lost hope

I really like that I found this shot. I'm not entirely pleased with it, but I plan to revisit the location this weekend and hope for better.

The cycle continues anew

It's quiet. The air barely rustles as I crack the door. Strewn about the carpet are various bits of plastic and paper. In the corner, a pink lamp sits unlit by a blue laptop, it's lid festoon with stickers and professions of love for some thick eyebrow pop star.

Beneath the window a scooter sits neatly folded waiting a rider that is not expected anytime soon. The bed has only sheets, it's comforter folded neatly and placed beneath. In a corner stands flashes, an umbrella, and other signs that the occupant of this silent room shares a passion with another.

It's going to be a while before I can collect myself enough to put into words all that was for the one month where I wasn't the miserable, sullen bastard that I usually am. Sadly, now, it's back to the status quo.

A Letter To My New Best Friend

Dear Hoochie,

Please forgive me while I preface these words with what some would consider a derogatory title. In your delightful exchange earlier I didn't get a chance to find out your name, but you didn't try to find out mine either, so we'll just call it even for now, OK? However, as much I would've liked to have known your name so we could become fast friends, it's just too hard not to use such a descriptor because you certainly presented yourself as such in public.

As anyone who has ever frequented a grocery store can tell you, there is an unwritten set of rules that is expected on entering the premises. Don't reach around others to retrieve things you need. Don't squeeze loaves of bread and put them back. Don't let your kid open a box of Kix and start devouring it as you push them among the aisles. Don't take the can of soup from the bottom of the pyramid. Simple things. Easy things. Common sense things.

These things are nuisances that your fellow patrons can simply do without. After all, some of us actually enjoy grocery shopping, you know? But, as much as the aforementioned things can irk even the most saintly of people, there is one thing above all of these that could cause even Mother Teresa to fly off in a murderous rage... flow of traffic.

As a nation our appetites have grown and broadened over the years. Twenty years ago you would be hard pressed to find an ethnic aisle in the average grocery store, much less a bakery, or wine department, but today they are there. Nestled in with the Cheerios and Campbell's Soup is prepared sushi, kimchi, and an olive bar. With these added items floor space becomes a premium, because in the capitalist society in which we dwell every inch of wasted space is seen as a missed opportunity to increase one's profits. So as a result, aisles become smaller, and even the largest stretches of open real estate become dotted with islands of condensed milk and baby powder. Not a millimeter of space more is given to passing carts than is absolutely necessary.

So it was as Butters sat half asleep in the cart while I pushed him along the back of Publix towards the cheese and meat necessary to prepare a coming lasagna. Behind me, Ren and Mac giggled and plotted and schemed and whatever else a nine and ten year old set of cousins do when they get together. But then, like an octogenarian behind the wheel of Crown Vic you burst into the walkway, dear Hoochie.

With your hair pulled tightly into a pony tail and your three inch heeled sandals clicking across the tiles, you strutted down the aisle. The conversation you loudly carried into your teeny, tiny cell phone wasn't for everyone else in earshot, it was yours, and to hell with anyone that could hear you. You were young and self-important and you didn't care about anyone else.

Which explains why you paid no heed to the father and three children walking behind you as you stopped dead in your tracks beside the fish counter. I can only guess that the what the person on the other end of your teeny, tiny cell phone said was such a revelation that you simply had to stop. It can't be easy to hear news of such magnitude and walk in three inch heels, can it?

I'm obviously an insensitive jerk for not realizing that the world turned based on your will alone and I should have simple waited for you to resume walking. Silly, silly me for saying “excuse me” in a voice I thought you could hear over your conversation and then thanking you as I pushed my buggy and youngest child past. Apparently I shouldn't “get so fucking close to other people” and that I am in fact an “asshole.”

I'll grant you that, I am an asshole. Why on most days people with multi-unnatural-colored weaves and skirts that conveniently move out of the way as they're bent over the hood of a drop-top '65 Impala don't know how much of an asshole I actually am. Especially now with my propensity to just snap what with the fact that in three days I lose Mac once again to her mother and 2,311 miles. So you probably should count yourself lucky that all I did was to tell you quietly to kiss my ass, because papa bear was fully prepared to get all Englewood Jack on you.

Kudos to you though for calling me a “fat, fucking redneck” with a family that is “nothing but fat, fucking rednecks.” Class like that can only come from years of refinement and education. But being the oft polite man I try to be, I did nothing more than say “thank you,” as I rounded the corner of aisle 13 and away from you while you continued your diatribe. My daughter and niece thank you as well for they found your words hilarious.

In closing, my dearest Hoochie, I offer you these simple words of advice and an apology. Your weave, while obviously very involved, isn't impressive when one considers the amount of money you spent on it you probably could have spent doing something about your grotesquely receding hairline. Just a suggestion. And, my dear, sweet Hoochie, I apologize for saying you were a $2 extra from a Sisqo video on Twitter. While you may or may not have had the proper undergarments on at the time, it was uncalled for. Because in reality your complete lack of any junk in the trunk would have left you booted from the casting call. Sorry.

I hope that this will bury the hatchet between you and I and I hope we are on our way to becoming the bestest of friends.

Sincerely yours,
The Fat Fucking Redneck in Aisle 13

happy father's day

A hand-made card.

Simple.

Colorful.

Beautiful.

Great attention given to every exacting letter of “Happy Father's Day” and “Dad.”

But the card is not mine.

Those beautiful shapes, letters, and words are for someone else.

Someone who doesn't know the pain of losing their child to another.

One who doesn't know what it's like to stare into an empty room for months wishing that the perfectly intact mess strewn about it's floor showed some sign of movement by it's purposed occupant.

One whose only connection to author of those words stems from marriage to her mother.

Not once have I ever tried to make her refer to her step-mom by any title afforded her mother. She has but one mom. But somehow, someway, I'm not so fortunate. Not even today.

No markers met paper for me... her dad.

The Black Nerd Strikes Again