Lets Get Pissed!

A picture of the person you do the most screwed up things with. That’s today’s little photographic snack. I can’t believe it took me this many days before featuring Matt but he just didn’t fit the bill before. Today’s however, although it was kind of a tough decision overall, is really just perfectly suited to get him some air time.

I really, honestly grappled whether I should pick him for this category as I started thinking my friend D is a fairly appropriate choice. She and I have done stuff over the years so far beyond the level of ‘screwed up’, that it’s probably illegal in some states.

Actually, okay, it’s probably only legal in some states.

Now get your mind out of the gutter, that’s not what I mean.

But I also can’t really tell you what I mean. If I talk about all the occasions when we did all we did, I’d potentially get her fired. Ah the beauty of the internet, it’s a breeding ground for lies and deceptions so as to elude the boss’ roving eye. And really, what the hell is your boss doing online anyway? Shouldn’t he/she be working too? Yeah, that’s what I thought. But I digress…

As far back as I can remember Matt and I have been doing all kinds of effed up stuff together. And I guess every person is really going to have a wildly different definition of what constitutes doing screwed up stuff. For me its all about randomness, acting like dorks, getting into trouble without being in trouble, leaping without looking kind of stuff, taking chances and all around just doing what feels right at the time even if it isn’t what society would deem the smartest or most adult thing to do. And nine times out of ten it will involve a road trip or travel in some way.

He’s the one I ran around gas pumps with, singing at the top of our lungs, at 1:00 in the morning, in the middle of BFE Pennsylvania the Saturday of the weekend we drove his car to Ohio.

He’s the one who drove us home from Manhattan the night we all walked around the Upper East Side screaming with laughter, and then later he cleaned the upchucked red wine out of his front door pocket and speaker (yeah that would’ve been me).

He’s the only one who could really understand why the “ice machine” is one of the most important features of a Motel 6 in the middle of Ohio.

He’s the only one I could ever imagine being with when we wake up at 9:00 on a Saturday morning and say ‘Hey, let’s go to Quebec for the afternoon.” And then we do.

He’s the one who piggy backed me out of a club in downtown Boston totally sober and reminded me that there are still good people out there in the world over coffee that lasted until who knows what hour.

He’s the only person I could ever imagine understanding why it’s just so much easier to drive to Toronto to pick up our wedding bands than to have them shipped to us.

He’s the one who makes my friends laugh because he’s the only guy I’ve ever met whose wit can actually keep up with mine.

He’s the only person who could ever enjoy getting his ass kicked in Scrabble 9.9 out of 10 times but still gets excited to bring the travel version with us to an outdoor music festival where we play a couple games over a couple beers and he gets his ass kicked yet again.

He’s there when I spend countless dollars in the machine to get stickers that end up plastered all over both of our bumpers.

He’s the one who points at the fire engine red hair dye and says ‘just do that again.’

He’s the only person I know that would agree to drive down to Maryland with me, when I’m leaving to go do a paint job in less than an hour, then have me drop him at the airport in Baltimore on the way to the jobsite so he can fly back the exact same day.

He’s the only one I’d ever want to pick on the Bra Genie infomercial with.

He’s the one whose hand I’m holding when we decide to crash a townie bar -- in Ireland, on the Jersey Shore, wherever -- and end up making friends with everyone in the place before the night is over.

He’s the only one who understands why pulling over in Connecticut, while on a random road trip, is absolutely necessary sometimes.

He’s the guy that just last week asked me ‘Should we just move to California instead?’

He’s the guy who will find a chili cheese dog with onions, even if it takes 4 hours of driving around to locate somewhere to buy one, and then discovering on the way back from that place that there was a Dairy Queen 15 minutes away from our house.

He’s just as likely as I am to point at something from the road and say ‘get me to that’, regardless if we have to drive through paint scratching, brambling branches or entire farms worth of deer to see it.

He’s the one I’ve been with when staying in the top five sketchiest motels of all time -- Grand Prix in Florida, Motel 6 in Springfield, That one on the way to Atlanta when we heard gunfire out the window, the motel in Ohio where people like to see their cars, and of course who could ever forget Pottsville, Pennsylvania where I couldn’t even begin to list all the ways that place was a crime scene.

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Catch up on anything you missed  30 Photos, 30 Days
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Measuring a Summer’s Day

Tangerine, my favorite Led Zeppelin song of all time, comes to mind at this very moment because it just so happens I’m eating a fruit of the same name. At this time of year they’re everywhere in mesh shaped nylon baggies so no matter what store I find myself in, if I’m perusing the produce department, a bag of these juicy little balls of happiness are definitely coming home with me.

Some folks could probably have named this post Oh My Darlin’ but to me tangerines just make the world a little juicier than a Clementine. Maybe it’s because of Page’s stunningly simple lyrics full of complex visuals (if you know the song this should make perfect sense), or the delivery of those words through Plant’s haunting reflective tone, or maybe its that Jones & Bonham come in at the exact right moment to bring stability to the growing legs of the well timed guitar solo. Maybe the reason I love it is because it isn’t perfect but it’s out there to be loved anyway.

Or maybe I love the song so much because it reminds me of a nostalgic love so strong it could never be forgotten, and the person it holds in the palm of its hand was that very thing to me.

Innocent and stupid and new, ready to grab the world by the scruff of the collar and drag it along behind us as we blazed a trail. But at some point I realized he wasn’t with me anymore so I looked back to try to find him but he had mysteriously disappeared. Then I spent so long watching behind me for where he had gone that I missed the fact that life fell out of my hands and passed me ages ago.

If only things could stay so simple as Bonham’s back beat. But they rarely do, if ever. So at this time of year I find myself reflecting voraciously, as if it was an activity I’d never done before and may never get to do again.

It always starts out with the year that has just flown by in the blink of an eye and all the things I remember about it, and then it spirals into a trip down the cobble stones of memory lane.

Of course this year was struck with tragedies of massive proportions that would be hard to ignore, like earthquakes and oil spills. But it was also filled with amazing things of beauty like a close friend having a healthy baby girl or seeing a double rainbow in upstate New York.

In the past year:
♥ a good friend moved back to the area
♥ I completed the edits on my first novel and started shopping it
♥ continued to play drums every week
♥ went to countless shows (including finally seeing Bushwalla live on his own, Seth Glier, DMB, BNL and Jason [of course])
♥ one of my favorite actors died (Haim)
♥ saw my sister on her coast
♥ spent time with friends and family (on the other coast and mine)
♥ finished helping to clean out my grandparent’s place
♥ watched the final season of a long favorite television show (Lost)
♥ took on a few paint jobs
♥ walked to support Alzheimer's research
♥ spent tons of time laughing & joking with Matt (in the car and at home)
♥ went fishing (and actually caught some!) with old friends
♥ witnessed the kids in my life get even smarter as they became another year older
♥ saw a couple Sox games live at Fenway & a few Bruins games live at the Garden
♥ dealt with a flood in our basement
♥ experienced a summer full of hot sunshine (bliss!)
♥ started an extreme exercise program (P90x - bring it!)
♥ joined a Book Club
♥ signed a lease for a second year in the same place (call Ripley’s!)
♥ drank with the local townies at the Jersey shore
♥ sold a few things at a craft fair
♥ wrote most of my second novel
♥ kicked Matt’s butt repeatedly in Scrabble
♥ and so many other awesome things I couldn’t begin to list more

Well I could but would any of you read a day by day accounting of my lame-ass life? Probably not.

As I spent the last year getting healthy in mind, body and soul it started becoming more clear that my life is longing for another grab it by the balls and have at it adventure. I know there’s still a couple weeks left this year so I don’t completely rule it out for happening in 2010 but it just feels like 2011 is calling to me from the future. That next year is where the great escapade will be found.

Become a published novelist? Celebrate ten years married? Get my body back in shape? Quit smoking? Something else? The world is open, and so am I, to the possibilities that exist. Bring on the adventure 2011, even if that adventure is wrapped in a moving truck traveling 3500 miles across this great country to the Valley of the Sun!

Someday I will no doubt look back on that journey and think about me and Matt taking it together.

“Does [s]he still remember times like these?...And I do.”

Surreal, but Why?

Today Tim Russert passed away. I really can not even explain why this is having such an oddly strange effect on my brain right now. I did not know him, he was not like a friend of the family or anything but in some journalistic way he had a presence that connected to his viewers and it is really making me sad that he will never be able to share that with the world again.

When Matt and I lived in Springfield, and were not constantly working on the house, we would take as many weekends as possible all to ourselves. Most Saturday and Sunday mornings consisted of getting up at about nine and drinking coffee while we talked about life and the world in general until about mid day. We always drank too much coffee and ate breakfast far too late because we were so engrossed in our conversations or watching the TV on in the background.

Fodder for our conversations when we did not just come up with our own random topics generally had to do with what was happening on TV. On the weekend mornings that was either one of two things -- infomercials or Meet the Press.

One of our biggest loves is to watch completely mindless infomercials. Ron Popeil and Chef Tony just have a way of convincing a person that chicken really can cook in 5 minutes and that knives that sharp should have been used to cut drywall all along. We would delight in the Magic Bullet and the “wow, this is one good smoothie!” faces on the “non-paid actors but real people”. You mention a product seen on TV I can tell you all about it. But I don’t own a single one of them, it was all just for laughs when the mood needed lightening.

The reason we needed a mood lifter was due to our other weekend morning love of watching and commenting on Meet the Press. By now, those of you who know me can pretty much attest to the fact that although I am no dummy when it comes to things like politics, I do not spend most of my time relishing the daily battle of debate between candidates or even what the politicos of our country are doing in their daily lives in non-election years. I know it, I get it, I just prefer not to discuss it most of the time. Sunday mornings in the comfort of my own living room with Matt however was an entirely different story.

The familiar music would start and as soon as I heard Tim Russert’s completely monotone yet surprisingly enthusiastic, almost guttural excitement for who was on that week my adrenaline began to rush just a little. He would introduce every show with exactly the same level of vigor because no matter who was on he knew this was going to get good and he never let us down. Tim would lay into each guest and no matter who it was they better have an extremely eloquent, straightforward and honest response to his question or he would not let up until he broke the guest. His questions were always pointed, poignant and sometimes tough to take but he asked them with a straight face and unrelenting love for drawing out an answer.

There was nothing more satisfying than watching a politician visually crack just because a man did nothing more than ask a boat load of questions in an unyielding, yet calm, manner. Emotions did not register on his face, he was straight shooting news anchor all the time; unless Tom Brokaw was in a wiley mood, then all bets were off as Tim would actually burst out laughing and we all got the chance to see the heart and soul behind the steely persona. He would stay up for forty eight straight hours during an election but still never miss a beat. He was one hell of a good journalist.

As a person who has always had a love for pushing limits I respected, admired and truly enjoyed watching Tim Russert work.

This Sunday morning will be time to find something new. Goodbye Tim. We will all miss your candor and dedicated love for the political game.