Yeah, I know I was supposed to write everyday. Yeah, I know I have no way to prove to you that I have, but I have, I promise! That friend I told you about in the first post reminded me of the importance of some time off. And it makes sense, I don't want to burn out in this marathon after a mile and also, what good is my story telling if it's so diluted nobody (especially the author) even cares about what is posted.
Originally I took a day off when we were still down south because I wanted to wait and share the story of our dinner out at a fantastic wine bar. A Toys R Us for a wine enthusiast like myself, but I realized there wasn't much to tell. Nothing earth shattering for anyone since most know how much I love wine. And I realized I might just sound snooty expounding on the bouquets of this bottle and the tannins of that one. So, know this, I'll be going there again when Lisa and I venture back and if you're with us, I'll be more than happy to take you there.
But as for now, we're back home and do begins our new journey to find a home. First though, a scheduled session at our local tat shop with Matt Zopfi (I have no problem dropping his name because I want him to get any business he can, this guy truly cares about the art of the tattoo and he's got the talent to back it).
After Lisa and I each got our last piece from him, he scheduled the follow up appointment to make sure we and he were both satisfied with the work. And although we were, he still wanted to refine a few things (for free of course). Amazing guy and easy to sit for and talk to. The only way it could have been better is if he was a hot chick, but I digress.
I've already got another idea in mind, but don't want to share too much lest I jinx the translation and completion of it. That'll be one for down the road once Lisa and I make sure we're moved into a new place.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Journey to Mecca
Today was a day after a party day. The in-laws hosted one of those classy house parties, you know the kind where people drink wine or vodka on the rocks in those real low-ball glasses that are made for that kind of stuff. And they stand around the fire pit and talk about work and retirement while munching on blue cheese filled, bacon wrapped dates (which are awesome btw).
So today was cleanup...my experience with house party cleanup is usually picking up half crushed aluminum beer cans or sweeping up some broken glass from a dropped bottle of some kind. Maybe finding some trinket that will sit in a corner until someone comes back to claim it, then again, maybe not This cleanup was different though. It was the full-on washing of chafing dishes, re-boxing of the cutlery that was only for the party, etc.
So upon completion, we all decided on a short road trip. It's been top down weather the whole time we've been here this week, but today was especially exquisite. With temps in the low 80's we rolled along the byways and side roads, following the shadow line of the desert valley's mountains. The roads took us out of Rancho Mirage, past Indio and then Coachella to Mecca. Didn't even know there was a Mecca in California.
There was plenty of time for quiet contemplation of the beauty that can be found even in tumbleweeds. I couldn't help but revisit some of the choices in life that allowed me to end up there right at that moment. Too many to share now, but undoubtedly these will trickle forth via my fingertips over time. Many of the stories most of my closest friends and family would know, but it felt good to know that through challenges, rough patches and even bad decisions I've made in life, I am like that desert. Despite the hardships that a barren valley might face, those plants still find water, survive and even thrive. They display their beauty to any who wander past and notice. I might be a desert flower or a tumbleweed, depending on how you look at me, but either way I am beautiful and thriving.
So today was cleanup...my experience with house party cleanup is usually picking up half crushed aluminum beer cans or sweeping up some broken glass from a dropped bottle of some kind. Maybe finding some trinket that will sit in a corner until someone comes back to claim it, then again, maybe not This cleanup was different though. It was the full-on washing of chafing dishes, re-boxing of the cutlery that was only for the party, etc.
So upon completion, we all decided on a short road trip. It's been top down weather the whole time we've been here this week, but today was especially exquisite. With temps in the low 80's we rolled along the byways and side roads, following the shadow line of the desert valley's mountains. The roads took us out of Rancho Mirage, past Indio and then Coachella to Mecca. Didn't even know there was a Mecca in California.
There was plenty of time for quiet contemplation of the beauty that can be found even in tumbleweeds. I couldn't help but revisit some of the choices in life that allowed me to end up there right at that moment. Too many to share now, but undoubtedly these will trickle forth via my fingertips over time. Many of the stories most of my closest friends and family would know, but it felt good to know that through challenges, rough patches and even bad decisions I've made in life, I am like that desert. Despite the hardships that a barren valley might face, those plants still find water, survive and even thrive. They display their beauty to any who wander past and notice. I might be a desert flower or a tumbleweed, depending on how you look at me, but either way I am beautiful and thriving.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Giving Back a Belt Loop? or How FB Keeps Me Motivated
I probably picked the worst time to promise myself that I would start writing again. I did it a day before leaving for vacation, while in the middle of working through an eviction (not the we-didn't-pay-our-bills type, it's the property-owner-died-daughter-is-now-moving-in type), which consequently has us trying to be first time home owners; oh yeah, while also trying to be a first time dad and a first time college graduate so that I might eventually be a teacher.
Whew! Maybe that's normal in your life, but mine, that requires some compartmentalizing so that I don't go batsh-t crazy. That brings me to my point (finally! you say) of exercise in my life. Any glance at my FB photos will chronologically catalog a growing mass of body and slowly a reduction of that same mass.
It was about three years ago and I saw a pic of myself and wondered just how I could look like that. I was a bloated mass of a man, literally double my wife's weight. I had found ways to rationalize things, a walk with the dog must have burned off the first hot dog at dinner, so it's okay for a second (not to mention heaps of Mac and Cheese, hold the veggies). I looked to Facebook and saw a very specific friend from high school who looked fantastic. I would love to name him and all my other friends who I continue to see working to better themselves, but as this is a public forum, I'll err on the side of privacy and thank them individually later. Anyway, by no means had he ever been fat or even out of shape, but here he now was even healthier than ever and I knew that I needed to change for me, for Lisa and for a chance at living after 40 without a heart attack (knock on wood).
I began with small steps and worked my way from 251 lbs (and morbidly obese by government health standards) down to 175 lbs (and simply overweight by those same standards). I've rebounded some as my college classes have interjected, or because we're now on a weekend hunt for an open home to wander, but my life-long goal is to now never let myself stand on a scale and weigh more than 200 lbs.
I can now stand after getting out of the shower, look down and see more than just a Buddha belly (TMI?, sorry!)...I mean my toes, sure! But I'm proud that I can use belt loops on a belt that wasn't getting too much use on that end just a couple of years ago.
It would be easy to rest on these laurels, but why slide all the way back? So this morning, in bright, 67 degree weather (at 8 am mind you) here in Rancho Mirage, I kept a commitment to that goal by jogging a couple of miles around the neighborhood where we are vacationing. And to be honest, I struggled part of it, since half of it is up a hill and of course that half is the path back home, but it feels good to sit here now and feel the fatigue in my legs and lay by the pool with a cup of iced coffee as my reward.
And I have many friends to thank. All those who are on FB, courageously posting their own goals and achievements as they work toward a healthier life. I have you to keep me motivated, I want to see you all at the 30 year reunion and we can share stories of our further achievements, not just about how we had a quadruple bypass.
Whew! Maybe that's normal in your life, but mine, that requires some compartmentalizing so that I don't go batsh-t crazy. That brings me to my point (finally! you say) of exercise in my life. Any glance at my FB photos will chronologically catalog a growing mass of body and slowly a reduction of that same mass.
It was about three years ago and I saw a pic of myself and wondered just how I could look like that. I was a bloated mass of a man, literally double my wife's weight. I had found ways to rationalize things, a walk with the dog must have burned off the first hot dog at dinner, so it's okay for a second (not to mention heaps of Mac and Cheese, hold the veggies). I looked to Facebook and saw a very specific friend from high school who looked fantastic. I would love to name him and all my other friends who I continue to see working to better themselves, but as this is a public forum, I'll err on the side of privacy and thank them individually later. Anyway, by no means had he ever been fat or even out of shape, but here he now was even healthier than ever and I knew that I needed to change for me, for Lisa and for a chance at living after 40 without a heart attack (knock on wood).
I began with small steps and worked my way from 251 lbs (and morbidly obese by government health standards) down to 175 lbs (and simply overweight by those same standards). I've rebounded some as my college classes have interjected, or because we're now on a weekend hunt for an open home to wander, but my life-long goal is to now never let myself stand on a scale and weigh more than 200 lbs.
I can now stand after getting out of the shower, look down and see more than just a Buddha belly (TMI?, sorry!)...I mean my toes, sure! But I'm proud that I can use belt loops on a belt that wasn't getting too much use on that end just a couple of years ago.
It would be easy to rest on these laurels, but why slide all the way back? So this morning, in bright, 67 degree weather (at 8 am mind you) here in Rancho Mirage, I kept a commitment to that goal by jogging a couple of miles around the neighborhood where we are vacationing. And to be honest, I struggled part of it, since half of it is up a hill and of course that half is the path back home, but it feels good to sit here now and feel the fatigue in my legs and lay by the pool with a cup of iced coffee as my reward.
And I have many friends to thank. All those who are on FB, courageously posting their own goals and achievements as they work toward a healthier life. I have you to keep me motivated, I want to see you all at the 30 year reunion and we can share stories of our further achievements, not just about how we had a quadruple bypass.
Monday, February 20, 2012
This Babe-a-luscious Place
Lisa and I have made it a practice to escape to our Eden at least once a year. Based in Rancho Mirage, the domicile we retreat to has been a haven for relaxation and rejuvenation. A proverbial "Fortress of Solitude" as the comic book geek in me would say.
One major component of our trips to this oasis is Babe's. Not quite the strip club or adult fetish store your instincts are pulling you towards, rather it's the local BBQ restaurant that just happens to be walking distance from our house.
Part smoked meat goodness, part delightfully sloppy sides and part (and most importantly) awesome ales on tap, this place is always guaranteed to add nearly 10 lbs to my svelte frame while we are here. And although we arrived yesterday afternoon, the smell of pulled pork is wafting up the hill (against the current of the breeze) calling to me, pulling at me like those cartoon tendrils that pick you up and float you right to your doom. I can't wait anymore, tonight Lisa and I eat, drink and laugh like royalty, stuffing our faces with shredded smoked meats and clanking out goblets together while bursting with guttural laughs as all our cares have been abandoned in the Bay Area.
Yeah, it's good to be on vacation. Screw you exercise, I'll schedule something with you next week.
One major component of our trips to this oasis is Babe's. Not quite the strip club or adult fetish store your instincts are pulling you towards, rather it's the local BBQ restaurant that just happens to be walking distance from our house.
Part smoked meat goodness, part delightfully sloppy sides and part (and most importantly) awesome ales on tap, this place is always guaranteed to add nearly 10 lbs to my svelte frame while we are here. And although we arrived yesterday afternoon, the smell of pulled pork is wafting up the hill (against the current of the breeze) calling to me, pulling at me like those cartoon tendrils that pick you up and float you right to your doom. I can't wait anymore, tonight Lisa and I eat, drink and laugh like royalty, stuffing our faces with shredded smoked meats and clanking out goblets together while bursting with guttural laughs as all our cares have been abandoned in the Bay Area.
Yeah, it's good to be on vacation. Screw you exercise, I'll schedule something with you next week.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Being Lazy v. Being Stupid
So I managed to write my most inspiring, stupendous post in this short lived blog and somehow found a way to delete it.
I am awesome, so let the vacation commence.
I am awesome, so let the vacation commence.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
The Beginning of Nothing
I learned many years ago about the importance of practicing writing. It was a craft to be worked at, refined, reworked and eventually accepted. A ball of clay that could be made into anything you like. It was important to continue working at it, lest you lose something in what you were weaving. In more recent times, I listened to a friend make a promise to himself that he was going to write something everyday. I found that very inspiring and it rekindled in me a desire to put pen to paper, or nowadays, keystroke to screen. It brought me back to those early days of writing, the ones in high school where poetry and prose, romance and ego were all I needed. I wrote everyday back then, mainly because I couldn't get enough words out in a fast enough manner to really express what I wanted or, for that matter who I was.
Back then my brain would cruelly move on to the next epiphany before my hand had a chance to scribe the brilliance. Poetry, that young man's game, I loved it. I wrote of so many things ranging from the weather to the political climate; from faith to the religious zeal of athletic fandom. There was nothing off limits, especially the likes and loves of my life.
That is why this space has been titled 'Camille is Dead'. Nothing quite so gruesome or shocking as you might expect. Rather, it is my attempt at an eloquent nod to my wife. In those days of young ego and white hot love, every girl I ever liked, loved, dated, infatuated over, dreamed about, was assigned a name. And while ever so deeply in love with Adia, Rose, Ivy or any of the others, there was always Camille.
She was the faceless picture of perfection that my heart, mind and soul yearned for. The one in who I put all my faith that I would one day find her; secretly tucked away in the corner of my heart while steadily pursuing all my feminine interests in reality. And as the days wore on, she was the only one who never disappointed me, never left me, never fed me any lies, never put her interests above mine.
Then, just over a decade ago, I met Lisa. And maybe I should have known it right off the bat. The hot pink hair, the confidence that oozed from her, the flippant way she engaged our conversation while really keeping one eye on the hockey behind my shoulder.
She was out of my league.
But in the end, the drunken stupor of male arrogance, mixed with some lust and a large portion of curiosity kept me pursuing her. Camille sat idly by, waiting for me to contact her. The days in which I wrote to her, about her, grew less and less. Then, there was a flight to Michigan to surprise Lisa. Orchestrated with the help of great friends, this was my chance at a movie moment. The romantic film that ends with marriage and happiness ever after. It was on that flight of five hours that Camille came out swinging. She could no longer contain herself as she realized she was slowly being erased by Lisa. She reminded me that in reality, girls like this actually file restraining orders, not embrace you when you show up out of the blue 2500 miles from home. She told me that this girl couldn't care about me, she was in Michigan after all with a trip already booked to Paris for three weeks. Camille told me Lisa was a world-travelling muse, a girl who could not be contained.
I didn't listen. I walked off the plane, met with Lisa and let her tour me around the areas she had grown up in. I wish I could tell you that it was the ending of the perfect romantic movie, but it wasn't. I could not figure out Lisa and that ultimately intrigued me more. Camille's last desperate attempts came at me in the late nights when I was alone, me, her, and the thoughts of failure. Camille knew I had my heart set on Lisa, because this is where Camille had always made her home. She knew if I committed to Lisa, it was an eviction notice for her. But Camille could not survive without me, it was only me that kept this idealized figment of the perfect woman alive.
September 9, 2006 I married Lisa. Camille did not attend. She had been gone for nearly five years already and I had not thought too much about her. I didn't miss her, I didn't wonder about her and obviously had not written about her.
February 18, 2012 I sit here battling with the final sentences of what is a renewed promise to myself to try and write something everyday. I had given a lot of thought to what my friend said about writing and that provoked my introspection in all the things that I had created. That was really the first time I had thought of Camille since the beginning days of meeting Lisa. And it was at that point that I realized Camille is dead. The idealized woman I created as a teenager was no longer needed because I have her now in my very real life. That is how the title of this blog is a tribute to Lisa.
And if you are reading this now, then you are a witness to my beginning, of nothing really. No agenda here, no motivation except to continue stringing words together, making magical pieces of thought jump into your head. If you are reading this, then you are the peer pressure that hopefully keeps me writing day after day, because as vulnerable as I now am placing all my thoughts here, it would be even more embarrassing to not fulfill my promise to write a little something everyday.
And if you're still reading and wondering about my naming system of the women in my life, well, it was all relative to what was happening or how my relationships had been going. I don't know, I can't really explain it because after all, sometimes nicknames just make themselves.
But Camille, I do have Prince to thank for that. Camille, that alter ego to Prince on my favorite album, "Sign O The Times". The duality, the yin and the yang, that was how I ended up with Camille; the idealized perfection that was to be my ultimate component, making me a better man. I always thought I would have Camille in my life, never did I dream I would ever write her eulogy, let alone find someone who would surpass my own fantasy in every way in this life. I love you Lisa.
Back then my brain would cruelly move on to the next epiphany before my hand had a chance to scribe the brilliance. Poetry, that young man's game, I loved it. I wrote of so many things ranging from the weather to the political climate; from faith to the religious zeal of athletic fandom. There was nothing off limits, especially the likes and loves of my life.
That is why this space has been titled 'Camille is Dead'. Nothing quite so gruesome or shocking as you might expect. Rather, it is my attempt at an eloquent nod to my wife. In those days of young ego and white hot love, every girl I ever liked, loved, dated, infatuated over, dreamed about, was assigned a name. And while ever so deeply in love with Adia, Rose, Ivy or any of the others, there was always Camille.
She was the faceless picture of perfection that my heart, mind and soul yearned for. The one in who I put all my faith that I would one day find her; secretly tucked away in the corner of my heart while steadily pursuing all my feminine interests in reality. And as the days wore on, she was the only one who never disappointed me, never left me, never fed me any lies, never put her interests above mine.
Then, just over a decade ago, I met Lisa. And maybe I should have known it right off the bat. The hot pink hair, the confidence that oozed from her, the flippant way she engaged our conversation while really keeping one eye on the hockey behind my shoulder.
She was out of my league.
But in the end, the drunken stupor of male arrogance, mixed with some lust and a large portion of curiosity kept me pursuing her. Camille sat idly by, waiting for me to contact her. The days in which I wrote to her, about her, grew less and less. Then, there was a flight to Michigan to surprise Lisa. Orchestrated with the help of great friends, this was my chance at a movie moment. The romantic film that ends with marriage and happiness ever after. It was on that flight of five hours that Camille came out swinging. She could no longer contain herself as she realized she was slowly being erased by Lisa. She reminded me that in reality, girls like this actually file restraining orders, not embrace you when you show up out of the blue 2500 miles from home. She told me that this girl couldn't care about me, she was in Michigan after all with a trip already booked to Paris for three weeks. Camille told me Lisa was a world-travelling muse, a girl who could not be contained.
I didn't listen. I walked off the plane, met with Lisa and let her tour me around the areas she had grown up in. I wish I could tell you that it was the ending of the perfect romantic movie, but it wasn't. I could not figure out Lisa and that ultimately intrigued me more. Camille's last desperate attempts came at me in the late nights when I was alone, me, her, and the thoughts of failure. Camille knew I had my heart set on Lisa, because this is where Camille had always made her home. She knew if I committed to Lisa, it was an eviction notice for her. But Camille could not survive without me, it was only me that kept this idealized figment of the perfect woman alive.
September 9, 2006 I married Lisa. Camille did not attend. She had been gone for nearly five years already and I had not thought too much about her. I didn't miss her, I didn't wonder about her and obviously had not written about her.
February 18, 2012 I sit here battling with the final sentences of what is a renewed promise to myself to try and write something everyday. I had given a lot of thought to what my friend said about writing and that provoked my introspection in all the things that I had created. That was really the first time I had thought of Camille since the beginning days of meeting Lisa. And it was at that point that I realized Camille is dead. The idealized woman I created as a teenager was no longer needed because I have her now in my very real life. That is how the title of this blog is a tribute to Lisa.
And if you are reading this now, then you are a witness to my beginning, of nothing really. No agenda here, no motivation except to continue stringing words together, making magical pieces of thought jump into your head. If you are reading this, then you are the peer pressure that hopefully keeps me writing day after day, because as vulnerable as I now am placing all my thoughts here, it would be even more embarrassing to not fulfill my promise to write a little something everyday.
And if you're still reading and wondering about my naming system of the women in my life, well, it was all relative to what was happening or how my relationships had been going. I don't know, I can't really explain it because after all, sometimes nicknames just make themselves.
But Camille, I do have Prince to thank for that. Camille, that alter ego to Prince on my favorite album, "Sign O The Times". The duality, the yin and the yang, that was how I ended up with Camille; the idealized perfection that was to be my ultimate component, making me a better man. I always thought I would have Camille in my life, never did I dream I would ever write her eulogy, let alone find someone who would surpass my own fantasy in every way in this life. I love you Lisa.
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