Personal Recipes I

Mike's Get Big and Ugly Protein Shake or Oh Shit, I'm Late For Work Again and No Time For A Full Meal Shake!


Ingredients: 1 whole frozen banana, (the almost perfect food).
1/4 cup strawberries, melon or any favorite fruit, also preferably frozen.
1 scoop soy protein, I use Advantage/EAS brand from wal mart - it's cheap and inexpensive.
1 heaping cup instant oatmeal, I use dollar general brand - it's real cheap and real inexpensive.
1/3 cup dry milk, fresh milk is too expensive and with three girls in my house the milk doesn't last long anyway.
1 (individuals choice of size) spoonful of honey, a good pure simple sugar and not refined.
1 container ( 6-8ozs.) low fat yogurt, optional, but the cultures are good for your GI tract and a good source of calcium.
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, supposed to be good for preventing diabetes ( so the herbalists and some research says).
water, 1-1 1/2 cups, depends upon how thick you want this concotion to be, use Hitchcock, Texas tap water - adds flavor.


Throw it all in a blender on high for about a minute and gulp it all down. Toss in the oatmeal as is from the container, don't concern yourself with cooking it, good source of fiber. Be sure to drink lots of water, 2-3L/day, it's good for you. I'm sure you can add whatever else to the mix to suit your personal taste, I usually follow up with a good strong cup of coffee. Bon appetit!

Good Rum

It's June now and what have I been doing lately? Don't really give a shit right now, took the last of the bacardi gold rum, some pineapple juice, a few ice cubes , and let the blender do the rest. I am feeling no pain right now and am having to go back and correct all the typos as I key the keyboard and type this. At least I can still proof read .It's been a busy month with work, still a big shit hole, why do I stay there? Having a hard time getting rest, I sleep well enough, just don't feel rested. I don't know. Maybe I should write some more poetry? I think all I need is a good party, some down time, and a good workout. Maybe a three mile beach run is in order here? I'm having a hard time getting my shit together, some days are better than others, I think I wrote a poem to that effect? I know I wrote a pretty good one about my dick titled - I Love My Dick. I'm working on a sequel called - I Still Love My Dick, have some really great material but have been bogged down with writers block lately. Must be logging off now, hte rum is getting the best of me - no, just don't feel like blogging right now. More to follow later.

Sorry So Late

Just got back from a week long cruise to the westeren carribbean and in the hurly burly of getting ready for the cruise I havn't been paying much attention to my blog. Sorry about that, sports fans so here goes for the month of april!
It was certainly a busy one with a visit from my father and one of my cousins and a poetry reading which I missed and getting my purple belt in taekwondo and getting ready for this cruise. I really needed a vacation. Well, now I'm back and I still need a vacation but the reality is my wife and children and mother all had a great time, I got the chance to get away, and now it's back to buisness as usual. Now let's break this down.
My father came back home, he's from this part of Texas but has been living in New Mexico for the last few years now. It's the first time I've seen him in a couple of years and it's always great to see him. He looks well, has since shaved of the beard I've always remembered him with and is sporting a tattoo band over his bicep. What's with the tattoo, Dad, midlife crisis! Anyway we spent the day together, had lunch, cruised around Galveston island for a bit, and looking for a part for my truck. I remembered he used to drink beer so I bought a 12 pack, but neither he nor my brother touched a single one so I polished off the 12 pack myself. What's with these guys, does getting older and living apart make one not want to drink? I would of that a good father and sons drinking session would have been in order seeing how we havn't all been together in the same place for a long while. All the same, my father went to a ball game with my brother, saw his granddaughters and we spent some good quality time together. I only wish I could go to New Mexico to see him but I'm tied up with an upcoming cruise. Besides the logistics and money for a family of two adults and three children will have to leave that visit for another time. I do hope to go out there so my girls can see something of the mountains. I just want to see my Dad, he's a great guy.
We tested out for our purple belts but I brain farted midway through the form so I hope sahbumnim is merciful with me. Truth is my mind was on the cruise and the western carribbean and not on ATA taekwondo. We go back tommorrow and see what happens, maybe the trinkets I bought in Jamaica and on the ship will help? We should have waited for after the cruise to test but it would have been the same, you're either prepared for such a test or you're not. At the that particular time, taekwondo was not on my mind; but jamaican rum, sandy beaches, clear blue sea, ancient mayan ruins and shipboard antics were all I was thinking about.
The Write Thoughts Poetry group I'm with had an evening of poetry reading and a display of local Galveston island themed poetry but I had to work. I later saw the poem I had submitted on display before we left for the cruise. I hope it's still up when I get back there because I want a picture of it.
Now for the meat of the matter, a week long cruise to Jamaica, Grand Cayman island and Cozumel, Mexico! We went on the Conquest out of Galveston, my family and my mother. It's her first time out of the country except for little mexican border towns and it was my daughter's first time out on a cruise ship. It was the second time out for my wife and I. If anyone deserved a vacation they did, I just like to get away for a while and see new things.
It took us two days at sea just to get to Jamaica and it was a wonderful sailing, the food wasn't as good as the Raphsody of the Seas of the the Royal Carribbean line but they still feed you like a king and the service was great. The Conquest is a huge ship, much bigger than the Rhaphsody so you don't feel the sea as much, it's not as personable as a smaller ship. I'll take the sea for a more personable experience, but I digress. My wife and girls literally camped out poolside, my mother did too but I think she relaxed more than the rest of us and that's what counts. I worked out in the gym and ran laps on deck, if you've never lifted dumbbells over your head or run on a rolling deck at sea you really should at least once. Wonderful test of balance and coordination with 40lbs over your head.
I did get sick for the first time at sea, contracted a noro virus from somewhere. When one is among 2000 plus passengers and 1000 plus crew in the clos confines of a ship illness travels like wildfire. It doesn't matter how clean you try to be, when this fucker bites it bites hard and holds on tight for a day or two and makes your life miserable with diarrhea, nausea, aches and pains and such. It hit me overnight between Jamaica and Grand Cayman Island but I did not pay some five thousand dollars, weeks of preparation, and travel a thoussand miles or so just to let some bug keep me in my bed! No way, I motrined myself up to control the low grade fever, hydrated myself with lots of water, and grabbed the bull by the balls and made it get on the tender then on the beach and I did get ashore to Grand Cayman island! The american dollar doesn't go far in Grand Cayman, only about 68 cents or so on the dollar, so we just walked around the duty free shops and stayed close to the ship.
Same thing with Jamaica, my wife and mother were really put off with the locals around the pier so we just hung around the shops then came back on the ship. I really wanted to go into town and see the sights or hang out with the crew at Doctors Cave beach. We would have had to travel by bus and Jamaica can be a dangerous place but I felt we would have been fine sticking close to the the other passengers and crew going ashore but the wife and mother would have none of it. So we came back on board, so much for my first time on the beautiful island of Jamaica
Cozumel was a better experience, I paid 229 dollars for a tour of the Mayan ruins in Tulum. My wife and I were here the last time, I really wanted to come back and I wanted the girls to see something one only reads about in books or sees on the Discovery channel, it was just too damn expensive for everyone so I took the older two girls and my wife, mother, and youngest daughter went shopping in Cozumel. The ruins are a wonderful and spiritual place and I am always in awe of the Mayan culture and the beauty of the place. I just couldn't stay away and this time I had my children with me; it was perfect. More to come on that later on a whole other entry.
I didn't engage in too many ship board antics, went up to the adults only deck once to sunbathe but Dana didn't want to go, I did bring my own rum this time so I always had a full lflask with me when at poolside or anywhere else on deck. Read some, wrote some poetry, including a great one about the couple in the cabin next ours. Dana didn't want to go dancing so I took it upon myself to dance with the other drunks to Bob Marley music at the poolside, she danced some but only on the periphery of the rest of our merry band. The rest of the cruise I'll have to write about some other time.
My head is still rolling to the motion of the ship as I type this and we are back at home, thanks to God. The girls go back to school tomorrow, I have a yard to cut, and life goes on.

CPR Kills!

This is no shit, CPR kills! I've been nursing for seven years now, 14 if you count the 7 years I spent as an unlicensed HTA and nearly 20 if you toss in the 4 and a half years I spent as a Hospital Corpsman in the navy and I have yet to see a case when CPR was initiated and the patient lived to tell about it. In fact, the only cases I've seen survive were the testemonials on the CPR instructional videos.

Maybe it's because the ones I've had to do CPR on were really sick, eaten up with cancer, or just to injured to make it; but I can't recall one who made it. I've seen them come back with advanced life support, electrocardioconversion, administration of epinephrine or atropine or other drugs, but not ever with CPR alone. I just had to do CPR last week on some poor guy who was eaten up with colon cancer. He didn't make it.

It was pretty ugly, to tell the truth. I must have cracked every rib in the poor son of a bitch's body and I'll venture to say I punctured a lung, lacerated a liver and God only knows what other damage was done as we tried to resucitate him. When it's my time to go - let me go. No CPR, no extensive life saving measures. Only God knows when it's our time and I only hope and pray I still have the facility of mind and body to make a decision about my own do not resucitate status before I lose my facilities .

I look at a do not resucitate order as a death with dignity decision. My grandmother did it and she died in her own home surrounded by her family quietly and as pain free as we could make her. My grandfather died some 40 days later in the hospital quite suddenly, we really didn't expect him to go, and the nurses coded him and did everything in their power to bring him back. I'm only glad I wasn't there to see it because I've coded people and it's not a pretty sight. When I came into the room they were just wheeling out the crash cart, had just declared him dead, and me - I go into clinical ER phase. I whip out my stethescope, assess the situation as I've been trained to do, and immediately search for a pulse, respirations, the whole nine yards. All the time there's this little voice in the back of my head saying" Mike, he's gone, you know he's gone, just let him go. There isn't a thing in your human power you can do no matter how much you love him." Let me tell you people, DNR ( do not resucitate) is the way to go.

Each and every DNR case I've had to care for has gone quietly and as pain free as we could possibly do. Surrounded by loved ones and people who care. I've watched them die, it's not easy, but it's a lot easier knowing that dying is very much a part of living and I did my best to make their passing as comfortable and easy as possible. Dying is hard, it's as hard as birth and being born. It's hard on the people one leaves behind, the nurses caring for the dying and, of course ,it's hard on the dying. The good news is - they're dead and in a better place, we're still here and have to contend with living.

You don't ever get used to it, I'll not ever get used to it. To get used to it is to be inhuman and unfeeling and I'm not like that. I may grow calloused to it and surround myself in my little shell, but it beats the hell out of drinking, doing drugs, or any of a number of other nightmares one can fall into in the guise of coping. I'm convinced all nurses suffer from some degree of post traumatic stress disorder.

I rarely discuss work at home with my wife, no matter how bad I want to. It's not worth all the explaining, making her worry, going back over the experience, no don't bring work home. I'll just come in, take a shower and go to bed. If the event was particularly traumatic or bad I might have one or two good stiff drinks to take the edge off but that's it - no more because then you're just opening the door to a much worse nightmare. I might discuss work with my mother-in-law, but she's a nurse with over 30 years experience. I might even talk shop with my co-workers out of work, but I try not to do that too much because then I'm just bringing work out of work and that's not good.

I do keep a journal, I do keep up with this blog and I'm happy and grateful to God I can cope effectively enough. I pray my rosary daily, it's good therapy and without it I'd probably be strung out on the bottle or worse. When I run or cycle or swim my thoughts might wander to work and what's happened there but I'm able to look it in the face and not run from it. I can still walk back into the unit and do my job, I can still go back into the very rooms where all the unpleasantness happened and work. I don't linger or let thoughts linger. I move on with my life and work. Thank God I'm not haunted by the spirits of those who have passed. I pray that they have forgiven me and that they go on to the light to heaven. I pray for each and every one I've had to care for in some way form or fashion who has died.

When I die, I hope and pray it's with dignity, pain free as possible, and that the passing is as good and easy as was the birth. After all, dying is very much a part of living.

First Taekwondo Tournament, First Poetry Published

Went to our first regional taekwondo tournament yesterday and it was a learning experience. First of all it's a real clusterfuck the way the thing is run but they have their rules and regulations. It started off with the tiny tigers competing, these are the 5 year olds and such. They start right off with them so that their parents can watch if the parents happen to be competing. The good news is , no matter how bad or wrong one does, one does get some good positive recognition for the individual effort put forth. This is the only sport I know of which does this. My daughter Stephanie got a medal for doing her form. I'm proud of my little girl, she did as well as a 5 year old can be expected to do. I really should work with her more.
The juniors performed next, these were my other two daughters, Victoria and Judith. Victoria wears braces on her teeth but doesn't have a mouth guard from her orthodontist so she could only compete in forms this time. She placed fourth. Judith competed in forms and sparring. Some of those girls really go at it and are just plain fucking deadly. God help the poor stupid son of a bitch who tries to lay an unwanted hand on some of these girls. I think they spar more hard and with more gusto than adults. Maybe it's because their just children and don't quite know their own strength yet? My Judith was eliminated in the first round, she just didn't have the gusto and passion the other kid did. Neither did I when my competition came up, more on that later. Judith also competed in forms but it seems to me she has an apethetic approach to forms. I'm still a student myself so I am not the expert to make that assessment. Both Victoria and Judith did get medals for placing fourth in forms.
Now about my performance, I competed in forms and sparring. I did my form but brain farted half way through it, still I finished my routine but didn't place against the other four men competing in my age group. Actually, I tied with one of the other guys for third place but he won in the tie breaker. I placed third in sparring against a 250lb man from Lake Charles, LA. who competed at world tournament as an orange belt. I'm 215lbs and maybe a little taller but this guy has technique which I lack and he knocked me down twice. He didn't have speed so much as he did have power. I think a lot of my problems stem from my lacking a competitve nature and not practicing as I should have or training as hard as I should have. I'm 38 years old and just now starting to compete in any sort of sport, some of these guys have been at this since they were children and have that wealth of experience to bring to this sport.
My wife Dana competed in forms and sparring and didn't come home with any medals but she had the best time and was the most excited all around. She sparred against one woman who was probably a first time sparrer as she was. Dana weighs 200 plus lbs and doesn't have speed but she does have power, this I know. The other girl was a lot lighter and had speed and a more competitive nature. Dana scored one point and was as giddy as a school girl, the other woman scored five points and won the match and was quietly excited compared to Dana.
Now about my first poem published. It's my poem called "Now" and it's part of an anthology titled "Twilight Musings". I still havn't seen it in any bookstores but I'll keep my eye out. It's on the first page, I paid fifty dollars for this 224 page volume put out by the International Library of Poetry. I'm convinced it's all a sham, I'm not planning on buying another volume from them in the future. I thought I was going to have more published than just this one poem. I have over 20 poems published on their web site, www.poetry.com. All of them have this little note about being published in an upcoming volume and all are copyrighted as my work. No table of contents, no index of authors or first lines; just a nicely bound hard back with my poem on the very first page. If this isn't bullshit I don't know what is.
Another thing about this web site, more than once I've submitted a poem and then returned to the website to find it gone as if I had never submitted the work in the first place. Maybe they didn't like it? I don't expect everyone to like everything I write, but I havn't had this problem with my poetry on www.blogger.com. In fact, everything I've put out on my blog, my poetry, or my haiku is all there on blogger.com. No problems, no editor telling me it contains explicit or unwanted wording or anything. Just pure artistic expression. Too bad I can't have my blogs or their contents automatically copyrighted like I do on poetry.com.

My Monthly

Here it is almost the end of January and I havn't posted anything on my blog. I've just been cruising over other peoples' blogs, they seem a lot more interesting. There's a young suburban wife blog I hit almost daily just to see what those two are up to. Wish I could get my wife to do that! Blogging has become a sort of monthly thing for me, my monthly!
I post my poetry on poetry.com, what poetry they'll take according to their editorial limits and requirements. I have a great poem about just being a guy and my addiction to my dick but they wouldn't take it because I used the word penis in it. It's called " My Dilemma". Another one I wrote about being at one with God and the universe and perfect and balance and such before birth I had to re-write because they wouldn't take my original poem with the word sperm in it.
Sometimes when I write a poem it just goes over the required 20 lines or less, no more than 60 characters per line and God help me with what language and wording I use. Their requirements force me to tweak and tune my poetry to fit their guidelines. Sometimes I can do it other times I feel like there's and editor/slave driver/ task master type who's forcing me to do it his way. I wonder if Shakespeare had to fight editors or submit to editorial requirements?
This month started off pretty shitty- I was sick- we were all sick with some kind of virus making it's rounds through my house. I'm not one to call in sick but I've already called in twice this month alone. Raging fever, body aches, cough, the ugly list of signs and symptoms I don't won't to go back and recall.
It tore through me, then my wife, then our girls. The girls seem to always take it the worse, their temperatures shot up to 102.8 and all degrees between. Great thing children are so resiliant when it comes to illness and injury, they just bounce right back. It sure plays hell and havoc with their parents mindset though. I hate to see my children suffer illnness, after all I am a nurse. It's one thing for me to go to work and care for the sick and injured but to do so in my own house is a totally different ball game.
January rolls on and I still have to get my shit together with working out, running, cycling and such. At leastI started off going back to church, church is always a good start. I still have property taxes to pay before the end of this month, looks like I'm going to end up paying some penalties. I still have to get an inspection sticker for my wife's car, it expired the end of October 05.
Anyway, I better get away from this computer and get my ass in gear while I still feel motivated to do such. Early bird gets the worm!

Musings As 2005 Winds Down

Just a hair over 24 hours before the new year arrives and I sit and contemplate the year now nearly gone. I always get like this at this time of year. I sit and I wonder about how I used the time and gifts I was given, how I could have done things differently, and how I'll use my time and gifts this coming new year.It's not regret or negative thinking so much as it's a combination of constructive contemplation and closure.
A wiser older nurse at work once told me something along the lines of just put it behind you and move on. She was refering to our life's experience's and how it can be negative to dwell on the past and instead, learn from the past and move on. No matter if the experience was positive, negative, or any combination or degree between - just put it behind you and move on, learn from it and apply the new found wisdom to tomorrow and what tomorrow brings.
There's all sorts of "New Years Wisdom" I focus on this time of year, the entire year for that matter. We all have 24 hours in a day and it's up to us how to use them, today is the first day of the rest of my life, and a whole slew of other sayings and axioms too numerous to go on here. If I thought of most of them, I could write a book.
Everyone has 24 hours in a day and it's up to us how we use them. I think I first heard this one in relation to time management. Albert Einstein had 24 hours a day and look what he did, Mother Theresa had 24 hours a day and look what she did and so did every other man, woman, and child who we admire for what they accomplish in their 24 hours. It's all in how we use those 24 hours. No one man or woman has so much as one second more or less. It's a matter of utilizing your 24 hours properly with what resources you have and make. Making time, finding balance, utilizing what one has. It sounds so simple and it is, the greatest truths usually are.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life is a paraphrase of another axiom I heard some years ago. I don't recall where or exactly when but it did strike a cord within me. No matter where we are or end up or what we've done in the past; today is today and yesterday is yesterday and tomorrow might be tomorrow. It get's down to we only have today and now. We might have the rest of our lives, we certainly have today and, more importantly, we have now. if we want change and if we want to get on with our lives it has to be today, now. It won't be tomorrow because no one is promised tomorrow. It won't be yesterday because yesterday is gone. It will only be today and, most importantly, now.
These two little bits of wisdom touch on resolution. Resolution is a very powerful thing. The founding fathers of our nation resolved to form a new government, Mother Theresa resolved to serve the poor, and anyone who has ever done anything has resolved to it. Resolution can be half the battle to winning the war of whatever we're fighting or dealing with; the other half is the actual battle and after resolution, it's a down hill run. When one resolves to do something, truly resolves, one is empowered with almost super-human strength. No enemy or opponent can overcome the more powerful resolve of another. Resolution goes both ways, positive and negative.
Positive resolution is a trait to be admired and sought after and nurtured. I've always been amazed at cancer patients who I thought were sure to give up the ghost and then bounce right back. These men and women had resolved to beat their disease process and what it was doing to their selves. Single mothers who bring up their children on their own against incredible odds with limited resources are another example. These women put food on the table, keep a roof over the heads of the little ones, bring up the little ones, work, maybe go to school and fill the roles of mommy and daddy and overcome every obstacle in their path and come out smelling like roses. I am always amazed by how single mothers do it and how they succeed.
Negative resolution, there's not really a lot to say about it except it only leads down a dark and negative path with no good outcome unless one changes their ways and their resolve. We can call this being hard headed or having a bad attitude. However we refer to it, we've all seen the effects first hand or otherwise. It's not something we want or desire, but unless we change our resolve; it's where or how we end up.
It's all a matter of choices. The choices we make can be as clear and black or white or they can involve huge gray areas in between. Sometimes it's the gray areas we have to chose. A lot of life isn't just black and white, a lot of life is gray. Some areas may be more gray than others and some gray areas may be less wide than others, but I've come to learn a lot of life is lived in the gray areas no matter how black or white we may want it to be.
Anyway. I choose to log off now and get on with my life. I choose to stretch, break out the jump rope and get some exercise and reap the benefits thereof. I choose for what's left of 2005 and I resolve to improve my choices for 2006.

Cleaning Up My Act and Getting My Shit Together

It's incredible how we ride and lord over our children in an effort to get them to clean up their room, organize their school work, and just get their act together in general; then go to our own inner sanctuaries and lament and complain about our own acts in private. We may lead by example most of the time and put out fronts, some real and others totally false, but sometimes we falter and get bogged down in the ruts on the road of life. This is all perfectly normal, I'm sure, it just gets to me some days more so than others. Well, today has been one of those days.
I've always admired those parents who seem to have it all together. There are people in this world who have found an almost perfect balance of family, marriage, work, religion, school, community, and whatever other arenas they indulge in. Whole libraries of self help books and seminars and such are out on the subject. Some people even get rich on it and others, if you look deep enough into their eyes, sparkle as if they've found some sort of holy grail. The holy grail of balance and peace and love and being at one with God and it all, everything. The Dali Lama, Blessed Mother Theresa, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, countless saints, and too many others to name all had that sparkle.
Professional nursing models have a sort of answer, it's called Maslow's heirachy. It's a pyramid which illustrates human needs and gives them a place of value. The base of the pyramid is really basic, can't live with out stuff- air, water, warmth, food; then it continues on up. Sex is in there, safety, self esteem, and on up to the holy grail of self actualization. This is the tip of the pyramid , and so far as I've been taught, only three human beings have made it up there - Mother Theresa, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King. I'll toss in the Bhuddha, Mohammed, and Thoreau and Rumi. I think self actualization is the ultimate, all together, shit wired tight, almost perfect, really at one with God and the universe and everything else stage or such. I wouldn't know, I'm still trying to get my shit together, get the yard cut, shelves put up in the laundry room, clean up house, get ready for work, take care of the girls and master songham 3 of ATA tae kwon do. Songham 3 is supposed to be easy but I'm not the best of dancers and I'm convinced one has to be a good dancer before one undertakes ATA tae kwon do. My instructor is great, she's a 3rd degree blackbelt, a former profesional dancer, and one of the aforementioned types who really has her shit wired tight. Cute on top of all that too.
Anyway, I have to press my uniform, get ready for the night shift and get moving. I suppose it's a sort of balance, it might be the best balance I'm going to find for this 24 hour period. My wife and children are well, I've said my rosary, got a sort of work out in and that's a good day. Managed to even clean up and organize my poetry files some, now if I can just get my girls to clean their room and get my wife to wash the car, I think I'll be a step closer to self actualization and the Bhudda and Mother Theresa.

Finally Found My Balls!

Finally found my balls, my poetic balls that is. No, that's not entirely true - finally found my balls to publish my poetry, even if it's just the internet. There's a website called poetry.com, a contest really, which posts poetry. My poetry is copyrighted and posted under my own name or whatever pen name I choose. This could be the start of something big for me.
There are rules, poetry limited to 20 lines and each line to 60 characters, but I'm sure all editors have requirements. It forces me to fine tune my poems. At first I felt the editors were butchering my poetry and raking me across the "creativity coals", but as I looked into it more, all editors have requirements for works submitted.
Writing for publication is something I've always wanted to do, since I was a teenager. In fact, my first choice, my first real choice of a profession, was authorship. Always wanted to be writer. I don't recall when or where the bug first bit me - maybe it was when I was shyly hiding away in the high school library before class and during lunch, it had to have been about that time. I didn't really give much other effort or energy to any other thing to spend my life's work. Even with afterschool jobs of cleaning floors in a burger joint, or my first job of kennel boy at Austin and Associates Veterinary clinic, deep down inside what I really wanted to do was to write, get published, get rich, and spend the rest of my life as a writer no matter what else may come.
When I graduated high school, started classes at the local community college I put down english major thinking that would be the ticket. Little did I know how much real work was involved. I was just an idealistic child with no true idea of what it was to be writer, editing, revising, publishing, rejection, submitting work to editors, competition amongst writers, making deadlines, getting educated, getting started, paying bills, making a living in the mean time until the" big one" was published and just life in general. I had no idea, still don't.
I just knew and felt deep down inside of the deepest recesses of my mind, body and soul that I wanted to be was a writer. Meanwhile - reality bites, it bites hard, holds on tight, doesn't let go, and life goes on. I was only 19, where was the" big one"? I had a notebook full of poems which just sat there and yellowed and collected dust. I didn't do a thing with it.
The early 20's is still a tender age for some people, it was for me. Life went on. I grew bored with college, enlisted in the Navy thinking in the back of my head I'd have some adventures which I'd write about but the reality was I didn't have much discipline for much else so I put ideas of being a writer aside and life went on. Fact is I learned a trade, I was a hospital corpsman and that has been the professional foundation of my life thus far. Of couse there was some adventure, but more importantly I learned and still have a foundation; professionally, personally, and in so many other ways that the military finds to affect one for the rest of ones life. More about that later.
Funny how life goes on. I didn't do much more about a career as a writer except to read about it and read what other people were writing. If anything I was, still do, contribute to their "big ones". I read and read, anything that caught my fancy or held my interests. I collected books, still collect books, on of my very few vices. Instead of becoming a writer, I've become a reader, a voracious one. I'm the type of reader likened to a shark.
Readers like myself start a book, no two or three books, and devote so much time to reading that we do little else. We put down reading as a favorite activity, hit the bookstores on a regular basis, spend money we don't have on books, join two or three book clubs, and neglect a lot of the rest of our lives because we're always reading or spending time in libraries. It's almost an addiction and it pours over into every aspect of our lives.
We marry like-readers, live our lives around our personal libraries, decorate our homes with books, and are rarely found without a book or two within arms reach. Take a look at my living room, three big bookcases lining the walls and each space of shelf filled. At least it's not drugs or alcohol or gambling or anything like that. Meanwhile my writing career still sits on the shelf in a blue binder stuffed with yellowed notebook pages, scraps of paper and some typewritten sheets.
At least that's where it was until a friend of mine told me about poetry.com. So I dusted it off rewrote some stuff and put it on. It was a big step, the first step. The first baby step was a poem I had published in my high school newspaper. Just one little poem in the back pages, that was the only piece of anything I had ever written and had published in any form. But this was for real, copyright and all. Now I'm a writer.
Life happens and somewhere in life one finds what they want, rare, but it happens.
It might me some tiny little thing like a poem published on the internet, but it happens. Not always the way we might want, but life happens. So that's my adventure, my adventures as a writer and I'm sure more to follow on that later. Meanwhile I'm enjoying it, I'm enjoying life and I can't wait for tommorrow.

I'm back !

John Lennon sang " Life is what happens to you while you make other plans" in a song called "Beautiful Boy", about his son Sean. Funny how John Lennon songs are always associated with the important events of my life.
My oldest daughter, Victoria, was born 12Sep1992 and, as I carried her only minutes old to the newborn nursery it was "Imagaine" playing on the stereo. I couldn't dream a more perfect entrance for any child to come into the world and here it was me and my first-born. Victoria only minutes old, I a new father, and John Lennon music in the air.
Those are the type of memories a man doesn't forget and as I lay dying I know my final thoughts will be of the birth of my children. More to come about that subject later.
It's never forgotten to a young man when he starts to date and actively pursue the opposite sex. When this was happening to me it was Lennon's music in my car stereo. I loved his songs "Starting Over", "Woman", and "My dear Yoko" and "Watching The Wheels". I still do and get that nostalgic 17 year old in me again when I hear them. I crank up the volume and I sing along in the best voice I can bring up from deep within myself; the voice I save for church hymns and the national anthem and such. It makes me feel like a youngster again no matter what husband/father/or whatever issues are on my mind.
The "John Lennon Collection" CD is an integral part of my collection and I still have the cassette stored away somewhere. After I'm dead and gone someone will look back at my music collection and wonder about me and maybe learn something about me from my music collection left behind. Music collections, like journals and letters and books and whatever was important to us in life , are one way we learn about people after they are gone.
When my wife Dana and I were newlyweds John Lennon was played and replayed a lot, along with Ray Stevens. Maybe that was a harbringer of the the things to come later for us and our married life. The deep thoughtful Lennon and the funny happy go lucky Stevens.
I'm about to go out into my garage and hit the weight pile for a bit, get some exercise and maybe reap the benefits thereof; the music from the CD player will be Lennon and whatever else suits my fancy. During the breaks between changing exercises and changing weights, when my mind doesn't have to be focused in the dumbbell or barbell, I can be certain it will be on whatever Lennon song playing in the air and making feel more young, more here and now, and more happy.

hurricane katrina

Have been viewing some of the tv and internet coverage of the disaster in the central gulf states. Really tears at my heart to see the devastation wrought. It could well have happened here if not for the grace of God. It could have very easily had been ourselves in such a disaster.
Gas prices up, cost of living up, everything going up except my paycheck. Received a 4% pay raise at work. This is good, it will just about cover what we're spending in gas for the car and truck. Just for once I'd like to save any percentage of a pay raise.
True we're in dire financial shit but we at least still have our home and I still have a job. I grow tired of living from paycheck to paycheck and unable to save anything. Just barely making it on my little paycheck. Wish my wife would get a part-time job to help out with the bills.
I'm tired, worked a double shift yesterday, must rest up before going to tae kwon do this evening, supposed to be testing for my orange belt.

more musings and ramblings and pondering and such

It's incredible how the people we love the most are the ones who we hurt the most or are hurt by the most. Wether we mean it or not or for whatever reason or excuses we use or hide behind. This morning I had to fight with my children, I didn't want to fight but I tire of their laziness and insolence and lack of discipline and disrepect. My daughters are 12, 11, and 5 years old. They are still just children, little girls who are growing up fast.
I expect some rebellion from my children, it's supposed to happen, but how do I teach my girls about life and living and love and all that a father is supposed to teach his daughters ? It's not easy being a father, much harder being a husband to their mother. I love my daughters and their mother feels I'm too hard on them. Nothing I do to those girls will ever be as hard or harsh or cruel as life and the world will be to them later. I can only prepare them for that. I'm not a wealthy man, not monetarily, so I can not shower them with whatever material possessions they may want. It's almost all I can do to send them to catholic school. I feel a private education is good for them. An education is priceless and it doesn't end with the classroom, it keeps on going for the rest of our lives.
My own parents were divorced when I was four years old, I have only a handful of memories of my parents together,all good memories. I saw my father on weekends and holidays. My dad was an "absentee father", I didn't grow up under his roof. He did not have to contend with his sons, not like my mother did.
My mother provided for us as best she could, a single mother always working. My mother is a strict disciplinarian as was her mother and as is still her father. We did not go without and we were not abused, but life can be abusive and my mother did prepare us for life. She prepared us as best she could, my father tried as best he could according to the examples he had.
Dad was an abused child, his father was a philanderer and beat his children and his wife, hard drinking, hard working but short on showing love to his chidren. Dad never beat on us though, never abused us, but didn't always discipline my brother and I. How could he, he didn't know how. My fathers best friend tells me " our fathers can only love us the best way they know how". How deep and insightful and enlightening when I remember my grandfather and when I think about my father. It's not that my father doesn't love me, it's just he doesn't always know how. Consequently his son, me, will have difficulties in this area also. I still have my mothers example.
My parenting style is very much like my mothers and my grandfathers, the true father figures in my life. Yes I can be hard and harsh, yes it does hurt, I'm sure it hurt my mother also. But my conscience is clear, I'm not guilty about disciplining my children, only contending with the feelings of how to go about it right and dealing with my emotions. I'm not above slapping my girls or lording over them if they will learn. It's not easy and they will not understand now or today or next week or next month, but one day with their own children or with a situation in life later on they will remember; I know they will because their father does. Their father remembers the lessons his mother taught him as his mother remembers the lessons her parents taught her. If it's done right it's an unbroken chain, an unending assembly line of love and discipline passed on from parent to child. Love is discipline and discipline is love, sometimes love hurts.

my second ever blog

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my very first blog

This is my very first blog and, like losing ones viginity, it's a little awkward at first, but I'll get used to it. It's amazing what you can get used to in life. I'm new to computers and am learning. Until recently, my computer skills were limited to cruising the internet, emailing, listening to cds or watching dvds, real kids stuff. My daughters know more about computers and how to really use them than I do. The thought can be a little scary when one considers what's available on the internet. I don't even know how to type, just hunt and peck.

Anyway, more to follow later. Must be dashing off now to pay bills, do shit around the house and such. Spending too much time in front of a computer can rot the brain.