Imagine something brilliant

I like to read, I read rather a lot or at least I think I do. More than some and not nearly as much as others, but I read. It is something that I admire about people and we don’t even need to read the same things. One of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard is, “never trust anyone who does not own books.” A favorite poem is “a girl who reads” by Mark Grist … there is a spoken word film of it on youtube if you are so inclined to view, but it sums up how I feel about reading…stories, poems, novels, articles, all of it, any of it, I like to read. I read every day; I write everyday … just not the things I want to read and write as you may have noticed if you are a follower of my ramblings … which have been woefully absent as of late but not because of the absinthe. There are more than several reasons for the non writing one of them is that I choose not to subtract from the mind-numbing time suck things I do and put word to page as it were. I have continued to find the time to read and re read things Being that I am such the fan of the printed word list of books you should read always catches my eye as something I should explore. List which are titled things like, “The Best 100 Books Ever Written” or “50 Books YOU should have READ by 25.” Then every single time without fail once I dive into the list of books I have barely read even a quarter of the books on the list. Which results in my demons chiming in with their chorus of hateful things, Trust me if you heard my internal dialogue you would wonder why I even look in a mirror ever. I try to avoid it, unless absolutely necessary. Not the point. I read, a good bit. Books without pictures even, but you wouldn’t know it by the ticks on the lists I go through. Sure I’ve read my fair share of lesser read novels, Iceberg Slim’s biographical novels, some Anton Lavey and even a few things in the Anarchists Cookbook just to see what was all the fuss. But I’ve also read a lot of the classics like the Iliad and the Odyssey, a lot of Shakespeare, Dickens, et al the English Lit requirements and American Lit classics as well. There should be more ticks on these lists. The more I look at these lists the more I see they are just a whomever’s list of favorites or a completely arbitrary collection of books which may be popular for now. I mean while the, “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” may be a fantastic read, I don’t know that it should be required reading for everyone. Sorry if you love it. The important thing is that you open a book, read a story and enjoy the journey doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about the book. Make your own list of favorites. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

It all depends on where you are standing

A story largely depends on where you are standing if it is a comedy or a horror story. Once upon a time my brother, the other one, and I were ski instructors. It isn’t really all the fun the movies make it out to be. We are required to tell anyone it is not fun because if we didn’t, the world would be full of ski instructors, and then nothing would get done. However, whether being a ski instructor is the best job in the world it not the story. One of the many things that ski instructors do is hang out together, laugh, and tell stories, generally in bars. Once ski instructors start having kids they start bringing them to hang out too. Well on one particular afternoon, the other one and I were hanging out with a lot of other instructors and one them brought their child with them. This child was like most little kids and saw hanging out with grown-ups as dull as a bowling ball, or as much fun as poison ivy. Kids get bored when they have nothing to do. When kids get bored they begin to be pain in the butt. It isn’t really their fault though but fact is fact and this kid was nearing the, “I’m about to be a pain in the ass threshold” for this outing. Well as luck would have it at the time, while the other one and I were adults as far as the law was concerned we weren’t really grown-ups. So we came up with a way to keep this kid occupied. Which to his delight was tossing him across the bar as in a game of hot potato or egg toss. The other one and I were standing maybe four feet apart at first the kid was in mid-air all of a second, if that long. Unfortunately that was boring to us after a few tosses. So we, the other one and I, decide to take a step back after every few tosses. Further and further away from one another. Tossing this kid between us like he is training for the circus or something. The distance between us kept getting larger and was now maybe somewhere close to ten feet, the kid is airborne still only for like two seconds. He is happier than he probably had been ever at that point in his three year old life. Each trip across the span the kid’s arms were spinning in the air, a smile on his face that couldn’t be pried off, and a contagious laugh erupted that had a dozen or so other so called grown-ups including the kid’s dad entertained. So entertained that we did not see the kid’s mother come into the room. Now as a mother, the last thing you expect to see when you walk into a room is your three year old being thrown in the air between two ski instructors and a crowd of adults laughing as loud as the kid at the scene. The kid was midway between the other one and me when his mother walked in. She walked in behind me so I never saw her face, but I saw the other ones face, and I knew it wasn’t good. To say she freaked out would be an understatement. To the kid’s credit he tried to defend me, he tried to defend the other one and he even tried to defend his dad. He even begged his mom to go again. Of course mom was having none of that, and the kid makes it worse by saying something a kin to mom not being any fun. Which prompted a lot of suppressed laughter from the “grown-ups” in the room and a lot more trouble for the dad. I’m willing to bet that was the most fun that kid had for at least another year or so. Just as I’m equally sure the mom’s version of this story is not a comedy but a horror story. It all depends on where you’re standing or flying. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

If you live it up, you won't live it down.

The end of another calendar year has spun around. It has always seemed a strange time of year to celebrate the changing of the year. It could happen on any old day of the year on our trip around the sun. If you think about it much, the winter solstice would be a better day as the days begin to get longer and the end of cycle of growing night ends. The celebration happens close enough to the solstice that it doesn’t really matter that it isn’t really on the exact day. How it came to be a night of drinking until your eyeballs fall out is a mystery and it has been a good long time since I’ve rung in the new year with a resounding hangover. Nothing like the thumping of the twelve beats hammering on your noggin all the next day. On weakened knees, you promise to Bacchus that you won’t pay homage as fervently the next time or forsaking the god of wine all together in that moment of defeat. However, the next year, there you are raising a cup to the lord of the grape… Feel free to insert your beverage of choice and appropriate god of your drink. Hopefully the repeat of the cup raising doesn’t repeat in screaming at your footwear and why would you name your shoes Ralph anyway. Fortunately I learned that drinking doesn’t actually kill brain cells. Well it does if you die of alcohol poisoning but otherwise you are safe, because, we all know a person who has drank enough booze to kill the brains of several people. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I’ve learned much more than that during the year and I remain as unevolved as I have been. I did learn one other thing but, I’m not sure how useful the information is at this point or if it is at all. Then my favorite part of the new year calendar flip ritual are the promises to be better people and not the worthless meat sacks we have been the previous year. Mostly thought we end up being the same old people we were when we started the whole ring in the new calendar celebration. Those promises were just noise to fill in space and there was no intention of making good on them anyway. As of late I’ve flipped the calendar in a rather uneventful fashion, which I’m not sure I prefer apart from the obvious lack of a hangover. Living January one, sans the headache has been nice, even if it is a little boring. Boring is probably a bit too harsh a critique but it certainly has a lot more solitude. The solitude has added to my cynicism which may or may not be a good thing. Looking back over the year past, it has been harder to keep looking back and not be tempted to look forward and wonder how many more of these calendar flop overs remain which has more to do with a certain day that happened a while back. The changing of the calendar hasn’t woken in me a resolve to do anything differently but perhaps do to it with a little more purpose than I have and perhaps that information I learned will be useful. Perhaps it won’t be useful. So with a cup of Sir Arthur’s brew, I raise it up, tip it back and swallow the frothy bitter sweet ale and savor the taste and remember that you have to follow your dreams or they will die and kill you in the process. Happy New Year, follow the path you want and ignore those that would stand in your way or make you doubt your heart. Thank you to those who sent me post cards in 2014, you know who you are. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: Lyrics from Tom Waits, “Hold On” – Mule Variations Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

How did I survive my childhood?

There are so many thoughts rambling around in my head that I don’t even know where to start with trying to unpack them all and get them out of my head. Most of the problems I have in my life are first world problems and really in the whole scheme of things do not matter even a little bit. The world will spin on even if I don’t do a thing. It just takes up too much space in my head and I don’t relax. However, the other day I was watching some kid do something that a kid will do and the helicopter parent was right nearby muttering something or other I couldn’t hear. Most likely it was some warning about not doing this or that or some such noise. The kid kept right on doing whatever it was he was doing over the objections of the parent. I could tell by the annoyed look on the parent’s face. That is the look of ignored authority. However whatever the kid was doing did not seem particularly dangerous. My childhood was a bit different, parental units did not helicopter around us. We didn’t wear helmets or knee pads or other safety equipment. I could say I came out the other side unscarred but that would be a blatant lie. I had my share of cuts sewn shut and scars from less than well thought out plans. We hunted each other in the woods with BB guns, rode bikes down hills with no brakes, my youngest brother rode a big wheel down a quarter of a mile hill on a main road around blind turns and the list could go on and on to the horror of those who were unaware of our hi-jinx. Yet somehow we lived. Every one of my friends stepped on a nail, cut themselves with a knife or some tool, ended up with some pretty deep cut, scrape or other injury and mostly we just kept playing. We just rubbed dirt on it and went on. I remember one time I wrecked my bike trying to impress a girl with a daredevil bike trick. At the high point of the trick I would zoom by the girl’s house at the bottom of the hill. The high point was me standing both feet on the left pedal holding the handle bar with my right hand, leaning the bike out to almost a 45 degree angle, going top speed, which may have only been 15 or 20 mph. It seems faster when you are in middle school. Well that incident ended with me hitting something which caused the front wheel to wobble and me over correcting the handlebar and leaning the bike too far out to the side which caused the bike to slide completely under me launching me forward no longer a passenger on the bike but an airborne thing above it. I landed on the bike and it and me skidded by the girl’s house in a twisted heap of metal, boy, and tires. The girl was not even home, I found out later, and therefore not impressed but several of her neighbors were impressed that I did not die as they saw me flipping down the road and came running from their houses. Fortunately I was able to ride the bike or more to the point it was not damaged to point of not working. It hurt a lot and I was bleeding from a lot of places but at the moment I was more embarrassed by not doing the trick well than being hurt. I wasn’t the only mental midget either, one friend deciding it would be a rather good idea to run across the field were are bull was fenced. The bull did not like his company much and chased him around a bit. Everything we did was legal, …well we will assume it was legal but to be sure most of it… well maybe none of it was not very smart. Like the time I jumped off the roof of my grandmother’s house to impress a girl and ended up with me in a leg cast and the girl not being very impressed. I’m not sure that there is a moral to all of this, maybe don’t do stupid things to impress girls or at least make sure they are home first. Maybe it is that boys are dangerous and shouldn’t be left alone for long periods of time. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

I could tell you but I probably won't

Stuff and stuff We all have things. Stuff, even, thing that are ours and no one else’s. Even if our thing, is just like their thing, it is our thing. The stuff we have is ours and it makes us…happy? We all have stuff, stuff we don’t use, and for that matter stuff we do not even need. Hell maybe even stuff we don’t actually want. But we have it none the less and it is our stuff. Some of us have more stuff than we have places to keep stuff. I’m trying to get rid of stuff On one hand it is really easy to get rid of stuff. You find the nearest trash can and you toss that shit in. Go ahead, do it… if you can. Some stuff goes pretty easy other stuff doesn’t want to go. Trigger stuff. Stuff that makes you remember. Remember something that you haven’t thought about in ever so long. Like that kiss under the stars, leaning against the damp stone of the building not caring if anyone saw. The horrible trip, The broken bones, The funny story you and your best friend laugh about with only a single word, because of some ugly little trinket. A child’s first homework, The piece of art which is a tree? No, it’s a shark…what the hell is it? It doesn’t matter what it is now you remember the child that needed you more than anything else… the child who is now an adult. All time gone away. Saved in the bits and bobbles all in boxes, up on shelves, tucked into corners. All the stories, travels, memories of a hundred yesterdays all begin to pile up and accumulate. Then you look at things and struggle to remember, why did you keep the placemat from the Chinese place, which time was it that you went. What is my animal sign? The memories are there but the reason for the touchstone is lost but many times it is not. Cleaning up can be a bigger adventure than you supposed. Perhaps more than you bargained It can seem like each little thing you touch comes with a flood of memories and you find yourself sitting in a room that isn’t really cleaned up any more that it was two hours ago but you are mentally worn out from all the emotions you’ve just experienced. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don http://invisibledon.diaryland.com/images/burningname.gif PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

Sexy Ugly

What is attractive, good looking or beautiful depends largely upon who is doing the looking. The saying, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ rings true, because as much as we try to homogenize and make it all the same, we fail. As much as the beauty industry tries to bring it to a science of this is attractive and this is not, the mark is missed. We still find things to be alluring to us that do not fit with convention. The idea of sexy ugly is something I heard in a film and the concept stuck with me. The line, if I remember correctly, was that someone is so unattractive that they are attractive. Which I didn’t really disagree with because at the time I had my own popular sexy ugly person I could point to and say yes I agree. However this not really fair to the person I labeled as sexy ugly because I did not think they were ugly but did not try to make it more understandable and went with the words sexy ugly. Driven yet again by convention out of my own lack of motivation to define it further. Everyone finds attraction in something and sees a beauty others may not and while someone may not be conventionally pretty does that necessarily mean that they are not attractive. I say no. I like a face with character something that is unique and has a quality not in other people. And while a broken nose may disfigure one person it adds character to another. All the lines, wrinkles, scars, freckles, and the other countless little imperfections which the fashion and beauty industry would have you erase and cut away make a face unique. It is odd how we all try to be the same, yet strive for individuality and work against the things that truly make us just a little different to meet someone else’s definition of beauty. I think the people who embrace themselves for who they are genuinely are the happiest. However I struggle with the plight that many do when I look in the mirror I don’t always see what others say they see. We are all bombarded by all sorts of image standards and it is hard not to let it take a toll or maybe it is easy avoid it and I am just that superficial to allow it to bother me. Some days I see a reflection I enjoy and then other days I would rather break every mirror than to see the reflection looking back at me. Usually I just let it go, I think of the sexy ugly thing and go about my day avoiding my reflection until I have to wash my face or brush my teeth. Then I will scowl at myself and make faces and generally let myself have a good verbal beat down. I’m pretty good at it too. Name calling is a skill best reserved for yourself. No one knows your weak points like you do and I don’t usually pull any punches when I’m mirror bashing myself. Then I’ll let it go because I can’t really change it and I embrace it, and then the cycle will repeat again. Have no fear most days I look in the mirror and I just see me for me and I don’t worry about what is conventional or not. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: line from the movie, “Kissing Jessica Stein” Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

Let my skull be a home for the mice

Given that it is the season for the macabre and the gruesome it seems appropriate to talk about the things that aren’t oft spoken about in polite company. I have always been a fan of the darker side of things, found beauty where others only see ugliness and I know I’m not unique in this sort of thing. There are whole industries built up on those things which avoid convention and embrace the darker side. Not sure how much truth there is to the saying, if you stare too long into the darkness it begins to stare back into you. So to celebrate the time of year and my love of the less than conventional dinner conversation in the query as to what becomes of the physical me once I’m gone. Well to honor my love of learning I really would like to donate my body to science. Which I did not know until recently that there are all sorts of restriction and such to that or at least donating your body to some things. I also think it would be fun to get entertaining tattoos so med students could read them and laugh or find inspiration. To borrow from “Breaking Bad” I have considered getting, “Yeah, science bitch!” tattooed across my chest. I think that would a bit uplifting to see that staring back at you, especially on a bad day. Other things: the bio hazard emblem, “Enjoy today it has to be better than mine” and on and on. Make anatomy a bit of fun. Someone suggested getting the body parts tattooed but that might be a disqualifier for a classroom cadaver. Once my work was done in the classroom as a cadaver, I’ve always wanted to have my skull cleaned and then bronzed. You know to be used as a book end or paper weight. Something to pass on down to the kids and grandkids. I mean show and tell would be awesome for the great grandkids, who else would have the actual skull of an ancestor to bring in for that, no body …bahahahahaha get it no body just the head. But seriously, this is my great granddad or great great granddad…winner. How about tagging along to a party long after you’ve shuffled off the mortal coil. Guess what is in the bag? A human skull. That would be the best Halloween party decoration ever. I’ve also wanted to start building the family “spice” rack or moveable cemetery. Cremation is one day going to be a requirement and cemeteries will be outlawed and a thing of legend or storytelling and no longer a place to go hide because most people are too afraid to go into the cemetery at night. So having the whole family in little labeled jars makes for a very interactive family tree discussion. This here is your great aunt so and so and she did whatever it was that she was famous for like robbing banks or something. Recently though science has come up with anything carbon can be made into diamonds thing, which has gotten me to thinking that jewelry which is actually family members would be totally awesome too. Having a family charm bracelet made of actual family members compressed into diamonds. I mean seriously how cool is that. If you are a guy having the gems put into a watch face as the numbers. It’s half past Uncle Billy or a quarter till granddad. Then what about the rest of the bones or tattoos. I mean skinning people has been done for ages and made into book covers, lampshades, museum pieces and lots of other products have been made out of human skin. Not exactly a gift for everyone, and that may not be a thing that most people want as a present or even to have around. But I like my tattoos and it would be a shame for them to just rot away or burn to dust. Then there are all sorts of things that can be made from bones; tools, art, and functional décor to name but a few. People have always kept bones around until recently. Stored them up in catacombs or ossuaries. The Sedlac Ossuary in the Czech Republic has the bones of perhaps 70,000 people as adornments and functional pieces. Rome and Paris had catacombs so large they have no idea how many peoples remains are stored under the cities. I’m not sure why we have strayed away from the practice to be honest but we have. Hopefully my bones will be dice or table legs or perhaps the eyeless face staring back from a bookshelf watching future generations of my line celebrate living. Who knows maybe I can even get the part of Yorick in Hamlet, “Alas poor Yorick I knew him well …” Would you get billing in the playbill as the skull who played Yorick. Happy Halloween Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: Lyrics from Tom Waits “ Satisfied” Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Invisible Don PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards