A Social Ghost

And welcome back to the Million Dollar Question, starring MEEEE!  And just what is the Grand Showcase Prize for making it through another day? It Is.... You guessed it. Having to make it though another day! Lucky You! You've just won the trip of a lifetime! No drug or drink is necessary. Just take a walk in these boogie shoes and you'll be trippin' in no time! This is Rod Roddy with the Million Dollar Question and you, too, can win a room with a view! What is your location? Why, scattered across the universe, of course! Thanks for asking! Home was always so much more than a place. Yes it was then and is still now a place. But it was a place with people in it. And it turns out it was far more the people than the place. The memories do linger. Most of the time, the memories help. Sometimes they comfort me. There are quiet moments, however, that they can be the very limit of what I can bear. I look around at a house that I didn't build, yet it was (in part) built for me, seven year-old me. I walked out of these doors, a young man of 23, thinking I'd only come back for visits and family gatherings. Yet it would seem that I'm back. I am back like Arnold. Yet like Anakin Skywalker, I'm not the same. I am full of gratitude. They were the ones who built it. They were the ones who made it happen, many many days, months, years on scorching highways, day by day, working and paying, and struggling. All I'm doing is maintaining and holding things together. For it's only my turn, no less temporary than theirs. It looks almost exactly the same. I keep it looking almost exactly the same. But without the people who made it home, it's not exactly the same. Maybe I make it a home for my little ones who are no longer little ones, yet they're still my little ones. And even if it is technically my turn, I have found myself quite often gazing into a picture and asking him, "What would you do?" And believe me or not, sometimes I hear an answer in my memory. The wallpaper on this newfangled smartphone has five people, besides myself. My mother, my father, and my sisters. I see that picture every time I use this phone, the five of us, only two of us still around. The picture is 21 years old. This picture could buy me a beer. There's just fewer and fewer people left to drink one with. Another late lunch... Nobody wants anything until it's time for my food. I'm like that plant in "Little Shop of Horrors". FEED ME! A space cadet who gets to eat his lunch is the nicest sweetest space cadet you'll ever meet. A space cadet who does not get to eat his lunch is Darth Vader in a bad mood who thought he overheard you trash talking Padme. I would find my lack of lunch disturbing. I need my food, dude! Ah, the dog days of summer, that sweltering August heat. It was already as warm as a late spring day before the sun dared to rise this morning. By barely seven AM, hot enough to be reminiscent of the gates of perdition. This afternoon is gonna be a roast unless a nice cooling rain comes to rescue me. The weekend was over in a flash. I didn't feel so well. I'm not sure if it was the blood Quest drew from me Friday morning or the shock of the expensive bill of 173 dollars despite having insurance. Mark this, friends, Romans, robots, and strangers: This will be the very last time I go. The farther away you stay from the medical mafia extortion ring, the better off you are. They charge astronomical amounts and we still die anyway. And if I have to go anyway, why run up a bill for my kids to have to pay? Nope. I'd rather shuffle off this mortal coil for free. I know you can't take it with you, but my middle son is going to need whatever I am able to leave behind. He's a kind and thoughtful young man. He took care of my parents when I could not. He's been a big help to me around the house. But he needs a chance to live his own life for himself. I want to live to see that day when and where he's happy and realizing dreams and hopes. And if I unfortunately leave this world, I never want him to worry about a place to live. He has earned it and he shall have it. Clean cup move down. There was a meme circulating around that was oh so me. A ghost is trying to scare a guy that might as well have been me. Ooooooo! (nothing) BOO!!! (nothing) [I'LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!] (nothing) "Hey, I invited a few friends over, hope that's okay." AHHHHHH! (extreme fear and panic). You think this is a ghost? Now, THIS is a ghost! And I am the ghost with the most, babes. Except with dealing with people and relationships. Hey, the unknown is scary. Especially when it comes to people. And I am debating within myself the very worth of putting myself in such a situation. Now, I have said that my interest, that very specific interest, only extends to one person. Things can change, and things have changed. This is, however, where things stand right now. I have been through some heavy trauma in the past, and for the last several years, there has only been one person I feel safe in such a pursuit. Even if that pursuit is futile in the reality such feelings are not mutual. Still, I find it odd that usually painfully shy me has no problem telling her exactly how I feel. The only exception to my extreme hesitation. Though I make it a point not to be a pest about it. I only make it known that I am here and can be easily found. Sadly it is not mutual. Probably never will be. That is the difference between someone merely liking you, or actually loving you. You know? Grief and unrequited love do have one thing in common: Love with nowhere to go. If love were a letter, this would be the dead letter office, where all letters that can not be delivered go to spend forever and ever amen. Yet there is this foolish part of me that wants to keep walling off the rest of the world. And I have been debating in my mind the worth and the need of coming out of my shell and actually considering other possibilities. The truth is, friends, Romans, robots, and strangers is that I am scared. Sometimes the choices are fuzzy, can be delayed, put off for some fictional time in the future. But on rare occasions the choice is stark and clear. The debate goes on in my head, but I guess I must choose and soon. Do I keep clinging to to the impossible dream that keeps me safe, Or do I get out of my comfort zone and find out just what and who is out there? You might think this a simple choice, but for someone like me, it is anything but simple. I wish I could find the words to make you understand. You'd have to be me. I am not sure I would wish it on you or anyone else. Maybe I am a wiser, better human being for all that I have gone through. That's the cruelty of life that we often have to learn these things the hard way, and long after that lesson does any good. Then there is this feeling that some aspects of life and living will be out of reach until my dying day. Certain things, certain moments of bliss and happiness going forward are just not meant for me to have. I only have my memories, tarnished memories of what happened later. I gave everything I had, everything I was, and it ended horribly. I trusted implicitly. I trusted completely. The wrong person, as things turned out. Did that one bad experience ruin my capacity to do so? I don't know. And friends, that's the scariest thing of all. Clean cup, move down, moving right along. Do you have an allergic reaction to jerkwads being jerky and unnecessarily rude? I know I do. Damn straight I do. It's something about myself I have been trying to work on. Why? Because the jerk only lives in the jerky moment. The one with the allergy keeps returning to the moment and lets that 30 seconds or so ruin their whole day. Does this punish the jerk? No. Does it amplify their jerkiness? Yes. Wouldn't they love that you're still stressing out hours later? Hell yeah! Don't feed the trolls, and never jerk the jerk. (Actually I'm having a good day today) (I was just thinking about something that happened 20 years ago) (Hence my very point) Clean cup move down. Unsolicited texts and politicians are two things that I hate. And lately I've been getting the 2 in 1 combo. All clowns and no burgers. I'm not loving it. One does grow weary of the dog and pony show. Quick question: How do you know someone in the vortex has been hacked? When they start shilling about shitcoin and other crypto bullshit. I'd sooner believe in the Easter Bunny, even an Easter Bunny with better abs than mine. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Shouldn't the Easter Bunny be female? After all, she's carrying all those eggs around. In all this 21st century babel and confusion, geese and gander, AFLAC! Flock if I know. But the furries would have absolutely loved that one. And the furries are the ones I understand the least of all. I'm a squirrel! I'm a squirrel! No. You're just nuts. AI slop, politics, religion, algorithms, advertisements, and Easter bunnies with manly chests that put the OG Cosmic Wie to shame. Hell, he could put Ricardo Montalban to shame. And Khan Noonian Singh had the manliest chest ever to be seen on the silver screen! What did I use social media for again? As I said before, the robot apocalypse has happened and it's the vortex this time. The evil robots have saved me! Domo Arigato evil roboto. Wanna play a game of network Doom? Now I have no desire to bother anybody. Just let me keep my one tiny little corner of the universe and we'll all live and let live. But the problem is this. Despite having an extremely open mind about a lot of things, Despite having a deep and intimate understanding of many things most wouldn't realize or expect from such as me, this world is still making less and less sense the longer I live. Great God, I miss the 1980s! Now there was a decade I could mostly comprehend. And the eighties were a very long time ago. I remember when they were the here and now. I remember when everything was brand new. I remember a bright future and endless possibilities. I remember a feeling I can never get back again. I miss a time when not everything had to be done online. Paper forms could be a pain sometimes, but there was a simplicity to submitting them you simply don't get on those janky websites. Fill it out and hand it in. That's all you had to do. No bullshit. Sign it, date it, and turn it in. Now even burger joints expect you to have a smartphone up your ass. Insanity! I wish we had a way to opt out. I wonder what an alternate universe where the internet didn't quite catch on with most people? Paper forms, portable players, Blockbuster and Movie Gallery. No streaming. No vortex. Paper checks. Now, I did love the internet of old. It was a wonderful wild west of personal sites of people passionate about any subject you wanted to know more about. Be it a movie, a game, a rock and roll band, or a TV show.... Geocites, Tripod, Angelfire, AOL Hometown.... People built whole worlds in those places... Now, they're gone. It's like they took away the best and amplified the worst. The modern-day internet may be faster, but it sucks. Whoever decided Cloudflare was a good idea deserves a boot in the ass. The internet may be faster, but it seems a lot smaller these days. I can count the places worth going to on just one hand. And even they aren't all that great anymore. I need to go back and look at what I saved from back in the day. And in Bender Bending Rodriguez style, I'll build my own internet with blackjack and hookers. I actually linked together a bunch of saved websites once. But it got to be too many gigabytes.... We're gonna need a bigger drive. I have also rebuilt my D-Fend exports of my favorite old DOS games. There were just too many old versions floating around from before I added improved demos, saves, or whatever. Now, everything includes my work over these many years. Just in case somebody like-minded ever finds them. And like-minded people (On a nearly infinite variety of subjects) are very difficult to find. You know? The mind is a mixed drink. Every experience good or bad has been poured into it. Hopes and fears, past traumas, people who made it better, and last and not least, in general and in specific details, the people we love. And what a mix it is. Happiness, nostalgia, anxiety, sorrow, loneliness, with a dash of misanthropy... If Baskin-Robbins decided to sell alcohol, they'd have nothing on us. The English language is wonderful, don't you think? Still, I have had so many emotions running through me that I just can't find a word for. Nothing seems to fit. It's just that mixed drink. Bitter and sweet, dissolved in tears and laughter. As The Who once sang, what I feel inside, I can't explain. And for someone who uses writing as a way to vent? Oh boy, that's distressing! I guess you'd have to be me to understand. But you're you and not me, are you? Perhaps you should be glad. Though I also happen to know that I am not the only one on this earth who has problems. I mean. who doesn't? Well, I guess I didn't make much of an impression. Then again, I can't say I was helping matters either. Don't get me wrong: She was pretty, attractive, all those things, yadda yadda Yoda, but not in a desert queen of mixed signals sort of way. Not in a Gypsy sort of way. You might say I am too picky. Only one woman fits the bill. Only one. My Angel. My Gypsy. My desert queen. Forever out of reach... The only one who makes me laugh. The only one who makes me smile. The only one who makes me hopeless. Such is the way of the force. With anybody else, starting a conversation seems impossible, an invisible wall. With this one, however, conversation flows, smiles happen, and I rediscover again and again why I feel this way, despite all the inevitable impossibility and the forever alone future it ensures. Maybe I'm just too different. Maybe I have always been, Maybe my wavelength is so far out of the spectrum that there is absolutely zero chance of any resonating with anyone ever. Maybe this is something I just have to accept. Maybe, despite what I have been saying, I have accepted it a long time ago. By fixating on impossibilities, I have built a wall that does not seem like a wall at all. But it is, you see. It's like that line from Desperado about only wanting what you can never have. And a man can never truly be happy until he learns to want and appreciate what he already has. I guess, with the material things, I am happy with what I have. Really, materially, I need nothing more. I merely wish that at 50-something, I didn't have to run so damn hard to keep it. Young dudes and gals, do not be under any illusion that they ease up on you for getting older. They don't. And also remember what I have repeated time and again. Home is so much more than a place. It's who you come home to that matters the most. Without this, you have only silence, and silence, and silence. May this day find you well.  

Only The Lucky Ones

I am going to tell you the not-so-secret secret about life: It's not easy, man. This world expects us to be full on rocking and rolling with or without support. They don't even ask, because it doesn't even matter at all. The expectations of the jungle never change, be you a healthy mouse or a wounded lion. And even a healthy lion who dwells in an empty patch of grass can never be as strong as one who comes home to a full pride of support. You know? The line between a want and a need can get a bit hazy at times. Air, food, water, and sleep are all quite clearly needed. I don't just want them. I've gotta have 'em. As we leave the realm of the body, however, finding ourselves in the domain of the mind, that's the hazy part. Just what do we need to survive? You see, the degree of what we face in life is not so straight forward. Neither is the degree of our strength in facing them. There is a factor outside of it all. We all draw strength and inspiration beyond what we have in ourselves. For example, there are those I would run through the fire for, even though I have always feared the flames. But I can't say I would brave those same flames for myself. The jungle, that fire: The expectations never change. The intensity of the battle is the same, whether or not you are facing it alone. There is no allowance or mercy if you indeed are alone. The battle out there never changes. This is why what you come home to matters. Because our strength is composed of so much more than physical prowess or mental fortitude. Home matters. Support matters. Love matters. Belonging matters. Even the greatest warrior gets a bit of battle fatigue once in a while. This is where peace and healing between the battles matters. There are no pats on the back for powering through alone. There is not even the simple acknowledgment that you stood strong and survived. There is only the next day, the next battle. A punishing reward indeed. It can be so ironically easy to feel so damned alone on this overcrowded planet. I guess the reason that nobody cares is not that they hate us, but that they have their own battles to face and limited strength and compassion to lend. Chances are, they're running on empty just like we are. Such is the way. Again, that's why coming home matters so much. Home will always be (to me) as much as about the people as it is a place. And if you have someone, good, kind, loyal, trustworthy, to come home to, please appreciate them. Five Decades on, it has been my experience that they are the rarest gold of all. I have taken a couple of much needed vacation days this week. Today to see the doctor, Thursday to see the beach. This elevated stress level requires a mental health day or two. Though trading a day at work for a waiting room full of the loudest, most annoying Hu Monz ever sure ain't seeming to help this. They are driving me up the flarking wall! Still, it's either come here, come off some money, and deal with the loud annoying people or run out of my medicine. And with the current situation at work, I would probably flip out and go off on someone who desperately deserves it. So, yeah. I guess I need to be here. And it's a good thing I had just enough medicine to make it though to today. I swear the noises these people make could be used in interrogations. I'd tell them where the rebel base is if they would just freaking stop. The Galactic Empire would do well to observe these folks and their techniques. Brutal! Savage! Driving me madder than a hatter! And if you wish to experience Michael Myers time outside of the workplace, doctors offices are just as bad. And each new person has an even more annoying ring tone than the one who walks out and talk even louder on their phones than they did too. Though I am using one to type these words, I still say that smartphones are the worst invention ever! I also don't like how everyone from the bank to the insurance company, from my employer to my doctor thinks every damn thing that I do must be lowjacked to a damn phone. Maybe, I preferred the old ways. Maybe I should have a right to choose. I was a lover of technology back in the 1990s. Not so much today. It's far too invasive these days. It all comes down to a childish line that is still somehow appropriate: Maybe I don't wanna. Closed in spaces have never exactly been my cup of tea. Anxiety might love them, but I, myself don't. The prospect of surprise bills is also a thing my Anxiety loves but I do not. So I'm sitting here teying to be as calm as possible as to keep my blood pressure low enough to keep me out of the hospital next door. We sure don't need that, do we? I am hoping to be out of this doctors office and out and about soon. I am just not a fan of medical spaces for both unclear yet quite obvious reasons. I tend to associate such places with some of the worst moments of my life. It's hard enough not to be reminded of them elsewhere, and damn impossible here. So, here I am trying my damndest to be calm while fighting certain aspects of my own nature. It's not impossible but like being cheesy, it ain't easy. Anyway I got my medicine filled and all that other stuff squared away. I am really looking foward to my Mexico Beach trip on thursday. At least two of my three sons are going with me and the whole plan is to just relax, no hurrying and no worrying. Just a day at the beach. A nice leisurely drive down highway 71 to Port Saint Joe, and a short kick back to the west on US 98. Sounds like a plan. But it's also a relaxing and flexible plan. Clean cup move down. So that big Publix machete duel was over a woman? There have been many a man in prison or in the grave for that very same reason. I, myself, could have found myself in the funny farm over that same reason. Maybe too there are women in those situations too, over some dude who couldn't just pick one and not play games. That's a good rule for both the guys and the gals: Pick one and don't play games. And if he or she can't pick and won't stop the BS games, they're not worth prison, the grave, or the funny farm. Sometimes being alone is the better option. I agree with those who say that John Carmack and John Romero were the Lennon and McCartney of computer games. Because each were great on their own, yet magnitudes beyond awesome together. All created some of the greatest works of art ever. Also, I have known for 30 years that playing Doom while listening to the Beatles goes together better than you think. Get back, demon. Get back to where you once belong. It was nice seeing those guys in those Quake Con videos, hanging out and getting along so well. They were always an awesome team. Moving right along, clean cup move down. Aside from feeling burned up like Freddy Kruger afterwards, the beach trip was a success. It was as beautiful and tranquil as ever and we had it to ourselves for the first hour or so. All three of my boys were able to go. It was the first time my three and me found ourselves on the forgotten coast together since 17 years ago. It was a very nice break from the day to day, of which I am having to adjust to again. The Monday morning after can be rough, my friends. Ah. but here I am and hopefully a bit better for it. It's good to be reminded there are other places besides work, home, and the grocery store. It was a pleasure to see my angel again. Every so often I mention how nice a beach trip would be for just the two of us. A nice romantic beach trip, holding hands, walking barefooted in the sand, the real deal. And yes that I'd love to see her in a swimsuit almost as much as I'd love to see her in a wedding dress.... Next to me in my tuxedo at the alter...There is an open invitation, open only to one particular human being, but otherwise not even the sky is the limit, for I am a space cadet after all. We are only limited by that cosmic horizon. A day at the beach, just you and I, hand in hand watching the sunset? We can go tomorrow, or even today. Marry me? I'll set a record getting the paperwork together. It's just a hopelessly romantic fantasy... Though it's a nice fantasy... I hide nothing from her about wishing it were so. I may be half kidding her, but I am 100% serious at the same time. A contradiction? You decide. In reality it doesn't matter. For 99.999999 percent of the world, I am not interested in the stress of a relationship. But I'd marry her in a heartbeat. I'd marry her tomorrow, ring and all.... I have the presence of mind to know it's not happening. But live clouds the mind. And if I have ever been in love ever in my life, then it is with this particular woman. This queen of mixed signals is the queen of my dreams, but only of my dreams. Still it's no secret that I love my angel. Feelings can really be a mess. I can't change my own feelings, and I certainly can't change hers. Even if I could, would it be right to do so? No. Not only wrong, but it would be meaningless. That ball has been in her court since the first time I saw her. That choice has been and always will be hers to make. It's not really mine to make when my answer will always be yes. That I shall be right here, and not all that difficult to find. At least not for this one particular human being. Wherefore art thou, Cosmic Wie? Right here! I am like Richard Marx, right here waiting. Or Bad English because yes, I do see a ray of light when I see her smile. It's nothing sudden or new. You have seen me do this same song and dance many times, painting the same picture with these words. It seems that I am stuck in a loop of some kind. Life situations do change. Paths do separate. Maybe these feelings will slowly fade away day by day and I will only have these words to look back on to try and remember why I once felt so deeply for this one particular woman. As impossible as it seems to me right now, could there come a day when my affection could be directed to somewhere... To someone else? I suppose that nothing is impossible. I have lived long enough that moving on does not really exist. Not for any feeling, good or bad. You just face day after day, making a life work, week after week, month after month, year after year until you find yourself somewhere else and someone else. As Doctor Soran said, time is the fire in which we burn. And time shall never do justice for all the people that I love. Time does not heal. Time just consumes. You're never quite the same on the other side of it. It is something else to see how my wonderings wander. These chains of thoughts do lead to unexpected places. I am truly a very interesting case. Time, events, and people can change courses and even move minds. I have always been in motion. Even when I thought I wasn't. I am not the same. The further back you go in this journey of words, the more differences you are going to find. I even surprise myself. An open mind tends not to stay exactly the same. Beliefs can be fluid in some ways. Growth and change can leave the old coping mechanisms by the way. Even when they were once indispensable and absolutely essential for my survival. Yes, I have my regrets like any other human being, but not for this. I was absolutely who I needed to be at the time. Time, however, as the Metamorphis said, has changed. I am not the same. There are many figurative hills on which I will stand until the end, sticking to my guns like a soldier who believes in what he fights for. There are many other things however where the words of Kahless The Unforgettable come to mind: Only a fool stands before the wind. I suppose wisdom is in knowing the difference between steadfast truth, and what new knowledge could possibly change. Like parachutes, minds work best when open. And I am still learning. I admit I have lived a lot of my life on daydreams. My special angel is only the latest, though she has been the only one of the romantic variety, since my ex wife destroyed that illusion long ago. My other dreams have mainly been about being somewhere else or even someone else. I have slipped away at times into the realm of dreams and impossibilities. Mainly because the reality around me was so hard to bear. I still believe such dreams kept me both functional and alive. There were a lot of mornings when I just felt like crying. I certainly did not feel like facing the world. But I'd dive into a bit of delusion and face the day anyway. These were the coping mechanisms I spoke of earlier. Yes it was crazy. Maybe I was too. But I would not have made it here and now otherwise. Over these past few years, I have slowly been returning to myself. The meaning of this is a bit hard to convey because I have always been myself, but it all boils down to spending more time in the reality of where and who I am. I am not the same, but I have been returning from wherever part of me was for a very long time. The daydreams didn't die. Sometimes I still daydream. But I find myself looking up and out into reality a lot more often. I do not regret being who and what I had to be to survive. Honestly I wore it quite well. Still Just like Bender Bending Rodriguez, I'm back, baby! Okay, totally different subject. Here lately I have noticed a difference in how easy it has become to stay away from the social media vortex. I think it may be that the illusion of finding any human connection is difficult to maintain for a place that's becoming less human every day. Maybe there's a silver lining in AI destroying absolutely every social media site. The illusion is broken. Maybe I am finally free of it forever. Religion, politics, advertisements, and a ton of AI generated slop. What reason did I have for going there again? Human connection? Right. Maybe I can once again and hopefully for the final time remind myself that there is no air on the moon. That AI jank has done something my own self ranting and reminders could never do. It has saved me from the social media vortex! Domo Arigato, Mister Roboto. The taker of the cake? A plus sized woman posting a picture of herself with a supermodel body, arm in arm with the Easter Bunny. Yes, the damn Easter Bunny! At least he had the Easter Bunny's head. The rest was a male body with perfect Mister Sulu abs and overly tight blue jeans and nothing else! Yikes! I am not sure if I should be offended that the Easter Bunny has a super macho more manly chest than I do. I guess that will take further consideration before I can say. Okay, moving right along..... Did you know that in the visual novel, Saya no Uta, there was more than one monster? Not just Saya, though she was the most horrible, but Fumimori, too. He might have been human, but he was a horrible monster. Then there is a third monster: Whomever wrote that novel in the first place. It takes a really sick mind to come up with a story like that. I won't go into the details. Just don't ever play that game if you do not wish to be mentally scarred. It's not that I didn't think it was horrible back then, yet in retrospect, it seems so much worse. Saya was a monstrous alien from outer space. Fumimori was a monstrously horrible human being. And the writer? They need professional help. What the hell? They're freely walking around somewhere in Japan, one of the safest nations on Earth. But I sure wouldn't want to meet that dude in some dark Tokyo alley. But do you want to know real irony? There is one track of background music from that game that is the most calming, soothing music ever. Sabbath. I play that music when I really need to calm down. Ain't that a kick? A soothing song from a disturbing game is what I use to chase Mr. Anxiety away. Crazy, huh? Google the song and not the game. You know? The world of computer games, Both the classic FPS and visual novels can lead to a thousand worlds to escape to. Saya, however, is a gateway to a very unpleasant world.  There's something about the artwork and the music that draws you in, but that story (Even its premise) is horrible. This is just the opinion of a simple space cadet, however. I say avoid it, or go on and find out why I said to avoid it. I'm just glad I am not one of Fumimori's friends. With friends like him, who needs enemies? Much less evil people eatin' aliens from outer space? No thanks, buddy oh pal. Not me.