On Easter.

I used to dread Easter when I was a kid.  Mom'd drag us all to mass at some retarded hour; I'd have to wear a stupid button-down to church.  And we didn't even get to do the usual donuts thing we did on Sundays - we'd have to drive over to my aunt's to face down a house full of people who didn't speak the English.

It got better as I got older, I guess.  Halfway through college I got out of taking communion, at least.  The crowds thinned at my aunt's house.  Then, after Mom passed, I managed to get out of going to church altogether.  Hell, by the next Easter, I was tending bar, so my eternal 'I'm working' excuse managed to get me out of rolling out to north Jersey from NYC even though my brother made the yearly drive from Pittsburgh.

Nowadays, I don't see my family that much, even though we're all inside a five-hour driving radius.  Haven't been to my aunt's since Christmas, and I can't seem to find two days to rub together to go visit my baby niece.

Today, I picked up eggs and soda water on the way home from work.  Reheated a chicken thigh and ate it with rice for dinner.

Today wasn't Easter.

It was just a day.

On playing in the dirt.

I am tired.

Not as tired as I should be.  Not as tired as I want to be.

The cafe I work at has a little farm nearby.  I got up there to work it there with the woman who's running it, the erstwhile manager of one of the cafe's locations, and I brought with me my friend who's working on moving her career from IT to starting a non-profit community garden program.

I wish I had more time to help.  You could tell in an instant that both of these wonderful people were excited and relaxed, that sort of calm you get when you're doing work you actually, genuinely enjoy.  It's infectious.  I mean, I was already happy to be there - it was beautiful outside, and if you give me a pattern to replicate and something physical to do, I'm a happy fellow.  But stack on top of that the fact that we're making food by growing it in the fucking ground, and, well.

I'm actually pretty stoked to garden this year, even though I know it'll be a pain in the grundle now and again.  And the more I see it in action, the more I hear about her ideas, the more awesome my friend's crazy plan sounds.

So maybe I'm done cooling my heels and treading water.  Maybe I have a direction again.  It'd be nice.

Hope I'm ready.

On storytelling.

As you probably have noticed, I've been participating in the Scintilla Project, a wonderful exercise in community storytelling run by Kim, Dominique, and Onyi.  It's been a wonderful journey, sharing tales I've told a thousand times and stories I've never told anyone.  And probably in the next couple of days, as I buckle down and read more of the participants' blogs, I'll share with you guys some of my personal highlights.  There is, not surprisingly, a shitload of talented writers out there who are worth a scan when you've got the chance.

That being said, I'm officially sick of telling stories.  Don't get me wrong; I loved every second of it.  Pulling out all the old tools, polishing my phrasing, flexing my vocabulary - it's what I imagine exercising after a long period of time off is like.  I say 'imagine' because every time I try to exercise, I wind up just cooking chicken in bacon fat instead.  It's how I roll.  But like that first time exercising, you wake up the next morning sore as fuck and swear up and down you'll never make that mistake again.

So I'll be a little storytelling sore for a bit.  Don't worry, I'll come back to it in good time.  But there's good eating out there and exciting things happening, and I'd be remiss if I didn't take the time to talk about them.  Or, for that matter, ball jokes.

So cheers, guys.  Ladies, congratulations on an incredible project with magnificent results.  Already looking forward to Scintilla '14.  And with BiSC around the corner, it'll be wonderful to put faces and dance moves to the words I've been reading.

In the meantime...

Balls.

The Scintilla Project, Day 16. Anniversary.

Day 16.  We bet there was a story you wanted to tell that didn't line up with any of the prompts.  Write it anyway - and use it to write a one or two sentence prompt that others could use to tell a good story of their own.

Love is a powerful thing; it can drive us to act with a kindness or madness that surprises us.  Tell us the story of something extraordinary, good or bad, that you did out of love.

I miss those days.  Not often, mind you, but we all look back through the nostalgiotron - things were simpler because our worlds were smaller, our wallets lighter, our heads emptier.  Drama, booze, and free time were in long supply; everything was the best, the most exciting, life-changing and amazing.  We used italics.  To describe our feelings.

Anyway.  She was my first love, or at least the earliest I can remember.  I could tell you stories about her, about us, but those are tales best left for another time.  Suffice to say this was my first anniversary with my first real girlfriend.  Plus she was Russian, so I had to go big or get bear clawed to death.  But what to get her?  I had all the youthful passion of a college student and the monetary background of a college student.

Fortunately for me, these were days where drama ran rampant.  Before we dated, I was her friend and confidant, even though I'd yearned for her from the moment I drunk-stumbled over her foot in a dorm room.  But she didn't feel the same, and I spent the next two semesters John Cusacking it until she came around to my way of thinking.

This meant we had a history.  A series of locations and events that were poignant, rich with our brief acquaintance.  And that night, armed with a pair of scissors and my natural penchant for skulduggery, I went to them all.  Nicked a mug from the restaurant we had our first dinner together.  Flowers from the dorm where we met and the houses we lived in while I pitched woo.  Water from the Au Bon Pain in the student center where she worked that summer.  Sand from the playground where I told her how I felt as the sun rose.  And I presented her with my makeshift bouquet, bound with a strip of cloth I'd surreptitiously ripped from the seat of our little nook at the coffee shop where we spent all our time.

We (and by 'we' I mean adults, not 'we' as the Russian and I. Though that 'we' holds, I suppose) don't do these things anymore.  We spend our money on restaurants and gifts and chocolates because we don't have the time to hunt down these details.  We live lives so complex and busy that we don't remember the little things that make our time with each other so special.  We buy our flowers at bodegas on the fly instead of picking them.  And that's sad.

The Russian's still one of my best friends, though she's long since moved back to Moscow.  She still has those flowers, pressed and dried in the pages of her journal, bookmarked with that strip of material from a cafe that isn't there anymore.  And I joke that the most romantic gesture I'll ever come up with was wasted on her.

But it wasn't a waste, was it?  Not to those two lovestruck idiots in a shitty apartment in New Brunswick, one year down and a beautiful bright future in front of them.

The Scintilla Project, Day 15. Zevran.

Day 15.  Tell the story of how you got the thing you are going to keep forever.

This is totally going to be a fluff piece.

That being said, it'll also contain several images of my cat when he was a kitten.  Like this one.

So, you know.  The decision is yours.

...

We decided Alistair needed a playpartner.  Ness and I were working, and he enjoyed the company of my brother's cat so much (wish I could say the same for Othello, that cranky little bastard) that it seemed logical to get another little beast to keep Ali company during the day.

So we headed back to the shelter.  We were thinking a female cat, older, to even out Alistair's still-kittenish tendencies.  The owner knew us, since we'd picked up Alicat from her and stopped by often to give her updates on him.  We spent an hour or so meeting the kitties, sussing them out to see who would be a good match.  In the end, we were undecided; we figured we'd think it over, talk about it, and come back.

On the way out, we spotted a cage in the corner holding this little gremlin.

Ness leaned over the cage to get a better look at him.  He was staring up at us, obviously curious.  And after a moment of hesitation, he leapt at her like a facehugger, clinging to the roof of the cage with his hind legs scrabbling for a grip.

"Can... can we take him out?"  I could see the glee in her face.  It was infectious.  The owner nodded, and we eased the wiggly little creature out of the cage.  He was a mass of flailing limbs and claws until Ness laid him on her chest, just below her shoulder.

He calmed immediately, slowblinking, kneading her shirt, and purring like a motorboat.  The woman at the counter told us his story - he was found as a newborn in a parking lot; he was only four weeks old, still being weaned.  He'd tested FIV positive, though oftentimes newborns come back with a false positive because of the antibodies in their system.

On the drive home, it only took me a minute to ask.  "We're getting him, aren't we?"

"Yup."

We had to wait another four weeks before he was weaned and ready for his shots, but we passed the time by driving over to visit the little beast whenever we could.  The FIV test turned out to be a false positive, and we finally brought little Zevran home.

The final test lay in what Alistair thought of his new little brother.  There was some light hissing and chasing at the get go, but in the end, they seemed to get along all right.

Over the next few weeks and months, Zevran proved to be an unusual little beast.  He was insatiably playful, always wanting to be on one of us in some form or another.  He'd flop down to sleep on Ness' head at night, play fetch with me before work.  I taught him to sit on my shoulder, something he still does daily.

Really, there's not much more to tell of the story.  Zevran's become what I imagine a warlock's familiar is; he's there, waiting for me at the door when I come home, walking beside me as I putter around the house, sitting on the counter and watching me as I make myself dinner.  He's sitting on my desk next to me as I write this.  If I remain sitting for much longer, he'll be in my lap, headbutting my elbow and purring.  And tonight, I won't be able to sleep until he suckles at my blanket and flops out on my chest.

He is my companion.

And while he still refuses to make me cookies on demand, I think I'll keep him around.  I know I can't do so forever, but I'll make sure to make the most of the time I can.

...

Zevran is the star of my now-dormant blog, I Hate This Cat.

Also, BiSCuits - if you can identify where I got my cats' names from without using the interwebs, I will buy you a taco in Vegas.  Those of you who I've already told are disqualified.  Though I'll probably wind up buying you tacos anyway.

The Scintilla Project, Day 14. On Eagle's Wings.

Day 14.  We exert control over ourselves and others in many ways.  Talk about a time when you lost that control.

What do you do without your mom?

What do you do when you know you'll never hear her tell you everything will be all right?  When the last thing standing between you and this shitty, vacuous world is gone?  When there is nothing left of the woman who raised you but pictures and a handful of details you try so desperately to remember?

We knew it was only a matter of time before we saw this day.  I did what I could to hold it together.  Even during the viewings, as I looked at her lifeless face, flesh sagging like an ice cream cake left in the sun.  Even at the house, my father and brothers sitting about in silence, staring at the places she wasn't anymore.  I cried in short bursts, like a pipe venting steam to prevent rupture.  I could feel what thoughts would make me slip, what memories would cause my collapse.  And with despairing sobriety, I wrestled them back into my subconscious, forcing myself onto lighter avenues.

We were at the church.  I watched the magniloquent priest I'd never seen before sing her praises, watched my brother mumble through a reading.  I clenched my jaw to still my trembling lips, braced my lungs to steady my shuddering breath.  I knew it was coming.  On the rare days she conned me into coming to church with her, we would always sing together.  Her favorite hymn was mine.  It was only right it be sung this day.

I could feel my insides twist at the opening strains.  I had prepared for this.  I would visualize my mother in His hands, her spirit soaring in the cloudless sky.  I would find peace in her faith, and I would stand strong.

And yet, as the first few lines floated through the vaulted ceilings, I couldn't.  I couldn't.  Something broke.  I broke.  My plans crumbled around my ears as the reality of this fucking day washed over me.  She was dead.  For all the people gathered today in the cage of stained glass and wood, she would not be one of them.  Never again would our voices rise together in the refrain.

And I lost it.  I lost it with a wild abandon, with a fear that grasps at your chest and crushes the hope right out of you.  There is something primal in it, something fundamental and raw that devours all reason and light.  I pushed past the bodies between me and the end of the pew, stumbling over the knee rests in desperate flight.  There was no sense of decorum or propriety in my escape; I nearly ran down the aisle and burst into the September sun.  My shaking hands struggled to light a cigarette as I collapsed on the steps.

And I wept.  Pressed the heels of my hands into my eyesockets and bawled, my body lurching with every sob.  Perhaps you know this kind of sorrow, this inescapable flood.  And if you do not, I pray that you never do.  There are no words in this artifice of language to describe it.  The darkness of impotent anger and misery pouring freely from your eyes, nose, and mouth with an urgency that cannot be staunched.  Ecstatic convulsions of anguish that leave you withered and wasted, trembling and empty, with everything that you are and were staining the pavement in front of you.

Go ahead.  Rest your hand on my shoulder.  Murmur your lies to me; that she's in a better place, that she is watching over me.  Tell me that she would bask in the glory of her granddaughter's smile, that she would be proud of the man I've become.  And tell me how that makes a fucking difference.  The truth is in these four words: My mother is dead.  Her laughter, that stupid little dance she did when she was trying to cheer me up is gone.  The arms that held me when I was a weak, lonely child are dirt and wormshit.

It would be months before I could look my father in the eye.  Years before I cried again.  There are those who think me strong, who think I am calm and steady in the face of tragedy.  But the truth is, I am a coward.  Because once you have seen that blackness, that depth of heartbreak, you will do anything and everything you can never to see it again.  Even if it means lying to everyone who asks if you're okay until you believe it yourself.  Even if it means drinking until you can't remember why you're sad.  Even if it means turning your heart to coal and iron, knowing others will hurt like you, and you must feel nothing so that you can hear them feel everything.

I can't remember what her voice sounds like anymore.

And that is the saddest thing I know.

The Scintilla Project, Day 13. Graduated Cylinder.

Day 13.  Post a photo of yourself from before age 10.  Write about what you remember of the day the photo was taken.  It may not be a full story - it may just be flashes of event and emotion - but tap into the child you were as much as you can.

First grade.  Gifted and Talented program, one of two in my class.  I like it.  Gets me away from everyone else.  Gives me projects to work on.  Growing potatoes in jars.  Making rock candy out of sugar water.  Making my own graduated cylinder.  I get to be alone.

I don't fit in.  I look different.  I wear glasses.  I'm small.  I wear my brothers' shirts.  My brothers' pants.  They push me around, like my brothers do.  But it's different.  They don't stop.

It's better here in the library.  It's quiet here.  They leave me alone.  I can read.  I can research.  I can write my stories.  I can take my time.  Be precise.  Not like out there.

I'd rather be ignored.  I just want to think about my stories.  Do my work.  Play with stuff.

I am alone.

I like it.

The Scintilla Project, Day 12. Living On.

Day 12.  Those that went before us have walked paths that we may never fully understand.  Talk about a time when you learned something important about your family history.

I never knew much about my mother's family.  Unlike my father, whose siblings and parents all came stateside at varying times to create a clusterfuck of Filipino nutjobbery on the East Coast, my mother's family, with a couple of notable exceptions, chose to remain in the motherland.  I only met them once, when I was five.  Twice, if you count the flight my mom took over there when I was one, but I don't remember it.  My strongest memories of that visit were a volcano and a whole lot of moist hot (Jesus shit, it's hot over there), so you could say I didn't pick up much of my family history from them.

It wasn't until I was older, old enough to know that there was pain without knowing what it felt like yet, when I found my mother sitting on the bed, her eyes misty as she stared at an old photo.  "Who's that?" I asked.

"Your Lolo," she said with a sad little smile.

I knew of my mother's father.  He'd passed away young, long, long before my history even began.  I hopped up on the bed beside her, peering at the old black-and-white, trying to find myself in his features.  "Who was he?"

She had been wanting to talk.  I know this now, even if I didn't know then.  But I listened, rapt in my data-gathering, listening to the story she had to tell me.

He had a twin brother, but his parents only had money to send one of them to college.  He had always performed better in school, so it was assumed that he would go, and his brother would work at one of the factories that dotted Batangas.  But this idea did not sit well with him.  So one night, he told his brother to take his place, and stole away on a ship to America.

His time here was difficult.  He worked full time, went to university full time.  He faced rampant racism and constant discrimination, but never backed down.  Graduated top of his class at UCLA, attended a PhD program at Columbia.  And one semester short, in the throes of homesickness, he left.

And started a successful farm business.  And married.  And to honor his time in the States, gave his youngest daughter an American name.  And suffered a heart attack at 45, and on his deathbed, demanded an oath from his son that one day I would swear to my mother on hers.

I listened to her, watched her eyes as they grew distant, watched her lips curl upwards as she spoke.  She wasn't my mother then, she was someone telling me a story, sharing a memory so that somehow, someway, her father would still be alive.  It was then that I first learned that people never really die so long as someone remembers them.

I am no man of faith, despite my mother's earnest efforts.  I have no certainties about the afterlife, but I assume the worst.  But even in this, I am comforted, knowing that even a man I'd never met, a man who was never alive when I was, has a story to tell the world.

The Scintilla Project, Day 11. The Horror. The Horror.

Day 11.  Write about an experience you had that was so strange or incredible, it sounds like it could have been made up.

WARNING.  This story is contains a significant amount of shit.  If you are easily deterred by talk of such things or bear a stomach that is easily turned, I would advise stopping here and coming back tomorrow.

I liked Sundays.  It used to be Sal's shift; I'd be a monkey's uncle before I let anyone else run his show.  Sure, they were fourteen hour runs flying solo, but it wasn't such a drag.  They tended to be quiet, with my only customers being locals and service staff rolling in for a pint after their shifts.  25 to 40 of the register was the norm, and in between cleaning projects and HBO original programming, I had crossword puzzles and su doku to keep me busy.  It was nice.

That Sunday was like any other Sunday.  My only customers were a nice young couple playing pool in the back, Deadwood was on, and I was reorganizing the beer fridges for the ninetieth time because my coworkers couldn't be bothered to bring up the right amounts of, well, anything.  I heard the door open in the back, heard the shuffle of feet, but I didn't pay them much mind.  Because, fuck, Deadwood.

"Bathroom?"

I tossed the guy a glance, too fast to pick up many details.  He looked pretty shabby, but who the fuck was I to judge?  "Downstairs, buddy," I said with a well-rehearsed half-grin and a nod.  Then back to Al Swearengen and trying to cram a case of Rolling Rock into four rows.

A few minutes later, I was approached by half of the aforementioned young couple.

"Um, did someone let their dog in here?"

"Huh?"

"I think someone's dog came in here.  There's, um..."  She gestured helplessly towards the pool table, from whence the guy looking to use the bathroom had come.  We kept the bar pretty dark (helped distract from how shitty a job our cleanup guy did), so I walked back with her to see what she was talking about.

I could smell it before I could see it.  My head was in denial, but my heart knew the truth.  There, on the mismatched synthetic tile like an mismade churro, was a literal piece of crap.  I sighed.  "Yeah, a dog," I lied as again that half-grin made it to my lips.  "I'll take care of it."

I turned to grab the dustpan and broom out of the kitchen, took one step.

My foot slid.  Not enough to throw me off balance.  Just enough to let me know it wasn't carpet I just stepped on.

My smile faded; I swallowed as my eyes traveled up, following the dead-straight line from where I stood to the stairs to the bathroom.  There, in the shitty light of the bar, I could see a trail.  Like a scatological Hansel, he'd left a series of nuggets leading to the stairwell.

I crept forward like the black guy in a horror movie, knowing that with each step I took, only terrible things would greet me.  Yet onward I tread.  There, on the tile wall along the stairs, a dark brown smear where he leaned against the wall.  There, on the railing as he turned the corner.  Crushed beneath his foot on the floor on the way to the men's room.  And there I stood, in the doorway without a door because too many people were doing coke in there, wanting to walk away, but knowing I couldn't.

I set my jaw, straightened my spine, and walked in.

There are no words sufficient.  It was an odious horror in brown and black.  It was everywhere.  Smeared against the wall, streaked across the floor, shot at the seat and bowl like rounds from a high-pressure paintball gun.  The splatter patterns didn't even make sense; they seemed to defy physics in both direction and force.  It was in the sink.  It was on the ceiling.  It was like a shit grenade.  A poopsplosion.  Like eighteen minutes after Jackson Pollack had eaten a Crave Case.

And as I stood in that tiny cubicle of crap, my mind long past disgust and revulsion and simply soaking in the wonder of the moment, I knew that it would fall to me to clean it up.  To scrub every last ounce of shit, solid and fluid alike, from the surfaces, to wipe them down and bleach them out.  And I breathed in deep, knowing I was inhaling atomized excrement, knowing that I would never experience anything quite like this.

And that, my friends, is why it's next to impossible to gross me out anymore.

The Scintilla Project, Day 10. Uncling.

Day 10.  Write about spending time with a baby or child under the age of two.

Traditions are a beautiful thing.

My family is close in spirit, if not in miles.  So every year for Thanksgiving, we cash in the older generation's timeshares and gather for a week in an ever-changing pre-determined location in the lower 48.  The last couple of years, our family's been getting smaller.  But traditions are traditions, and family is family.  If anything, our losses bring us closer together.

As do our gains.  For this year, as we all drove up to the Berkshires, we were joined by little Anya, my oldest brother's beautiful little daughter.

I know Scintilla is a storytelling project.  And I wish I could sit here and tell you a tale of that week, craft my sentences for setup and impact, deliver punchlines and payouts.  But I can't.  I can't because every time I think of that little half-Asian, half-Irish nugget of giggles and poop, I smile like I'm halfway through a cheesesteak, and I can't think of anything else but the goofy-ass way she claps when she's excited for like five minutes straight.

I spent the week playing Catpaw and Floop.  Teaching her words as I held up the little pumpkin she kept chewing on ("This is an octopus.  Can you say 'octopus'?"), murmuring to her in French as I held her ("Qui est ma petite loutre?  C'est toi?"), and crooning to her when she got fussy ("So much drama in the LBC, it's kinda hard bein' Snoop D-O-double-G...").  I'm going to be that uncle.  The one who spoils that little girl rotten.  Who sneaks her fried chicken when her mom's on a health kick, who shows her where her daddy hides the keys to the Beemer.

Because this is what family is.  We mourn those that pass, we weep to see them go.  But we celebrate those who come, who will carry on our stories and laughter.  We teach them our principles and our truths and our mischief, that they may share their tales in Scintilla '43 for their friends, old and new, to hear.

The Scintilla Project, Day 9. Hands.

Day 9.  What have been the event horizons of your life - the moments from which there is no turning back?

I breathe deep as Patrick's needle digs into the meat of my shoulder.  I close my eyes as I grit my teeth, doing my best to remember her voice, to remember the things she taught me.  To trust, to love, to laugh. To give of myself, to help those in need.  But I am a sinner.  I am a liar and a traitor.  I am my mother's son, and I want so deeply to be as good a person as she was.  I pray that from this day forward, her faith and warmth, etched into my arm, will forever guide my hand.

...

It is dark this morning in lower Manhattan.  Dark with dust and panic and horror.  I open my eyes.  My body is still, though my insides roil with uncertainty and fear.  And I feel something pressed into my hands.  I hear a call to help pierce the fog like a torch.  The thickness falls away; I hear the screams and tears that surround me.  And I know this is bigger than me.  My terror, my doubts are insignificant in the magnitude of this moment.  And with a burning clarity of purpose, I act.

...

We are at the shelter, and she is talking to the proprietor about the various cats in their care.  A wobbly little tuxie starts to rub against my legs; he is looking up at me with lemur-like eyes.  I pick him up, cradle him like a baby, and he reaches up with one paw to touch my cheek.  All at once I can see the trust this little beast has in me; that he will depend on me to feed him when he is hungry, tend to him when he is sick or sad.  And in this moment, for all my untempered wildness and the chaos left in my wake, I want nothing more than to be a father.

...

He is dying.  We are gathered around him in the grimmest unity.  One brother weeps, the other's face is crumpled as we count our father's final moments.  I can feel her hand tighten around mine.  Only she knows what I have seen these months I tended to him.  Only she can truly understand the weight of my misery, my shame.  For she stood by me then.  And she will stand by me always.

...

It wasn't working.  We both knew it; we'd known for a long time now.  But it was still so hard, so hard to admit it.  I can hear her in the other room as I sit on the edge of my bed.  I breathe deep as I take the simple black band off my finger for the last time, as I turn it over in my hand, reading the word 'Catfish' etched into the metal.  My future is mine, all mine, just mine, and I had forgotten how terrifying that was.  I put the ring down on my nightstand.  I lie awake, staring at the empty bed beside me.

The Scintilla Project, Day 8. Words of Wisdom.

Day 8.  Many of our fondest memories are associated with food.  Describe a memorable experience that took place while preparing or eating food.

By now, some of you know me.

Some of you know that I throw the Rock and Roll Foodathons.  That I bought into and ran a taco shop down the shore and here in Philly.  That I survived La Panarda twice now, with full intentions of doing it again this year.  Some of you know how obsessed I am over fried chicken, the joy I find in the Maillard Reaction, how fascinated I am with the principles of emulsion.

But there were days before this.  Days before I knew what a batonnet was, before I knew the difference between a French Chef's and a Santoku.  Days when I roasted chicken thighs and ate them with toast.  Days when I mixed Tostitos' Salsa con Queso with Old El Paso taco meat for nacho dip.  They were days of folly, of a college-born need for both frugality and inane indulgence.  Days we would pile into Adam's car and drive to Big Ed's in Matawan for all-you-can-eat ribs.

And in one such day was this moment.  This moment of unbearable heaviness as I stared down at my sauce-stained plate, naked bones piled upon it in a sigil of failure and shame.  The Russian slumped beside me, her eyes glassy with rib madness as she pawed helplessly at the bucket of garlicky, butter-drenched potato rolls before us.  This moment where every movement was an agony of Sisyphusian degrees, from the flexing of my toes to the shifting of my eyes.

And in this moment, Pericles spoke.  He spoke words across the chasm of the plastic checkerclothed table, words filtered now through over a decade of alcohol and memories.

"Raoul."  He spoke my name like a period as he lifted a fresh rib from the communal plate between us, his visage tranquil as he considered the meaty monstrosity.  I dragged my chin up from my chest to gaze upon him, my vision swimming, my lids laden with pork.

"There is a space in your stomach.  One you don't know is there.  Maybe you were going to put another garlic bread in it.  Maybe you were saving room for dessert."  His eyes moved to meet my mine, and in that moment, he looked through me.  Deep in his amber irises was a wisdom, a solemn resolve, a knowledge that he knew my pain, knew my suffering.  That he shared in it.  That he had the strength to power through it, and that he would help me do the same.

"Find that space," he said.  Each word beat against my fat-clogged heart until it throbbed once more on its own.  "And stick a rib in there."

And to this day, I remember this moment.  When my days are darkest, when I sit by myself in my house, unable to face the world in its furious glory, I remember this moment.  When I think I am powerless, when I truly believe I have nothing left to give, I remember this moment.  And I dig deep within myself, like I did that day.  I push past the fear and horror, force through the doubt and the terror of consequence, and I find that space.

And I stick a rib in there.

The Scintilla Project, Day 7. Sal.

Day 7.  Write about someone who was a mentor to you.

Salvatore Giglio.  May he rest in peace.

It was raining the night we met; The Count and I had just moved into our little apartment in TriBeCa, and we were looking for a neighborhood joint to call our own.  And we found it - the Tavern, bright as a canker sore on 6th.  There he was, behind the bar, with bloodshot, watery eyes and jowls like a bulldog.  He was the spitting image of Brooklyn Italian, fat on sausage and Gatorade, voice like a gravel driveway.  He bought us back a pitcher of Yuengling and a game of pool, and we never really left.

Months later, after he'd pulled his back stealing a keg of Stella the delivery guys had forgotten on the sidewalk, I was hired on as a bartender, to be Sal's shadow.  He was a force of nature.  It's a rare thing, to find a man like that - someone with the boldness to do or say whatever the fuck he wanted and the charm to not get stabbed for it.  Never before or after have I met someone who could pull off the shit that came out of his mouth.  He always had a line, whether he was putting a snotty little punk in his place ("Not for nothin', kid; I've gotten laid more outside than you have inside.") or talking down a demanding customer ("You want me to drink it for you, too?").  He was a liar and a cheat, and we all loved him for it.  Because he was fucking funny.  He was a raconteur of the highest order; any tale he told would have you in stitches for hours.

There isn't enough room on the internet to tell you the stories I have about him.  The screaming matches we'd get into when we were both in the weeds.  The week we watched Training Day nine friggin' times.  The time he kicked a guy out for putting music in the jukebox because we were watching Six Feet Under, the time he had to put our cook in a headlock until the cops showed up because he was drunk and waving a knife around at our customers.  Whether he meant to or not, he taught me how to be like him - how to keep someone laughing through their tears, how to steal hearts and money with a smile.

And most of all, he taught me that the truth was a slippery thing.  That we, as storytellers, paint our histories to suit our purposes.  That we use our words to show our audience the things we want them to see, that we use our silence to hide the things we want forgotten.  That a good story can turn tragedy into hilarity, shame into pride.

It was raining the day we said goodbye.  They say they found him alone in his house, naked and face-down on the floor, his body already turning blotchy with impending rot.  The coroner was kind to call it a cardiac arrest.  The wake was packed as friends, family, regulars old and new came to pay their respects and share their stories.  Right or wrong, he had gouged himself deep into our bones.

I saw him as a giant, the thundering heart of our little community.  A man whose kindness and wit drove me to be faster, funnier, better than I was.  He saw himself as a failure, a lonely man with no love in his life, with a disease he couldn't deal with and an addiction he couldn't stop.

In the end, which of us was right?  In the end, does it even really matter?

Salvatore Giglio.  May he rest in peace.

The Scintilla Project, Day 6. Brandi.

Day 6.  Write about a chance meeting that has stayed with you ever since.

I was an idiot.

I know, I know, that's not really saying anything new.  But this... perhaps it was the rush of my first trip taken by myself, or just the massive amount of booze I'd managed to get into my bloodstream.  But for whatever reason, I'd decided that since I was too blitzed to find my way back to my hostel, sleeping on the sidewalk somewhere on the edges of the French Quarter was a good idea.

It wasn't.  When I woke up, she was there, sitting on the stoop next to me, cleaning her fingernails with a butterfly knife.  "They were tryin' to rob you," she drawled in that Lousiana cadence that slays me to this day.  I never found out who 'they' were.

"Thanks," I mumbled as I checked my pockets.  There were things missing, but I'd be fucked if I could remember if I had them on me when I passed out.  I had my wallet, at least, and whatever dregs of cash and cigarettes the previous night left me.  I smelled like the NYC subway in summer, and my head felt like a walrus in the back seat of a Jetta.  I offered to buy her breakfast.  It was the least I could do in exchange for her vigil.

Her name was Brandi.  She sounded like the start of a Disney movie.  Fresh out of the orphanage, homeless on the streets of New Orleans with nothing but a deadbeat sister to call kin.  She got by on the kindness of strangers and odd jobs for the roadside vendors.  And for the next couple of days, she was my constant companion.

Checking out Tulane, going to Jazzfest - the things I flew down there for fell away as I strolled the city with her.  We crashed the shelter to get out of the midday sun; I played cards with a Korean War veteran missing his arm from the elbow.  His son had kicked him out when he couldn't find a job.  She showed me off to her 'family', the collection of buskers and gypsies that hawked their wares in St. Peter's Square.  I sipped coffee with a man with a flawless mustache, class in a top hat and vest, dying of AIDS and a lack of health care.  I went dumpster diving for lunch with a couple begging for gas money to get to Baton Rouge.  Mike was taking Sara away from a father who raped her every Sunday while her mom was in church.  Mike played the guitar; Sara had a beautiful voice.

And I spent the afternoons kissing her on the banks of the Mississippi, her tongue lazily tracing my lips as she drew slow arcs on my chest with the edge of her knife.  We raced down Bourbon Street to see who could get through the crowds faster.  We fucked quietly on the bottom bunk in a four-bed hostel room.

These were good people.  Kind people who looked out for their own.  People who gave freely, broke bread with strangers and shared stories in the dim-lit alleys.  Who lived and laughed and died in the gutter, unseen by the moneyed masses.  People who were free because they had so little to lose.

Sometimes I think about Brandi.  There was no fairy tale ending for her.  There never is.  The homeless, the drifters, the forgotten - there by circumstance or fault, they're people.  They're all still people.

Try to remember that.

The Scintilla Project, Day 5. Three-Rail Molly.

Day 5.  What talent do you have that your usual blog readers don't know about?  Talk about a time when you showed it to its best advantage.

"Don't do it."

My eyes were wide, my lips drawn taut in a grimace as I pointed menacingly at the cue ball rolling towards the corner pocket.  It stopped, an inch shy of the lip.

It was Tuesday - league night, when me and my seven teammates gathered at a bar in lower Manhattan to shoot stick against other teams in our division.  I was a card-carrying member of the APA, and on league night, you had better come correct.

I could hear the groans of my teammates as I stepped back from the table.  I had two balls left on the table - the One in the corner, shortside to where I'd left the cue, and the Eight sitting pretty on the rail in between.  Problem was, there wasn't a full-table bank I knew that wouldn't kick the cue back up at least midway to the side pocket, and the Eight was so tight against the rail that every degree on that angle counted.  No, I needed to drop the One and have the cue sit.

I got down on the shot.  I heard El Capitan's chair scrape as he stood, heard him say what I knew he was going to say: "Coach."

"No."  It was Pericles who said it, waving El Capitan back down.  "He doesn't need it."  He knew what I was doing.

It's the first trick shot I ever learned.  Taught to me by my Kuya in the rec center at Fairfield.  Shoot from one corner cross-table at the second diamond.  A little top left, and it'll bounce three rails to the shortside corner. I'd done it dozens of times, fucking around on the tables with Per, in between beers at Fat Cat and Amsterdam.  Just never in league.  Never when it actually counted.

The whispers started.  I was very obviously not going for the long bank.  Nor did I seem to be aiming at anything in particular.  My opponent was up, keeping a respectful distance, but clearly curious as to what the shit I was doing.

I shot.  I watched as the cue spun out, one, two, three rails before it rolled to the One, slowly, too slowly for my liking.  And with a click, there was contact.

And the One dropped.  I exhaled as I marked my pocket, and shot the Eight to a chorus of cheers.

The Scintilla Project, Day 4. You're Late.

Day 4.  Write about a thing that happened to you while you were using transportation; anything from your first school bus ride, to a train or plane, to being in the backseat of the car on a family road trip.

For two weeks every summer, my troop made the long trek north to Floodwood, a Boy Scout camp in upstate New York.  I looked forward to it every year - vibrant nature, gigantic, massively unsafe fires, and the unmitigated violence only teenage boys could inflict upon one another in our never-ending quest for merit badges.  It was a vital element in shaping the unstable, mildly pyrophilic man I am today.

Even the trip up was a ritual.  We gathered in the parking lot of our town's middle school, parents gleefully releasing sullen boys in earth-toned uniforms and absurdly bulky metal-framed packs and speeding off to engage in whatever hedonistic pleasures they took in the absence of their children.  We would pile our gear into the station wagons and SUVs of our Scoutmasters - Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Cottone, that other guy whose name I can't remember, and my father.

There was an unspoken challenge amongst the adults.  A quiet pride in completing the journey before the others, in pulling into that flattened dirt patch that served as Floodwood's parking lot first.  And my father had never settled for anything less than victory.

But this year, one of our number was late.  It was one of the Adams, I think, but I don't care enough to remember properly.  What mattered was that we were delayed.  Mr. Rodriguez left first, waving cheerfully to Dad as he pulled out of the Ramapo Ridge parking lot.  Mr. Cottone and Mr. Other Guy followed soon after.

Fifteen minutes went by.  A half hour.  My father stood like stone, his face never betraying the mounting frustration I knew was brewing behind those engineer's bifocals.

Finally, nearly an hour later, Adam arrived.  His mother kissed him sweetly on the cheek as we loaded his pack in the back with the rest of them, and all of us joined in waving to his mother as she left.

"Get in the car," Dad barked the instant she was out of view, his voice thick with accent and urgency.  There were too many of us to seat properly.  "Raoul, get in the back."

I climbed into the back with the packs and sleeping bags and dinner kits as my friends filed into their seats.  "Buckle up," my father growled.  "We're doing this."

The Range Rover lurched into high gear.  I was immediately plastered against the back window, assaulted by the collapse of the carefully stacked bags, canteens and compasses slapping me like the jocks in the locker room.  I could hear the tires squeal as Dad beelined for the highway.

He drove like a warrior poet.  He had tasked me with keeping an eye out for cops; I spent the trip peering out the back window, watching in wonderment the cars we passed as he danced from lane to lane.  The wide-eyed shock of drivers passed at ninety miles an hour, the fury of motorists cut off.  I saw them all in their kaleidoscopic glory.

No bathroom breaks, no food but what we had thought to bring with us.  We were on a mission, and before long, we reached the shitty, unfinished dirt roads leading to the camp.  And still, my father did not slow.  My little compartment was havoc; I'd long since given up trying to keep things from hitting me in the head.  Gravel spat from beneath us; we left billowing clouds of dust in our wake.

I could feel my stomach float as we crested a hill, hear my compatriots cheer as our dragon took flight.  I am told that that was the instant we spied Mr. Rodriguez' crappy station wagon before us.  I am also told, by those in Mr. Rodriguez' car, that in that moment, he looked in his rear view mirror with astonishment in his eyes and reverence in his whisper: "Holy shit, it's Caes."

My teeth rattled as we hit the dirt.  I could hear the engine roar as my father made his final push, feel myself slide around in the back like a solitary chicken nugget in an empty stomach as he went off-road to pass his final competitor.

I could have sworn we just slid into the parking spot.  I could hear car doors open and shut as I shook off the last of the daze; the hatch-back swung out to reveal my carmates, laughing and hungry and eager to begin our trip.  And as I clambered out the back to squint at the late New York sunlight, I could hear my father say words to Mr. Rodriguez, words I remember and treasure to this day.

"You're late."

The Scintilla Project, Day 3. Get Busy.

Day 3.  Talk about a time when you were driving and you sang in the car, all alone.  Why do you remember this song and that stretch of road?

I hit pause on the CD player.

It's late.  Late enough for Philadelphia to sleep as I pull up to the intersection of 20th and the Ben Franklin Parkway.  I can hear Awesome's wheels as they creep along the pavement in the post-midnight silence.  I know what song's coming up next.  I'm saving it.

My finger stabs the play button as I peel off onto Kelly Drive.  My head begins to bob to the hi-hat chatter, my fingers drumming on the car door as I pull up to the light at the art museum.  The bass hits.  The shadows deepen, the lights get brighter.

Fourteen measures in, my snarling lips chase five words humming out of my speakers.

I guess I didn't know.

The light turns green.  The old Volvo's engine growls as my foot hits the floor.

I am dancing as the song bursts from those heavy, wedge-shaped speakers.  There are no words in my mind anymore - the music is in my blood and bones, my world is sweat and love and rhythm and sensation.  My eyes are wide and dilated, my heart is swollen, and there are glowsticks taped to each of my fingers.  These are my people, and I never want this night to end.

Boathouse Row flies by on my left as the drums kick in earnest.  My eyes are narrowed, my smile is sinister.

Get busy, child.

I coast into the turn like I do; I pump the brake to grab the road before I floor it around the curve.  The river is black as the sky as I pull into the straightaway.  Streetlights give way to trees and stones.

I am riding the Northeast Corridor home, tapping my fingers on my borrowed Discman as the song thunders through my comically oversized headphones.  Newark is sliding by me, and there are hundreds of dollars of pills in the secret pocket I cut into the collar of my coat.  I am feeling clever.

The bass lets up as I break free from the trees.  The words are a chant, a spell; I can feel myself say them even if I cannot hear myself over the siren's cry of the speakers.

Get get get get busy, child.

I am tangled in the arms of my first real love as the song throbs in the background.  The kind of love you can't control, the kind of love that burns your heart and leaves wounds that never really heal.  The shitty metal frame of my broken futon screams beneath us in our furious passion.  She was Russian. She was always angry.

The streetlights are back, ticking past me in time to the beat as I arc around Fairmount Park. Awesome's nose scrapes at the dip, branches clatter at her windows as I intentionally overcorrect, letting her fat ass swing into the empty lane beside me.

I guess I didn't I guess I didn't I guess I didn't know.

Kelly opens up, and my mother's car roars as I race the lights, my teeth gritted against the explosion of blurring lines, the Schuylkill and Laurel Hill forging a Strait of Messina.  I am beset on all sides, but I do not fear. I am going too fast, but I do not fear.  I am running away.  I am running towards.

I closed the bar down an hour ago.  I am alone in the dark with a cigarette and a whiskey, the only light the technicolor flashes of the jukebox as it pumps out the song.  This is my world now.  I have never known a loneliness like this.

Get busy, child.

One note in the background, a seraph over a battlefield, and I breathe.  Relax my grip as I coast past the Route 1 overpass.  The music fades to eldritch strings as my heartbeat slows.  I breathe to the measures as I roll through the last two lights before Ridge, ease my jaw and lean back in my seat.

I collapse on the couch in laughter as the song ends.  It is our housewarming, our first apartment in New York City.  There is still pain in my heart, memories of the woman I buried the day before, but it is dulled by the wine and the hugs and the dancing.  It is a new chapter for all of us.  And we're ready for it.

I guess I didn't know.

The last few bass beats bleed into one last note; it lingers in the air like smoke.  I hit the power button on the stereo.  I drive the rest of the way home in silence.

The Scintilla Project, Day 2. How to Properly Break Your Foot.

Day 2.  Tell the story about something interesting that happened to you, but tell it in the form of an instruction manual.

1.  Hand positioning is a vital first step.  To begin, crook your elbow so that your right hand is roughly at chest level.  Your elbow should be close to your body, but not tight against it.  It should hang comfortably a little off to the side.  Bend your right hand forward in a loose, but substantial overhand grip, then extend it roughly one foot in front of you, knuckles pointing directly in your line of sight.  Your left hand and arm can do whatever the fuck you want.

2.  While keeping your head aligned with your hand, turn your body slightly to your left.  Your right foot should be in line with your head and right hand, with your left foot perpendicular and dropped back to support your stance.

3.  Using your right foot to propel your weight forward, hop off the ground just enough for your left foot to scoot up and your right foot to advance ahead to repeat the cantering motion.  It helps to lift your right knee while doing so, to give it clearance to move.

4.  Once you have the basic process down, it's important to build momentum.  As you go faster and faster, lean forward a little to make sure your weight is caught almost entirely by your right foot with each step.  If it helps, envision a companion beside you banging coconuts together to maintain a steady cadence.

5.  Now that you have a good, galloping momentum going, and this is important, tilt your right foot just enough for all of your weight to land on the outside edge of your foot.  If you do this correctly, your ankle will snap like a twig and you will collapse on the ground in podial agony.

6.  Congratulations!  You've broken your foot.  What happens next is up to you; if you'd like to follow in my footsteps, you could scream bloody murder until your mother rushes in from the garage to take you to the emergency room.

(In case you're completely lost, this link demonstrates what I was doing when this happened.)

The Scintilla Project, Day 1. The Mark.

Day 1.  Tell a story about a time you got drunk before you were legally able to do so.

They were good days.  Summer days, days when Rob was still courting Pavel's mother.  We were happy for her, happy to see her finding companionship after all these years, finding well-deserved happiness after raising Pavel and Katya by herself.

More importantly, we were happy to see them spend long weekends on Rob's boat.  In their absence, we gathered our band of lovable misfits, our fellow rejects, our band buddies, and we sampled their comprehensive liquor cabinet.

That night, we were all high school clever, sure to only skim a nip or two from each bottle, careful to hide our tracks.  We basked in our mischief, bellies warmed with vermouth and creme de menthe.  But we grew more daring; we craved more.  It was Pavel who approached me.  "Look what I found," he said, a devilish grin staining his visage.

It was beautiful.  A trapezoidal bottle, smoothed around the edges, honey-amber fluid behind a parchment label.  Neck drenched in a cascade of crimson wax.  "It was in the armoire, buried in the back."

"Shots?"

"Shots."

Later in life, I would know them as rocks glasses.  Heavy for their size, a mouth broad and inviting.  We filled them to the brim, as we'd seen in old movies, and with bravado thrumming through our veins, we drained them.

I could feel the fire chase my blood to my fingertips.  My eyes widened at the burn as I looked to my old friend.  "I can feel it in my chest," I uttered in wonderment.

"I can feel it in my toes," he replied.

"Again?"

"Again."

...

They say they found us at the A&P down the road.  I, sprawled out on the floor of the refrigerated aisle, he, slumped against the Pillsbury display, tubes of cookie dough surrounding us like shrapnel from a grenade.  I remember none of this.  I remember none of the night that followed.

I awoke to daylight and silence, bewildered and blind.  As I slid my legs off the couch, I heard my shoes crunch the shards of the decorative punch bowl they had left in my lap.  Trembling fingers slid my glasses into place as I rose to survey the damage.

It was like Jonestown.  Bodies strewn about the house, half-empty cups beside them.  Pavel in the guest bedroom, clad only in a shower curtain.  Others wretched and wasted, curled up on the floor or behind half-closed doors in unfortunate couplings.

I stepped outside to greet the day with a burnt cookie I had found on the stove.  I squinted at the smirking sun as I stepped over the wash of vomitous discharge that carpeted the concrete porch.  And I smiled as I gnawed on the blackened disk of chocolate chip.  It was a good day.  For even then, I knew.

This was only the beginning.

On National Meatball Day.

I missed National Meatball Day.  It was this last Saturday, and I was too busy eating noodles to properly celebrate.

So instead, I decided to make up for my delinquency by spending the day making garlic bread...

Cooking up a little spaghetti...

Making a simple red wine marinara...

Firing off a couple of meatballs...

And generally treatin' myself.

Happy belated National Meatball Day, y'all!  See you tomorrow for the start of Scintilla 2013!

On dissatisfaction.

I'm unhappy.

I'm dissatisfied, disengaged, and irritable.  I'm alternating wildly between shying away from contact and reaching out blindly.  I don't know what to say half the time and yet I keep fucking opening my mouth.

It's really pissing me off.  I just shook off two or three years of crushing depression.  My father.  A failed business, a failed marriage.  I've stabilized a financial free-fall with a job I actually enjoy with people I actually like.

So why can't I just be fucking happy?  Why can't I find contentment in a simple life of TV and video games and cats and cooking, punctuated by an honest day's work?  Why can't I just look back at that dark place and be relieved that I'm not there anymore?

But no.  It's at the corners of my mind, the edges of my ears.  It makes me scowl when I'm alone.  I see it in the clippings next to my razor on my sink, in the grease on my stove.  I hear it in every step between my kitchen and my couch.

A friend said to me this weekend that when we dig ourselves out of our holes, when we switch ourselves back on and rejoin the human race, it can be too much.  We start to feel things we haven't felt in too long and it hurts to do it again.  We love like we're shitty at it, we want like we're hung over.

I want.  I can feel it.  I don't know what I want, where to find it, how to find out what the fuck it is.  But it's driving me fucking crazy, this nameless, pointless need.

I guess I'll hope for what I usually hope for.  That I figure something out before I do something stupid.

I'm not holding my breath.

On a couple of food notes.

Seems I can't go on an eating weekend without analyzing every little thing I digest.  Almost every time I eat out (really, any time I eat anything that hasn't been prepared by me), I wind up with a head full of details and notes to take home with me.  I'm really not complaining, mind you.  At any rate.

1.  So far, my favorite applications of soft-cooked eggs (meaning eggs that have been brought up to 140 degrees in a water bath) have been in broth, and I know why - egg yolk has long been used to enrich soups, stews, and stocks, as per the French 'liaison', a raw egg tempered into a hot liquid and gently brought up to temperature.  The phospholipids in the yolk have both hydrophilic and lipophilic ends, which brings together the broth with the flavorful fat inherent in the two bowls of ramen I had this weekend.  Simple and elegant, really.  And since restaurant soup is traditionally served at ~160F, the squidgy egg white that normally ooks me out a little is quickly cooked through as it's stirred.

2.  The combination of hot sauce and honey remains one of my favorite accompaniments to fried chicken.  Something about the earthy sweetness and the fiery vinegar cut straight through the grease to meld with juicy flesh and crunchy crust.  When I was doing groundwork for a fried chicken concept down at the shore, sriracha honey was going to be one of the primary dipping sauces offered.  Glad I got to remind myself why.

3.  Oysters may have surpassed mussels as my shellfish of choice.  Of course, I cannot reach a proper scientific conclusion without rigorous testing.

Onwards and upwards, guys.  Anyone else psyched for Scintilla to start?  Because I sure as testicles am.

On a New York visit.

I'm giving up any illusions that I'm in any condition to create any kind of cohesive blog post today.  Instead, I'm going to make a couple of quick lessons I'm learning from my brief sojourn to Brooklyn.

1.  I cannot drink as much as I used to be able to.  This isn't much of a surprise; one's tolerance is bound to degenerate if it's not carefully maintained through sustained abuse.  This might not be a bad thing, really; I can get away spending $60 at a bar instead of $200.  But my pride.  Oh, my pride.

2.  Speaking of pride, hangovers fucking suck as you get older.  Maybe I've got rose-colored glasses on, but I remember blithely rolling out of bed with nothing more than a groan and a glass of juice, ready to attack the day after a long night of drinking.

3.  I need about two weeks to see all the people I want to see and eat at all the places I want to eat.  That's just the way it is.  There's too many of you assholes and too many places on my short list.

Now if you need me, I'll be very slowly getting ready to meet an old friend for noodles.  And then possibly grabbing a meatball sandwich on the backswing because hey.  It's National Meatball Day, and who am I to argue?

On the little moments.

It started innocuously, or at least innocuously for me in Brooklyn on a Thursday night, anyway - The Count and I were catching a Wasabassco show at The Way Station when the first performer lost a pastie (pasty?  I've never had to singularize the word.) to an overenthusiastic twirl.  I chuckled at the mishap, as did many of the patrons.

But then I realized the potential of the situation.  A chance at an unlikely occasion, a possibility to relive a moment I'd only seen on Arrested Development.  And sure enough, three performances and an intermission later, I was able to turn to my compatriot and say, in all seriousness and truth:

"That's the seventh nipple I've seen today."

Because let's face it.  It's the little things in life.

On the origins of my handle.

It's always one of those things you think about, but never get around to asking when you meet someone new on the internet.  Admittedly, sometimes someone's handle is an easy derivation to surmise.  It's a turn of phrase, or an adjectival morph of their name.  Sometimes it's just a good phrase, or it's as simple as their name.

But sometimes you'll catch a moniker that just doesn't make sense.  And since I've been driving around today and I don't feel like thinking of anything more interesting to blog about, here's the story behind mine.

I was a small kid with a giant head in grade school.  Seriously, I looked like a root beer Blow Pop.  And for some reason my wardrobe (i.e. the clothes that my older brothers wore that survived) tended to be blue.  So I earned the nickname Smurf growing up as I got pushed around the playground.

In a game so old I can't even begin to remember the name of it, there was a plot sword named Warmonger.  I remember it because it was one of the first sentient weapons I'd ever heard of - when you first acquired it, it was all rusty and shitty, but the more you used it, the better it got as it drank the blood of your foes.  Eventually it turned into this badassed two-hander with a black blade.

The first time these two words met was in Laser Tag in 6th grade.  And I haven't been able to shake the nickname since.

So what about you?  Where'd you find your handle?

On singing backup.

I don't really know why, but I've always loved singing backup.  I remember my brother ragging on me for holding the sustained note in "Twist and Shout" in Beatles singalongs on car trips.  Keep in mind, of course, that I'm no singer.  I think the most honest appraisal of my vocal aptitude was my ex telling me that I wasn't terrible, and I think she was being kind.  Not that it really stops me; I just try to do other people the favor of not having to endure it that often.  But that's not really the point here - the point is, something about singing harmonies always appealed to me.  Going for the less obvious line, adding to the situation from a different angle rather than share the spotlight.

And looking back, that's just the kind of guy I am.  When I'm around other people, I tend to echo and amplify rather than show my true colors.  I build on material that's there, refine ideas, fill in the gaps.  I'd rather listen to other people's stories than talk about what's going on in my own life.  I prefer opening to closing because I'd rather set things up for others to knock them down.

It goes against so much of what I've been told growing up - that I need to be my own man, that I need to forge my own path, take the reins and mold the world in my own image.  But what if that's not what I'm designed to do?  What if I'm here to find good people in this world and make them better?  Make parties more fun, make recipes more delicious, make teams more efficient?  Is that really such a terrible lot in life?

Of course this tack has its pitfalls.  I'm terrible at taking the initiative.  I'm awkward and uncertain when other people don't take the lead.  My relationships fall apart because I'd rather be adaptable and supportive than forceful and decisive.  I'm certain it's led to well-concealed self-esteem issues that will fester into full-blown psychosis that'll manifest at my kid's piano recital.  But it's who I am, and so few people ever get to know that satisfaction.

I try to unify.  I try to bring out the best in others.  I realize my own potential by trying to help my friends realize theirs.  And if that's not living my life right, then maybe I don't really care.  I'll keep singing backup and fade into the background.  And I'll take satisfaction in knowing that I left things a little better than when I arrived.

Y'know.  Hopefully.

On mail cookies.

I was unsettled today.  To be fair, I've been unsettled all week.  Nothing in particular, nothing severe.  Just the usual worries.  If I'm meshing in at work as well as I think I am.  If my confidence in my work is warranted, or if I'm just arrogant.  What the people in my life really think of me.  What people on the internet that I barely know really think of me.

And small and quiet as these worries are, they throw me off.  They wake me up with their little skitterings in the night, they dig trenches in the crepe batter on the stone.  They make me forget to get half and half at the store and only let myself remind me as I'm pulling away from the curb.

And they invite their friends.  Old thoughts and worries that have slept for months, years.  Turning away from a marriage to once more face the empty black void.  Poor decisions made, poor paths chosen.  Final words of my father.

And it's so easy to lose yourself in this state of dissonance, to never feel like you can find your footing.  You find yourself seeing what you could be if you could just get back into that groove, that better self you were just days ago.  And you get frustrated and angry, and it just makes it worse.

And then something happens.  Something big, something small, something kind, something beautiful, it doesn't really matter.  Today I got cookies in the mail.  Wrapped in plastic printed with little gingerbread men, twisty-tied shut in a little decorative box with an unassuming note.  And I know it was sent not knowing I was feeling wrong.  I know it wasn't meant to be a gesture of any grand magnitude.  But for the first time in days, my mind went blank as I smiled, and all those niggling little voices shut the fuck up.

And it won't last.  It's only a matter of time before I'm just a little bit off again, before my heart and fingers and tongue fuck up everything my brain tells them.  But today, I got cookies in the mail.

And I'm all right.

Week of yelling, day 7.

Space.

What.  The fuck.

You think you're all cool and mysterious out there, don't you?  I see you.  We all see you, you pompous douchecanoe.  That's right, space.  You're a canoe.  Of douches.  Why don't you tweet about how dark you are, put up a FB status saying "I encompass, and I eclipse"?  Self-absorbed cockfucker.  There's fucking real people here with real problems, but do you give an aerial fuck?  Nooo, you're too busy being vast and empty, like a hipster's third journal.

What the fuck are you hiding, you untrustworthy duckfucking taint-snorter?  You think you can hide from us forever?  Well guess what, you shitsack - we're coming for you.  That's right - we're gonna get ALL up in your fucking ass-bowling business; you're an underage girl's hair and we're R. Kelly's motherfucking piss.

Suck it, space, you big, mostly empty wuss.  Suck it like it's got Robitussin in it.

Shitfucker.


And thus concludes our Week of Yelling.  Thanks for watching, and stay turned for your regularly scheduled drivel.  G'night, folks!

Week of yelling, day 6.

Listen up, five o'clock in the morning.  No one wants to put up with your shit.

Look at you.  You're right in the middle of when a proper fucking night of drinking ends and a normal fucking human gets up for work.  There isn't a single goddamn sane person in the world who wants to fucking see your still-dark outside ass.

Nobody likes you, you sticky-ball-sucking assfarmer.  Not the people who have to set their fucking alarms to meet you, not the people who are already up doing their goddamn jobs, not the people who are waking up in the middle of a good night's sleep, bleary and irritable, to pee.  You are somehow both too fucking late and too fucking early.

So shut the shit up with the cockass birds and the fucknut trash trucks, you goatsack hotard.  Mind your fucking business and keep your hands to yourself.

Week of yelling, day 5.

I swear to God, Zevran.

Every fucking day, I tell you to make me cookies.  And not one single fucking time have you made them for me.  I mean, what the fuck.  The recipe is right there, sitting on the windowsill with the rest of the fucking cards from Baking 220.  How fucking lazy are you?

What, you can't fucking read?  It's fucking numbers, you ballsless hairpile.  And don't fucking meow at me that you don't have opposable fucking thumbs.  Fuck's sake, Beethoven couldn't fucking hear and he still put out the 9th; the least you could fucking do is learn how to use a measuring cup.  And a stand mixer.  And a disher.

Just because you play fetch and climb onto my chest to purr and paw at my face all adorable-like doesn't mean you're off the hook for making me cookies, you little dickbeef.  Step up your game or we're going to have fucking words.

Week of yelling, day 4.

HEY

BABY SLOTHS

SAVE SOME OF THE FUCKING CUTE FOR THE OTHER FUCKING ANIMALS

YOU GREEDY SELFISH SPAWN OF AN INDISCIMINATE WHORE