Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

When summer began, it came in with a series of blows destroying the crops in their wake.  Looking back it paints like a series of farm stands, succulent and fruitful from afar but upon closer examination, the wells of fruit have wilted and rotted under the sun's eye waiting for the next unsuspecting onlooker.  Well, technically that was the end of spring and beginning of the upcoming season.  A couple of months later I'm waking up front the jolts, gasping for air, and--as usual--looking at the changes, carnage, and circus of it all. The summer began with learning a cousin died . . . Another one this year.  This one, one I was fairly close to for years and years died at 49 . . . On his bathroom floor, I hear.  Lessons of the past I don't have it in me to go into, he and I parted angry ways half a decade ago.  Addictions and misgivings left a lot of the be said.  A lot to be desired.  Damage was done, to everyone and especially me, and with h...

Twenty bucks says there's typos.  Oh well.   While I most likely had every intention of brain dumping about my recent trek down Insanity 95, reading a piece on rituals made me think about things.  Particularly, my mind has been swirling around what rituals actually are and what they mean.  Rituals, in and of themselves, are strange beasts of memory, burden, and daily life I presume.  Yet, do all rituals look alike and do they all provide a sense of spiritual release, connection, and solace?  Doubtful, as I would say the face of the ritual changes with time and place.  My drives from NY to DC, always along I-95, change for meaning and purpose.  Yet, the trip never alters.  My parents live three plus hours south of DC, along the dreaded I-95, college friends live in Richmond and DC.  The bulk of my trips have landed me in DC, and they have not always been filled with the laughter and cheap beer that old college buddies bring.  Ho...

These days I've been thinking a lot about what has transpired in the past year. Last year this time I was fretting away the days until a defense, battling severe anemia, and then there was that pesky surgery on the horizon. Don't forget I was staring the prospect of unemployment in its ugly face. Funny how much things have changed, and it is also funny at how they haven't come that far from where they were. Last month I realized that I hadn't gone out much in almost two years. That was when things started, well I should reword that. That was when the health started to go sour. I didn't feel like explaining so I let that conversation make me sound like more of a loner and nerd than I really am. I defended just fine, had the bloody surgery four days later (yes, a bad pun I know), and things went awry. What I let people know is that there was an unplanned blood transfusion, which coincidentally gave me my bat wings. And seriously, for those of you that are ap...