A Day in the Life of Chaos

I have a scar on my right cheek, or is it my left?  I have to think about it for awhile before I remember.  I have had it since I was a little boy and when I look in a mirror it is invisible to me.  Others may see it but when something exists with you, like the color of your skin, in time you no longer see it.  I used to ask my mother if it was as small as a GI Joe scar yet?  "Close," she would tell me, "close."  When others would look at me the scar is what they would see first.  They would want to ask me the cause yet they would refrain, thinking it was an invasion of my privacy.  Eventually after a long time the topic would come up and they would sheepishly ask.  I would of course tell them that it was caused by some fantastical circumstance like a violent girlfriend, a shark or the slash of a sword.  In truth, I stumbled over some rocks when I was running and a particularly sharp one cut my face. In life everyone carries wounds with them.  They etch our emo

I saw a crazy man this morning. I've actually seen him before but this morning he stood out like never before.  I was riding my Vespa to work feeling quite stylish and quite Italian.  I wore my jacket with the British flag on the back and dark goggles.   While feeling quite chic in my mind I was hoping with all hope I would not be side swiped by a red neck in an F150 or hit on the head with a beer bottle.  I suppose my black visored helmet had that later covered but the former would have been disastrous.  I was motoring through West Columbia, an area that was once a suburb of Columbia and now is seemingly forgotten.  It is run down, dotted by apartments and small houses that should be condemned.  If that wasn't enough, the area is punctuated by a chicken plant that dispenses an odor strong enough to wrinkle the nose.  There is usually a parade of interesting people out on the street but today one particular man stood out.  He was probably in his 60's, of course the appar

Narrator : Winnie the Pooh crawled out of the gorse bush, brushed the prickles from his nose and began to think again. Winnie the Pooh : Think, think, think. Narrator : And the first person he thought of was... Winnie the Pooh : Winnie the Pooh? Narrator : No. Christopher Robin. Winnie the Pooh : Oh.  The world would be a better place if we all took time to think.  It is hard to think, it takes work.  Thinking gnaws at the brain and it can be quite disquieting because often there is no simple answer.  It is so much easier to be told what to think.  History is filled with tragic examples of those that declined to use their mental faculties and the ultimate consequences.  In truth, surrendering your mind is akin to surrendering your soul. In the case of some historical monsters like Hitler or Stalin declining to think was literally selling your soul to the Devil.  Our minds govern all that we are.  They regulate our desire, emotion, feeling, love and hate.  The American N

A few weeks back I wrote an essay on things that go yelp in the night.  It was a recounting of a terrible sound that nearly froze my blood in the darkness of the night.  Coyotes were on the loose.  Nature was at my back door.  I live in a town with a buffer of woods edging the back of my property.  It is an area where deer roam and coyotes stalk the night.  Snakes hide under rocks by a stream and turtles move from sun spot to sun spot.  Hawks circle over head and occasionally a lake heron will fly buy surveying the gold fish and koi in my ornamental pond. While frightening and savage there is something peaceful about knowing I coexist with the natural world so close to my door. Just beyond the flickering light of the Animal Channel on my 56 inch LCD tv is a primeval world of hunters and the hunted. The people that populate my job are a curious mix of educated northerners transplanted here by some cosmic design and red neck Task Force officers.  A Task Force officer is simply a pol

Last Monday a woman in my office wasn't at her desk when I arrived in the morning.  The day progressed and periodically I checked for her, yet was never able to find her.  Finally I asked a secretary if she knew if Beth would be in at all.  I was told she was out because on Sunday, Beth lost her house.  Over the weekend a bad storm had passed through the area and along with creating a tornado, knocked down some trees.  Especially hard hit was Lake Murray, an area near Columbia where Beth had a summer vacation home.  When I heard the news and verified that Beth and family were okay my mind immediately clicked.  It was as if some kind of primal fight or flight instinct kicked in and I opined, "I wonder if the storm was made worse by the lake?" At first the seemingly innocuous nature of the question didn't bother me until I sat down and thought about it with more contemplation and depth.   What I had done was a process that the vast majority of us are guilty of on a

Last night I was sitting on the couch watching the film Up In The Air, when something very down to Earth hit me.  In a way, I am glad I wasn't watching An American Werewolf in London.  If I had been I might have shit myself.  There is a scene at the beginning when two friends are walking across the moors on a foggy night somewhere in the English countryside.  There is a howl, then a growl and well, you can imagine what comes next. The movie was playing and I found myself completely enraptured by George Clooney's characterization of a solitary man living a solitary life when I heard this sound like a creature being eaten alive.  It was one of the most horrific noises I have ever heard.  The screech was bone chilling as it called out through the night. I looked around and remembered my Corgi mutt Hillary was outside.  I had this image of her being torn limb for limb and I stood with terror in my heart as I looked out into the dark abyss.   There is a forest behind my house,

There is a quiet revolution sweeping across the men of America and perhaps the world.  It may not be pretty but it is real.  Driven to the depths of despair, crime and depravity men are gradually rubbing their stubbly cheeks saying, "I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore!"  Okay, maybe that was from the movie Network but we are still mad as hell or at least lighter in the wallet then we want to be. What is the source of this depravity?  What could cause such consternation?  It is a daily ritual exercised not by choice but by necessity.   The act of  of slicing follicles known simply as, shaving.  I can still remember being a child and watching the Gillette commercials.  A perfect cut as a blade sliced through not one but two cylindrical tubes representing hairs.  It lifted them and then excised a perfect cut releasing the tubes into the simulated skin providing the perfect shave.  It was followed by a commercial for Aqua Velva as a sexy woman ran her han

My mom would be surprised if she was alive today.  She spent a large amount of her childhood growing up in the South.  For my part, as the heir to her life experience,  I was the victim of turnip greens and salt rising bread.  I have to admit, the okra grew on me.  While she had lived in the North since graduating from college if you listened carefully you could still hear that twang in her voice.  Her parents spent their last years in Louisiana and her brother still lives in Birmingham, Alabama.  Her son was a product of the North, literally.  I grew up in Alaska probably closer to Canadian than American.  Okay, Canadian with out the socialism surrounded by guns and anti-federalism.  Come to think of it, maybe I was the only socialist non-Canadian Canadian in the state.  Well, Canada aside today I call Columbia, South Carolina my home. If my mother were alive today she would have been shocked but perhaps a little bit proud.  I am not sure why, maybe it's a Southern thing.  Wh

Everyone has a different definition of what friendship means.  It is a concept nearly as complex as love.  True friendship is something I have spent my life searching for like a prospector looking for a seam of gold.  Growing up I was fortunate to have lived in one place.  I developed a couple friends that I shared almost my entire youth with.  We were neighbors and in many ways brothers.  While connected to my familiar environment I always felt myself reaching to a world beyond.  Those were the days of letters and I eagerly wrote to pen palls I made around the world.  I had friends in Germany, England, Sweden and the Philippines.  I actually ended up marrying my friend from the Philippines but that is a long story for another time. There was something special about learning from other people in seemingly exotic places.  I discovered different points of view and a feeling that while far away, peoples thoughts, dreams and desires in life were very much the same.  It instilled in me

There are few things in life that really qualify as life changing. Something that alters your outlook and changes the way you live your life. The other day, I just may have found one of them. How did this happen? I watched a film called Food Inc. Every American should watch this film . It is not a judgmental movie. It is not trying to push a point of view or an agenda. The whole goal of the film is to explain where our food comes from and what we are eating. It seems such a simple question, I thought it was one I could easily answer. In truth, it was not. It didn't transform me into a vegan or a vegetarian. I didn't stop using deodorant or grow my hair long. It didn't send me to the red neck wonderland to equip myself for the hunt. It did however make me think. Anything in life that makes us think can't be that bad. In America we market to the world. We sell our products, our images and our brands. We are arguably some of the most effective on the