the last contact between us.  It’s amazing to me how often I think of this and wonder if I should have been warmer, more conciliatory.  I had done nothing wrong in our relationship, and yet even now I wonder if I should have done something.

I’ve always defined myself by you, which is similar to defining myself by meteor showers, as both have spent roughly as much time in my life.  I’ve lived my life as “I’m not going to be the father my father is.”  In my late teens and early twenties I created a dictionary’s worth of horrendous poetry, often dedicated to you, to showing you what you missed, to create the violence on paper that stormed through my mind.  Someone told me last year that I shouldn’t let you have that much control on my life, and she was right.  But it was hard. 

I don’t know how I would have felt about you if I hadn’t had a daughter whose mother did the same thing to her that you did to me.  Every day with Robyn, with her wondering why her mother didn’t love her enough to want to be with her, reminded me of you.  No child should ever have to wonder that.  I blamed her mother for that, but I guess I also blamed you too, somehow.

I didn’t know you.  I never spent enough time with you to really know you.  What I saw from you could have been no more than the face you show a co-worker or a stranger on the street.  I never really got to know you, what made you you.  And you never got to know me, either.  You never got to meet your grandchildren.  You weren’t there for birthdays or Christmases or my graduation from high school or college or when I graduated basic training or when I retired from the military or when I married or when I divorced.  You never got to see the man I became, a man that in some way is because of you.

The truth of the matter is that, whether or not we want, our parents have an influence on us.  If we have loving parents, that influences us.  If we have abusive parents, that forms an everlasting impact on us.  When we don’t have a parent, it does, too.  I miss my daughters every day they are not with me, and I could say that is because of you.  I told Robyn today about your passing, and she asked how I felt.  I told her my feelings were confused.  She said, if it were her, she would feel angry.

But I don’t feel angry.  In my life, I’ve longed for your love, for your admiration.  I’ve hated you.  And “hate” is a word I don’t apply to anyone.  But I don’t hate you now.  If anything, I feel sad for you.  To spend over two weeks in a hospital without a member of your family there to help you, care for you, to love you, that fucking sucks.  When I was younger, I, in my writer’s fancy, imagined a deathbed scene in which your dying breath was beat down by my scorn and hatred.  Now I just wish I had been there, that you had somebody for you.

I wish it didn’t take almost two weeks until somebody in your family found out you had died.  Your body already turned to dust.  I think of you, and I think of my son, Dane, and I think of my fear and my hope, burned away in flames. 

I found out shortly after midnight.  I was okay when I called my mother and told her and hung up after saying goodbye and hearing her voice break.  Then I shook.  Tears fell, and I shook uncontrollably.  I thought about how young you were.  You’re only 19 years older than me, and 19 years isn’t much.  It’s just a breath of time.  How can that cover where I am now and where you are?  And all the words I wanted to say...

And I can no longer say.  Except these words.  Whether it would have mattered to you or not, you are forgiven.  Let the flames that shed your skin and the waves that will cover your ashes also take away my anger.  I’ve heard you were a good man.  I’ve heard you were a bad man.  I believe both these things equally.  But you were my father, whether you wanted to be or not.  You were how I came to life, how I came to love, how I came to have my daughters.  So I thank you, no matter how that came to be or whether or not you were in my life.  For me, you did at least one thing right.

I do not know what, if any, afterlife awaits us.  I hope that, no matter what, you are at peace.  Let my hatred rest, let my anger rest, let my sorrow rest...let my father rest.

I am not a hugger.

I don’t really know any reason for this.  Perhaps if I spoke to a therapist about it, he would have some incredible insight into why this is, but that’s not something I really feel the need to investigate.  This is not to say that I never hug, nor that I don’t hug well.  My daughters have been the recipients of good hugs their entire lives.  Every woman I’ve been involved with has been thoroughly hugged.

But with non-child family members and other people, I either don’t hug, or when a hug is required or cannot be avoided, it’s pretty much the same: touching only at the shoulders and only one arm around the back.  It’s not something I consciously do; it’s just something that is.

This does not mean I have problems with intimacy.  In fact, I find as I grow older that intimacy is something I crave more than I did as a younger man (back then, I had no problem with solitude).  Perhaps that is because over the last few years intimacy is something that has been hard to find.

Before mid-2011 my relationship history was quite short.  I’d only dated a few people, and two of them I married.  When my wife and I separated I felt many things, many of which I won’t get into here, but one thing I felt was in need of physical contact, in need of somebody showing me she desired me.  In October and November of that year, I did something I had never really done before.  I don’t know the most accurate way to describe it.  You could say I played the field.  Someone has referred to it as my manwhore phase.  In December I started dating someone, until we broke up in March.  I began seeing someone new in August.  Those were the only two people I had been with since my “phase.”

I talked to a very good friend recently.  She and I became friends during my “phase,” although she was never part of that phase herself.  What I liked about her is that she was going through some of the same issues I was and that we though quite a bit alike.  She is involved with somebody now, and she appears very happy and on the cusp of making a big step forward.  I told her I was happy for her.  And that was the truth.  That was the first thing on my mind and out of my mouth.  Underneath, though...I was...what’s the word here?  Not jealous.  Envious.  I wanted her to have her joy and her love, but part of me whined how come I don’t get that, how come she gets to fall asleep in someone’s arms and someone’s love, when I fall asleep in this king-sized bed.  Alone.  Again.  It’s not that I’m jealous that someone else is with her, or that I don’t want her to be happy.  I just want what she has.

But, you know, with a girl.  I’m sure her guy is great, but I just don’t swing that way.

Not yet, at least.

The thing that I thought about today is that through my “phase” and even when I was dating people afterward, I have, to the best of my recollection, only fallen asleep with someone in my arms only ten nights in almost 19 months.  Three women, ten total nights.  I was in love with one of them.  Another I love to this day still, and I value her as a friend and confidante, but it was easy to understand that we would never be “in love.”  I don’t know if anything would have deepened with the third, but it is a moot point now, as circumstances at the time kept things from growing, and both of us moved on to other things, other people, and she is very happy now, and my happiness for her isn’t even envious (for it occurred at a time when I thought I might be just as happy, if not happier).

That time obviously is only in reference to women with whom I am intimate.  It doesn’t take in last week when my eldest daughter visited, which required the five-year-old to sleep in the same bed as me.  And, believe me, waking up on the edge of the bed with two feet pushing at your head...I can do without that.

I like to think that everybody has those moments in which they look in the mirror and ask the reflection, “what is wrong with you?”  I hope they do; it would be incredibly sad for me to realize it was only me.  I am blessed or cursed with extreme self-awareness.  I know who I am.  I know my good points.  I know my bad ones.  I know the ones that I could overcome and that I probably never will.  I know me very well.  And yet I still look in that mirror and ask that question.  Because my arm reaches out in the night and encounters nothing...except a kitten who thinks I’m trying to play and scratches the shit out of me.

I look at my cat Jaden.  She’s about 13 to 14 years old now.  When she was younger she had very little tolerance for people.  Whenever anybody came in, she would make a run for it and hide.  Nowadays, somebody comes in and Jaden heads right for their lap, as if to say, “here I am.  Pet me.”  Maybe both Jaden and I realize that, while death may not be waiting for us in the night as we rest restlessly, it might!  Is it the thought that I’m mortal that makes me desire intimacy this much?  Has something changed this much in me?  Or have I spent so long the loner that the loneliness has overwhelmed me?  I know so much about me, but this I don’t know.  Maybe I’m just one of millions, of billions, just holding out my arms and asking someone to show me she loves me.

Maybe I just need a hug.