Grains of salt

Many is the time I have heard the advice "only surround yourself with positive people to create success" but there are many times in life when we aren't afforded the choice of who we are surrounded by. For instance, many of my co-workers can be extremely negative, but I can't blame most of them as they are exhaust from defending our wagon train, which is currently surrounded by the fearsome Apache.

Ride or Die (and then definitely die, eventually)

Adaptability is the key to survival. Darwin said it and AC/DC proved it after Bon Scott died. Being reluctant to change is natural but it can be a severe handicap if we don't know how to handle being outside of our comfort zone. There are people that love to say
"Do one thing each day that scares you"
No, go to hell, I'm not doing that. Why would I do that? I don't want to be scared. I want to sit in my room with the air-conditioning on, staring at my phone and maybe eating Doritos. That's what all of us want.
Unless you mean going on a rollercoaster each day. Then I'm on board.
Much as I hate to admit it, these people are right. The longer you spend in one place, the less likely you are to ever be able to move out of it. If scaring yourself and changing your circumstances becomes the norm, you have a better chance at achieving your potential, or at least not being so boring.
The really fun part about this, though, is that none of us have to do all the work. Life shoves you into uncomfortable positions all the time. A new job, a new living situation, a large man with a claw hammer standing over you with an expression that betrays how little of his medication he's been taking, all of these things can either cripple you or push you to take on the challenge.
With the coming of the warm weather, I got shoved into a few of these kinds of situations. In very short order, I lost a home, a job, and a wife, which is probably a typical order of succession for these kinds of losses, but I for me, it was still new territory. I did what I have always done with trauma, I tried to drown it in an ocean of whiskey. This time, I needed to drown a few at a time and it was going to be tricky not to drown myself in the process.
Now that the weather is hot, I'm coming up for air and realizing that is exactly what I did to myself. It was stressful having to find a place to live, it sucks to be constantly looking for better employment, and it hurt more than anything I have ever known to hear the woman I was going to spend my life with tell me that she no longer loved me. But I didn't roll with the punches. I just added a few of my own. It's only dumb luck that I didn't get myself killed or hospitalized, as that would be even more predictable than the whiskey haze that I let myself drift into.
Suffice it to say I am going to find a way out of this. This crisis will be turned into an opportunity and the negative turned to positive. Not because of some spurious Buddhist quote on a Facebook wall, but because it has to be that way or I will be ground under the heel of natural selection.
After all, I've adapted before. Not like I ever had to start using gills to breathe or anything, but things got bad in the past and I was able to get around it. But maybe that's the problem with this latest set of issues. I can't just get around it. Adapting in this case doesn't mean just changing my life so that whatever is missing isn't needed. I have to create a new life without destroying my old one.
For a minute there, I might have fallen into the cozy trap of self-destruction. I wanted to believe that love was just a lie that people tell each other when they don't want to be alone, but that's just not who I am. It's summertime and I would like to make lemonade out of these lemons.
Anyone that wants to join my basket-weaving class is more than welcome.

Last Day

Four minutes before I kicked the steel gate that was always locked, the alcove it protected strewn with trash, I had been sitting down in a familiar office, listening to someone I'd known for over ten years tell me that I didn't have a job anymore. It wasn't that I hadn't seen it coming, it wasn't that it wasn't warranted. The fact that things had deteriorated to the point where I was being fired from a bar was what stuck in my throat like a pill swallowed without water. That I had been running late and spent the money on a cab to get there on time didn't help. It couldn't get lower than this. I would have to get comfortable at the bottom. I said my goodbyes to the bartenders and the other managers. People I had grown to call friends and now might never see again, because that's the way these things go.
Back to the steel gate.
I walked out of there without a look back. Out onto the street for the last time and up passed the steel gate. I had always assumed that the building was a disused factory, or a workshop that only open during the day. I kicked the gate twice and screamed 'FUCK!' like a man that didn't know what else to do. Behind the wall, three or four dogs started barking, frightened and confused. A man yelled out 'Yo?!' It never occurred to me that it could have been a living space, but the neighborhood had changed. It had gone from trendy to fully gentrified. European money filled the gaps that the American economy couldn't and condos were sprouting like weeds. Every unused room was now a living space, every inch was maximized for profit.
Embarrassed, I tried I walk away quickly. A bearded man with a gut and sandals crashed out of the gate, dragging trash from the entrance behind him.
"What the fuck are you doing banging on my door like that, you asshole?!"
I don't think I had ever been so embarrassed.
"I'm really sorry, I didn't think anyone lived there."
"Even if no one did, you think you got a right to go around banging on doors like the fucking police just because you had a few drinks??"
I obviously wasn't the first to transgress this way.
"No, I don't. I'm sorry, I haven't been drinking. I just got fired and was angry, I had no business taking it out on your door. I honestly feel bad that the dogs are upset." my words fell on the pavement like spent matches.
"These are rescue dogs! All of them! Do you have any idea what they've been  through? You know how long it will take to calm them down?" The guy was really working himself into a lather for someone that looked like he had slept most of the day. He took a step towards me, raising a hand like he was going to hit me but slipped on a wet piece of cardboard, catching himself on the same gate he'd just stormed out of, the one I'd abused so thoughtlessly. I didn't laugh or try to hit him. I turned and walked away, maintaining ownership of the situation's general humiliation.
"Stay off this block, jagoff!" He called after me.
It wasn't going to be a problem, I had no reason to come back to this neighborhood now. Just one stop at a bar nearby that I liked, since it was quiet and and I figured I might never have occasion to be in it again. I loped ten blocks to the Pencilbox and propped myself up in the warm candlelight. Their cheapest whiskey burned the little cracks on my lips as I stared at a point in space two feet in front of my face.
At first it all seemed promising. After a couple minutes the three bikers that were laughing  as loud as they pleased left. Everyone else talked quietly and the bartender left me alone. Perfect. Then a group of French people came in, sat near me, and  giggled about something or other. I couldn't spend the night glaring at them and watching them pointedly fail to tip the bartender. I headed back to my own neighborhood.
I went to my local bar right under the train tracks, a cash-only bare-bones Irish pub where you could feel the rumble off the train above through your fingertips on the bar. A neighborhood guy named Danny cheered me up the way he knew best.
"Don't sweat it, you'll take a few weeks, your wife can carry the load. Marriage is like that, you give and take, feast and famine."
It was nonsense, but that was okay. Sometimes nonsense is exactly what you want to hear.             

Get it off your chest

It seems silly, but for months I've been texting a deceased friend. I'm not sure how it started, but at some point during the grieving process I shot a text out there just to feel like I was talking to her again. It just started flowing from there. I've been going on about all the things I could never talk about with anyone else. The embarrassing things. The ugly things. The dark and terrifying things that well up in  the mind in the wee small hours. This woman never judged me and, in some ways, understood me better than anyone ever has. Even if it seems a bit immature, doing this has been more cathartic than I would have ever expected.

It never occurred to me they would give her number out to someone else. They aren't as understanding. At least not at 4AM. 

Trials of Circumstance (not by P.D. James)

           The windows had been sealed, the firewood covered, and the bolt inside the door gave a satisfying click as it found home. Hamilton Starkweather gazed at the pond just south of the summerhouse and reflected fondly on the prior two months. It had been another successful season of swimming, friendly visitations, and well-aged brandy during summer storms. Now it was over.  His extended holiday had helped him relax more than he had in years, but he couldn't help but feel melancholy at its passing. Now it was back down to dreary London and the daily malaise of the publishing business.
           A figure stalked briskly up the footpath that led from the main road. The hard clacking noise of plastic souls on the worn concrete were like pinpricks in the still morning air.
"Nigel Pellington, as I live and breathe!" Hamilton called out in his boisterous way, recognizing the threadbare peacoat that his friend had been wearing as long as he had known him.
"I thought you'd left for the smoke this past Tuesday, and why on earth is that muffler wrapped around your head, it'll be summer for another six days!"
Hamilton had barely gotten the sentence out when the figure abruptly pulled a antique Luger from the coat pocket. The shot scattered a flock of mourning doves that had been bathing in the pond. They found their formation as they soared over Hamilton Starkweather crumpling onto the lawn. 

Pleading out

Most of us are taught that revenge is never the answer, that what you get out of it will ultimately weigh more heavily on you tham anything you dish out to some transgressor. Most of us also pay as little attention as possible to that life lesson, at least as far as the way we think and feel about the people that have done us wrong. It's hard not to imagine terrible things happening to people we think deserve it. Sometimes, we can't help but imagine the satisfaction of doling out retribution. We have plenty of reasons for thinking this way, after all, 'violent revenge movies' is a category my Netflix account suggests pretty heavily to me. Not trying to say that it doesn't have reason to, there are a lot of eighth graders that would be embarrassed to have my taste in movies. I just find it amazing that it's a category.
I'll get to the point. 
In late 2012, I lost  my friend Megan to someone else's negligence. I had been close with Megan for about half my life. She understood me in ways no one else ever has, and even though I think that was because we were a lot alike (she often referred to me as the older brother she never wanted), many other people would tell you the same thing about their own relationship with her. She had more people that would describe her as their 'best friend' than anyone else I know. This isn't due to any flightiness or phoniness on Megan's part. When she spent time with someone, she made them feel important and needed because, to her, that's exactly what they were. She didn't take the people in her life for granted, and made sure they knew she loved them. Losing her was a devastating blow to a wide and diverse network of family and friends.
There were many people that, naturally, wanted swift retribution. I can't say I didn't. Someone central to our lives, someone that was a piece of all of our heart's was ripped away for nothing other than someone's alcohol-impaired driving. That someone should pay. It was obvious. The fact that this person showed little or no remorse for destroying a unique and cherished life only sharpened our collective resolve that she should pay dearly, and for the rest of her life.
Over a lot of long, sleepless nights, that became less and less of a concrete idea for me. I don't want this person walking around free for the simple danger of her destroying more lives with her reckless disregard, but what would it change for her to know the pain she caused? Nothing. Nothing will bring this precious person back and that's an ugly, pointy fact that has to sit in our guts for the rest of our lives, but if we all got five minutes in a room with no windows with this person, that would invite a new kind of ugliness that we would have to carry around, one that is even harder to shake. 
This person recently plead guilty to the charge of vehicular manslaughter and will serve a year in prison followed by a few years of supervision. That's actually more than I ever expected the criminal justice system to do in this case, and it's actually quite good in a case like this. It still won't change a thing for me. I'm glad this person will have some time to think about her actions, but I doubt that will make her any different of a human being.
There's no justice, after all. There's just us.

Walking Through the Snow

          That Thursday was an off day to say the least. The health department had shown their faces early in the night at the bar where I work. One of the owners spent hours pretending to look for paperwork he knew perfectly well he hadn't updated. The charade might have been intended to keep the agents from looking too closely at the kitchen.
          There was also an open mic that night. A sharp contrast was set between some extremely talented professional comics and musicians, and some creative roadkill of both varieties. It ended with some tightly rehearsed and excruciatingly annoying comedy songs from a duo that shall remain nameless. The screechy-voiced chanteuse on tambourine saw fit to play their last song with her top off, and acted surprised when told that could cost the bar it's license under the wrong circumstances. Even if that hadn't been the case, I would've told any lie, committed any misdeed to keep my customers from having to look at her bare torso any longer.
          A snow storm was raging outside. There are no windows at this bar, so the accumulation seemed even faster to me when I looked out the door. Many places in the area were going to close early, we were following suit at midnight.
          I was hungover, sleep-deprived, and training a new barback. These are three things that are normal for any shift, and I found a little comfort in their familiarity. The odd night at work hadn't been enough to distract me from what the calendar said: January second. It had been exactly one year since my best friend died.

His name was Jason William Schwallenberg. We called him Schwalli.

          I first met Schwalli when I was 15, we were pretty close by the following year. I feel like I have endless reels of memories of driving around in various Mazdas with him at the wheel, listening to the same cassettes over and over, pounding our fists on the dashboard or stomping our feet in time. He was on the short side, wore glasses, and wouldn't back down to anyone. When guys big enough to make me shit myself tried to get tough, he was always the one to throw it right back in their face. He was always there for his friends, had style to spare, and taught me more about music than anyone else in my entire life.
          I spent that Thursday thinking about how I didn't get to see much of him the last few years. He had gotten married and had two little girls, so it was understandable. He wasn't always the most effusive guy, but whenever he talked about his family, you could see they meant everything to him. I was thinking about them a lot as well that Thursday. I hate that his wife never got to say goodbye to him. I hate that his children won't get to grow up with one of the best fathers I can imagine anyone having. I hate that his parents had to suddenly lose their only son in the prime of his life. There's a lot to hate about it, but not much that can be done.
          I didn't talk about it with many people that Thursday. I don't live in the town we grew up in, so most people in my life now never met him. But, if I'm honest, the main reason I didn't talk about him is shame. It always seems that when loved ones passed so young, that it should have given me the impetus to take life by the tail, to never waste time on anything, to never worry about petty nonsense or what other's think. Then I look back on the past year, and feel like it didn't take long to get mired in all the same bad habits and let the usual humdrum take back over.

But it isn't about that. It also isn't about me.

          It's about trying to hold on to the memory of an unassuming man who might never have known what a profound impact he had on many different lives. It's about remembering to not only tell the people in your life that you love them, but also show them while you have the chance.
           I walked home in the snow storm that night looking at all the freshly fallen snowflakes glinting like diamonds in the streetlight and thought about a guy that loved life, family and music. I thought about how I'll never see him again, but hope to keep him in my heart forever. Life is woven together out of love, hope, and beauty, but it's also fragile, short, and can be bitterly cruel. That's why it matters so much.


 "The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."
 -Stanley Kubrick