Die Hard on my mind

I've been having these horrible dreams lately.

Don't want to sleep.

Get really tired.

But still don't wanna sleep.

They're dreams where Ass-Bag shoots me and kills me and my wife. Just last night it was a dream about my 13 year old being shot by drug dealers after he had followed me to my undercover-sting-operation-gone-bad.

I have this really great dream book that my wife got for me because I kept checking it out of the library. It's pretty good at helping you decipher your dreams. It's helped me quite a bit. But I don't think there's much to interpret about these dreams. No hidden meaning or signs. Just shitty dreams where the people I love get shot because they know me. And I get shot because I know me. And really horrible people end up winning.

That's pretty crap. Thinking that the horrible people end up winning. I guess sometimes they do. You know, now that I think about it, I guess most times they do. That's why we love movies where the good guy wins, because most of our days are spent watching the bad guys win. Bad bosses. Unfaithful wives. Mean people. Damaging Fathers. Kids that won't stop crying because they've trained their parents to give them attention when they do. It's nice to escape that bucket of shit and watch somebody win. Somebody good. Like John McClain. He didn't think his wife's job was going to turn into a great career for her, so he let her go, and when she didn't come back, he felt like he made a mistake and went to talk with her about it at her job in the almost-completed Nakatomi Plaza in California. Little did he know that Hans Gruber was on his way to steal 346 million dollars in bearer bonds from the Nakatomi Plaza safe, and what was supposed to be a reconciliation trip turns into a date with disaster where nobody but his wife believes that he's doing something good. And in the end, John defeats the bad guys, gets the cops to believe that he's a good cop, and gets his wife to realize that he's a man of character.

In real life, John would have told his wife that her job wasn't worth moving the family from New York to California, she would've disagreed, he would've stayed, she would've moved, and Hans Gruber would have taken the 346 million dollars in bearer bonds as John tried to pick up a 22 year old in a bar who didn't look anything like his wife and, therefore, would make her extremely jealous when she found out he was nailing this almost-underage co-ed.

That story is boring. I like the one where Hans Gruber falls to his death at the end. It's funner. Yup. Funner. And the people are better. The good guys are gooder. The bad guys are badder. It makes life more interesting. More worth living.

I'm gonna try to be a good guy forever. Hell, I might even try for a super hero. Why settle for becoming John McClain when you could be Wolverine? I mean, *if* it's possible, why not try for it, right? And how do we know if it's possible unless we try for it? Unless I try for it. They told the Wright Brothers that humans couldn't fly. And then the Wright Brothers said, "Oh yeah? Watch."

Oh yeah? Watch.

Gotta Get Motivated

Gotta get motivated.
Gotta get my script written. Shit, not just "script" but "scriptS".
Sundance is around the corner and I've lost my camera man.
Anybody wanna be a camera operator?
Can't rely on you. I don't know you.
Gotta get motivated.
Do something.
"If you don't like it, change it."
Listen to the music.
Let it help you. Push you forward.
Don't give in to the voices.
Walk. You gotta get out.
It starts with the first walk.
And that becomes the first walk of your second day.
And that becomes the first walk of your third day.
Just walk.
You'll lose weight if you walk.
And you'll be happier.
Gotta get motivated.
Sell your classes.
People talk about them.
Probably still do.
You're good. And you know you're good.
So what if the idiots don't see that?
So what if they never see that?
Since when should an idiot keep you down?
Talk to people about what you have to offer.
You offer classes. You have a plan. You have the experience.
You're not asking for a handout.
Just an opportunity.
Call your mother.
There's something you need to talk with her about.
Get on the ball. Why can't you keep it all straight?
Don't beat up on yourself and don't listen to those voices.
Gotta get motivated.
Need that lottery.
NEED that lottery.
It will happen with that lottery.
All of it will happen, but it will happen significantly sooner with $252 million.
Okay, so you take out the amount for selecting the lump sum= $126 million.
Now take out taxes (1/3)= $84 million.
That's what we'll have on Wednesday.
Eighty. Four. Million. Dollars.
And school loans are gone.
And credit score is returned to normal.
And we could own our house and paint the walls.
And paint the garage.
And make that house comfortable to hold all four of us.
And I could get an oil change.
And get the door paint on my car fixed.
And I could stop worrying about how we're going to afford to feed ourselves in a month.
Will my wife and I have to eat Ramen noodles again? Nope.
84,000,000.
Dollars.
And Captain Butt-Puss is still there, but I'm certain that there are groups of people who could be purchased to march outside of his house with signs and chanting slogans about how the world would be a better place if he was to treat his children with respect and stop hurting the people he's supposed to care about.
And my mother gets taken care of. No more worries for her.
And no more worries for the boys. Either of them.
They can go to college if they want. They don't have to worry about affording that.
And my wife and I get a bedroom.
Just hit those numbers.
That's all that needs to happen.
And it all goes away.
Melts like your sugar in your bowl of raisin bran.
And it's all gone.
And I would workout just like I used to.
And get back the body that I was working to build.
And I could HIRE a camera operator.
And crew.
And I could make the big movie.
And I could stop working so that I could make the smaller movies.
And I could stop being around the people I don't understand and who don't really understand me.
I don't like...

And just like a magic trick, my phone lights up and I see that my wife has texted me:
"i am so in love with everything you are. Even the parts you don't like. Every speck of you is my favorite."

I love those texts.
They don't make all the clouds go away.
But they do help me feel her hand wrap around mine and stay with me as it starts to rain.
And I know she's not going anywhere.
Not because she has to stay with me because it was in the vows.
Not because she's scared to get another divorce.
Not because I'm a major source of income for her.
None of that even comes to her mind.
She holds my hand
And doesn't leave me
Because she likes me
And she wants to hold my hand
And I don't know how I got so lucky that a woman like her wants to hold my hand
But I'm gonna hold that hand of hers
And I'm gonna enjoy it for all it's worth
And I'm gonna thank her when the rain is over
Thank her for staying with me
And let her know that if it ever rains where she is, I'll be holding her hand just like this
Because I like her
And I want to hold her hand.

Good Mother

My wife likes being a good mother. And she's very good. Just one of the things that makes her good is that she cares about what her kids eat.

Our 13 year-old eats pizza and french fries every day. He does this for several reasons. One: it's easy to plan for, as that's what's served in the school cafeteria every day. Two: he doesn't have to think about it. Three: he doesn't have to pay for it. Four: he likes it.

It used to drive my wife nuts that he would eat this crap every day at lunch. She would really get concerned for his health, saying that eating the same thing everyday was going to give him some disease. And then I didn't help her at all when I told her that one of my students came down with shingles because he refused to eat anything but Mountain Dew and Nerds. Or maybe it was Skittles. Point being: he came down with shingles and it hurt him. And my wife used that to fuel her ever-growing frustrated concern.

I tried to tell her that I ate 2 biscuits and a cheeseburger everyday for lunch in high school. She responded with, "Well I'm not *your* mother," or something like that, and continued to worry. I tried to tell her that we have control over the things we have control over and we don't have control over everything else. We simply cannot make him eat "the right food" when he's away from us. Hell, we can't *make* him eat the right food when he's around us. But when he's at school, he can choose to eat the pizza and french fries every day and there's nothing we can do about it.

My wife and I finally found something that suited all of us: if our 13 year-old chooses to eat pizza and french fries every day at lunch, that's fine. And we will provide a healthy vegetable of our choosing for him to eat at dinner. He's agreed to that. My wife has agreed to that. It makes me happy to see them agreeing to things, especially when they're good for everybody concerned.

I write about this pizza and french fry thing today not because it's weighing on my mind or because there's something wrong with the fact that our educational institutions are teaching our children that it's okay to eat pizza and french fries every day, but because I just realized that every day at my job we all know it's lunch time when we hear the announcement over the PA system, "Pizza is now being served in the break room." This announcement happens every day. This lunch is served every day. And I work for the state.

A lot of Angry

I really love those boys.

Right now they're at their father's house.

And right now, he makes them feel like they have done something bad all the time.

How do I know? Because he has taken their cell phones and told them that they cannot use them. If they want to call their mother or me they have to ask permission. And what did they do to cause him to act this way? They were born. That's it. He won't let them paint their own models for their games. Why? Because they can't do it right. He won't let them play outside because they will get dirty and ruin their clothes. He keeps the home telephone locked in his bedroom because... I dunno... somebody might use it to let the world know what he's doing to them. And that's just the stuff that's been brought to my attention this weekend.

When he was married to my wife, he wasn't engaged in their lives at all. He would go to work, stay late, come home, go to his room and watch TV away from the three of them. He was simply not involved. Sure, he ate meals with them. And at those meals, they were using their silverware incorrectly, and slouching at the table, and her meals weren't to his liking and their chatter was too loud, and loud temper tantrums would be thrown if something fell on the carpet, and if he spilled something it was blamed on everyone but himself: the boys moved the table causing the glass to spill, or the wife moved the boys who moved the table causing the glass to spill, or the three of them were around causing the glass to become frightened and spill. Vacations were oppressive, as nothing was right. Life was oppressive, as nothing was right. But at least he would go to his room at the end of the day and they had some peace.

Upon inspection of this man, you would say that he shouldn't be a father. And if he absolutely must be a father, he should stay as far away from his children and wife as possible. He is bad for them. He is bad for her. Hell, he's bad for himself, but that is actually a positive if you consider that his having to live with himself might actually shorten his life. He's bad for people. He's bad for you.

Now, this man is involved in his children's lives in all the wrong ways. Our 9 year-old was sick, and instead of calling us, he took the boy to his grandmother's house over 30 miles away in another city. Not because this was better for the boy, but because he didn't want talk with us. Never mind that the boy would obviously feel better with his mother, who is less than 5 miles away. The 9 year-old was bitten by a dog. We had to hear about it a week later from the 9 year-old because dad didn't want to tell us about it. Our 13 year-old fell and hit his head on the concrete surrounding a public pool, a doctor happened to be there and made sure he was okay, and we didn't find out until the following week when the 13 year-old came to stay with us for the week. Again, he didn't want to tell us. Those aren't the reasons he gives, of course. He tells us that he didn't want to bother us. He tells us that it was no big deal. He tells us that the boys are fine. Our 13 year-old told his father that he wanted to kill himself on Saturday. On Monday, the psychologist called and asked if we had been made aware of this situation, which we had not.

What am I supposed to do?
Rage?
I wanna smash every house on our block and then stuff my bloody, flesh-torn fists down that bastard's throat until he chokes to death.
I wanna torture him.
I wanna hurt him so badly.

And then I stop. Mostly because it's no good for me to think thoughts like that. But I also think about the boys and what my rage would do to them.

I need to teach them that there are people who can handle themselves.
I need to teach them how to deal with feelings like this without going to jail.
Without harming others.
"The first person to resort to violence is the first person to run out of ideas."
And a whole bunch of other shit like that which never makes me feel as good as it's supposed to.

I guess I just keep blogging until I can breathe without anger.
Until then, fuck that fucker.