Why I Love This Site

In March of last year I came upon a website called OneTwoFiver. OneTwoFiver is a writing tool used to open up the creative juices. It demands you write without editing really and that you follow a contrived format.

I was skeptical at first but I created an account and started writing. One word, two words, five words and so on; I created stories. Normally when I went to the site I had nothing in mind, just a desire that I write and that I create a piece that was a couple of pages long. In the end I think if you follow the rules you end up with 888 words.

Noting that the site is not heavily used and realizing that there is a cost to maintaining such a site I have become worried that my work resident there will be lost. As a result today as I sat here recuperating I went out and grabbed all my pieces off the site and saved them as a word document. Like the folks in Writer’s Monthly say, just sit down and do it.

In 33 pieces I have amassed a word total of over 14, 000 words. Some of the pieces are short; there were days when I just couldn’t get it going. But a goodly number of them have the full count and then some. A number of these pieces have been copied and pasted by me in the past and reworked into blog posts. There was a 10 day period in August of last year when I wrote 8 full length pieces. I don’t’ know how I did that. Still I am glad that I did.

I have never felt comfortable with my written words. Syntax and grammar baffle me and frustrate me. Words, oh dear precious words, them I love. But stringing them along in a coherent form uh well I am how you say not so good at that. But with OneTwoFiver I am forced to write and then because it has no editing program Word and I get busy afterwards. Sometimes I wait a day or two before tackling the mechanics of it all, but I try.

I guess what I am saying is that writing is a good thing. We all should do it. Find a way that works for you and just do it. Me I use OneTwoFiver but there are lots of other sites and tools out there. Take a breath and create.

Parts of Two Nights Long Since Past that I have been Trying to Work into a Story

Lonely and quiet the darkened beach road winds down the coast towards the ocean. Dunes lie to the left, just beyond them the waves are rolling in again and again. With the pickup truck’s windows rolled down the sound of the surf can be heard over the engine. Glancing out of the open window on the driver’s side, thin wisps of foam can be seen dancing and scattering on the dark water as the waves rise and fall. The cream, almost yellow colored foam is like an ethereal water snake barely caught by the eye in a glimpse illuminated by the moon’s light. You only see the waves along those stretches when the dunes part. The surf you see is the Atlantic. In North America the direction in which the ocean lies should tell you the road you are on is heading south.

Late, late summer night moving into early morning with a full moon hanging clear, there is no haze tonight. On an evening like this the dunes are more a moonscape than something of this earthly world. It should be hot and muggy but it isn't. Being on this thin strip of land with water so close on either side the wind no matter which direction it blows cools the evening quickly. There is dampness in the air, you never escape that hear along the beach, but it is not oppressive. You begin to hum a country song sort of. It is new country that is closer to folk rock than to Merle Haggard. “I rely upon the moon; I rely upon the moon and Saint Christopher.” A couple of choruses find their way out and then you grow quiet. Your head is pounding and your eyes burn.

For whatever reasons the developers and other rapists of the good lands have not found this place. Maybe they just can't figure out how to stabilize this place. Speculators and would be land barons don't give a rat's ass for safety or the environment. There must be an honest to God engineering problem or there would be condos up and down this blacktop.

If you were in a mood to think you would have to wonder why anybody even pushed this two lane (sort of) road all the way out here. Some roads like this exist because they used to run down to a ferry, not this one. It is and has always been a dead end. The route is a hell of a long drive to come out to a ramshackle fishing pier.

At the base of the pier is a little seafood diner populated by a bunch of gnarled old people. They themselves don’t give much of a rat's ass about who you are and why you are here. With the burdens of all the infirmities that age imposes upon them, while they stare at you when you get out of this old truck, they really don’t care much at all about you and your business. Sometimes you want it that way. This however is their social time. Early predawn breakfast and fishing done before noon is what they do to stay connected.

You can smell the coffee that is brewing inside. The odor of coffee mixes with the salt air and the smell of dune grass. If your stomach wasn’t so wrecked that smell of java would seem like aromatic heroin. You would have to have some.

Why the Sam Hell did you drive all the way out here? Couldn't be for the cuisine, there isn't any really to speak of. When the Sea Shanty or whatever the name of this place is opens up it’ll have hash browns, eggs, bacon, white toast and coffee and that is about it. They might have oatmeal for the health conscious (not really). It is just for the old-timers who have been told give up the grease or die.

You won’t be going in except maybe to get some something to drink. Even if you didn’t fell like crap there sitting on the front seat of the pickup is that homemade sort of Egg McMuffin thing you made. Only the egg is fried and has lots of grease congealing on it. Instead of back bacon you threw shaved deli ham you had in the fridge on it. The bread is store bought bogus white and the cheese is from a gigundo pack you bought at Sam's.

When you were putting the sandwich together you had wished you had had some of the bacon left over from last week, also from Sam's. That stuff is a veritable plank of dead pig. When frying up it smell's about as smoky as a fire along the coastal forest. Egg McMuffin, nayh, this is an Egg McNuthin”. But the Egg McNuthin’s is not calling to you just yet now is it?

Okay so you aren't here for the food? Why then did you drive all this way to be here at this point? Answers aren’t always clear or easy. Sometimes you drive and drive not to get somewhere but to be as far away from somewhere as you can be. Sometimes when you wake up in the backyard happy that some snakes didn't get you and happier still (well more relieved than happy) that you didn't die in your own vomit because there were copious splashes of that around you as you rose up. Yeah making that Egg McNuthin” made more sense way earlier in the evening and most of a pint of JD ago.

Nope you got your dew drenched hungover ass up and fled the scene because you just wanted to be as far away as you can be. Sometimes it is just better to be gone than to actually go back into the house and see the carnage of the night before. Sometime it is best not to answer voice mail or check your messages because you really, really don't want to know who you told to suck what. Don't check out those texted photos either. You were not a pretty sight wearing just a football helmet, your jockey shorts and a happy face spray painted on your bare belly.

Most likely when you got in the car you were still DUI but with the hour it took to get out here you might be under the legal limit. Luckily on this beach road there are damn few things to hit. Your biggest risks are going off into the sand or being hit by a clam dropped a seagull trying to break it open on the road surface.

Maybe taking a few hours here on the beach will help you. If you go into the Sea Shanty you can get a large Pepsi Cola with lots of ice. Then you can walk down the beach about as far as your legs will carry you away from any other human face. You can back up onto the edge of the dunes and wait for the morning to break through; it really won’t be long now. As you watch the sun come up maybe you can come up with a plan. A beach sunrise has always helped you before. It light has always been a clarifying wash for your troubled soul.

As the sun comes up you can chug that carbonated brown sugar water beside you. Maybe it will replenish all those acids and electrolytes that your stomach spread on the lawn last night. Maybe it will simply quell your stomach’s roiling. As the warm of the sun begins to grow you can sweat out the last of the JD from your pores. Good thing you’re wearing an old cotton shirt to soak up that stink. By 10 a.m. maybe you will have a plan. Remember to take your shades the beach gets real bright by mid-morning. Your old ball cap might help too.

A Change is Bound to Come

Monitors showing coarse images in a room filled with beeping machines and gowned nurses provide the back drop for my scary morning. Lying flat with intravenous drugs pumping, this sterile world whirls and washes about me. Lying flat, they tell me I must lie still and prone I stare up at the image of the interior of my heart.

Too young, too young, I shake my head. 54 ? Really I am just a child. A young soul, my body is showing wear signs. Still the midpoint of my life has passed, these days rush past. Before the drugs Dilaudid and Fentanyl pumped into me I was sniveling and scared.

Mentally floating I watch my mortality on a grainy black & white screen. An audible pumping sound, a whooshing sound I hear as that core muscle works to keep me alive. What have I done for my heart lately?

Uhm, well I have given up chocolate and caffeine. In the old days I never would have done that. Ever. The doctor thinks the chest pains may be the result of caffeine and stimulants screwing with my veins. I have returned to the use of a statin drug but I am also using a non statin which has its own issues.

My leg wound will heal. This incision is from where they took their tools and snaked their way up into my heart. When my flesh has knit itself back together I will return to walking. Each morning I will trek to the bus stop. Each evening I will be riding my bike.

My diet was already changing. Hopefully the shift will be long term. More fish (for now) is on the daily menu. This is tough when the nearest ocean is 600 miles away.

If the radio is right I have to shift over to eating brown rice and barley too. These grains will reduce my chance of diabetes and that would be a good thing. At least I have always like broccoli. Odd how mortality seems to matter more when there is an instance of sudden doubt as to its continuation.

But the world will always press in trying to derail my efforts. We are conditioned to look for the easy way to do everything. Why walk when we can ride. We are conditioned to reward ourselves with food, food that is not good for us. When in doubt, eat a large piece of chocolate for each achievement or failure.

Today I ache. My muscles and my gut are sore from the “procedure”. Despite the warnings of huge bruising it really hasn’t set in yet. My hip hurts and sitting is uncomfortable. My wish is that these pains would all go away at once without hesitation.

On the other hand I am relieved that none of the physician’s might have to deal withs came to pass. Sequentially numbered these were set out on a warning sheet I had to sign and date. Coronary bypass surgery, stroke and death stand out at the ones that really scared the bejesus out of me. All in all, the event was rather quick and without complication, less than six hours from in the door to out the door.

People don’t change who they are very easily. How and what we eat is unquestionably part of who we are. But when you are faced with a choice between being and well not being, change becomes a little bit easier to swallow. It may seem unfair that grazing is no longer an acceptable food ingestion plan and that chocolate and Diet Coke are no longer a viable food group, but it sure beats the alternative.

Motivated by the existential ultimate coup de grace I think I can eat clean at least for the near future. Maybe if I can stick with a week I will make it a month. Maybe if I can make it a month I can make it six months. From anecdotal memory this is the way change has always worked for me. Aim for today and maybe tomorrow and if it works then think long term.

Once upon a time when I was 14 years old I pared off a great deal of weight. I weighed about 190 pounds and I was 5 foot 6 inches tall. From about April of the year I hit that weight until September I changed my eating habits. I drank water instead of soda pop. I walked and biked all over the place. I stopped eating Tastykakes (mmmm Tastykakes) .

Forty pounds disappeared in almost no time. I didn’t feel it going away, it just vanished. Hey I grew six inches at the time but I don’t think the metabolic change accounted for all of it, or even most of it. It was really a matter of desire and will.

I had made my mind up that change had to happen. Then I focused on a strategy. Each step I took toward the refrigerator was taken with knowledge and purpose. For years afterward I had food rules such as when I could and couldn’t eat. I wouldn’t buy candy bars. I would only drink unsweetened tea. I avoid ice cream. I wouldn’t eat after 7 p.m.

In reality I don’t remember what the event was that motivated the change but there must have been one. It has been my experience that people change only when an “event” occurs. Death, incarceration, and divorce these bring about change. Maybe it I was to pay for a second session with a psychiatrist and maybe a few more after that I would peel back the layers and remember what my catalyst for change was. But right now I don’t think that is necessary. One day spent scared out of my mind while they poked around in my heart; yeah I think that is enough of an agent for change.

Hey but chocolate is chocolate.

I Should Have Known There Would Be Days Like These

What is the heart and crux of a human life? Put simply I don’t know. In all my reading while I have found many people willing to make a buck or promote particular agendas by claiming something is the heart of human life I have yet to find one that holds up for me. Is the answer to this question what I feel and experience of the world around me? Maybe, but I am not sure. Being engaged and active in living life seems to be something that is important but I am not sure it is the heart of life. No guru, no teacher, no method, like Van Morrison said I just want enlightenment, whatever that is.

Last night was very hard on my soul and psyche. I had to cancel my younger son’s participation in a school field trip, the fun field trip of the year. Secundus had been given the assignment of getting teacher signatures on a sheet showing what work he had turned in and what still owed. His grades right now are abysmal. When I called him at day’s end he told me the sheet was completed. When his mother got home he admitted he had not done it, not at all.

When I arrived home it was a scene out of my childhood. I found myself being directed into the living room to be the inquisitor. Facing my boy I asked him what had stopped him from getting the signatures. The claim was he had forgotten to do it for the first two classes and at that point he decided it was too late to get signatures from any of his other classes. Does this sound like a valid or good reason? To me it sounds like an excuse offered for a decision made early on in the day not to subject himself to the embarrassment and potential of being called to task by his teachers. Secundus had been warned there would be consequences and I have acted.

It was probably one of the harder parenting decisions I have had to make of late. Opting to go to the ER was easier. I have always hoped and believed that Secundus would rise to whatever challenge was put in front of him. He is ferocious as a debater. He is an omnivore of all kinds of knowledge. But something this year has taken him off track. His teachers blame it on him. I don’t at least not entirely. Some of the blame clearly belongs to me for not interceding early and often when things began to get bollixed up. Some of the blame belongs on the teachers, all of whom have my e-mail and my phone number for not contacting me when they were observing problems.

Secundus has fucked up. But so did I, as a kid. Hopefully he will right himself. In my case it took a move away from home to bring about change and that is not possible here. It may happen that I have to move him to another school. We’ll see. I so want to protect him from all the major problems that confronted me but I guess I can’t. Maybe life’s tough turns, those are its heart.



http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/first-steps-to-digital-detox/

Bird Song

Birds, they're singing and it seems they are nearby. In the foyer at the base of the steps that lead away from this upper room my wife is painting with a squishy roller. My younger son taps away at his computer reading Wiki articles on God knows what. This time it is about movies. The older brother is reading some anime tale on his laptop.

Lately our home life has been kind of off the rail and so the computer usage has crept up. In talking with my children I am convinced that those studies saying the internet is killing our ability to focus are dead on. Look squirrel, what’s that, what’s that.

Watching this, my guilt grows. Have I given in to a wave, a phenomena that will pull my children away from reality and turn them into drones? Consumers not creators, is that what the end point of this technology infused time? Clearly the time to act is now, or five days ago or five years ago.

Once the creative juices spilled out of one of these lads, but now it seems his focus has shifted to simply watching. Chance the gardener, wasn’t that his line? I am thinking about requiring a journal from him over the coming summer. But again it is summer and is that fair really?

I am not a Luddite. Technology has made my life much better than it would have been had the world remained static circa the 1950s when I was born. My heart would not be working in an acceptable manner to live a day to day life. I would either be dead or an invalid. The youngest wouldn’t have survived his birth nor would his mother. My oldest would most likely be facing a dark future in menial jobs and perhaps worse. Technology avoids all of these very horrible, very undesirable states of affairs.

Something is lost however in the rise of the machines and the never ending expansion of the electronic networks. Flickering cycling dots on our screens do something to us. No one takes the time to sit down and opt out of society for a few hours to read a book. No one turns the phone off and sits on the porch to hear, really hear the birdsong, or to watch the late day’s light fade or to enjoy conversation about the day and what really happened. Is it the technology that is changing us or is it abandoning the old ways of focused communication and purpose driven behavior that is sapping our life fire?

Having spent the night on Friday wondering what was going on with my health and what my odds were for any kind of longevity I made my commitment to combat the rising lack of focus in my life. To that end, to regaining some clarity I will write a few paragraphs down each day this week. Either using my pen or my keyboard I will create at least 500 written words, strung into sentences and at least cursorily edited detailing my thoughts.

Writing is not easy, but it is not hard. Writing requires a commitment to something that lies inside of us, call it soul or ego or passion it a thing that is easy to perceive but nigh on to impossible to satisfy. Part doubt, part desire, part rational, if you look deep inside this thing challenges every action you take and judges every resulting outcome.

Seeking focus I will ask questions of the people that I meet going beyond the “Hi” and “How are you” variety. Politely I will query on things that matter but I will try hard not to make my conversations fluff. I will turn off the television for several nights and I will walk away from the online interactive heroin. No solitaire on the laptop and no verbal jousting on Facebook will be allowed to steal the hours of my life.

Yesterday I picked some of the lettuce I planted about 3 ½ weeks ago and used it on a sandwich. Green and savory it made the bread it rested on seem unworthy. Planting the lettuce was the first of a number of commitments to being here and being in the now I have tried to make of late. Working even a very small part of the earth to nurture food is an act of focus; real dirt, real plants, real rain and real growth of something meaningful.

Aldous Huxley wrote a book called Island. As I remember it the tome was an odd Utopian or Utopia gone wrong piece of literature. Sometimes it is hard to separate those genres in my mind. In the book the eponymous island was populated by parrots or other birds of mimicry that would repeat, “Be here; be now”. The birds were dispersed throughout the island and were placed there by the rulers of the atoll to keep people focused and living in the moment. We all need something that screams be alive to us on a day to day base. Today I will turn my efforts to being in the real here and the real now.

This piece started out with my noting the birds were singing. They are still singing. As I have written in the past couple of years I often mention the chirps and squawks of the avian creatures that are nearby. Being here and being now they call me to be conscious in this moment. When I think of it there must be trees nearby that are attractive to the birds or I would not hear them so regularly. When I think on it maybe it is the green suburban lawns that provide worms for their diets. A sweet birdsong, a moment of wind shear, a blunt answer each hangs real and tangible and demands recognition.