Category Archives: Holidays

Thanksgiving Greetings from an Ingrate, 2019

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JC Schildbach

 

I don’t know if I’d call it a run of bad luck, but our Thanksgiving Dinners out at fancy restaurants took a bit of a turn a few years ago, and never quite got back on track.

 

M, in particular, had a rough go of things.  Three years ago, we had to cancel our reservations at Ray’s Boathouse last-minute, when a bad reaction to some sort of hair-care product caused M’s scalp to start burning – not in a literal, Michael-Jackson Pepsi-commercial sort of way, but in a painful, hot sensation that was making her want to dig at her head with a fork.  This led to a last-minute trip to Safeway, where the kid, her then-boyfriend, and I grabbed up all manner of potentially scalp-soothing products, along with a turkey breast, a bag of potatoes, and a few pre-packaged sides.  Turkey breast in the pressure cooker, potatoes boiled for mashing, sides in the microwave, and Thanksgiving was saved, more-or-less.  We ate in our dining room, M’s hair slicked back with a heavy coating of some aloe-based goo, John Coltrane playing quietly in the background, as we talked and laughed aboutt all manner of things, including our abandoned holiday meal plans.

 

The next year brought a return to Preservation Kitchen, albeit with a different group of people than the previous time(s) we had been there for Thanksgiving.  Things started off well, beyond my uncomfortable collar/tie combo. Drinks ordered and received; dinner ordered and received; lively conversation and laughter. Then, as the main course was coming to a close, M fell silent. In the midst of a raucous exchange I was having with current and former co-workers, and with M sitting right next to me, I didn’t notice what those across from her began to notice – that she was absolutely not feeling well.  She had gone pale, and was staring down at the table, occasionally looking up wide-eyed, blinking and sweating. She let me know she needed to leave.  In my oft-clueless fashion, I told her we still had dessert on the way, and implored her to let me continue on with the party just a bit longer.  Before long, other guests were interrupting the conversation(s) I was having, to tell me to maybe just pay attention to her and help her out.  By the time it sunk in that this wasn’t just M feeling tired after a long meal, she was bolting from the table to the bathroom.  After a few minutes of vomiting, she returned to our group, and Thanksgiving dinner came to an end…roughly 90% successfully (and, no, the food had nothing to do with it.  M was in bed for the next few days with an illness that had been rolling around her school).

 

By Thanksgiving of last year, the owners of Preservation Kitchen had retired, and it was no more. And while this was disappointing, we had never gone to the same restaurant two years in a row.  Also, with a slightly larger party than most years, and a much greater geographic spread for the members of the party, we looked for something somewhat central to the majority.  I won’t spell out specifically where that was, as I like to give the benefit of the doubt to businesses who may not be performing up-to-snuff.  But we were seated in a very awkward location, practically a hallway, with another large party so close behind us that the wait staff had difficulty maneuvering between us (as did numerous other diners on their way to and from the restrooms).  In addition, the staff seemed to be the ‘B’ team–forced to work on the holiday in order to keep their jobs. Before we had even ordered drinks, a glass of water had been launched onto the table, the waiter perhaps not understanding the dynamics of weight distribution of items on trays, leading to more than one in our party enjoying a soggier-than-expected experience.  A trip by a few of us to the same restaurant on a ‘regular’ day several months later, though, suggested that the restaurant may not have an ‘A’ team.  And truly, truly, truly I try to look for the good in restaurant visits and not be overly critical, knowing the difficulty of the jobs involved.

 

So, this year, by the end of summer, when Thanksgiving reservations started opening up at restaurants that offer Thanksgiving meals, I began asking (to M first, of course) if our ‘regulars’ would be willing to turn up at our house in the event we hosted a Thanksgiving dinner.  While all who didn’t already have plans agreed they would be willing, more than one floated the condition that if we were going to host, the hosts should not be put in the position of cooking on top of hosting.  In the spirit of the low-hassle Thanksgiving, they encouraged the ordering of a Thanksgiving meal from a grocery store, rather than going to the hassle of shopping and preparing all the items.  While M, at first, enthusiastically floated notions of an extravagant meal we would cook and dish up with love and thanks (as we had done multiple times prior to starting our restaurant tradition) she quickly acquiesced when I presented her with the truth(s) that if we decided to make the food, not only would we (well, I) end up doing a boatload of shopping, but we (all of us) would end up cleaning house, while the cooking chores would fall to God-only-knows who, as each of us (M, the kid, and I) are all kitchen divas who don’t cook well with others. I then showed her offerings from several local (well national-local) stores, appealing to her “sense of fanciness” with a trip to the Whole Foods website, and their various meal options.

Thanks 2019

Oh, so fancy.  Catered, kind of, by Whole Foods.

Ultimately, the decision was made that Whole Foods would be cooking for us. We’re just reheating what they provide. Compared to what we, as a group, usually spend at a restaurant on Thanksgiving, it’s a very reasonable cost—even while ordering a meal for many more people than we’re expecting.  And I suppose if we aren’t happy with dinner, we can try another restaurant or grocery store next year–or maybe go back to full-on hosting.  At least this year, we’ll have nobody but ourselves to blame for the service—which, I’m sure, will be fantastic.

 

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Happy Halloween 2019! – The New Decoration

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JC Schildbach, LMHC

The Octopus Project started last year, but in the final lead-up to Halloween, I realized I just didn’t have the time to bring it all together. Hell, I almost didn’t have enough time to bring it all together this year.  In part, the lack of time this year was because I spent a ridiculous amount of time figuring out how to make my vampire ghosts more reflective (liquid rubber with inlaid ‘airport grade’ glass beads was the answer — the resin experiments definitely did not work).  I also had to completely repaint the pink demon due to the knots in the plywood bleeding through the paint — not sure if that was a problem of the paint or whatever chemicals they treat plywood with.

Octo 1

At any rate, the inspiration for the octopus came partly from the kid destroying the back sliding-glass door.  This freed up the ‘window panel insert’.  That is, all the windows on the front of our house, along with the back sliding glass door, have a metal insert in between the two layers of glass in order to make it look like there are several, roughly one-foot-square window panes. I kinda hate these inserts.

I also had a 5-foot x 4-foot painting that I did in high school — the kid and one of her friends were going to turn it into something a few years back, but only got so far as whiting it out. I had thought several times of painting it to look like a window with some sort of monster inside, but with the 6-foot x 3-foot metal window/door insert, I thought I could make it look like something was busting out of a window.  But what?  In the course of scribbling out ideas, the thought of tentacles hit me. I sketched a few tentacled monsters, but decided a giant octopus was the direction to go. I got the canvas done last year just before Halloween.

Some very thin ply-board that was here when we bought the house seemed like a good way to maybe give the tentacles a bit of motion, as the board is not particularly sturdy (why did I think this was a good idea?).  An outlet hole had been cut out of it, and it was cracked in places, but I managed to sketch out one large tentacle and fit two smaller ones in the remaining spaces, away from the damaged parts of the board.  Over the course of working on the project, I had to think and rethink how to put the pieces together. Ultimately, it was clear I had to attach a frame to the frame on the canvas in order to assemble everything in a way that looked more-or-less like I wanted.

Octo 2

Making this all come together was something of a nightmare, and involved me out in the cold last night having to rig up various bits of fishing wire, nails, and screws to keep things in place. I have no idea how I’m going to store this thing — just how much of it I have to take apart before I can fit it reasonably back into the workshop.  There are six different parts — eight if you count the 2 x 4s on the garage door that it’s hanging from — and I dread the idea of having to detach and reattach at least some of them.  Now that it’s all together, I really want to get some more of that ply-board, and make that tentacle on the right much bigger.  Maybe next year.

Happy Halloween.

No Year’s Resolutions 2019

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JC Schildbach, LMHC

New Year’s morning, my wife roused me from a dream to tell me it was time to help set up the dining room for Osechi (Osechi Ryori:  Japanese traditional New Year’s Day food).

I mention the dream because it has stuck with me—or, rather, a portion of it has stuck with me—since then. A particular image from that dream has entered my thoughts multiple times daily since then—whether because I’m hanging onto it or struggling to forget it.  The image involves me surveying the damage from a shart (shart: what happens, as the saying goes, when one gambles on a fart and loses; a combination of sh*t and fart).

I don’t recall much of anything that happened in the dream before the shart occurred. But I do recall that I was wearing blue underwear and the aftermath was very much like a runny version of the gravy from almond chicken (almond chicken: a staple of American Chinese restaurant menus, where breaded, boneless, fried chicken is covered in a light brown American-style gravy –flour and fat— full of chopped almonds).

baby-new-year

Just what am I looking at?  And what does it mean?

I haven’t looked up any of the elements of the dream in any dream dictionaries, online or otherwise – not the blue, not the almonds, not the shart, not any of it.  So, if you’re into dream analysis and have a clear understanding of what these elements add up to – well, I probably don’t want to know. Keep it to yourself.

Perhaps this image has stuck with me because most dreams I (and I would guess most other people) have that involve, what I will call “bathroom stuff” are usually tied to bathroom functions that never come to fruition.  For example, a dream where one is running around looking for a place to pee, only to have each option for relief somehow thwarted.  One eventually wakes up and realizes that the dream was trying to push one to wake up and go take a piss in a completely ‘normal’, non-thwarted, perfectly relieving fashion.  I do not recall any of these previous dreams resulting in actually finding ‘release’ while in the dream, much less, having a ‘release’ with unintended consequences.

I’m happy to report that, in this particular instance, there was no corresponding pushing or expulsion activity married to the dream.  That is, despite a flash of anxiety on waking, there was no indication the dream had come true.

I bring all this up, in part, because for several years now, initially starting in an annual series of posts on Facebook, and later moving to my blog (and a few connected social media sites), I put out New Year’s resolutions.  These started out as lighthearted, silly jokes, usually concluding with one ‘positive’, ‘real’, but vague, resolution.  For instance, I would have three resolutions that suggested I was going to do spectacularly impossible things (establish the ultimate matrix for determining whether a ‘Men’s Rights’ Internet account or website is a parody account or actually intended to be serious);or completely bland, totally achievable goals, (resolving to actually trim my toenails regularly). Those would be followed by one resolution involving haircare, which would be followed by one that said I would live joyfully or some such sh*t.

Then, at the end of the year, I would write up a ‘year end review’, where I tracked my success in meeting the resolutions (silly and not-so), before I moved on to a new set.

In the process of doing the review of my 2-18 resolutions, I realized that maybe a bit too much seriousness had crept in, too much silliness leaked out. It had, at least to me, a darker tone about it than previous years.  Then again, in spite of numerous good things in 2018, the whole year had a darker tone to it.

2018 was a year of numerous things going to hell, and me struggling to reel them back in— none of which I will share here now.  All in all, things turned out okay, but not without a lingering, nasty aftertaste…or several different lingering, nasty aftertastes.

2018 also had some great moments of joy—specific moments of laughter and happiness I can vividly recall, also none of which I will share here now.

This far into 2019, it would be a bit strange to be making resolutions anyway, unless maybe I was claiming they were tied to a little procrastinating around the Lunar New Year. But, still, I’m abandoning the idea of resolutions, at least for 2019.  And I’m trying to learn to accept that much of life is way beyond my control, and that I’ll be okay…or I won’t…and that not being okay will probably be okay as well.

I tried to attach some meaning to the dream of the shart – that it was advising me not too push things too hard or they would become messy – or perhaps to push hard because even if the outcome was messy, it would still be fine—I’d wake up to a fantastic meal with some of the people I loved most, or a disgusting mess in my pants that really wouldn’t be that difficult to clean up.

At any rate, the (forced) meanings kept coming back to how I should or shouldn’t force things, how forcing things would turn out either good or bad.  And then it got all meta – about how I keep starting posts, only to abandon them because they seem too forced –and therefore too bland, like almond chicken –or too sloppy, poorly planned, and offensive, like a shart.

The whole concept of intentions –push to get a reaction, or hold back to make the right, polite points, merely led to almost every writing effort over the last year turning into either a dull essay, or a mean-spirited rant – with those efforts usually being abandoned to steer clear of that dullness, or to unload that spite on somebody in some pointless, online argument that added up to nothing beyond the sound of clacking keys and the fury of unanswered tantrums.  For the most part, the posts just didn’t get finished, or if the writing was more or less completed, did not get put out into the world…much like I’ve been struggling over the whole idea of posting a shart-centered missive, ostensibly connected to New Year’s resolutions.

Ultimately, I realize I’m attempting to assign meaning to this dream because 1) it occurred on the first day of the year; 2) I was woken out of the dream at the point of a particularly striking and unpleasant visual unlike anything I recalled from any previous dreams; and 3) I’m struggling with just how much energy and effort I can and ‘should’ be devoting to writing, especially pieces that feel obligatory/how much energy I can and ‘should’ be devoting to engaging in patterned behaviors in general/how much energy I can and ‘should’ be devoting to breaking old patterns of behavior.

Maybe it all just comes down to the message that I should sh*t or get on the pot…and sh*t…or get off the pot. At least don’t sh*t my pants unintentionally?

Or perhaps push it. Push it real good.  But with intention.  Although I’m pretty sure that wasn’t initially related to scatological…uh…actions.  But then again…

I know it’s gotta mean something about making sure you know what you intend to accomplish, or that you are making reasonable efforts to make sure you have some kind of control over the outcome of your actions, or…?

Anyway, Happy (belated?) (Lunar?) New Year!

 

 

 

 

2018 Year in Review

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JCS Bach, LMHC

father time, yo!Ok, time (well, a little late, but still time) for the obligatory review of last year’s resolutions and the pass/fail ratings.

  1. Finish the damn downstairs: Definite fail.  I made some progress, in the same kind of way that sitting up in bed is progress toward walking from Seattle to London.  Ok, maybe it was a little better than that…some framing happened.  And I moved a light fixture (yes, it’s fully functioning).  So that was good.  At this rate, only about 38 more years to completion.
  2. Every Day is Halloween: Pass!  Well, pass in the way that the horrible sh*t in your life drives you to do something to distract you from all that horrible sh*t.  I got started early with Halloween decorations (early June(?)) and knocked out a lot of new decorations that I’d been thinking about for years.  You can see the earlier posts.  I also actually came up with the perfect use for a big, old canvas and some other cast-off materials I have.  Unfortunately, once I figured out what I wanted to do, it got more and more ambitious, and I ultimately had to bail.  It will be done in time for Halloween 2019.  That’s not a resolution. That’s a promise.
  3.   Read/Write—don’t watch/scroll. Pass/Fail? Hmmmm…I did a lot of reading…but plenty was of the scrolling variety.  I read some excellent books, but didn’t really keep up the idea of bailing on pointless Internet foolishness in favor of reading enlightening books. As for the writing…well, you can scroll back just a smidge and see the sum total of the writing I did this year…well, not ALL of the writing I did this year, but about 80% of the writing I actually finished this year…well, the writing that extended beyond stupid Internet arguments.  I did have a record number of my Internet arguments shut down by moderators. I like to think that was (mostly) because the people I was arguing with started calling me names, but moderators don’t tend to explain themselves once they shut something down.
  4. No more hair resolutions. Well, if I can make it through my next post without resolving anything about my hair (assuming I’m going to do a post about my 2019 resolutions), I’m in business with this one.  Stay tuned. I’m sure the suspense is killing you.
  5. Be better to those closer. I’m a little conflicted on my success with this one.  I guess it needs some clarifying definitions—which I’m not going to supply right now.  Things got rough on a pretty constant basis. Plenty of my friends/family/colleagues of one stripe or another got into some major life changes/deep sh*t that took up a lot of my time, energy, and, in some cases, cash.  A lot of those occurrences also drained a lot of my patience—patience I could no longer spare on those who are peripheral and antagonistic. So, with that I give a hearty, ‘Much love and/or go f*ck yourself!’  If I’ve been at all close to my target with this resolution (and you actually know me) you know where on that spectrum you lie. For the rest of you, consider yourself square in the middle—and please consider that a good thing.

Happy more-or-less New Year, you beautiful sods!

Thanksgiving Greetings from an Ingrate, 2018

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by JC Schildbach

I have to feed the hummingbirds.

Well, actually, I have to fill the hummingbird feeders. The hummingbirds will have to feed themselves at that point.

I should clean and fill the hummingbird feeders much more frequently than I do– it really only takes a few minutes–I mean, minus the time to make the food and wait for it to cool down— for the health of the birds, and to make sure I won’t be subject to their angry chittering each time I step outside.

Okay. I don’t know that the chittering is angry, or aimed at me.  I apparently just carry a tremendous amount of guilt about all the things I’m not getting to, because of all the other things I’m trying to get to, only a small percentage of which actually gets done.

Distractions upon distractions.

And it’s getting cold enough outside that I need to rig up the Christmas lights on the hummingbird feeders, to keep the food from freezing.

 

I don’t want to get into clichés about an attitude of gratitude, but why don’t I just say I’m thankful for the presence of so many beautiful birds around my home – and happy that I can help our own local hummingbirds make it through the winter? (The Anna’s hummingbirds hang out all year round.)

 

I was going to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this November, as a way to try and jump-start my writing again.

But after one short sprint of writing early in the month, I haven’t gotten back to it at all.

In part, work has been too draining. And my days off have been spent in other distractions, from cleaning up the Halloween decorations, to a road trip to celebrate my kid’s birthday, to binge-watching TV shows in between loads of laundry.

 

Again, not to get into any clichés about an attitude of gratitude, but why couldn’t I just say I’m happy to have the opportunity to write when I want, thankful for a job, ecstatic at the chance to go all-out for Halloween, and delighted at the opportunity for travel and screen-time with my family?

 

Ah, laundry—the ultimate distraction—never done.

So easy to generate more.

There’s always bedding and towels if you get out ahead of the clothing.

 

No attitude of gratitude clichés here, but why can’t I just say I’m happy I can do my own laundry, right here, in home, and that I have a plethora of wonderful things to wash?

 

I’ve largely been absent from my blog all year due to all manner of distractions—self-generated, as well as external.

Office upheavals and client deaths.

All manner of medical and mental health concerns rippling throughout my world.

A childish, attention-seeking buffoon in the White House, dominating the news cycle all-day, every day.

An election that seemingly started two years ago, with alternating possible hope-filled and doomsday outcomes.

 

So, about that attitude of gratitude cliché – why didn’t I just say (again) I’m glad to have gainful employment, and that everybody I know and love is at least relatively healthy (well, the ones who didn’t die), that I have the opportunity to get information from a wide range of different forms of media, and that I get to exercise my right to vote?

 

And really, anytime I sit down to write, it’s always so much easier to pop online and shop for things I don’t need, scroll through numerous online feeds and articles, and pick dumb fights with strangers and near-strangers, or perhaps family and friends…some now former friends and estranged family.

 

It’s Thanksgiving, and I should be aimed, as clichéd as it is, toward that attitude of gratitude—meaning I really should have just said that it’s great that so many of us now have access to amazing forms of technology that allow us to communicate with people around the world, or buy stuff from almost anywhere on the planet—no matter how much we might abuse that technology.

 

There are all the other annual projects, bordering on obligations.

I already mentioned the Halloween decorations.

And then there’s the ‘gardening’.

Of course, the weather this year was so strange that the plants weren’t entirely sure if they were supposed to be doing anything, and most just squeezed out a few little fruits or vegetables, although I regularly watered and fed them.

Then, in late summer, a spell of cool weather, followed by a spell of very hot weather, followed by some heavy rains further confused the plants, leading some into dormancy and others into thinking the growing season had finally arrived.

But by then, I had moved on to trying to get a jump on the Halloween decorations and decided the plants could fend for themselves.

 

Yeah, yeah, attitude, gratitude – I should be focusing on how great it is that I have a place to indulge my inner farmer and my Halloween obsession.

 

But the inspiration for this whole piece was how the competing distractions have led to, perhaps, a higher-than-usual level of chaos around here, so that I look out my window in late November and see scenes like this poor neglected fruit on the vine (not to mention me not having cut back the plants and moved the pots to a reasonable location):

Tomato sad

But then Ding Dong photo-bombed my sad tomato plants, while also barking in my ear, so I got this image, which is, I guess, more gratitude-inspiring:

Tomato Ding Dong

Anyway, I’m not sure if my forced attitude-of-gratitude conclusion is that I should be like Ding Dong and be all grateful and loud for whatever I’m doing at whatever moment, or if it is more about how I should be like Ding Dong who is always and ever himself, regardless of whatever else is going on—which, in my case, would mean I can stifle that perceived need to express some clichéd attitude of gratitude just because it’s Thanksgiving.

 

And, really, anyone who actually knows me knows I’m not exactly an ingrate.

Although I may be overly grateful for the opportunity to complain.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween – The New Decorations 2018, Part I

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JC Schildbach

eyeball dayInitially, this was going to be one of multiple flying eyeballs, with varying colors (and level of eye irritation), but other projects became a priority…maybe next year.

NighteyeballLike with almost all my decorations, this is plywood and paint…but it also has tiny reflective glass beads on all the white parts, and even tinier reflective glass beads on the orange ‘bones’ of the wings.  Tried to get a nighttime picture that would show what it looks like in the dark when light hits it, but y’know, nighttime photography with an old iPhone is not my forte’.  You get the idea…maybe.

I’ve been busy.  More to come in the next few days.  Happy Halloween!

See You in Hell, My Friend

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J.C. Schildbach

An impulse buy one morning, exhausted and mildly intoxicated. I worked nights, and so did she—back when we worked at the same place. Whiskey in the morning isn’t all that unusual when morning is your evening…and drinking a lifestyle choice.

I didn’t make the connection until I got it in the mail and thought, ‘Why the hell did I buy this?’

It was a screen-printed sweatshirt, a mock-Christmas sweater, featuring a modified version of the “Sigil of Baphomet”—an inverted pentagram, with the head of “The Goat of Mendes” inside, and the Hebrew for “Leviathan” spelled out, one character between each point of the star.

a-baphomet-xmas

But where was I going to wear this? I wasn’t going to any Christmas parties, and haven’t been in the mood to wear any sort of provocative T-shirts since, maybe, my Dead Kennedy’s “Too Drunk to F*ck” shirt back when I was in college.

Wait…there was also “Thanks a lot, God”…which I printed and sold…a friend’s design.   And a few more are springing up now, including some fart jokes and worse. Let’s just say that within the last decade…wait…I thought of something else. Ok…moving on.

Eventually the fog lifted…Winnie the Pooh worshipping Baphomet…that’s the post she messaged me not four days before she died in her sleep. It came across as a still image, although it was supposed to be a .gif—an altered version of Pooh exercising in front of a mirror.

pooh-baphomet

Her death wasn’t expected at all. She’d had health problems—but not of the terminal kind, as far as I knew—and apparently, as far as she knew.

It wasn’t until roughly two months after she died (and at least 5 months before I ordered that sweatshirt) that the memorial service was held, on her birthday, in the early evening sun of Golden Gardens Park in Seattle.

I was reminded that night that we all know people in different ways. People remembered her as intense and potentially off-putting, while also supportive, nurturing, and teaching. There were tales of wild, dumpster-diving/reach-for-the-brass-ring adventures; and stories of sage advice, a kind word, a wisely snide comment.

Some minor celebrities were there…people whose work I knew, and admired.

I kept quiet…mostly.

The last time I saw her—in real life/face to face—was when we went out to breakfast at a dive up the road from where we worked. She had taken a new position, and was moving off the grave shifts we shared. We were celebrating her new position, and the end of our overnight shifts together.   We enjoyed Bloody Marys, Biscuits and Gravy, and hash browns.

(A few months later, I would move on, too, to another organization entirely).

On that morning I picked up the tab…but only because 1) I have a limited capacity for showing affection/appreciation otherwise, 2) I was essentially her supervisor on those shifts, so it only seemed right, and 3) we had a vague plan for a future gathering where she would get me back.

That final night, while slapping together a playlist on my laptop, I inadvertently started playing a song by Ghost…or Ghost B.C. if that’s how you want to be…”Year Zero”…which our other shift-mate instantly recognized (the chants of ‘demon’ names are hard to miss if you’re familiar with them—Belial, anyone?).

It didn’t take long for her to fall in love with the band. She messaged me later in the day, saying she couldn’t believe she had never heard of them before.

Yes, ours was a soft Satanism, a casual Satanism…something difficult to fathom for those who take matters of eternal life all too seriously. And out of fear of…or concern for…those very same people, I hesitated in completing this post all those months ago…shelved it, sat on it, failed to put it together once and for all.

I neglected to process the grief in a way that made sense to me…or that made sense to the friendship I had with her. I just added it to the list of other head-kicks and gut-punches I was enduring, ignoring, and stuffing…waiting for a time when I assumed the blows would stop landing, and I might be able to crawl off to a dark corner and heal.

For her part, she was Buddhist…or something like it, I suppose. We enjoyed our dark humor more than we ever engaged in any deeply spiritual or religious discussions. I’ve got no legitimate religious/spiritual label for myself. Raised Lutheran, self-converted to agnosticism. My wife accuses me of believing in ghosts, but denying they (or any other spiritual beings or energy) exist.

True enough…but also false enough.

My co-worker and I shared a penchant for self-destruction, and self-sabotage, largely tamed by age to a kind of resignation that we weren’t really capable of being bad people…although we still kept trying to prove to ourselves, and a few select others, in small, stupid ways, that maybe we were.

She was only seven years my senior…so her death still brings shock…even after the steadily-increasing numbers of deaths I experience each year, many involving people right around her age. But most of those are prefaced with diagnoses and attempts at treatment, along with the actual spectre of specific forms of death…usually cancer of one kind or another…not the vague idea of ‘health problems,’ or a good night’s sleep unexpectedly becoming an eternal sleep.

Her picture…the one distributed on postcards at the memorial service, the lyrics to Patti Smith’s “Memorial Song” (“It is true I heard/God is where you are”) printed on the other side, is propped up on my desk at home…a reminder of…what? Not to blow off life? A reminder of the idea that we’re all gonna die sometime…maybe soon?

desk-cyndee

I don’t know

It’s there.

It makes me smile.

Sometimes it scares me into thinking I better get off my ass…but not necessarily acting on that scare.

But, always, it brings me back to that same, old, silly idea…born of tauntaun rides, and sub-par 80s metal…

(Then) I’ll see you in hell, (my friend).

Imagine Han Solo fronting Grim Reaper, or Steve Grimmet, clad in a red, pleather jumpsuit, heading out into the rapidly-dropping temperature of Hoth…or don’t. I really need to learn how to work with Photoshop to get these images out into the world…or not.

At any rate, “See you in hell” isn’t an insult or a threat, but a badge of honor among those who carry themselves as…well, I suppose ‘antiheroes’ is as close as I’m going to get…the people plugging along, trying to do good in spite of themselves…not bucking to be perfect—because who the hell cares about that?—but struggling to be human in a way that supports all other humans, or as many of them as we can tolerate, and…well…all those other damned living things.

So, yeah…

I’ll see you in hell, my friend.

 

 

 

 

 

New Year’s Resolutions 2017

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J.C. Schildbach, LMHC

Is there a statute of limitations on when New Year’s resolutions just become resolutions? I’m going to go with two weeks, since that allows me to fit this in.

In years past, the resolutions have been (intended as) a comedic venture, topped off with a dollop of at least one sincere resolution. But 2017 is arriving without a lot of my usual smartass spirit. Personally, things are moving in some pretty positive directions, quelling some of my natural tendency toward smarmy negativity. On a larger scale, things are potentially very scary, with all manner of sleazy, old (mostly white) men trying to bankrupt/kill/crap on everybody and everything that they can…and maybe, in light of recent allegations, also trying to get peed on.

I’ll try to keep it light and all, but…uh…whatever…here are my New Year’s resolutions for 2017…

  1. Use real bookmarks, ffs. Yeah, so this hardly seems like an ambitious goal. But I figure, why not start with something totally doable. See, whenever I start up a new book, I tend to grab the nearest, least necessary (for other purposes) flat item to use as a bookmark. Recently, this has begun bothering me in increasing degrees, as if it is some baseline, pointing out my overall laziness—especially since I actually own numerous bookmarks—from the kind of free things that come from book stores or in the mail, to fancy, laminated, yarn-tassled, and even metal bookmarks, stamped with inspirational quotes and whatnot. If I’m going to continue resisting the encroaching press of digital reading devices in favor of real paper-and— well, ‘board’ doesn’t exactly sound right, as in ‘board books’—but books with paper and covers of various substances, mostly derived from trees and other plants—then I can at least take the time to pull a decent bookmark from my scattered collection to honor the passing of the pages.
  1. Be in the world…at least a little more. One of those aforementioned positive personal changes is that I will be moving back to a schedule where I will be awake at semi-normal hours, and off work at hours when some other people I might want to see might also not be stuck at work. When your schedule is, as mine has been for the last 13+ months, overnight, including weekends, you don’t tend to just drop into parties, or dash out for a hike or a movie or a meal because a friend or two found themselves with some free time. You tend to spend your days off trying to force yourself into wakefulness during enough daytime hours that you can take a stab—or at least a weak swing—at normalcy…normalcy being things like not drinking a beer or three at 8:00 a.m., because that’s when you’re winding down from work…normalcy being things like not having to take a vacation day or two just to see some friends who live in the same flipping town, but don’t live on the same schedule as bats and opossums…normalcy being able to know for sure whether your months-long feeling of fatigue and dread is really something akin to clinical depression, or just the result of your work schedule. Looking forward to knowing that staying up late, or a lack of sleep, is more a lifestyle choice than a career-centered choice.
  1. Be in the world…like, beyond the personal. I realized recently that all my “community involvement” in recent years has slipped down into the realm of cash donations, and the occasional phone call or (usually online) petition. This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily. I sign up for regular online donations with various organizations…at least until the ‘card on file’ has to be replaced due to security breaches, or one of numerous other reasons banks use to perpetually switch out the cards they issue, and I find myself ignoring the emails about my payments not processing. Still, there was a time…like the bulk of my life prior to my later-in-life stint in grad school, where I was engaged with the people around me…all trying to make a difference and shit. I rode along with my mom doing meals-on-wheels when I was in elementary school. In fact, the bulk of my pre-adult “community involvement” was whatever my mom enlisted me to do…and my mom’s level of community service was, and still is, legendary—well, at least among a cluster of Lutherans in suburban Oregon and at least a few other far-flung places. As a parent, I obsessively volunteered at the kid’s school(s)—and occasionally with her sports teams—up until she hit Jr. High–because, for most of that time, I was working out of my home—until that previously mentioned grad school stint hit. Did I mention I’ve never been a particularly high-energy person? Anyway, I want to find some way back into community involvement…charity or not…although my adjusted schedule still might make that a bit tricky…unless I want to donate time in the mornings before I go to work. Maybe I’ll just make sure I reinstate all those security-threatened, lapsed payments to various organizations.
don-bob-gor-hair

–Will the presence of this ^…make this ^ more popular?  …Or should I just stick with this ^?

  1. Go full Bob’s Big Boy with the hair. I feel like I might be cribbing this from past years’ resolutions. I almost always have some kind of hair-based New Year’s resolution, and really, you can only make so many different hair-based resolutions when you’re a guy working an office-casual job. Anyway, if you’ve ever seen the mascot for Bob’s Big Boy restaurant, you know that his thick head of hair involves a part on one side, leading into a wave that culminates in something that—well, looks like an actual wave—like, on the ocean—or maybe like a shark fin and its wake as it cuts through the water. At any rate, I usually blow off getting my hair cut until I’ve got that basic Bob’s Big Boy thing starting up. Once my, as Frieda would say, naturally curly hair (although, really it’s more naturally wavy)—makes it past the 2.5-inch mark, every strand that is able clusters into a group, and fights to look like a surfer’s dream…or surfer’s nightmare…in fibrous protein form. With the Donald moving into the Presidency, sporting that ridiculous, spun-candied-glass, televangelist-inspired, hairdresser’s nightmare on top of his head, I figure my Big Boy wave will come into fashion—or serve as a sign of the impressive power that I wield. In conversation, I may have to start spitting out sentences more incoherent than those that I usually use (no small feat), so that people will realize I have a power haircut a la Tyrannosaurus Rump, and that it’s not just more of my lackadaisical grooming combined with sleep-deprived babbling. Either that, or I’ll just start getting it cut more often, so I don’t have to deal with the waves at all, and will only have to endure M telling me my latest haircut makes me look like a gorilla. But, secretly, I think she likes my gorilla look, so…

Finally…

  1. Write more, write often, write regularly—or alternately—Less wasting time on social media…more clogging up my small corner of social media (as well as writing for reasons beyond social media). When I started the blog, the idea was to do a post a week…I figured that was a fairly modest goal, although coming up with topics, and writing anything that I feel like sharing can be quite the challenge at times. 2016 proved exceptionally rough, since upwards of 70% of all media attention was devoted to some assclown who is apparently about to be the most powerful man in the world, finally matching his beliefs about himself with a cliché people frequently use about the job he is about to take over. Of course, that only left 30% of media attention to be divvied up between things Kardashian, things involving lesser reality-TV stars, and every other thing happening in the world. Whatever the specific ratios, it was difficult finding the motivation to knock out pieces about how people should maybe not use mental-health diagnoses as insults, and perhaps try to make it a bit more difficult for people in the U.S. to shoot each other, when that aforementioned assclown was able to get so much media attention by suggesting that insults are the answer, and violence and vindictiveness are just good ol’ American solutions to political problems. So, yeah–may have to tune a lot of that out, to prevent the reeking verbal diarrhea of short-fingered vulgarians from getting me down, and allowing me to count myself out.

Well, so much for keeping it light. Umm…is it too late to say ‘Happy New Year’?

Thanksgiving Greetings from an Ingrate, 2016: Where’s the Mashed Potatoes?

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J.C. Schildbach, LMHC

Okay…this post has nothing to do with a lack of mashed potatoes.  I just love that line.  It’s become a staple of M and my faux-complaining about, well, really any meal–not just Thanksgiving.  Not that we want mashed potatoes at every meal, but anyway…

A friend recently called me out for not being an ingrate. This via a Facebook post, wherein I was responding to her efforts at working through the 24-days-of-gratitude challenge, or whatever it’s called when you note something you’re thankful for every day throughout November until Thanksgiving. I commented that I had been planning to do the same, although “planning” is perhaps too strong a word…it had occurred to me that I could engage in that challenge, and that I had done it in the past…although, maybe not in November. I might have just chosen 24 or 25 random days, having missed the point entirely…or maybe having expanded the point out in the most glorious of ways by refusing to confine my thankfulness to some specific stretch on a calendar. At any rate, not being an ingrate perhaps takes away from these annual posts, but at least somebody gets the point…that I’m not really an ingrate.

To those who don’t know me, it might be easy to imagine I am such. I enjoy complaining–embrace complaining–as an art form. It’s performance. It’s fun. It’s pure joy, garnering accolades and laughs when in the right company—and disturbed, ‘are-you-okay?’-furrowed-brow looks when in the ‘wrong’ company.

You see, when a big portion of your work is devoted to listening, absorbing, and redirecting the misery of the world, complaining is life-saving, life-affirming, the stuff of thanks.

Or not.

It’s all a matter of perspective. Much of the ‘wrong’ company involves people in my same field, but with a vastly different view of how we need to approach life in order to receive the blessings of thanks, or the thanks of blessings, or whatever life-denying positivity they think will cancel out the darkness of the season…that same darkness our ancestors feared was the impending end of time.

ingrate-thanksgiving

Blurry and off-color…just like misplaced anger!

When I set out to write this annual exercise in ingratitude/gratitude, I tried to think of a good Thanksgiving story from my past.

As I’ve noted in previous ‘ingrate’ posts, I have very few specific childhood memories of Thanksgiving. It was just some day off from school—two days actually–where things were, perhaps, much worse than school…having to put on church clothes only to have a meal that wasn’t particularly interesting.

Perhaps my emotional deficit around Thanksgiving is that it comes between my own balls-out/dress-up/mess-up-the-house-with-monster-decorations/get-candy enthusiasm of Halloween, and the hyper-sentimentality/religious significance/songs/smells/twinkling-lights/PRESENTS!! of Christmas.

How can Thanksgiving compete with that? New Year’s doesn’t fare all that well in comparison, either. Perhaps as a child, I was too close to family, too frequently in contact with them, to realize the value in being able to meet up yet again.  Getting together with family is something that’s become far too infrequent, with siblings spread out across six states, and cousins across at least four more that I know of.

In the absence of the frequent family gathering, I have grown to love, if not the sham history of the holiday, then what the idea of the holiday represents…coming together, helping each other out, recognizing what we have, and why all those elements are potentially so great.

Again this year, my immediate family and I are going out to eat for Thanksgiving–at a favorite restaurant where we’ve enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner before. Again this year, it is a function of our work schedules. That is to say, we could request time off, but, as with every year of the last decade, I work in a 24/7 operation, and M works at a school that caters to doctors (who work in a 24/7 operation). So, we pick and choose which holidays to celebrate more or less enthusiastically.

M was insisting she wanted to make a Thanksgiving meal this year. When the idea was first proposed, I went along with it. Then, at some later time, the kid and I ganged up on her, and pointed out that she had to work the day before, and the day after, Thanksgiving, as do I.  Well, actually, I’m working the day before, the day of, and the day after Thanksgiving, which means a portion of the argument rested on what a pain it would be for me to help do the shopping and cooking and all that, while still attempting to get any sleep–have I mentioned that I work nights?  Coordinating the menu, the purchase of the food, and the preparation of the food, was far more work than we were all ultimately prepared to do, all for just the three of us.

We managed to nail down Christmas plans that would allow more time before and after that holiday to indulge in such excessive amounts of preparation and work, and still get in a fair amount of relaxation, all in the company of family. I’ll hold to my feeling that thanks shouldn’t be a chore, and that holidays should be centered around a desire to celebrate, rather than an obligation to go through the motions of celebration.

I am incredibly thankful, once again, that I have the great fortune to pay to indulge in the hospitality provided by others. And once again, I intend to tip with guilt-laden generosity.

Wherever you are today, I hope you have reason to recognize your situation as one of great fortune as well.

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

Happy Halloween! The New Decorations: 2016

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J.C. Schildbach, LMHC

We’re breaking records for October rain here in this part of the world–as well as having just generally rotten weather–so much so that I kept blowing off putting up the decorations.  I still haven’t gotten the lights set out–the big LED lamps that illuminate the whole Halloween display.  I’ll get to that as soon as I’m done posting this…and well before I dry out from having just gone out to hang the new decorations.  (Yep, taking it down to the wire, despite Halloween and tricks and treats falling on a school night plagued by terrible weather).

Both of the new pieces are based on drawings the kid did many years ago, when she was about five.  Of course, there are modifications.  I’d post images of the source material, but I didn’t ask her permission for that.  Maybe later.

deca-hand

What is it?!?  Isn’t it obvious?

So, the ten-armed creature here (which was a twelve-armed creature in its original form) is a random monster from the days when the kid would sit around drawing picture after picture, or very involved pictures with numerous characters.  So far as I know, it has no name, and isn’t any particular kind of beast.  I always envisioned it as floating about, or perhaps ‘swimming’ through the air.  At any rate, it was made to hang from our plum tree.  It’s about six-and-a-half feet tall.  And, in case you’re wondering, yes, cutting something like that out of a single piece of 4′ x 8′ plywood is rather time-consuming.

new-witch

With an actual, aged broom…y’know, for realism!

The witch here was taken from my favorite material object in the entire world…a construction paper haunted house that the kid made all those years ago, with numerous drawings of monsters glued to the outside.  Her witch was standing, not flying on a broom.  And I added the gym socks.  But I think I retained the spirit of the original pretty well.

Happy Halloween, everybody!