"Cheerful 'til I choke"

Geez, what a downer I have been! These blogs that I have been writing are really depressing. I don't want to go out on the end of the year like a cheap sparkler fizzle. I want a boom and an eruption of happy-fun-shit! For anyone who even reads what I write, here or on emails, you can totally see that I have had some low-points recently, but you know... my head is a bit clearer and my motivation is a bit stronger and I know everything will be alright. My mouth and my head still are like the Odd Couple lately, but I'll get them to work out their differences and come to some (dare I say) "copacetic" union. HA! Anyway, enough of the whining. Here's to my peeps for encouraging me to keep my head up. Love you all! Anyway, he didn't get a chance to say it earlier... but Ronin wishes everyone the Merriest of Christmas's and a Happy New Year!

Much Love!

"What Lies Beneath"

It blows my mind that Christmas has come and gone. This year has been in overdrive for me, and the last six months have flown through my fingers like water from a broken faucet I cannot fix. And as some people know, I often feel like I have to fix things, which I guess makes me feel like I have a purpose. But once again, the one thing I cannot seem to fix lately is me... and the loud thinking of what my purpose must be. So many thoughts wake me up at roughly 4am on most nights, that I wonder if the new year will offer some relief from the irritation of a partial night's rest. Now, here I am, in a perfectly silent house, in a perfectly detached location, on a morning where silence and detachment is the farthest thing in the world from what I want. What a difference a simple 45 minute drive would make right now, as I long to rest within a world that seems so far away from me on most other days. And for about a billion reasons, I cannot shake this aching feeling in my gut that has hung around roughly since my birthday. And I cannot help to fixate on what this year has brought to me; that thing being a healthy dose of raw introspection. God, how I wish that my mind and mouth would work well together when I need them to. Because as of lately, my nerves and confusion have been a bottleneck for my verbal expression with people. Sure, I have been writing all the time, but I have been getting more and more frustrated with myself and my ever-growing communication pitfalls, and I constantly fall short of living up to a set of self-induced expectations that I try to follow. And right now, I cannot begin to express what I would give to fix that broken feeling within me and be able to sleep with the same child-like wonder that happens on Christmas Eve. How I long for that relief of worry and the feeling of isolation I get sometimes. How I wish that I could just turn the clock back and do things differently. Then maybe, just maybe, I can embrace the pitt that I am focusing on... instead of always trying to fix the outcome of it. But that has always been my problem; trying to find out what lies beneath the surface and fix what is broken. And for once, just once, I would like my thoughts to be clear and not so damn chaotic, so I don't have the feeling that I have to fix the faucet of issues that this very introspective year has brought me.

"Caught in the Web"

I was forwarded these AWESOME Youtube links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3N8ZW6fCa4&feature=related

 

They are VERY funny, and polar opposite from one another! =)

"Cracks Me Up..."

"All distressed and nowhere to go"

So, I got dropped off on a deserted island with a generator, plenty of gas, a High-Def  tv and a DVD player. In order to survive without going insane, I must have these 40 (must-have) movies:

• Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back
• American Movie
• Anchor Man
• Jaws
• Transformers (1986 Cartoon Movie)
• Cujo
• Aliens
• Saturday Night Fever
• Batman - The Dark Knight
• Halloween (1978)
• Predator
• Friday the 13th (Part 7)
• Superman the Movie (1978)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (Part 2)
• The Shining
• Wall-E
• Terminator 2
• Jurassic Park
• The Godfather (Part 2)
• Dark Night of the Scarecrow
• Die Hard
• The Crow
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Back to the Future
• Swingers
• Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
• The Thing
• Transformers (2007)
• Gone with the Wind
• Smokey and the Bandit
• A Christmas Story
• Napoleon Dynamite
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off
• This is Spinal Tap
• Happy Gilmore
• The Blair Witch Project
• National Lampoon’s Vacation
• Bullitt (1968)
• The Blue Brothers

Too bad I don't have any popcorn on the island! =)

"Sandcastles in a Thunderstorm"

"I just got lost and slept right through the dawn"

Ok, bear with me as I stuff my face with the indulgent insanities of the Christmas party happening around me. I can hear "Holly Jolly Christmas" playing in the background as I test the salty waters of something called "The Bacon Explosion". Something doesn't quite feel right about that. Strange that I decide to take this moment to reflect on feelings. So, besides the festiveness of the current social atmosphere of the office, I have this lurking Scrooge gnawing away at a slowly-browning apple core inside me.Why that is, I am trying to figure out. The Holidays are supposed to be about friends, family and loved ones. And in the past, I have felt that I didn't have any of the above to share that happiness with. More times than I can remember, I spent Thanksgiving eating leftover pizza or Christmas alone watching all 24 hours of TBS's "Christmas Story". An old episode of "Happy Days" once made me cry because Fonzie was eating a can of corn by himself on Christmas, but was too proud to admit he wanted to belong to a "family". Funny thing is that I have felt that way in my own life. The last few years, that was not the case though, as I was made to feel welcome in Lesia's inviting family. But internally, I always desired something that fate did not grace me with; an Anderson family gathering full of brothers and sisters and drunken grandpas and wives cooking huge amount of food while gossiping about "The Young & The Restless". Exhale... but my "real" family is not so illustrious. This broken gear I "belong to" consisting of an ailing and hard-to-get-along-with-mother, a hypochondriac trucker-mouthed aunt, a burnt-out and overly worked uncle, and three female cousins all in their second or third marriages, has left a bitter taste in my mouth and a longing for the Ozzie & Harriet Christmas's of the 1950's. Being the only son in a fatherless childhood has begun to affect me more now then it did when I was a boy. I watch all my friends and loved ones flow to their families and those welcome mats, where I always felt like I was an outsider, even when their intentions were pure and my presence was entirely desired. That gnawing momentum to have a sense of "belonging" is not something I have yet to cure by going to Christmas parties or Thanksgiving dinners with friends and loved ones. I feel I need a "tether-point", a datum so-to-speak, that grounds me in feeling these people around me are not temporary. Family is not temporary, whether you want them to be or not. Problem is, my "family" doesn't care enough to include me in their less-than-desirable ranting and chaos; which I should be grateful for but I'm not. The last few years, I have had a multitude of highs and lows. From financial woes to heartache to the introspection of where I am and who I have become. And though the ills of some of those facets still plague me to this very day, I think that I will always feel like I am on the outside or "outta sight, outta mind" when it comes to the Holidays; that is until I get my own family to focus on. But not to end this blog in the gloom and doom of everything that I have been spouting here, I just want to say that if it wasn't for the life-saving friends and loved ones that I do have that are my "wanted" family, I would have faded away many years ago. So, to all of them, I just want to say Thank You. You have kept me from isolation. You pulled me away from self-induced depression. You have showed me what the Holidays are about, and made me feel like I belong. God blessed me with the family that my mother and her mother did not provide; one that does not share my last name, but one that loves me nonetheless... and unconditionally.

Trying to put together the building blocks of a new beginning

I guess this being my first endevor at a blog site, I will start off with a poem I wrote:

Commute

 

Winding dirt road

            emotionless black pavement

            never-ending

     thoughts and song   

     Alone

It's the only time

            I have you

                all     to     myself.

 

-Jason-                                    written: Dec 1, 2010