i sing karaoke.

     i sing karaoke because you did.
i remember sitting in our little 2 bedroom apartment.
you, me and heide listening to music.

we had this microphone that you could plug into the front of the stereo system and sing along with whatever was playing. all you had to do was hit the "karaoke" button and the vocal track would fade away enough to sing along to.

i just remember it all the time like this...

you're there with your buzz cut and you have the mic in your hand and you're singing along to that annoying song by Daft Punk. "around the world".

i see your face and the crazy head movements that accompany a song where the lyrics repeat over and over; trying to mimic the robot voices and dance at the same time.

i see heide laughing so hard that i'm sure everyone in the place could hear.



i stepped out of the shower right now and i stood in the middle of my room and cried for a bit with my head in my hands... i just missed you really bad right then.
but then i remembered this little moment.

life was always so crappy
but that never got in the way for us.



i sing karaoke because you did.

washing the mustang

      Sometimes when people talk to you it ends up annoying you.

      Sometimes people just don't know how to say what they're trying to say.

I was out washing the mustang today because, once again, i have been threatened to move it. Tony was sitting out there being himself.
That meant that he was yapping about whatever came to his mind and being somewhat annoying. For hours. But i was entertaining the conversation anyway.

He was just talking about random bullshit for a while until he paused in his normal cadence and said that his mother was in the hospital back in Veracruz with kidney failure. He went on to say that she was older now and that something has to go first when you're that age and for her it was her kidneys.

...he trailed off for a bit and when he came back he said that he could clearly remember the first memory he had of his mom.

He said he could see himself standing in front of a mirror with her standing behind him. She was getting him ready for school.

He said he remembers wearing an ultra starched white uniform shirt and she was adjusting his collar before he left.
(the whole time he's talking it looks like he's actually there reliving that first memory.)

"she was standing behind me...this big woman"
"she was a beautiful woman... she's still beautiful now"

then he went quiet again.



*Sometimes, if you're careful enough, you can get a Memory to land just right in the palm of your hand... but, when you try to show someone it flies away again.
That's what happened out in the garage today. 

RECYCLED

the things we lose for all the wrong reasons..

i was watching the video i took of sam's wife walking down the aisle with her father in arm.. when i noticed something i have only seen in video for years now.. 

before the bride came the flower girls.. and one of the little girls couldnt stop laughing.. which made me and a lot of other people laugh too.. and there in the backround.. through the pubic hair beard he's got now.. i saw bishop smiling..
laughing even.. and it made me feel like i was missing something..

then theres the picture that i had josie take of me, sam, fredo, and isaac.. and after i showed the picture to sam.. i told him.. the only thing missing is big ass bishop standing in the back.. and we laughed that broken laughter that comes from a place thinly veiled in guilt.
the things we lose for all the wrong reasons.

finally..
it was late in the night.. and they stretched this huge screen across one side of the little area where we were at.. and sam said he was gonna play a video slideshow and that he was dedicating it to someone who couldnt be there.. 

and sams brother was sitting next to me and he said he thought it was for his grandpa..

so i didnt think too much of it... 
i leaned back and readied myself to watch the show.. when the music started.. that one song.. the song we all have in common.. me. bishop. sam. and joser.


the story goes.. when we came home from bootcamp.. we had 10 days of vacation.. and the 1st day.. i think.. we went to bishops house for a while.. and it so happened that his parents weren't home so we broke out the plastic bottle vodka.. well joser did.. and maybe bishop.. im not sure.. it was so long ago.. and we all got on the computer and downloaded music.. well joser downloaded "time after time".. by cyndi lauper..  and he sat there and drank and listenened to that song over and over again that night.. and to this day i dont know why... but we always remember it.


so the video starts and the song follows.. and its the cover of time after time by matchbox 20....

immediately my eyes fill with tears and i tell josie i have to go.. i stand up and walk away slowly.. trying to hold it in.. 
i stare out into the night and i cant hold it.. 

i turn around and here comes sam.. also teary eyed... he reaches for me and hugs me the way a father should hold his son.. 
i cry.. outloud.. as the song progresses... 

you said go slow.. i fall behind.. and the second hand unwinds.. if you're lost you can look and you will find me.. time after time  ..if you fall i will catch you... ill be waiting.. time after time.. i end up missing most of the video and i dont remember if sam said anything to me during those minutes.. but i dont remember anyone else being around.. 

it was like everyone else had disappeared..
and i wish bishop had stayed to see it too..


the things we lose for all the wrong reasons..

  
i think i thanked sam for the song .. but its all hazy and still drenched in the tears i left on his rented tuxedo coat that night..


After my picture fades and darkness has
Turned to gray
Watching through windows--you're wondering
If I'm OK
Secrets stolen from deep inside
The drum beats out of time--

should be sleeping...

this is just going to be a jumble of shit.


i was playing some remix version of 'hurt' by nine inch nails in the department tonight and i was enjoying it because i'm a sad bastard.

i walk out of the room into the little hallway and notice a transporter is sitting there taking a break.
i say to him, sorry for playing sad music, dude.

he promptly says that its ok, it doesn't bother him.
i'm in an honest mood and i tell him that i watch people die all day so i feel sad at night sometimes.

he asks me if i was here earlier for the code blue and i reply that that's exactly what i was talking about.

he says that he was in there while they were doing CPR on him when they managed to get a pulse back, a weak one, but a pulse nonetheless.

he says that the man opened his eyes and tried to say something...

i imagine it was to his wife, whom i saw crying in the room.

the man opened his eyes for a brief last moment and then slipped away to whatever was calling him home. he never woke up again.

at this moment me and the transporter share a moment of deep understanding of human suffering and sorrow while trying to express that it's part of our jobs to witness this on a daily basis.

i take this time to walk out to do a portable and i can hear in the background as i walk out these words i hold so dear...

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

i'm afraid of death for many reasons, but a major one is losing yourself.

not ever being me again. 

my thoughts.

 my love.

my mind.

you.

i don't know what i would do without you.

 

sand castle plans

I asked my father if he wanted to go get donuts sometime
he said all I had to do was call him.


wanna do something sometime?

i had an interesting conversation the other night

     I said that everyone liked you.
you said that everyone except me.


I said nothing more after that.


I don't like you because of who you are. and who you'll never be.

you'll never be anything more than what you are and have always been.

I don't like you because you snorted lines off of my car, outside of your house with your friends.

because you get drunk and invite me over only to find you sitting on some other guys lap and going into back rooms with dudes so I have to go fish you out and make sure nothing happens to you, and making everyone in the house want you gone.

because you over do it and your own friends don't want to take care of you so I have to drive you home and leave you in front of your house and hope you don't die over night.

because I had to drive you to get drugs, so you could go to a party at your boyfriends house.

because you have no dreams.

and you're dumb as fuck.

you have a family, but you'd rather not have one.

because you crashed your car while driving drunk and probably on drugs as well.

because you don't really like me at all, you just want the attention from someone who isn't a fuck up like the guys you keep around you.

because you lie.

because you change into whoever you've been hanging out with lately, including their drugs of choice.

because I've watched you do more drugs than I've ever needed to.

because you're you.

that's why.

men

i believe it is important to have strong men in your life. this is what happened to the men in my life. 

My father became a drunken ass and made my mother's life miserable while I was thousands of miles away in japan, unable to come home. So I read e-mails, and listened to crying voices over the phone and carried that around with me while I pretended to be happy with my friends in the times that we had to be young and free. my mother eventually divorced him. My sister was the one to serve him the papers. He was in denial.

My Grandfather, worn down after years of rough living and drinking, gave in one day in February and died. The last time I saw him I was afraid that he didn't recognize me anymore. He was not old enough to be losing his memory. I never got to speak to him as a man, so forever I will be his little parakeet. I was still in Japan when all this happened. I never got to see where he was buried. I carried that around with me and told none of my friends. when I came home I got drunk instead. 

My step father began drinking and then got prostate cancer. He felt weak and started getting paranoid about my mom and where she was going. He would call my sister to make sure she was with my mother, and that they were at the place they said they would be. eventually my mother lost weight and began to look terrible. I'm not sure what exactly happened next because I was away. thousands of miles away. I do remember my mother calling me and trying not to cry so that I wouldn't be worried. there's no way to hide these things. Then they split up and Tim went back home to give up. Tim died far away from here in a manner that he didn't deserve. I never saw him again. 

 My Cousin was killed in the first battles of the new war in Iraq. I felt it before I called home to find out if it was true. Something told me that he wasn't here anymore. It's been eleven years and I never get better. I didn't drink when we hung out together in our youth. now I feel as though i'm trying to make up for it. I was thousands of miles away from where I have always wanted to be since he left. I understand what I have... but I would have given it all up to save him. i'm just not sure if he can handle being away from us, all alone. I hope he's not alone. I went outside to sit on that couch and stared out into the sky until I was allowed to come home for his burial. I don't remember much during that time I spent here. I usually remember everything. 

 I walk around with this in my mind and usually only talk about it when I get drunk. when someone asks about it, I just want to stop. 

I just want to be alone.

I have been alone during the most traumatic experiences of my life. It's no wonder that i'm always trying to leave, or be alone.

the air that i breathe

when I don't say anything here for a long time I miss it.

I need it.

I think about the things that happen in my life and I imagine myself writing them down in here. 
but I've been busy. or at least that's the excuse I make.

I never seem to get in the place where I belong.

I don't really tell people about this thing because it tends to hold a recurring theme.


     I finished the radiology program this month, passed my registry exam, and got my A.S. degree.
but it wasn't without struggle.

     when I walked into that test I felt genuinely unprepared. I burned through it in half the 3.5 hours they give and had flagged over 60 questions for review. I stood up and took  break then. I walked out of the room, drank some water, used the bathroom, looked out the window, stretched...

      then I went back in.

I was determined, but shaken. I'm not normally a confident test taker. in fact, only once did I hand in a test and say to the teacher, "that's an A". this time was no different. I couldn't get over the feeling that I was going to fail this test and blow the only thing I've been working for over the few years.

this whole thing means a lot to me because I feel that it's my last real chance to make something of myself. to make my mother proud. to make you proud. so I lost my mind in that little cubicle thinking that I was going to throw it all down the drain.

     so I asked for your help.
I asked for the clarity and strength I could always get from you when you would talk with me. I just asked you to be there for me.

then I went to work with the resolve of a man fighting to stay alive and changed many answers while cleaning up the mess of flagged questions I had left behind. by the time I was done there was only 15 minutes left of the 3.5 hours I had originally started with.

I pushed the submit button and felt that tingling feeling in my body I have felt so many other times when I feel like something is about to end. I pushed that button and it said I had gotten a 92, and that the passing score was a 75.

I had done it.


     I don't really remember driving home.
I was fucking tired. I had run myself dry trying to get everything done on time while still studying enough to get a passing score on this test I paid so much damn money to take.

but I can't be happy.


at graduation the next day all I could think about was how I wish you were there to cheer for me when they read my name.



I woke up this memorial day morning and decided to play some sad bastard country music. I listened to 'letters from home' and cried in my bed by myself thinking about the same thing again. so I decided that I would bring my cap to you so you could see it was true. so I could share something with you.

I'm fucking 33 years old and the only reason I am anything right now is because of you.


(I stared at that line trying to think of what else to say, but nothing came out... so I guess that's all for now)

time after

i take x-rays of babies in all states of health on a regular basis.
most of the time it doesn't affect me like it does others.

this day I went into the neonate intensive care unit to do an exam on a newborn.

nothing about it was different. the parents had been in and out, making worried/sanguine faces.
I was worried about doing the exam correctly.


during this time I was under tremendous pressure and scrutiny over my performance at work being lacking, so I was feeling as relaxed as a death row inmate waiting for that pardon call right before execution... and just as hopeful too.

I did the exam and was waiting while my accompanying tech did something on the computer behind me when I heard something in the next section over from where we were.

it sounded like singing.
singing and guitar playing.

I was curious so I walked closer until I could clearly hear the soft strings of an acoustic guitar accompanied by a velvet voice, softly singing 'time after time'.

she was leaned over her babies' bubble covered bed, sounding every bit as soulful as eva Cassidy herself.


(I have had an affinity for that specific song ever since my cousin was killed in the war when I was 20. without going much into that part of my life I will say that he loved it. a big tough marine infantryman loved that song, and I have always kept that memory of him to comfort me when I need it the most.)

     I stood there and it seemed as though everyone else had disappeared behind me.
I was admiring a private moment charged with so much underlying emotion that I didn't notice when I felt my eyes misting over the way a window pane does on a foggy winter night, and I was defenseless for a moment.


I stood there listening until I heard the world behind me come rushing back into view and I remembered I was in a hurry again.

I wiped my eyes and tried my best to get the far away look on my face from causing suspicion among the nurses and doctors bustling about the department and walked back to where my tech was sitting.

I went home later that day, like I do, and sat in my room that has slowly filled with memories over time and got my things ready for the next day.

(there was a moment that day when I felt uncertain if I would even be continuing in a program that I had spent the last few years of my life, and my only funds for school, trying to attain... but that one moment gave me a new resolve to continue. I always think of my cousin when I hear that song, and I have come to believe that he helps me when I really need it. it's a strange sign to look for, a Cyndi lauper song, but it comforts me more than anything in this life and will always assure me in the times when I feel defeated.)



I cried in the hospital like an idiot and told no one until right now.

"flashback, warm nights almost left behind, suitcase of memories, time after..."

midnight train to oklahoma.

The year was 2005.



I was in a bar with a girl that was MUCH more intoxicated than I was. I think it's funny now because currently I am the one that ends up waste beyond reproach.

But as it went that night, I was sober and she was drunk. so drunk that we had to leave the bar so she could get some air.

outside there were some small tables and a band was playing music for the crowd that had gathered to enjoy the warm Oklahoma summer night. we sat at an empty table and denied any more drinks when the waitress asked if we needed anything.

the band was asking the crowd what song they should play next and someone offered up their suggestion of "Midnight train to Georgia". someone else said they wanted to hear something fast, but in the end "midnight" won.

I had been carrying a small camera with me the whole time so I turned it on at the first mention of the Gladys knight song being played.

I sat and enjoyed my song while my girl tried to stop the world from moving so fast.

in the end I was the one that drove everyone back home and the girl sat in the seat next to me and slept the whole way home.

its funny because she was there with me, and you can hear her in the video, but I always remember it as if I was alone.

here is the video of that moment.

victory

     When we were kids and we used to play NBA Jam at your house, sometimes, i would let you win.

     Not all the time, just sometimes.
 

the things we do

I went out to take some pictures last night.

 

 

 

 

(click for larger sizes)



Taps

     my mother once told me that she gets a lump in her throat when she hears Taps.
when i hear it, i remember being in boot camp in san diego. Taps would play every night over the loud speaker on the camp and that signaled lights out for the night. For us, however, it signaled that the fireworks from sea world were about to start.
     we would sit up in our bunks and look out the window while the fireworks blazed in the cool night sky. it was our connection to the outside world we were no longer a part of. we were kids again.
     that's what i think about when i hear Taps.
    
    

a little bit of Prufrock

[Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .                               
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit. ]



 ... but this isn't you and i.
there was a glimmer once.
and it evaporated into the place where old tears go to feel alone.


someone died, i stopped taking my medication, and i drank until i was not within reason.
 there is no middle ground for me in these cases. either i am a complete wreck, or i shrug it off quietly and try to support others.



i spoke with a blackened remnant of a friend this week, and i knew we had died.
it was all over our faces. 

i tried to speak with a troubled friend. but i got no reply.

i thought about what i did...

i thought about you.

i thought about giving up.


i miss something that was a fleeting warmth in an otherwise frozen life.

"... and i hope we die at the same damn time
cuz I don't want to grow to be alone"

you don't know me, and you don't even care.

we are presenting one side of ourselves while hiding the fading truth in the palm of our hands.
but no one will reach out.

if you let me.

if you let me, i will pick that note from out of the trash and make it worth something again.

before we lose ourselves for certain and our stars fade into the darkness from where they came.

i would like to see you smile.

i won't tell anyone.

     i promise.

it gets cold sometimes

i am trying.

it seems like i am making no progress, and it ruins my thoughts

but i am trying.


maybe tomorrow will be better. can i call you then?

sewn into the lining of my jacket

Bad news is an interesting thing.

i feel like i'm always preparing for bad news.

well, bad news came today. and i wasn't ready for it at all. 
not even a little.

i was at school, i was with friends, i was driving home, i was taking a nap.

now all i can do is think of you.



I'm Sorry.

i died today.

 

 i drove to the pier.

and walked a bit.

 

the same pier where i spent all those summer nights with my old friend and 

the girls we met along the way. 

i thought about you.

 

 i jumped a fence at the far end of the pier with a big warning sign.

i walked over the water to the edge and i sat not far from the water.

i didn't fear the height anymore.

 

 i sat outside the park.

the same park where we spent many years riding those old fair rides and 

dreaming that maybe these times would stay forever.

 

 i sat down and had a beer.

then i had half a bottle of tequila.

alone.

in the background some song played

 and i wished it was a different one.

 

when i stumbled upstairs

 i dusted off my old uniform.

i never wore this for anything good.

 

 i tried it on and was surprised that it still fit.

i never updated my rank.

not after you died.

 

i looked at all the pills i needed now to function.

to make me into someone that can smile when others did.

 

then i took them all at once.

 

a small part of me wanted to come back.

but it was too late.

i died in the bathroom by myself.

two days before, i had been at my niece's birthday party.

no one knew anything was wrong.

look for me when i'm gone...

forever

an unfinished song idea

Sometimes i go out by myself, and i look across the water...

       when I was in high school I was in love with this girl named Valerie for a heart beat or two.
She was a real tomboy-looking girl with this pretty face that didn't really match anything else about her.

      I remember her in the kind of tight black pants that are cool in present times (except they weren't see through back then) and wearing some big ass skater shoes that matched her ears, which always stuck out through her hair.

      she had this scratchy voice like Emma Stone, Jennifer Tilly, or Eliza Dushku, and I had always been a fan of that, even in my high school times. I remember just wanting to listen to her talk, even if it wasn't to me.

      I remember one time a few of us were standing in the commons or whatever it was called where everyone hung out during lunch. we had this little are surrounded by some lockers that opened up on the third side to accommodate a table for some of us to sit. I usually stood.
      I remember it was around the time that kids figured out you could turn a can of keyboard cleaner upside down and suck on it to "get high". This day I was watching our small group pass around this can when it came to Valerie. She grabbed it, turned it upside down and sucked in a giant breath of propellant. I remember the next part even now, over ten years later.
      She moved the can away from her lips, turned pale, and fell to the floor in what was called "flopping" back then (since you looked like a freshly caught fish when it happened) because it happened so much that it acquired a proper name.
      When the other kids standing around us saw what happened, they left. They took off like they didn't want to get caught or be responsible for what had happened, or because they were turds down inside. And I was left standing there with a girl passed out at my feet who I had a crush on.
      I quickly picked her up and sat her on one of the now empty chairs all around us. As I pushed some dark hair out of her face she asked me what happened. I told her that she had passed out from inhaling that shit and she looked up at me, embarrassed. that kind of embarrassment that comes after you did something you know was stupid in front of other people.
      After a while she was well enough to get up and go back to class eventually.

I'd like to say that we became friends and talked more often after that, but we didn't. I liked her and I wanted to save her, and when I had my chance, I picked her up and sent her away.

All I have left of that time now is a terrible yearbook photo and a red backpack just like the one I used throughout high school.

But I still remember her sometimes, barely as tall as my chest, hair in a sloppy pony tail, raspy voice laughing at something a bit harder than everyone else around her.

     That was Valerie.