Friday, September 30, 2016

Jolie lover crashes plane into Depp home out of jealousy


One thing! Branjelina broke up recently, and Anj just read the account of some fight between a drunken Pitt and the boys on a plane. Ouch. 52, world’s his oyster, something’s not quite right though.

Maybe some nihilsm lurking beneath all this activity in which we seek meaning.

But we got a laugh away in the end; she’d been talking about why Depp’s last two loves didn’t work out. I said, “what if you woke up in the morning and found out I was living with Angelina Jolie?”
She said “well bring me aboard as the Nanny!”
I said, “naw, after I swooped in like that, you moved in with Johnny Depp!"
I have her laughing good now, but I'm on a roll so:

"And I go insane with jealousy, so I paint ‘rage’ onto a private plane "--
"Flying in a rage, are you?"

"...and fly it into his mansion! And when I flew “in a rage” the propeller beheaded Alice Cooper, but for real this time. What a tragedy. After all this time pretending to be decapitated on stage."

It's not that these terrible things people go through aren't sad.
It's that, the world asks us to remember its inherent absurdity.

You can't really envy anyone.

You can only enjoy what you have. And laugh some, be alive.


Be Chill,

Cease ill

Monday, July 18, 2016

Let love win : keeping quarrels from running the show in your relationship




Mama Vick would come home tired from work. Pops would be grousing about some general flaw of society or some specific pissy detail, and she would light into him, and sometimes, away they'd go. But you know what? They made it forty five and a half years, and filled far more of those moments with love and companionship. Heck, even ill companionship is company, when you get down to it. And when people get hungry AND sore, all bets are off!

I might've thought of trying to referee a couple of times, but wisdom suggested (let's face it, my wife) that they had been at this since they were teenagers. It was unpleasant...but things never failed to blow over. Before long, her laughter would come sailing down the hallway. I miss that laugh. It was a good belly laugh that told you she, for the moment, had not a care in the world. He used to enjoy riling her up in their younger days: it was his sense of humor. But he made her smile for a lifetime, and she, him.

Relationships. People spend so much time building them, but they can tear one apart, so quickly, it seems.
Yet...stormy pronouncements and terse words are only a stress reaction. Where do they fit in the greater context? That's the contingency against which all good times are had, the storehouse in which all survival and sanity build the attractions that make our trust worthy relationships last.

Listen, your body may not yield you a greater bounty of patience to fill your cohort of wisdom, even if you
try your best to take care of your self. Sometimes, the overload on the next available nervous system will
cause a circuit of irritation. When people feel tired and sick, they will use a fight to stimulate energy.

The reactions people make out of compounded ill feelings and resentment can expand the space between two people. Let me say from experience, I've never stormed out for a walk where I didn't end up missing my wife, no matter how wronged I felt. Maybe you go home and pick up the fight, maybe the need for the last word vanishes. But if you want things to last, never go out on an extended tour of duty, reacting to your frustrations. Someone has to say no to that.

Someone has to give up on the chance for mutual happiness to ever wear the other one out. A show of mutual respect and good humor- not overloading on snark, here, I mean, laughs you can both have, even over each one's silly foibles- is a daily investment towards building the reservoir of good will on both sides.

Extended grudges and a lack of affection every time you meet up erode any relationship. So here's my take
on what actually happens every time the ill meets the grill!


Honestly, two people can put an end to almost any blow-up in under 20 minutes, 95% of the time, I'd say from experience. You don't really want to put the other person through that- empathy can be a powder keg, but the whole time, the sane part of both people is saying "we don't really want to do this..." and you just try to get the nerves to stop reacting, you know?

Mama Vick came up with this saying she passed to her children. "I'd rather be with your daddy in bad times than with anyone else in good times." She was known for her truthfulnesss.

No one wants memories like that..so hey...be sweet every day, y'all.

Friday, June 24, 2016

A Day Fit For A Queen (for Momma Vick)


In honor of our great friend today, let her name be Victoria. She told several of us, she always wished she had been named Victoria; it was her mother’s original intention! It was her helpful big sis, Debra, who supplied the name “Vickie Jane,” as humble as could be imagined. But she would tell you, she was no plain ol’ Jane. In glory, she radiates like the queen she is. “Victoria” if you please.
That spry little tom boy of old still lived on in her eyes, to the summer solstice day she peacefully closed them last. She told me stories of Raiford, Mildred, Debra, Randy, Barry, Ronald and all the grandparents and all the brothers and sisters, that made me her family, too. But her heart, full of all those beautiful ideals that seem so unpopular to the cynics of late, made many, many people part of her family, and if you were really her friend, too, you know they were her diverse and moving work of art.

As we drove home under the first full moon without her tied to this plane alone, we reflected how,
in our loss, we are not so alone. Somewhere, others were asked to give to Time and Death the dearest sacrifice that had come to fruition. To lose a life long companion, to lose a wife, to lose a mother, to lose a family member-this is the lot of humanity.

But never say Victoria wasn’t unique! Her cheery way of singing jingles about whatever she was doing at the moment, unabashed around her house-her bluntness, her utter authenticity and disregard for airs or pretense, her desire to make everyone in her family’s life better any way she could, in prayer or deed, and her invaluable discernment of people’s character- all these I will miss, but am so much the better for having known such a beautiful, true person.

She never took back her unconditionally given love. She was quick to share her candy and loved a hearty laugh. She loved babies. She even correctly dreamed predictions of their genders. She loved sleep, where much more gets done that you might realize, for there, you dream. The true motives of people fascinated her; she loved an honest question as much as an honest answer, and had an unlimited supply of both. She spent much of her final years enjoying the memories she’d piled up so vigorously, comfort to pains that piled up equally so. She was forgetful. She was a voice of Reason.

She loved a good vampire story, a true ghost story, a love story of any kind, and Dark Shadows for being all three! -the brutal and macabre, game shows, her kitty Cap; she loved Loretta, real country music, and trips to different places. When she didn’t feel like she was on the spot, she could break out a gospel harmony that could melt your heart. She was a smash to party with. She stood up for herself, without ever taking herself disproportionately serious. She wore herself out, cheer leading.

She adored singing any of her favorite songs with Poppa, as if they’d just come on the radio. She laughed with Chris and hung out after work on the bed with Dixie and talked to Angie in the mornings, she helped raise three beautiful grand children with Anna, and she learned the undying nature of love with precious Joy. She worried sometimes til it hurt, found contentedness in a frosty Coke or little piece of candy, shared a lot of delicious home cooked meals, and dreamed of a lot of fun things that stayed dreams. She hated cleaning the house and waiting on her husband in the car. If you washed her dishes without asking, her love and respect were yours. That’s how I earned my invitation here today, I guess. They took in a LOT of strays, so long as their kids loved them. She lived until she could simply hug and kiss no more. But if you look in your heart, her words will leave you never.

She knew some of the saddest, and happiest days, any person could know, but kept faith in the way of her heart without surrender. In that way, she achieved a victory that Death can never take away, for she lives still in you and me, and in places yet unimagined. Cheer up!
Today is Queen Victoria's Day. 6/24/16