There is an ancient Chinese curse that goes: "May you live in interesting times," which pretty much describes 2012 for me.
The year started off with an interesting call from the police, which I really don't want to discuss in detail as it involves other people in my life. Lets just suffice it to say that it kept popping up for the rest of the year anytime I thought life was starting to get boring, and brought back all those "interesting" feelings. You know the kind of feelings that leave you with empty bottles of whiskey laying around the house, nausea in the pit of your stomach and wanting to punch innocent walls. The worst part is that whole feeling of helplessness where you want to do something, anything whether it's helpful or not but you can't because your hands are tied, and not in the good, sexual way either. Just pure, stinking, rotten helplessness. Almost every day of my last year I have woken up with my guts twisted inside out and a great sense of foreboding that hasn't gone away and isn't likely to lessen anytime in the near future. Interesting.
Luckily the bad was offset with the good.
My beautiful, lovely, gorgeous, crazy daughter had a baby boy! I know it's hard for people to think of me as being a grandfather because I just look so darn young and hot, but let's face it ladies I am now a "GILF". Yep, my little dragon was born this year and grandpa (?), gumps (?), goompa (?), paw paw (?), heyyouoldman (?) is totally in love with the little guy. I don't care if he looks as goofy as his dad, with his mom's big lips, he has the biggest grin I have ever seen on a kid outside of baby pics of Mick Jagger or Steven Tyler. I can completely see him become a front man someday. Not like he really has a choice about it since I convinced the kids to name him "Drake" instead of some other stupid, lame name. He's gonna have to live up to being a dragon in every sense of the word. Larger then life & taking the world by storm. So keep you eyes peeled in the future as I am sure we will see plenty of him.
I asked the love of my life to stay with me for the rest of our lives. And she said "sure, why not." Gotta admire the amount of love and dedication that came across in those three words. Granted, she thought I was kidding when I slipped that piece of sea weed on her finger, but afterwards she found out I was serious and still didn't run screaming for the hills, ok maybe some screaming but nothing I couldn't handle with a little duct tape and velcro. At least now her screaming is more of a silent, in the head kind of thing. So much less annoying. Well, at least for me.
So next summer, August 18 to be exact, we are going to tie the knot hopefully in a very small ceremony with just a few loved ones around us. I say "hopefully" because neither one of us is very good at planning this kind of thing, so most likely it will be a rushed and thrown together affair at the last minute.
We actually already kinda started on the process already by getting engagement ring tattoos. Yeah, different I know, but then we are both a little "different" and definitely "interesting". I got a letter "C" on my ring finger, and she got a letter "E" on hers. We haven't really figured out what we are going to do to finish them yet, but I'm sure we will come up with something creative and personal to the two of us. Tradition isn't really our thing.
I also discovered an "interesting" alcoholic beverage called "Rum"! Now, I've never been much of a drinker. I've always been the responsible, sober one that never liked to lose control. And with good reason. I discovered in my early military years that me plus alcohol equals holes in walls and lots of crying in corners. Pretty embarrassing and expensive for the most part. But this new drink (well, new to me), Captain Morgan's Private Stock Rum not only doesn't leave me angry, crying or with too much of a hanger, but tends to make me rather frisky, and by frisky I mean horny for my lovely lady. So once or twice a month we get to have drunken sex and then regret it for the next couple of days. Not because of the sex, but because I'm old now and I usually end up hurting somewhere on my body that I had forgotten existed years ago. Very interesting.
I have to thank my friends Wolfie and Moon for introducing us to the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) and to Allen for introducing us to the golden liquid at one of the SCA events.
Speaking of SCA, that has been another "interesting" thing that has happened to us this year. We became active participants in a medieval reenactment group, that gives us an excuse to dress up in medieval clothing, beat the crap out of one another in armor and then spend the night drinking and carousing with the other members. I'm really loving the SCA, it not only gives me a creative outlet for all the medieval stuff I have been so fascinated with for years, it has also caused me to learn some new skills that I never knew I had in me, like leather working. I never knew I had such a interesting skill in repertoire. I kind of take to it like a drunk to good rum, it just goes down so easily. (I was going to use a sexual metaphor there, but I thought that might be too risky). I've also returned to my love of archery, which I kind of put on a 20 year hiatus. I used to love shooting arrows for hour after hour, but then life got in the way and I kinda lost the passion for it that I once had. But now it's all coming back to me and I can almost hit a target again. Interesting.
Another passion has come back to me also. Photography. I love taking pictures and some people think that my pictures don't stink. So now I am actively pursing my dream to become a professional photographer. Of course this is also being pushed forward because of one of the bad "interesting" things that happened this year. The thing I talked about in the first paragraph has been a catalyst for me to have a great need to take an active role in preparing for not only my own future, but also for those around me. No longer can I live a passive role taking steps after the fact to try to fix things, now I HAVE to be pro-active. I have to start my own business. It's not enough anymore for me to just sit back and dream of starting my own business. There are people that are going to depend on me in the very near future to take care of them, so it's now time for me to finally grow up and be an adult. Interesting indeed.
I'm scared. Truly and deeply scared down to my bones that I can't pull it all off and that I will let others that need me down.
Fear is the most interesting thing of all.
The year started off with an interesting call from the police, which I really don't want to discuss in detail as it involves other people in my life. Lets just suffice it to say that it kept popping up for the rest of the year anytime I thought life was starting to get boring, and brought back all those "interesting" feelings. You know the kind of feelings that leave you with empty bottles of whiskey laying around the house, nausea in the pit of your stomach and wanting to punch innocent walls. The worst part is that whole feeling of helplessness where you want to do something, anything whether it's helpful or not but you can't because your hands are tied, and not in the good, sexual way either. Just pure, stinking, rotten helplessness. Almost every day of my last year I have woken up with my guts twisted inside out and a great sense of foreboding that hasn't gone away and isn't likely to lessen anytime in the near future. Interesting.
Luckily the bad was offset with the good.
My beautiful, lovely, gorgeous, crazy daughter had a baby boy! I know it's hard for people to think of me as being a grandfather because I just look so darn young and hot, but let's face it ladies I am now a "GILF". Yep, my little dragon was born this year and grandpa (?), gumps (?), goompa (?), paw paw (?), heyyouoldman (?) is totally in love with the little guy. I don't care if he looks as goofy as his dad, with his mom's big lips, he has the biggest grin I have ever seen on a kid outside of baby pics of Mick Jagger or Steven Tyler. I can completely see him become a front man someday. Not like he really has a choice about it since I convinced the kids to name him "Drake" instead of some other stupid, lame name. He's gonna have to live up to being a dragon in every sense of the word. Larger then life & taking the world by storm. So keep you eyes peeled in the future as I am sure we will see plenty of him.
I asked the love of my life to stay with me for the rest of our lives. And she said "sure, why not." Gotta admire the amount of love and dedication that came across in those three words. Granted, she thought I was kidding when I slipped that piece of sea weed on her finger, but afterwards she found out I was serious and still didn't run screaming for the hills, ok maybe some screaming but nothing I couldn't handle with a little duct tape and velcro. At least now her screaming is more of a silent, in the head kind of thing. So much less annoying. Well, at least for me.
So next summer, August 18 to be exact, we are going to tie the knot hopefully in a very small ceremony with just a few loved ones around us. I say "hopefully" because neither one of us is very good at planning this kind of thing, so most likely it will be a rushed and thrown together affair at the last minute.
We actually already kinda started on the process already by getting engagement ring tattoos. Yeah, different I know, but then we are both a little "different" and definitely "interesting". I got a letter "C" on my ring finger, and she got a letter "E" on hers. We haven't really figured out what we are going to do to finish them yet, but I'm sure we will come up with something creative and personal to the two of us. Tradition isn't really our thing.
I also discovered an "interesting" alcoholic beverage called "Rum"! Now, I've never been much of a drinker. I've always been the responsible, sober one that never liked to lose control. And with good reason. I discovered in my early military years that me plus alcohol equals holes in walls and lots of crying in corners. Pretty embarrassing and expensive for the most part. But this new drink (well, new to me), Captain Morgan's Private Stock Rum not only doesn't leave me angry, crying or with too much of a hanger, but tends to make me rather frisky, and by frisky I mean horny for my lovely lady. So once or twice a month we get to have drunken sex and then regret it for the next couple of days. Not because of the sex, but because I'm old now and I usually end up hurting somewhere on my body that I had forgotten existed years ago. Very interesting.
I have to thank my friends Wolfie and Moon for introducing us to the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) and to Allen for introducing us to the golden liquid at one of the SCA events.
Speaking of SCA, that has been another "interesting" thing that has happened to us this year. We became active participants in a medieval reenactment group, that gives us an excuse to dress up in medieval clothing, beat the crap out of one another in armor and then spend the night drinking and carousing with the other members. I'm really loving the SCA, it not only gives me a creative outlet for all the medieval stuff I have been so fascinated with for years, it has also caused me to learn some new skills that I never knew I had in me, like leather working. I never knew I had such a interesting skill in repertoire. I kind of take to it like a drunk to good rum, it just goes down so easily. (I was going to use a sexual metaphor there, but I thought that might be too risky). I've also returned to my love of archery, which I kind of put on a 20 year hiatus. I used to love shooting arrows for hour after hour, but then life got in the way and I kinda lost the passion for it that I once had. But now it's all coming back to me and I can almost hit a target again. Interesting.
Another passion has come back to me also. Photography. I love taking pictures and some people think that my pictures don't stink. So now I am actively pursing my dream to become a professional photographer. Of course this is also being pushed forward because of one of the bad "interesting" things that happened this year. The thing I talked about in the first paragraph has been a catalyst for me to have a great need to take an active role in preparing for not only my own future, but also for those around me. No longer can I live a passive role taking steps after the fact to try to fix things, now I HAVE to be pro-active. I have to start my own business. It's not enough anymore for me to just sit back and dream of starting my own business. There are people that are going to depend on me in the very near future to take care of them, so it's now time for me to finally grow up and be an adult. Interesting indeed.
I'm scared. Truly and deeply scared down to my bones that I can't pull it all off and that I will let others that need me down.
Fear is the most interesting thing of all.
