Happy Blarghidays...

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof. - Richard Bach

The holidays always seem like a trying time, especially when it comes to family. Is it due to a recent death or a crippling disease? I guess that depends on how you look into it. If a constant barrage of arguments and drunken disputes is a normal thing for you then skip this post.

My family consists of many people that believe everyone else in the world can read their minds. If this was true life would be so much easier. Mix in alcohol and it's close to playing Russian Roulette. Especially if you're players have angry or violent compulsions when drinking. To say the least, it's not one of my more favorite activities during the holidays. This year I don't have the luxury of working and missing out on all the fun.

When you do electrical work your entire life, you don't look forward to getting home and doing more electrical work. So when you deal with people that argue with you and possibly get violent while drinking, the last thing you want to do is deal with them at home. It's a completely different ordeal. Complete strangers and family are two different values all together. You're less likely to flag a cop down when you're dealing with your family unless it is an extreme situation.

Blend in the opinion that something is wrong with a person because they don't drink or "party" and now they have fuel. The constant "Oh, you're just too good to drink with us", or "Come on pussy! Drink!" starts out funny and turns into annoyance quickly. So my typical holiday has been; show up, eat, exchange, and go to work. Quick, efficient, to the point and I get to miss out on all the fun. This year the option will be; show up, eat, exchange and go do something more entertaining, like go to a friend's house to watch that holiday movie that's on a hundred times a year.

So there's my big holiday excitement. Hope your's is much more of a jolly good time.

-Be Safe.

Consanguinity...

People change. If you've never noticed that within your life then you've never paid any attention to the people around you. Sometimes it takes a major catastrophe in their life to make it happen but people change with time.

A friend of mine saw me change many years ago. He worried and he spent many nights hanging out at my place because he thought I might do something very stupid. He knew it was against all my beliefs and I reiterated it to him many times. I've never nor will I ever be the type of person to take my own life. Why? Because part of me likes to live with pain and see just how much of it I can take until I let it go. There could be many different psychological reasonings behind that but I'm not getting into that here.

Another part of me just isn't an idiot.

After a certain time I moved on. I moved off to a new city and my friend stayed behind. I have to admit that I basically turned my back on a lot of people there.

A few months ago I got a phone call from my friend. He wanted to talk and at the moment I was surrounded by noise and people and couldn't get away to talk. I told him I'd call back as soon as I could. When I did call back it rang through to his voice mail. When I tried again it never rang and went straight to voice mail. Every time I've tried to call he doesn't answer and I leave another voice mail.

Months went by and still never a call back. Nothing. I admit I was worried at times but I never thought about the bad things that could be happening. I never thought about things the way he had thought of things when I went through my "time".

I found out through a different friend what had happened. The things that my friend was going through. Things that happen to a lot of people these days. Thankfully he never did the things that he thought I was capable of doing. He has the same resolve as I do when it comes to the idea of stupidity and suicide. He still roams the Earth.

I don't know if he reads this even though he does know about.

But I'm telling you now. Your not alone. I'm here if you need anything.

Anything.

The distance might be far but it's never far enough to help those that are always with you.

Brotherly Love...

"I'm just saying... If your tired, your tired."

"It's just a slump, I'll be fine once these holidays are over."

"You don't usually fall into slumps."

My brother and I don't always see things eye to eye. We both see things in a pretty clear manner, almost in a black and white scenario. It's either good or bad and it's either something we do or we don't do. Sometimes he tends to look at things a little deeper than I do.

"I'm just saying, if your already thinking of doing other things then maybe you should look into other things."

"I'm not too worried about it. It'll pass with the holidays."

"Ok, just don't come running to me when it doesn't."

"When have you ever known me to come running to you?"

"Your here now aren't you?"

"I definitely didn't run here. I drove."

"Ha ha... dickhead."

The weekend was pretty uneventful. We went out and had a good time, checked out a few bars and even caught a band or two. It still didn't cure the restlessness that I've been feeling lately.

We left Sunday and I got back today.

More posts to come.

Time in a Car...

A couple days in the car and we pull into a another big city. This one is much bigger and is riddled with much more notorious individuals. I've often thought about coming to a city like this with it's history of mobsters but part of me has always told me that it'd just get me in trouble.

The weather here is about the same as the weather back home, cold and wet. It's much more windy here though. A couple days in the car with my friend and we got here safe and sound. Then it only took us another hour or so to find parking once we found my brother's house. Every where you look you see lawn furniture in the streets. People saving their parking spots now that the snow has been flying. Don't tell anyone but I did move one to take a spot. I just put it across the street in an empty spot though. Sometimes it's fun to be Loki for a day...

Spending that much time in a car with a person can either make or break the trip. You never really know how much you can stand a person until your locked in a car for a long time. It's a lot of one on one time and no way to escape. You get to see what you have in common and any reasons why you might want this person to disappear off the face of the Earth. You get to see things about a person that probably wouldn't come up in every day situations.

We made it to my brothers and got everything inside and unpacked. In a few more days we'd be off to our parents house. I finally got a break from everyone the next day when my brother's girlfriend and my friend decided they should go shopping.

"No, don't let him on your computer, he'll never get off that damn thing!"

I slightly smiled and raised my right index finger to the temple of my head and rotated it in a circle and then lowered it and pointed at my friend behind my other hand.

"Seriously, he won't..."

"Oh I know, who do you think is the geek between us?" My brother has a splendid way with words.

My brother and I stayed home and here I am updating this as my brother watches tv. He knows about the blog and helps keep it private, I think. Once again, that's paranoia sinking in... Once they were off it was time to try and update.

So there's a bit of an update. Soon we'll be off to do the traditional early Christmas and I'll be back in time to keep the kids at bay. I think we're going to actually go out to a few of the clubs around here this weekend. Should be interesting to see what some of them are like.

Ah, the holidays... so great.