Air

Air

Monday, January 31, 2011

The Time Before

Today has been a "Blah" day. I got up to take my mother to the doctor, everything is good. But, It is times like these, you know that period of time when you get to sit, that you get to look at the world around you and you interact with it. Well, this world that I see is much different than it was when I was a kid.
I sat at the doctor's office, which when I was a kid, would have had one doctor. Nowadays, this office had four doctors, so the place was busy. There were families, and couples, and older folks, and me with my mother.
I was watching ,in particular, to the one family with three small kids. Now in my childhood, I would have either sat beside my parents, or had been in the kids area, sitting politely reading a book or playing a toy. Not these kids, and not these parents either. These kids were taking turns running around the office hitting each other with the books, pushing each other out of the office, then locking them out of the office, smashing each other in between the door and the wall. Now, if I were these kids' parent, they would have problems sitting. But no, the mother was holding the baby, and ignoring what her kids were doing, and the father was reading a magazine.
I am wondering where we fell into the "No touch" zone. If my kids misbehave, my hand will be on their ass PERIOD. It amazes me as to what parenting has turned into. Now, I was spanked as a kid, and every time I was spanked, I deserved. My parents had this little thing called CONTROL. And, if we the future parents of the world, don't use some. Our future generations will be out of control. I think there has to be a point where parents take back the power that the government has scared us out of. Timeouts work... sometimes. Grounding works... for only so long. I feel that the punishment must match the crime per se, but, to do nothing, is wrong.
I know that at this current point in time, I don't have a child. I also know that I am a stubborn person, I very strongly doubt that my view will change. Take my words and digest them as you will. Just don't bitch at me, it is my opinion. And this is just my blog of opinions.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Not much...


I have decided that I must post something everyday on this blog of mine, or it makes no sense on having it. So, starting today, Sunday 30th 2011, I will post something, anything, I might even dig up old poems and post them, if I have nothing else.

Even though it is Sunday morning, I am going to say tonight since I haven't slept yet. So, Tonight was my bi-monthly game night. I really do enjoy these evenings, it allows me to spend time out of the house, with friends shooting the shit, and I get to watch them squirm when I almost kill them in one shot.
If you haven't figured it out, or don't know. I play Dungeon and Dragons, have for decades,yes, I said decades. I have played D&D since I was 8, a good portion of the time, I have been the Dungeon Master, or DM. I do enjoy my role as the DM, scouring through books, finding the right combination of critters to throw on the board, and seeing the looks of my players faces as I hit them for stupid amounts of damage, or inflict their characters with poisons and afflictions. I know it all sounds sick. but, when things go wrong in your real life, everyone needs escape, some use booze, some use drugs, I use D&D.
D&D is expensive at first, books range from mid $20's and can go to mid $40's and if you are a collector, you pay $70+ for the leather bound collector's edition, even if there really isn't anything special about it. and every month or so, a new book comes out, and I might pick it up, if I have the money, or not. really depends if I think that I will use it. But, once the books are bought, and the pencils are sharpened, and you have your dice (because you don't just have your plain old white six-sided dice. see above image.) You really truly can start, and the only thing that the game needs is a story, players, and your imagination. My friend Beth is a children's librarian. She has never played before, and on multiple occasions does better than her husband, Larry, who has played as long as I have. With Matt, this is another social function, he has a great time playing, and enjoys hanging out with all of us gamers. And, Justin, my game is just one of many that he actually plays. now that we have our books, all we have to spend now, is a little gas to get to game, or to grab supplies we need, a little bit of time and energy gathering our stuff, and even more time to sit at a table, with comrades in arms, ready to fight the next evil thing that I throw at them, and I sit at the head of the table running the story, and I love it.
I don't know about the other four, but for me, Dungeon and Dragons was always a means of escape. The chance to be somebody else, with different problems (most of them greater than what I am dealing with), and living in a different world. It is always nice to look at the things that I have to deal with and be able to tell them to piss off for two to three hours for an evening once or twice a month. To me, D&D is like having a small vacation over and over and over again. I will always play, I will always have the books, and I will always try to invite new people into the fold. So, that being said, Would you like to get away for a little bit?

If you are interested, go to www.wizards.com/dnd for more information. Love ya guys, ttyl. Scott

Thursday, January 13, 2011

An Act of Atrocity.

I sit here, in the early morning hours of a cold, snowy January morning. Forced to write about a part of my life that I had long forgotten, that is until today.
It is amazing the feats of wonder we humans can do when we put our minds to it. We have built massive bridges to span incredible gaps, have built towers that seem to scrape the sky, and have shot things into space so far that you would think that eventually it would come back to us with a sticker saying "Return to sender" in an alien language, or"We don't want your crap".
But, we as humans have also done some monumental atrocious things and claimed them to be something else. Auschwitz, Jonestown, Waco. Those are bad things that have happened due to one person harming, or clouding the minds of, a larger group of people. We never hear of the atrocity that one person does to one other person, and that one person is themselves.
Now I am going to go with my personal story after I tell you why I am writing this. My mother gave me the one gift I have been wanting for the past couple of years. I have wanted the tool, this instrument from the moment my eyes saw it. I received a Nook for Christmas, my mother told me is was a gift that covered both my birthday, that she was unable to get me something for, and this Christmas. And, I gladly accepted the gift and charged that puppy up, and thankfully had some money in my account that I could download my first Ebook, Stephen King's Under the Dome.
Now, Let me say, This book is among his best. It is long and boring at points, but, I soldiered on. Reading each word voraciously, allowing King's words to paint a very bleak picture of a town's troubles, when an invisible, impenetrable dome cuts off a town from everyone. I love it. It is a good book, my mind's eye is filled with this world and the people in it. I feel what they are feeling and now I am within a hundred pages from the end, when a bit of revelation hits the page, makes me open my eyes and get out of bed to come to my computer and write this down, before I succumb to the last bit of the book.
One of the characters talks about being the smartest in her class, she knew where and how her life was splayed out before her, even in the fourth grade. And I knew what she was talking about. This character recanted about her life as though she was getting part of it from mine. She was a bit of a know-it-all, as was I, or at least I thought so, because I was so very bored in class. She knew what she wanted to be, I had several ideas. And she got beat up for being a tattle-tale and being too smart... and so had I.
My mother is a proud woman, she is either proud of her work, or the committee she is on, or more often than not... her son, yours truly. The problem rises is that not only was she a proud woman, she was also a braggart. Anybody with ears was in trouble, she would go on and on to those who was listening about what she was doing, or her committee, or the main subject of her normal round of brags, yours truly. Now this would not normally be a problem, but, I didn't grow up in a area of my school district known for smart kids, yes, there were some. but, they kept themselves well hid, under parents who didn't want to talk to the neighbors. Lucky kids.
Well, one particular day, I apparently did something that was newsworthy, because my mom was talking with some of the other moms of the street. I don't know what was said, all I know is that while I was walking to a friend's house the next day, I got jumped by three of the thugs of the neighborhood. I remember them telling me: "We are tired of your name, coming out of my mom's lips.", ""Why can't you be like him?" she says", "If you would just apply yourself a little, you too could be like little Scotty." I was kicked, and punched, and throw into a drainage ditch that ran along CR 45, next to my neighborhood.
I remember laying there, crying silently, knowing that if it was loud the old verbiage "give you something to cry about" would happen. As soon as I knew that they were gone, and that they weren't coming back, I climbed out of the ditch, and slowly made my way home. I cleaned myself up, and swore that I would never give my mom another reason to be proud of me. Well, those of you that know me, know that I failed in that aspect. Happily, mind you.
I chose to dumb myself down, pretend to be dumber, become a funny guy. Just so I could get by. Just so I could survive my neighborhood. I stopped trying so hard, just did enough to get by. Then when my Dad died. My giveadamn broke. I stopped caring all together about my grades, I went through two years of summer school in Junior High, just because I didn't do the work in any of my classes. I struggled in high school, to find a balance between the two personas. I barely passed. And, because I barely passed, so did that fourth graders dreams of what I was going to be.
The atrocity I did to myself, I can never fix. I have to live with the pain and the memory of what I would have become, had I never chose to play dumb. Now, I will say, That I don't hate my life. It's not the best, but, I love the people I have in my life. I wouldn't change them for the world. The life that I am living now has given me some of the things that the fourth grader never thought of. I guess all I can say, is be yourself, from start to finish, don't let anyone, or anything stop you from being that thing.