Time

So little time and so much to learn. Youtube Red is dangerous, through the lens of others, a slant can now be cooked up by anyone with an axe to grind. Love the constitutionalist videos of how they tell off a cop, I'll just give them my license and identify myself; no jail for me.

Have a great week and if I don't write by then, have a great USA Thanksgiving.

All Work And No Play

Isn't it interesting, one mans work looks as if they are just playing. I was thinking the other night, with the change in my ability to do the IT work I used to be at the top of the ladder doing, I was a drone with a dream. It took becoming disabled in order that I might do what I love. It's a painful trade, both mentally and physically but Im amazed how much happier I am overall. I am the most comfortable in my own skin that I've been since I can remember. I think that outfitted with the basics of technology, two pelican cases and a backpack, I might even do just fine living on the street.

I have become hypersensitive when it comes to my surroundings, it has both positive and negative implications. An example is for example everyday noise. I can hear things I never could before but loud noises scare the hell out of me. When it comes to the abstract, for some reason I can see sounds more vividly. I have a red light over my desk, it's both soothing because when I look away, I can see perfectly as it doest obstruct my night vision. When I look at fine art, I see it now with a laser precision, able to view things now I could never pick out. My writing has become very flavorful as I can now smell and taste the words where before I could only imagine what they looked like.

I've really enjoyed moving my daily words from the wild west of facebook and dealing with a void of  any real conversations, here I can be all about me and not worry about anything else, like what other people think, I can just be creative. The world is my canvas onto which I can paint what ever comes to mind, in pictures or words, links to things I've viewed or pictures taken. I can eliminate any comments I dont feel like I want in my world. I have granular control how everyone is placed. I dont care if anyone reads or views anything, it's my world. Really pompous, but the truth is, wasn't that all social media is? The exception is everyone waits around for, expects and gets upset if no one, "Likes," my content. Here; who cares! The longer it sits around, the better. Thanks to search engine distribution, the more I add and links I put, the more labels added, the hight I reach when someone searches for something pertaining to any number of my rambles. Its even more exciting that blogger is owned and run by Google, all the more likely I get crawled. It's not link they dont give preference to their own blog space. Just today, I got traffic from the most bizarre places in the world. That's right, who is uncrowded and "Nation Wide," now bitches.

I will stop stroking my own ego now and get back to focusing on writing in this blog about daily reflections an on others, more specialized. The newest blog, The Glass Eye http://www.theglasseye.net is the latest undertaking, it will have personal photos and videos. It will also have links to other news and artistic worthy posts. This page will continue to contain daily rants and descriptives of what I am up to or thinking in particular, focusing more on the printed word than visual. Then there is my page dedicated more or less to my personal spiritual believes. It's easier if I compartmentalize these thoughts, avoiding one persona in falling headfirst into another.

Enjoy, who ever stumbles upon this, no matter it will be a place I can turn back and scratch my head and say, "What the heck was I talking about." It will also serve perhaps as an archive that my kids, who have long abandoned me, might come back to or stumble upon and learn who their father was and again pass judgment or perhaps read and say, "Um well he was different, but he wasn't a bad guy. They might even come to learn something about me.

Robert, Katherine, Sarah, I love you and always will. No matter if you read this or you dont, it doest really matter. It's just been a good place for me to deal with all these feeling that have no place to go, but they need to go somewhere. Here they go, out into the ether (look it up.)

FLASH

Ok thats it for now ...

Link To the Photo Collage :The Glass Eye"

See the new blog, which contains unrelated daily grind quip from the prisim of my view on life @ http://www.theglasseye.net

Thank You

Peter

By the Dawns Early Light

It was night, the traffic leaving the  campus had finally come to a crawl. A night where I would have rather stayed home, yet I knew that my ex-wife, college aged son and daughter who has refused to talk to me for over a year and his boyfriend, would all be there. They would all have lawn chairs and sitting somewhere on the Texas A&M campus. I only have my youngest, a very short time, really I should have her for the summer and every other Holiday except for spring break, which is mine every year. I already have missed her growing up most my children's lives, all because two adults couldn't do what was right and be grownups. Work together, resolve differences and work together, both doing the best they could to get buy, as now the expense of everything is one and a half time larger. Two places to live, two water, electric, rents I could make a list, but rather just get to the point. Divorce is most of the time, the most stressful, painful, dragged out deaths of a best friend and flesh and blood one can have.

Even after moving on, often one has an ex they  haven't even made enemies with yet. Mixed marriages that end up taking up what little sanity one has. You partner is stuck in the middle. They love for their children, which in my case, she has her children, her love for your, and a dark line between both. Compartmentalizing her relationship with you, from that of her children. Often leaving one to feel as if at times, they are a room mate, and have the last thing to say on any matter and it doesn't really matter at all.

Yet, I have my youngest on this Forth of July and I want her to be with her siblings to celebrate. This very well could be the last time I celebrate with her, yet It's not about me, its about her. She knew I was somewhere lost out on that campus waiting for the smoke to clear, so she knows I didn't leave her, desert her and she got to watch the same show I did, just from a different side and aisle. 

I got some good pictures and a movie and my sone called me durring the finale, so I missed that. He told me to meet him in the road. Silly me, grabbed everything and went to the road of the GIANT campus, and he wasn't there. By the time I figured out, he didn't know where I was, I missed the end. I smiled. In this last week he has started talking to me again, like nothing happened. He's given me more hugs than he has since he was a little boy. I've spent a year here waiting for this and he waits until 3 weeks before I figure I'm wasting my time and decides he wants to have a Dad again. My daughter has her Boyfriend. She's in High School, He's in College. The day I moved here, she came with him to visit me, and then never spoke to me again, and wont tell me why. I hope she doesn't regret it later, maybe she will call me when the Ice melts, perhaps I wont ever see her again. It's all up to her. 

I'm hopefully going back to the one thing that makes me happy, doing for others. people who dont want a hand out, just a hand up. Funny I need a hand up, but I dont let it bother me too much. Yet when I can make a difference in a little boy or girls life, offer them an education I never got, I radiate attitude. 

They were not Macy Day Fireworks, not even close. They were one at a time, and the show lasted 15 minutes. A good house fire, of an abandon building would have been much more exciting, especially since I was a fireman at one time. 

Strange Days. 

It was night, the traffic leaving the  campus had finally come to a crawl.

Acid Rain

As if on a moon lit night,
and a few stars one can see in the sky,
that north cold front blew in and darkened that lie.

All those things we beloved in,
those truths we held so close to our hearts,
the very things they used tore us apart.

Never dreams, Just creatures of the night,
wake in a cold soaked sweat, leaned up,
wiped the tear from my eye,
when did they become nothing more than screams.
How did I get lost in-between.

I cant see the end in sight
They say it's there
over here
maybe in faith a leap
but how can I tell in this desert heat.

When walking became a crawl,
if there were hope at all
If time heals all things
When the hell does it begin

Some you ask
when is it going to rain
all I wanna know is
when is it going to stop.

Turn the Page -- Once again.

To the girl with long curly locks of hair, we have but a few precious moments in time, before you disappear in the back window, waving goodbye. I cant express in accurate words, how much being with you this summer has meant to me. A summer that seemed to have ended way too soon.

Your daddy loves you, so very much. Soon you will be so far away. You asked if you could come again next summer, to the beach here on the Texas sunny south side. Honey I said you were always welcome here, but I told a partial lie. I  have no idea where I will be tomorrow, less next year, but how do you say that, and not sound like a gypsy soul.

There are so many things that have happened, out of my control. My life is upside down, I've done all I can to shield you from my pain. The truth is, I move forward now, not knowing if I'll ever see anyone again. It's become the only way I've learned how to survive. There will come a day, perhaps, I will find the me I always wanted to be. I look in the mirror and what I see is the wall in back, but nothing that looks like me.

I'm so filled with misery and pain, from which I don't know how to let go. You were stolen from me, your childhood years, of which has caused me years of tears. I hope someday, I'll get that chance to tell you the story of a man who chased his children, tried to reclaim his wife, and lost everything, and cling onto life. The reason I still breath, is that I could not do to you, what I so much want to do to myself.

Love you

Daddy

My Job - Life Changer And Its Not What One Thinks

In my book of dreams, pages appear and sometimes they go. What would life be without them, I knew that feeling, it then finally did go. When I put down the bottle, and started this new path, it's been less than easy, perhaps I'll find peace one day, in one of those chapters, but for now I wait.

He led his people out of bondage, where they toiled in slavery for hundreds of years. Great miracles he performed in the great escape, only for them to complain and complain. So there they remained for another generation, as their father led them from Egypt and set them free, the promised land of milk and honey they shall never see. For the father took them from bondages they knew well, but I as know all to well, change brings fear. She's being my biggest enemy, they rebelled. He took them from the irons, and cast down their plowshares. and into freedom, only for want to return. It was then it was what he already knew, he would have to take them out of Egypt but before their Journey forward, take the Egypt out of them.

So I wait, in my desert, as He had already brought me to my knee's. In the darkest hours, he sent me an angel, to save me from myself. I wait here in the desert, to find him in myself. My darkest hours, though yet still here, are not as dark as once they were, but  today have hints of clouds of grey.

In my book of dreams I have a few numbered lists of shameless pride, those things one wishes, yet may never get to do. Written in red, though is the line of my destiny, those line I'm called to do, the directions to the promised land, if I'd only get up and do.

Put out your hand, to those who have hurts, habits  and hang-ups and give them a shoulder to lean. When they are ready, or if the time is right, relate to them in my testimony, there is another life. That they need not be sick in soul anymore, and there is a new way of life. It is my lot in life to leave this planet earth, a little better when I got here, my legacy is the changes though Him he allows me to changes lives.

To every season - same old song and dance

The Season's changed, Winter Texans packing and getting ready to head home. My island bustles with the first Summer tourists of the year. The quiet and solitude of Saturday gone for another year. Breakfast at San Juan's, outside table, sun not yet high enough to warm the chill in the air. Next week marks two years I've been here in the desert, a thousand miles from home, and not much has changed. Those who own the Island and those who come for the week and go home.

I've made a friend, though I don't see him much, started out with him threatening to kill me, thinking I was a spy for the FBI, to his admitting he was wrong about me, I was better then I seemed. He disappears to where from time and again, to where I cant even begin. A love for central Mexico, he disappears, sometimes it's just the other side of the bay, but in those seldom moments we meet, I realize I'm not the only one who's a bit strange.

No clouds in the sky, beautiful day, everyone in a rush, in a hurry to go somewhere, nowhere, its an Island you can only go so far. Trying to fit a years worth I guess in a weeks short time. Yet I realize my time is short too, fitting in life, just the day or two, each week I get away from across the bay, the machine that will eat you alive if you let it, chew you up and spit you out if you let it, or work until finally one dies. Life is truly but a vapor, seasons are but moments snapshots in time.

Today, what to do, I guess the yearly flea market opens, maybe we'll give it a try. I'll take my girl for a ride across the channel, and look for oddities amongst the piles. She'll pick out a thing or two, maybe I'll even find a treasure or two. I have a feeling though, not much to be had, I guess there isn't too much that makes me happy, It's been too many years, I've felt nothing, just a deep disconnected personality tied to sad.

My life tied to this keyboard, the place of emotional untying, those long tentacles that unless I struggle from release what's left will leave me dying. Trying for change, yet that's my greatest fear, to be abandoned, marooned on a island, just in sight of land, not wanting to leave, but to stay is hell. The story of my life here sitting on the fence, caught between the hell that pays me to live out these weekends and the couple of days left, and the purpose to which I'm called I know tugs at my heart, when to do something is left to others before I can depart.

Everyone's in a hurry to where I don't know, it's Island time and the greed of temporary freedom pulls their strings. I'll cross the bay today, for a moment or two, and realize I've left my Island, feeling lost and ready to go home too, the only place that makes me feel near to the home I know, so far in the distance, I'm a thousand miles from home.

Plying the inky dark of empty

She's out there, hiding in the darkness, the pilot boat gives her away, the river road of pilot boats, tugs, tankers and cargo. The lights in the distant, lined up waiting to turn themselves over to the harbor captain, making their way into Corpus Christi Bay.

I imagine for some, its a life of adventure, for others the only one they have ever know. A new port from time to time, but for most of the days, miles of empty ocean. I imagine the men an women, those who choose or found this way of life, are a different breed. I realize, as I struggle with my own issues of loneliness, that it might be an amazing journey, yet at some point, it would soon settle in, that it's a job I could never do, the isolation would kill me.

I sit on the jetty and imagine the decks below, bunk beds, dim florescent lights, a man laying on his side reading a novel of one sort or another, below another writing a loved one in some far away place, somewhere he calls home. The large majority of the men that crew these foreign flagged ships, are from countries around the world. Approaching the site of land, passing through the channel, watching from the desk, families fishing, lounging in their nylon portable chairs. Children running and laughing, lovers holding hands. I wonder what they think, as they all come from different cultures and world views. Its true you know, we make the poor assumption that people around the world think alike, but this is certainly not true.

My imagination tells me they are from a third world country, treated harsh, paid poorly. If and when the time comes, they are allowed to leave the ship (Most are not allowed off, as they do not have visas in order to step onto US Soil), they take a majority of their earnings, and send them back home. Supporting their loved ones, Mothers, Fathers, Sisters, Brothers, Cousins, Sons and Daughters. The ones they love, that if they are lucky, will see but a few times a year. I imagine there are phone calls allowed on occasion, a bank of workstations in which to write emails home, an allotted free time, where they might even pre arrange a visit using video conferencing services. Though just voices on the line, faces  on a flat LCD screen, but no ear in which to whisper or bodies to hug and hold.

No, I don't think I would be able to survive, my skin is too thin. Perhaps when I was a younger, much angrier, little boy who hid behind thick walls of concrete and stone, but in being torn down to raw emotion, certainly it would be the job I would never survive.

After more than a year, if I've learned anything, it's that I am not who I thought I was, nor as strong and invincible. I've come to realize I provide shelter to many of the demons of my past, things I cannot let go. I've learned just how broken I am, and often wonder how much longer I can go on. I'm told that it's selfish, thinking such things, yet the words sound hollow, hearing the sounds of life going around in the background. I want to live, but I this is no life, the hardest part is I don't know what life is supposed to look like, and I cant find it in myself to settle into mediocre. I cant find the joy in Monday Night Football or the tales told over the counter of a bar. There has to be something more, I just cant seem to find a way to get there, and know if things continue as they are, I will certainly have no choice, my only way to move on will be to go on, to that land of no return.

Its a heck of a thing when you wake up one day to find the life you've lead has all been a big lie. That you played the role of victim, rather than actor or director in the play of your own life. That you sold your soul out of fear of loosing another, and lost yourself along the way. In the end I can only conclude, is this road I must go down alone, everyone leaves in the end.

Thinker skin, build walls, put it away in a box, let it go, live in today, fake it until you make it. I would give little I have left, that I could learn to love, trust and live, and burn the stacks of court papers, legal bills, medical records, and forget the name of the person who selfishly continues to live on the happiness they must get in the every chance they get, in taking away any little thing I might have left. I stopped being the victim, straightened out my behavior, and have desperately hung onto the high road, and continue to turn the other cheek. Perhaps it take my having to truly lost everything, before I discover where to go from here.

"In the end, Gods plan is a good one, and if things are not good, then it's not the end"