The Ice( Iron )man cometh...

It never ceases to amaze me at what you can find when you're walking around aimlessly at a festival that has everything from Top Hats to a guy hawking his mother's antique jewelry.





 
That's right kids. That IS an Ironman ice-cream bar. And I got it from an ice-cream truck. With the jingly jingly music and everything. My inner comic book nerd and eight year old self just giggled and bounced in their seats with joy... again.

I got the chance to spend the day with an awesome new friend yesterday who, surprisingly, is just as geeky as I am. While we sat chatting she announced that she had an irresistible urge for carnival food ( who doesn't?! ) so we strolled down to the Inman Park Festival to grab some funnel cake. What was intended as a quick trip for deep fried battery goodness turned into a day long adventure in which the two of us darted about like chipmunks dosed with copious amounts of sugar, looking at every shiny object that caught our attention.

After indulging our ADHD for a few hours we decided that it was time to retire and find real food. On the way to our chosen eatery I heard the tell tale sound that there was a man in a van handing out sweets to kids... legally. We came upon the ice-cream truck and after shouting excitedly so that the other people on the street averted their eyes and walked quickly in the other direction, my eye was drawn to a picture of the Ironman ice-cream bar. I was transfixed. It was a thing of beauty; bright red and yellow ice-cream that I knew, KNEW!, would be awesome!

Perhaps my partner in crime saw the look of childlike wonder on my face; perhaps it was the doofy ear to ear smile. Whatever it was, the next I knew she was presenting me with my very own iced Ironman head on a stick. A treat which I happily shared after capturing the above picture.

The lesson here kids? Nostalgia and nerdiness tastes like a two dollar novelty ice-cream. Indulge.

-D

The start of alcoholism...

is when you attack the wine bottle with a knife because you can't find your corkscrew.









So... funny story. My friend LCA came over the other night to watch Dexter with my roommate and I because she's tragically behind on the series and we just happen to have all of the current seasons and episodes on the PS3. I always enjoy it when LCA comes over. She's a fellow wine drinker and her visits give me an opportunity to indulge the refinement I've cultured since leaving my little farm town in rural bum-fuck.

This particular evening, however, refinement gave over to redneck ingenuity as the corkscrew vanished in a well played game of hide n' seek ( Its still hiding despite my near desperate cries of Ollie Ollie Oxen-free ). Never one to be deterred, I grabbed something that I thought would do the job, which just happened to be a paring knife. A very. Sharp. Paring knife.

Channeling the very spirit of our entertainment that evening, I stabbed the wine bottle in the cork ( sounds dirty when you say it like that ) and drove the blade in; burying it to the handle. Twisting viciously, I worked the wound until the Cabernet spilled it's deep red goodness into our glasses. It was dirty work well worth the reward.

Suffice it to say, LCA's prime time education in the life of a serial killer has been fun.


-D

* The evil gleam in the puppies' eyes say that they approve...

Deus Ex Machina... and he's laughing at you.

Today is the kind of day that exists only in fairy tales. Dark, twisted fairy tales where the hero is the butt of a great cosmic joke of which everyone is privy... except him. The telling of this fairy tale is certain to bring you a fair amount of joy assuming, of course, that you are sadistic enough to get a kick out of another's misfortune. And let's be honest... you know you are.

I woke this morning to the unexpected cacophony of birds singing and my roommate slamming doors. I'm assuming that he and the house had gotten into an argument ( like you do ) and he was trying to show his dominance. At least I didn't walk out of my room to find him on all fours, leg raised,  marking the couch... again. To his credit, there was an unhealthy amount of tequila involved the first time. *

If the manner of my return to the waking world weren't clue enough  that today was indeed going to be "one of those days" the sudden realization that I had forgotten my ID badge for work hammered it home. The realization was accompanied by a string of Gaelic obscenities; an exclamation so forceful that the young lady in the car next to me jumped visibly and scootched as far from me as her seat-belt would allow. And of course, Mr. Murphy saw to it that I was far too close to the office to turn around and correct the issue without being late. So, resigning myself to the fact that I would spend the day confined to the building else stand outside with my nose pressed to the glass in the hopes that someone would notice and let me in, I drove to work.

One thing that can be said about me with a fair amount of certainty is that I'm crazy. But that really has no bearing on my story so we'll just set that nugget of goodness aside for the moment and concentrate on something that does. For instance, the fact that I hate being late. I'm the kind of guy that arrives to an appointment fifteen minutes early. Always. And because I had gotten up so early ( there's no sleeping when your alarm is a slamming door ) I had a little time to kill. I chose to kill this time by running a few errands. Specifically, stopping at the ATM to pull the cash needed to run said errands.

I pulled up to the Publix near my office thinking that I would kill two birds with one stone. I would be able to use their Presto! ATM, which is mercifully free of fees ( I KNOW!! I couldn't believe it either! ), and swing into the store to grab some orange juice ( I love me some juice ). Everything was going perfectly; just as planned. The machine did its job, taking my card and reading the information from the magic strip on the back. I entered my pin to let it know that I was who I claimed to be and when it was satisfied with my identity it took my order.

And this is where things went horribly horribly wrong, kids.

I stood there, patiently waiting for cash that never came. Like an orphan waiting for the Santa from all the stories who never comes down the chimney. The ATM beeped at me mournfully as if apologizing and displayed a austere message stating that it was unable to dispense cash. I glanced from side to side certain that I was being Punk'd and that Ashton Kutcher was going to spring from the rubbish bin to catch me with that doofy look of surprise on my face. Once I recovered enough to realize that I was not being Punk'd, I mouthed a quick "Feis!" and tried to think of what went wrong. As my mind reeled from the shock of a plan gone off rail, I moved to check the balance in my account... just to be on the safe side. What I found raised my hackles and seriously disturbed my calm. Even though the machine was unable to give me my money it decided that it was okay to remove it from my account anyway.

That's what I get for trusting a financial organization whose logo reminds me more of pasta sauce than a bank.

I walked into the Publix to speak to a manager who fulfilled my low expectations by promptly informing me that the only thing that could be done was to send an email to Presto! and that I would be contacted. No, there is no number I can give you, sir. Yes, I understand the inconvenience, sir. No, I can only send the email on your behalf. The ATM doesn't belong to us, sir. In the interim, two hundred and sixty of my hard earned dollars float somewhere in the limbo of cyberspace; cold and alone.

Isn't it amazing how we create technological convenience upon technological convenience to make our lives easier and yet, somehow, they still manage to make our lives a living hell?! I can almost imagine that the machines have already taken over and rather than choosing to destroy mankind, they've instead decided to keep us around because we're much more valuable as entertainment than batteries. I am resigned to this fate wholeheartedly and when my XBOX tells me to put on tights and dance like the court fool in Camelot, I will go willingly. Until then, I'm going to get a very large truck and tear that fucking ATM out of the wall and get my money back. Wish me luck, blogland.

-D

* My roommate has never, to my knowledge, urinated on our couch in a drunken stupor.

Do. Or do not. There is no try...

As a creatively minded individual, I yearn to interact with the world around me and the people who inhabit it; to share with them a piece of myself in the hopes that the story I tell, the picture I paint, the song I sing, or the character I pretend to be will bring joy to their lives... if only for a moment. At the very least I'd like to force them outside of the mundane and leave them standing, slack-jawed, with that "what the fuck?!" look on their face; to give them a brief yet entertaining respite from the banal topics normally shared over dinner or drinks. 

The problem with this desire is that, more often than not, sharing is a difficult thing to do.

It is fear that makes my previous statement true. The fear of rejection, the fear of failure, and the fear that we will never live up to the vision of greatness and perfection that we cling to in our own minds. Sharing ourselves with others, especially the fruits of our creativity, means reaching into a place that is more than personal. It means drawing from the very font of who we are and taking that place inside us where we are most ourselves and displaying it for the world to see. 

That sacred ground, for most of us, is constantly besieged by self-imposed demons with names like insecurity, poor self-image, and worthlessness that harry us and whisper to us, even in the face of our vast potential. They speak to us with poisoned tongues and in voices remarkably like our own; convincing us that what we do will never mean anything to anyone and that we shouldn't even bother. I believe this is a struggle with which we can all empathize on one level or another.

This struggle between passion and inhibition, or more accurately, the losing of this struggle is what has defined my creative endeavors for far longer than I care to recall or admit. Projects such as this blog, which has been more than a year in seeing fruition, were squashed by the weight of my insecurity and fear. 

I had, for the longest time, intended to return to the habit of writing consistently when the idea of starting a blog came to me. A blog and the development of regular content would include consistent, if not daily, writing as well as pushing me to be more than a casual observer of my own life. I would need to be an active participant; cataloging my experiences and observations. It was the perfect exercise to redevelop and hone my skill after so many years away from the craft.

Despite all of the positive reasons to start a blog, I did not. Every time I sat down with the intention of starting I talked myself out of doing so. There were important factors that needed to be considered, after all. There was the question of content. There was the question of style and demographic. Also, there were logos, backgrounds, layouts, and designs to think about. These things were all valid concerns and issues that needed serious consideration I told myself, rationalizing. Address these issues and then... then I'd be ready. And so I kept my words inside my head and left my page blank; the cursor blinking expectantly.

It became a psychological match of tug-o-war; one with which I was all too familiar. On one side of the mental rope stood that lone part of me whose greatest desire is to be that which I have always dreamed I could. On the other side stood the legion of demons and monsters spawned from everything I had ever experienced that told me it could never be. Like so many times before, the two sides snapped and clawed at each other snarling fiercely with unbridled hate. The solitary part of me feral and lean from years of starvation; deprived of substance. The beasts masked in the disapproving faces of my life's naysayers; most of them wearing my own. 

And so it went for the turning of an age, in what passes for time across the landscape of the heart and of the mind.

Recently, I've been lucky enough not to fight alone. I've made and reconnected with close friends; the kind that know you to your core. Soul-kin, if you will, and their supportive and encouraging voices began to join mine in my fight. My passion and desire no longer stood alone. And though my demons greatly outnumbered my friends and I, their lies and falsehoods could not outweigh the veracity of our fight. In the end I had to admit that all of the "concerns" and "considerations" that kept me from putting myself out there were nothing more than excuses to justify my fears of failure and rejection. 

So here I am. Standing at the edge of the unknown with that little piece of my psyche that believes I can be great riding shotgun on my shoulder; looking out over the swamp of insecurity and doubt that has swallowed the vehicle of that greatness. I know that it's time to reach into myself and find the strength to pull that ship out of the muck in which it is mired; the strength that I know is there and that my friends see. If I don't... I'll never reach the stars.


Thanks for reading, blogland. It has been a very great pleasure to finally meet you.


-D