someday this pain will be useful to you

Written by Peter Cameron this is a slice of life story of a few days in time with an 18 year old boy who is troubled with the transition of living in society as we know it.  Living in New York City with a high powered attorney for a father and a fashion diva for a mother who also dabbles in owning an art gallery James struggles with who he is and how he can function in a normal environment.  He has always been a little different and as some have told him might be to smart for his own good.  How often have we used that saying to describe somebody who is beyond his/her years and that knowledge gets them into trouble.

The book moves slowly along as James is depicted as a troubled teen that had been prematurely exposed to adulthood and how he handles his troubled life.  Much of the story is told through his interaction with his therapist as he describes episodes of his life focusing a substantial amount of time to a trip to Washington DC as he was chosen by the American Classroom to take an honored trip.  He depicts his life as he works his way to understanding how to communicate with anyone and everyone preferring for the most part just not to speak in general.

Since he is so intelligent he almost comes across as elitist and condescending to everyone he meets as he talks down to the common person who cannot possibly understand him for who he is.  The book itself is very well written and the story is eloquent but to me personally seems self indulgent in the depiction of who this character might become.  It rambles through the process of describing James and his issues from acknowledging his sexuality to his unhealthy family life.

If you are into psychological overtures and how a person at a young age might come to deal with adult decisions in a methodically depicted story then this will be a good book for you.  I didn’t dislike it but it was not a free flowing easy read either.  I can’t be too negative since the book is so well written and you definitely connect with the character but in the end even with this bonding you are left with asking yourself why you took the time to read through the entire thing.

I hope to read more of Peter Cameron but would also hope that in his next novel he might weave a story that is more directional with something slightly more specific in mind for an outcome.  The ending seemed abrupt and contrived with no real transition from the story to the finality of the conclusion.

Divorce Update Log 2834267

Everyone wants an update on the divorce saga especially since I headed off to court this week so here we go.

Absolutely nothing happened.  Not one damn thing.  Nothing.  Zero.  Complete waste of time.

I don’t really understand this process and since I found I was getting too worked up I honestly let my attorney do almost everything so I don’t have to get involved.  My ex-wife represents herself.  We showed up in court this week with all of our forms and files and piles and stuff and sat down as normal and waited for our turn in the family court of love.  Our name was called and my attorney and my ex-wife went back into the judge’s chambers.  She gets to go since she is representing herself and my attorney goes to do whatever it is that they do back there.  I sat in the cushy chair reading my most current book which I will write a review on shortly.

After about 5 minutes my ex-wife leaves and about 20 minutes later my attorney emerges.  He said that my ex had not prepared any documents and her response when the judge asked her why was that she was too busy and didn’t have enough time.  Hmmmm, that doesn’t seem like a good legal strategy to me but who am I to say.  I don’t really have a strategy other than doing whatever my attorney tells me to do in the hopes of bringing this to a conclusion as quickly as possible. 

So I shook hands with my attorney thinking to myself this probably cost me $500 but in the end it is all in good fun anyway so who really cares.  I walked back to my car and headed home.

Divorce (Another day in Court)

Heading out for another day of court in the ever popular saga (Divorce, A life in Hell) again today.

Is there a way to make this process any more time consuming, costly and all around unpleasant.  Maybe if possible upon seating they could plug in little battery connectors to everyone’s nipples and periodically zap random people as they waited their turn.  At least then it would be easier to stay awake and if it is random who knows you might not get hit if you were one of the first ones called up.

At times it almost seems like my ex-wife (wishfully placing a title on her) enjoys the process but I know she cannot.  She loses every time we step in the room.  This is only because in the beginning I offered her everything and she spitefully refused preferring to battle me out in the trenches.  It is almost like having 100 out of 100 pennies in your coffer and deciding to throw them all back in hopes that you will get all 100 returned.  Doesn’t seem logical to me but then again logic doesn’t rule in divorce court.  Just doesn’t happen my friend.

So anyway we are off for another battle later today.  Should be interesting to see what happens.  Good thing about having an accomplished attorney is I don’t even know half the time why I am going.  I just show up and let him do his things.  At $400 an hour he seems fine with that and for me it gives me the distance of having to deal with her directly.  Recently she has actually fired her attorney and is representing herself which adds an entirely new comic element to the picture.  Only so much advice I can give to her so I am done trying to help.  Let the chips fall where they might now I say.

Wish me luck.

I will update tomorrow on how the battle faired.  Assuming I didn’t lose any limbs and have maintained use of my vocal capacity.

Can you love somebody too much?

Is it possible to spend too much time in bed?  Can you snuggle somebody for too long and hold them in your arms for what seems like endless hours of uninhibited joy?  What happens when your writing suffers, when you forget to eat dinner, when you look over at your dog that is rolling his eyes in disparagement because he has yet to be fed or watered for the day?  You attempt to move, to separate yourself from the metaphysical connection of your eternal embrace that seems to now be the sustenance of your very being.  Much as somebody on life support you feel your heart sputter at the thought of leaving behind that which you can never truly be separated from.  Even when you venture down to the garage and pour the food and water into the bright silver cylindrical bowls your mind is wandering back to the warmth and comfort of being at her side.

Her naked perfect body lying exposed with the quilt slightly covering her legs, exposing her breasts.  Her reflection shines slightly less than her smile as you return from your errand of necessity glancing in the mirror over the dresser.  You jump back into bed intertwining your bodies yet again as the feeling of completeness echoes throughout the room from your physical bonding of passion.  Leaving her side is always the hardest thing you can do every single day and only the knowledge of returning keeps your mind from exploding in a million fragments into space.  If there were truly a God how could he inject you into a world where you were not allowed to spend every waking moment staring deep inside the vast cataclysmic beautiful bluish grey eyes.

Her flawless skin melts as you rub your fingers down her arm grasping her fingers in yours while you admire the barrage of freckles that graces her entire body.  You love the freckles that sporadically bombard her being keeping her innocence while humanizing her into the perfectly wrapped present you have dreamt of since you first saw her three years ago.  She might misplace things as she frequently loses track of valuables but you realize her imperfections are the very things that make her perfect.  Her softness as she touches you makes you gasp for air as you struggle to control your speech in the throngs of passion with your only desire that you keep this connection for all eternity.

I continue to struggle with the question.  Is it possible to love somebody too much?  To desire somebody beyond what is healthy.  To spend so much time embracing them that everything else loses its importance.

I will leave it for you to answer for yourself.  My answer is unequivocally no.  The emotional physical connection of love should be all consuming.  Passionate but positive.  Supportive in nature and uplifting in life.  If you lose yourself in time with the one that you love then you have finally felt what love should be.  Enjoy those precious moments of bliss.  She is your soul and without her what would life really be but an empty void.

Commonality of Loneliness

As I write my book (n0w on my second), fumble with my blog and jot down short stories I ponder the commonality of the human race.  We are all made differently.  Nobody can really understand what graces the mind of anyone else.  Who knows what somebody is truly thinking as you stand doing a presentation in an office or in a crowded elevator going to your next psychology session to help you decipher who and what you are.  We are all living in a vacuum of irrationality. 

How many stories/movies are made about what might happen if somebody could read everyone’s minds?  The reason this is so intriguing is that you never really know.  You can be in the middle of a passionate kiss and your significant other might be thinking of her/his shopping list.  You might be in the middle of a heated debate and all your antagonist is wondering is how you have a huge zit in the middle of your forehead.  The insanity of life is that we have no idea what or who we are because we are simply the result of everyone else’s perception.  Anything else we believe is a fantasy for our own self indulgence.

The only things we share with our fellow humans is the gift of life and the curse of death.  If we are here we all went through the process of birth and if we are here we are all guaranteed to experience the finality of death.  Nobody can deny the two.  What else do we have?  We are a society that craves companionship and camaraderie because it is the one thing that we will never have.  No matter what you think of your buddy sitting across the table you will never know for sure what he feels or thinks of you.

We can only hope that we are one of the lucky select few who find that person to balance us.  That person who will tell us the truth, stand by us, guide us as we do the same for them.  Love (a profoundly tender passionate affection for another person) according to dictionary.com.  By that definition how many of us will truly experience it.  We might think we will but is it a lie.  I can guarantee one thing most of us will never know.  We will know two things for sure, birth and death.

If you are as I and can say that you have found that evasive connection then hang on with all your strength.  It will happen quickly, unexpectedly and if you allow yourself to slow down and analyze it you will find you have lost it.  Go with the feeling, nurture it no matter what the naysayers are trying to predict as a verdict.  It will be unexplainable and magically and if you miss it you will most likely never find it again.  It will break all of your rules and people will think you are crazy.  They are probably right but they also do not understand.

Love is unique and therefore denies the standardized playbook.  Don’t miss out, you get very few chances.

Dual Personalities

A friend of mine that I have not spoken to in a long time got in touch with me through facebook.  It is a little odd for me at times since I don’t go by my real name but for all of my writing connections I use Duncan.  This of course causes problems with people I have not spoken to in a long while since nobody knows who Duncan is and why he would be talking to them.  I explain the name, the reasoning (ex-wife insanity) and they go along with it and we both at some point forget it is even an oddity.

He made a point of talking about what the name signifies and how the crossover from my writing to my personal life seemed like it would be too much to continue.  He suggested I open a facebook under my own name and if I wanted to keep Duncan that would be fine but ensure that my postings were separate and unique.  I think he feels that if I continue to blur the line between the two that at some point one or both of us might take on each other’s personality.  When the line between competing personas blurs the line between reality and fiction can blur as well.

Duncan is the main character in my book.  The book is written in first person.  Duncan is a serial killer who no longer has the ability to distinguish between right and wrong.  I am a simple financial accountant.  I work in a 9 to 5 job in an office and do not have any issues with violence at all let alone physically harming somebody.  I know the difference between black and white, right and wrong, ying and yang.  Duncan is a bad person.  I am simply an average person living an average life.

Duncan is not real.  I am real.  I am made of flesh and blood.  Duncan is made of pen and paper.  I think I am pretty clear on the ins and outs of who is who and what they mean.  Still he is an intelligent person.  He is somebody who doesn’t know me well now but several years ago knew me as a budding young adult.  His worry is not unique.  What if the lines did blur one day and I woke up not sure of who I was or what life I was living.  What if I crossed paths into another life and became that which I had created.  The birth of Duncan might play out in a different way than the very story that I had created from the inner recesses of my mind.  Maybe that was how he became anyway.  My inner personality crying to escape.

bahahahahahahahahaahahahaha

The Swimming Pool (A Teenage Short Story Part IV of IV)

“So”, Tony said, “No guests at our hotel are or would swim in this pool since you are basically swimming in the urine of four college boy’s form less than thirty minutes ago”.  With that he started laughing again making no attempt to control himself.  Marissa felt the nauseous feeling welling up inside her and from the corner of her eye she saw Sarah who was screaming at the top of her lungs heading for the stairs as fast as she could possibly move.  Marissa then followed as she too only wanted to get of the water before she puked all over herself and in the pool of urine.

                OMG, she couldn’t think about it anymore or she surely would find herself getting sick.  This might be the most disgusting way to start a summer that she could possibly think of.  Tony was still laughing and she swore if he hadn’t stopped by the time she got out she was going to ball up her fist and hit him square in the stomach.  How could he think this was that funny.  Sarah was now out of the water and she was jumping up and down like she was jogging in place.  Tony walked around the edge saying he hoped that they enjoyed the rest of the day but he had only one last thing to show them.

                Marissa was now out of the water as well, her face red with anger and embarrassment as she continued to stare at this boy who had just changed the focus of their morning.  All she could think about doing was getting home and taking a shower as quickly as possible.  She felt so unclean and swore that her skin was turning yellow.  Toby was on his way back and held the piece of paper from the door that he must have taken down.  She guessed that he was coming back to rub their faces even more in the stupidity of their recent actions.

                He handed the paper to Sarah, said again that he hoped they had a nice day and headed back inside.  Sarah looked at the paper and seemed confused and her eyes were rolling in multiple directions at once.  Marissa was unsure if she was going to faint or if she was losing her focus on reality.  What in the hell was wrong with her.  She handed the paper over to Marissa and she read the bold typed words clearly stating:  TOWELS FOR THE POOL CAN BE LOCATED IN THE OUTSIDE CLOSET TO THE LEFT OF THE DOOR.

                Marissa raised her head and saw for now the second time Tony double over in laughter just outside the door to the hotel pointing at them.  “You guys are too much”  She heard him say as he entered the door and headed inside.  She could hear him continue laughing as the sound slowly faded into the background.  OMG, he had lied to them.  He had made that crap up just to mess with them and they had fallen for it.  What was wrong with him.

                The two girls quickly gathered their clothes putting on their shorts over their bottoms and walked through the gate to the path heading back down by the beach.  There is no way that they could stay here as Tony periodically poked his head out laughing at them for being so stupid as to actually believe what he had said.  With every step they took the mood lightened and they eventually began laughing at what had occurred.

                Marissa was happy that she had not thrown up in the pool only to find out she was getting sick for nothing.  She was laughing so hard she could barely get the words out to Sarah explaining to her how close she had been to vomiting.  Sarah only remembered screaming at the top of her lungs.  She felt sure that everyone in El Granada had heard her and the two of them would be on the front cover of the Half Moon Bay Review for being the stupidest two girls on the coast.

                Headlines “Two girls that will believe anything anyone tells them get punked by gorgeous blonde beach boy who works at the beachfront hotel”.  Wouldn’t that be a great story.  The laughed some more as they headed in the general direction of Sarah’s house.  The rest of the day they walked around the streets eating lunch at Sarah’s not really doing anything else significant.  It might have been humiliating but at  least they had fun and now could say they had done something memorable.

                It would be difficult to top this mini adventure but as Marissa walked up the hill to her house she decided that she would put all her focus in making sure that she found something that would make this look small.  She didn’t know what it was but would soon find out she was not going to have to wait that long to find out.

Teenagers do Grow up

I was driving over after work to pick my kids up from their mother’s house yesterday.  Ever since our last court appearance their mother and I quote “will never drive them to my house again”, “EVER”.  She lost a pretty hefty ruling in the divorce settlement and the word bitter has never been more appropriate.  Ironically it is ending up exactly like I had told her it would.  Sadly for her, since I had offered her so much more in the beginning but as in our marriage she didn’t listen to me then so why would she ever listen to me now.

Anyway that was not the point of the story.  On the way back to my house my 15 year old daughter was sitting in the front seat and she as in most people who know me was asking why in the world I was so happy.  I am really beginning to wonder how sad I must have been as everyone, and I mean everyone who knows me continues to talk about my surge in joviality.  I tried to answer in a vague way but my daughter is rather bright and she honed in on the answer quickly enough but her response to my reason for happiness is what surprised me.  She stated “dad, I am glad for you.  If it makes you happy then I think that is fantastic”.

How mature is she getting?  She could have been upset or questioned my newfound catalyst for exuberant joy but instead she simply stated that she wanted what was best for me.  My heart almost melted as I told her that might have been the nicest thing she has ever said to me.  I am not sure what the future holds in the next few months but that moment was fantastic.  I am well aware that it will be difficult for her as our family continues to transition.  I also feel she is progressing in her growth and is beginning to recognize that life metamorphoses before your very eyes and while we are powerless to stop it we can embrace it if we try.

How can it possibly get any better than having three beautiful girls in my life that will always be there for me and who will love me completely and totally?  The only thing that I can think of would be possibly having four or five or ok that might be it.  I am not sure that I can handle much more than that.  I love them and all but by the end of things I will be having my own drama team and there is only so much drama one house can take.

Mr Bean tore his tendon

My little Chihuahua tore the tendon in his back leg the other day so he is now a three legged hopper.  A friend of mine took him to the vet (thanks) and gave him some pills that do God only knows what and sent him home.  I can only hope that my black lab was not involved in the episode in any way but she can play a little rough.  She has a great personality mind you but being a huge wound up ball of muscle it is only natural that she might explode some day.  It can happen to the best of us.

Seems odd that I have three kids.  The responsibility of taking care of two dogs is overwhelming at times.  I think you get caught up in the day to day activities and it can be monumentus.  How many balls can one juggle in the air at one time?  Jesus, how many balls does one want to juggle in the air at one time?  Can I possibly take on any more than I am currently trying to rationally handle?  At times I say no then at times it seems possible.  Once you take somebody or something into your life you can’t just give it back though so you should be somewhat certain.  Ironically, is anyone ever certain about anything?

Random chance dictates that is not possible.  So I watch the little guy hop around on three legs and I wonder at how adaptive he is.  He doesn’t sit there and cry he takes it like a man and improvises.  Making do with what he has.  Do we do that?  Do you do that?  My God if I were to lose a leg how would I react?  I can’t even handle it when I misplace my cell phone.  It makes you think how spoiled we are even though we think we have it so hard.  Sitting back in our leather car seats as we ride in air-conditioning to our office.  We head home to our big screen TV’s and pop an instant meal into the oven getting ready to head off to sleep at night in our queen/king size beds.  Holy shit, you are right we do have it so hard.

Makes you wonder how anyone ever made it when you had to forage for food or God forbid use your hands to earn a living.  How many people still work with their hands?  How many people actually do anything?  Our financial tax system is so damn complicated it is its own industry.  Does it really take that many people in the world to add up that we owe 50% or more of our checks to a system that can’t crap in a toilet without wiping the shit all over them?  Just think if they were faced with the dilemma of a torn tendon and their wasn’t a hoard of doctors standing over them walking them through therapy.

Mr. Bean has no idea why his leg is hurting.  He has no idea what is happening to him.  All that he knows is that he has some problems and he is adapting.

What a world we might live in if we could face life with the courage of a Chihuahua.

Dan In Real Life

In keeping with my normal motif I seem to review most movies well over a year after they were released.  That being said my reviews are more about life than just the movie itself so there are always additives to the review that will take it into a unique area.

Dan In Real Life is a great movie.  Fantastic.  The premise is about a man (writes a dear abbey article for a living) whose wife has died and he is raising his three daughters on his own.  Now while I am divorced and share custody with my kids I can relate to the movie in a personal way.  The movie starts out where the middle daughter is dealing with boyfriend issues and Dan (The Father) cannot and won’t deal with any form of relationships with his middle daughter at that age.  I only wish my older daughter listened to me as well.

The middle daughter one day announces that she is in love with her new boyfriend and upon questioning it is revealed that she knew she loved him after only three days.  Can anyone say OMG.  Some of us go a lifetime and we are not sure if we know what true love really is.  Some of us might not ever know true love.  Three days?  Is she insane at the ripe age of 12 or 13 (guessing here).  Flash forward as Dan takes his three daughters to a cabin where his family meets every year and vacations for a week.  Dan meets a woman (I won’t tell you the entanglement portion of the movie) and ends up falling in love.  Can you guess the punch line.  Yes, in three days.

OK, we all know that this is the movies and we all know that it is impossible to fall in love in three days yet………  I often periodically reference the book “Blink” in my writing and the premise of that book is instantaneously making decisions that are correct.  The theory is our brain is preprogrammed with so much knowledge that it acts like a computer and if we listen to it then we will be guided down the correct path.  Moral DON’T OVERTHINK THINGS.

So that would lead you to believe it is possible.  I know that I love my kids, I know that I love my dogs, I at one point felt something for my ex-wife but that has changed or I at a minimum was wrong, beyond that it is hard to say.  How do we know what love is?  Is it the puppy dog stuff or the real no matter what you do I will always be there for you?  Is it a connection that is unexplainable?  Is it preordained that you wonder through life until you find the one person you are connected with?  Is it somebody you are attracted to and you simply work at making it through the tough times and enjoy the person through life.

I have no idea but I know what I think.  Shhhhhh, it is a secret.

Great movie though for the sappy love struck sensitive types which apparently I am becoming more in tune with every day.