Placebo Ruminations

Begin again.

2011-04-05T21:47:00.003-04:00

So many years since the last post and I am amazed this even exists at all.
Wonder if I can keep it up.
I sit here waiting for a game to update.
62%

2007-09-14T15:20:00.001-04:00

Funniest picture from our vacation...

2007-04-27T20:38:00.000-04:00

Creepiest Valentine Ever!

2007-02-14T16:22:00.000-05:00

Wow!

2006-09-06T19:25:00.000-04:00

This is truly incredible!

It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons. - Friedrich von Schiller

2006-09-01T00:37:00.000-04:00

August 31, 2006

Dear Grandpa,
I've really told you exactly what you meant to me.
You've known me all my life and you've always been there, even when you did not have to be. It would have been easy for you and Grandma to ignore my existence (like my Dad did) and go on as if nothing had ever entered the world on August 15, 1973 that was connected to you in any way.
You didn't.
I remember first meeting you around the age of 5; when you took me out to dinner and bought me a cowboy dress up set. You also let me take my first picture with your camera using you and Grandma as my models.
I still have that picture somewhere.
Then my summer trips began and I was able to spend two weeks each year with you and Grandma.
You took me to movies that you never would have watched and we went mini-golfing.
You told me stupid jokes and showed me silly tricks that I remember and even tell my daughters today.
You made me feel, for two weeks a year at least, what it might be like to have a dad.
I know that I did not necessarily become the man that you hoped I would.
But I know that you were proud of the Father I became and that is all because of you; you were my model and my guide.
You showed me how to be funny, caring and strong all at the same time. If I am half the father to my children that you were to me then I will do fine.
For this reason, I love you more than you can ever know.
I'm happy that you are no longer in pain, but it's hard to lose my father so soon after losing my mother.
I miss you.
I love you.
-Wayne

My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. - Clarence B. Kelland

Brilliance or Lunacy?

2006-05-04T00:27:00.000-04:00

What do you think?

The season begins...

2005-11-25T00:13:00.000-05:00

"If you're at a Thanksgiving dinner, but you don't like the stuffing or the cranberry sauce or anything else, just pretend like you're eating it, but instead, put it all in your lap and form it into a big mushy ball.
Then, later, when you're out back having cigars with the boys, let out a big fake cough and throw the ball to the ground.
Then say, "Boy, these are good cigars!"
-Jack Handey

Seven Meme

2005-11-04T23:40:00.000-05:00

Okay Diva...I accept the challenge. Here goes:
The Seven Meme

7 Things I Can Do:

1- Successfully catch small objects that I throw in the air, in my mouth. I have about a 95% success rate for this.
Peanuts, M&Ms....anything around this size.
2- Quickly learn new tasks and procedures. From changing hard drives to changing diapers, I am a quick study who is not afraid to fail a few times before I get it right.
3- Six degrees of separation with movie stars.
Okay...so not a useful skill but a fun one. Give me two actors or actresses who lived and were in movies in the last 50-60 years and I can usually link them to each other within 6 steps...off the top of my head with no internet or reference material needed.
There have been exceptions but I have a pretty high (85%+?) success rate.
4- Make my daughters smile no matter how upset they are. Even if I have to resort to working blue (on a 5-6 year olds level anyway) I can do this.
5- Come across as intelligent even though I feel like a dumb southwest Virginia hick sometimes...at least I think I can.
6- Sew. This is a new skill that I worked on for the last few months in order to make Halloween costumes that did not feel like they were made of pantyhose.
7- Fight for what I believe in. I am generally a very even tempered guy. My wife did not see me angry for years after we met. However, if I feel that someone is being unfair or ignorant then I will point it out.

7 Things I Can't Do:

1- See post below about smoking.
2- Hug my mother ever again.
3- Drink mass produced American beers. My English friend Ian made sure of that before he went home.
4- Correctly punctuate my writing.
:;,.
It's all a mystery to me that I can never seem to figure out.
5- Forgive my Father for not being a part of my life as I grew up. Regardless of what happened with him and my Mother he had a responsibility to make an effort to be there.
6- Accept Jesus Christ as my savior. I had enough organized religion thrust upon me by my Step-Father to completely destroy any possibility of this.
7- Feel comfortable dancing. I just don't seem to be able to do it...no matter how hard I try.

7 Things I Have In My Life Now That I Am So Incredibly Grateful For:

1- My wife
2- My children
3- My sisters
4- My brothers
5- My in-laws
6- Movies
7- Books

7 Things I Hope To Do Before I Die:

1- Go back to Europe. You can never get enough.
2- Take my wife on a romantic trip to New York.
3- Skydive
4- Lose weight
5- See my daughters grow up to be happy and successful.
6- Read more classic literature. I have read my share but there remains so many Steinbeck's, Hugo's and Faulkner's that I have yet to enjoy.
7- Be able to make a living while doing something I truly love to do.

7 Bloggers I Would Like To Infect With This Meme:
I don't know 7 bloggers. Other than Diva, who has already done this, I would like to call out CWMUPRHY to step up to the 7 plate.

Things I remember

2005-11-04T23:21:00.000-05:00

Part One: Years 1-5
I remember being very young and sneezing in the front seat of our car while my mother drove.
I remember being stretched in some fashion. The muscles on the left side of my neck weren't working well and the stretching was part of a physical therapy routine to get them stronger.
I remember my brother Michael pretending to die and falling off our porch onto the ground below. I was sad and then happier than I had ever been when he stood up. He was wearing a gold cardigan and brown pants.
I remember getting excited when I saw the fox on Moores Lumber's sign and yelling "Peebles" for some odd reason.
I remember shopping at Hills with my mother in Christiansburg and using my allowance to buy Colorforms. I also remember their popcorn.
I remember going to a matinee of the original Batman movie with both my brothers and calling our mother to get permission to stay and watch it a second time.
I remember a girl in our trailer park who could run across the gravel road barefoot.
I remember going to a Christmas dinner for underprivileged children and a man with a brown dress coat with the leather patches on the sleeves who was nice to everyone.
I remember our neighbors, the Jenkins and the numerous amounts of cockroaches that lived in their trailer with them.
I remember climbing the trees around the trailer park and coming home covered in pine sap.
I remember spending time with my grandfather as he ran errands around town.
I loved to go to Southern States with him most.
I remember crying on my first day of kindergarten and sitting in the principals lap until I realized everything was going to be okay.
I remember my brother Joey getting into a fight with a bigger kid who kept picking on me.
I remember my mother telling me I was going to have a little sister.

To be continued...

My affair

2005-11-04T23:00:00.000-05:00

I started smoking when I was 15.
At first it was to fit in with those I hung out with. I never really enjoyed the experience but thought it was necessary to "fit in"
Then my mother and step-father divorced and we moved to Blacksburg. After riding the bus a few times to school, I decided it was not for me and promptly started riding the public bus to school. This involved me waking up very early to walk through a very affluent subdivision to catch the bus.
During these walks I discovered the wonderfulness that is smoking. I would walk and listen to the Cure's Boys Don't Cry cassette on my Walkman and feel like I was in a another world.
This was all a secret from my mother...until the day she intercepted one of my walks home and detected the stench of nicotine and pleasure on my breath.
She knew that she could not cease the smoking, so she only gave me lecture and let me go.
I spent my senior year of high school in a haze of smoking and Plastic Passion.
Upon graduation, I left the safety of home for greener pastures and ended up in Maryland. I was 17 years old and 19 months and the legal age to purchase tobacco was
18 years old...I never encountered a problem purchasing my Marlboro Milds though. I always seemed a bit older than I really was and life was good.
I smoked until 1994, when I got a really bad case of strep throat.
It was October (which I know because it was time for the Simpsons Halloween special) and it was so bad I was coughing up blood. I went to the emergency room, received a prescription and stopped smoking for 2 years.
It was not until my girlfriend (fiance at the time) decided to end it all that I started back again. I had gained 80 pounds and when I started again I lost it all.
I moved to Richmond, VA and met my future wife. She smoked also and we courted in a ardor of love.
Then my wife became pregnant in 1998. She stopped smoking immediately and I continued. I wanted to quit but just couldn't.
I worked in a call center and it was too easy to walk outside and light one up during a break.
...and so it continued.
It was about 6 months ago that I came up with a great idea...at least to me.
I would only allow myself to smoke on Fridays and when I was drinking or around other smokers in a social setting.
This has worked, mostly.
There have been a few extra smoking sessions, but for the most part I am smoke free...at least 6 days a week.

To _

2005-08-20T01:03:00.000-04:00

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory,
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

My Mother died this year.
Monday was the first birthday I have had since she died.
It makes me sad to think that the person who brought me into this world is no longer in it.
My father is still alive, but I really did not know him until I was 18 and I have never felt any sort of bond with him.
My mother was there through it all...and now she is gone.
I miss her.

Atonement

2005-08-16T21:43:00.000-04:00

Look for the ridiculous in everything, and you will find it. - Jules Renard

I forgot that today and I apologize.

"It is ridiculous for any man to criticize the works of another if he has not distinguished himself by his own performances" -Joseph Addison

2005-08-16T16:48:00.000-04:00

I know that I am taking this WAY too personally!
All day long it has bothered me.
I've done nothing all day but to think about how much I wanted to write the person and express how upset and hurt I was by his flippant comments.
I awoke this morning and followed my regular morning routine. Having a bit of extra time, I decided to visit a blog that I recently started frequenting. Upon arrival I noticed an entry in reference to an event that took place this weekend. It was a top ten list of glib observations from the event.
Part of me knows that it was written in jest and intended to be a clever blog entry to entertain his readers. If some of the statements had not directly pertained to me, I might have found it amusing. However, the more I looked at it and the more I thought about it, the more upset I became.
Mostly I'm surprised because last week the writer attended a party and wrote about how upset they were when someone spent the night attempting to trivialize what they do.

This post, arriving 10 hours later and after a full day of pondering, was going to be my response to the post I read.
I was going to start with the fact that I spent the last 10 months working a full time job, taking care of a wife and 2 daughters, struggling through my mother getting sicker and eventually dying and spending about 20-30 hours a week of my own personal time on the project.
It was that important to me.
I was going to say that in order for a writer to get better...they write. It does not matter what they write, just as long as they do so. That is why blogs are so popular amongst inspiring writers.
In the same vein, in order for a filmmaker to get better...they need to make films. Unless you attend film school, the opportunity to make a movie is not an easy one to come by. Techniques needed to complete a film can only be learned by actually doing them in conjunction with a project. The best thing a budding filmmaker can learn from a film is what mistakes he can correct then next time around. Believe me, every little error and Diet Pepsi bottle that was left in a scene during filming has been lamented and cursed at during every viewing of the film since. Only having 48 hours of location availability and at least 5 days of filming actually needed is a prime recipe for continuity errors.
That being said, I am surprised that there were not more errors in the film.
I was going to say that the inference that a filmmaker is knowingly copying a style is a bold one that should be backed up with cited examples. Tarantino did not create crime films and Mel Brooks did not create comedy. Each one took an existing genre and worked to shape it into something personalized.
Now, I'm certainly not looking for praise...I actually would prefer not to receive any for the film. I know it's faults and we've never claimed it to be a masterpiece.
We needed to make a film to get the technique down and we feel we've learned a great deal in the last 10 months.
I was going to say that I think he missed the entire point of the festival. It was not to brag and show off how great these films were but to celebrate the completion of something so that we can move on to the next one.

Now it's the end of the day and I sit down to write this post.
I'm tired and I've thought of nothing all day but how those damn niggling remarks made me feel this morning.
I know he was just trying to be clever and I took it way too personally.
I'm not mad anymore but I am upset...upset with myself for dwelling on the minutiae of it all.

A Better Son/Daughter

2005-08-12T22:11:00.000-04:00

Sometimes in the morning I am petrified and can't move
Awake but cannot open my eyes
And the weight is crushing down on my lungs
I know I can't breathe
And hope someone will save me this time
And your mother's still calling you insane and high
Swearing it's different this time
And you tell her to give in to the demons that possess her
And that god never blessed her insides
Then you hang up the phone and feel badly for upsetting things
And crawl back into bed to dream of a time
When your heart was open wide and you love things just because
Like the sick and dying

And sometimes when you're on
You're really fucking on
And your friends they sing along
And they love you
But the lows are so extreme
That the good seems fucking cheap
And it teases you for weeks in its absence
But you'll fight and you'll make it through
You'll fake it if you have to
And you'll show up for work with a smile
And you'll be better
You'll be smarter
More grown up and a better daughter or son
And a real good friend
And you'll be awake
You'll be alert
You'll be positive though it hurts
And you'll laugh and embrace all of your friends
And you'll be a real good listener
You'll be honest
You'll be brave
You'll be handsome and you'll be beautiful
You'll be happy

Your ship may be coming in
You're weak but not giving in
To the cries and the wails of the valley below
Your ship may be coming in
You're weak but not giving in
And you'll fight it you'll go out fighting all of them
-Rilo Kiley

Are you still there? Or have you moved away?

2005-08-10T15:50:00.000-04:00

I shouldn't be bothered, but I am.
We were roommates for 3 years and have not seen each other for at least 5.
I moved away and started a new life, but I've been back to visit at least 3 times in the last 7 years.
She has not visited here once.
I've made a point to keep an email in her inbox at least three times a year and a phone call at least once a year.
I know it's not that she doesn't want to see me...we are like brother and sister and with siblings you can sense those sort of things.
But this weekend, I really wanted her here.
I've finally accomplished something that I am proud of and want to share with as many people whom I care about.
Granted, I love my children and family and want to show them off also, but this is something creative and personal.
Something that is a glimmer of what I wanted to be when she and I were roommates and I imagined my future.
And she will not be here to see it...

burst grin giggle bliss skip jump sing and shout

2005-08-09T20:31:00.000-04:00

it's a perfect day for doing the unstuck
for dancing like you can't hear the beat
and you don't give a further thought
to things like feet
let's get happy!
-Doing The Unstuck
THE CURE

My little buttercup...

2005-08-06T13:12:00.000-04:00

Tick. Tick. Tick.

2005-08-06T12:50:00.000-04:00

A whole year?

"So, what have you been doing this year"
"Not much"

Wait...that's entirely wrong. I've been busier this year than any other year of my life.

I work 40 hours a week.

I spend about 20-30 hours a week completing various tasks vital to the production of independent films.

I have 5 and 6 year old daughters that constantly vie for my attention.

I have a TIVO bursting at the seams with shows that I want to watch.

I have a wife that deserves as much attention as I can direct towards her.

I have about 3-4 books that are waiting for me to open and read them.

I have so many things that fill my days, that sometimes, at the end of the day, I seem to forget that I did anything.

Uninspired Randomness

2004-07-27T21:48:00.000-04:00

I go from being tired to being super tired. With the new job I am getting up at 3AM, doing the route and then heading directly to the new job until 3PM. With the heat, it is killing me. I need to take a few days off the route to gain some sanity.

WOO HOO!

2004-07-23T16:25:00.000-04:00

I got the job! It took them forever to get back to me but in the end there was nothing to worry about. I can go into the paper office tomrrow and give notice immediately! Of course, I still have to work there until the end of next month but there is nothing I can do about that.
Soon I will have a life again! No more early bedtimes or having to stay home each weekend.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

2004-07-22T14:47:00.000-04:00

I am so tired of being tired!
I am a person that can't go to bed before 10 or 11 pm each night, regardless of when I got up that day. At the beginning of the year I started a paper route which requires me to get up at 3 am. On the average night I now get about 4 hours of sleep. I try to go to bed earlier but can't actually go to sleep until somewhere between 10:30 and midnight and when I get home at about 6am from the route, I am so wired from being on the move for 3 hours that I can't go right back to sleep. Of course by the time I get sleepy my wife and daughters get up for the day which delays rest further.
The upside is that it allows me to stay at home with my daughters. Most parents aren't able to experience this so when I had the opportunity I took it.
Now, my oldest is getting ready to go to school and the younger one wants to go somewhere during the day. My usefullness as a care provider is coming to an end and it makes me sad and happy.
I will miss spending so much time with them and being there for them when something goes right or wrong.
I will miss hearing them play together. I will miss being able to see them learn something at the actual moment it happens. From now on it will be "Guess what I learned today..."
It makes me sad.
But I will be able to sleep again.

First Post

2004-07-21T01:13:00.000-04:00

I hate drug tests. I am trying to get a new job and I had to submit to a drug screening to complete the application process. I hate the procedure of going to LabCorp and then waiting for 1-2 hours (after drinking tons of liquid) to prepare for the test. At least I was able to complete the test this time. A few years back I had to leave in humiliation after a half hour of failed attempts to do so.
On top of this I also have that fear of some sort of mistake in evaluation that makes them think I am hopped up on goofballs 24/7. I will be on pins and needles until I hear back from the potential employer regarding the results. I know that nothing would show up in a normal test but it is an irrational fear that grips me when I take these things.
In other topics:
Six Feet Under was messed up this week. Poor David! All he wanted was a little fun and he ends up with broken ribs and a nice gas smell!
If you have not watched Little Britain or The Graham Norton Effect then I highly suggest you do.
If you have watched The 4400 then I apologize.
It was a wonderful idea that was just executed wrong. Maybe it needed more cowbell!

Current Favorite Song: A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley
Current Favorite Quote: "All right, we are going to use a fan brush here and...uh, why don't you take some hunter green and we are going to put a happy little bush right down over here in the corner there...and that'll just be our little secret...and if you tell anyone that that bush is there I will come to your house and I will cut you."-Bob Ross on The Family Guy