Remember Remember, the 2nd of January?

 This will only make sense to one person and one person alone.

January 2nd, 2023. 

You did it, not me. 

13 years, gone, because of you. 

I merely finished what you started. 

Gaslighting saying I am responsible for it is all you, projecting. 

May you move on and live with what you've sowed. 

Learn from it. 

I have. 

Goodbye. 

Ever have that feeling?

Mumford and Sons

Please listen to the lyrics.

Twas the Night Before Christmas, My Style...

Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house,
my dog Xena was prowling, protecting the house
The stockings had runs, thanks to Nikki's fun without care
and I ran thru the house, nude, naked, bare

until at the door, the garage one, it did open
I grabbed for my boxers, right side in I was hope'n
I threw on a shirt and some shorts I thought matched
I put on two shoes, one brown and one black

I went to the door and unlocked the latch
I threw open the storm door and checked my shirt tag
And what did I see in my garage space?
Some fat man with unusual speed, dexterity & grace

His face was round, wind-blown and red
his clothes were the same, covered in bugs, all dead
His boots were worn down and missing their soles
His pants were no better, the crotch had a hole

He made his way in, heading straight for the tree
He met first the coffee table, with his left knee
He cursed and cussed and made such a tinkle
I thought to myself "This is Kris Kringle?"

He grabbed for the gift in his graying sack
not caring too much he tossed it to the back
it landed with a thud next to the one wrapped in black,
the one with holes that hissed, Grandma wrapped up her cat...

With a scratch of his ass and a gulp of warm milk
he perused through the kitchen to see what he could bilk
Grabbing the pudding some 3 weeks old
and the plate of brisket already covered in mold

He went back to his sleigh, and hooked to the right
the reindeer must be blind, or senile at night
they hit the street light, taking it out
along with Dasher, Dancer and Donner's left snout

They recovered altitude almost hitting my car
but hit the neighbor's tree, they didn't get far
As they fell to the street, Santa's words I heard him say:
"Goddamn you flying assholes, you ruined my sleigh!"

Catharsis

As customary on Thanksgiving, one sits back and counts their blessings regarding everything in their life until that moment. Mine didn't occur until much later, after the green bean casserole and countless pies consumed have not yet made their journey through my lower GI tract. Among some of the things that have happened within the last year, friends have come, some have gone, and life altering events have definitely shaped some of my thoughts and actions since. I thought I'd share something I haven't spoken about for a while outside of one person.

Last year, I was in a minor accident. It was hard enough to total my Neon, but not hard enough to deploy the airbags or seriously injure myself. That is to say I didn't escape unscathed. The moment of impact was shared with several people. The moron who hit me, myself and my friend Wilson. He happened to be on the phone with me at the time and heard the airbags in the other car deploy. After gaining my bearings after impact, I remember telling Wilson the intersection I was at and he came to my aide immediately.

The lingering effects of any accident vary from person to person. Mine was whiplash. I had a difficult time doing simple tasks such as dialing a phone, answering a question about time displayed on a digital clock and forming sentences longer than 6 words. In the hours after the accident, I had the car towed to my body shop of choice and tried to get back into a normal routine. I was advised heavily by several people, my doctor included not to head to work that day and just relax and recover. In a matter of weeks my life would start to change for the better, it just took some time to get over what happened.

After it was said and done, I was out of a car due to it being a write off. My head was still in repair mode and I had no outlet of my own to assist. I had the use of the Ranger, but at the time, my dad was still using it. I had to bite the bullet and jump back into the dealerships and buy myself another car. One of the dealerships closest to my house had this gorgeous blue Mustang convertible that I was compelled to test drive. The salesman was a great guy. The topics were general wants vs. needs and covered the gamut of "typical convertible shake over rough road" to "my old convertible made that same squeak" but my heart and my head really wasn't into it.

I knew it was pretty bad when I stepped behind the wheel of a 2008 Charger RT and other than a slight semi forming in my jeans from the sound of the engine and smell of the leather seats I was still out of it from the accident. I was very disconnected. While we were testing the car (doing 112mph down the freeway) we turned around and went down a quiet stretch of road near the dealership. The headlights illuminated a few really out of place items in a field. We stopped and took a look at the field and saw three unrestored electric trolley cars from the city of El Paso. The salesman and I both said how bizarre it was for them to be just abandoned in this field. I knew I had to go back. This was the answer to help clear my head.

I headed out there the next day with my camera in hand and no real focus to the day except let the images speak to me. I stood in front of the three trolleys for about 10 minutes, just taking them in visually. I turned on the camera and let the lens tell the stories that were forming in my head to the images I was seeing. The deeper I got into the images, the better I felt. I started to walk a little closer to the cars, getting inside one to take pictures of its dashboard. Bakeolite switches and 1930s era controls as fractured as my head were a welcome sight to see.



I had lost all track of time. I spent a full hour among the ruins. It was now my time to leave. I walked back to the Ranger and went home. I uploaded the images to my computer and left them there. I took them out and ran them through photoshop every now and then to learn some techniques but I really just would not pay attention to them. It wasn't their time yet to come back into the spotlight. But now it is. I turned off my TV this evening and had to start thumbing through them. I took myself back to that afternoon and the state of mind I was trying to recover from. Its amazing how the brain works at times trying to heal itself and what its capable of doing. Several of the pictures took on more meaning once I edited them, one is actually my desktop wallpaper.

I needed to write about these pictures this evening to finally get past the accident and move on.