Wide Awake Asleep At The Wheel

I'm that Tired Guy, the one staring at his reflection in the mirror wondering where the gray starts, the baldness ends and a wry smile framing it all.  I'm that Tired Guy, exhausted from yet another battle with the Ides of Corporate America, weary yet stolid, looking to scribe something worthwhile, memorable, humorous or at the very least SOMETHING.

Yesterday I arrived at Chez Tired Guy in time to see both of Mrs. Tired Guy's kids playing with a large battered cardboard box.  Mini Tired Guy was coloring one box flap with a variety of crayons while Crazy-Haired Little Tired Guy sat proudly inside the box, making ecstatic gurgling noises and smiling as if he had discovered the secret of fire.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked curiously.

Mini Tired Guy grinned at me.  "We're making a spaceship!" he stated happily.

"YEAH!" crowed Crazy-Haired Little Tired Guy enthusiastically.

And there it was.

My heart swelled up larger than the Grinch's from That-Pagan-Holiday-Story-By-The-Lyrically-Gifted-Rhyming-Guy.  I had been so fixated upon lofty production goals, TPS reports, the pitfalls of inane corporate intrigue and the melancholia of the everyday working man's world I had once again forgotten the rest of me.   

It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that's why they call me the workin' man,
They call me the workin' man 

Gone was the day's accumulated work detritus, snuffed out so suddenly and utterly by the sheer awesomeness of that moment.  I stood there catching my breath, eyes welling with tears.  It was as if I had been struck in the noggin by a heavy mallet.  My tunnel work focus evaporated leaving me drained, relieved and so very, very tired.

Imagine that...me...tired.

Precisely.

Both boys were flexing their creative muscles, and their quintessential innocence had brought me back from that awful place I like to call "The Doldrums".

The Doldrums?

Glad you asked!

Think of it as an imposing black fortress with vast, unassailable walls, massive, forbidding towers and a rusted portcullis barring your escape.

Or consider it as an endless expanse of listless ocean without a hint of a breeze, which is one literal translation, but then put yourself on a small dinghy in the middle of it without any sense of where to go, what to do and how to travel somewhere, anywhere else.

And you know its impact on your very soul, how it molds and twists, drags and drains, a crushing weight accompanied by a dull, monotonous and nearly endless array of "have to do's" and "how to do's" and "when to do's" coupled with triplicate copies of every email you sent for the past twenty-two years.  

Put simply if you find yourself in The Doldrums and ever wondered how you got there just think back on that first moment when you wanted to take a vacation, raise a family, or order a sandwich and realized it cost money.  Lots and lots of money.

(No I'm not railing against capitalism here.  Or about thievery.  Or how much I detest sporting teams from New York.

Just hear me out ok?)

Some even consider it a game of sorts, where winning is everything and losers are discarded chaff, ridiculed or ignored.

Play, play the game tonight
Can you tell me if it's wrong or right
Is it worth the time
Is it worth the price
Do you see yourself in the white spotlight
Then play the game tonight

Most focused upon their career, job, occupation, salt mines, coal mines, gold mines and land mines.

You're probably there right now as you chew on my latest sandwich.  And maybe this one doesn't sit so well with you. 

Or does it?

If this is all-to-familiar to you go ahead and nod vigorously.

You wake up at precisely 5:45 AM, swat the alarm like a mosquito, roll out the same side of the bed, blindly questing feet discovering overturned slippers, staggering wearily past sleeping dogs, cats and dust bunnies until the vanity materializes into a hazy half-view.  Gripping the faux finish with both hands you shake your head in a vain attempt to sweep an unkempt mop of wispy strands away from sleep-encrusted eyes only to realize the amount of time it takes to make you pretty is probably not worth all the effort if anyone really cared. Which some do, some don't and half the time is more than fifty-one percent willpower and ninety-nine percent a realization you can't wear THOSE shoes with THAT outfit and be considered trendy.  And you still haven't combed the dreadlocks, shaved, showered, brushed a single tooth or contemplated the forty-five (and counting!) push-ups you swore you'd do if your flabby gut would just stay out of the damn way.

Mirror in the bathroom recompense
For all my crimes of self-defense
Cures you whisper make no sense
Drift gently into mental illness

Working stiffs collecting a paycheck, hoping to gather enough shekels and pay the monkey grinder to keep the doors open another night, staving off the specter of financial ruin on the one hand, and the looming omnipresence of bar mitzvahs, braces, car payments, sweet sixteens, college tuition, rehearsal dinners, retirement and the occasional bail money.

Necessity is a mother all right Mr. Franklin.  She's a mother with about eight screaming mouths to feed and not enough arms to hug them all. 

I want the things I want because I want them.

You dig?

And I'm certainly not alone out there.  You know who you are.

Creatures of habit.

Soldiers of routine.

Thankfully my boys reminded me once again how I easily fell victim to The Doldrums.  I spend an inordinate amount of energy focused upon attaining that brass ring.  I get in early, I work late, I work from home, I check my blackberry when I'm on vacation.  I can't seem to help it.  It's my own damn fault.

It's like I was driving along the same route I always take home from work, eyes scanning the road yet my mind was fixated upon assignments and deadlines.  Quite honestly I'm wide awake asleep at the wheel.

You know your paint by number life 
Doesn't excite you
It's a watercolor world
That you're livin' in
And when you close your eyes at night
You're wonderin' just where you've been

Success is a narcotic, perhaps the worst kind.  Once you've tasted from the cup you want more and more.  Bonus plans, raises, incentives, extra credits, back slaps and the occasional 'atta boy.

"Look over here!" cries the pointy-bearded little man hopping up and down wildly at the podium. 

Behind him is a crimson curtain billowing with possibilities.  His dark eyes gleam with mischief.

Performing on a stool
We've a sight to make you drool
Seven virgins and a mule
Keep it cool, keep it cool
We would like it to be known
The exhibits that were shown
Were exclusively our own
All our own, all our own

Resistance is futile.

Or is it?

I know I've written in this space many times before about losing my creative touch, failing to appreciate the simpler things, reminiscing upon bygone days and feeling decidedly (un)whimsical.

And maybe you're tired of reading about it.

But constant reminders only transmogrify into nagging when guilt overrides common sense.

(Yeah, I just used "transmogrify" in a sentence.  Pretty cool eh?)

Or in my case, when my kids' precious precociousness smacks me between the eyes as powerful as ordering the Code Red.

I can handle that truth.

G'night folks.

Love and Sandwiches

I'm that Tired Guy, the one listening to the sound of rolling thunder in the distance, deep, powerful, a profound resonance lingering at the edge of hearing even after its passed.  I'm that Tired Guy fixated on the past and focused on the future, forgetful of the present and wondering where the hell I left my keys for the umpteenth time.

How appropriate is it I have some Morrison playing.  Bear witness to some beautiful poetry my peeps, because Jim swallowed a muse whole.

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 alone
Riders on the storm

Dig it. 

I know you can.

I will maintain until I'm blue in the face the greatest decade of music will always be the '80s.  That said failing to respect where we came from would be tantamount to me becoming a Yankees fan.  The Doors didn't just orchestrate the melodies.  These guys embodied the powerful sounds, the vivid images, the soulful anthems of a generation who would ultimately shape those to come.

But enough about you, let's talk about me.

I'm in a rambling mood tonight.  Sometimes I like chips with my sandwich, and sometimes I want pickles.  Wheat, baguette, hoagie, Wonder, whatever as long as the sandwich has the right collection of ingredients it's all about the substance without the blather.  Mustard and mayonnaise be damned!

At the end the day it's really about true love.

"Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world, except for a nice MLT - mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich where the mutton is nice and lean, and the tomato is ripe...they're so perky, I love that."

And now for a shocking reveal - I've been married three times.

::insert explosions, manic thematic sequences and probably an '80s montage for my friend Wayne::

I've discussed some of the pain and anguish in this space previously but I think it's high time I did a shout out to the very few lucky souls who found their better yang and continue to waltz toward the inevitable happily ever after.

Oh you know who you are.  Staring deep into the adoring eyes of your other and lapping up the platitudes and pleasantries like kittens and fresh milk.  Should I cue the St. Elmo's Fire love track?  We walk fingers entwined, my head upon her shoulder, a lone tear streaking her perfectly rouged cheek, an idyllic seascape spread before us with softly crashing waves, purpling skies as the sun sets in the distance and the end credits roll.

Those summer nights when we were young
We bragged of things we'd never done
We were dreamers, only dreamers
And in our haste, to grow too soon
We left our innocence on Desert Moon
We were dreamers, only dreamers
On Desert Moooooooooooooooooooooooooon

No, I'm not that cynical.  And I do like that song (it's playing on my iTunes right now) quite a bit.

Believe it or not I really am a romantic.  Of course Mrs. Tired Guy would calmly describe me as more of a drama queen...but that's a topic for a different blog entry. 

Tonight?

Tonight we feast upon...love. 

Well for a little while.

I love my dogs, I love my job, I love my family, I love vanilla soft-serve ice cream, I love the sound of breaking glass, I love gladiator movies (more "like" than "love"), I love fried whole-bellied clams and fries at Harry's, I love singing really loud, I love lying on my bed listening to movie soundtracks, I love crying when Andy and Bonnie open the box of toys, I love screaming in agony when my Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins lose (ok...maybe not that), I love the first bite of a freshly-made pizza, I love it when a plan comes together and I certainly love chuckling when my kids laugh or say something funny, silly, witty, extraordinary (a daily occurrence).

I love a lot of things, too many to recount here.  And so do you.

Let's face it folks, love is relative.  It's not rocket science or the culmination of an epic quest to vanquish the villain and save the prince. 

(Prince?  Yeah because women are as strong, if not more so than a male lead when placed in the right movie with the right director and the right script.  I'm looking at you Ripley, the Bride, Ouiser and M'Lynn, Thelma and Louise.  But I digress.)

No love is unique.  It's perception and perspective.  The visceral quickening of your heartbeat when she shows up unannounced with a smile on her face and a gleam in her eye meant for you and you alone.  The up-swell of pride and the light and the joy and that sense of accomplishment when you accept that high school or college diploma.  The calming encouragement, strong hands lifting you back on your feet as the aches and pain and embarrassment fades.

Even shaking hands that can barely hold the scissors as you clumsily cut the cord.

It's about belief, conviction, honesty, sharing, caring, writing, reading, watching, acting, wiping runny noses and letting go of the bicycle so he can ride it on his own. 

It's about sobbing and laughing, winking and smiling, comforting hugs and soft words telling you everything will be all right.

Love is stability, solidarity and partnership, faith and devotion.

Love is about letting go, growing up, growing old, gaining wisdom and losing teeth, stomping in frustration and caterwauling to the universe that life sucks, isn't fair, isn't right and bad things still happen to good people.

Love is saying hello, waving goodbye and accepting another regardless of skin color, sexual orientation or college affiliation.

Love is watching football with my dad and my brother and my grandfather on a lazy autumn Sunday afternoon.

Love is knowing a broken heart can heal even when things seem bleak and gray and full of nothing. 

Love is all around you.  Yeah.
Love is knockin' outside your door
Waitin' for you is this love made just for two
Keep an open heart and you'll find love again, I know

It's about texting "Luvewes and our boys" each and every single morning without fail.

And it's absolutely about twice hearing that first singular cry of indignation, need, hunger, fear and discomfort each time in the delivery room knowing our lives have been changed forever.

Maybe Crash said it best.

"Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap.  I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.  I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astro-turf and the designated hitter.  I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."

Yep.

G'night folks.

I Am Eye (am I)

I'm that Tired Guy, the one sitting in front of the computer screen wearing little more than boxer shorts and a white t-shirt.  I'm that Tired Guy clinging to the one brain cell left in my cerebral cortex like a castaway upon a shard of wood in the midst of a turbulent sea.

My eye is the beholder.

So is yours.

And his.

And hers.

And theirs.

What I see I know, I think, I feel, I ascribe, prescribe, analyze and criticize.  Aristotleans will tell you to ignore your senses, seek the golden mean and pass the dutchie pon the left hand side.  Foucault has his pendulum, Occam (well William) has his razor and Scooby has his Doo.  Left is right and right is wrong, democrats feed republicans the beefsteak of economic calamity or the makings of a politically incorrect atomic bomb and Michael Stipe's rally cry includes a birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean...BOOM!

Still, is there really a plan?  Geddy says so... 

All is for the best
Believe in what we're told
Blind man in the market
Buying what we're sold
Believe in what we're told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to death

(Well ok, not really.  The musical outcry from RUSH pokes a fine hole or three through organized religion since we really are just mindless, blindfolded sheep anyway right?)

Who cares about a plan.  Aren't we all in it for the parting gifts anyway?  Because it's about what's next, not what's now.

In my eye I viewed death one way, and then quite suddenly, my life changed for both the worse...and then the much better.  At that point I and my eye saw eye-to-eye, for once agreeing, but only after some serious stuff went down when I failed to see what was right before my eyes.

(The eyes do have it.)

Let's get serious.

When my mother lost her battle with cancer in 1994 I obsessed about death day and night.  I wondered when I would die, how it would happen, would I be remembered for being a good man, a bad husband, a horrible underwriter or just a creative fool with lots of talent and no focus.  It frightened me so much I would wake up in the middle of the night bathed in a cold sweat imagining the shade of my mother was present in the room, eyes full of a deep sadness, of dreams unrealized and lost hopes.

My insides clenched, my mind whirled and while my peer group of twenty-somethings dreamed of becoming wealthier thirty-somethings I was wondering if the cancer would come calling earlier than most.  Teeth grinding, shoulders hunched, head hanging low and confidence weak I sloughed through each day beneath a dark miasma of my own making. 

I have a tale to tell
Sometimes it gets so hard to hide it well
I was not ready for the fall
Too blind to see the writing on the wall

I found some solace in the imaginative and creative.  Back then I was an avid gamer, Dungeons and Dragons to be specific, and spent my Saturday evenings with a small knot of similar malcontents hacking, slashing, spouting and shouting pithy epithets that would make even the most Shakespearean soul proud...or at the very least imitate some poor man's pulpy method acting.

But the specter of death was always present, hiding behind the curtain, ready to pounce. 

Life
Is full of surprises
It advertises
Nothing
Nothing

This lasted for years.  I tried to rationalize my fear, intellectually arguing the real issue was my mother had died far too young, but I still had plenty of time.  My depression was insidious though and while I could hide from it for a time at work or in a role-playing game it wormed its way into my heart and mind so completely I almost believed it was my fate to fall down those stairs fairly soon. 

Sadly my marriage to the first Mrs. Tired Guy didn't help matters much.  Something was always wrong between bitter arguments at home, or simply sullen silence.  I lived alone in a house of two.  She was going one way, I another and the twain never met again.  Two strangers living under the same roof, spiraling away from one another, our so-called unshakable matrimonial bond unraveling inexorably, lost, lonely, loathsome and distinctly crushing.  And how blind I was to it all, refusing to see the end until it hit me between the eyes that fateful February night when my world fell apart. 

Afraid of feeling nothing
No bees or butterflies
My head is full of voices
And my house is full of lies

I've mentioned before in this space how I stared into that yawning abyss and contemplated the unthinkable.  I cobbled together my fleeing sense of self and remembered there was more to me than just me, and stepped away in time.  Thank goodness for boneless barbecue ribs and fried rice!

What I failed to mention was the other piece to that story, something just as integral to the life I've lived since, and the realization there was so much left to do.

My obsession with death wasn't about my mother dying young at all.

It was about the impending death of my marriage.

My subconscious was clearly trying to show me what everyone else around me had clearly seen for years.

Back in February the first Mrs. Tired Guy had announced, "I'm not in love with you anymore.  Our marriage is a lie."

She was right, of course.

And while it took a few weeks for it to finally settle in, that awful truth crystallized, clarified and cauterized my wayward vision.  Gone was the constant anxiety, the dizzying worry something bad was coming around the bend ready to wreck my world.

I could finally see clearly again.

The shade of my mom would finally find rest.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

G'night folks.

When Are You Going?

I'm that Tired Guy, the one who daydreams in technicolor and speaks in black and white. I'm that Tired Guy, wavering between the past and the present like a butterfly caught in a languid summer breeze.

Time to babble on.

Lately I've been making egg salad sandwiches for work lunches. I blend some yellow mustard with pepper and light mayo and mix it with a bunch of hard-boiled eggs to a fine consistency. Add two pieces of challah bread (not toasted), sometimes a small slab of mozzarella or swiss and then I'm right as rain.

Most days it's just a lunch.

Most days.

But once in awhile it's the whisper of a memory tugging at my consciousness, something only glimpsed from an oblong angle as if trying to remember a flat plane of glass reflecting a four dimensional rainbow.

In reality it's time travel.

For time is nothing without reality (or is that reversed?), although a world without end is both timeless and limitless...otherwise it wouldn't have an end right?  But it does have a beginning.

Egg Shen said it best.

"See? That was nothing. But that's how it always begins. Very small."

(More egg salad.)

I believe in time travel.  It's not just possible, it's probable!  And it happens every day, in every corner, during smoke breaks, in bored meetings (in board rooms, no less!), under the sheets, in the shower, on the pot (smoking or otherwise), driving, flying, training, boating, slipping, sliding and the nearer your destination the more you just slip, slide and...off you go!

No laws of physics to break, no paradoxes to right (or wrong), no bathroom slip ups and flux capacitors and quite frankly neither relative dimensions or space have much to do with it.  Besides I never really thought much of my relatives having to do with space other than occupying it, blowing air and adding their nuances to the cosmic miasma.  But I do think well of my relatives, worry not!
 
Again, the babble on.

I'm on an egg roll tonight!

(Yep, the egg again.  I promise, I'll get to a point eventually.)

So how do you get there?  Or, maybe more appropriately, how do you get when?

Everybody does it differently.  You just have to be in the right spot.

If you want me, you can find me
Left of center, off of the strip
In the outskirts, in the fringes
In the corner, out of the grip

And the spot is relative (damn those cousins!) because we're not just talking about physical locality with longitudes and platitudes, filibusters and ghost busters or lips like sugar.  Oh no.  It's about bending pretzels, drinking zen, bubbling mirth, channeling chicken soup (with rice!) and justifying your love.  It's those spaces in between, the small moments that are so long you almost wish you were here but really you're there because you can be in both places at once, gliding, fading, finding, winding and shifting into a higher platform that no iPhone app could possibly contain.

Time travel is about knowing your story, and remembering everyone and everywhere and everything you might have been, or still could be. 

And you never have to be alone, unless you want to, and whenever you go to wherever it lies it's a fact whoever is there is whatever you brought with you. 

"Your weapons, you will not need them." 

Failure is only as permanent as you allow it to gnaw on your memory's bones.  The good news is you still grow from it all the same.  Remember wisdom comes from experience be it good, bad, indifferent or just a one-night stand gone awry.  Just try to leave your cash at home for the next time.

Any failure in that cave is YOUR perception, YOUR reflection of events both marred and crystallized a million fold to such an excruciating clarity you never really know exactly what happened, only what you thought transpired behind the veil of youth and inexperience and dime store wisdom.  And believe me drinking DOESN'T help.

Are you looking for answers
To questions under the stars?
Well, if along the way
You are grown weary
You can rest with me until
A brighter day and you're okay

But you know what?  I'll always be there for you, with the good and that bad and those indifference. 

That's what friends do. 

It's what we are. 

It's why we're here.

For you.

Did I reveal any secrets tonight?  Have I uncovered the mysteries of a universe dwarfed by the people in it?

Honestly, probably not because I'm about as wise as you were yesterday, and a day late to boot.

But one thing I do know, and that's this: time travel exists, and it's possible.

How do I know?

Because I just looked in on my two sons sleeping peacefully and I smiled that special smile all parents share.

See?  Such a small thing, which is how things start anyway.

And that's all I need.

G'night folks.