Rain

Rain, rain, rain. That’s all it does here… rain! Drive a person crazy, all this rain. First the mist that soaks everything, then the incessant sprinkling and finally raindrops so big it hurts when they hit you. Grey for days. Grey streets grey buildings, grey people, grey lives. No black, no white, just various shades of grey. What I wouldn’t do for some color! It messes with your head. People devoid of color become complacent, show no emotion, they no longer care.

Winters here are hard. Not hard on the body, but hard on the soul… the psyche… The local news is full of home invasions, assaults, suicides, murder… Death. It’s all one big obituary, just one big police ledger. You pick up the Journal, the Times, the Post and read with indifference the daily roll call of those that have passed on. The only emotion evoked for the day is when you timidly turn to the page showing the forecast, wishing for a ray of sunshine, praying for a break from the monotony, only to have your hopes dashed upon the grey, cold clouds full of rain. Dissolute, you resign yourself to the day, to the Grey.

You swallow the last of your coffee, don your armor against the elements and grab keys as you head out the door only to remember that you have no gas. There has been no gas for days. Old habits die hard. Hoping you can catch the Metro, you run to the bus stop only to see it pull away, and you swear the bus driver is laughing as he drives off. You flash him digits because it makes you feel less helpless, then quickly look up and down the street hoping no one has witnessed your lapse into crudeness. Opening your umbrella, you start walking.

The pace is slow and not because you want to take in the scenery. You’ve seen it before… grey. You don’t even care of you’re late for work. Why should you? The boss certainly doesn’t. Hell, he’s happy you show up.

Just for a change you try to make eye contact with the other wet pedestrians. You make a game of it, but soon quit. It’s no fun to play a game when you know you’re never going to score a point.

Something catches your eye, movement in an alley off to your right. Was that a muffled scream? You undo the strap on your holster and place your hand on the butt of your gun. You touch the button behind your left ear and hear the familiar click and whir of the video/audio camera begin to record and send a live feed to the station every move you make. Simultaneously you feel a rush of adrenaline infuse your system. Instinct and training take over. Every sense is hypersensitive. You are in combat mode.

You cautiously walk into the alley, your eyes focusing on every movement that may present a threat. More muffled screams, but now mixed with laughter, come from around the corner. Slowly you pull your gun out, and get into a half-Sabrina as you stand with your back to the wall, just as you were taught at the academy. Everything done by the numbers, never know when someone important is watching, someone with the key to your next promotion. One, two, and go on three.

You step around the corner. There he is. One perp, one victim. Time slows almost to a stand still. There is no need to shout out "freeze", "halt", or any other cliché command that Enforcers of old used to say. He sees you, you see him, simple as that. You see a twitch in the muscle that is connected to his finger on the trigger. You react. A gunshot echoes through out the alley. He falls, the victim cries out in fear and surprise. You hear sirens in the distance and that familiar, "Well done Enforcer 0426 one more victim rescued, one shot, one kill". Yet all your eyes can focus on is the vibrant red slowly turning to a dull pink against the grey pavement. A smile begins to form on your lips. Finally… some color…

Home-Bound

I was cleaning house (my docs folder) and ran across a few short stories that I had written a while back. I am planning to post a few stories and poems so I hope you like what you read and please feel free to leave a comment...

So... Read...

Home-Bound

I take a seat by a window. Cars speed by and I wonder where is that person off to. What errand must be done today? Are they speeding off to work, or are they hurrying home?

Home... what a beautiful word. A word that can conjure feelings of safety and comfort, fear and anxiety, longing and excitement. I sit back and let the constant mechanical hum lull me.

I'm home bound...

I close my eyes and recall the faint perfume of jasmine welcoming me as I walked home in the evenings. The oak trees whispering, urging me on, "hurry... hurry... head home... head home...". I pull a worn photo from out of my wallet. It's old and the colors are fading, but I can still see my friends and I, we're going out... to dinner perhaps? Look at us, smiling, laughing, enjoying each others company. It's been so long. I can sympathize with the dog-earred photo. I too feel the effect of time on my body. My skin is wrinkled, my eyes aren't as bright, and I feel like I've been wrung out and hung to dry, but soon... soon all this won't matter.

I'm home bound...

A flyer appears out of nowhere and sticks to the window. A two movies for the price of one night at the Tower. I can't help but smile when I think of the Tower... My first kiss happened in the balcony. Being kissed and having your breast fondled doesn't seem so bad in the dark. As suddenly as it appeared, the flyer blew away, continuing it's journey, crying out to the town, "two movies for the price of one... two movies for the price of one..." "I must make it a point to go to the Tower," I say out loud. soon... not yet...

I'm home bound.

I get up from my seat, and walk up to the door. My heart is racing, I'm breathing fast and hard, I start to sweat. I can feel the excitement, or is it anxiety (I have never known the difference between the two) welling up inside. I timidly place my hand on the door knob and slowly open the door... Nausea rises from my belly and I can feel the burn of acidic bile on my throat. I see black spots before my eyes, my legs turn to wet noodles, almost giving away underneath me... I slam the door shut and brace my back against it, fighting to stay conscious and trying my darnest to keep my lunch down. I look at these walls, my prison and sanctuary, and I start to cry. I stumble back to my seat by the window and let the comforting mechanical hum of the refrigerator lull me...

Cars speed by and I wonder... Where could that person be off to?

You see, I'm homebound...

Hurray for the "B" Movie!

Admit it... You love "B" Movies. What other time can you sit and watch a horrid movie and just have to see it all the way thru hoping that just maybe... just maybe, the plot will actually make itself apparent. It's the safest kind of morbid curiosity that any moviegoer can pratice.

For instance...

The family had been invited to eat out with our neighbors. The gals (my Daughter and LT) decided to stay home, so the Boy and I went. When we returned, I found both of the Gals mesmerized, watching a movie. I asked what was on, "Snakes on a Plane", one of them said without taking their eyes off the TV. See... Morbid Curiosity...

This evening, we (my Daughter, LT and I) sat down to watch a movie. I was under the impression that we were going to watch Pulse. Instead the movie was Pulse, a 1988 movie about "... our wireless technologies controlled from a world beyond..." So I look over to LT and say, "Wireless Technologies? What did we have in 1988 that was wireless? Except for the phones that you had to carry a backpack to make it work..." Too bad she didn't spit out the water she was drinking at the time while laughing, it would have made a better ending for this anecdote...

Anyway-

So we watch the movie. It was the basic man versus machine plot. The technology we created to aid and entertain us, turns against mankind and wrecks havoc! Again, with morbid curiosity we sat and watched the whole movie. It had Joey Lawrence and his little brother Matthew. Come on... how much more "B" can you get, right?

I love "B" movies! We Gen-Xer's grew up on these films. Movies like Night of the Living Dead, Part II, The Toxic Avenger, Nuke 'Em High... AWESOME!!!

You know... Baby Boomers can talk all they want about how they changed this world and how great their generation is, but are they willing to admit that with burning bras and creating an evironmental awareness, they also perfected the "B" movie? Probably not... but thanks anyway, Boomers.

So, go find yourself a "B" movie already... and don't forget to give a Boomer a hug and a hardy "Thank You".

So... Yeah...

Summer in the Pacific NW Addendum

Just goes to show ya... I complain about the weather around here and we get two beautiful days in a row...

I should squeek more often...

Oh, by-the-by...

Just in case you don't believe how Gorgeous Green it is here, I posted some pictures I took on a day trip to Mt Rainier, Memorial Day Weekend.

Enjoy...

If you would like to see the rest, you are more than welcome to go check out my flickr posts.

So... yeah...

Summer in the Pacific NW

Downey, CA (where I grew up) 11:12 pm, 0'' of rain, 71 degrees F.

Salt Lake City, UT (where I grew up emotionally) 12:12 am, 0'' of rain, 80 degrees F.

El Salvador C.A. (where I was born) 1:12 am, 0'' of rain, 78 degrees F.

Seattle, WA (close to where I live now) 11:12 pm, .3" of rain, 55 degrees F. Rain tapering off after midnight. Chance of thunderstorms. Lows in the upper 40s to mid 50s.

Now, this just might be me, but does the weather here in the Pac NW sound like Summer never arrived?

Oh, and get this... I am very excited about July 4th... For the first time in the seven years that I have lived here, firework enthusiast may not have to take their rain slickers to watch the show!


I like to think that I don't live in a city that has about 36 inches of rainfall annually ("which is, by the way, less rain than New York City gets a year...", natives like to point out) and an average of 200 cloudy days (I really don't know if this is true... I just made that fact up). I like to think that I live an a city that is Sunshine Challenged.


When we do have Sunny Days, everyone frantically looks for the cool sunglasses they bought last year. Then we all stand around outside, with our heads looking up expectantly, as if some obscure knowledge will be revealed to all, while we bask in the glow of that weird Yellow thing in the Sky.

Well at least I do...

Seriously, the Pacific NW is a beautiful place to live. It may have more cloudy days than I would like, and not as many hot days as I would want (my parents bring their down jackets when they visit), but it is Gorgeous Green here. It's the first thing that I noticed when I first arrived... JUST BEAUTIFUL!

All Hail Dorothy and the Emerald City!

So YEAH!

My Baby got Mac!

So my better-half went and got herself a Mac. "No big...", some of you may say. Ah... but you have no idea of the process it took to get her there. She spent a couple of weeks reading magazines, checking out websites, looking up pros and cons, reading configurations, comparisons... If it dealt with a Mac, I'm sure she had read it, memorized it or at least skimmed through it.


If you're a Gen-X'er (and were a anime nerd) you'll remember watching Battle of the Planets. There was an episode where one of the G-Force members was just flooded in paper work, practically swimming in it doing some research on something Spectra... Pee Wee had a clip board in his hand and a pencil behind his ear, the lab coat on... the whole works. I can picture LT in midst of the same mess doing her research, clipboard, pencil behind the ear, lab coat and all...

You see... my Sweet is what I call a Research Junkie. She obsesses on getting all the info she can on a particular subject/object and just digs and digs and digs! Sometimes I don't know if she is trying to talk herself out of getting something, or just trying convince herself she needs it. By the time she's done, LT is very knowledgeable on the subject/object of her obsession. I admire her very much for this.


Must be genetics. Her Dad used to be the same way. He would read about a subject for a while, then one day he's tying flys, all self-taught. Again some may say, "So... nothing new, hundreds of people do it everyday". True, but the fact that someone will dedicate time to anything, trying to better themselves... this is where the admiration begins for me.


It takes self-discipline, patience - with yourself and those around you - intelligence and wisdom to learn something on your own. Many of us may have the intelligence, but not the patience or the wisdom to see it through. I start off OK, but then get impatient and just try to do it MY way. I'm a Gen-X'er, a member of the MY-WAY Generation... so it makes perfect sense to me, until I get stuck and have no idea how I arrived to where I am, let alone where to go next.


Luckily, the boy has acquired a little of both of us. He'll start off all teen-like, "I know everything and this will be a cinch to master, so you older feeble-minded ones stand aside", then when he realizes that he is way over his head (takes a while, but eventually he does get there), he starts being a little more methodological about his quest to learn how to master his subject/object of obsession. I'm hoping in time he will mature and see that the "tried and true" way is a heck of a lot easier then the "my-way"method...


Do you still battle with that notion? I know I still do... Maybe one of these days I'll finally be mature enough, then again, maybe not, 'cause the "tried and true" may be all fine and good, but MY WAY is better... Just another one of those "Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do" things that used to irritate the living *%#$ out of me when I was a child, and now, I get to do it to my kids. And so the Cycle of Life goes on, young Simba...

So... yeah ;Þ

Rituals

Monday night. "Hey Ma, I need my haircut... Future Weapons is on tonight..."

Tuesday night. "Dirty Jobs is on tonight, Ma..."

Wednesday night. "Channel Eight please... Mythbusters is on."

Thursday night. "A new My Name is Earl and Office tonight, Ma..."

Friday night. "Nothing's on. Let's watch a Star Wars movie... Mind if I get on the Box (XBox 360)?"

Our nightly rituals. This is how my son and I spend time during the week. Some might think, "how sad... they spend time in front of the TV to spend time together." Yeah, but we spend that time laughing, sharing funny stories, developing our hand-eye coordination and teamwork skills as we kill three enemy soldiers in a row (a skill we might need just incase Evil Alien Monkeys from Alpha Centuri decide to invade the Pacific Northwest) but most important, we also spend that time learning. Learning more about each other, learning about our world, past, present and future.

My better half and I are of the mind that you can never stop learning, and these kids have been raised on that thought. The boy hears it every morning as I leave for work. "Learn something new today, boy..."

Brain wrinkles are wrinkles that we should all strive for...

Take on the personal challenge to learn something new tomorrow.

I dare ya... I double dare ya... I triple dog dare ya...

So... yeah!