Interlude

And then there were none.
The birds had stopped singing and the smell of the roses outside my window had ceased to stir the emotions that were once burning inside my heart. Last week, Roseanna left me. She left this world. Escorted to the other side by two tons of American steel spearheaded into the passenger side door of her 2001 Toyota Camry by a sixty-five year old steel worker who had one too many after work beverages. She was on her way home. She was on her way to see me.
I was in bed, sick, and she had just come off the night shift at the hospital. She called me on my cell to see how I was feeling. She was always so considerate. She insisted that she stop and pick up some medicine for me, against all my objections and assurances that I was fine and this was only a temporary bug. She wouldn't take no for an answer. Stubborn. So, on her way from Wal-green's with NyQuil, aspirin and microwavable chicken soup, two blocks away from my apartment that steel worker in the pickup ran the red light. I could hear the crash through my window. It sounded like the world was coming to a horrifying, screeching destructive end and, I guess in a way, it was.
The police showed up. They dragged the old steel worker from his truck, barely a scratch on him. They handcuffed him and they placed him in the back of one of the waiting cruisers to be taken to the precinct and processed. Left in a cell overnight to sleep it off and then to be told in the morning that he was a murderer. Then they pryed Roseanna out of the driver's side of the car. The car that could scarcely be called a car any longer. They put her on a stretcher. They lifted her into the back of the ambulance and they drove her to the same hospital she had just come from.
All I could do was watch. Watch from my bed as the woman I loved was taken from me that night. As she was taken from me forever. Unable to move. Unable to think. Unable to cry.
Still, here I sit. In this same room, at this same window. Waiting for her to show up at my door.
Everything is going to be ok.

Can I Be Your Memory?

     When is it acceptable to keep having strong feelings for someone you're not with and when does it just become pointless? 6 months? A year? Two? .......Three?? What is it that causes these feelings to linger inside your heart, ghost like, haunting you at every turn like some B-rate horror movie? A Paranormal Activity of the heart, if you will. Is it an unfulfilled potential? Is it from something that ended far before it should have? Maybe, it's from a relationship that never had the chance that it deserved.
     On this blog, I pretend that I have all the answers for all of life's questions. I'll sit here at my keyboard and I'll tap-tap-tappity out some snide comment about the ridiculousness of following a set of religious rules or I'll condemn the American populace for idolizing a 40-something reality t.v. star. However, I can't (and won't) sit here and pretend to be above such things as longing for a feeling that you used to have.Yearning to just sit next to that person one more time, if only for five or ten minutes. In fact, these are the types of things that I think people should invest more effort into instead of only wanting a bigger house. Or a faster car. Or a swimming pool filled with gold coins. Do you really want to be Scrooge McDuck that bad?
     If you've ever felt strongly about anyone....ever....it's crucial that you hold that memory close to you, that you remember what it's like to be able to feel that way about another human being. Regardless of how painfully it may have ended (or, if you're incredibly lucky and have worked incredibly hard it's still going). Without these desires to be with another person, without these burning passions that we share with our fellow human beings, we may as well be dead already.
     It's been said many times before by people much more intelligent than I am and much more skilled with putting it into words; but passion, desire, love....these are what make our world go round. Not money. Not fame. Not being a psuedo-celebrity on a two-bit MTV reality show. People do these things because they think it will increase their odds of gaining the ONE thing that they, and everyone else, really want.

They want to be your memory.

We're the Kids in America

     When did it become ok to be a shitty parent? Was there some sort of memo that went out to the generation above me and they forgot to pass it down to me that said being a shitty parent was the only true way to parent? Remember the good ol' days; days when crime wasn't as prevalent, days when people were moral, days when children knew their fucking role in the world was to do what their God damn parents told them to do? During those days, parents knew how to raise a child. They knew that if you spared the rod you turned the child into a pretentious, self-absored asshole. (I think that's how the saying goes, yeah?)
     Now, if you even look at your stupid kid the wrong way, it's, apparently, tantamount to nailing him OR her in the back of their stupid little head with a Louisville Slugger. So, what do the pussy parents do these days instead of disciplining their kid? They threaten them with bribes.

"Jimmy, if you don't stop peeing in that man's food, you won't get your cookie."
"Katie, if you don't stop jumping on top of that woman's dog, I won't let you watch Hannah Montana."
"Bobby, if you don't stop stabbing that hobo with a rusty nailfile, you're not going to get to ride the rollercoaster."

     This is why kids grow up to build pipebombs in their parents' garage and then go shoot up their school. Don't blame that shit on Call of Duty and Marilyn Manson, CNN. Look at Mr. and Mrs. I-Don't-Believe-In-Spaking-My-Rotten-Child. Because you refuse to give them a REAL punishment and you only threaten to with hold a fucking COOKIE (doesn't that just SOUND ridiculous?), they don't think there are going to be any real consequences for anything they do. Even if that something is shooting 52 students in the face with a sawed off.
     My suggestion? Next time your shithole of a kid mouths off to you, take your hand (open palm) and just smack it across their tiny little cheek. Not full strength, mind you, only enough to let them know that you mean business. Then point at them and tell them not to do that shit again.
     To all you bleeding heart faggot parents that CLEARLY don't know how to parent (and were probably disciplined too much when you were growing up because you couldn't fucking learn to NOT be an asshole), you can also do something for me. You can kill yourselves. Don't call the discipline of a child "child abuse" you cock lickers. YOU are the reason why children today get away with murder. Literally.
     In closing, I would just like to send a special shout-out to the father that I saw discipline his child at the mall. Dude, straight up, took his son into the bathroom, dragged him into a stall and spanked him right there. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! Three smacks on his stupid ass and then told him that he better never act a fool in public again. Props to you, sir. Keep fighting the good fight.

**Edit: I just had this thought: Isn't it weird how pet owners are lawfully and financially responsible for any and everything their pet does. But, to be a parent means that you aren't responsible for anything that your kid fucks up?