You may say I'm a dreamer

  

Give me mercy in a minute now

I’mma bleed a little poison out

I’’mma cry a little river down

Then I’m setting this whole thing on fire……

 

I was having a conversation with my dad this morning and he said to me “Craig, you’re a dreamer and I don’t know that that’s a bad thing. It’s pretty fucking amazing when you think about. I don’t think you could change if you wanted to. You only know how to be this way, to care not at all or with everything”. 

 

The conversation stuck with me throughout the day and kept replaying in my head over and over again. I went to the gym. Blared my favorite music, but yet those words continued to dominate my thoughts. Sweat pouring from me, lungs on fire, the concept 2 rower taunting me to pull harder, and the barbell sizing me up….I suddenly found peace. I think, at least for that moment, I realized my dad is right. One of the constant struggles I deal with is, as Brian Fallon said “I was born beside a river that flows to a raging sea, that will one day serve to quell or one day be the death of me”. That raging sea is the war that goes on between the dreamer in me and the cynic/realist. 

 

I am dreamer. I believe love is the ultimate irony of evolution. Some may argue that we are wired to love; it is part of us, to seek it out, to want or need companionship. I think there is some truth in that but for entirely different reasons. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes wrote the natural state of man is brutish…..it is the “war of every man against every man”. We evolved, formed groups and then societies for self preservation. Our instinct is to survive. I don’t know that is our nature to love. Self preservation, kill or be killed, drove our evolution.  Love is not that. It would not have served the self preservation instinct to value someone more than yourself; therefore love is above our nature. It transcends.

 

As I get older and more honest with myself I will admit despite the outward appearance I am hopeless and cheesy. I believe in love but I think our culture doesn’t love, love…rather it loves the idea of love; we want all the pleasure with none of the pain. I believe true love is not about you, it’s selfless. I root for the happy ending for everyone even though I know the world is a cold and cruel place. I believe amor vincit omnia. I believe you should only love/care irresponsibly. There is no halfway. I believe in cannonballs. I believe even the Hulk has kryptonite. I believe hugs are more curative than modern medicine, especially a hulkhug. I believe you can want to reach for someone’s hand and not ever want to let it go.  I believe that reaching for that hand doesn’t make you weak, instead it makes you stronger. Unquantifiably so. I believe people could be so much happier and healthier if they would look at someone they love (or care about) and see all the reasons why it would work out instead of focusing on the one or two reasons it might not. I believe we let our fear get in the way. I believe sometimes even the night looks lonely next to me. I believe if you roll over at night and upon seeing that person next to you, you smile because they are there, than you’re far better richer than if you ever hit Powerball. I believe you can find bed head and morning breath cute on the right person. I believe a smile from the right person can serve as evidence that god may exist. I believe music is powerful beyond measure. I believe I met “you” between the wax and the needle in the words of my favorite song. . I believe that our minds get in the way of our hearts. I believe nothing is never as easy as we are led to believe but we quit far too often. I believe if people were led by their heart, and not their mind, the world wouldn’t be so cruel and dark. I believe that for those I love I will be with you through the dark so that you do not have to go through the dark alone, or on your own. 

 

I believe we need to give a fuck, until we are out of fucks to give, and when we think we have run out we need to dig deep and find one more to give. Because you're never out of the fight. Never. I believe as long as I have the people I do in my corner than there is no one luckier than me. I believe (and hope) they know Id quite literally do anything for them. Any-fucking-thing.  I believe I’m a dreamer. I wouldn’t want it any other way and I hope some of you are dreamers too. The world has far too few. Being a dreamer does not mean you hold people to some impossible or unrealistic vision. Instead you see an imperfect person, perfectly.  It isn't easy. The down fall being when you fall, you do so with no parachute,  accelerating at 9.8 meters per second squared (see I'm not meathead) hitting the concrete at terminal velocity and breaking ....completely. Even knowing that, I believe that being a dreamer is a tragically beautiful disaster, so dare to dream and if you come across a dreamer dare to share in the experience, embrace it. 

I have been struggling the last several weeks to write. I had so many thoughts in my head that they were tangled like a rats nest that could not be unwoven, let alone made sense of. I would put sentences down two or three at a time and completely lose my train of thought. It wasn't lack of motivation or passion, I'd like to believe I have never lacked either. It can just be incredibly difficult for me sometimes to think what I have to say is worth putting out there......but I saw jelly beans in the store a couple of weeks ago and it reminded me of my grandmother, who i love and miss so much, especially on days like today. In any event, gramma always had jelly beans or some other kind of candy lying around for us. It was impossible not to smile in her presence. She was the warmest person I ever knew and I swear she kept the candy there just to make us smile. In her dining room, on a small end table, there would routinely be a dish of jelly beans (or maybe spice drops) and I would constantly sneak in a handful when I could.....which reminds me of this beautiful / amazing person I know who once listed stealing office candy as one of her strengths but I digress.

One Easter my gramma and I were talking about jelly beans, and we both said black was our favorite (I was only 17 and had yet to puke my fucking brains out from sambuca at Providence College....it would take me years to go back to black jelly beans). It was funny because we were both saying how it was great having the black ones be our favorite because most people hated them, so we could eat all the other jelly beans (just like everyone else) and after a while there would be nothing but black ones left which would be perfect since it was our favorite. I was smiling about this memory and talking to someone who I really care about / admire when I told them i was struggling to write this post and i came across this video. It was as if gramma and this other incredible woman worked in cosmic unison and directed me to it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BOksW_NabEk

I was overcome with emotions that ran the gamut. Love. Regret. Loss. Self loathing and doubt. How had I been spending my time? Was it doing the right things? whatever the fuck that may be because I am not so sure I even know what they are anymore. I try really hard to do them...to be a good son, brother, friend, uncle, boyfriend, date, employee. But have I been doing them? I don't know but what I came to is this :


Worry less, do more.

 It's beauty outpaces it's simplicity. In so many ways each day is a jelly bean. Eat it. Enjoy it. Don't choke on it. You can't put it back in the jar. You can't ask for a different color if you get one you don't like. Those are like bad days. Chew it up. Don't waste time wishing you had a different color jelly bean. With a little bit of luck, and a lot of hard work,  your jar will be filled with mostly your favorite color (for your sake i hope it doesn't remind you of puking till you hit bile)....but sooner than you think the jar will also be empty. Don't give up. Ever. Don't be afraid to be happy and to that end don't run from anything out of fear, ANYTHING, especially from love, people you care about and those who care about you. Like, no LOVE, the black jelly bean. See beauty where others miss it, find pleasure in things others won't try, appreciate genius in insanity, discover and celebrate a big heart where others would never think to look. We will never know what we have if we are afraid to have it and we can't spend our lives waiting to live....

Mind flu

One of the very first things l ever wrote and it kinda sums up how I've been feeling lately. 

For the past several weeks I have had a terrible, and debilitating case of the mind flu (it's much worse than the swine flu).If you who have never experienced it, it is my sincere wish that you never do....for if a mind is a terrible thing to waste, then a wasted mind is a terrible thing to have. It involves racing thoughts, and an inability to focus(refocus) on anything constructive. Try as I might, the negative thoughts, feelings and anxiety come back tenfold every time I think I have won; I begin to realize this is a never ending lifelong battle. It's relentless. A military type siege on my sanity. I feel trapped, boxed in, claustrophobic and frozen. I try to move "in spite of" this chaotic mind, that is doing its best to cripple me but at times it hurts just to breath. The more I try to understand it, the worse it becomes. All attempts make me feel like Sisyphus, and my mind screams "Give up"; I hear it in my head over and over again, after all that would be easier. In the face of adversity isn't it always easier to give up? Certainly when I am pushing my body far beyond anything I thought I could do, it would be way easier to give up, to quit, but I don't do it then. I do one more rep, one more pull on erg,  I get back on the bar and pull myself up despite agonizing lactic acid build up and the fact that my arms/legs feel like cement. I continue to push myself past the breaking point, so why does the voice in my head dominate my thoughts and cripple me now? Why are all the negative thoughts bouncing around in my head faster than atoms in the Hadron supercollider? 

I try to rally around a lesson I learned from Charlie Plumb some time ago. That very often we build our own prisons, and the six inch prison cell b/w our ears is every bit as debilitating and painful as any real prison could ever be. Everything we do is a choice, and if we want, we can choose to give up , after all its just one more choice. However if we do give up we are letting go of the last of the human freedoms, which is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way as Viktor Frankl once said. I try to make that choice, to choose my attitude, but fail. I tell myself that at the very least by trying I have made a choice, and have not given up that last of human freedoms. And yet the supercollider continues to spin, in a very real way creating a black hole that is sucking me in. As I sit on the event horizon of this abyss of misery, despair and loneliness I try to recall anything that makes me happy--I try to choose. I recall my nephews laugh, my nieces immeasurable cuteness, or even her smile. I battle back; I make a choice. The pull doesn't let go, and I'm fucking exhausted. I lay here and wonder why no matter how long I spend staring at, and talking to, the ceiling it offers me nothing in return. And now I wait, for the next round to begin.

37 things in 37 years

1-Given enough time everyone will let you down. Yes. everyone. It's up to you whether or not you forgive them or if what they did was forgivable. The choice is yours, don't let a moment define a life. 

2-I'll take a genuine asshole/enemy over a fake friend every time. Nothing is worse than phony people, or those who are two faced and love to gossip.    

3- I wouldn't want to live in a world without music. (And if you don't listen to Gaslight Anthem you're doing music wrong. Bad music-ing)

4-While it's painstakingly obvious that the arrow of time only moves/points in one direction we all need to slow down and appreciate the moment more. Get lost in a child's laugh. Enjoy a cold beer and good times w a friend. Find someone whose smile can warm, if not melt,  your heart then make them smile all the damn day. Time moves forward. The moment is gone , literally in the blink of an eye. Enjoy the fuck out of it. 

5-Soul search frequently (maybe less frequently than I do lest you also become crazy like me) but don't ever do something or be with someone bc it's comfortable. Seriously.  

6-Love is the most powerful, beautiful, intoxicating, crippling, painful, thing in this world. In many ways it is the ultimate irony of evolution.  

7-you can't teach an idiot. That's why they're an idiot....or as Jim Jeffries said "not your child, you're child isn't stupid, your child has a learning difficulty.... That's the definition of stupid. If you have difficulty , learning, that's what stupid is!  if you find it hard to put information in your head and recall it when you need it.... That's textbook stupid"

8-women deserve better (the real ones, not the trashy ones). To that end, it would be pretty amazing if they were a tad more rational (I hear you all cursing!!) 

9-loyalty and trust mean everything. It's like a bridge, it may last a thousand years but, once broken, it will never be the same.

10-people don't read enough and need to look at a map every now and then. It's frightening. The 7 continents and 5 oceans is the Mendoza line, and I have "friends" who are former CPAs (not to name names) who couldn't name those and once told me Anartica was

a country not a continent. Really?!? Pre tell wtf is the capital of Antartica? And why are we allowed to be disappointed w our country's struggles in math but I'll be fucked if anyone could point out Iraq on a map!!! 

11-You can't out work a bad diet. You can't, but I can haha. No seriously eat better if aesthetics are your goal. Lift heavy if strength is your goal. Less than 1% of people on earth can be incredibly ripped and incredibly strong at the same time, most of which you see earning millions of dollars every Sunday September through January. If I had to choose bw one of the other, we all know where I stand, strength is king. 

12-Identify your passion. Then attack it like a rabid dog. We need more passionate people. I've been called many things in my life (some good, many bad haha) but apathetic is not that one of them. There is perhaps nothing more dangerous , to your soul and to mankind, than apathy. 

13-the bravest of faces are the ones where we fake it. 

14-fuck convention and "social protocol" trust your gut more often. If it says "xyz" is a dodgy fuck chances are it's true. To that end if it says you see something in someone that others don't, something good and powerful and beautiful... trust it. The heart sees what the mind cannot. 

15-it is often said the eyes are the gateway to the soul. I believe the smile is the gateway to the heart. You can tell an awful lot about someone from their smile. 

16-Women will never understand guys night. No matter what they say or nonsense they try to sell you. They don't understand it. Men just seem to form tighter relationships. Every guy at some point has had to break plans w his friends bc his girlfriend or wife's plans w her friends fell through, whereas the opposite rarely, if ever, happens. It's weird but true. (Every guy reading this knows it's true, every woman thinks I'm full of it. Checkmate). Moreover, women can go away for a girls beach weekend without judgment ( for the record your bf/husband LOVES this bc it gives him a legit guys weekend) but if three guys leave town together the assumption is we are doing lines of blow off a hookers body. Stop judging,...she's paying her way through law school!  

17 - the only other thing I know about women is "I'm fine " or "nothing's wrong" translates loosely into English as :

"I've decided to take a passive aggressive stance for some perceived wrong doing and i am extra angry that you don't even know what it is. Rather than tell you , I am going to pout for hours effectively ruining whatever fun you planned on having for the rest of the day/night" (truest thing I've ever written)

18-I am an acquired taste. 

19- we need to starting treating addiction like an illness , not a weakness. The same holds true w mental health. We can, and must,  do a better job. 

20- exercise is the most powerful

mood enhancer / anti depressant around. There are almost no wounds the iron can't heal. 

21- healthcare needs to be  blown up. Started over. A world class country shouldn't have a second rate system. I don't have all the answers but we must start with this premise :

Patient outcome is more important than anything else. 

22- identify the people in life who are worth your time. The ones reaching a hand to help you up, or waking up at 5AM to come help you when you lock yourself out of your own house and it's ten below outside. Thanks Zumba. One of my fav/best people in the world (21a : Zumba will change the world. Believe it. The force is strong in this one.). The most value commodity on earth isn't gold or oil ....it's true friendship. 

23- haters gonna hate

24- we need to do for more veterans. Anyone who has served our country at the very least deserves free world class health care for life. 

25- education is the great equalizer. Everyone should be afforded the opportunity to it ; colleges need to become monuments to learning, wonder, and amazement...not to profit. If a university has a $19 billion endowment does it really need to cost 60k / year?? 

26 - I promise I'm not as angry as I look....I'm angrier.

 (As the exchange goes in Avengers: How do you control it Dr Banner? 

That's my secret Captain, i am always angry) 

27 - time doesn't heal all wounds. That's bullshit. In time we may get better, but the scars remain and that's ok. That's part of who we are; they tell our story. 

28 - if you're one of those people who rely on external motivation you will fail. If you need others to push you to train, you'll fail; if you need people to motivate you at work, you won't be successful; if you can't motivate yourself, you've already failed. 

29 - I really love kids and hope I am lucky enough to have my own someday. The love I have for my little people is immeasurable. They save me from me. Id like to think I'd  be a good dad, idk, but I'd try really hard and love the fuck out of them. Even when they're being little shits! I mean if they have my genes.... I, and they, are totally hosed anyway so might as well have fun with it. They've also taught me that the only thing people who truly care about you want from you is your time. Nothing is more valuable to those you love than your time. There is no substitute for a hug. 

30 - I would've made a good Viking 

31 - if you have to ask yourself if you love someone, you don't. 

32 - 99 out of 100 people who say they will always stay in touch, or that they will never lose touch, are lying, be the one who isn't. 

33 - the most powerful adversary I will ever face is me. (Heavy & high rep back squats are second). 

34 - in the waning years of his life my grandfather and I spent countless hours together. He taught me so much. Above all else he told me to always keep my word. "If you tell someone you're going to do something, no matter how big or small, anything, you fucking do it". I've always tried to keep my word, especially to friends. At least once a day I can still hear him saying that. I think it was the only time I ever heard him say fuck. I think about him all the time. I can only hope he would be proud of me at least to the extent that I hold my word and value loyalty. (33a - he also always said being late is unforgivable, and arrogant. It tells people your time is more valuable than theirs. To this day I've never once been late to work, to a meeting, etc....god do I miss him). 

35 - both my grandmothers taught me the value of kindness. It was fitting and ironic bc of who they married.... the two "hardest" guys I ever knew. Until writing this I never realized that , subconsciously , i may mirror my grandfather(s)outwardly and channel my grandmother(s) inwardly. 

36 - despite the overwhelming odds tomorrow came......but.....

37) - life is undefeated. It wins. You die. Enjoy the ride bc you get one ticket. Better to be a bit hedonistic than years from now dying in your bed wishing you had done more. 

 

It's an illness not a weakness

 On the edges of the sharpest knives

In the middle of the darkest nights

Always knew that I would find you here

In a puddle of the bravest tears

 

There are times I feel as if I am having an out of body experience…..I am looking at myself, and  singing those words to myself. We need to have a talk. Me, you, this whole fucking country needs to talk.  It’s en vogue to say our health care system is broken, and it is, but where we fail most miserably is treating mental illness. No one is ashamed to say they have cancer, we drop buckets of water on our head to raise awareness for ALS, but yet we only speak of mental illness while whispering in the corners of rooms, usually before or after a person who is suffering from it enters or exits. “Oh here comes ______, I heard he/she is really struggling/crazy”.

 

How are things up in that ivory tower? When I find a spare minute I am going to turn it in to an ivory tombstone.

 

You hear all the time how selfish suicide is. It is taking the easy way out. It’s an act of cowardice. It leaves behind too many victims. Wtf. I mean seriously what the fucking fuck? If someone dies of cancer, is that selfish? No? how about if they smoked? Or how about if the contracted AIDs from unprotected sex?  Is it selfish then? because I could reasonably argue they brought that on themselves, certainly brought it on themselves a hell of a lot more than someone suffering from depression, bipolar, PTSD etc. So why is suicide the only one that is “selfish”? Do you think anyone suffering from PTSD, depression, bipolar, etc is more or less likely to get help after a lifetime of hearing shit like that. Wake the fuck up. More often than not suicide is the tragic and untimely death of someone who lost their battle with an illness. For the love of god we cannot move forward until people see it that way.

 

Mental illness is just that, an illness. It needs to be treated, not stigmatized. No one asks for it. No one contracts it because they smoked cigarettes or chewed tobacco. No one got it because they got drunk in a bar , went home with someone, had sex, and didn’t use a condom. But ohhhh hold the presses, if a friend of ours contracted AIDs that way we would be full of compassion, sympathy and holding fundraisers to alleviate their tremendous out of pocket costs because their insurance provider probably doesn’t cover STD’s or has some provision in their policy that says they only cover STD’s contracted while you were sober , cuddling with a nun,  in an igloo. ( I WAS IN THE POOL!!!!! )

 

All that is great. We should feel compassion, sympathy and help those in need. ALL of those in need. We cannot discount those whose needs and struggles we may not fully understand. Every 13 minutes someone commits suicide. Lucky number 13. Thirteen minutes from right now someone is not taking the easy way out and you can go fuck yourself if you believe that. We fear and mock that which we do not understand.  We further isolate those who are suffering, only making matters 100000x worse. Being told to “toughen up” or “just get past it” only worsens the problem. It is akin to throwing gasoline on a fire in an effort to put it out because it makes the person who is struggling feel only weaker, more alone, less understood and more judged. Nothing matters but the pain when you’re alone; it is omniscient.

 

 

Thankfully , at least for me, despite the overwhelming odds tomorrow came. Not everyone is that lucky. Thirteen minutes from now someone else won’t be. Instead of judging and calling them weak try reaching out a hand.

Don't run

A really good person I know wrote me the other day seeking my advice about starting a blog. I was blown away. I legitimately couldn't think why anyone would ask me this. Please believe this isn't some fucking bullshit attempt at humility ....that's not me. 

I know what I'm good at and (regrettably) admit that I'll be the first to tell you I can out bench or strict press you while kicking your ass at jeopardy. But my blog, my writing (please believe) was never meant for the edification of me. No fucking way. Have you proofread the bullshit I post? I make e e cummings look like a grammar nazi. 

I've always loved to write and have written many things the blog has never, and will never, see. Some have been lost to computer failure; some I think are shit; others I think would cause my family to have me put in a padded room (beats a cell right?); and the rest are out there , posted for all to read, thanks mainly to Beth Boulay who used to have to read my diatribes via email and once said "when are you going to write for the world? It's beautiful but beyond that it's real and people would read it."  Only then did I even consider posting the white noise that is my brain chatter. So thank (or blame) Beth.

Speaking of beautiful people have you met my sisters-in-laws? And that's how my mind works. It "works"...... but not at all. It makes connections out of things that don't exist. It chooses to remember anything I ever read but forget where the fuck my keys or wallet are at any given moment. 

Alex Trebek: our final jeopardy category is World Geography

Me: I got this. I wager the US national debt

Alex: answer. Where is your wallet right now?

Me: oh fuck ? Idk the bar? Why is he asking me this? I mean wtf this douchebag doesn't even know that Ulan Bator is the capital of Mongolia or that Genghis Khan was so prodigious that some genealogists believe that 1/200 men are descendants of him. Speaking of which, as a descendant of ghensgis khan why don't I just go bury this stencil in his neck 

Alex: times up. Let's see what you wrote.....Craig... why would Genghis khan have your wallet?! 

Me: because fuck you Alex 

Ugh. And welcome to the cluster fuck that is my brain. I literally had to interrupt it there bc I was going even more tangential than I could tolerate. 

So my friend asked me how to start a blog, and I guess my advice to him, or anyone, is no different than I would offer someone on how to live life (given the first question would be why the hell are you asking me?):

Have no filter. Be who you are. Don't run from it. I could find a million imperfect "yous" anywhere, but I can find only one perfect "you".   Our soul is a voice we too often mute. That's inexcusable. After all I've been through in life I've learned many people will run from you; you cannot be one of them. 

BOOMSAUCE  

Lessons from my little people

As much as we have to teach to children, they have an equal amount to teach us in return. But only if we pay attention. I would like to think I am a good uncle to my 3 nieces and 2 nephews, collectively my “little people”. I love teaching them new things, new words (albeit it was once teaching the word Budweiser to an 18 month old, funny nonetheless) and just watching them figure things out. Those are the easy things in life, when it comes to the hard stuff we could learn so much more from them, than they could ever learn from us. 

Kids aren’t jaded from that dirtiest of four letter words—life. They are the epitome of the phrase tabula rasa. They don’t prejudge….ever. Wish I could say the same about myself. They have an innate sense of fairness, and they detest hypocrisy. Nothing makes a child more angry, perhaps frustrated is a better word, than hearing “you can’t do that because I said so”. Do as I say, not as I do just doesn’t’ float with them, and truthfully how can we blame them? Think about the last time you were in a situation at work or with a peer, who would rail against a certain behavior or habit, then turn around and do that very thing. If it’s enough to piss you off, imagine how frustrating it must be for a child who doesn’t have the same ability to reason and understand that we do (or that some us do). We would do well to follow their example and not prejudge, or be hypocritical. 

They also appreciate the little things way more than we do. Bring a kid M&M’s or their favorite candy and see the way their face lights up, it’s the best 87 cents you can spend, it’s return on investment is immeasurable. Play catch with a young boy when he really wants to, and you can’t help but notice how this most American of past times can put a smile on his face and create memories that will last a lifetime, free of charge. Kids never miss a chance to laugh, never miss an opportunity to hug, and they smile ear to ear just because. We should all do the same. In fact there is nothing on earth with more curative powers or more "pure" than a child's laughter. I defy you not to laugh if you ever hear Sadie or Ryan laughing. It's intoxicating and helps you leave your "worries for another day"(work in a Fraggle Rock reference whenever you can I say). 

My little people have also shown me time and again how important it is to get over things/disappointments. Sure they dwell on things, but nothing like adults do. A kid may protest for all of 2 minutes, which by the way is a disproportionate amount of their lifetime, they might even cry for 5 minutes (takes me much longer to get over a Michigan loss, tears included), but without fail they rebound and are back playing and laughing within 10 minutes every time. They don’t really dwell on things, they don’t hold grudges against anyone (even if their uncle threw them in the pool), which leads to the most important lesson I learn time and again from my little people….they only know how to love unconditionally, and they don’t know how to hate (except vegetables—this seems to be universally true, and I think they are right on this one too). Their love doesn’t come with conditions. I’ll only love you if I get to live in a big house just isn’t a thought that enters a kids mind. They just love, expecting nothing in return. It’s that simple and the beauty of it escapes definition. 

They certainly makes us laugh with the things they say and do, and if we pay attention they teach us more than we teach them.  And, for at least one uncle, they make you smile/laugh when inside you feel like doing anything but.