musings and words from silver lake

[kmnysak]

(California),Sequoia National Park

[cosmonautroger]

Maxim Savva, Coffee and Cigarettes

[whiskeyandacigarette]

Nails

Sitting in the ICU, staring at her hand, it finally dawned on me what was so weird about what I was seeing. Her nails. They were just her nails, not the acryllics. Growing up, one of the strongest memories I have of my mom was the smell of acryllic nail shit in the house. She used to do her own nails. Half an inch of plastic on all ten nails. I don’t know why she did them herself, but she was good at it. I really hated the smell. I think it was acetate or whatever glue was used to keep them on. But it’s a core memory. I remember as a kid when she would run her fingers through my hair how good that felt, one of the only close connections we had that I recall. Normally she painted them hot rod red, which I imagine was tied to her love of cars. She had a ’68 Roadrunner when I was a kid. She also had a Baja Bug that was so loud you could hear it three blocks away on Sunset, and a ’83 Chevy truck when I was in high school. She often picked me up in that, blasting Snoop Dogg’s first album (on cassette, obviously). She worked on all those vehicles, somehow, even with the nails. But, she didn’t have the nails now. 

Instead, she was laying in the ICU, her body collapsing under decades of hard living. She spent most of her life smoking KOOL menthols, drinking Slim-Fast and Budweiser. She struggled for most of her life, including the times when I was with her. She tried. Even though she fucked up and made bad choices and abandoned me multiple times, she tried. She was able to get my my first boombox as a kid. She worked hard to make costumes for Halloween, and even one for a play I was in. I was a lobster. It was weird. I watched her go from job to job, which she was good at because she was incredibly smart. Then I watched her beligerent attitude fuck those jobs up, one after the other. I watched her alienate friends and family. I watched her get beat by some redneck in Texas. Though, I will say, she gave nearly as good as she got in this one because she could absolutely throw a fucking punch thanks to growing up with two older brothers. She leveled that hick twice that night. I watched my biological father beat her. I watched her make me a cake from scratch for my birthday. She did what she could to help me when I was a Boy Scout, and came to every football game when I played in HS. (The game I got knocked out she basically said, “Rub some dirt on it and get back out there,” which, respect.)

But, she wasn’t a great mom. Death does not make angels of us all, not by a long-shot. I never felt safe with her so I never spoke with her about anything important, or deep. She left me alone my first semester of freshman year here in LA. I have, literally, been on my own since 18. Sure, argue that it made me whatever I am now, but it was still abandonment. I cannot think of a single thing she did for me as an adult. Like, literally. I did not have “the best mother in the world” like so many of you post on here. I had a woman who had me at 23, was emotionally immature, but still loved me more than anything else in her entire life. I suppose for some that counts. It does for me too, to some degree. But I’m not sure it’s enough, and it was often uncomfortable for me. She lied to me until about six years ago about who my father was, and never apologized for it. Not that I wanted a relationship with him, fuck that guy (sorry, half-siblings who might read this). But it took 23andMe + IG to uncover the truth. I’ll save that story for later.

Now, I was sitting in silence, staring at her slip in and out of consciousness while her liver failed and took the rest of her with it. Listening to the beep of machines and her labored breathing. Her formerly well-manicured hands bare aside from hospital monitors and an ID bracelet. But that smell will never leave me. I guess it’s nice she might see my grandparents, and her dog Kashmir and cat Patches from when I was growing up. She deserves that, I imagine. I remember her sitting out in her truck listening to music and drinking beer the night Kashmir died and was buried. 

I still loved her even though I despised what she sometimes said to me and how she treated me over the years. As fucked up as we were, for how little we spoke, and how often I said I didn’t care, she was still my mom. But that’s all over now.

[pradadada6]

[otramble]

“It’s like I’m reading a book… and it’s a book I deeply love. But I’m reading it slowly now. So the words are almost infinite.”

— Her

[vjeranski]

[whiskeyandacigarette]

Don't live the same year 75 times and call it a life

Rebelle Rally competitor whose name I cannot find

[whiskeyandacigarette]

Baby clothes. Unused.

It is not a good night. Thoughts are circling around my head like the ceiling fan overhead. I decided to finally clean out my closet of some of the things from the breakup. There was a box of baby stuff she did not want when we split and moved because she did not want to be reminded of what could have been. Some of those things were sold early on so she could have a bit of cash. The rest I had pushed into corners of a closet and behind my boxing gear.

Despite me being sad and teary-eyed tonight, this story is not really about me. She deserved better. Not only from me, but just from life in general. She would have made a good mom. She is caring and smart and funny. She can be a bit of an over thinker and overcautious to the point of extreme annoyance, but she generally means well. She deserved to be raising a baby right now, with me or without me.

She was in fertility treatments when we began dating. I did not mind and did not run screaming for the hills. The first two donor embryos did not take, but there did not seem to be any real concern for worry from her doctor. As we grew closer because of time and the pandemic, we decided to try on our own to have a kid. I got my genetic testing done - she had already done so for the IVF/IUF process - and out of 284 things they test for, I carried one. She carried four. One of those four was the one I carried. It was a kidney issue which resulted in a dead baby or a dead kid at a young age. But, we were told it was a 25% chance so we went ahead and had the embryos made.

Three of the four embryos ended up carrying it, and the fourth did not develop enough to be viable. So much for 25%.

Someone recently asked me when the last time it was that I cried. I did not initially want to tell her because we were exploring our own potential romance. (Spoiler: she ain’t here) Well, the last time I cried was when we were moving out and I opened the box of baby stuff for the first time. Seeing what she had planned, and what was never going to happen. I’ll get into it more shortly. Prior to that, I cried on her birthday.

I put a big surprise picnic together with her friends and a couple of mine. A couple of her friends had kids and I played with them in the park because kids find me to be a pretty awesome adult. That night before bed when we were recapping the day, she said it was so nice to finally have found someone who wanted kids…and that she was sorry she would never be able to give me one of my own. Absolutely devastating, but as I write this I just recalled another time I was brought to tears.

We were driving back home after a weekend camping trip. This was towards the end of it all because we had Foxy the trailer with us. As we drove past the park down the 5, we were talking about all of the fertility stuff and how her life seemed to be getting worse by the week. She said, “If babies choose their parents, who would want to choose this as a life and me as a mom?”

Having the choice to have children taken away from you, as a woman, is something I cannot begin to comprehend. I will not try. It is awful, unfair, grotesque, and a thousand other adjectives. Really, it is just fucked up. But, going through all that with her, even if I was not nearly as supportive as I could have been through many of the more rough patches, had an impact on me. I wanted her to be a mom, whether it was with me or not. I recapped some of this story to someone recently and I mentioned how she kept saying the universe was telling her to get fucked. I said, “The universe is indifferent!” But my friend said, “Yeah, but god isn’t.” I don’t really do the religion thing but it fucked me up and has stuck with me for days.

All of this is to say, tonight when I was going through boxes, I got wrecked. There were some onesies and swaddle cloths. There was a custom made stuffed elephant. A music box which played Toyland as a little elephant named Humphrey watched a train of toys circle around him. A wooden nameplate, with no name. The nameplate is what broke me. Just a blank piece of wood, symbolizing little more than a failed dream. There were so many plans and so many laughs to be had. None of it will happen.

I am not entirely sure what to do with some of this. It was not mine, I did not buy it. She had it when we began dating. But it feels wrong to get rid of it. Maybe it is a reminder of my failures as a partner. Maybe someone else can get use of it when they have a baby of their own. Not really sure, but I packed it all back up and put it into the corners of the closet. Eventually I will have to make a decision on it. But not tonight. Tonight I will be sad about the ‘what could have been’ of it all and move on from there.

[whiskeyandacigarette]

Once More Around the Sun

Here I am. Another year passed. Somehow, the changes and feelings between this year and the last don’t seem to have moved forward too much. On the whole, life is pretty good, to be honest.

Another raise and bonus at work, plus more movement into the design and experience aspects of our software. Creating something people around the world will use is pretty fucking cool, I must say. I’m in the best shape I’ve been in since, maybe those two or three years right after I graduated from college? This Apple Watch has really made a difference in how I track my workouts and it really does hold me accountable. I’ve changed my diet, a bit, and dramatically cut back on drinking. It all adds up! I chopped my hair off in November for my last donation to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. They stopped accepting donations at the end of 2018 and I really think a) I look better with short hair and b) I’m 100% over dealing with all this hair so it worked out.

I didn’t really try with my family but I think that’s OK. As I’ve said in the past, I don’t really fit in with them. It’s all just based on blood at this point. That’s fine. I really, really sat down and thought about what I wanted with my life over the next few years and that was interesting/frightening. Allow me to elaborate!

For the first time, I’ve legitimately thought about moving away from Los Angeles. I love my city. There’s a reason I’m here. I’ve got roots going back in the city starting during the Great Depression. I’ve seen the neighborhoods change from being terrible to cool by the day. I’ve met incredible people. But, I’ve also been here for all but a few years of my entire life. I’m in a place now where I can leave the city and not feel like I’m missing anything. It’s OK to leave now, I’ve put in my time.

I’ve also realized that I do actually want a family at some point. Finding that in LA is difficult, though not impossible. But, at this point, am I really going to find someone at a bar? Unlikely. I say that knowing full well I met someone a few months ago I 100% could’ve been with until the end of time at a bar, but it didn’t work out. That legitimately bummed me out. There was a connection there. I’m not completely sure what happened but maybe she just wanted to hook up and that was my role for her. I don’t know. The others though, i’m just moving on. One was too young and couldn’t be honest with me. Another was a flake, I should’ve known this from our last go-round but I’d hoped against hope to have been wrong this time. The woman whose occupied most of my heart and mind the last few years is just never going to settle for me. I’m not just another clown with a guitar, I’m too stable in my life to fit into hers. I could fit but it won’t happen. I’m done waiting. I’ve probably wasted too many years on that and missed someone who actually would’ve invested the same time and energy into me as I would’ve for them because of it. At this point, it’s all words and conjecture, no action, so what’s the point?

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m smartening up and not investing my time and energy into people who don’t appreciate it or will reciprocate. It’s taken me far too long to understand this but I do now and that’s all that matters, right? I’m going to work on creative projects and let the chips fall where they may instead of worrying about people who don’t worry about me. It’s funny to type that out because it seems so obvious but it isn’t. It’s difficult to separate yourself from a situation sometimes when you’re in the middle of it! But it’s not impossible.

There is too much out there to be bogged down, I think. People can be more diving bell than wings to soar on and it’s good to understand that sooner than later. There’s music to be heard. There are places to visit. There are cats and dogs to pet! I’ve spent so, so many years not realizing this and it is a bit of a downer but you know what? It’s not that serious. There’s (usually) always more time. There is time to really make that thing you want to. There’s time to switch careers. There is time to find love. 

It’s true, we don’t know if we’ll even see tomorrow. But, even if you don’t, if you live as though you will see tomorrow, and many more tomorrows, it makes things easier. Just plan your life out and work towards that. Write those goals down and get to work. It shouldn’t take a birthday to remind you of that, nor should it take some dude writing this at home on a Saturday night drinking Jameson to remind you of it! We all know this, we’re just too nervous to acknowledge it and reach out toward your goal. I, for one, am not going to be nervous any longer. Perhaps next year’s birthday entry will have a lot of exciting developments to recap! We’ll find out in 365 days!

[ultrafacts]

Source

Video of Tama

Follow Ultrafacts for more facts

[majikkant-deactivated20180504]

The picture in the background of the second one

[pizzaismylifepizzaisking]

Tama is boss

[ultrafacts]

[cat-fandom]

THE TRAINS HAVE CARTOON TAMAS ON THEM

[ultrafacts]

Sad update everyone, Tama recently passed away… An estimated 3,000 people, including railway officials, attended Tama the cat’s funeral on Sunday, days after she died of heart failure aged 16. [x]

[retro-geek-deactivated20220412]

For those who haven’t read articles about it, the local shrine elevated her to a god. She’s now the Eternal Stationmaster and patron god of the station.

[karinanotcinerina]

Beautiful.

[system-fail-ure-deactivated2021]

Now I’m crying thanks

[sapphic-matriarchy]

and a new cat was hired right?

[clarenecessities]

yep! her name is Nitama (essentially ”second tama” or “tama II”) and she served under Tama as an apprentice before being appointed her deputy

she works very hard

[beasti]

Everytime this crosses my dash, I reblog. It is the law.

[lafayettelabaguette]

Law

[tooiconic]

I’m crying at 11pm over train cats

[sighinastorm]

Nitama, already now a mature cat (born 2010), has a protege named Yontama (fourth Tama, b. 2016).  There is no information available for either the physical befellment or tragic self-disgrace which has removed Santama from contention.

^Nitama majestic, and below with Yontama

Yontama.

[linkislost]

a legacy

[nicewarmbed-blog]

peebles teach me how to be you

[fairypikachu]

can we just talk about this for a minute

because seriously i have so much respect for the adventure time team. they’ve made a successful cartoon that isn’t random poop and fart jokes for a solid eleven minutes. sure, adventure time has its immature moments, but then there’s parts like this.

pb’s backed up against the wall in a position that’s way too common in today’s society. you can tell she’s scared and uncomfortable. so what does she do? she beats the shit out of ricardio.

she doesn’t “play nice”, she doesn’t “let him down gently”, she tears off his limbs and stomps on his face. then ricardio tries to play the nice guy card and she has none of it. it’s refreshing to see something aimed at children that doesn’t state that girls need to be polite and sweet and stand by while someone makes them uncomfortable.

basically, i love this show and i love how it teaches girls something that’ll actually come in handy some day. god fucking bless.

[littleainthecloset-deactivated2]

And this is back on the dash again.  Always reblog.

[criticalalexandrite]

I especially love the fact that she’s not treated as the villain for having to get violent to defend herself. We need more kid’s cartoons that show that it’s ok to get violent to defend your life.

[wnq-writers]

[whiskeyandacigarette]

Texas memories

One sure thing I know about my mom is that she can throw a punch. I know this because as a kid in Texas I watched her get beat a couple of times and she didn’t just take it, she fought back. The first time I saw this happen, I was probably 8 or so and she’d begun dating some hick in East Texas named Shane. The whole night ended with some other hick ending the whole thing by threatening to shoot us all and bury us in the woods.

I don’t recall why the whole thing started but I do remember we were at someone else’s place, not home. Were were at the place of this couple who were friends of this guy Shane, I think. I remember it was on property out in the woods, not a regular suburban neighborhood or anything. The number of empty Budweiser and Bud Light cans laying around far exceed the number of fingers I have to count them on as well. You can see how the already had the potential to go south.

My memories of the entire episode are scattershot but I distinctly remember enough to put the whole night together. Whatever set Shane off, he really went in on my mom. These were slaps and smacks, there were punches involved. Because Texas is a lawless, morally bankrupt hellscape, I was present for all of it. Shane wouldn’t stop even when my screamed out to stop and not do this in front of me, the screaming, crying child who shouldn’t have had to watch his mom get smacked around in the woods.

My favorite part of the night was when my mom was trying to put me in the truck to go home and Shane came after us. We were at the rear of the truck, Shane grabbed my mom, and she swung around and hit him with a right hook that absolutely flattened him. I mean, I remember this 30 years later, that’s how good it was. It could be on ESPN’s top 10 knockouts of 1989. I think that right hook put an end to the whole thing for a little while and everyone went back to drinking their shitty beer for a while in front of the fire.

The lull in action was temporary. Eventually, the arguing began once more and Shane went after my mom again. However, this round didn’t last long. The guy whose place we were at, a man I recall as being very large and having a massive ginger beard, pulled out a pistol and said, “That’s it, if you don’t stop now, I’ll shoot you all and bury you in the woods.” Even the drunkest hick knows that guns mean stop, so Shane laid off my mom and left. It was, shockingly, the second time I’d had a gun in my face in about two years as a kid so I’m sure I shrugged it off. Or screamed and cried. Who can really know at this point, right?

My mom and I eventually got into our own truck and left to head home at daybreak the next morning. dDriving up to the house we could see every light in the place on so my mom just drove on. I think we went and grabbed some food since it was very early in the morning and I was hungry. I’m sure the other reason for not going home was to make sure Shane wasn’t waiting for us there. He wasn’t. He’d been home, ransacked the place a little, left all the lights on, and left. Perhaps high electric bills are somehow additional insult to the woman you just beat in Texas but I’ll never know.

My mom was in bad shape for weeks after that. Bruises and black eyes and lies to my friends about what happened. To her credit, I don’t think we ever saw Shane again and I don’t think anything of value was lost over this. The entire episode stayed with me, maybe even fucked me up, but I learned I’d never put my hands on a woman or even let things get anywhere near that point. I also learned Texas sucked and I never wanted to go back. Texas has proven me right up to this point so there’s that. My mom bounced back. She found a decent guy when we moved back to Los Angeles and she fucked that up within three years. She found another good guy after that and he was a good, steadying influence on my for my high school years. Eventually he smacked her once while I was in college and she moved to Nevada, leaving me on my own to fend for myself at 18. I’m still here, and so is she, so despite Shane’s best efforts he didn’t break either of us and I’m grateful for that.

[whiskeyandacigarette]

My mom visited...

I hadn’t seen my mom in four or five years until a few weeks ago. It was, to say, an interesting couple of hours. It took me a few days to unpack everything and that’s continued the last few weeks as well. I’m not completely sure I even fully understand how it affected our relationship.

The last time I saw my mom, it was at my grandparent’s funeral. They’d wanted to have a joint funeral so we waited until my grandma passed, they didn’t die together or anything. She wasn’t looking too great at that point and I was taken aback when she came into the church. At that point, it’d actually been close to 10 years since we’d seen each other. Since then, things have only gotten worse. She’s clearly not taking care of herself and I honestly don’t even know how she’s living. No job, living in some random trailer somewhere. It’s concerning but I really don’t know what to do about any of it. Is this getting to the point where I may have to start sending money to cover expenses? Pay for insurance? Other things that people do for their parents? The worst part is, she’s only 60. She had me very young so to see her like this is bizarre even though we haven’t been particularly close during much of my adult life.

That concern aside, much of what left me in a weird headspace was the conversation. I decided to just go for it and ask questions about things I hadn’t in the past. The first big question was whether or not she knew my father was alive, whether she was in contact with anyone from his family. The answer was ‘no’ and was followed by, “Fuck him.” Which, fine, that’s completely expected if I’m being honest. I never heard from him growing up, partly because she forced him to stay away, according to my grandmother. What she said next was a little more absurd and alarming. “Besides, it was a toss-up between him and Mike anyway.” This was /not/ something trivial you just throw out there. “Mike” was the guy we moved to Texas with when I was younger. He beat my mom. He was also a Mexican guy with a daughter a few years younger than I was. My mom laughed as I looked at her incredulously and then said, “Don’t worry, it wasn’t him.” I’d always thought they met after my parents split up but apparently she knew him at the same time and was fucking them both when I was conceived. The capper to this is that when I got my DNA tests done, the “Native American” category lists “Mexico” as the subcategory. Perhaps the Lakota guy in our family’s history was originally from down in Mexico and moved to the plains but honestly, at this point, who the hell knows and I’m just going to stick with the idea that my world wasn’t casually turned upside down.

From there, the majority of our chat was about random things here and there and catching her up on some of my friends. I gave her some money when she finally had to leave and she said, “You’re the only thing I ever did right.” I let her have her lingering hug because I didn’t know how to react to that. Like I said, once I broke it down and saw just how little we’ve seen each other since she moved to Nevada and what little I remember as a child, I just don’t know that I have this same strong feeling of love. Yes, it’s my mom and I love her but I can’t quite articulate where that limit stops and why it feels more topical than it likely should. I imagine I’ll spend plenty of time trying to answer that as the days go on. She and I spoke relatively frequently - for us - in the weeks that followed, usually by text. Things have gone back to normal now, I guess, because it’s been close to a week and a half since we’ve texted each other. Maybe things won’t change and we’ll go back to the same routines or maybe we’ll find a way to chat more. I’m still not sure which I prefer.

[whiskeyandacigarette]

Anthony Bourdain

It’s been nearly a week now since Anthony Bourdain passed away. I woke up to the notification on my phone that morning and it was deeply upsetting. I really only got into Bourdain’s show a year or two ago and didn’t know much about him prior, to be honest. In that short time, I learned a lot about the kind of person he was as well as plenty about food and culture from his travels. I appreciated his attitude and his style. I even told a friend of mine that he was my new style idol when it came to getting older and looking at the world in new, creative ways.

His death really seems to have hit people hard, perhaps harder than many would’ve expected. I think that’s a testament to who he was as a person and host that he could touch so many people in so many ways. I hadn’t even really made the connection with how he so very often just ate & spoke with people like people, he wasn’t ‘otherizing’ or being a ‘white dude on an exotic food tour’ and treating people like novelties. Maybe growing up in LA didn’t allow me to notice, maybe not being a person of color. I don’t know what it was but I like that no one was ever treated like a carnival sideshow in his series’ and that so many other people noticed and appreciated this.

I do believe the world lost an important voice last week and I don’t immediately see anyone that step up and continue on in that role. The fuck-you, do the right thing attitude is easy to talk on Twitter but not necessarily so easy to carry out in real life. Anthony seemed to have walked the walk here and lived as if he weren’t a world famous chef and host. A man’s gotta have a code and he sure as hell had one, one we should all look to adopt bits and pieces of. Live life and experience it. Don’t sit on Instagram wishing, or only visiting places hoping to post them on Instagram and get likes. Do right by the people in your life, the women in particular. Eat things people offer you. Don’t look at everyone as being ‘exotic’ because they may look different than you. Develop some goddamn empathy, lord knows we can use more of it given the current climate of America.

Sadly, we’ve seen more than a few very beloved, very high-profile people take their own lives the last few years. It’s a somber reminder that money and fame does not equate happiness. If you need to speak to someone, please do so. If you haven’t spoken to your friends for a while, check in on them. Don’t let someone disappear from the world when it could have, maybe, been prevented.

[whiskeyandacigarette]

Yet another year...

On the eve of another birthday, it has become tedious to think about birthdays in general. I don’t really have anything planned and I do not know that I care to change that. Day after day passes and at this point, life is just a series of days that I try to do well in my career and maybe do something creative. I’ve learned that there is nothing wrong with that.

I spent my 20s, and part of my 30s, spending money and going out with little to nothing to show for it. I am, quite literally, paying some of those nights off in the form of a consolidation loan I took out for my credit cards. It was a waste. However, the last couple years, I’ve gone through some changes that have changed what I prioritize in my daily life. Let me tell you: if you can’t afford it, don’t do it. Don’t take any trips on your credit card unless you have the means to pay it off quickly. Being smart with your money is the single most important thing I never learned about until it was too late. Keeping impulses in check is hard but possible.

The last few years I’ve also realized that the time for me to get closer to my family is likely drawing to a close. I just don’t know them, even my mom, and I’m not sure what there is to learn now. I imagine it is not fair to her, I know she still tries to have a relationship with me. But, she also moved to another state when I was 18, leaving me on my own in college, and appears to have devolved into some kind of right-wing weirdo. It’s all rather depressing, to be honest. I never really knew what my family was but the last few years have only proven what I have always believed: I do not fit in with these people and I never have. It’s unfortunate but it is how things have played out.

But, aside from those couple of things, I’m doing great and happy to have made it another year. To be honest, those things just aren’t that important to me anyway. I’ve made it this far despite my best efforts so I think I’ll be fine now that I am a bit older and smarter with so many aspects of my life. I’ve stopped drinking to a great extent. I’m eating better. I’m going to the gym more consistently. I’m legitimately trying to get better at photography. There is still plenty of time to improve myself even if I’m using birthdays as the yardstick for measuring that improvement. We’ll see what I have to say next year around this time!

[thelovejournals]

I won’t kiss you. It might get to be a habit and I can’t get rid of habits.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Flappers and Philosophers” (via thelovejournals)