Enter The Ninja

The other day, I needed to talk to my friend about this dream I had about him, this dream in which he was wrongly accused of murder because the dead person’s DNA was all over the couch in his living room, and nobody, neither the cops nor the courts would listen to him or his wife when they told them that they just bought this couch off of craigslist, that they didn’t even know the victim, and because their pleas did nothing but disappear into a bureaucratic vortex of deaf ears, my friend’s wife put on her P.I. hat and took it upon herself to solve the case. Yes, she had a hat. Then the dream went cinematic on me, cutting suddenly to my friend and I, months later after his ordeal, standing at a meat counter in a brightly-lit grocery store, and everything is quiet save the sound of his voice. “They hurt me, Travis” he tells me. “They hurt me bad.” And it’s only then as he’s looking me in the face that I realize his eyes have dimmed just a bit. I have no response for him, nothing worthwhile to say. I wanted to cry for my friend.

I was off-kilter for a good half hour after waking, sorting out the details of the dream from reality, assuring myself that my friend had not, in actuality, been accused of murder, had not been subjected to good cop/bad cop questioning or the violence of incarceration. I had an overwhelming need to tell him about this dream in which he figured so prominently, and finally did when I saw his name pop up in my IM list. We started talking about what a great story it would be, the kind of thing you might put on a stage in front of people for them to enjoy. We’ve been talking about it via email, IM, and text since then.  And as so often happens when people come together to tease the details of a story out of the ether, a ninja has appeared among the cast of characters.

This is not over.

What's Wrong With Your Mind?

I realized a while back that the music loaded on my iPhonamapod was lacking something: good ugly brutal drill-seargent-mean workout music. Sure, I had plenty of uptempo jams in there, some of them plenty aggressive, even. But I had no individual albums loaded up that could drive me all the way through from warm-up to that final agonizing “DON’T YOU FUCKING GIVE UP YOU FUCKING PUSSY!” set and on into the cool-down. So this past weekend while I was making some adjustments to my carrying-around music, I remedied this situation by uploading one of the most perfect workout albums ever recorded, Pantera’s 1992 Texas metal masterpiece, Vulgar Display of Power.

Except for the last song because it’s a piece of shit.

Dude got punched

Understand, I was sixteen years old when this album came out, so I was at a point in my life when I was all about the blind screaming rage. As far as I was concerned, this album was the pinnacle of humanity’s creative endeavors. I don’t recall exactly what I was so very pissed off about all the time. The usual package of teenage boy woes with a crate of fat kid afflictions piled on top of it. But really and truly, the specific focus of one’s anger is of secondary importance when you’ve got power cords, double-kick drums, and demonic vocals providing the sonic backdrop for your angst. I had that shit on constant rotation.

So the other day I went to the gym, ready to give it a try. The gym I go to is in the bottom floor of the building next door to where I work. I go there because it’s free and because there’s hardly anyone there. I’ve often got the whole place to myself. As I walked over, I detected -- what is--? Is that apprehension? Nervousness? See, I had not actually listened to this collection of songs in ages. What would my beloved Vulgar Display sound like to me lo these many years later? Would the production sound shitty compared to the quality of recorded music now? Would it seem so silly as to be painful? Or, horror of horrors, would the music of my youth be too aggressive for these aged sound receptacles of mine? 

But as soon as “Mouth For War” came thundering in, all these worries went and fucked off somewhere. It was exactly what I had been looking for. I’m not going to go into the details of my exercise routine because then I’d have to punch myself in the face for being one of those people, but suffice it to say that by the time “Fucking Hostile!” rolled around, I was feeling, well, not exactly fucking hostile, but at least reasonably hostile. There was definitely some hostility emanating from my person, but in a positive sense. The blood was pumping, the music was aggro -- I was in a good place.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the door open and a person enter. I turned to see who it was and damn near dropped a weight on my foot. It took a long moment to register what I was seeing, but when the synapses finally got to firing, I realized that, yes, standing in front of me was none other than my old friend Jennifer. What was she doing in town? At my gym no less? What the hell was she smiling at? I pulled the buds out of my ears and stood there breathing heavy for a moment, trying to regain the ability to speak. Between gasps, I forced out the question.

“Jen?”

Something about her looked strange, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. She laughed and shook her head.

“I can’t believe you’re still listening to that shit.”

While it may not have been the absolute last thing I would’ve expected her to say, it wouldn’t have been among my top hundred guesses. I’d barely started to babble out a response -- “Whahuhwhowhat’reyouhuh?” -- when the door opened yet again and in walked another old friend, my oldest friend actually. I’ve known Chad damn near my entire life, since we were just little kids having sword fights with curtain rods and watching the skies over our suburban Houston homes for UFOs. He walked in and stood next to Jennifer. They didn’t look at each other, only at me, like they’d planned this little meeting. And just as I’d noted with Jen, he looked strange somehow. He laughed too.

“I can’t believe you, man.” he said.

“What?” There was clearly a joke here that I was on the outside of. “You can’t believe -- Pete?"

And then who else should walk in but none other than my freshman year crackhead roommate, Pete. And when I say crackhead, I don’t mean he busted his skull open while diving into the wrong end of the pool; I mean that he started off our freshman year at the University of Texas as a harmless pothead and was inhaling rock through a glass tube by the next summer. Until this very moment, that was the last I had seen or heard of him.

“Hey T-man, what’s happening?” He smiled and lit a cigarette. He always was the kind to ignore No Smoking signs, then act surprised when someone in authority pointed them out to him. Oh gosh, I’m so sorry!

And there they stood in a line, all facing me, watching me pant and sweat. An odd reunion in which I seemed to be the only person surprised at its happening. These three and I, the four of us, had never been all friends together. The three of them had maybe met each other at some point or another, but my relationships with each of them had been separate. So the way they’d all gathered here, completely unsurprised to see me or each other, it was highly suspicious. I had the strange feeling I was being intervened with.

And then it dawned on me, Pete’s scraggly hair, his acne-scarred cheeks, the inch and a half long cylinder of ash at the tip of his cigarette that would crumble under its own weight at any second and fall down on his hand -- he was exactly as he was the last time I saw him over fifteen years ago. And Chad with his wide eyes, long hair, and rail-thin body, Jennifer with her jet black hair pulled back with little butterfly clips and that scent of vanilla that followed her like so many admirers -- these weren’t the people they are now; these were the people they were then, back in the day, so to speak, back when the album I currently had blaring in my headphones was one of my mainstays. Pete’s cigarette ash looked close to teetering, but if he was worried about it, it didn’t show. “Seriously man, you still listening to this metal shit?”

“What?” I was totally thrown off. Were these really my friends from over a decade and a half ago standing before me in this gym? What were they doing here? Why these three? Were there more coming? Was one of my exes about to walk through that door?

“You’re what, 30-something now dude?” asked 17, 18, maybe 19 year old Chad. “You haven’t mellowed out yet?”

“What? No! I mean, yes, I have. I haven’t listened to this in years. I--what’s your problem? You come from the past to hassle me about my music?”

“Who is this again?” asked Jennifer.

“Fucking Pantera,” drawled Pete. “Y’all, I remember this fool used to play this shit all the time. And sometimes he’d strap on that guitar of his and fucking play along with it. He’d be all--” and then he proceeded to demonstrate for Chad and Jen what I looked like when I did my dorm room rock god routine. I don’t recall being quite so spastic, but I didn’t argue. I was faintly aware of a guitar solo emanating from my dislodged ear buds. I left it alone, leaving Dimebag Darrell, R.I.P., to do as he pleased.

“Okay Pete, first of all, fuck you dude. I couldn’t listen to classic rock for an entire year after living with you. A year! You made me not want to listen to Zeppelin! And The Doors still irritate me.”

“And you’re still wearing that?” asked Chad, pointing at the ratty old Tool tee-shirt I was sporting.

“Oh my god! You had that in college!” said Jennifer.

Holeyer than thou

“He had it in high school!” said Chad. “We both got that exact same shirt when we saw ‘em in concert senior year.”

“Trav, come on.” said Jen. “I had slightly higher hopes for you than this. Buy some clothes, would you?”

“I’m just wearing it to exercise!” I protested.

“It’s like you haven’t grown up at all.” she continued.

“Yes I have! Seriously, look at this thing. It’s covered in holes. I only wear it to work out or to mow the lawn or -- oh! I have a lawn! I have gardens! I have kids! A wife! Chickens! See? Grown-up stuff.”

“So are you still listening to Tool?” asked Chad.

“On occasion, yeah, and so are you, I might add. Current you, I mean. In fact, you just saw them in concert not long ago.”

“Really? They’re still around?”

“Yep. You went and put the pictures up on your Facebook.”

“What’s a face book?” he asked.

“A book with faces in it?” said Jennifer.

“Why would I put pictures of a concert in a face book?”

“Maybe they were pictures of faces?”

“That sounds stupid.”

“It is stupid.” I said.

“So hey man,” said Pete, “it looks like you ain’t done a whole lot with yourself since college, huh?”

“What?!” I laughed because this had all become so ludicrous. A crackhead was standing here telling me that I hadn’t done much with my life. Three inches of ash hung precariously off the end of his cigarette. “Dude, I’ve done plenty. Probably more than you have, wherever the fuck you are. For all I know you’re fucking dead.”

“Oh now that’s just mean.” said Jennifer.

“Naw, he may well be right.” said Pete. “I ain’t exactly been walking a righteous path.”

“Still, it’s not a nice thing to say.” she said, looking at me. “Be nice.”

“Yeah,” said Chad. “It’s not our fault you’re all old and still pissed off, listening to this shit.”

“I’m not old.” I said.

“They playing Metallica on classic rock radio yet?” he asked

“He was always so angry.” said Jen. “What were so angry about anyway?”

“I wasn’t--! Look, is there something you need from me? Something you need to tell me? Or did you just travel into the future to give me shit?”

“You’re being awfully defensive.” said Jennifer.

“No I’m not!”

My hostility, it was increasing.

“You fuckers are standing here giving me shit about my life just because you happened to catch me listening to Pantera for the first time in literally years when in fact I’ve...” and I started babbling, stammering, spilling out an incoherent bullet list of my life in no particular order, things I’d done, things that had happened to me, accomplishments, failures, the most random of memories, any and every thing I could think of to prove that my life hadn’t gone on pause all this time, that I’d been living, doing. And it wasn’t until I heard myself actually say, “I’m a different person now!” It was only then, as I stood there with cool air-conditioned sweat dripping down my face, that I looked at the three of them and realized the obvious.

These stupid kids don’t know a damn thing.
 
Well, they know how to travel through time
 
I suppose there’s that.

I laughed. “You fucking kids...you don’t know shit, you know that?” And then they laughed, seemingly with me rather than at me for the first time during this exchange. The ash of Pete’s cigarette fell to the floor whole and silently exploded into dust on the industrial carpet. He didn’t seem to notice. We just stood there laughing like idiots. A gym employee passed through, but barely gave us a glance.

With the tables flipped over in my favor, I thought I’d have some fun and drop a few hints about what the future had in store for them.

“So Chad...” I started, ever thought about joining the Army? But before I put voice to the question, he disappeared. Pop. The air rushed to fill the space that had become unoccupied so quickly. Jen and Pete looked at each other, at me, then they disappeared too. Pop. Pop.

Well, I thought, that was....

By this time I was all cooled off and didn’t much feel like hopping back into the routine. I shouldered my backpack and headed out the door, slipping the buds back into my ears. It was right in the middle of a song.

....then when confronted we ask them the question
What's wrong with their mind?!?!
What's wrong with your mind?!?!

Hell if I know, Phil. Hell if I know.

Feel the love

A good portion of the last two weekends have been spent devoted to the celebratory arts, specifically those of the matrimonial nature, more specifically the marriage of my friends Jeff and Tara.

The wedding was this weekend, but the previous weekend found myself and the lads downtown hoisting multitudes of pints to Jeff's honor. Drinks were bought, backs were slapped, conversations were slurred, etc. I think it's safe to say we celebrated our friend quite soundly.

The next night was the ladies' turn to party, so I had the day to get past my hangover and be ready to take on both the kids solo. I've watched them both on my own before, and I've put each of them down to sleep separately, but I had never before been given the challenge of putting both of them down to sleep without any backup. I'm proud to report that my first evening of putting both kids down was a rousing success. There's nothing quite like getting one of your fatherhood duties right to put a little kick in your step.

And then the wedding. Sadly, The Ash could not attend because she was representing at her niece's wedding, which meant that I didn't get to see everybody fawn over Henry and Simon's matching outfits, nor did I get to see Henry dance his over-sugared little head off. But still, I think I got the better end of the deal. May I just toss out an observation? Weddings are a thousand times more fun when it's friends tying the knot rather than family. Family functions can be enjoyable, sure, but when it's your friends at the center of it, when you're able to celebrate among people you've actually chosen to associate with and your only duty is to be the person they know you to be, well then that's the kind of event where I keep finding myself thinking "Damn! I'm glad I'm here!" over and over and over again. There was a really nice moment near the end of the night where someone decided to get a picture of all the friends in attendance. There were several people who, for whatever reason, were not certain that their social standing among the group merited picture inclusion, but everyone started yelling for them to get their asses into the picture. It was just one of those nights where you could feel the love.

An unapologetically double standard

One night last week, I found myself sitting down to a few beers across the table from this fool that I hadn't seen or heard from in going on ten years. You know, one of those kinds of friends who you were tight with back in the days of your wayward youth, then lost touch with at some point, tried to look up a few times with no luck, and had pretty much given up on ever seeing again until one day they drop a comment into your blog and, surprise, sur-fucking-prise, it turns out you're living in the same goddamn city...which isn't really a huge stretch since it's the city you originally met in, but still.

It was good to catch up though, reminisce on our adventures of old and share what we'd been up to in the decade or so since last we met. And it was cool that we had not only the past to talk about, but also the present and even a bit of the future as well. Nothing more awkward
than meeting up with somebody you were friends with way back when and realizing that you now have nothing more in common than the fact that you're both carbon-based life forms and you speak the same language, and are thus forced to keep the conversation centered entirely around the past, lest ye risk the horror of the uncomfortable silence. Thankfully, we didn't have any of that nonsense.

There were numerous moments of relief throughout the conversation, though. See, this friend and I, let's call him "Chief", for that was his nickname back in the day, though I don't think anyone calls him that anymore, but Chief and I used to run in a crowd with some folks who were, shall we say, risk-takers. And, of course, Chief and I used to partake in the risk-taking plenty ourselves. No need to get into details here, but let's just say that there were some of our friends from those days that I was a little hesitant to ask about for fear that the news would be the tragic kind. It just somehow seemed a certainty, with all the crazy shit we did back then, some of us more than others, that somebody would've taken it a step too far. I don't know what made me so arrogant as to think that out of all of us, it'd be somebody else to slip up and not me, but there it is.

Thankfully though, everybody's still alive and kicking, and from the sound of things, even doing well. Which, as I said, was a huge relief. And you know, it's not that I look back on those days and see them through shades of regret. Quite the opposite. In fact, I'm hard pressed to come up with a single goddamn regret about anything we did back then. I'm thankful and glad for every stupid stunt we ever pulled.

Except, then I think about my son doing all that stuff. Running around his first few years of college with his friends, just doing dumb shit in the name of, well, of doing dumb shit. I think about any of my kids doing the things I did, and I have to admit that it kind of stops me in my tracks. I mean, relatively speaking, our insanity only ranged from the light to medium, only occasionally bleeding over into the heavy, and I wasn't around for a lot of the latter. But still, when I think about it, we took ourselves a few risks, any one of which could have gone the wrong way. And the thought of either of my kids having that kind of fun just makes me kind of shudder.

And yet still, I have no regrets. Funny how that works, eh?

Carnival of the Mundane XXXVII

Welcome one and all to this week's Carnival of the Mundane, the XXXVIIth in the series. Here in Holmes-land, the Texas summer hasn't quite reached inner circle of Hell conditions yet, but it's well on its way. So grab something cold, kick back, and enjoy some good bloggin'. Let us go in, shall we?

Just inside the ropes, we have Jason at Roller Coaster Galaxy proving what a good son he is by helping his mom find and set up her new 'puter. At least I assume he's talking about his mom, he might be one of those guys who refers to his wife as Mom. Some people do that, ya know.

Next, Jooley Ann comes cleverly this way to tell us a bit about her baby's napping, breaking her TV habit, rediscovering the joys of babywearing, and solicits opinions regarding swimwear for baby girls. I think I'm actually stumped for an opinion on this one.

Behind this curtain, Tara of Thing What Squeaks fame relates a horrid nightmare of unpreparedness. Look upon it if you dare!

On yonder stage, you'll find Tim, he of the Loaded Gun Theory, realizes that his daughter is finally bored with the food that's being put in front of her. The little ingrate.

Over by the cotton candy, you'll find Erin of Flen Flyys telling us about a swaggerin' swankster at the local grocery who doesn't understand nature's little hints that he needs to GTFO. OMGWTFBBQ?!?!!

Right by my side where I can keep an eye on her, Ashley aka Yer Mama Sez aka my wife informs us why her mother is the harbinger of the Apocalypse.

And last, but certainly not least, over here by our virtual ferris wheel, Marsha uses her Marshalogues to give herself a bit of the old self-psychoanalysis to try and understand why she blames her husband everytime her baby boy drops bombs over a particular target. She is clearly insane.

That's it for this month's Carnival folks. Be sure to check out the Carnival's main page to find plenty of other good readin'.