You know I was thinking recently about which celebrities would be cool to sit around and smoke a joint with. You know, kind of like a pot round table. Besides getting a mad case of the munchies, or giggling uncontrollably, people tend to get philosophical when they get stoned. They sometimes have deep conversations, even if those conversations are not very coherent or intellectual. But often times they are. They share deep thoughts and unique opinions about any number of topics. And the thing about pot, is that it crosses cultural barriers. People from all walks of life do smoke or have smoked pot. Rich, poor, black, white, old, young, gay, straight, Asian, Hispanic, males, females, it really doesn’t matter. It is one of the few things that is popular among any group of people. Oh sure, college students and the NBA are probably the biggest users, but heck, that is only because that is what you do in college: you get stoned. But if I were to put together a small group of people to sit around and get high with and engage in some fun conversations, who would I want there?

• Bill Clinton- Everybody knows he smoked pot and I don’t care what he says, he inhaled. And shit, he might even still smoke it. And although he is a total bullshitter who tells many tall tales, he is still extremely brilliant on many topics and very charming. Hell, I would imagine just having a one on one conversation with him would be awesome, even without the weed.
• Snoop Dogg/Lion Or Whatever He Is Calling Himself This Hour- I used to not be a Snoop fan. Actually I used to hate him. And it’s not even like I’m a huge fan of him now. But the guy seems fun. And this one time his doctor and homey one Dr Dre came through with some bubonic chronic that made him choke so I’m quite certain that he would bring some really good shit. I mean the guy is a virtual pot legend, almost as big of a legend as………..
• Willie Nelson- Shit, this guy is basically the Godfather of pot. The guy will be 80 years old this year and he still smokes pot. There is a chronic toke cloud that pretty much surrounds his tour bus wherever it goes. And everybody loves Willie. Republicans and Democrats complain incessantly about each other but they all lover Willie. I’m thinking any stoner can learn some good tips from him. Hell, he has smoke so much pot that his hair is pretty much pot.

Could you imagine getting these three together in the same room? That would be one helluva night. I’m sure I could have added a few more people to this list but couldn’t think of any others off the top of my head. So who did I leave out?

Today one of my oldest, if not oldest, cousin’s died. How do I not know if he was my oldest cousin you ask? Well let me explain it all to you. You will probably find this amazing as I know I do. See, I’m tied for the youngest of six in my family. My twin brother Mark and I were born in 1975. My mom was the youngest of nine. She was born in 1934. Her oldest sibling who just died about three or four months ago was born in 1921. My grandparents were, get this, born in the 1800s! All four of my grandparents were long gone by the time I was born. But, on my mom’s side it is widely believed that there were 36 grandchildren. My mom’s second oldest sibling was her brother Frank, he was born in 1923 and died in 2009. Well it was his oldest son, Michael or as the family called him, Mickey, who died today at the age of 66. Which means that there was only a 13 year age difference between my mom and her nephew. What is even more weird is that there is a bigger age gap between my two oldest siblings and us then there was between my mom and some of her nieces and nephews! Ain’t that wild?

But back to Mickey. His wonderfully sweet wife called him Mike or Michael and we were sitting around yesterday trying to figure out how he got to be called Mickey. See, I’ve got a theory. See our grandfather was named Michael and we were both named after him. One of my mom’s brothers was named Michael as well (he threatened to kill me once at my Uncle Freddie’s wake………..funny story) but everybody called him Mikey. I think it was to distinguish between him, Mikey, and grandpa that he came to be called Mickey. Of course the ironic part is that well Mikey and Mickey both had their names adjusted, I never did, in spite of being the youngest one of them all. The family still calls me Michael, although most of my friends call me Mike.

I was never close with Mickey though. Even though he only lived about 20 minutes away, I never really got to know him. I got to know his three daughters, who were closer in age to use. In fact, our first cousin has two kids that are older than us. Heck, that is the way it is though on mom’s side of the family. Most of my cousin’s have kids that are older than us. Shit, I’ve got dozens of cousins in California that I have never met. Sad to say but I don’t even know a lot of their names which is probably why I don’t know which one is the oldest. The only thing I know is that Mark and I were the youngest of all of them.

Mickey though was overall a good guy; a good family man. I’m full Italian and those of you who are Italian all have loud and obnoxious family members. Well, this was Mickey. He didn’t talk. He yelled. Not that he was angry. That was just the way he spoke, instead of talking he yelled. He was quite overweight though which probably played a big part in his death. I’ll always remember him though as being loud, but overall pretty nice. I didn’t get to know him very well though, which is pretty  much the theme of my relationship with damn near all of my extended family. Nevertheless, farewell Mick.

I  have always been nothing if not obsessed with presidents and all things presidents. So when I discovered that the History Channel was airing “The Ultimate Guide to Presidents” I was all over that shit, cramming in all eight hours between Friday and Sunday of this past weekend. One of the presidents I have always been very conflicted on is Harry Truman. Being a liberal, you would think I would automatically like him, right? But for me it is not that simple. See, what muddles his legacy, at least for me, is the dropping of the bomb on Japan to end World War II. I have got a big problem with killing innocent civilians and those bombs that were dropped killed hundreds of thousands and maimed hundreds of thousands more. In theory this goes against everything I stand for as a human being. I do realize why he did it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

There were people that said that Truman acted with courage by dropping bomb. There are people who believe that had he not dropped it he would have been impeached. In spite of my views, I do have to appreciate the anguish he must have had when he was deciding whether to use the bomb or not. That could not have been an easy decision. I know the other option was to not drop it and invade Japan which would have really extended the war and cost many American lives. In that respect, it took a lot of balls to drop the bomb.  In dropping the bomb he acted purely in what he saw was the best interest of the United States and Allied Forces, however I don’t think he acted in the best interest of the entire world and all of mankind. The level of death, destruction, and carnage that came from the bomb was unlike anything before it or since. The poor people who managed to survive the blasts lived out their remaining days in agony; in some cases for years. I don’t think I could have made that decision knowing how much it would affect people, even if it was what was best for the U.S. at the time.

Of course since then, Japan has recovered and U.S.-Japan relations have even been fully repaired. But, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the awesome amount of destruction that we caused the people of Japan. America has always done a lot of preaching about peace but has always had a very hard time living up to that very ideal. And then when you throw in the fact that the most gruesome and powerful act of war ever carried out in the history of mankind was done by our country it makes me wither away from national pride. Which is why I’m left with these mixed feelings about Harry Truman.

Today of course is Martin Luther King Day and also happens to be the second inauguration of President Barack Obama. Regardless of what you think of him, this was a very significant day in the history of these Divided States of America. A century and a half ago, blacks were slaves and now we have a two term half black man as president. 50 years ago, whites had the right to not serve blacks in hotels and restaurants, but look at us today. Oh sure, Obama’s first election was a huge deal and probably more significant than his second, but let’s not underestimate the importance of this moment. A lot of people including myself believed that he had more pressure on him in his first term than any other president because he had the added attention of being the first non fully white person in office and he had to prove to certain people that he would not be any lesser of a president because he is black. After all, black presidents CAN disappoint their supporters just as much as white presidents!

Obama became the first president since Reagan to win twice with more than 50% of the popular vote. To quote Vice President Joe Biden, “that’s a pretty big fucking deal”. While I’m quite certain there were people who did not vote for him or did vote for him because of the color of his skin, more people made the decision in without thinking of the color of his skin. I know you will here a lot of people talk about how divided the country is racially or about how far we still have to go when it comes to race relations, this post is about how far we have come. Martin Luther King would be shocked and proud.

I’ve long been a strong opponent of racism and bigotry in every way, shape, and form. To see how far we have come in such a short period of time though makes me proud. As Obama stood there rambling on about blah blah blah politics, I sat there just amazed at where we are here in history. Just think about this and let this sink in for a few. When Obama was born in 1961, there were still many states where his parents (a white mom and a black father) could not legally get married. There were still signs in the south that read “white only” or “colored only”. There was still a pretty big divide between the blacks and whites. Hell, more recently blacks were not allowed at Augusta National golf course in Georgia until 1990, only three presidents ago.

Love him or hate him for his politics; hell we have always done that in this country with our presidents going back to the beginning. But, appreciate what we have done and how far we have come in such a short amount of time. And appreciate the time in which we live. 100 years from now people are going to look back at this time and wonder with jealousy what it was like to live in our time much like we look back and wonder what it was like to live in America at the dawn of our inception. We should feel privileged to live in such a time and feel a sense of pride and optimism about what the future holds.

January 2000 was the dawn of a new millenium and for me, the dawn of a new age and cold, stark reality: I was about to become a parentless 24 year old.

I walked in my mom’s hospital room on Sunday, January 2, 2000 and about 12:15 in the afternoon. As soon as my sister and I walked into the room, my mom’s brother Freddie, turned to us and said “I’m sorry.” I cried for about 30 seconds. It would be the last time I would cry for a year. The next feelings I felt were relief. It was finally over. It was painful to watch her suffer and slowly wither away; struggling to breath. She was now out of her misery and we were now out of our pain of waiting for the end to come. No more all nighters at the hospital. No more cringing with temporary fear every time the phone rang at home or work. The relief was finally here. Sure, going through the wake and funeral and grieving process would not be easy but for me watching her die was the hardest part.

Over the course of the next few days we were inundated with phone calls and visitors. A cousin of ours had driven straight through from Florida to go to the wake than drive back home right afterwards. As for the wake and funeral, it was about as great as one could expect a funeral to be. My mom ran an in home daycare for over 30 years and that brought out a lot of people. We also have a huge family and lots of friends, but the overwhelming response of well wishers was touching and really helped us feel good. The room and the funeral home was packed with people the night of her wake. The funeral itself, while not attended by as many people, still had a good number. The drive from the funeral home to the church is probably only about a quarter of a mile, but somebody told me there were so many cars that the hearse had reached the church before the last car left the funeral home. While I don’t know if this is true, it goes to show you how many people were there. I can not even begin to express how grateful we were and how good this made us feel to know that our mom had touched so many lives. I gave the eulogy in front of a church full of people, just a bit nervous at having to speak in front of the most amount of people I ever had to at the time which was one of the toughest in my entire life.

In the months that followed, life transformed into a new normal: going on without my mom and without a safety net should I lose my job or have some other sort of catastrophe occur. In my eulogy about my mom, I stressed a couple of things: we had to learn lessons from my mom’s death; otherwise it was all just of bad shit that happened. My mom did not have health insurance and did not go for a yearly physical or take very good care of herself. I made a promise to myself that I would find a job with health insurance and go for yearly physicals. I did get a new job in February of 2001 and have gone for yearly physicals every year since then and will continue to go for the rest of my life. Another thing I told myself I would always do is help people who have gone through similar situations I had gone through. When my mom was dying, I leaned on people who had sadly been there before and now I had the chance to offer the same sort of support. Heck, it is why I’m writing this post.

While I was relieved that it was finally over, the reality was that I had just gone through a rather traumatic experience. I was told that the grieving process can take anywhere from six months to a year and in some cases longer and that one should not make any major life decisions during that time. Case in point, I had a cousin who lost her mom whom she was very close with and within a matter of months after she died, my cousin packed up and moved from Illinois to Tennessee and went on to later regret moving. I did not want to be like her so I put off making any major changes.

Every night though, I would lay in bed and replay in my head the events that I had lived through since my mom got sick. I think this played a big part into my having dreams just about every night of my mom. I remember one dream in particular that really scared the shit out of me. My mom had come back from the dead to tell us that dad was not with her; that he was in Hell. The dream shook me for quite some time. Til this day, I still have dreams about my mom probably once a week or so. The dreams are always bittersweet; on one hand I get to see her again and hear her voice, on the other hand I wake up to the reality of never seeing her again. My guess is that I will have those dreams off and on for the rest of my life.

Waking hours were not immune from thoughts of the situation that we went through. Often times when I was driving or by myself I would reflect on the whole ordeal. Still though, I had not actually broken down and cried. This is how I handle things though. I’m not a crier. I’m more of a dweller; instead of one huge, occasional meltdown, I resort to constantly dwelling on things. In some respects, that might be worse than the occasional breakdown.

As the year drew to a close, I felt myself going further and further away from her. As usual, we continued on with our traditional New Year’s Eve party at our house. Only this time it was a little bit different. As the clock got closer to midnight, I could feel a weight building up in me. I started to feel like I was leaving her behind in some way. It would no longer be the last year that she was alive in. The clock struck midnight, I briefly hugged everybody and said Happy New Year as overwhelming sadness grew over me. I rushed out of the room and headed to my bed room as the tears started to stream down my face. I got in my room, closed the door behind me and slumped down with my back against the door and sobbed “I’m leaving her behind! I’m leaving her behind!”

I had continued to drive my mom’s old mini van after she died, but it was growing increasingly unreliable and I knew I had to do what needed to be done: I had to buy a new car. So in late April of that year, I trade it in for a brand new car and as I walked out of the dealer eying one of the last connections I had to my mom, I got a little bit teary eyed. Another part of her was gone. 

A couple of months later in  June of that year my best friend J.T. and I were driving back from a Cubs game in Cincinnati. Although I had my moments, I had not been myself for the past couple of months. Lot’s of changes had gone on in my life. In addition to the new car, I had gotten a new job with more responsibility that I ever had before. My mom’s passing was still casting a shadow over me. As we drove, he asked me what had been bothering me lately. I started to gently cry as I told him that things were changing so fast and I didn’t know if I could handle it all.

Things did get better as the year went on though. Each month, I felt myself getting more and more comfortable with my life. I think the conversation on the way home was probably a turning point that went a long way towards helping me overcome things. Later that year my twin brother got engaged with plans of a wedding in the summer of 2002. During the reception, they had the typical daddy-daughter dance which is always heartwarming to watch. Next though was my brother’s turn to dance. The dj said that since our mom wasn’t there, he would dance with the mom of his best friend, Rusty, who had been like a mom to him since our mom passed. They started to dance and I just lost it. I quickly left and went downstairs where my friend Dave followed me. As I hugged him, I cried about how I missed them: my mom and dad. It was then that I realized that because I was so young when my dad died, I never had a chance to grieve for him. In losing my mom, I was probably grieving for the loss of BOTH parents, albeit for my dad twenty years later.

I am happy to say though that I did finally make it through the loss. I can honestly say though that having a strong support group of friends made things so much easier to take. For us, our friends had grown to become our family. Most weekends were filled with spending time together going out and having parties and doing things to make each other laugh and have fun. I’ve always contended that laughter is one of the best stress relievers and that was a big part of helping to adjust to the new life I had to encounter. And this is why we have friends and family; to share in the good times and to help each other through the bad times. Remember, you are not alone; life’s trials and tribulations are overcome by leaning and relying on others when you need them. Heck, you would expect them to lean on you when they are having a tough time.

Be strong Allison, but know that it is okay to have weak moments. It is okay to let somebody lift you up or carry you. It is okay to reflect. It is okay to cry and to have a moment. It is okay to think back and wonder why. Let yourself be helped by others. It is part of the grieving process. It is part of what makes us human, It is part of what will get us through it. It is part of what helps us heal and become stronger and overcome life’s most difficult challenges. Life is not easy. You never know when you are going to be thrown that curve ball. You never know when the drop is going to happen. Just when things are at their best and you are at the top of that roller coaster, you can’t see the bottom coming. All you can do is prepare yourself for the tough times so that you can cope and come out a better person. Someday you will look back on it all and be proud of how you made it through. You will know that what you went through will help you when you encounter other dire situations. And you will know that you will be able to help others overcome challenges.

Hang tough. It is worth it.

Recently a very sweet Xangan lost her father suddenly and as you might expect, she is struggling through the grieving process. It reminded me of when I lost my mother some 13 years ago. In all my years here on Xanga, I don’t think I have posted much about my mom and her death. I’m going to attempt to do this in one post, however it might take more than one to fully tell the story.

My dad died when I was four leaving my mom to raise us from that point on. Being that I took after my mom in that I was stubborn and sometimes childish, as you would expect, I had a difficult relationship with my mother to say the least. I know a lot of people have trouble getting along with their parents, but for me it might have been that much more of a challenge simply because of the age gap between us. My mom was 41 years old when she gave birth to my twin brother and I, so naturally this was more than just your typical parental-child generation gap; shit she was old enough to be my grandmother. As I became a teenager and young adult, my relationship with my mom grew difficult and contentious to say the least. Some of this was my fault, some of it was her fault; either way it was not a good situation in the least. While I can certainly go on and on about the various arguments and disagreements we had throughout the years, that is not what this post is about.

In August of 1999, my mom started experiencing some pain in the back part of her leg. My mom did not have health insurance so she never went to the doctor not even for any sort of routine care. But, eventually the pain grew so bad that she went and in September of that year she was diagnosed with cancer. While the pain in her leg was from cancer in her bone, the doctors had determined that it had started in her kidney and had already spread to her leg and lymph nodes. This meant that she was already two strikes down. I still remember vividly when she was diagnosed. I was working second shift at the time so the task of driving her to the hospital for a bone biopsy fell on me. The procedure was a surgical one and consisted of her having to be put under. After the surgery she was still out of it in the recovery room while I talked with the doctor. I asked him flat out  if it was cancer. He said it was. I was stunned. I left the room and wandered aimlessly around the hospital. It was the loneliest moment of my life. My mom was always a tough and strong woman who had gone through hell in her life. On the way home my mom nervously asked me if the doctor said it was cancer. I froze for a brief second and tried to summon up the courage to tell her the truth but all that came out of my mouth was “I don’t know.” It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

That night I went to my best friend J.T.’s house. He had known that I was taking my mom for the procedure. As he sat on a chair watching an old Seinfeld rerun, I walked in and instantly started sobbing, and instantly hugging him for support. I knew then that I would be able to count on him as my rock that I could lean on for support over the course of the coming months. It is fair to say that without him, I would have had a terrible time making it through what remains as one of the worst times of my life. I can say the same thing about my cousin and one of my mom’s best friends. Without their support, this awful situation would have been made much much worse.

The months that followed found me taking my mom for her treatments several times a week and trying to take care of her at home, sharing the responsibility with three of my other siblings. Being that I worked second shift, I was the one who took care of her in the later evenings. Her treatments left her weak and sick, often times throwing up and running a fever. I recall one time when I was online surfing the internet while my mom was in the other room watching tv. I heard her choking and calling out for help and I went in the room to try to help her but all she kept doing was coughing and asking for me to help her. The look of fear was in her eyes which was a very hard thing for me to see. It was at that moment that I felt completely and utterly helpless. I had no idea how to help her and what was even worse was that for the most part, she was beyond help. What a horrible feeling to have; to look in the eyes of the strongest person you knew and only see the overwhelming fear of the unknown and realize that there is not a damn thing you could do to help her.

In October of 1999 two of my mom’s friends took her to one of her doctor visits. That afternoon, one of them called me over to their house and sat me down and told them the sobering truth: the doctor said at best, she only had 6-9 months to live. My mom did not know as they asked the doctor this while she was not in the room. I shared this news with a couple of my friends but almost felt a sense of relief that there was an end in sight to the horrible suffering she was having. In November of that year my mom tearfully asked the doctor to put her in the hospital saying that all she wanted was to get better. As  mentioned my mom was a tough and gruff lady. She did not openly show us a lot of love. The only time I can recall my mom telling me she loved me when I was a kid was when I went in for surgery to have a cyst removed when I was nine. So one day I was visiting her in the hospital and I was getting ready to leave. I told her I would see her later and as I was leaving the room she stopped me and said “Michael, I love you.” I was taken aback a first but responded that I loved her too. I walked out of the room towards the elevator, nearly in tears. After that, every time we saw her we told her we loved her before we left.

The day before Thanksgiving, the doctor summoned my siblings and I to the hospital to tell us the grim news: there was nothing else that he could do for her. This hit my brothers very hard; for me though again it was more relief than anything else. I think because I kept getting the news sooner than them, I was kind of ahead of them in the whole grieving process. Also my twin brother and I had a falling out and had not spoken to each other in three years. That day we got home and my older brother told us that we needed to reconcile for mom’s sake. That was all he needed to say. We both agreed enough was enough and moved on. There was no hug, no I’m sorry, no emotional breakdown. Just a brief “okay it’s over” and that was it. Funny, huh.

The day after Thanksgiving my mom came home from the hospital to live out her life. She was going to have a hospice nurse come in and check on her every day but of course, we all still lived at the house. The nurse told us that she would be there just to make mom comfortable until she died and that we very well might wake up one day to find her dead. This of course, made us all feel uneasy. That night though, she took a turn for the worse. Her breathing labored heavily and we did not quite know what to do. So we called the ambulance and my mom left her home for the last time. We now started what can only be described as a death watch for the next week. The doctor said she could go at anytime so we should get as many people there as possible. So we summoned our sister from Denver to come see her for the last time.

The nights and days at the hospital seemed endless. We were determined for her not to be alone when she died. While I had been strong to that point, I could not bear to be in the hospital room with my mom as she laid there, struggling to breath as she slowly died a painful death. I would walk in the room, see her for a few minutes and leave. I told my siblings that they would need to be the ones to be in there with her; I simply could not handle it but I would be there for them when she finally passed. I remember saying that I could not wait for the whole thing to be over; that in a year things would be so much easier. I also recall being so stressed that I was losing weight, in spite of the fact that I was not exercising or dieting at all. People kept asking me what I was doing to lose weight and I told them that I was on a stress diet; sure the stress would take years of my life but at least I would leave behind a thin corpse! We also had a wonderful group of amazing friends who stood by us through the whole thing. Many of them stood at the hospital with us all night, sleeping in the waiting room with us or in the room with my mom. Hell, a couple of times we would show up to the hospital and they would already be there, waiting in the waiting room for us. While some of my mom’s family was wonderful, others were heartless and mean; some of my mom’s siblings took the worst time of our life and managed to make it worse.

After about a week, my mom managed to pull through and she was eventually transferred to a nursing home in December of 1999. Each day I would stop by the nursing home to see her before I went to work. On December 30, 1999 I stopped by to find that my mom was in a rather frazzled state and was not doing well. That night she was transferred back to the hospital. I know this sounds weird,  but every year my brothers and I threw a New Year’s Eve party at our house. We were determined for life to go on and this year our good friend Dave was planning on proposing to his girlfriend at the stroke of midnight on NYE. So we still had our party, although it was a little bit more subdued and I remember not getting drunk at all because I was worried about having to be called to the hospital at any moment.

The next day we went to see mom in the hospital. Of of our lives, my mom dressed my twin brother Mark and I alike or bought us the same clothes. We hated it and always tried our best to not dress alike. But, that day I showed up at the hospital to find that Mark was wearing the same shirt as me. Although we had not planned it, the last time we saw our mom alive we were wearing the same shirt. The next day, January 2, 2000 we got a call from the hospital about 11:30 in the morning. They told us to rush to the hospital as the end was near. I drove my sister and I in my mom’s mini van. Now keep in mind, I was used to driving a tiny Chevette and not a mini van, so parking it was not easy for me. As I struggled to park the van in the parking garage at about 12:12 pm, upstairs in her hospital room with one of her older brothers by her side, my mom took her last breath.

Next post, the year after she died.

Why does it seem I always have trouble sleeping or at the very least falling asleep? I’m a naturally hyper guy. And I do eat a lot of sugar throughout the course of the day. But, I thought eventually the sugar is supposed to wear off and you are supposed to get that inevitable crash that makes you sleepy. Yet for me, I don’t think I ever really get that crash. It is not often when I’m tired. Even though I’m at a point right now in which I’m working 12 hours a day and getting up way earlier than anybody should have to get up, I’m usually not tired or worn out at the end of the day even though I should be. Oh sure, there are sometimes when I fall sleep in front of the t.v. but that tends to happen when I’m overly tired from lack of sleep. But when I want to fall asleep, I can’t seem to do it.

Most nights it takes me at least 20 minutes to fall asleep and in some cases, it can take over an hour. But what is really crazy is that while I’m laying in bed, any number of random thoughts could be going through my head. From the Department of Too Much Information comes this: I’ve always been a big proponent of an orgasm before bed, that way I’m not laying there preoccupied with sex like I am the other 17 hours of the day. But instead of clearing my mind for sleep, it clears my mind to think of other totally off the wall shit; shit that while fine to think about during the normal course of a day, what you shouldn’t be thinking about while you are trying to fall asleep at night.

My most common topic used to be death. For years; no, decades, I would lay in bed and think about dying. I know. Real upbeat, ain’t it? And while that is still a thought in my head from time to time, it is no longer the obsession that it used to be. A lot of times I will you know, do my thing and then maybe read a little bit on the internet before bed and then have the topic of what ever I was reading stuck in my head. Things like who is the most likable guy in all of sports. I know, lame right? And what is even more lame is that the thought keeps me up at night. Or how is it that the Cubs have somehow not won a World Series in a million fucking years. Or is Jay Cutler a top 10 quarterback (the answer is no, in spite of what the rest of Chicago thinks). Or where I want to travel to. Or movies, like how fucking amazing Hitchcock is and why don’t more people of my generation appreciate him. Or how I’m excited to have breakfast in the morning. Or another most recent common thought is the whole gun debate in America. Heavy shit. Or other political topics. About the last thing I’m thinking of is the task at hand: falling the fuck to sleep.

I guess a lot of people have other real problems keeping them up at night. Like money woes or problems with their spouses or kids or job or other things. The funny thing is that none of those issues keep me up at night, instead it’s all those other goofy topics; like I’m having a conversation with myself about these various things and it is a pretty interesting conversation since, oh, by the way it’s late at night and I’m trying to sleep.

As many of you no doubtedly know, we are a nation that is heavily divided when it comes to, well, just about everything. And it is not even that we are so divided, it is just that we are so HATEFULLY divided. Technology is great in many ways and in this day and age we have the ability to read an article online and instantly comment on it for the entire world to see and also respond to our comment. Well that certainly is a great thing, it also allows for people to say whatever the fuck they want regardless of how mean or nasty it might be. And I want to preface that I STRONGLY agree that people should be able to say whatever they want on these comments. Fortunately we live in a country with freedom of speech which is a great way to live. In China they don’t have freedom of speech and therefore much of what is posted out there is censored and never sees the light of day. Or worse yet, if a journalist writes an article that the government doesn’t agree with they can then soon find themselves in prison.

But back to the good ol’ U.S. and the comments that people leave on articles. First of all, there are losers out there who turn every single article they read into a political argument. They read an article about potatoes and they leave a comment ripping the president for something totally unrelated to potatoes. Or they read article about a movie and here comes a comment about how Obama is a terrorist. And then there are the comments on the news of the day. Holy shit, talk about nasty. As if disagreeing with somebody’s politics was not far enough, people need to find a way to not just go over the line, but leap as far as they possibly can and almost compete with others to see who can say the most vile thing, most of the time, against Obama.  During the election, I read an article about the race between Obama and Romney and somebody posted a comment saying “I wonder how long it will take for Romney to get the @#$$%^ stench out of the White House after he wins.” Wow. What fucking year is this, 1863?

While people including myself were pretty mean to George W Bush while he was president and although liberals and Democrats are nasty to Republicans even now, it pales in comparison to the level of vile hatred that is coming from the Republicans and the Obama haters. Case in point, the above comment. A few years ago Jon Stewart grew fed up with the vile rhetoric being spewed and held a rally in Washington called the Rally To Restore Sanity, which, for all it’s good intentions, did not result in much restoring of any sanity. People still go to the extreme and instantly compare their political enemies to Hitler or Stalin or other evil leaders of the past. I remember seeing a sign at that rally that read “Hitler was Hitler” which sums things up perfectly: there was only one Hitler and nobody else is on that level. As much hate as people have for Obama, can you honestly say that he is Hitler? Seriously. Fucking Hitler? The same can be said of George W Bush. Not Hitler. Neither one of them even close. And not even close to becoming close to being even a sliver of Hitler. They fail to realize that just the mere freedom they have to compare Obama with Hitler and not wind up in jail for such comparisons automatically means that Obama is not as bad as Hitler.

And not everything is about politics. When I read an article about sports, I should not expect to find a comment about politics. I just read an article on Yahoo Sports about former MLB loser Milton Bradley beating his wife. And what was one of the comments? “No steroids involved, or mental illness, please step away.  THE GUNS ARE TO BLAME!” This had nothing to do with the hot topic gun debate going on in this country, yet some rabid pro gun person just had inject a gun comment. I follow sports in part to get away from garbage like this and every day life; can’t we just stick to the topic at hand? And I should have known I would be in for a shitstorm of asshole comments when I clicked on the article about Obama welcoming BCS champs Alabama to the White House. Several comments referred to him as Obummer which isn’t all that bad especially in comparison to the one that referred to him as Obamatard. And more comments of people arguing over how they are not true Americans because they don’t have the same opinions as themselves. Give me a fucking break, this is just a simple article about how the national champs were welcomed to the White House, just like every other team that wins a championship regardless of which party is in the White House.

Look I’ve got no delusions about how the country used to be. America has always been divided. People have always disagreed and said vile things to each other. I just don’t understand why EVERYTHING has to turn political. And I refuse to accept that we need to be as vile and as nasty as we can possibly be all the time. I will leave you with a sentiment that John McCain said years ago (sorry but I don’t recall the exact quote) “Why do our opponents have to be our enemies instead of just being our opponents?” Just because we disagree with somebody, doesn’t mean we have to hate them or that they are as evil as Hitler. They still might be a good person but they just have different beliefs.

Can any of you guess what this building is? Wait. Take a guess. Now guess again. And again. And yet again. You are wrong on all guesses. This is actually a prison if you can believe that located in downtown Chicago. I’m quite certain I have been past this building a few times but never realized it was a prison. Last month a couple of inmates escaped from this prison and the second prisoner was finally caught last week. Just how the fuck does somebody escape from a prison like this you ask? Well first of all you have to have a giant set of fucking balls to even attempt something so daring.

Although I was unable to confirm what floor they were on, I believe I recall reading that they were somewhere like on the 20th floor of this prison. They somehow managed to obtain 200 sheets which they tied together and, get this, scaled down the outside of the building. The windows they climbed out of were only six inches wide so they had to bust a hole through the bottom of the window to get out. Now here is where it giant set of balls come in. I would imagine they looked out the window and then started climbing down with nothing to secure them than those sheets. Now think about this for a second. It is highly unlikely that they climbed down at the same time. Honestly I have no idea if the sheets could hold two medium sized adults at the same time, but let’s just pretend for a second that they could, if you were them would you be willing to take your chances and find out if the sheets could hold both of them? What probably happened is that they each probably climbed down one at a time. Which brings me to another question. How the hell did the second guy know that the first guy had made it safely to the ground and that he should then start climbing down? Keep in mind that not only was he 20 floors up, it was also in the middle of the night and therefore dark. Furthermore, it is not like they could exactly yell at each other or communicate via cell phone to confirm he was down.

While certainly a long term sentence in a prison doesn’t seem very appealing to anybody, I still don’t know if I could even begin to attempt something like this. While my fear of heights is not nearly as bad as it once was, there is still no way in hell I could stand up there, look out and climb down knowing my only means of safety was some sheets that were tied together. Sure, I’m a tiny guy (all of 130 pounds) but even being small would not reassure me that I could make it down safely. Sure, they are criminals and deserve jail, but you have got to handle it to them for having the guts to even attempt something like this.

Every year I try to set goals for the coming year. I know some people do resolutions, but that has never really been my thing. I’ve been making goals at the start of each year dating all the way back to 2012 and perhaps even long before then like 2011. Last year though I sadly did not reach many of my goals for various reasons or another. I set six goals last year. I met one of them. Maybe one and a half if you kind of count the fact that I did come out to some people, however I don’t really count that because it was people that I did not know before 2012 started so is that really coming out? The year for the most part was a total disaster even beyond the goals that I did not meet. At the start of last year I had some things to look forward to such as my best friend’s wedding in Jamaica and everything else that came with it such as the bachelor weekend.

This year though can not be any more different. I don’t have a lot………..no, make that I have nothing that I’m excited or looking forward to. I have no trips planned at all. Of course, by this time in 2011 I had no trips planned either but managed to take five trips after that in 2011. But this year seems so…………..blah. I guess blah isn’t really bad but it isn’t really good either. It’s just blah. Just there. I had a great 2011. And a miserable 2012. Maybe blah is just what I need. In blackjack terms, if 2012 was blackjack for me, 2011 was a bust, I guess blah is kind of the equivalent of pushing with the dealer. As much as I would like a 2013 to be as great as 2011, maybe I should just settle for a push.

But I just have no goals in mind for this year. And because of how much I failed at last year’s goals I’m almost scared to make a goal for this year. Furthermore, I don’t even know what goal(s) I would even want to accomplish this year. I guess I just want to make it through this year alive and well and not any worse off than when I came in it. And I guess I just want to have at least a better year than last year. Perhaps just have a year in which things go better than last year. They don’t have to be as good as 2011 but at least better than last year. A push.