Thursday, April 22, 2010

this is not a manifesto...

i am going to start this post by saying, i am however many whiskey sodas and smirnoff ices down the tubes.

so this is going to be a literary (or written verbal, not sure which is really appropriate) dump site. no one knows whence my thoughts will wander (and yes, i did say "whence" and i would gladly kick your ass if you take issue with that!)

i had a shitty day.

now, o my beloved droogs n only friends, this; this is nothing new. fuck, considering some of the classes i am having lately, and the course loads, it is a regular fucking deal. we know, right?

who'm i kidding? here i sit, alone, really. only a small group of you still stop by this dung heap on the information superhighway: but here's the thing, even the guy cleaning the port-a-pots is happy with his lot, right?

back to my shitty day, or more appropriately, how unshitty it really becomes in comparison to those that do and deal and fucking take it on a daily basis, right?

cause no one, and i do mean no one, can really understand to what depths we all fall, in and of ourselves. but. the big fat "but" that always rears its ugly head: those depths are still our depths. and the big game we play on this blue marble that has been dropped in a coal bin that fires up the train that rollicks across the universe beyond our ken is ultimately viewed within only our very own eyes.

cause that is how it is.

and those of us who are real friends, and who are self-aware, we approximate, and we do our part to make it pass easier. we see you in your moment of weakness, and we pass you the towel, or the change of clothes, or the cool glass of water, and we don't say anything. ever. never again.

cause somehow we know.

i have friends who have seen their friends blown to bits. i have friends whose friends' blood has been spattered across them. have i ever done this: whoah, i seriously take a drunken lucid moment to pause, and no, i have never held someone in my hands while they breathed their last breath.

some have.

some have been through the dank pits of hell, and only hint at it in moments of weakness. not that i am afraid of the dank pits of hell, and hey! if some of you are gonna be there, i prefer them to shiny happy times, honestly. but still. i have never actually what i would call, "been there."

and that is cause, ultimately, without a shadow of a doubt, i am one lucky motherfucker. but i am one rapt listening son of a bitch when someone who has is sharing these moments with me. i am appreciative. and i try to be the first bastard to say, "you know what? there but for the grace of god go i. and ty. thanks. thank you, cause you are stronger than i will ever be."

put your hand in mine, o my droogs and only friends, my long-suffering non-existent readers, those who return day after day or week after week or even month after month (fuck, i will even take the year-after-year's, cause really, have i been any better? no. no, i have not.) put your hand in mine and together we will traverse this monopoly game-board of life like some red-rover wall, impenetrable as long as we all uniformly and unanimously stay one to the cause.

i warned ya at the beginning of the post, didn't i?

darth sardonic

if only, o my beloveds, i could sometimes convey in a more detailed manner the tangle that occurs in my head, but i discovered something, with the help of lady macleod and a few other close friends that only one thing matters, ultimately: i have got your back. n if you could, for me (which i know is not my usual style to some of you newcomers, but i will tell you, hang around this sorry little excuse for a blog long enough and you will see happens more often than not--), find that one person in your lives who really needs that hug, and give it, without judgement, with total abandon. you may make the difference between life or death. and that is one fucking thing i won't joke about.

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Saturday, April 17, 2010

a real email...

with only name changes to protect the innocent. or guilty, i guess, depending on how you look at it...

Darth, I love it. I received it today & have been reading it for a couple hours. I especially like "Mother's Day". Thank you for being such a special son. Not only are you blessed, but so are Wife, the boys & I.

Remember your dad loved you in the only way he knew how. He taught you a lot. How not to bring up your boys. So you will make your own mistakes. Stepmom, too, did a lot of negative teaching.

I cry when I'm happy, too. So did you Grandpa.

Much love,

Mom

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

a quick one before class...

well, my beloved non-existent readers, we are fast approaching the end of pictorial drafting, which means i will be stupid busy finishing my final project. which means less posting here probably.

i just wrote a review for The Unfinished Work at barnes and noble. initially, this idea felt a bit uncharacteristically full of myself, cocksure, and arrogant. but seeing as no one else added a review, and most of what i am hearing about the book i am getting straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak (my friends might punch me for calling them horses), i felt it might be necessary.

however, i was honest. brutally so, actually. cause i think the book could've (and still can) be alot better. and i said that. but i added that overall i was getting very good feedback, albeit from my own friends and family.

that's pretty much it for now, though my final project for pictorial drafting is pretty fun because i get to design a zero gravity bar in space! me and my partner are having fun with that one.

darth sardonic

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Thursday, April 08, 2010

when we treat our kids like used cars...

for literary (i use that word exceedingly tongue in cheek, o my beloved non-existent readers who keep stopping by this little grease-stain on the world wide web) fare in a lighter vein, i recommend my last two posts. this post is, in short, a political rant.

florida is trying to push a bill through the senate right now that recommends teachers be paid on a "commission" based on state aptitude test scores.

my immediate reaction to this news is: teachers are now being lowered to the status of used car dealer. regularly, in this country i call home and love so much and would die to defend, the government drops money into huge multinational conglomerates and defense contracts, and our children, and those individuals who have chosen the often thankless and difficult job of elevating our children, sometimes against their own will and that of their parents, to their full potential get shoved roughly down across a table and, quite frankly, violently raped up the ass.

i would ask anyone that will listen: which is more important? bombs or books? how do we continue as a great nation if our most precious natural resource is being treated like nothing less common than dog shit?

but this is all academic, and i digress.

as a general rule, the majority of parents in this country have decided it's the school's job to raise their children. the ones who should be a child's biggest supporters and first line of defense have abandoned them. now the youth of america's second line of defense will be stripped of their big guns and handed a butter knife and will be allowed to fall under the tank treads of apathy and disinterest, selfishness and avarice.

were this bill currently law, my oldest son's teacher would no doubt be homeless and starved. she is a teacher with many year's experience and a vast well of patience and who i know for a fact actually goes home and stresses about certain children in her class (my own son is one). she does her job not because it is a job or someone told her she should teach, but because she actually cares about the kids, and wants them to succeed, and she agonizes when they fall short. she would starve because she routinely gets the hard cases. the rebellious ones. the ones from dubious familial backgrounds, the ones with adhd, the ones with learning disabilities. and she battles daily to give them every chance and opportunity. but if one student, on the day of the fcats, were to flat out refuse to test (as my son has done in more than one instance with spelling tests or math tests), then that is one less meal she can afford.

when we treat our kids like used cars, that is exactly what we get: children with knocks in their engines, kids whose carburetors don't function as they should, an entire generation of rusty, malfunctioning, bound for the junk yard progeny who are overpriced and have been patched up for resale to consumers who don't really want them.

and when our nation is driving those clunkers, and nothing else, then we will be a nation permanently in the break-down lane.

darth sardonic

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Wednesday, April 07, 2010

I see some old friends riding down the street/on the bikes we used to ghostride on the playground...

...but I broke my bike last fall
and my parents were appalled
at my lack of respect for personal property

well, i have never pretended my powers of observation were anything but superlame. as i sat at this very computer, posting on my blog, and staring out the sliding glass doors into our back yard and the small field that slopes away and then up again on the other side and wishing i had a hill...

yeah. exactly.

needless to say, the boys and i went out in the gorgeous sun in our back yard and i put my oldest on his bike at the top of the slope, and gave him a gentle shove and watched him steer and peddle for at least a good twenty feet before cranking a hard left and toppling over, giggling the entire time.

we did this for an hour. he was sweaty and grinning from ear to ear. so was i. (grinning from ear to ear, i wasn't nearly as sweaty as he was!)

the only dark smudge on the afternoon is when no. 2 wanted to try the two-wheel bike, and went two feet before jamming the handlebars to one side and then trying to dive off the bike as it fell and landing upon one of the now upjutting bars, knocking the wind out of himself, scaring the shit out of me, and quite clinching the fact with all and sundry that i don't yet need to remove his training wheels.

and we are just in from repeating the scenario again today.

and no. 1 is just a few feet away from having discovered a freedom he has only dreamt of.

darth sardonic

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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

All I wanna do is...

...Bicycle bicycle bicycle
my mother and father divorced when i was five. my father moved out, and my mother, sister, brother and i continued to occupy the house we were renting.

this meant that he wasn't around to teach me how to ride a bike.

the neighborhood was ideal for bicycling around to parks and each others' houses, and my friends and i often did. but i was the only one of my friends who did not have a bike, due to a lack of sufficient funds. this didn't slow me down, however. i usually rode my shiny red tricycle that had survived my toddler years. at age 7, i was too big to ride it proper, but rather would put one foot on the step that crossed the frame between the two back wheels, lean over to hold the handlebars, and push with the other foot, much like a skateboard or the scooters of today.

naturally, i suffered a fair amount of ribbing for my mode of transportation.

i often passed this along to my mom. eventually, i goaded her into purchasing a used bicycle. (it is even possible someone from her work or church donated it to what they (and i--and no doubt my mother as well) felt was a good cause.) i can't remember if stores even sold bicycles with training wheels in that prehistoric time, the year of our lord 1979, or if this faded yellow, rust-pocked miscreant had ever sported them, but if so, they were long gone.

as my mother spent her spare time either cleaning house or sleeping, i needed someone to teach me to ride the thing. one of the neighbors' sons was a dashing, intelligent, mature, god-like strapping lad of 16 who was kind enough to lend me a hand. the neighbor's side yard sloped gently to a chain link fence that enclosed the back yard, and this seemed the ideal spot.

the teen would give me a shove, i would roll wobblingly down the lawn only to be brought to a jarring halt either by an unexpected impact with the lawn, or the fence. no doubt the first few runs were of the former sort due to my inability to keep the bicycle upright. but i do remember several "successful" runs of about fifteen feet that left me with no greater injury than whiplash.

yesterday, i took the boys outside to enjoy the sunshine, and they clicked helmets onto their heads, and began riding around our cul de sac. as they played, some acquaintances from school rode up, notably training-wheel free, and after making snide and snarky comments about my boys not being able to ride "two-wheel bikes," rode off.

no. 1 insisted he was ready, parroted by no. 2, and although i knew better myself, i grabbed a wrench and shifted the training wheels back so they would offer little resistance. i recommended the grassy yard to no. 2, who demonstrated an inability to do anything beyond moving the bike forward six inches with both feet on the ground pushing. i moved his training wheels back to perpendicular, and sent him on his way.

but no. 1 is 8, older than my own (rather delayed) biking lessons, so i persevere with him. he is convinced he can do it on his own, but after pedaling only a couple times before falling over, it is obvious he is going to need me to do the fatherly thing and run along holding onto him until i feel i can let him go. after several minutes of him either leaning on me heavily or only riding a few feet before falling over onto one foot, i am worn out, and think it best to continue the bicycling lessons on another day.

what i would give for a hill ending in a fence.

darth sardonic

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