I wonder, do you know?

The other day some one on my FaceBook news feed posted a video of a guy being questioned about his carrying a gun in the open.

Here is the link: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jfdEbe7e9GE

I made a comment about how I thought the guy was being a kinda ass. Let me state that the guy had every Constitutional right to do what he was doing, I thought he was just being an ass for doing it and the way he was doing it.

Some one commented on my comment. He used all of the standard Right wing and Teaparty rhetoric. Our conversation roamed around a bunch of different hot button gun issues. But never seemed to really deal with the subject of my original post.

It seems that whenever I made a good strong and irrefutable argument, the topic bounced someplace else. I have seen this tactic many times and though it is frustrating, it seems to be an acceptable way to control a conversation. I have to admit, I may have used it once or twice. Having said that, I think the some use it to divert away from a weak, or hypocritical    argument.

Our conversation finally drifted to the Travon Martin, Zimmerman shooting in Florida. I had hoped that we could get some understanding on that subject. I am such am optimist!

It turns out that I was totally misinformed on the whole thing. There were details that did not make it into the mainstream media. Important things.

Things like the boy was being disrespectful and antagonistic toward Mr. Zimmerman. Being the guy I am,  I wanted to know more of the things that I had missed out on. It turns out that there were eye witnesses, despite what I had heard stating that no one had stepped up, and they say the whole thing, according to my new FB friend, was about the boy disrespecting the man with the gun.

It turns out that the boy was being disrespectful to the man, my FB friend reminded me again and again. It also turns out, according to my new FB friend, that Travon Martin had gone home and then went out looking for Mr. Zimmerman and that is when the two had their final confrontation that resulted in the shooting of a 17 year old man. I have not heard this before and don't know the truth here.

It turns out that, Martin was being DISRESPECTFUL, and used the sidewalk as deadly weapon. He was not doing as he was told. I think that my FB friend was trying to tell me that it was Travon Martin's fault that he got shot, so I asked my FB friend that very question, "Are you saying that it was the victims fault he got shot to death?"

My new relationship with my new FB friend did not last very long. He never did answered my question and I think he blocked me.

Now we all know that I may not be the swiftest boat on the lake and sometimes I miss the really important things, so maybe I missed the hint this guy was sending me. My excuse is that I was working and distracted by minor things like cars and people crossing the street while I was making deliveries.

It finally came to me, he was sending me a code word! I have another fault, one that has gotten me in trouble a few times and one that I really don't want to change: I just don't understand how any one can think that because some one has different color skin, they can be told what to do and how to act.

I think that my lost FB friend was trying to say that the boy needed to be punished because he was being disrespectful. I asked him if he should be shot and die because he was being disrespectful? He directed the conversation someplace else, but it went back to the whole respect thing, and how Zimmerman was not wrong to do anything that he did, including shooting a boy for being disrespectful. I reminded him that the police had told Zimmerman to back off and stay in the car.

And that is when I asked the fateful question, "Was it the victims fault he got shot." And got blocked.

This would be the place in this commentary, that I should editorialize and make my statement about the whole idiocy of that killing of a 17 year old boy by a wannabe cop and over-achieving neighborhood watchman. But I want to hear what you have to say about it first.

olc

A visit to the danger zone

The other day I had a visit from a friend. Now this person and I go back a ways. I was infatuated with some work my friend did which I studied for a college assignment. I was lucky enough to get an interview with this person and a friendship of sorts was ensued.

We have a rather contentious relationship, we will go for long periods of time without seeing each other. During one point in our relationship I felt pushed away, used like a piece of trash to be discarded. Then again I may have done the same.

Whenever I get a visit from my friend, I am happy and excited. My friend is an exciting person and always brightens my day. This time we were gonna talk about a story I was working on, after all my friend is a published author and the closest thing I have to a muse.

My door burst open and we were on. We talked and hugged, got caught up and settled into reading my work. After reading it, I was told to email the story, and she would go further into it. The moonshine was out and some flowed. Something else was brought out and partaken.

I have been wondering about that stuff and how I could deal with it. Well, after a bit my brain was not working so well. It was at that moment my friend said, "If you were a real man you'd drink that," nodding to the sip or more of beverage in front of me. "I've finished 4 shots and you have not finished with yours."

"I was a little confounded by that statement, and my head was spinning from it and other things roaming around my brain. I was not sure what to say, so I picked up my glass, swirled it, sniffed it and drank half what was there looking my friend in the eye all the while. I put the drink down...and left it there.

We talked awhile, but never really got to talking about my story or how to make it better. Finally it was time for my friend to go. My friend had many things to do during the day and I wanted to continue with my writing. A little something-something was left for me to use later, though I kinda knew I would not.

It bothered me that my manhood would be challenged by my friend. My past with all its abuses was well known. We have talked about my addictions, yet when I knew that I was at a point where I had to stop, my very being was challenged. I wanted to drink that stuff and I wanted to do the other, but I knew a cliff was in front of me and I could not fall off. There would be no bottom until the final Crash.

Does this make me less than a man? Do I suffer from wimpitis because I know a bad thing when I find it? If that is the case, than I am a wimp. I walked out side after my friend left and I was reminded of all the other times I had done the very same thing, only I had said yes back then. I remembered the empty feeling of wanting more. I remembered the way the world looked in the middle of the afternoon when I was fucked-up with various poisons in my blood. I remembered the need to get more into my system---to make me feel better---?

I felt all of these feelings right at that moment. I knew it was all false, even my feelings of inadequacy were not real, at least partly. I felt empty and knew that I could fill that empty space with chemicals and feel happy for a moment. I went back into the house and threw the shit into the fire and closed that door.

olc

Another user Dream

I guess these things happen in clusters.

I have this friend whom I’ll call Leggs. Maybe I’ll go into that at another time, in another post. Leggs has this unnatural ability to find the negative thought, action or circumstance into a beautiful thing. Many people have this skill with little effort. The truly wonderful thing about Leggs, is that it is a truly organic thing. In other words she does not look to find a positive from a negative, there is no dark side in her realm.

The other night I must have been infected with her outlook, because, though I may have had another user dream, it was, oddly enough, an enlightening one!

For the longest time I was addicted to cooking. I found my identity from it, I made my living from it and mostly loved to create food that made others happy. The truth is, there was no high greater than creating and presenting a meal to a stranger and seeing the smile my creation produced.

That outlet of creativity ended about the time my full blown chemical addiction took over.

In the dream, I was hired as the personal chef to some very important person, I am not sure who it was, in dream world these things can be either be important or not.

In my dream, my first task as chef was to make the “Picture soup.” Well, being the new guy, I did not want to ask a silly question, so I looked high and low for the recipe for Picture soup. I searched recipe books in the house. I found an old box of written and clipped recipes. I tried to get to know the other staff and illicit knowledge from them. I spoke with the markets I was to deal with without coming out and asking what to do. I looked around the house to see if there was a special picture with the family dining with soup. All to no avail.

I even went to my father, the most humble yet best cook I knew, to see if he had any knowledge of what a Picture soup was. There was this guy I worked with many years before, who was a font of experience and cooking skill. He was the type of guy who could impart knowledge without even trying. One time I asked him for a simple pasta recipe and in less than five minutes he gave me five easy yet elegant ones, yet he was unable to help me with this task.

The time was coming for service and I still had no idea what to do. In desperation, I called the staff together and told them of my trouble. The all looked at each other and smiled. Some one, remember this is a dream, pulled out a magazine, opened it to a page with a picture of a soup on it, “The Picture Soup. All you had to do was ask.”

As I pulled the magazine from her hands, I woke up. And as with most user dreams I was still a little disoriented, yet I had an even stranger feeling. It was of satisfaction. It was a much better feeling than the feeling I had the other night, yet I still don’t know what the “Picture soup” was.

olc

User Dreams

The other night I had a dream. It was such a powerful dream that it woke me up from a deep sleep, sweating and nervous. As with most dreams the details faded quickly, but I attempted to remember what I could. (Note to self: keep a pad of paper to help with remembering this kind of thing.) The first part of it is foggy. It had something to do with the-mother-of-my-daughter and the road to hell we both shared.

In my dream, it is called a User Dream, I was with the Runtyun's mother and she was trying to get some drugs and I think we must have gotten some because we pulled our sticks out and, I think, get everything ready to use them. I seem to remember finally lighting the rock and hearing the crackle of melting... This is where I usually wake feeling the disorientation of it all. 

This time though, there was a pause in the dream. How do I describe it? If you are watching TV and the program ends, but the commercial is not queued up there is a black spot in time when you know something will be coming up and waiting is the only thing to do.

After the pause in my dream, everything changed, as they do in dreams. I was much older and clean for a long time, but I had finally given into the constant desire to succumb. Somehow, I had attained a used stem with lots of residue and I was trying to find more of the shit to use. In the dream, my greatest desire was to scrape that pipe and smoke the residue.

As I was trying to score, the stem seemed to grow and grow, from the size of a thin pencil it grew, until it would not fit in my pocket. While it was growing, I still could not score any dope. Finally it got so large I had to carry it with two hands and still I could not get anything to put in it. In the dream, the stem got so large I had to throw it over my shoulder like a soldier does with a rifle. I was desperate to fill that pipe!

Finally, and I don't know how or why, I just got fed up with the whole thing. I could not get anything to put into the stem, so I could not get high. The pipe was getting so big I could not carry it any more. I finally found a trash can and broke the glass pipe into a million pieces and...woke up.

In most cases during these dreams I will wake up and feel only the residual effects of that horrible poison. This time though, it was a full blown mind bending hit that was attacking me. I was disoriented, slightly dizzy and euphoric. And I wanted more.

Those in recovery, and are honest with themselves, will know that we will always have temptation eating away at our resolve. I went over the mental steps I have developed to help me through moments of crisis.

First I thought about the time and energy I have invested in getting better. Then thoughts of my Runtyun flowed and how much she depends on me to show a better life. My parents and the investment they made in me to get out of the terrible rut I was in. Then lastly, a Shakespeare quote came to mind. Actually, I recite it to myself a lot. It has become a kind of mantra when I have to make moral/value decisions. “To thine own self be true.”

I woke from that dream and struggled with temptation and I WON!

I have not had any of these user dreams for a long time. I have been living drug free for many years, almost seven and a half, I think. I have heard that the dreams seem to fade away after time. For the most part, it is true, when I first stopped using, the dreams were so intense that I almost gave into the urge. Yet after time they faded in both frequency and intensity. They still however, creep into my unconscience sleep once in awhile. The other night was the most intense and most realistic I have had in years.  My life has not changed in any way significant way, I still struggle along. I still have my Runtyun to give me smiles even though she is becoming a young adult and challenges every thing.

I do not know what triggered my dream. I have thought about the things that used to trouble me and have beaten those triggers, or at least we have come to an uneasy truce. 

I guess the best take away is that I have not restarted any bad habits and actually feel stronger for beating, once again, the strong temptation to do stupid.

Olc

Another example of: Its SO Frustrating: Time and Inspiration

I have little time to write and develop my “voice.” Yet I seem to have lot's of time to myself when I am doing the delivery thing. One might think that I could develop stories and other things to write. I do, actually. Yet when I get home, those well formed thoughts and complete story lines are gone, like the fuel I burned all day long.

Take tonight for example, The Runtyun is at her friends and I have the time to spent on writing this story that I was working on before the computer smashed-up. Truth is, during the past few days I have sat down here trying to get the thread going again---and made no progress. Something seems to always get in the way.

Well, the good news is I am here doing something instead of just sitting watching T.V. My biggest excuse for not writing when the kid is not here goes kinda like... “She is not here and now I can watch what I want to.” That combined with, “It was a shit day and I deserve to relax for a bit,”seem to drain my creative processes.

Its SO Frustrating!!!

I need to learn how to channel my writing and find a way to use the good ideas I get during the day and put them here.

olc

Lament

I have had delusions of grandeur for the last few years. Truth is I really don’t want to work for someone else, I want to write for a living. I think I have interesting ideas and I have deluded myself into thinking that others may be interested in them.

Seems I am wrong in that assumption.

When I post on any of my blogs; A Daddy Grows Up: A Chronicle of Our Journey, Rants and Brain Echoes, My Rantings (a journal of thoughts), or even just update my status on Facebook, I get a smattering of views and almost no comments. Much less any follows.

I spend a good amount of time writing these posts and most of the them are pertinent to something going on outside of this electronic box. I always want to have feed back from my readers and most of the time ask for it in the post. Yet I get very little. I want feed back on the content and style, yet all I get is encouragement with no editorial rebuttal.

I’ll keep on trudging along writing here and working on my fictional writing too, but it sure would be nice to get some followers and comments, so please read and let me know what you think. I even want to know if you, the reader, will never look at a posting of mine again. Just let me know and maybe an indication on better writing, or more interesting topics, anything that could help me in rise to journalistic sufficiency. 

Thanks, olc 

I wanna use my video recordings to protect myself from official abuses!

O.K., a legal question or two, for those out there that know more than me. I have some one in mind, he has helped me in the past, but any one who has an idea please chime in!

When being detained at a roadside checkpoint, do I have the right to record video of the event?

Also, lately I have been seeing signs at police stations saying that recording of any sort are not permitted. Is this permitted, or do I have a Constitutional right here?

olc