James' Blog

It’s all rented

your couch

your expensive dogs

your white fireplace

your library of books

your fast car

your jacked up truck

your big clean house

your shiny watch

your trendy shoes

your spotless driveway

your holy underwear

your wedding ring

your fucking job

your stress sweat

your scars

your itchy crotch

your stubby fingers

your perfect finger nails

your frizzy hair

your slanted smile

your slightly crossed eyes

your friends

your feelings

your diagnoses

your disease

your sickness

your wellness

your health

your notebook

your money

your name

your time

your things

these

these things

these things are

these things are all

these things are all rented

you

you own

you own nothing

you own nothing except

you

Love you do

Your feelings? Stuff them.

Love isn’t something you feel. Love is something you do.

Show up. Stay the course. Persist.

“I love you,” means:

Food

Shelter

Water

Protection

“I am here.”

Love

Love takes effort. Effort requires work. Love is work.

“What about feelings?”

What about them. Other people’s feelings for you are a consequence of your actions.

When you act like you love someone

they will love you.

So don’t be surprised that when you stop doing love

that they stop loving you.

You’re standing there with your arms full of wood

demanding that the sticks piled on the ground give you heat

before you’ll give them a spark.

Love and you’ll be loved.

You make the choice.

Hurt or injured

There’s a question I ask

when I see him fall

Something that separates

me from them all.

“Is he hurt or injured?”

I ask myself

and the answer I give

is a guide to my help.

If he’s hurt, he’s ok, though a little bruised up

Some tears and a Band-Aid

And he cheers right up

So I won’t jump in

and make a show of it all

I hang right back

and let him make the call.

His life’s not in danger,

so some space he will get

To think his things over

and choose his upset.

If he’s injured, he’s down and out for the count

And I’ll come a running, and probably shout,

“HOLY SHIT, WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?”

Then roar to the truck and throw open the door.

The hospital knows when they see us there,

to jump us to the front of line up in chairs.

And call for a doctor and at least one nurse

And to start making arrangements for some kind of hearse.

Life is tough and you’re going to lose

if you get hurt and need to stop for a bruise.

And you’ll also lose out on life if you wait

when you’re injured and pounding on Heaven’s gate.

The only thing that lasts

Hate and you will be hated.

Praise and you will be praised.

Love and you will be loved.

It’s so easy, isn’t it? You can sit there in your soft chair and clickity clack.

Read this

Watch that

Flickity flack.

Why bother? Why do you do anything?

It’s so hard, isn’t it? The struggle you face every day, your life takes so much effort.

If only it was easier. Somehow someone could make it easier.

Maybe your friends could help. Too bad they’ve all passed you by.

Not necessarily.

The friends didn’t pass you by, you left them.

Be a friend and you’ll be friended.

But you stopped answering their calls a long time ago, didn’t you?

And why? For what?

The goal you chase, this race you’re running,

running so fast you’ve left them all behind, all of them.

The race you’re running is over.

You’ve already won.

You’ve already lost.

You’ve got what you wanted, it’s right there in your head.

You have achieved.

Now what?

You should celebrate

Have some drinks, stuff your face, stay up, sleep, roll around in bed.

Take it all for granted.

Hold on.

You’ve woken up dead.

Nobody sees you anymore. You’re a ghost.

And you bang on the window, the invisible wall that separates you from people,

people you love and people you praise and people you hate,

but they don’t see you anymore because you’re gone.

You took it all for yourself, all of it, ate it all up.

You didn’t share a crumb.

And now what is it, what is it that drives you now that you’re dead?

You’ve been forgotten.

You’re less than a memory.

All that’s left, all that’s left, are the people you touched.

Did you touch anyone, while you were alive?

Before your crazy train left the station, before you consumed it all?

Did you share anything? Did you teach anything?

You might not think, but you’d be wrong.

Maybe he swings the bat the way you showed him,

planting his back foot, right elbow cocked back.

Maybe he loves the way you showed him,

holding hands and opening doors.

You don’t last, don’t be so vain.

Names fade into names that fade into names.

Nobody remembers your feelings, they remember how you made them feel through your actions.

You can choose to do whatever you want to do.

The only thing that lasts

is what you gave.

The reward

To succeed, you must believe you can succeed

Belief inspires actions

Before you become

You must do

To become successful

You must do the things successful people do.

You must persist.

Because the walls are difficult to climb

Be grateful for the challenges,

for they allow you to show how bad you want it.

Persistence is imperative.

Doing comes before being.

You need to do love

before you feel love.

You need to do success

before you are success.

Don’t get confused, intimidated, down.

The walls are a part of the process.

For nothing in life is free

And no great achievement comes

without sacrifice.

In the end your reward is not a thing

Things come and go

You’ve earned more, that thing which cannot be taken away,

What is it, after the

struggle?

work?

persistence?

The reward

in the end

is you.

Cheers

Cheers to beer

and conquered fears

Facing down that wicked night

voyaging off to unknown heights

Memory sacrificed to gain

ascension from my daily pain

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

Cheers to beers

and conquered fears

Living out as someone else

The master of a stranger’s house

Each drop tastes just like another

Tonight I’m not a son or mother

I bend the black to my own needs

Releasing it through wicked deeds

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

Cheers to beers

and conquered fears

So much planning, plotting, carrying on

Raving, ranting, it’s all gone

I break my chain to Father Time

I slit his throat and make Him mine

The consequences of tomorrow

Are now someone else’s sorrows

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

Cheers to tears

And conquered beers

The light streams in and burns my eyes

I hate this shit and hate those lies

I’ve come back home to find

A stranger clutching missing time

Blood and puke bits of people

I must have done something evil

I don’t whine and snivel and chase regret

I give my time and fake repent

And plan my next assault

On all the things I wish to hault

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

I burn it up

I light the dark

As bottles drop

And hit their mark

Could be

I chased it around town

And, to my surprise

Caught it quite easily

They tell you it’s supposed to be hard

That you have to bleed and sacfrice and hurt

And chase, and chase, and chase and chase

So I did

And got tired and sick and lonely

So I quit

I threw it all away

And went for a walk

And found it

It was quite sunny, unusually warm for the morning

I picked up a coffee

I walked

Not fast

Not slow

Just walked

And there it was, at the end of a beautiful morning

Sitting on a bench beside the water

So I sat beside it

Here’s what I found

Could be

You could be one on someone’s wall

A pinnacle of yourself

Adored

You could be the one they call on and ask

Esteemed

You could be a friend

Trusted, loved

You could be beautiful

A pinnacle of yourself

Your unique you

You could smile

And share your beauty with people who aren’t your friends yet

Could be

Growing, asking, questioning, learning

You could keep it all inside

You could miss it all

And die alone and bitter and sad

You could

Could be happy

Are you?

Find a patch of sun and lay in it

Frankie’s key to a successful, happy life.

Early morning. Sitting in my chair. Drinking coffee.

Our 3, 5 and 7-year-old sons are continuing the slow demolition of our house. My wife is reading. I’m searching for the end I need to begin with to be a highly effective person.

“Look at that dog,” my wife says. Frankie, our French Bulldog, is laying in the only patch of sun around. Totally at peace. And then it hits me.

The key to a successful, happy life is to find a patch of sun and lay in it.

In order to achieve this pinnacle of success is to:

Find a patch of sun
Lay in it

Do not accept anything less than a fully engulfed, blazing patch of sun. Quality is of the utmost importance. Your life, your success, and your happiness are worth the effort.

Then lay in it.

Do not:

plan your future
reminisce about your past

You must be. Let the warmth penetrate your skin, feel it in your core.

Now, carry the feeling you feel at this very moment throughout the rest of your life

and be that sun for others.

These things

It doesn’t have to make sense.

The best parts aren’t there.

It’s a hole.

I’m not a poet or a writer

Notice things.

Write them down.

Connect the dots.

Two random things. Connect them.

That’s new.

What to do? What is a writer who doesn’t write? When you stop writing for yourself and start writing for an audience you’ve lost. You write not what you want, but what you think they want. So it’s fake, it’s phoney. It’s seen through, it lacks authenticity. You know, as some might say.

Then.

These things.

Help people.

Help people feel.

Help people feel what you feel.

In that moment. At that time.

Then you have something.

I am not a man. I am a machine. Yes, there are chunks of flesh tied to bones but make no mistake, it is a machine.

It thinks. It constantly analyzes the possibilities and selects the course of action which is in its best interest.

Physical pain registers but it is not processed as pain. It is merely an obstruction, an impediment to reaching a goal.

These things.

These things that whirr and click

And do all sorts of things.

Stop.

They’re all going to laugh at you.

Who cares?

What if the milk gets spilled?

The entrenched do not want to change. They do things how they do them. You cannot expect to get anywhere towing their line. Line up for your handout, this is what we get paid. That’s what you change.

If you’re doing something different, you’ll know. They’ll tell you. There will be fear. There will be confusion.

How to do it better?

Connect the dots.

How to do it your own way?

These things.

For Sale: Open top child cage (crib) and mattress

I apologize for the blurry first photo, one of them got out and bit my leg when I was shooting. It hurt, I screamed, the photo blurred. There was no time to try again.

For sale is one open top child cage, known to new parents as a “crib.” Survivors, aka “experienced parents,” know the term “crib” to be inaccurate. This open top cage helps to restrict their movements for periods of time. This is extremely valuable at bedtime, preventing them from clawing, scratching, biting you while you try to sleep. You won’t sleep, of course, because of the noise, but you can use this to help get a minimal amount of rest.

The separation afforded by this unit comes in handy for discipline, the thing you pretend/hope will eventually teach them how to behave. It won’t work, of course, but we all have to pretend.

Our cage is in good condition. There are some bite marks which is to be expected. The stickers have been clawed off, for the most part. It’s made of sturdy wood and has the strength necessary to hold when they slam their bodies against it with brutal, savage force.

The cage comes with a mattress. With the mattress, you can feel comfortable knowing when they fall asleep they should be comfortable enough to stay asleep for at least an hour at a time. That’s the best you can hope for, just get used to it. I recommend training yourself to take microsleeps when you’re on the toilet. It’s the only place you’ll be able to get away. You’ll probably find yourself in the bathroom with no recollection of how you got there, not even having to actually poo. If this happens, make sure you flush your fake poo and turn the tap on to simulate hand washing. 7 minutes is all you get. Then take a deep breath and head back out.

We are selling because our youngest can now escape at will. We investigated closed top cage models but there concerns over the legality of these designs. The price is firm at $93 as this is the price of the first hour we were quoted by the therapist, to teach us how to deal with our child’s increased – and our decreased – freedom. Let’s be honest, my wife and I won’t make it in to see the therapist. We will probably fall asleep holding hands and crying in the waiting room with other survivors and miss our names getting are called.

If you are having a baby, prepare yourself. If you know someone who is pregnant, help them by sharing this with them. Actually, don’t share this with them. Buy this for them. They will need a cage. Trust me.

God help us all.