Brody and I. A picture.

My Dog Brody and I. We see something. The End.

Trip to Mayo

This is a photo of my Mother talking to my stepfather. We were kickin' it family style at the Super 8 Motel in Rochester Minnesota. It's Mayo Clinic's turn to find out what is wrong with my Mom.

My Mother obsesses about her health. It's her most favorite subject to talk about. I try to avoid bringing it up at all costs because I'm tired of hearing about it. That's the god's honest truth. I should have a "good son" reason why...like it makes me feel bad to hear about all of the things wrong with her...and yeah it does make me feel bad. But then, I'm used to feeling bad about Mom's health. I have no idea what the absence of that feeling would even...feel like.

So yeah, mostly I just don't want to hear about it anymore. It annoys me, because I know it can't do her any good to fixate. You know?

Other things that bug me about my mom:
B: She is compelled to tell every doctor, every nurse, every receptionist lady/person, what each of her kids' professions are. It almost always begins with, "All of my kids, except for one, " Side note: the 'except for one,' is always my sister Lacey. I used to be included in the 'except for' category, but I's all gro'de up nows. Continuing on..."All of my kids, except for one are in the 'Health Business," She continues to name the professions, "My oldest is a radiology tech, but she specializes in MRIs. They say she can set up those magnets better than any of they other girls there at the hospital. My other daughter is a respiratory tech, and my son here, he is a Phlebotomist." Notice no profession for the 'except for.' That's just the way it is.

Now, it's the 'phlebotomist' that gets me here. Just as much as my mother obsessively must make us kids sound "accomplished," well 'except for one,' I ADHDly must correct my Mother when she misrepresents my job. Especially when there is about a 5 dollar an hour difference. (The egocentrism is intentional) Now, it is true I perform phlebotomy at work. For those who do not know, AND happen to be reading this which the odds are staggering, Phlebotomy is 'sticking people with needles to draw blood.' I'm mostly a trainer at a plasma donation center. It's SO much more than Phlebotomy...(once again intentional, sort of)

And it's SO much more than just her misrepresenting my job to people. For the most part I don't give a shit. It's just she also refuses to spell Darren's name correctly even though we have been together for 6 years. I have spelled it out for her on numerous occasions. D - A - R - R- E - N. Still, it's DARIN.

Or maybe it's because she continues to refer to him as 'Jason's Friend.' She likes him, don't get me wrong...but still it's just a hug short of a full-on embrace. Which, of course makes no sense. But we mostly get along because we mostly don't talk about big stuff. We've acknowledged it. We know we're both dealing with the shit in our own way. Her dad molested me. We both carry it. Every fuckin' day. We don't need to talk about it. It will never go away.

I'm aware my Mother's body is falling apart. She's not even sixty and has a new hip, new knee, fused discs with titanium rods, and rebuilt wrists. She smokes a pack of Menthol light 100's a day. And she has mysterious 'masses' in her legs and throat. It may be Lymphoma. And it may not. I'm aware she might die. But I'm aware she might not. So that's it. Life. I get it.

One little side note story on her smoking. We walked next door to Denny's because we both love their Moons over My Hammy b'fast sandwich. After supper on the way back to the 'hotel' Mom stopped to have a cigarette. An old potato faced man and his rather aerodynamic humpback wife walked by and the man said, "You should put that out young lady or it's gonna kill ya."

Mom just giggled a rather saccharin laugh and flipped them off as their backs were to her. "I should have told him he was going to get syphilis from his whore of a wife." I said to Mom. She laughed. I love it that she laughed.

Save the Earth and Win a Toaster Oven!

"Thirty per cent of amphibians, 23 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds are under threat of extinction, while one in ten of the world’s major rivers runs dry every year before it reaches the sea." I read this today here.

We're rockin' this planet hardcore!

A Photo. A video. A site..

My dog, Brody was all like, "You know...people love looking at cute puppy photos on the interweb..."
"Your point?" I asked.
"Well...I aaaammmm pretty cute."
So, yeah. There's a picture of him. Because he's all like cute and stuff.




Free Rice And now a site. An "enrich your word power," sort of vocabulary test site, but for every word you get right Free Rice donates 10 grains "through the united nations" to help end world hunger. As much as I don't like the fact someone's big 'ol rice dinner is dependent upon my language skills...I like the idea of lazily helping solve the hunger problem. So go forth! Pump up your word power and FEED THE WORLD! RICE! All kidding aside...it's a great idea.

Never a Centurian

It's late. I'm tired. Here I am...typing a a Blog entry. A blog. Blog? Odd.

A life expectancy calculator told me tonight I would live to be 96. 96. I'm not really sure what I think about that...I think I was a bit put off by the fact one of the questions was something like:

I have had unprotected sex or injected illegal drugs...
A) Never
B) One time or less this year
C) More than one time this year
D) I'm humping a hooker while injecting heroin as I take this quiz.

First off...why are my choices limited to 'Never' or 'One time or less this year? Why can't it just be 'Never' or one time ever? Stupid PhD's and their stupid quizveys. (That's quiz and survey's baby) And secondly, and possibly more importantly, why is unprotected sex and injecting illegal drugs the same thing life expectancy-wise? I mean, yeah, I get it. Unprotected sex is bad, but equal to injecting illegal drugs?

The idea of living until 96...if this magic calculator thing is even remotely reliable. Which it isn't because it doesn't factor in all of the crazy shit in life. You know? Like being killed by some random uncalculatable event. :insert witty death involving Vicks vapor rub, a cucumber, and a Pitchfork:.

Anyway...the idea of living until 96 is, well...bloody scary. (Damn it. I hate not being British. Because by being a non-Brit I am not allowed to use this, the most fabulous of all sware words) I'm sort of a dried up old bit of a soul, you know? A bit reactionary, paranoid at times, and cynical and sarcastic. I can't imagine this all rolled up neatly in a burrito of dementia and Alzheimeriffic nineties.

Honestly, I do want to see it unfold. This. Our destiny. I expect a lot of moral rubber-banding, and wind removal from sails, but I'm still leaning on the side of hope we'll get it figured out.

I'm mostly doubtful I think, consciously. Unconsciously, where it counts, where the dreams paint themselves I am, of course, all hope. Just full of it. Brimmin' with good intentions...possibly a butterfly and a bubble or two. But on the outside. On the shell that shows most...it reflects my cynicism.

Did I just type..."Where the dream paint themselves?" W . T . F? I thought I killed the poet in me years ago.

I'm thinking now would be a good time to admit I am passed tired, and into stupid. Long story short: Life expectancy calculators, no matter how much Martha Stewart sings their praise, are a pile of poop. But it's poop with a life expectancy of 78. And that is a few years above the American national average. So yeah...Good job poop.

I want to be a photographer. When I grow up.

Slightly Older C (very wise.) Lil C (sort of a little beast, really.) Respectively. I said, "Give me sadness." One of them found a piece of it, I think.

They stood in front of an old rusty wheel barrow...I thought it gave a nice "autumn-y" effect. "Autumn-y?" Yeah, that's right. Autumn-y.

I'm tired.

Boys Remember

Well, we do in our own rather boyish way. We also like to hide behind our sex. Some of us wish this was a literal statement, but I was actually talking about our gender. I was about to do this "hiding" in this entry; say something about the way boys remember things...with the boy in the center, affected by all around them, instead of actually witnessing their effect on the world as they pass through it.

I like to think not taking responsibility for my own responses is a "boy thing" or a "victim thing" or "That's just the way he is" thing...but damn it I've paid attention for too long to know this is a cop out.

Being the only boy in large family of women it has always been easy for me to play the Boy card, because I was the only one in the family dealt that particular card. But in my vain attempts of being self-aware and responsible I'm trying to stop myself from taking the easy way out. Women, make it easy, b.t.w. because for the most part they also believe this. It's no secret women are the better of the two sexes.

I wrote a blog entry in May of 03 about the history I had with a friend. The catalyst for the story came from a good place, a genuine care for the well-being of said friend. The outcome, however, landed very far off the mark. Like if a parachuter meant to land on the giant red X in the middle of a field, but instead landed in a wood chipper. That far off, far off.

Today I went back and read this entry after aforementioned friend left me a comment. Ouch. What prickish things to write. (me not the friend.) I think I was attempting to be witty and cute as I watered down her life story and served it from my very Ego touched point of view.

I was going to start this entry off with something regarding boys and the way they remember things. Allude to the fact I was a victim to my gender. My brain just catalogs things differently and how it synapticly reproduces the past for me is how I must write when retelling my past. But that's just dumb.

The fact is I thought we had an interesting past and I wanted to exploit it for a blog entry. Not intentionally, probably. I didn't wake up and think "I haven't talked to her in awhile, I think I'll crap all over her memory in a blog today and serve it up as funny." But you know looking back with older eyes, and bit lighter in the ego I have to say...this is what I did. And I am sorry.

I'm not going to deny this person did some pretty crazy things. Prickly memories I'm sure that wake her up at night. But who doesn't? I scrambled up the past a bit I think because of my own Prickly memories. Like the ones reminding me I pretty much turned my back on her when she most needed a friend. When she was at place where she essentially knew no one but me. I'm a jerk. But I'm trying.

I hope you are well.