23) I am The Neighbor

     I am the neighbor. I am the guy who lived next door to him. I remember I would come downstairs, get my shoes on and work in the garage. That's when I would see him. He was ever distant. Perhaps others saw it as rude but to me there was an obvious reason for his aloofness. You could feel the omnipresent weight upon his shoulders so his annoyance and detachment was logical. He rarely said anything to me at all. He would infrequently hit me with an emotionless glance and then ignore I was there at all. I took no offense. Actually I wished to break him out of it. To listen. To talk. To really just understand. But then I figured it became selfish, about me and my desire to retard my curiosity by reasoning him out. It soon became for my benefit to understand so I dropped the notion altogether. I could see it made sense to find him to always remain busy, near frantic. To see him pull up in his fancy car and instantly begin detailing it in his work clothes. Anything to avoid going inside and facing reality. Every expression of his emotions was hurried. It always appeared as though he were up against the clock; his slender shadow holding a cheap stopwatch. He was visibly tired and yet worked tireless. His stress was blindingly apparent. If stress were a light, well his was the sun. He exhaled it. He sweated it out. It flowed down his drive, caressed every inch of the curbs and infected the entire neighborhood. You became intoxicated by his stench and the taste of his loathing. It soon encompassed you. Gasping, you clawed at your throat, scrambled, spasmed and drowned. Newly arisen you became irritable and short. You soon lashed out nonsensically. Fire escaped your squinting eyes and blood leaked from your cracked lips. Without acknowledgement the red stains accumulated upon your shoulders. Ignoring the neighborly stares though, you carried on. Your mind wandered from task undone to task undone and though you would pick up their cries of completion you'd just as quickly set them back down upon the shelf. Forgotten. There the spiders danced their re-weaving and soon all that remained was silk and dust. Soon after you succumbed to the relentless exhaustion and briefly there came realization. You sat upon the front porch and looked out as the children biked pass. They were silent. There were no joyful cries. It was not pleasant. It was forced. They were doing as they had to. "Go outside. Go find something to do. I don't have time for this. Get outta here." You heard it all though you heard nothing at all.

   Yeah, I know him. I am the neighbor. I hate that man. He smoothly slips within my being and I become drugged again and again with his pestilence. He is cancerous and I cannot peel enough of myself off to fully forget him. He only grows back.

     Leave me be. I don't want to discuss anything more about him. I don't care what happens to him. Nobody does.  

22) Disturbing Children Toys

     While watching television, and this simply reinforces the idiocy therein, on came a commercial about a realistic toddler doll for children. Now I really care not what is pitched to who and how as far as products are concerned but this sure had me laughing. So the doll in question, I forget its name, robotically chews things up and ingests them. You are provided with the things which she eats that appear as Playdough or something of that nature that you cut up and shove into her face. Here's the most "fun" part. Minutes later she expels them onto the ground from her rear end. Now I find much that complicates my understanding why any logical person would find this an appropriate toy for anyone except for maybe your buddy registered on Megan's List. First, the robotic chewing motion is utterly disturbing. Can just anything be shoved in there or only those certain, provided putty chews? And why does it crap them out? Anatomically correct yet simply unnecessary. I'm guessing that only a limited amount of "food" is provided so it is then reused. I do not want to explain to my child that he or she cannot reuse their droppings. Why propel your son or daughter though their youth by taking care of a "crappy" child? Those times shall come. I'm guessing there is a warning upon the box, "You should not ingest your own waste." Ridiculous. If there is not such a disclaimer we can all have a happy lawsuit party in six months and I want at least 15%. Lastly, I cannot express how grateful I am to not be the parent who walks in on their child staring at the ass of this doll as it craps out its breakfast. Seeing as how toys fundamentally are meant to occupy and alleviate things such as parent interactions and conversations, this is a nightmare. Your child will figure things out themselves and just be confused. It could also result in some very interesting explanations to your child's doctor as to why your child is relieving brightly colored silly putty. "Oh doc, she's doing what her dolly does." If this does happen please, please email and explain.

21) Social Media And The Distortion Of Importance

     So today I did as was customary for myself in the early period of the morning and checked the news upon my "dumb" device. Two things came up first in the breaking news section. Breaking news. The first was the terror attacks in Paris that have just occurred. Horrible and disgraceful as they are I could not pull away from the second headliner. It was a picture of a woman with a spaghetti strainer upon her head on her DMV issued driver's license. Now I came to argue within myself whether I was captivated by this imbecile, you have to see the picture and the notion of it alone is absurd, or if it was the fact that this state agency in control of nationwide identification allowed this nonsense to occur. All the while there are now 128 people dead, several more injured, a nation in lockdown and crisis and here I am still devoting energy to this woman and her head wear. Now this does present humor. Certainly. However, there is within me this sadness that this kind of absolute idiocy preys upon so many people and do they realize the control? Do they see how foolish they are? How insensitive the author of that headline is? How the person with the shiny metal pasta strainer on their head is a complete buffoon? And now that I, a self-proclaimed intelligent contributor is wasting time blogging this? Ah, the hypocrisy and you know, I end this now. My thoughts are on the families and the fallen. Well, I shall aim that way anyhow. 

20) Reaction upon loss

      This is brief, humor me. Should one experience great pain, typically the response to counter it is to live in the past. Before the pain. Before the hurt or tragedy. You mentally counter. I was better here. I felt safer then. It was good back there. This is an incorrect response. Then upon realization and to recover and counteract, one chooses to live in the future. I will do this. I will experience this. I will live this way. I will be this person. But that is again an incorrect response. Truly life is unpredictable and without measure therefore the true answer is to value and live within the moment. I will do this now. Be this person at this very moment. I am going here. That is the only way to exist with such unpredictability and succeed. By succeed I mean contribute and by contribute I refer to positively.

19) Return!?

     I awoke this morning, reluctantly, and completely deviated from habit. I did not procrastinate bringing myself upright. I did not listen to the alarm chime over and over again. I did not go straight to shower and brush my teeth. Strangely I came downstairs and grabbed my laptop and came to this blog with the last post being from 2013. Why?  I truly do not wish to delve into the explanation, though marvel at one thing. This is much more reflective of me about two to three years ago. It was a reflection of my previously incessantly thinking and literary mind screaming to express. I am not arguing whether one is more representative of my true self or which is correct or incorrect but more as to the nature of one moment I am this and the next moment I am most oppositely that. Now this could be but a hiccup; a spark of the match within my head here. Time will tell as it does with everything though I welcome this for now. I welcome it simply as rather strange and yet entirely familiar and exciting.

18) Up or Down?

     I have done something this morning that I cannot recall ever having happened before. I have awoken, stepped out of bed, and found myself standing upon the ceiling. Going into the restroom I begin the otherwise normalcy of my morning, utilizing toiletries and such and then turn on the water faucet. The tap flows forth and the liquid ascends into the now inverted basin. Strange. I would have thought it would continue down onto the now floor and previous ceiling. Perhaps not all that was up is now down and so on. It is becoming apparent all that has changed is my alignment within my existence. I turn off the valve and watch as the water climbs to a halt and then just continues its path as always down the drain and out of sight and therefore out of recognition altogether. In the mirror is me, as is expected. No difference besides some uncommonly dark circles under my eyes and crimson veins cascading down and over my cheeks to fine points. I am exhausted. I wrinkle my nose and sniffle bringing discomfort. I use a finger and out comes forth some bloody and strangely pungent discharge. Wiped upon a tissue and thrown up into the trash it is quickly and thankfully forgotten. I begin to dress which is most intriguing for each drawer I open launches my clothes upon the ceiling. The next few items I nab before they can do the same and I put them on. As I am doing so shadows motion by within my peripheral, teasing me to reaction. I humor not their flirtation and they quickly bore. I smile and head downstairs. I open the front door, step outside, and am back upon the ground once again. I am assaulted by the silence. By the extreme cold. By the intense negative energy. I do not enjoy this whatsoever. I am going back inside. This is not for me. I shut the door and immediately I am upon the ceiling once again. I turn and head back upstairs.

17) Answering the unanswerable

     I mentally revel today within a concluded discernation (and loathe that that word is spell checked) of certain occurrences within my existence that vary dramatically from day to day. What causes that? What creates the variation? I am so perplexed at times from finding something so unbelievably abhorrent that I curse it incessantly one day and the next I cry and miss it or philosophically rebuke it. So incredibly frustrating! There are at times internal struggles that need not be entertained whatsoever and at other times such battles within need be fought and done so intensely, passionately and powerfully.


     I do so enjoy the thought of future responses herein. Hint........