Reinvention

Princefisher II graduated high school this month, a milestone barely achieved. Where he's going, or what he'll do, is anybody's guess. His beliefs and life trajectory are things I cannot fathom. He doesn't need me at all any more. I doubt he ever really did.

I am the eldest of four boys, and had two sons first. Princessfisher might as well be a giraffe; that's how much I understand my 16 year old daughter. In her eyes, I am a rigid and irrelevant anachronism. She doesn't need me, either.

Princefisher I, although not totally self sufficient, is far away and more independent every passing month. He is fine without me as well.

The past 12 months or so have been the most stressful I've ever experienced. I have been accosted on personal, professional, family, belief, financial, emotional, and geographic levels. I am exhausted. My depression, dormant for years now, has threatened to overwhelm me on many more than one occasion, sometimes in very, very dark places with ugly thoughts best left unspoken. Only my stubborness and fuck-you attitude have kept it at bay so far, the toughest internal battle I've yet experienced.

My life is not . . . I don't know. It's far from undesirable. As a matter of fact, parts of it are down right delicious, most notably my angelic wife. But it isn't what I want. Why, I don't know.

My family history is rife with miserable and unhappy individuals who did not, or do not, or refuse(d) to, understand themselves. I will not be one of them. Why this still plagues me, I don't know. But the simple act of questioning all this makes me better. Yes, I said BETTER.

What I do know is that you cannot change what life throws at you, but you can change how you react to it. Sometimes that reaction is immediate, sometimes it is a "sleep on it," sometimes it is an excruciating period of doubt and ennui. I am done with enduring the latter. Life has happened to me. It's time I happened.

Therefore, I am resolved to reinvent myself. There are many anecdotes of people changing and thriving after their youth, a late blossoming of worth, contribution, and contentment. Grandma Moses is an example to emulate.

But how does one do it? Meditation? Volunteering? Career change? Move? Sell everything you own? New hobby? Communing with a pine cone on top of the mountain? Getting off yer ass and writing that novel you've threatened yourself with for years? I don't know. I really don't.

It's easy to give up, which I am ashamed to admit I thought about doing many times during this period, closer than I have ever come to that purgatory of doubt and despair and disillusionment. But I never have done that in my entire life. When the chips were down, I always gave the finger to fate and refused to play with a deck handed to me, made my own rules, and trampled the grass before me, damn courtesy, convention, or anything else in the way. My hands are capable of gentleness, creation, battle, murder. At least I have discovered that again. That is a hopeful sign.

Reinvention. It may be throwing opinion, philosophy, psychology, and security to the crows. It may also be investing in forgotten confidence, plus equal parts intuition, creativity, arrogance, incaution, exploration, and remembering who you were in the first place.

I don't know. But I think I might.

Facebook Lesson

So I took the plunge and got a Facebook account. Within three days I was being hooked up with old friends I hadn't seen in 25 years or more. But I don't advise you sign up right away unless you want to learn the following things:

- almost everyone looks younger and more beautiful than you
- almost everyone is doing more fun things than you
- almost everyone is more successful than you
- almost everyone seems to have more money than you
- almost everyone has traveled to more exciting locations than you
- almost everyone looks happier than you
- you a re a big fat loser and your life has amounted to squat

Please Go Away

One of these days the alien demon will escape through your fake smile.


You're gay. We get it. You also contribute nothing to society.

Now shut up, you squealy little punk.

The reason why the N word is still a legitimate noun.


Quite squinting at me, you stuck up chirpy bitch.


I hated this smug little lesbian slut in third grade when she was Pippi Longstocking.


There are no words, in any combination, in any language, in any universe,
that can adequately describe how much you guys suck.


Hey, aren't you the smarmy psychology prof who flunked me
while banging coeds in exchange for good grades?


The only hot cunt no man wants to fuck.


The only thing more retarded than anti-blackface urban hip-hop epileptic twatwads is -
There is nothing more retarded than anti-blackface urban hip-hop epileptic twatwads.


Tonight's nightmare brought to you courtesy of Slickface McGloryhole.


Pop 'n' Douche the Pricksbury DoughNazi.


If Amy Winehouse mated with Mr. Potato Head.

NV 2179 KX

You were my pride and joy, my dear Pupfish, but times are tough. Please don't hate me.

You will be fine with the nice older couple. Their grand kids will love you.

Have fun in Canada.

* * *

For a little while, I was Captain Kirk.

But like the preceding 10 months, give my regards to Captain Dunsel.

My Best Girl

She knew who her master was. She proved it by bowing down to me when I'd come home at the end of the day. She greeted me on weekend mornings with the biggest smile, showing me how much she loved me. When I stole the bedcovers she never complained. If I wanted to sit where she was currently perched, she would always graciously move out of the way. When I was sick, she would stay by my side, doing everyting she could to make sure I was warm and comfortable. She never talked back. She was a good traveling companion.

She was my first greyhound, and I loved her like I'd never loved any animal before.

She wasn't a very good racer, so she was retired at age two. Her name was Miracle 2 B Alive, Miracle for short, because she had pulled through some catastrophic illness as a puppy. She was a gorgeous tiger stripe orange and black brindle. When she ran, she looked like embers on the wind. I named her Blaze. She smelled of hay and fur and summer and living things.

She was very much a girly girl. In the spring she did a strange slow-motion dance around flowering shrubs, mooooviiing thiiiis foooot theeeen theeeee oooootheeeer, nose deep in the blossoms, inhaling the sweet intoxicants, a gangly ballet dancer gliding at 1/20 speed round and round. She delighted in joining my wife and daughter in nail painting sessions. They would coat her toenails some gaudy color, and Blaze would prance through the house, lifting her paws high, and show Daddy what a pretty girl she was. She loved comfort. If there was an expanse of tile or wood, you could lay a washcloth on the floor and she would lie on it. She played with the other dogs, a skinny, goofy clown all legs and ears and nose, but when the boys got too rough, she would steal away for a nap or watch from a distance. She had a great mothering instinct, putting up with all sorts of indignities when my children were small.

She turned 13 in December, a redwood tree for a greyhound. We know how old she was because greyhounds have their birth month and year tattooed in one ear. We didn't know the exact day, so we made it Christmas because she was such a gift.

It has been a rough time these last 12 months. When my brother went AWOL and was later found almost dead, I felt the world on my shoulders. Blaze still greeted me with a bow, not quite as deep, but beautiful with her paws stretched forward, nose to the ground, tail held high. It made me know somebody loved me no matter what. When finances became so tight I thought the world would collapse, Blaze lifted and pulled back her doggie lips in a comic facsimile of a smile. It made me know that love is more important than money. When layoffs arrived at work and my department mutinied against me, Blaze snuggled against me on the couch and rubbed her long-nosed head against my chest. It reassured me that love is stronger than hard times. Two cancer scares, strange minor maladies, a recovering brother that brought tremendous family stresses, bounced checks, parenting worries. Through it all, beautiful brindle Blaze was there, more grey than black, slower but no less wonderful, a constant in my life when everything else was change, uncertainty, exhaustion, and fear.

Three days ago it was plain there were no better days ahead of her. She had lost control and couldn't make it outside, she limped on a front leg, her hips quivered when she stood, she would stand vacant eyed in the middle of the room and whimper at nothing. She wouldn't eat and became a stick of a dog. My daughter went with me on Blaze's last trip to the vet. Just before her final moment, Blaze looked up at me with confusion and love. I felt my heart burst in a nova of grief and guilt. My daughter held me as I sobbed and sobbed.

Her name was Blaze, and I loved her like no animal before. She was my best girl.

Goodbye, my Blazer girl. I rescued you and you rescued me back.