Happy James Earl Ray Day Everybody!
Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A “friend” of mine on Facebook wrote, “Happy James Earl Ray Day everybody!”
To which I responded with, “They say, ‘Ignorance is bliss,’ and if that’s true, you must be one of the most blissful guys on the planet.”
Well the gloves came off with that comment and we went straight to texting each other.
He basically asked me, “What’s your problem?”
I said, “I just wrote what I felt at the time. There is so much history there. And there’s a certain connotation behind what you wrote, that I felt I needed to say that.”
We went back and forth a few times, but I know I hurt his feelings calling him out in public, so I apologized for that. But here’s the thing, this person is very close to me and his comment hurt me on so many levels that I know his twenty three year old mind didn’t understand.
To me, it seemed that he was celebrating the assassination of the most celebrated civil rights leader in American history—instead of celebrating his life and work. I know for him it was just a joke. But it wasn’t funny to me.
I remember being about twelve or thirteen years old the first time I heard someone say to me, “Ignorance is bliss.” But I thought it was a compliment.
I remember being about fifteen or sixteen the next time I heard the phrase and I told the person, “I know when people say that it’s not really a compliment. But I don’t know why unless you tell me.”
I don’t really remember what the particular situation was about. But what I do remember is once the person explained it to me, my perspective changed and I had a paradigm shift. Once you see someone else’s point of view and it resonates deep within you, and you see why your original thoughts were wrong, you can’t go back to believing in what you did before.
I know I didn’t explain myself this well while we were texting back and forth. But I hope he gets the message now. And I hope he has a paradigm shift of his own.
Feel free to comment: Have you ever had to call someone you really cared about out in public? Or have you ever had a paradigm shift of your own that you’d like to share?
How Can I Focus
How can I focus one thing when I have so much I want to do? What makes it really hard is I have even more stuff that I don’t want to do, but have to.
Right now I’m working a full-time job as law enforcement trainer. I also have three websites that I’m messing around with—all with different topics and goals. On top of that, I’m trying to finish editing the last three chapters of my book that I’ve been working on for almost five years. (Which is way too long to work on any topic that’s not a PhD dissertation.)
Let’s not forget that I’m married and have a two year old, which I love, but still…
Oh, and I almost forgot, I also have a rental house that’s been unoccupied for the last three months because my tenants destroyed it and it’s being rehabbed right now…and on and on and on…
So how do you choose what you want to focus on?
I am very good at starting things before other things are finished. I like to say I have a creative mind, but when projects don’t get finished, what have I really accomplished?
So this month I’m setting two goals. The first is to get my house rentable. The second goal, to finish my edits for my book so I can get it sent off to my editor. That’s it, nothing else. And once those two things are done, I can start moving on to another project.
Have you stretched yourself too thin lately? Did you make a New Year’s Resolution that you have already dropped the ball on?
It’s a new year, but we are far enough into it for you to have fallen back into old habits. If you have, let this be your wakeup call. Take it from me; you don’t want to be working on the same project five New Year Resolutions from now.
Happy New Year 2012
As I’ve gotten older, I have started to realize that maybe my elders are on to something. Some of the sayings that they say are starting to make sense now.
For instance, my Grandma has always said, “Don’t do anything on the first of the year that you don’t want to do all year long.”
Since writing is one of the things I’d like to do all year long, I thought I’d write a quick post.
2011 was one of the roughest years I’ve ever had, financially anyway. But I plan on changing that this year. My wife accepted a new job that I hope works out for her.
I plan on getting my book published this year. I’m two weeks away from my self-imposed deadline of finishing my final draft before I send it off to my new editor. I also plan on working with a Internet marketing coach this year to help get one of my three websites off the ground.
I know that my Grandma is right. Doing something that you want to do on the first of the year is a good start for the rest of the New Year. Now I have just 364 more days to go. (Actually, it’s 365 more days this year because it’s a leap year.) I guess that means I’ll have to do this writing thing again tomorrow.
Good luck to you on whatever your new endeavors are for 2012. Take it day by day and work on whatever you want consistently this year and I’m sure by this time next year, you’ll be well on your way.
My Buddy George
George Carlin was one of the most influential comedians of the 20th century. Looking back on it, he is one of the first “blue” comedians that I remember watching and thinking, This guy gets it. His outlook on life has influenced me and my writing tremendously.
In this clip, Carlin discusses God, the planet, and “Your ticket to the freakshow. And if you live in America, you’ve got a front row seat.”
If you’re getting this in your inbox, you can just click here to watch the video. If you’re reading this on my page, just click the play arrow on the screen.
Not On the Shopping List
–Looking for parking and
almost getting hit by a
silver Chevy Tahoe that’s
backing out and
looking the wrong direction
down a one-way lane
–Grabbing a cart that’s
stuck together and
pinching the fleshy-part
in between my thumb
and forefinger
–Pushing the cart with a
wobbly wheel
behind a black-lady with a
thin white sundress with a
ass as big as her cart is sideways
wearing a bright orange thong,
red bra,
hair still in curlers,
who’s bending over to grab the
onions on the bottom shelf
–Two screaming kids
hitting and kicking each other while
their mom talks on her cell phone
and to the Deli-counter girl
at the same time
–Getting to the check out line and
having all lanes closed
except one
–standing behind ten
carts piles high and hearing
grumbling, grunts and groans
–Leaving the cart in aisle 9
as I walk out the door
empty handed
Tenants and Toliets
It’s been almost one month since I’ve written anything on my blog. It’s hard to feel creative when there has been so much going on. I’ll give you a brief recap.
My mom took me, my wife and my two year old daughter to Disney World for a week. That trip was followed by another one to Chicago to visit my sister-in-law and a high school friend from Hawaii.
When we returned from Chicago, my wife got a new job after being out of work for a year. This would seem like a good thing, but my daughter’s baby-sitter doesn’t accept kids at her house until 7:15 am. Well, it used to be 7:30 am but she changed it to 7:15 am for us. Regardless, I had to move my hours at work back by one hour and fifteen minutes. So now I’m hitting prime-time traffic hours going to and from work, and my exercise time has been thrown out the window.
Now I can skip working out, that’s not a big deal, but a week after my wife finally getting a new job, our tenants from our rental house decided to move out. Not only did they not give us any notice, but they also trashed the place. They had three Boxers and the house smells like a dog kennel that hasn’t been cleaned in two years.
My tenants also left everything they didn’t want inside the house. They left the refrigerator door open twice, trying to burn out the compressor. And when I changed the door locks, they broke in the back steel door, took their lawn mower and weed eater, then they left the freezer door open and turned the air conditioner on as cold as it could get.
When I told the police about the situation, they said they couldn’t prove it was them. And when I told them that my tenants sent me a text message saying they’d get their stuff anyway they could, and I still had the message on my phone, the police said, we couldn’t prove that it was them who actually sent the text.
Now all these things in themselves wouldn’t be so bad. I caught all their misgivings in the nick of time. The worst part about the whole situation is my tenants had a leaky pipe in the bathroom that they didn’t tell me about. The water leaked down into the basement and molded the whole downstairs. So now I have to get a crew in there to rip everything out and fix it.
When all these types of things happen to you at once, you don’t feel very creative. It’s hard to sit down and think of something funny to write. This has been one of the most stressful times of my life. But one of the things I’ve learned is, it’s alright to take a break. Sometimes you have to regroup. And now that I have things somewhat under control, I’m back to doing what I love. I hope your last month was better mine.
5 Minutes Late
There’s a moment at 6:12 a.m. when I hear my little two year old girl start to cry, that I want to run like a startled deer down the stairs and escape to the forest that is my garage.
The reason behind this fight or flight response is because I’m usually running two or three minutes behind schedule because I chose to lay in bed a littler longer and now I still have to feed the dog, who decided to take his sweet-ass time today. Then I have put on my socks and shoes, get my work bag together—put my lunch in the bag, make sure my keys to my office are in there, make sure I have a pen, and then take out yesterday’s empty lunch container so it doesn’t stink up my bag, which I should have done yesterday when I came home, but I didn’t.
Then the real struggle starts. I have to put on my duty belt, which has four snapping belt-supporters that snap around an inter-belt and one of these supporters doesn’t fit right, so it takes forever to get it on. And I know this whole process is going to take all of the three minutes I have left before I’m five minutes late to work. And for some reason, if I hear that cry and it’s before 6:13 a.m., I feel obligated to take thirty seconds to go into my girl’s room, pick her up and comfort her and ask, “What’s wrong?” knowing she’s going to wipe her snotty-ass-nose back-and-forth across my uniform shirt leaving a trail of slime on my shoulder that I’m going to have to wash off.
After I pat her back a couple of times, and find her what used-to-be white Honey Bunny, I’ll lay her back down and then run out of the room knowing she’ll be screaming before I can grab my keys out of the glass bowl that’s at the end of the hallway.
Sometimes I’ll spin on my heels before I hit the bathroom halfway down the hall and take her into our bed, throw her on my pillow and say to my wife, “Here ya go. I’ve got to leave,” feeling guilty only as far as the end of the driveway. Then I’m over it.
Hey, it’s not my fault some people have to start work at 6:45 am. And you, little girl, just made me five minutes late.
Piece Published
Hello,
I just wanted to let you know that I got a new piece published in the Journal of Micro-literature. Interested? Then click here.
Doubt
Doubt
creeps in
questioning my
choices
in life,
and love,
leaving cracks
in my foundation
crumbling
my sanity.
It dwells
on the past
trying to implant
regret
darkness and
a quick death.
Then my ray
of sunshine
whispers otherwise,
blows away
the resentment,
leaving a
stronger
more determined
man.
I’m Going to Disneyland!!! (or World)
Have you ever come back from vacation and wish you could turn right back around and leave your old life behind? You get out of your car from the airport and reality smacks you square in the face when you check the overflowing mailbox and it’s filled with bills. Then later, you know you’ll have to pay more money to get the dog out of the kennel. And this is on top of the, who knows how much is on the credit card, because of the, “Hey, don’t worry about it, we’re on vacation,” attitude you had all week.
Taking a vacation is something everyone should do as often as they can. But just know that you’ll never be able to justify affording it, even when it’s free.
Before my wife and I had our daughter, we used to go on three or four trips a year. Now we go on one or two, but that’s only because we stay with friends or family.
We weren’t going to go on any trips this year, but then we got lucky. My mom had a conference at Disney World. She was gracious enough to pay for me, my wife, and our two-year old daughter to go see Mickey and Minnie in Orlando. My mom put us up at one of Disney’s resorts and we had an adjoining room. She also told us to charge everything to the room and not to worry about it. Cha-ching.
It goes without saying that Disney is expensive. How expensive, you may ask? A room where we stayed is normally $250 a night. A soda in the machine is $2.75. A six-pack of beer (Bud or Coors Light) is $15.00. That same beer is $6.50 each at the bar. Lunch for four adults and a baby was well over $100.00 every day. Dinner? A lung or kidney—your choice.
In spite of the cost, we all had a great time. My little girl got to see all the princesses—Aurora, Belle, and Cinderella. She also got to see all the characters—Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto and Goofy. It was worth all the craziness and price gouging because you get to forget about your normal life for a week. You forget that you have a list of fifteen bills waiting for you at home once you see that little girl smile and get so excited about seeing her heroes in real life. At that moment you could care less about your life at home. You want to soak it all in so you can relive it when you’re old.
Then you ride the bus for an hour to get back to the airport. You go through all the joys for airport security. Your two year old cries for an hour straight on the airplane and you become those people and you already wish you could be back at the resort drinking a $6.50 beer.
You’ll always have bills, and most likely, money problems. It would be nice to shed that heavy coat forever and have a permanent vacation state of mind. When I figure out how to do it, I’ll let you know. Until then, one or two weeks a year are going to have to do.
Need more? Here’s the best Disney song ever.