Jumanji!

River and I had a good date night tonight. I highly recommend Jumanji, for both people with kids and without. It's a cliche comedy flick, but with a hilarious cast, funny references, and some good snippets of message throughout. The end had me tearing up!

Memes

Or, "On The Efficacy of Communicating Via Pictorial Representations of Our Emotions."

Hey all.

You probably have not read this blog. If you have, welcome back. If you have not, you probably are either a) a Facebook friend, b) a Twitter follower, or c) someone who stumbled over this randomly, and are now confused as to why you are reading some dude rambling on about things.

If it's any of those, the real quick rundown about me is: veteran, father, husband, teacher, guy who rants about things. See, wasn't that easy?

I find it easier to express myself like this:

(Even that's not really true, though, because I cropped the image. But hey, now you know what I look like! I'm the dude with the beard, if it isn't obvious, and that pretty lady next to me is my wife, who you will henceforth know as River. It's a long story.)

Anyway, what got me thinking about this was, when I posted about reinvigorating this blog (for a variety of reasons that even I am not really clear on/haven't figured out yet) on Facebook, thinking about deeply insightful, meaningful things, I got this:


via GIPHY

And this:


via GIPHY

Got this too:


via GIPHY

Even got this:


via GIPHY

At first, I won't lie, I was irritated. If you know me, you know why: I take myself way too seriously. Even though I'm pretty sure I've won some internet meme wars in the past. But this is the restart of my blog. Here's how I saw it going in my head:


via GIPHY

Then these images got me thinking about some really serious stuff (probably because I've been listening to this lately, which by the way I highly recommend: https://twitter.com/anthroreviewed?lang=en) like how, for most of human history, we have this weird dichotomy where people express themselves mainly through visual means, yet it was only "civilized" nations that wrote things down. It got me thinking about letters that colonists and frontiersman wrote home to their families, how they had to spend sentences describing the land and how they got sick from food poisoning and how hard it was to travel, and nowadays I can send a cat GIF to River, and she knows exactly how I'm feeling and in what context and what that means for how the night is going to go.

My point here, as I ramble on (and as I have struggled to figure out how to embed GIFs, which is a lot easier than I assumed it would be) is that we are so saturated with images, yet for some reason people like me (or maybe, really, just me) value the written word. When I posted about ideas for restarting this thing, I was expecting:

"Talk about the Trump presidency!"

"Describe 50 things you did today!"

"Discuss your philosophy about how the world should be xyz way!"

But that's pompous of me to assume, because in the end my friends posting memes is exactly what I needed, because as always they keep me grounded when my head is in the clouds.

So, I'm back. I'm going to write something every day. It might not be meaningful or insightful. It might just be posting a GIF. But my goal right now is to at least jot down some thoughts every day. I want to be an author (in case you didn't know) but I also have a lot of opinions and ideas and just plain rants. If you want to read it, fine. Great. It's not really for you, if you're actually someone reading this. It's really about using my voice, putting things down to be heard, but I will write as though I have an audience, because I think even a man shouting into the black emptiness of night should think about courtesy.

Speaking of courtesy, here are some images that show a being who has no sense of that word (oh yeah, I have two kids. They will most likely feature pretty prominently in this blog).








See you tomorrow.

Day 13

C:\

With a small beep, a command prompt appeared on the laptop screen, followed by a long line of mysterious code, strings and combinations of random digits and numbers. The code flew down the monitor as if blown by wind, expanding and extending for almost a full minute. Then, as quickly as it had come, it disappeared, leaving the screen pitch black. With another small beep, the monitor went out.

Then, with an ear-splitting roar, the floor of the apartment opened in fire and smoke.

Jordan Longfellow jolted upright and jumped out of his futon. He staggered for a moment, and very nearly fell into the gaping hole in his third story floor. In a daze, still caught in his dreams from a moment ago, he inched around the bedframe, toes burning, until he reached his closet door. He threw it open and searched the shelves frantically, hands grasping in the dark until they hit a small rubber Tuppermaid. He yanked it open and pulled out a military grade gas mask and a thick, ugly gray coverall. He pulled them on, zipped the fire suit up and checked the breathers.

The panic struck him then, as his adrenaline finally began to press through his exhaustion. How had they found him, here, in one of his sanctuaries? The apartment was barely bigger than a closet, but somehow they had managed to break through.

He glanced quickly across the gaping, flaming maw. His laptop. He eyed the gap, then took a deep, filtered breath. With a few short steps and an enormous effort, he leaped over the gap to the other side.

A piece of concrete buckled, cracked.

Jordan threw himself forward.

His hands touched the cool metal of his computer, and he grasped it to his chest as he fell backward. There was no stopping it.

He cried out in pain as the back of his head collided with the arm of the loveseat in the lower apartment. For a moment, Jordan thought his neck might have broken. He lay there, weary to his bones, breathing through the filters of his mask, staring up through the black, flaming hole.

A shatter of glass.

A small pop.

Jordan’s eyes flew to the window, then he flung himself over the back end of the couch. He fell to the floor, but it didn’t feel right. Too lumpy and disfigured. He looked down, and had to stifle vomit in his throat.

The corpses had obviously been dead for a few hours. The man’s eyes bulged, and the woman’s skin was beginning to turn a horrible shade of blue. Jordan rolled quickly off the man and instinctively checked for a pulse, then withdrew his hand just as quickly. It was obviously part of their plan.

He had to get out of there, had to find some way out and into the darkness. Well, he thought bitterly, at least I only have two floors to go.

Day 12

What have you stolen?

I had no choice, you understand. It had to be done.

Let me explain it to you slowly, so it makes more sense, because any misbegotten facts will make you assume the worst of me, and you have to understand. I’m not a bad person, just a normal guy with, shall we say, extraordinary expectations. Maybe a little on the mischievous side, but, as the common man would say “I ain’t e’er done nuthin sides look out for me own.” At least, I assume that’s what they would say, in years past.

I’ll have to start at the beginning, so you have a clear picture. The family I was born into, well, maybe you will see that I didn’t really have a choice. Maybe you will see, because of my mother’s connections and my father’s great acts in the last great battle of the last major war, that I never could have been anything but great.

My idea of greatness though, I say ‘idea’ but really it was my realization, is nothing like my parents. When I was at the glorious ballroom parties of New York and London at the young age of 5, I realized I could never be great like my parents. My mother, tall and willowy, with splendid locks of russet colored hair and dark, seductive eyes, enraptured every man in the room. My father, battle-scarred and limping on one good leg, held a presence of command that no other man could equal. Even his superiors, for he was only a lowly officer in the war, straightened their backs at the sight of him.

Don’t you see, now? How could I hope to be the equal of the woman desired by all, the man equal to none? At the age of five, I realized my own path lay on a forked road, away from the starlit walkway my parents trod with no trouble at all. It was to them that glory and honor would go. It was to them that people would bend down and revere.

That night, at one of those parties I so loved, for I did love them, was when I began to forge my own path. As the admirers gazed hungrily upon my parents, as I, with my clear perception, saw them glow in the light of candles and chandeliers, my hand stole out into a gentleman’s pocket. I remember the pounding of my small heart, not realizing what I was doing until the digits were nearly to the opening of his suit paints. Sweat beaded upon my upper lip, and I felt such a rush of greatness that, with a quick movement, I slipped my hand in, grasped the brown leather wallet, and then held it behind my back.

It was at that moment my father, bushy eyebrows relaxed, turned toward me, and smiled.

Don’t you see that it was a sign? My father, he approved of my greatness. He knew I had not his command of words, nor my mother’s intellect. But this, this knowledge and skill I possessed, he approved. He must have seen me take the wallet.

That night, as he climbed behind the wheel, he said only ‘I love you, son.” As he gazed knowingly into the rearview mirror, the truck slammed into us, and it was in that clear moment, as my head snapped, that I knew that he would approve of the seed growing inside of me.

I never had his verbal approval, of course. The crash had maimed him severely, adding to injuries he had sustained in the war. I remember, at the funeral, that my mother had said she knew his time would always be short since that dreadful last battle, and I remember watching a little of her greatness die as she said goodbye to my father. The willow branch no longer waved, but stayed bent and hunched, and the fire had left my mother’s eyes.

Don’t you realize, now, why I had no choice? It was not for me that I pursued greatness. It was not for my own sake, but for my mother’s and father’s, and so what if I loved it, too? Should a man not love that at which he excels? I knew my skills, and I knew that only my greatness, though of a darker and harder type than my parent’s, would bring back the glory my family deserved.

It was several years until I had a chance to improve upon my skills. With my father gone, his pension alone sustained us, for though my mother had a strong mind and beautiful features, she cared too much for my own education and safety to seek employment. We moved out of the great apartment in Manhattan to a small, simple house in Brooklyn, the yard perpetually brown even at the height of spring.

My mother was vain, though, and she still kept her sparkling dresses and jewels, and told no one of the move. She still dragged me to the wonderful ballroom parties, though I knew that people now instead looked upon us with pity, not with the wonder and awe due to our name. It was here that I would take from the gentleman and ladies. Within months of my father’s death, I became an expert at picking pockets, of taking what was due my family and I from those who, I suspected and later confirmed, profited from my father’s death. I had overheard something once, someone asking my mother for “consideration” and from the shocked but resolute expression on her face, I knew the money I drew out of a ladies’ purse that night really belonged to us.

Finally, I remember, after a particularly brutal winter, when my mother began to cough even after the snow had melted, her attention began to wane. I knew that my mother knew of my greatness at my craft. She had glanced at me, at parties, at the supermarket, with a small smile and an incongruous line between her eyebrows, as I took small trinkets, small tokens, and things which helped us survive. She never asked where I got the money to buy candy or toys or, my real passion, books. She simply kissed my forehead, and told me, in a somber voice, “Be careful.” But after that brutal winter, she seemed to turn inward.

The Valentines Ball, which was held in the Waldorf Astoria, we did not attend that year. Nor St. Patricks at the Ritz-Carlton.

It was on those two occasions, when my mother shut herself in her room with her hot water bottle, I crept out into the night. On the first, I boosted a car. It was not the first time I had driven, but it was the first time I had not returned my prize to its rightful owner. I only remember a haze of glorious greatness, ending in a sharp crash and my feet pounding as I ran from police sirens.

The next time I had reason to leave, St. Patricks, I finally made the real commitment required of my craft. At only 7 years old, I broke into my first apartment. The feeling was spectacular, I doubt you would understand. I don’t mean that rudely, you know, but seriously. It is something one such as yourself can’t understand. Seeing the gleaming possessions of those mongrels, those wretches who were out drinking their minds away. I knew, at that moment, that they belonged to me. I, who had the presence of mind to do what others would not. Can you not see the greatness within my reasoning?

I see you’re growing bored, but bear with me a moment longer. It took me another three years, and several close scrapes, to hone my craft. I became an expert at locks, mechanisms, and all things secure. I began to watch people as I doubt they had ever been seen, as I doubt even I understood at the time, and saw how they protected themselves, and how to exploit those measures. Every night I broke through the barriers of at least one home, but I did not confine myself to high-rises. From the lowest beggar to the richest politician, I prowled each of their homes, looking for things to plunder. Often, I took nothing, but simply saw, as no one but the very keenest see, how people live.

My mother passed away. I had months to reconcile myself to the fact, and though I roamed the streets nightly, my mind was often with her, back in our scrubby little Brooklyn house. It seems people think sometimes that those who pursue greatness of the kind I have are full of only thoughts of themselves, but that isn’t how I am. Everything I did, I did for her, I did it so one day people would know our names and fear us like they did when my father was alive.

I really think she would have appreciated it.

We laid her to rest next to my father, in Cypress Hills, where so many souls have been laid to rest. I remember crying at her funeral, crying like I had not cried at my father’s, and resolving then to become what I am today.

After that, I drifted. My feet carried me anywhere they could, and my wallet was never lacking with funds. It was with a real purpose, now, that I practiced the art of the night. I was determined to make the name Halgill great again, make it something more than just the name scribbled on two headstones. I took great things, as you know, and always left my signature black handkerchief emblazoned with the family crest. You know all this, of course, but don’t you see now why it was necessary? Don’t you see that it was not compulsion that drove me?

Don’t you see the great purpose?

That’s why I stole it, Sergeant Hastings. That’s why I stole the classified laptop. Who would suspect a thief here, in the middle of the Pentagon?

Don’t you see why it had to be done?

Day 11

Day 11

The end.
Warm crimson droplets fell from his hand as he stared out at the sandy landscape, dust billowing up around the scrub brushes and destroyed vehicles in small puffs. He couldn’t tell where the shots were coming from.
At this point he didn’t care.
After a minute, of searching around him, he found his helmet. Thankfully, the flames hadn't burned off the reflective red cross on the front. He plopped the bucket onto his head with a lopsided grin.
Slowly, Merciville got to his feet. On the ground, only five feet in front of him, lay Sergeant Olden. Olden’s face has been torn clean off, it looked like by a piece of sheet metal blasted from one of the MATVs. His leg, combat boots always laced so tightly, twitched in convulsions, then finally lay still. Merciville couldn’t do a damn thing for him, but he knelt down next to the sergeant anyway, the effort bringing a fresh pain to the pit of his stomach. He gripped Olden’s hand, shouted that he would get help.
The ringing still had not left his ears.
Staggering back to his feet, Merciville wound through smoldering pieces of slag, craters in the sound, and, he numbly saw, large puddles of a terrifying mixture of fluids, most of which were tinged crimson. About 20 yards from Olden lay Gruber, sitting up, clutching his neck with his left hand.
His right hand was missing.
Gruber balanced a radio mike in the crook of his shoulder, shouting for reinforcements.
As he half walked, half stumbled toward Gruber, Merciville’s ears suddenly popped. He widened his jaw in a silent yawn, and distantly felt a creeping sensation in the region of his feet at the soft whiz and pop of more rounds striking the ground.
He was glad the Taliban weren’t great shots.
At last, he reached Gruber and, ignoring the lieutenant’s protests, bandaged his hand. It was awkward, and took much longer than normal, but he finally got him taken care of. Out of the corner he saw the severed hand on top of a flaming box of MREs.
He didn’t mention this to the lieutenant.
The next time he stood, the pain knocked him back to the ground, and Merciville inhaled a mouth full of moon sand. Coughing, he felt Gruber grab him and drag him into a sitting position. Gruber told him not to move, ordered him not to tend to anyone else.
He had never disobeyed an order.
That didn’t matter anymore, though, he thought.
In about five minutes, nothing would.
Finally, he pushed himself to his feet.