The Bloggy Blogface!

Welcome to America, ebola! Glad to have you. Well, alright, we're probably not that glad to have you. But that's okay. The awkwardness will wear itself out soon enough. So, what brings you to America? Really? You don't say? Well, that is really terrible. Oh wow. I didn't know that. Well, it seems like you might not be too popular with the townsfolk there, so maybe it's a good thing you left. Or maybe you haven't left there, it seems. Looks like you've been coming over here from time to time. Great. Um..sure. Well, uh, maybe you should just have a seat way over there for a bit. And don't spit on me, please. Does anyone have a hazmat suit I can borrow? Anyway, I thought you'd like to know just how much we love you here, we really do. It may not seem like it, but we care deeply. We want to understand you better, learn what makes you tick, and maybe develop better medicine to..well, fight you. Fight? Sorry, that's too negative. To... work with y...

        Last week, with just a few short clicks, I put to rest (or likely, a Rip Van Winkle-esque nap) my internet version of an ankle monitor. I've tried this plenty of times before, so I am not putting much stock into it for the time being. The URL still rests in the drop down menu, Google magically filling in what it thinks I must be looking for whenever I type anything with an "f" or the word "book." Chrome auto-fill settings can be such a manipulative little bitch. Come on, it's right here, ready for you.  No. Not any time soon.  There were events that led up to this unhinging. For starters, a long time ago I disabled commenting. For some reason, this upset a great deal of people. Birthdays would pass and people would get very angry because they couldn't write on my wall. Okay then. Noted. Interestingly enough, once I removed my date of birth from my profile, the happy birthday notifications died down considerably.  Another action I...

     On a casual jaunt to the local grocery store for items I probably don't  need  as much as I  want , I came across a startling discovery. Within the empty trenches of a recently-obtained hand basket, I caught glimpse of the above grocery list. This is important! Or, was important at one time or another. They seem like critical items, almost hastily composed. Let's analyze the list, in order - Raisins - this seems so out of place here. The fact it is listed on top of the first item on the first line suggests to me it was a last-minute add.  Fuck, I need raisins! And this folded paper is too small to fit it in! 2lbs ground beef - Two pounds! That's a lot. Well, not really. They must be feeding more than one person. And what kind of ground beef? 90% fat free? All the fats? It's not quite specific, meaning whomever wrote it likely doesn't give a shit. 12 peppers - Twelve! They had better be making this right away, because twelve peppers t...

     "Your leg looks disgusting, Bob" I'm reaching back into the congested bowels of my parent's refrigerator when I hear my mother say these words while staring at my left leg. I know it was my left leg she was staring at, because that is where all of this crap started way back when almost fifteen years ago. Shortly after that day when all of this crap started, I was dipping my ankle into a bowl of ice water. My mother was convinced I had somehow sprained it, even though I wasn't feeling any pain. I believed her. Maybe it's an internal sprain. Maybe it's so internal I can't even feel it. The ice water, aside from freezing the hell out of my ankle and foot, naturally did nothing to remedy the situation. The ankle was considerably swollen, and the rest of the calf wasn't looking much better. I had no idea what was going on, but I didn't have time to worry about any of that. I was getting ready to ship on down to The Pelican State. I chroni...

   I was just finishing up with dinner at a friend's house yesterday when I heard the news. I wasn't particularly shocked by it so much as saddened. Robin Williams was a fantastic entertainer, performer, and one of the best comedic improvisers I have ever seen. All of us should be grateful we were around to have seen him now, in the moment, instead of settling for bygone Youtube highlights. In the coming weeks, we can expect considerable dialogue about the severity of depression, which is what ultimately took Williams' life. It is already happening across many forms of social media, where faux-machismo tends to reign supreme. There, tough guys exert their bravado and call each other a pussy , or a fag , for not being "man enough" to handle something such as whatever it may have been Williams struggled with throughout his life. It's comically sad, but very much not surprising. All one should do in order to witness proof we're still among some of the lowe...

   My grade school education was one of considerable peaks and valleys that I have since managed to tuck way in the back corner of my mind. In other words, I don't often reminisce my time with it. It was there, it happened, things were learned, and then I left. I'm always grateful for all the teachers, coaches, guidance counselors, and hell, even the janitors along the way who made sure I kept my mind fresh, focused, and relatively out of trouble. Like most grade school kids, I may have made a few mistakes from time to time, but I left with no regrets and quite thankfully, a diploma in my hand. The most difficult adjustment I faced throughout my education in this town came at the hands of the district itself. I can trace it all the way back to the beginning of third grade. My father had recently been laid off from a railroad company that was rapidly losing money and other services to the opposition. Both my sister and I were enrolled in Catholic school at the time, obliviou...

   I returned to my old stomping grounds in upstate New York just a couple of months ago, seeking relief for whatever was ailing me down in the hills of North Carolina. A slight challenge readjusting to the norms here, with that banal way of life always tugging at me to get the hell out of here time and again. For now, it's a good place for me. A self-imposed sabbatical to get my mind fresh again. As with many of my occasions here, returning home comes the inevitable opinions I form concerning the state of decay with this particular town. Streets I walked to schools - once filled with vibrant families, nice cars, and toys scattered on front lawns - now sit boarded up, condemned by health departments and HUD inspectors. Buildings completely disappeared from where I thought they were, now nothing but barren, shoddy parking lots with weeds bursting through asphalt cracks. My own childhood home is now inhabited by folks who seem too incompetent to own a home, tearing apart and ...