You Want Fries With That?

I'm that Tired Guy.

I wonder where the time flew and how I could miss it, yet refuse to wear a watch. If philosophy were a hamburger, then make mine a double mushroom swiss with a dash of ketchup and a big ole chocolate shake. Cholesterol simply reminds us we're human. So do taxes, late charges and the occasional speeding ticket.

And the smile of my son.

It's indescribable, the feelings engendered by the simplest of expressions. I adore my child. He is the best boy in the world. He's better than yours.

He could kick the snot out of your honor student.

Twice.

He doesn't swear. He has perfect manners. He employs proper grammar and punctuation with every scribble and scrawl of the crayon.

In a word, my son is perfect.

Of course my son is also seventeen months old, began walking three weeks ago, and drools about as much as I do. Oh, and I'm his dad so I'm biased.

He's a clean slate in nearly every sense of the word. Each new experience is like the dawning of a new age for him. His happiness is genuine, contagious, pristine like the fall of fresh snow on a winter's eve.

And who hasn't dreamed of innocence lost, when we too were that age, so pure, so free?

We spotted the ocean
At the head of the trail
Where are we going
So far away?
Somebody told me
This is the place
Where everything's better
And everything's safe

Suddenly you wake up one day, gaze at the mirror and realize the enormous distance between now and then. Maybe it's the streaks of gray? Perhaps the receding hairline? After all, grass doesn't grow on a busy street! How about those extra pounds? Or the care lines at the corners of your eyes each one a distinct reminder of some critical event that shaped and molded your tangled skein like clay on the potter's wheel?

How did we get here?

Well we know where we're goin'
But we don't know where we've been
And we know what we're knowin'
But we can't say what we've seen
And we're not little children
And we know what we want
And the future is certain
Give us time to work it out

Some say we're a "been there / done that" society. If it isn't the latest, greatest, gaudiest, priciest, biggest, baddest or best...est...then who really cares? You can thank Reagan for that. Oh, and some guys named Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Barbarino, George Lucas, the Fonz, Jell-O Pudding, CD players, the microchip, Madonna, Bush, Clinton, the grunge movement, promiscuous 30-somethings living in New York with no real job or source of income, a show about nothing, the Internet, George Lucas again. On and on.

We really did start the fire.

Face it people, Elvis is dead along with Morrisson, Dillinger, Ed McMahon and Michael Jackson. All that's left are the memories.

And their music.

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out of role
Riders on the storm

But then there is my son. And despite the gray of the world, war in the Middle East, swine flu, economic upheaval and whether Paula will stay on American Idol next season, he's my McDonald's french fries.

Who says fast food is bad for you?

G'night folks.

I Said Lunch Not Launch

I'm that Tired Guy, the square peg in the round hole confined to an office surrounded by round pegs. I'm that Tired Guy who stares sightlessly from his fourth floor office window daydreaming about the past.

The past.

Every day we're standing in a time capsule
Racing down a river from the past
Every day we're standing in a wind tunnel
Facing down the future coming fast

Time is inexorable, a companion to some, a predator to others (thanks for the pearls Professor Soran and Captain Picard) and omnipresent. The clock starts ticking the moment we draw our first breath. Life is the greatest measure of Time. If you're constantly looking ahead, the past will forever remain behind. But it's always there, right at the edge of your vision, like a false dawn.

Ironic that the past can be present eh?

But what about the future? What's there?

"Only what you take with you," Yoda replied cryptically.

Oh yes, ultimate zen from the master himself.

If we are the sum total of our experiences, then carry lots of spare cash 'cause airlines will have a field day when you check your bags.

Now forward-thinkers, these are people who carefully craft their vision, stay focused upon it, never letting it dip or dim or dither. They chase after it like a thirsty man seeking water in a trackless desert. A voracious desire to challenge, strive, achieve, succeed.

Wish I could say I was one of them. If that were the case, I wouldn't work for an insurance company. I'd be something else. Somewhere else. Someone else.

Truth is after all a moving target
Hairs to split, and pieces that don't fit
How can anybody be enlightened?
Truth is after all so poorly lit

Geddy Lee makes a good point. Reality is perception, not the other way around. Regardless, I'm supposed to be the master of my domain (and the king of the castle!). Only I possess the ability to see through my eyes. That's my brain working back there, at least most days it is. Yet I wear glasses because my vision is faulty. I'm near-sighted with an astigmatism. My glasses enable me to avoid walls and driving off the nearest cliff, but the only eyewear powerful enough to prevent bad decisions is experience.

How Aristotlean of me, n'est ce pas?

It's just the age
It's just a stage
We disengage
We turn the page.

Wisdom comes from bad experience. Still if you constantly make the right choices, do you ever really become smarter? Besides, no one likes perfection unless it's in baseball (fraggin' Super Bowl XLII). And even in baseball, variety is key.

"Don't try to strike everybody out," Crash declared emphatically. "Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic."

As for truth, well there are always three sides to every story - yours, hers and somewhere in between lies the actual truth. Yet who can see it? Can you? Can I?

And another irony. The truth lies...somewhere.

But I digress.

We may be faulty creations. Our vision at times, clouded. But therein lies our individual greatness. Are the vast majority of us destined to remain lemmings as Sting once said, trapped in shiny metal boxes? Who wants to be like that?

Everyone possesses the ability to be greater than they are. To be exceptional, go beyond the truth, shed light upon a darkened world, rise above mediocrity. Look to the future, plan ahead, be smart, conquer your fear. Stick to your guns, because not everyone will agree with you. Gather allies, as there's no such thing as having too many friends. When you get knocked down, dust yourself off, pick yourself up and get back on that damn horse with no name.

Don't settle.

And when all else fails, turn the page.

G'night folks.

Begin At The Beginning

I'm that Tired Guy. You know, the one who thinks he's older than he really is after Life runs him over repeatedly. Kinda like the proverbial grape from Mr. Miyagi's dose of wisdom to Daniel-san: "Walk on left side of road, ok. Walk on right side of road, ok. Walk in middle...[guttural gurgling sound]...squish, just like grape."

Oh but I muddle onward.

Three marriages, one son and another on the way, and I muddle onward. I may be that grape, but apparently I don't know how to quit. My name is a Greek word meaning "Rock." Stubborn as, more like it than not. And I'm a Capricorn to boot!

I like to think of myself as an optimistic realist: I hope for the best, am quite positive about it, but know in my heart of hearts that my expectations are far more hopeful than the actual results. No matter how often I've been stomped into goo because I placed my trust in someone, attempted to solve a financial problem, met a girl and fell in like (love is so overrated sometimes...unless it's with the right one...like Traci, for example...), oh the list goes on.

Oh yes, I'm babbling now. Remember, I'm that Tired Guy. The fellow who will undoubtedly toss as many 80s and 90s music and movie references into his future posts as often as possible...whether they apply to the ramblings or not.

What's playing in the background you ask? Why it's k.d. lang's "Constant Craving". She has such a tremendous set of pipes too. At times the melody is haunting, the kind that carries you along the peaks and valleys of her emotions and all you can do is hang on tight and hope you don't fall away. It's good stuff, and my description is hardly doing it justice.

Maybe a great magnet pulls
All souls toward truth
Or maybe it is life itself
That feeds wisdom
To its youth

Or maybe it's a little sprinkle of both with a touch of emotion, a dash of experience and a pot full of irony?

Isn't it the purpose of blogging to merely type what's on your mind? After all, who is really going to read my drivel anyway?

Ok, I'll probably read it. I'm such a narcissist when it comes to my own writing. I love the ebb and flow of how I craft a passage or paragraph. It's my own form of musical composition, and it can be addictive when I hit the right groove. There's a rhythm, a weft and weave only I can hear and it's probably why I prefer music blathering in the background to help motivate and inspire me.

Another musical nugget that NONE of you will ever get:

Standing in the middle of nowhere
Wondering how to begin
Lost between tomorrow and yesterday
Between now and then
And now we're back where we started
Here we go 'round again
Day after day I get up and I say
I better do it again!

Go ahead and Google that one. You probably don't remember the song, but I do. My uncle bought me a t-shirt from that concert too. Oh how I miss the 80s...like a dog missing a fire hydrant, as a dear friend reminds me from time to time.

Full circle is a part of Life, right? I mean, Elton sang about it in one of my least favorite Disney movies. But I'm more interested in the irony...or the other message...the presence of experiences when combined in one long memory remind us that no matter how dumb the choices we've made...dammit those were OUR choices! And would we do it again differently?

Maybe.

If you had a time machine and could travel back to a period of time along your own lifeline, would you do it? Would you repair a wrong? Would you say the things to a loved one now long gone that you've always regretted you never got to say? Would you ask that girl to the prom rather than the other one (Believe me, this one used to haunt me for a long time)?

If we live our lives swamped by our own regrets, then I think the answer is a simple one.

But honestly, it's never that simple.

Do I regret my life?

I used to...before I met the love of my life...and well before the light of my life came to us in February of 2008. Boy how I regretted my choices. Marrying young, ignoring the signs, letting my dreams wander away through laziness, fear, inaction. Marrying again, more fear, a useless desire to eradicate years of inadequacy only to discover it was all still there.

And finally, redemption in the form of an innocent email from a woman whose capacity for compassion is only surpassed by her love of a little guy curled up in his crib surrounded by stuffed sentinels and the security of a soft blanket.

I no longer regret my life. How could I?

Looking at my son I realize that every scar my soul bears, real or imagined, I would inflict upon myself again and again if I knew that Benjamin (and soon Noah) was at the end of it all.

(Remember, my wife warned all of you reading this that I'm long-winded. If you've survived this long...well let's just say I have a lot more music left to play in the CD changer...kidding!!!)

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to post in this blog space. Tonight, I'm contemplative. A few nights from now?

You can all blame my wife for hooking me into this blogging thing. If I actually keep up with it, toss out my pennies of wisdom...well that would be a first. You never know though...this could be contagious...and I'm sure there's an ointment for the rash too but consult your doctor first just in case because, well, you never know...

Why a sandwich? Why not? If life were like a box of chocolates, we'd all be diabetics. A sandwich? A bit healthier at the end of the day...and maybe more satisfying.

Each post is like the next sandwich. I should've included some soup here...because...well...it's soup...and...

Some of you get that. The rest of you will figure it out.

G'night folks.