Forgiveness. And the lack of needing a deity.

Again in a bar. In southern Missouri. Visiting my ma may turn me into more of a drunk.

Religion permeates this place. It’s astonishing how faith works. Such a blind concept. So easy to not research and accept that some deity can make things function.

Life has a certainty. Death. The party has to end eventually. What happens after is completely unknown to us. It’s the childlike curiosity, combined with a megalomaniac style desire of importance, that creates this vacuum of acceptance of ignorance. I recognize that research takes time, and there’s a game on, but at least use those commercial breaks to look into something more than the bottom of your Busch Light can.

If the rest of the individuals I was surrounded by took time to stop blindly accepting their preferred monologue, and questioned themselves, we may begin to grow a bit as a species.

Nationalism…

Sitting in a bar in southern Missouri. A country song comes on glorifying the red, white, and blue. All that comes to mind is that any other country doing that with a song would be considered borderline fascist. We have been inundated with them since before Lee Greenwood.

Is it that we’ve been trained to believe in nationalism, or is it the teenage years of our country, just believing we ate invincible?

How frightening are either?

Running late in Vegas.

I’ve never wanted to be the life of the party… those gregarious individuals never made much sense to me. Style over substance.

I’m enjoying breakfast and considering that I’m going to miss the one class I intended on making today. Over the past day, I’ve entertained staff at The Neon Museum, in which the people are great. Informative staff that are full of information on the history of Vegas. After hanging out with Thaddeus and Damien and Householder and D and Ryan, and enjoying conversation with Scott Sterling, ended up staying up late with Jay Brown Rosini and his daughter. Great buddies at first into a developing a friendship with the owner of an awesome tattoo museum, and a character from history that harkens back to when tattooers were showmen and were characters…. this morning ran into Fip before he took off and had a brief breakfast.

With all of this, I’ve realized that if it wasn’t for the privacy of most of this being small groups, I would not have made the impact, or been impacted, by this contact. I desire a level of quiet conversation to really come out of my own shy nature. The stoic behaviours I show off stem from not wanting to be heard… because then I could be judged. That fear of rejection is something that I have known about, but now realize is over arching.

And now that I understand that, I can combat it.

Patient waiting…

Interesting thoughts for the day…

A buddy that just moved here realized he didn’t need some awesome old speakers and a CD deck. And a load of old Johnny Cash and Hank Williams lps. Not littlest petshop… Long players. Those old vinyl discs that really sound great. Yeah. Those.

Anyway. He’s going through changes in his life due to moving back to Fort Collins and being married and having a toddler. “Change is not only inevitable, it is essential to survival.” Simple text from him, but with the recent upheaval in my own life, it makes sense. My ma isn’t getting any better.

I’ve been wrestling with the loss of her for a bit. She’s been slowly devolving through multiple strokes, so I’m back in Missouri regularly to see her. Wandering through my memories there is good, but I know as she continues, it’s going to increasingly be bittersweet. It’s just getting more intense as her memory vanishes.

In a few weeks I’ll be back out there. I have no idea how I’m going to be this time around. I can only make sure she stays comfortable and in good spirits, despite how little she recognizes her own self being.

First go around.

Yeah.  I have written a load of press releases, advertising, marketing, etc material… But this is more stream of consciousness than that.  This whole thing is more about my daily thoughts and life.  Which isn’t that interesting, as far as I’m concerned, but is full of oddities and strangeness, and joy and struggle, and coffee.

To make an introduction, I have a load of jobs and positions which keep me busy.  I think I pulled doing all this to stay sane, to feel useful.  Or it’s ADHD that was never diagnosed, due to me being too old for that to be a regular assumption towards youthful energy.  Who knows?

I have been in body art since 1994.  I was (am) a body piercer at the beginning, and started tattooing in 2002, took a break, and started again in 2007.  2012 came around and I felt bored, so I started working at developing merchandising for organizations and bands that I was familiar with.  2013 brought a record label into that.  2015 brought fashion in.

Yeah, all of that.  Wee on free time, or the lack thereof.

I started raising my (now) ex wife’s kids with her in 2009.  Not that the biological father wasn’t in the picture, he was.  He was just distant, and remarried, and the new wife simply didn’t get along with the kids.  I could get along with them well, and continue to be a part of their life, despite the divorce.  That whole thing wasn’t even troublesome, we just fell out of love, and recognized it.  We ended it, and are still friends.  Hell, I brought her a poster from a MF Ruckus show last night, just because I know she’d appreciate it more than a “Phil Lynott is my spirit animal” shirt.

I’ll leave this first one with that.  It’s not everything, but I’m sure I’ll rant about something sooner or later.  Time to enjoy some De La Soul and finish laundry.  Maybe make tacos.