Early Blogs

Yea... I'm having a hard time this morning with something. In one of my conversations with my cousin Lynne Aparicio, I used what I thought was a quote that I remembered from somewhere in my past. "Don't dance with the Devil if you don't know how to Tango." Unfortunately, I have had time to reflect on this original Aparicio quote (researched extensively for five minutes), and have confounded myself. Coming from a perspective on religion that affords me an unusual amount of freedom when talking about the Devil, I wonder about her supposed fascination with something that is not only liberating, but can transcend joy, using its euphoric affect to override our actual ability to do it, while masking the judgmental jeers of peers and other assorted communitibal masses. I know it's supposed to be a metaphor, just like I know communitibal isn't a word, that's the easy answer, so I ask you to dig deeper. "The Devil welcomes the dance." Did she watch Soul Train, American Bandstand, or Dance Fever? Was her love for dance cemented by movies like Flash Dance and Footloose or was she more of a Fred Astaire / Gene Kelly kind of girl? (References to the devil as she and her are only done to offset those who say God is a woman - this is a completely different conundrum). 

I wonder if Dylan Thomas would have met me before he wrote that famous poem, he would have written that famous poem? Or would his view on death be more of a "Nah, you're done" kind of feeling? Let me persuade you to my point of view. Given the fact that I had done well in my two previous classes, I let the knowledge that I am smart go directly to where the thought first occurred. Of course, I was wrong again. Saturday night I still hadn't done my weeks paper on "The Six Dimensions of Health", something I think I had a firm grasp on. I figured I'll just do this last one thing on the computer, so it looks cool, and then I will start. I put this here, download that there and poof! My screen goes blank. Not completely blank, but a disturbing blinking kind of blank...I've seen that screen before. I start and restart my computer before I decide to go into recovery mode. Recovery mode is miraculously unavailable. Panic begins its usual trek from my spine to my brain as I walk into the other room to retrieve my windows 8 disk, already have in my mind that I'm going to have to wipe my stupid computer back to basic for my want to be cool, so I walk slowly, trying to figure out something else. Nothing comes in my short walk and I slip the disk into the side, holding my head in my hands. SKKKKKKTTTTTT! A noise I haven't heard before startles me from my haven behind my hands, I look up. Skkkkkkktttt. A softer sound of chaos comes from my computer, followed by its brother again. "What the f... skkkkkttttt." My mind flashes through the activities I've done with my computer to figure out what I did to it.

SKKKKKKKKKKTTTTTTT! I dropped it. But it was an innocent littskkkkkkktttttt. I eject the disk from the computer, before it can interrupt my thoughts again. "GodDAMMIT!" I yell, again, at my computer. My mind now in full race mode comes up with no idea on how to fix it now; it continues to blink from blank to black directly at me. Standing up from my dinner table (desk) I take a walk outside, like I had learned earlier in the year, to clear my thoughts and start over. At the end of the driveway, I realize that I haven't done my paper yet, so I turn and sprint back to my baby, whom I need to save both quicker and faster than I did before. My other computer had been put away; it was old and slow and had gone gentle into that goodnight. I started my dinosaur of a computer; luckily no sound of failure accompanied it. Sadly, I couldn't use it to complete my paper because of my fantastic planning phase when it came to remembering not only my online name to the college, but my password also. The internet beckoned, "Come ask my nerdish followers, they will help you," so I listened and ventured out into the not so good night. Hours pass as I hover over the screen of my retired computer, talking online with some of the weirdest people I have ever met. Conversations about helping me slowly would change to computers in general, which then found places I didn't want to be at, eerie places, places that even a person like me shouldn't be. After one disturbing questioning about my caloric intake and body fat percentage, I glance at the clock to be sure I haven't traveled back to the eighty's, it showed me 5:30 am. I quickly told him 2,500 calories a day and 30% body fat, and clicked off, not wanting to know what question was next. Through the night I fought, coming close at times, but never getting an answer. I stand up and begin to walk away when my computer makes a sound. It was someone answering my question from hours before, I guess they had just got up. I try his suggestion and my old screen blips on to recovery mode. I thank him profusely and begin my journey through the next mess. I stop when I see "Please insert disk". My heart drops through the chair as I just stare straight ahead. I can see the reflection in the screen of my other computer, I look like a madman. Then I see a twinkle in the eye of the other me. "I don't need a disk if I'm not wiping." I say as my reflection mimics me.

So, I start the easy process of fixing what was broke. My computer blips on like nothing had happened. I raise my arms in victory, and head out to finish my paper. Another victory won over the evil computer-me. If I had no wars against me, I would have no wars to fight. Postscript: I finish my paper before noon and decide to celebrate by going to the store for my usual (lemon-coke, Uno-bar and cigarettes). I reach into my pocket and realize I haven't changed my clothes from last night. So, I do that, get out to the Jeep and reach in again, to find no keys. I do this again, with a different pair of shorts, and then check other pockets and after 15 minutes I realize that they are lost. Sitting down looking at my now working computer, a lost memory floats into my head about a forgotten pack of cigarettes, which is what I really needed in the first place. Opening the middle part of my console my keys catch my eye...in the ignition, and a good thing too because my lost memory was from another time. "Do not go gentle into that goodnight?" I would say to Mr. Thomas. "Nah, you're done." He would say, and scratch that new poem.

“A worthless man plots evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire. A perverse man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends. A fool's lips bring strife, and his mouth invites a flogging. A fool's mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to himself. The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels, they go down into, for lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases." ~ Proverbs 16:27-28.

I am not a believer in the word of God, but when you need to be direct, quotes from the bible usually do the best job. After a long night with some people that have their own devils they need to quiet, a conversation was had about me and what some people would call character flaws. They worry about my state of being, and my money, because of some of the things I’ve been doing up here in my new found hometown.

I’ve been up here, in my haven, for 1 year having met a multitude of personalities, none of which are foreign to me. I have met, lived with, dated, married, fought, drank with, helped and hindered these known types of people, sometimes trusting too much, sometimes not trusting enough and in each case, someone has thought differently about my choices, whichever choice I’ve made. The old saying goes, “You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.” ~ Abraham Lincoln. But the president’s view is still to giving for me. I don’t feel I need to please anybody, anytime. To use a line from someone I consider a complete moron to state a fact, “The proof is in the pudding”.

I consider the varied life choices that I’ve made on this fabulously skewed trip of mine, although not the most well thought out sometimes, to be controllable and always fixable. I look at where I am today and know that if I had listened to anybody except me, and what I thought was best for me, I would surely be worse off by a dog’s age.

The last good rumor about me was that I held a gun to a woman’s head for no good reason, while the cops outside the house tried to talk me down. Even if I had lost myself in the ether of drug use, it doesn’t seem like any fun, so no, wouldn’t do it. And yet words flew around my old bar, creating barriers with friends and sometimes even coming to threats of violence. I was beside myself trying to figure out why people I knew and thought of as friends, which was everyone, would create such havoc in the instance where there was none. I am still looking for the complete answer, having to come up with a quick fix, just so I could leave there with a feeling of closure.

The sin of Greed can show up in anyone in a bevy of different definitions. Money, love, friendship, trust, time and sometimes just plain moments. That is what happened, at least that is what I tell myself so I can shelve that problem until I can evolve a little more and find the true meaning of those heinous whispers. But that was there, a fading memory from a different time. I have been told that a character flaw of mine is that I help the unjust and deceitful, I help the people that I think warrant my help. Maybe a job cleaning my yard, to a ride down the hill, to a couple bucks here and there, but I do not let people walk all over me, even if they think they are. I know that it may look like they are, which means that I cannot convince the distrusting that it’s not true. Neither can see the others argument and neither can see what I am taking from the exchange. I used to fight this with detailed descriptions of what I was trying to accomplish, but to no avail. If someone knows something, then that is pretty much that, so I stopped explaining myself and justifiably so since it wasn’t their help that was being given. My business is my business, and if you think differently, well…you are wrong, no detailed reason why, no pleads for time-stamped accounts, no explanations given…you are wrong. Accept that fact, or don’t, what you think doesn’t matter in the situation.

Now that I’ve laid a semi-solid foundation for this next part, I hope it gives you, the patient reader, a better understanding of what you can say about me, what is heard by me, what affects me and how all of these problems that you may be caught up in simply go away. Let’s start…Who I go out with shouldn’t be a concern to anyone because I am not a psychopath, or sociopath for that matter, which has been brought to my attention what some people think. Well, the things I write and post on my ErodedRoad.com website, Twitter account or Facebook are from my imagination and only me for entertainments sake, but if you feel the need to worry about someone being crazy, I can point you to a couple good books that you may have fun with. Also, I am not concerned about anybody’s dating history and who did what to whom in any relationship other than my own. Continuing, if you are worried about somebody I live with, help out, date or otherwise know from anywhere, they will not pull the proverbial wool over my eyes, because as history proves, that is a very hard thing to do. But if you are that type of person of which I speak, whom I have run across more times than not and if you are up to a challenge, your trophy would be less valuable than the time it took to get. I made it very clear to my “business partners” that I wanted to live a frugal life away from possessions and all the crap that seemed so important to me and others in years past, letting me run amok with my imagination to try to create something interesting or entertaining…in story form. And all of that is copy written. And now the big one. My drug use, or rumor thereof, was brought up last night and with fervid tone and furrowed brow. I have defended myself in times here and there about this topic and my answer to you is that interesting history follows you wherever you go, especially if you talk about those times in public places and make the past stories of it available to everyone in the world on our newfangled social mediums. I am not against drugs, in fact, I think that the humans that create art, like musicians, painters, and writers, along with our groundbreaking philosophers, psychologists, sociologists and even activists, who I don’t agree with, have used some kind of drug at some time. But for me, as you can read on this website, that I have done drugs before, and been arrested for them before and that I have pushed the limit on human functionality during those times. You can also read that I have failed in that aspect, but I still reminisce from time to time and write about those interesting experiences, which does not mean that I still continue said practice. Alcohol, nicotine and the occasional second-hand smoke from pot is the extent of my experimentation nowadays. The way I live may be the primer to the problem here. Because I do not have a job, I am free to work on my stories as I see fit, or when the moment takes me, which does not fall in the 9 to 5 every day workweek. I have been approached by friends, family and neighbors about my midnight oils burning, worried that I have fallen back into that decadent lifestyle and to that I can only say that I am a writer. If it is not understood, then it is not, but the explanation will remain out there until you can comprehend it. But then again, who would presently admit to that in a public forum? So, if you want to ask me in person, I welcome it wholeheartedly, although if you don’t believe me, then it will be a long conversation that wastes my time and yours, and I bet you I have more of it to waste.

So ends the latest footnote in my life, whether it did any good in explaining to you how to make your problems disappear will remain to be seen, or heard for that matter. But if there is still a problem with me, I invite you over to either squash or continue the problem. I will cook your dinner; serve you drinks and try to convince you the best I can. I have been told that even though I’m sarcastic, I’m a good host.

I really don't know what showed up first to eventually, and completely, influence the other, but both Blue Oyster Cults song "Veteran of 1000 Psychic Wars", and my private metaphysical war against inanimate, non-living, things and ideas showed up around about the same time. While these warring years slowly pass by, more lines from the song begin to fill up the cracks in my psyche, I just wish I knew for certain where to place the blame so I could have some sort of closure when the shakes are quieted.

My failure in strategy was thinking that if I could fight the war on one side, the other side would simply have to fall in line, that's the way metaphysics works, that's the way the world works...at least back then that's what I thought. So now I sit and remember a night spent with friends, as I waited for payment from a past life so I could begin a new one, when I looked away for a simple thing like a second, and I saw how fast a non-watched God can create a fantastically different path for you. My Audi was stolen from the bar parking lot. I get a ride home and follow the drunks’ directions on falling asleep. A couple hours later I am woken up by the SJPD at my front door. His questions didn't make sense, so I said I don't know a lot, but even with a bucket full of "I don't knows", he surmised that I wasn't driving my car, and said goodnight to me.

A week later I say goodbye to the Bay Area and with payment in hand it finally begins to feel like the private wars I wage against things like Rain, Sun, Light, Dark, Roads, Mountains, and all sorts and types of Gods, might actually be tipping the scales for me on the non-metaphysical side...what a fool I am to even now hold onto the thought that my wars matter in the real world, what a fool I am.

So now I have to show up in Court as to fulfill my bench warrant, and answer the question, "Why haven't I paid the $2,500.00 to the City of San Jose to pay for the damages caused by my Audi to the curb, gutter, and sidewalk that I poured, on the night said Audi was stolen. My make-believe meta-wars are less complicated than this real-world law pretzel. I have a funny feeling I may be at the losing end of this one, it just makes sense that I should pay, or at least do some jail time.

You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars,

I've been living on the edge so long, where the winds of limbo roar,

And I'm young enough to look at, and far too old to see,

All the scars are on the inside.

I'm not sure that there's anything left of me.

Don't let these shakes go on, it's time we had a break from it,

It's time we had some leave,

We've been living in the flames,

We've been eating up our brains,

Oh please, don't let these shakes go on.

You ask me why I'm weary, why I can't speak to you.

You blame me for my silence, say it's time I changed and grew,

But the war's still going on, dear, and there's no-when that I know,

And I can't stand forever.

I can't say if we're ever gonna be free.

Don't let these shakes go on, it's time we had a break from it,

It's time we had some leave,

We've been living in the flames,

We've been eating up our brains,

Oh please, don't let these shakes go on.

You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars,

My energy is spent at last, and my armor is destroyed,

I have used up all my weapons, and I'm helpless and bereaved,

Wounds are all I'm made of.

Did I hear you say that this is victory?

Don't let these shakes go on, it's time we had a break from it,

Send me to the rear,

Where the tides of madness swell,

And men sliding into hell,

Oh please, don't let these shakes go on

Being in the Mountains, and not wanting to drive down to Ione, or any other place for that matter, I must wait until Mace Meadows defrosts to begin my tragic attempt to become a good golfer. This is my 35th year in my attempt to do so...sadly I have not succeeded yet. But like the definition of "crazy" goes I will try again, beginning my morning ritual of Advil, Icy Hot, and bourbon as soon as I get up.

My bag has not changed since I put it away last year, still missing certain clubs, containing forgotten packs of cigarettes, and always being ball-less just like the years I was married. But I continue through the morning anyway, feeling the years of all kinds of abuse snap and clink through my movements as I refill my flasks, smoke my forgotten cigarettes and search my garage for extra maleness. I quickly search the Nike website for replacement clubs doing a spit-take at the prices, covering my computer screen with coffee and bourbon. "Hell, I don't need a wedge or a 7 iron." I say, trying to kid myself that those where my mostly used clubs. And my memory of the last game creeps into my head and I remember the new grip a friend of a friend told me about which fixed my tremendous "power-fade", a nickname I gave to my signature shot and my smile gets bigger. I go through the holes of my familiar "home course" picking out in my head what I should be prepared for. The memory of the 8th hole stumbles into my head, and as I go through my last game, I don't remember the very necessary pitch and putt that I usually need to complete a hole. I scratch my head wondering why and then it hits me like a golf ball between the eyes. "I eagled that hole!" I yell, waking up the occupants of my private hostel. I remember the shot.

The first drive was straight due to my new grip...and long as the ball didn't have to fight the rotation, I used to put on said ball, so it went long. Amazed I am resigned to the fact that my next shot will be shit, so I don't concentrate on anything else accept the grip. My swing felt flawless as the ball rockets out from my position. I quickly look up to see the trajectory of a pro, but then my eyesight fails, leaving me to guess the distance. I stand there for a second then turn and head back to my cart, smiling again at this new found grip when I hear a round of screams from the other hole, next to my green. I look down and they are not looking at their friend’s drive, but waving and clapping in my direction. "Weird", I say and head down to my hole. As I pass the group that freaked out, they all tell me good shot, and nice going, so I smile wider, knowing that my shot must have been and ok, shot. Arriving at the green I begin to curse that group because my ball is not on the green. I must have overshot it, but I am not depressed because I have a pretty decent "up and down" game. But after a couple minutes of looking for the ball, and not finding it, I become confused, thinking that I probably buried it. That is when an old couple comes by, that were following the group that congratulated me and say. "It's in the cup, son." So I look back at my drink in the cart, not connecting the term to golf. "Was that your second or third shot?" The wife asks. "Um, second...why?" I say, still befuddled. "Nice Eagle" The husband says. I say thank you and stand there for a second while my brain slowly connects. I run to the hole to see my ball, with my signature scrawled on it sitting in the cup. "Holy Fuck!" I say. "My first Eagle." I whisper to it. I reach down, pick it up and move on to the next hole with a smile so big it hurt my cheeks after the next couple of holes.

The rest of the day is average, but I didn't care, being able to strike one more thing off my invisible list of things I haven't done yet.

“Someday you will be remembered for the last time, and then never again.” I can’t remember where I saw that quote, it being lost in the late night /early morning ether of internet philosophers, world event conspirators, opinion-driven fact-news, and all of social media’s wanton needs of validation and support. I perused the archives of my favorite entertainment websites, ‘Epicfail.com’, ‘Wwtdd.com’ (what would Tyler Durden do), ‘Ebaumsworld.com’, and ‘Chive.com’, hoping to find the author who sneakily slipped the last honest truth in-between ________ (insert favorite hated/liked person or group) and _________ (insert perceived ongoing, possible or inevitable, tragic world event). From the old Gods to the new Gods, from Princes to Paupers, Philosophers, Iconoclasts, Butchers and Bums will be forgotten because existence is finite when time is infinite, regardless of who you are, what you do, and/or how well you do it. This includes the childless author, whether they are well received or not, who hopes to be remembered beyond their years. There have always been too many of the things I wanted to be, I knew it when that little red haired, bespectacled underclassman wrote those amazing stories in Mr. Hansfields Creative Writing classes at Mitty. Back then, of course, I was pissed off at him for being so perfectly better in every aspect of being creative than I was. My impression of him was that he really didn’t want to be a writer, but maybe his parents told him to take the class to break him out of his nerdish persona, or that he had to take the class for college preparation. God, I hated him for how talented he was, and for not letting anyone outside of the class probably never see his work. I also hated him because he showed me too early that regardless of how good you might be at whatever you do, there will always be someone better who frivolously waves that talent around as a hobby…a less passionate point was revisited upon me as when my mom and Dad came to see me in college and proceeded to whip not only me, but my roommates, at Ping Pong. Even my life events, which I think have given me ample raw material to write about, seem meek and uninteresting when I read other writers whom I like and consider are of the same ilk. I survived all these long years with a little nugget of self-satisfaction that at least I’ll have something that people can remember me by. Well, thanks to that anonymously written sentence at the beginning of this semi-tirade that is gone. I don’t know… …man… …maybe I don’t think a lot of people know they will eventually be completely forgotten and this is a service I’m performing, or maybe it’s because I’m still that pissed off eighteen-year-old rebel, screaming my beloved anthem with murderous intent, except now that the world has moved on, no one really cares to hear my tired battle cry. Or maybe it’s because I’m letting the one thing that I think truly defines me, the one thing that I may be remembered by, even if for a short moment, is slowly slipping in-between the flotsam and jetsam of an uneventful and uninteresting life, be forgotten. 

I haven’t written anything in a year, letting all types of good ideas slip through the holes in my well-worn jean pockets. I realized I missed it when I was outside in my yard one morning. “What’re you doing?” My ex-girlfriend/roommate says from the front door. “What…?” I say leveling my gaze. “This is your third pass.” She sounds bothered, which is the tone that usually sends me to the garage or office. I stop my wander, puzzled at her botherment because I am not hatching another plan to ruin her yard with one of my brilliant ideas…but how would she know this. “I’m not doing anything.” I say, which she understands to mean that I am not planning another ruination of nature. “Well, then what are you doing?” She says, not differing in inflection from the first time she said it. I hear her, but now I am confused…what am I doing? I look up to tell her I don’t know, but there was too much time spent thinking and not talking, so she is gone from the still-open front door. I look down and change my wander towards one of my many unfinished projects. That was a week or so ago and now with her question embedded in my head I guess I was, and am, looking for one, if not all, of those lost ideas, or maybe just a spark that would help ignite that old forgotten, yet familiar flame of creativity I used to enjoy. 

I haven't written a word for a couple months now, but I am finding all kinds of lost scribbling’s as I try to find a place for all my past schoolwork. This and the occasional golf trip down to Galt, CA, that surprisingly has a very nice course. So as I try to stay ahead of my grades, which I am starting to fail at, I will promise to write a little more here and there, finish some unfinished stories that some people are impatient for, and maybe even start yet another unpublishable book, which came to me in a dream last night. So fare well, where ever you may fare and wish me luck with all the crap I have going, one day this will all be in my 40 page biography that will simply be the word "idiot" written down in one long sentence.

The light on the outside of the shades were just starting to make the transition from night to morning, letting me know that I was golfing today with my "woman-friend". A word that can only be said in a Big Lebowski type of manner.

I look forward to these little outings every Sunday, not only because I love to golf, or live across the street from my home course, but because of a woman that kind of looks like the one to the left. But not because of what you think, this is not that, she is my first platonic woman friend, and a pretty good golfer. We both bring our flasks, both bring beer, both worry about our lost cigarette packs when we sit in the golf cart. She made a specific point before our first round that she didn't like to be coached when playing and since I wasn't that good at golf, let alone coaching, I agreed not to. One or both of us usually have a hangover from the previous night’s adventures and for the first 7 or 8 holes we exchange stories about who said what and other drunken dimensions that can range from paranoid to paralyzing. But she usually beats me in the story categories talking most of the time, including through my back swing. She knows she's not supposed to but doesn't care and does it anyway. It started off the same way today. I try to give advice in the places I know how to, but the advice is not needed, so I slip into storytelling, fitting a short but stupid anecdote about times I've had that she doesn't know about. I'm 12 or 14 years older than she is and get to live life like a 30 something every time she starts another story. Today on top of all the stress relieving conversation of 4 holes, I begin to notice that we are both hitting the ball pretty well. Missing our usual places to screw up, she continues about how hard it is to date, with the ins and outs of the male psyche. "You've got to know by now that we as men are completely screwed up and completely don't care." I say, but again she already knows. Her request to put simile faces on the score card when she doesn't do well on a whole fall on deaf ears, and I keep "real" score. I crush drive after drive, hitting some of the longest balls I've ever hit. (She snickers) But like usual, I miss the easy puts, or have that one bad shot that always ruins a hole. By the end of the round I am buzzed and weary and she tells me to go home and take a nap, so I do. Upon waking up I add our scores, just so I can tell her that I was keeping score. She shot a 96, something she's never done before, and I end up with an 83, something I've never done before. It was a good day for golf.

I have a good memory, although some still largely disagree. Yet, more times than not, the things that are stored in my head have remained untarnished by the very head that holds them. I only know this because of the fact-finding due diligence of others that have happened across my path, which earned them free admission, and a front row seat to the sometimes-unwanted memory replays. Of course, they go searching for the truth because how could my truth be the truth? "I mean, really, it's Chris...CHRIS! How can he be right all the time?" They say, year after year, decade after decade, memory after memory. Maybe it's the fear of being jipped (the closest phobia to this feeling would be Atelophobia) that drives me to embed the subtle nuances of the memory at hand. Time, atmosphere, environment, are the most important. You need to "drill down" into the definitions of the adjectives associated with the memory, then branch out until it feels real. This means that to me the embarrassing moments, awful decisions, even the broad feeling of dread when young aren't just pictures on the wall, they are re-felt in veracious tone and timber. So, as I access the memories that had once tore across those younger days, there is no embellishment to lessen the embarrassment, no forgetting the awful decisions, and no mental salve to heal the still open tears that continue to wound me...that will always wound me...I am cursed to remember infallibly. 

As I sit and finish the toned down second coming of my idiosyncrasies, I feel the need to clarify my past relationship, this is something of a change for me, damning the torpedoes and all. I learned an expression the first couple of months living here, and I think I should be allowed to use this remembered sentence that explains a painless way to deal with loss, because recently I unwittingly told someone I was from Buckhorn, not Pioneer. That sentence is, "It's not your girlfriend (boyfriend), it's your turn." Crass? Maybe. Juvenile? If said in the wrong tone. Genius? Definitively. There are simply too many ways a small town on the edge of the wilderness can chip away at your soul, depress you to a point of no return to where someone finally finds you squatting behind an abandoned cabin after the same community that drove you there has spent weeks looking for you. That short sentence takes the sting out of a failed relationship, and lets you continue to fight all the other demons you bring with you from your respective escapes. Yes, she left me for someone else, and I understand her reasoning, and her friends, which I now consider my friends, all supported me through the breakup...as she did also. Weird, I know, but it is what it is up here, a far cry from taking sides, starting rumors, trying to defame and break the person that you've broken up with, like they do in other places. So as I still sit and try to become relevant again, reading through some of my older stuff, I read it with a new perspective and try to figure out what I can use to make me pissed off, so that when I do begin writing again, I don't lose that edge...because I don't do rainbows. My turn was over, cut short because I didn't want to put another quarter in the machine, but like the arcades of old, just because your turn is over, it doesn't mean you have to leave the arcade, and you can always help the people playing to get to the next level. I was always better at the next game anyway.