100 words a day

One of the most important rules I tell myself each day is “there is your version, my version and then the cold hard truth.”  This rule applies to everything from politics and government to relationships and getting through my day.

No matter how many times I recite those words, I can’t reconcile the situation my teenage daughter and I are in.  A year ago I was building the set for her one-act-play competition at school and discussing colleges.   This year I’m not invited to the competition and we haven’t spoke in months.  She needs no father.  I need my daughter.     

I feel boring lately.  Hence, the silent keyboard.  I can’t even remember what I used to do that was so exciting, but for some reason can’t seem to think of things to talk or write about lately.

I leave for Paris in fifty-two hours which is actually very exciting.  Today I passed not one but two former employers on the street, found $20 in the pocket of my jacket that the cleaners missed or left for me, “christened” my new library card and picked up four books for the trip.  Tonight I’m meeting my friend Hope for dinner at Blockheads.

I’ve been through parenthood, rehab, jail, marriage, college, graduate- School, fatherhood, work, worry, heartache, massive surgery, depression, poverty, wealth, goodness, badness, joy and the sheer joy of being grateful for no particular reason.

I’m grateful today for particular reasons.    

My best friend and brother escaped the grips of ties that have bound him for too long.  He’s been caught in a rotten relationship that left him in the hospital this week.  He’s out, better and stronger.

He’s going to have to listen to too much crap.

He is a victim of domestic violence.

Domestic violence whether physical or mental matters.

I stand behind dozens of firefighters in their dress blues; I wear an embroidered polo with my name and the Federal Heights Fire Department logo.  His casket bears his name: Joseph Eugene Grein.

I am not a firefighter, but I knew the firefighter they are honoring this day.  I didn’t know him well, mind you, just as a work acquaintance.  But I know he would have helped me in an emergency, and for that, I will always be grateful.

I am honored that I am allowed to stand with his peers and say goodbye from the fringes of the brotherhood.

I love the show “The Office”.  Every single thing about it. 

I wasn’t so psyched that Jim and Pam were getting married though.  I thought that, like the show Friends, it would eliminate the air of mystery as in the case of Ross and Rachel getting together.

But that wedding.  I loved the reference to the YouTube wedding.  I loved Dwight kicking that girl in the face.  I loved Angela clutching her purse and walking up the aisle like a scared old lady at 7:30 mass.  My fave was Erin dancing up the aisle with Andy clinging to a walker.

I never thought this would be the case.  

I’ve played with thoughts of how intimacy with another man would be.  I’ve seen tenderness and passion.  I’ve seen the kinky and the taboo, as well as the connection and the closeness.  

In my imagination, there have been costumes and roles to play.  There have been screams of ecstatsy and guttural grunting.  Up against a wall, in a shower, on the floor and in the bed.  Even…outdoors.

Now that it’s happening, I’m disappointed.  I couldn’t figure out why I’ve been “failing” in the bedroom.

I can’t live up to my own expectations.

Baby-Doomers are a lot of fun unless you “own” one or have to live with one or work with one.  Most of my friends and I “own” Doomers, meaning our children collectively don’t mow lawns, don’t say thank-you and think sleeping and grumpiness are entitlements.

I met a group of Doomers at a party this weekend hosted by Boomers.  The Doomers huddled round the television while the Boomers hung around the outdoor fire pit (where the party was supposed to be).

Doomers –first in buffet line, video games, in one room together, clueless.  Boomers – cooking, cleanup, conversation, mingling, totally aware. 

I look up to see the top but all I see are the Canyon walls.  My brain taunts me, “You can’t get there from here” and I assert right back, “Well then how did I get down here?”  My breathing is labored and audibly concerning, but I don’t let my feet stop.  My legs are pumping with a ferocity I didn’t know they had.   My clothes are drenched with sweat, yet I’m shivering.  I wonder if dehydration is lethal.

When I finally reach the top my shirt is obscenely transparent, my hips are on fire, and I can’t stop smiling.

Every generation in history has had complaints about the generations which follow.  My father’s generation thought my music was too strange and loud.  My hair was too long and how dare I should question my government.

I myself have zero complaints about the generations following mine.  The people from 16 to 30 do not bother me at all; in fact, they have my envy.  I’ve even given them my own nickname – the “Baby-Doomers.”

I’m a Baby-Boomer; the generation that changes things.  The “Doomers” are waiting for even more changes from us Boomers while they sit at big screens and LOL.

I looked down, and bills were flying out of my sweatshirt pocket. 

I grabbed a fistful of air, realizing:

“They’re blowing around in the middle lane on Second Avenue”

“That was $22!  RUN!”

I took off in a zigzag pattern, chasing them like I was in a game show wind machine.  I got close enough to read the denominations; stomped once, twice, three times.  Finally, landed on the $20.

Bending to grab it, praying traffic wouldn’t plow over me.

Let the other two singles go and then heard a helpful stranger calling to me after he caught the other $2. 

I’m sitting here staring at the screen, trying to dust off my thinker.  I feel that this should be easier.  I pull various slides from drawers in my mind; peering at them closely, squinting while holding them up to the light.

I want to write about something positive, but I just can’t seem to find anything in that department.  All I see right now is joblessness, pain in my body, anger, frustration, unfulfillment, a foreboding sense of fear about my future…

Who is this person?  Where did I go?  Why does the trophy of writing look so tarnished and lackluster?

I build these one-of-a-kind deer made from logs and tree branches and have been told how “unique” they are.  I give them as gifts.  This weekend I sold them at a local craft fair for the first time. 

One woman made my day.  She bought two deer and came back two hours later with her husband and purchased two more for friends in the hospital.  She told me the deer would make a difference in her friends’ spirits.  I wouldn’t take her money, yet she insisted. A while later they came back with their adult daughter and purchased eight more.

As Ahmadinejad pulls his nuclear saber another inch from its scabbard, my Cold War anxieties return.  My dreams become a series of nuclear scenarios.  A nuke hits downtown Denver, the stem of the mushroom expanding to encompass my house.  A failed attack results in an Iranian Saegheh aircraft exploding on 16th street during Christmas season.

None of this is reasonable; if (when?) Iran is ready to use nukes, Denver is not a likely target, and I don’t think there’s any way a Saegheh fighter jet could make it to middle America.

But then, saber-rattling isn’t intended to produce rational results.