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Updated 7/15/2008 |
updated: 06/04/2008
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My absolute, favorite show on television is Judge Judy. I have the DVR set to record her every day; two episodes every weekday from 4 to 5 P.M. I can easily say that I could not have gotten where I am as a single father without her. My divorce instantly shot me into a world I knew nothing about. There are rules, both moral and legal, that must be abided by to maintain a functional co-parenting life. I am only being honest when I admit that in the beginning, I thought I had a right as a parent to know the goings on in my ex wife’s life (and for the record, I hate putting “ex” in front of anything and I hate the term “ex wife”. Going forward I will always refer to her as Sheneedsmenomo). For the safety of my daughter, I believed I needed to know where she was, whom she was with, and if she was napping enough. Now don’t get me wrong, not only am I human but I’m also a guy so I’m sure Freud would have diagnosed me with “social-life envy” since she seemed to have one and I didn’t. I don’t deny there were some ulterior motives at work but there was a sincere part of me that worried about my child. I’ll just sum up this rant by saying divorce sucks. The best way to avoid it is to stay single.
Today I am a changed man.
While I’ve always been a fan of Judge Judy, I never really paid attention quite like I do now. Her show consists of an endless parade of jilted lovers who want something that the other person took from them. 80% of her show usually resolves whether the money was a gift or a loan. However, there are those few cases where people who have joint custody of their children argue about financial responsibilities with regard to children. I’ve crafted a list of the lessons I’ve learned while watching these people totally humiliate themselves on television:
Okay, the last one was a stretch and really doesn’t apply to me. I probably won’t make any more babies because I’m age-disabled. Not that I can’t procreate, it’s just that I don’t want to pay for college when I’m closing in on 60. My point in all of this is I pay attention to the show more now because I can see myself within some of these people. I’ve had the same thoughts and impulses they describe while testifying. When Judge Judy throws down her justice, I find myself nodding my head and thinking to myself that she nailed it. I judge the litigants like I’m something better (it’s the same high I get while watching The Real World on MTV) than them when I know deep down that I’m the same. So while they stand before her, it’s really me standing there. I have, at times, deserved her chastising and watching her is like getting guidance from a parent. It has been a cleansing experience.
So thank you Judge Judy from the bottom of my heart. Thanks to you, I am inches away from having a healthy co-parenting relationship with Sheneedsmenomo. I have not fully reached the pinnacle yet because I’m human and I will still make mistakes. I am making less and less of them with each passing day. I am better at holding back and censoring myself so as not to ask questions that could be perceived as being nosey. I think before I talk by closing my eyes and seeing that sexy vixen in her black robe, sitting on high, and judging me as the naughty boy I am. Giving me that intoxicating authority and beating me senselessly with those piercing, brown eyes. Sizing me up with those sleek, thin lips while I wonder what she could possibly be wearing underneath that robe. TAKE ME JUDGE JUDY! TAKE ME NOW! I NEED DISCIPLINE! YES! DISCIPLINE! HURT ME!
Did I mention that my little brother was on Judge Joe Brown?
I guess that story is for another day. |
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Years ago I dated a girl who liked to use the Ouija board for kicks. I, being the skeptic that I am, made the mistake one night of telling her I didn’t believe in those things. She became defensive about it and immediately brought the board out and set it up. We’d had a couple of drinks prior to that and she asked me if I felt drunk. Being Irish, it was my turn to get defensive and I told her “CERTAINLY NOT!” She told me that there were certain rules that had to be followed to use the board. The most important rule apparently is that you cannot be drunk while playing. She said it draws the wrong types of spirits and it would be a bad experience. After some deep thought I rubbed my chin and said “Ewwwwkay”. She then informed me that at no time should the planchette (that arrow looking thing that floats over the letters) be left on the board unless it is upside down. This apparently is a bad thing also although I’m not quite sure what the harm would be. If the thing were to move by itself it would make an instant believer out of me. I think my reply to this rule was a swig from my bud light followed by one of those internal burps where you leave your mouth closed and your cheeks bulge out like a self-inflatable raft. I guess the look on my face gave my thoughts away because she finished her ouija soliloquy by telling me that if I wasn’t serious she would put it away. After reassuring her that I was ready, she lit the candles.
Each corner of the board rested on our protruding knees as we sat Indian style in the dark. We both placed our fingers on the planchette and she instructed me to relax. You touch the piece as lightly as possible to give it the most mobility. I kid you not, the moment I exhaled trying to relax, the planchette began to turn circles on the board. Of course, I immediately screeched “YOU’RE DOING THAT” to which she huffed and said “AND OFF” (this is the verbal instruction telling you to disengage and lift your hands from the planchette). She gave me one of those chick moves all of us guys know: when she tilts her head to one side and gouges you with her eyes with that facial expression that says “I guess it’s your turn to get drunk AGAIN so I have to drive”. Reading her mind I said “Okay, fine. Let’s try again.” We begin again and the piece begins to circle the board. She finally asks the game “Who are you?”. The piece begins to move from the letter A to the letter Z and then back to the letter A returning back to the Z. Over and over until she says again “AND OFF”. Confused, I look at her wondering what I did wrong this time. She informs me that the spirit on the board is one that continually harasses her while using the board. “His name is AZ. He’s a vampire. He uses the name AZ because those two letters represent the beginning and the end”. Holy Cow! A ouija stalker? She then tells me that we can try a couple more times but if he continues, we’ll have to call it off. I have to tell you, I’m enthralled at this point. “Bull! I want to talk to him!” “No” she replies. I curl my lip and tell her (on the inside) that if she kills my fun, she will get none of this grade-a booty from me later. We begin again.
No AZ this time but instead we get a woman named Anna. Anna was apparently from Boston. I found this odd because at the time, I was living in Boston (my girl lived in Birmingham, AL and I was at her place for the weekend) and this spirit was from Boston also. I ask her when she was alive which made her spell out “A-B-E”. I assume she’s talking about Abe Lincoln so I ask her if she voted for him. She spells “N-O”. I ask her why and the planchette goes dead (pardon the pun). I think I offended her because I didn’t even stop to think that women weren’t allowed to vote during Abe’s time so she must have been sensitive about that. Let it be known to all men right now that you cannot escape a woman’s moodiness in death. PMS must also stand for “Poltergeist Moody Syndrome” also. I own my own Ouija board that glows in the dark. Since buying it I’ve never been able to make it work like that night in Birmingham. One night I was so confident it would work, I bet my neighbors next door that I would streak the neighborhood if it didn’t work. An hour later, I’m dashing through my own front yard wearing nothing but a band-aid on my arm. That’s what I get for talking trash. I suppose Anna went back and told her friends that I was a jerk because since then, the line has been cold. I can’t even get AZ the stalking vampire to talk. I’d still like to take the board to a cemetery one night and see what kind of activity I can get out of it. Then again, maybe I should get a life and talk to the living more often. Maybe this is why I’m single. Maybe I should go call my Mommy. |
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Yep. I’m pretty sure I’m going bald. My father’s wife’s grandmother’s son is bald also, which guides my destiny whether I’m a willing participant or not. I should be grateful; I’ve made it 40 years with really thick hair and I’ll probably still have a good amount of hair until I’m 45 or maybe even 50. Yet I’m not. My vanity is making me stare at the thinning areas longer than I should. I’ve even considered trying Rogaine but like the single pack buying smoker who won’t buy a carton, doing so would be an admission that I’m not willing to make. I wonder what I’ll look like when I’m bald? I do know that I have a strangely, large head. It’s shaped a little like an old-style light bulb (not the pretzel bulbs you buy now) which is thin at the chin, makes a straight line to my ears, and then balloons like a nuclear bomb induced mushroom cloud to the top. Imagine if Ziggy and Beaker (from the Muppet Show) had a baby – which would explain the vanity because I’m sure Ziggy would have issues with Beaker screaming “ME ME ME ME ME ME” during sex all the time. If I am vain, I won’t miss it. Vanity has probably cost me some wonderful relationships in my life. Physical changes are part of growing older and everyone will go through it. I think that’s why old people dress any way they please because once you’re free of worrying about how you look, you loosen up and your personality finally comes through. I guess I’ll know it’s near when I find myself watching The Weather Channel for entertainment purposes instead of watching to find out what I’ll wear to work the next day. I think I’ll skip the Rogaine and just let these changes happen. It’s pointless to fight it. If I allow myself to age, I will still be able to pass judgment on people like Burt Reynolds who have butchered themselves beyond recognition trying to hold on to the glory days. Maybe I’m just paranoid. I wonder if it’s making my hair fall out? |
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Last night I was hanging with what I hope to be my newest friend in Atlanta and we had a great time getting to know one another. At the end of the evening, I walked her to her car and instead of making me walk back to the subway, she offered a ride to the stop. Before we did so, we spontaneously decided to ride to the top of the parking garage to take a picture or two of the Atlanta skyline. While up there, I decided to hop up on the wall and sit. Behind me was an eight-story drop to the concrete below. She seemed a bit nervous about it prompting me to reassure her that the wall thickness was ample enough for my tight, muscled backside (writers are allowed creative fiction so back off). When finished we got back in the car and she politely escorted me back to the train.
As I stood waiting for the train to arrive, my brain went to work as I started to think about sitting on that wall. We’d had a few beers and although I felt fairly straight, I suspect to the sober soul I probably was not. I then began to fantasize about being on that wall and possibly throwing my head back in laughter and losing my balance. I pictured that heart-stopping moment as I leaned back too far and felt gravity take over. I could see the panicked look in my eye and seeing my friend startle and move toward me with her hands out to catch my already extended arms already grabbing for that safety rope that wasn’t there. Our fingers touch allowing me to transfer my wide-eyed gasp to her as she realized that she couldn’t hold me. I can hear the scrape of my jeans on the cement as I make one final attempt to save myself by tightening the bend behind me knees against the wall to no avail. As I fall, my daughters face is all I can see as I wait for the inevitable impact of my lower back smacking the ground only milliseconds before my head.
Depressing thought isn’t it?
This lead me to thinking about all of those “Holy S%$#t” moments I’ve had in my life. We’ve all had them; those memories burned into our mental filing cabinets that make us wonder how we made it this far. Here’s a couple of mine:
I know that sitting on that ledge last night was perfectly safe. I also know that I analyze things way too much. Heck, if I didn’t think too much how in the world could I write this much in 15 minutes? The one benefit of getting older is you gain wisdom while you accumulate memories such as these. I’m glad I waited until I was 37 to have a child. The odds are so much better that Lex will have a Dad over the long term then she would have if I would have had her at 22. Life is good. |
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Thanks to a blog, an almost carjacking,
and life changing events by multiple persons, a new friendship is
possibly being hatched tonight in Peachtree City. Thanks to the
Memorial Day adventure I had a few weeks ago, Tommy told me about a
friend who had recently moved to Atlanta for a new job. Thanks to
Facebook, she and I established contact and were each able to
assess whether either of us was interesting enough to drink beer
with. After speaking on the phone last night, we've decided to give
it a go. We are both going to take our cameras to capture the moment
for everyone in Austin. This will be my first "blogger meets reader
for the first time" experience so I hope she isn't too star struck
when I walk into the bar. If my mere blog brain doesn't really wow
her, I'll resort to showing her my http://www.tommybear.com tattoos
I've recently had inked on my outer legs (well, on one leg it says
"Ask me about" and the hyperlink is on the other leg). Since they
stretch all the way from my ankles to my hips, I'll go ahead and
wear my vintage Boston Celtics uniform (#33) in honor of the NBA
Finals. It even comes with matching head band and tube socks. |
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So I have to share this experience I’ve just had with the IRS. Due to getting divorced and not being able to claim my daughter on my taxes last year (in our divorce decree it states that my then wife gets to deduct Lex on the odd years and I get the even years), I ended up owing the IRS. Naturally, I don’t find out that I owe this money until I complete my taxes online using Turbotax back in April. Once I finished everything, the printer belched out all of the appropriate forms that needed to be sent away to Uncle Sam. To my surprise, at the end of the myriad of papers, the printer spit out four pages of payment vouchers which would allow me to break the total into four quarterly payments. Oh rejoice! I placed my first of four checks into the envelope, stamped it, and out it went. To be sure I didn’t forget to send the rest of the payments in, I sealed three more checks into envelopes, addressed them, and wrote the mail by date on the back and placed them on the fridge for delivery later. I sent my second payment in just last week so in my mind there were two down and two to go.
Last Saturday I receive a letter and my heart skips a beat when I see that logo of fear in the top left corner of the envelope. My first impulse is that I’m being audited but soon learn that the IRS is demanding full payment and that I am being charged both interest and penalties for not paying on-time. As I read further, I see that the interest being charged is on the full amount of what I owe. Now wait a minute! I sent in a payment that I would have to say was substantially more than $1 back in April; where’s my credit on that? Obviously there has been some sort of mistake.
Monday, I call the IRS. I’m almost tempted to go find them since I’m here in Atlanta and they are also but I think the temperature in Atlanta yesterday was about 167 degrees and there was no way I was leaving the comfort of the air conditioning to go discuss a tax bill. So I call and wait on hold for 30 minutes until I get a human on the phone. Said human then opens my account and tells me that he knows what “I” (being me) did wrong. The two payments sent in did not go against my current tax bill but are instead being used as future tax payments for NEXT YEAR. Now tell me please why on God’s green marble would TurboTax print these vouchers for me during the processing of my 2007 tax forms to pay in advance on taxes for 2008? The voice on the phone then tells me I have no recourse except to be sure to claim the excess payments next year as they cannot put it on my 2007 bill. So now, not only do I have to pay the tax bill in full, I also have to let the IRS keep my money (fine – I’ll tell you = $571*2= $1142) for an entire year! No, I’m not happy. It hurts to make a mistake that big; especially when the dollar is deflating faster than a beach ball with a machete handle. The only upside to all of this is I should get a huge return of my money next year since I get this overpayment back in addition to being able to claim my daughter for this tax year. It’s not much upside because I’ve never thought a refund from the IRS was a good thing. I hate giving anyone my money without earning interest – especially in today’s climate.
One last thing I should mention; the last thing the voice on the phone asked me was if I would like to pay my tax bill on a payment schedule. Oh the irony. |
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Okay, I have a few questions. When did Americans get categorized into one of two possible groups? Why did liberals get the color blue and conservatives get the color red? Wouldn’t being red really piss off the conservatives since red represents communism? Who assigned these colors? I’m pretty sure the whole color schema began in the 2004 election so I have to believe it is a media derived concept. I guess what bothers me is this concept was probably launched to easily illustrate who was winning which state and we are all now labeled as to how we think with these colors. This means that strangers can judge you the moment they discover where you’re from. If you’re from Massachusetts, people call you liberal. If you’re from Nebraska, people assume you’re from the religious right. I guess that’s where I’m going with this blog.
I’m a frequent lurker on the blog managed by our local rag. I’ve noticed a trend that really bugs me. The web is beating newspapers because after you read an article on a newspaper website, you can now comment on the story immediately thus giving the article a new dimension that allows you to see how the general public reacts to an event. In the beginning, this was a great concept. I’ve noticed though as the popularity of commenting on stories has grown that almost 90% of the time, the thread always digresses to personal attacks between posters. These attacks are duplicates of each other with each new article posted on the site. Debate is dead in this country because once you offer an opinion that differs from the majority; you are immediately categorized as a liberal or a Bush lover (a pseudonym for right winger). The article could be about a murder the night before and like clockwork, a poster will bring up prayer in school, which initiates the attack. Then you get 10 pages of responses which usually begins by somebody mocking the prayer poster and continues with posts that usually contain the word LIBERAL in all caps. If you want to know why the rest of the world progresses while America treads water, you need not look further than these blogs. These labels have provided keyboard cowboys with the power to dismiss new ideas with a single label. It also provides the intoxicating punch of blame without remedy. I can’t help but believe this is by some master design that provides the power brokers an outlet for the masses in order to ensure nobody notices what is really going on. The public stays busy blaming each other for things beyond their control while lobbyists in D.C. buy influence that serves as the rudder for the direction of the country. The ultimate disappointment is people actually believe they are advocates of change by simply typing anonymous opinions from the comfort of their home.
Am I doing the same thing with this blog entry? Maybe. The hypocrisy is in the eyes of the reader. I don’t agree because this is not a personal attack of a person for their ideas but more of an observation of a trend that only reaches to the point of my own observations. I choose not to contribute to newspaper blogs because I won’t subject myself to being labeled by a poster who I’ve allowed into a small fragment of my brain. Frankly, I’m a learned Internet gangster who used to post to these newspaper blogs but eventually (on my 10th or 11th post trying to explain my point of view) threw my hands in the air and looked up asking myself “What’s the point?” Thanks to the label assigned to me (which differed based on my position), most people could respond to my thoughts with 1 to 5 words. So I ask you this; what do you think I am, a liberal or a conservative? |
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06/04/2008 Darin's Song by Darin Southard
In the spirit of mixing up some points of view on his blog, Tommy asked me if I would lend some of my opinions to the effort. My name is Darin and I am a single dad living in Pensacola, Florida. Tommy and I have known each other since about 2002 and though it took him a little while to warm up to me (he met my ex-girlfriend, another consultant, before he met me but I'll save that story for a future blog) we discovered over time that we had more in common than we had differences. I’ve always had that problem; people never get a good first impression of me but once they learn my jaded sense of humor and figure out my face doesn’t always convey my emotions, they have a tendency to enjoy keeping me around. Tommy and I left consulting at around the same time, both of us burned out on the lifestyle but addicted to the high salary. I left because of marriage and a very dependent then wife who was miserable without me. I fell into the job I have now and decided to pursue a new life with a new family. I work for the power company here in Florida and thanks to mother nature, learned the job under intense pressure due to a 2004 hurricane named Ivan. Ivan was a blessing and a curse because he made me a quick expert on all things utility related but at the same time nearly cost me my job because of my lack of knowledge on all things utility related. The beauty of that storm was during its aftermath; I assisted my then wife in conceiving our daughter Alexa. Don’t ask me how I pulled that off - in the dark, without air conditioning, following an 18-hour storm restoration day of being ridiculed for not knowing what a lineman meant when he needed a chicken catcher – I did survive.
I guess since I’ve given my current status away, I don’t have to tell you the grueling story of how my marriage fell apart after the birth of my child. I’ll save you what I unloaded on a therapist by simply saying that my then wife changed emotionally once the baby came and all I could do was watch helplessly as she slipped away into a world where I became the most uninteresting thing in her life. I let her go but not without making her miserable about it for roughly 8 months. Maybe excreting mental dumps on this blog will be indirect therapy since I always found peace when writing my feelings to a journal. Here’s a lesson for those reading these words; no matter what you think, or how special you believe you are, you will never change a person. Never get into any type of relationship thinking you can help a person become something (some call it “White Knight” syndrome, I call it par for the course) they’re not. Eventually those patterns of behavior return and admiration slowly turns into resentment. They say the first thing you find attractive about somebody is the first thing you can’t stand about that person. If you think really hard, I’ll bet you can link some of your experiences with that expression.
Okay, enough about my history. I’m excited about being a contributor here. I have opinions that usually tick people off in conversations so writing about them may help to make people think instead of react. You probably won’t read any new ideas or concepts from me but hopefully with a few combined blogs, I can carve out a new mental discovery that everyone can tuck into their back pockets for use at a future family get together. We’ll see. |
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by Darin Southard
