My buddy and I have agreed to one poem a day until her birthday. Last time it was using prompts, this time we’re doing structure.
Day 1 9/1/21 haiku
The cold wind blew swift
Sputter flutter sharp and quick
The leaf soaring by
Forms of Inspiration
I don’t know about you, but I yearn to be more. This drive comes from a multitude of sources, both internal and external.
Recently someone very important to me began a journey of self discovery and expression. I’ve seen her share with the world all manner of stories diving into her adventures and visions of the world.
It stirred something inside. At first I thought it envy. With the free way she’s been able to tell her tale I couldn’t help but be briefly jealous at the natural flow of her cadence and story telling. I was exceedingly impressed with how well she told her story. I was floored. It was like seeing someone for the first time. Realizing how much. This might be a smidge on the repetitive side already by yeah I was jealous.
At first.
Which is weird, because I’m not really that guy. In my head rattled around “god damn casey. You’re the ‘writer’. How has your friend, in one post, shown you up completely” followed quickly by a palm to the forehead.
Wrong line of thinking.
Right line rattled around immediately. I have a friend who has found a way to be herself and share and I’m damn proud of her. Then I realized what the negative pang was, the fact that I haven’t followed through as well as I should have with those goals and endeavors as I had intended.
So. Here we are. Inspired.
Rum and cokes. On a couch in Mexico. It’s taken me 3 weeks to finally get past the first 2 lines of this post (if you couldn’t tell by the complete change in direction).
My friends inspire me to be better. To be a better me than I could have been on my own. They lead by example. They don’t let shit slide when I make excuses for myself. They tell me the hard truths I need to hear. They hold me up when I can’t do it on my own. They help me realize the potential I have, and allow me to pursue my dreams without fear of losing them.
Without my friends I’d be a sailboat set adrift without a lick of wind.
Not to downplay the fam. They’ve all done the exact same. The two have become interchangeable. My friends are a part of my family. We’re all in this shit show together. Let’s make the most of what we can when we can. Grab the bull by the horns and give it a few shakes, because in our beautifully brief lives often that’s the best we can do.
I know what I need to do now. Thanks to my friend, and I’m sure as hell going to give it my best.
Next post won’t be years from now and hopefully it’ll be a bit more structured.
Until then.
Crash and Burn
A Beautiful Day
When I woke up this morning it wasn’t to an alarm clock.
I woke up simply because.
After I saw it was 8:46 I rolled over and went back to sleep.
At 9:20 I woke up again.
Today is a beautiful day.
Not just because it’s my day off. Not just because I don’t have to put pants on until 6pm. Not just because my bed was warm and cozy.
Today is a beautiful day, because life exists in a plethora of ways.
Today is a beautiful day, because leaves fall in Autumn.
Today is a beautiful day, because the world is vast and wonderful.
Today is a beautiful day.
Simply because it is.
All around the world people are having a different version of today. Each unique in their own right. Children are being born, people are dying, a kid is getting their first puppy, a person is being proposed to, a person is being divorced, someone is saying goodbye for the last time, and another is saying hello for the first.
Everyday all around the world just about everything is happening, and that’s just on this tiny little speck of dust in the universe.
I feel in my short life I’ve developed into a person with an open mind. I like to think I’m well rounded in my views of existence.
When I woke up today I was filled with a sense of elation, and I know how precious that is. I kept thinking over and over ‘today is beautiful'(hence the title).
All around the world people are gripped with fear, hatred, and bigotry.
Why?
I don’t know. No one knows. If anyone claims to know, they’re a liar. It’s far too complicated. You can blame religions, you can blame governments, the systems, racism, you can blame whatever you want.
I don’t think the source matters so much anymore.
You listen to music right?
Music has been on my mind a lot lately.
I invite you to listen to six songs. It takes about 18 minutes. Some are love songs. Some aren’t. I want you to look at them from the view of humanity as a whole.
The first.
the second..
The third…
the fourth….
the fifth…..
the sixth……
As a species we need love. As a people we need love.
It’s not impossible to obtain, it’s not easy either.
We have a chance though.
This gives me hope.
Just my thought of the day.
Time for some tea.
Maps Don’t Lie You Just Don’t Understand Them.
One thing I’m getting super sick of on my news feed is this crap about… maps lying to me my whole life.
First off it’s a representation of a sphere on a 2 dimensional plane. If your teachers throughout your education didn’t explain this to you or have the weird opened orange looking maps your teachers and schools failed you.
Second. How about you look at a fucking globe. I mean shit that’s not difficult. Bam! accurately represented planet. Who hasn’t looked at a globe?
Third. STOP COMPARING A CONTINENT TO COUNTRIES! FUCK! No wonder so many idiots out there think it is. You folks keep sensationalizing this and comparing the two. IT IS A CONTINENT, of course the United States is smaller, and so is China. FUCK!
Lastly, why is this even a big deal? Folks keep saying it changes how the world sees it due to it being represented as smaller. How is the size of the landmass causing you to think more or less about it? Are we trying to argue “Bigger is better” here? no. Yes of course it’s important for the sake of accuracy, but do we view North Korea differently because it is a tiny country? No, oh wait, that’s a country lets compare continents. Is Australia less than Asia because it’s smaller? NO!
fuck I’m going to keep going.
Second lastly, If you want to talk about looking closer at things and devoting more attention to stuff lets focus on different numbers than size. How about total population, or gdp, or poverty levels, or literacy levels, or live births, or avg life expectancy, or standard of living, or anything representative of the populous and not just the land.
Another thought on maps and globes. Yes you could flip the world upside down and it’s a perfectly acceptable view of the planet. Once again… who cares. If that’s how you feel, print it that way. We’ve attached the idea of north with up, so when the poles switch maybe we should?
I honestly could care less about any of this because It’s so low on the list of shit that really matters in the world. The problem is people keep bringing it up likes is a big deal. I’m sorry if the inaccuracy of maps is new to you, you’ve been living in a fucking cave.
I don’t even care if you agree with me or not. Get over your bad self
Rant = over.
When Life Gives You Lemons
When life gives you lemons, you’d better give them right back. You need to earn your lemons.
I don’t know where I was going with that. I hate that saying. I love lemons. I’d be happy if life gave me lemons. I’ve been trying to grow them for years now and nothing!
It’s all about perspective. If I was a pirate and life gave me lemons I’d probably say something akin to “Yarrghh Thank ye’ Life fer givin’ meh dees ‘ere lemons. Oi’ve ‘ad a terribl bout wit scurvy.”
arrgg..
Or if I was a lemonade selling person I’d say “Wow, thank you life for giving me 1/3 of what I need to make lemonade!”
Now if I was an orange and life gave me a lemon I’d simply be happy to see my citrusy cousin.
Lets go with some jokes…
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade( not really a joke, but it’s the classic)
When life gives you lemons, make a lemon drop… because yeah… that wasn’t really funny. I used to have a good joke that went with this.
When life gives you lemons, cut them up into tiny wedges and ask for a cocktail.
When life gives you lemons, send them back and ask for limes. It’s Corona night after all.
the same thing as above but replace corona with tequila.
When life gives you lemons, accept the fact that even life thinks you’re an alcoholic.
When life gives you lemons, stop doing drugs…
When life gives you lemons, open a lemon selling store. At least you’re making life work for you.
Next time someone says “when life gives you lemons” cut them off and say “if you don’t have any lemons on you, you can shut the fuck up right now”
I don’t know why that was so aggressive, but it was.
Anyways. Dealing with life as it happens is simply that. It’s life. Life can be painful, It can be beautiful, it can be all kinds of different things.
When life gives you potatoes. I like that better, because you can do more with a potato, but at the beginning it’s just a root. At least lemons are a fruit and colorful. Potatoes are generally ugly, but they are super useful and versatile. You can make bread, you can bake them, you can mash them, fry them, make hash browns, make soup(right? that’s a thing?) You can make booze with them, but if you don’t do anything with them they get all gross. and most of the time reheated potato based food is gross so you have to seize the moment.
I don’t know I think I’m just hungry. When life gives you life make the most of it. there. Problem solved. I’m going to drink a glass of water and stare at some clouds for the next 30 minutes. Have a wonderful evening.
http://www.youtube.com/somecallmecasey
Hermonimus Zech – Throw Back Thursday –
Well I only posted once between the two TBTs I’ll work on that. This was another start that never made it anywhere. i think this one is 3 + years old.
It would seem that with time my mind has aged in a manner most unfitting. 3 years have passed and I feel as though I’m near death. 24, close to 25 yet the feeling inside is defeat. How much suffering can one undergo? 1st world problems is what we call it. Not real problems. I eat enough, I drive to work, I sleep on a bed in a temperature controlled house. Half the world would scoff at my problems, but they are my problems none the less.
The offer I put on a house was accepted today. My fiancé said yes when I proposed following the news that I would be promoted to a Partner by landing the biggest commercial client our firm has ever had. They gave me some sort of European sports car as a gift and my fiancé surprised me with a dog. I got home to find a notice that my High School would be honoring me as one of the most influential graduates and want me to speak at this year’s graduation. All well and good right?
Wrong.
My name is Hermonimus Zech, and I hate my life.
“Fuck man, that’s awesome congrats on the promo bro! Shit, and the lady, the newest Zech I’ll be damned. Never thought you’d settle into this kind of life.”
“Yeah. Dan, why don’t we just lay off all that tonight.”
The bar was filled with young, loud, vibrant people. So many no one would even notice the cloud of despair building over Zech’s head. His unhappiness was apparent, but the why wasn’t. Dan poked and prodded but gotten nowhere. Zech had made up his mind; the conversation was done. Drink after drink the table filled with empty glasses and the two sat toiling away speechless as the evening unfolded.
“Seriously, what the fuck man? Why are you being such a bitch tonight?”
“Dan I said ‘not tonight’ and I mean it. I’m just not in the mood.”
“Gah, you sound like my wife. I need something to look forward to man, your life is turning out perfect. Exactly how you wanted right? You have the house, the lady, the job. What else could you want?”
Zech flicked the straw in his drink and whispered quietly “My Life…”. The evening was finally ramping up, midnight rolled around and the two friends were only upright as a result of sturdy chairs.
http://www.youtube.com/somecallmecasey
Why Can’t We Be Friends?
Wouldn’t it be great if we all just got along? I mean really got along. The kind of getting along where we’re not just looking for a fight.. I mean a scuffle between friends or family is one thing, but beating a co-worker to death is another, or randomly punching a stranger to show off to your friends.
How does that make you cool? Or bad-ass? You know what would make you legit, going toe to toe with a person who knows you’re trying to fight them. Even that though, as a test of athletic ability yes, but when it goes too far you need to stop. Not, “Oh fuck that guy(random dude), I’m gonna kick his teeth in because he looked at me funny/disrespected me/cut me off/ *add whatever other stupid reason here*
I don’t know…
It just seems weird. We all get mad, we all hold a little bit of a grudge, we are all just human. Right? I mean we are all human. I know there are long lasting feuds and there are power struggles, religious conflicts, political conflicts, whatever conflicts. Boil it down though.
Do you want to die? Probably not. Do you want anyone in your family to die? Ehh, that’s a touchy one. How about Do you want ANYONE you care about to die? Probably not.
lets rephrase that… DO you want to be killed? No. Do you want anyone you care about to be killed? No. I guarantee most people feel that same way. Everyone is something to someone else. So when you take someone’s life or hurt someone… you’re hurting a brother, you’re killing a friend, you’re maiming a mom, a dad, a sister, a daughter. You get the picture.
Put the shit in perspective. Think collectively. Now there are crazy people. Defend yourself, within reason, but your average bloke is just that. An average dude. I don’t go around wanting to kill people.
Violence begets violence, but it doesn’t have to. We have to end the cycle. Gang wars, family wars, religious wars. We killed your people because you killed mine? I took your eye because you took mine, I took your tooth because you took mine…. Where does that get us? Blind, toothless, and dead. At least there won’t be any cavities or cataracts…
In all seriousness though. There’s a reason I stopped watching the news(whether that’s the appropriate thing to do or not), this world has gone crazy. Yes it’s better than it was. War was sport. Peasants lives were meaningless. At this point though, it shouldn’t just be getting better, it should be gone.
We spent thousands of years slowly progressing, crawling, as infants our species could barely function(disagree with me or whatever this is an analogy) As time progressed we grew up a little, we’re walking around, able to feed ourselves, to almost get what we want, but we have tantrums. We get irrationally angry and throw fits, throw blocks at the other toddlers. Then we went to school. we had this explosion of knowledge. We learned how to spell, and read, and write. To speak and communicate ideas. To create art! We made friends, but we hated the kids that were weird. We were conditioned to dislike the ones that stood out. We entered junior high and started playing with some serious science. Burnt a classmate on accident and started a fight. Now he’s standing in the corner holding a glass bottle filled with something bad enough to have a skull and crossbones on it. Shit got real. We have the tools to kill everyone at once and it’s two 12 year old kids staring each other down with deadly chemicals in hand.
That’s where we’re at now. Just about anyways. Just a bunch of kids with irrational anger and frustration. We need to snap out of it and realize we’re on the brink of a self imposed extinction.
Set down the weapons, let go of the anger, and just hug it out.
I’ll just sit back here singing that song in my head while whistling out loud… why can’t we be friends?
Go hawks.
http://www.youtube.com/somecallmecasey
My First Ever “Throw Back Thursday”
I started writing a slightly fictionalized autobiography and this is how far I got. I don’t know why I titled it that. But I did. I still may go back to it at some point.
I am a Russian submarine commander
I first met my recruiter in January, I signed my contract in February, and it took until August 1st to get to BCT. Less than 72 hours later I had a friendly meeting with a bright red stamp.
DO NOT SHIP.
Funny, I had seen these words thousands of times. DO NOT SHIP: on end, double stacked, on side, with poison. It was just a friendly note to let you know how to handle the freight, not this though, this was a return to sender. At least the doctor had a smile, not a friendly one. It said “I’m sorry kid, though luck.” What kind of bullshit is that? Really didn’t see that coming. Queue the music, I guess I’m going home.
The world had a different feel after I left his office, medical records in hand I waved at the specialist behind the desk. The look on his face was priceless. A mixture of “What the fuck?” and “What the fuck?!” I wouldn’t say I was pleased with my current situation, rather I was boiling over with rage, but honestly; what would the point of lashing out be? Being pissy wouldn’t get me anywhere. I met up with Salazar and headed back to the barracks. “What’s the word private? Were you able to settle the fuck down?” DSGT said in his Drill Sergeant way.
“No Drill Sergeant, this soldier has been deemed unfit for service Drill Sergeant.”
“Well, that’s some shit, anything you can do about it?”
“I was told I could try again in 6 months Drill Sergeant.”
By that point he had already lost interest and caught a new soldier nodding off while he was supposed to be reading his soldiers blue book. With how fast they pulled me out of processing, I thought I’d be home by the end of the week. Boy was I wrong.
0400 Wake up
0430 Formation
0500 Chow
0530 Formation
0600 Clean Barracks
0900 Company Detail
1100 Formation
1130 Chow
1200 Formation
1230 Clean Barracks/Company Detail
1530 Formation
1600 Chow
1630 Formation
1700 Company Detail
2000 Personal Time
2030 Formation
2055 Lights Out
0100 2 Hour Fireguard Shift
That was a good day; 3 weeks later they sent me home. If you don’t know, detail means you do whatever someone tells you, it basically means you’re someone’s bitch. Though, I did learn a few things during my short stint in the military. You can’t help idiots not be idiots, and unfortunately, most people you’ll meet in life are idiots. When the plane landed and I walked out to meet my ride and I realized for the first time in my life I had no idea what I was going to do with myself. Fortunately my car was home waiting for me with a full tank of gas and I had a date with a bar. The worrying about the future could wait.
Weird look after weird look, people kept staring at me. It was a little embarrassing. I made a big deal out of leaving and now I’m back. “Didn’t you join the army? Why yes, yes I did. Why aren’t you there? Oh I got kicked out. What, why? I apparently can’t calm down. That sucks. Yes it does.” I’m 99% confident I had that conversation 100 times in the first few days after I got back. All the other conversations were “Well what are you gonna do now? I don’t fucking know. You gonna go back to your old job? I quit, I can’t go back.” Good times.
Surprisingly enough I only had to apply for one job. Craigslist, you awesome webpage you, thank you for exposing me to the world of sales. That’s right, sales. I interviewed with the owner, and then a random employee, who ended up being my leader(who actually worked for a different company), took a test and was hired. Real easy right? Now this wasn’t a “sales job” I was told over and over and over. Management training program was the phrase they liked to say. I quickly learned it was a giant pyramid scheme, but I figured hey, might as well jump on the bandwagon and make some money. I sold entertainment, TV, phone service, and internet. Not really a hard sale. 3 days after I got my sales code they gave me a new sales code and told me I don’t work for the office I applied to I now work for a different guy. This is when it started to go downhill.
The first week I only had two crass customers “Get the fuck off my property” and “Get a real job”, and then I left to a different city. Within the first two days I was told if I didn’t step down I would be put down, had the neighborhood watch called on me, and finally the police. I apparently give off a creepy “I’m casing your neighborhood” vibe. The next city included a few death threats, multiple insults on my character and intelligence, and a group of young people following me around after dark. Fortunately I was only in the area for 3 weeks straight, go me. I was pretty close to quitting; my boss preempted me and I was sent on a business trip, fun times in a different state. It was like the beginning all over again, friendly people, or at least less death threats, and shit load of sales.
“I don’t mean to interrupt, but what does this have to do with the question?” The interviewer chimed in.
“Hold on I’m almost done, I didn’t cut you off while you were telling me about yourself, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted.”
Once I came back it was a different story entirely. Well not too different, right back to where I was before I left on the trip, literally, right back. 2 more weeks passed 4 sales total. Fuck that, right? Fortunately my old boss said I was still in the system and I might be able to get my old job back.
“Sir, I’m only going to say this one last time, please answer the question.” The interviewer was growing increasingly impatient.
“You asked about a time at work I resolved conflict right? Ok fine, a guy said that he’d shoot me if I didn’t get off his front porch, so I got off. Can I finish my story now?”
“I think I’ve heard enough, we’ll contact you if we wish to proceed. Please leave. Now.”
So I left.
I had a date with the bar anyways.
http://www.youtube.com/somecallmecasey
Who Do People Make Things So Difficult?
Today’s brief thought:
I may fall victim to this myself, but I believe the simplest solution is often the best solution. For the most part I like simple not complicated things. That doesn’t mean I dislike complex stuff… My first choice is simply not that.
With clothing, I like solid colors. My walls, my blankets, all that jazz. Stripes or something easy at most.
My food, I like plain(not in flavor), I like to appreciate the actual flavor of the food(unless it’s cheap then yes season beyond belief).
With my drinks. I like Ice coffee. That simple. Take drip coffee, add ice, done. Mixed Drinks, Vodka, soda water, ice, done. Or Wine. I like wine…
Now there are exceptions to these as always. When I order a sandwich from subway I have them put on just about every veggie. When I season, brine, or marinade it’s an abundance of things, but often in the end it’s simple. Grilled chicken, pork, or steak.
When you add someone else into this, my god it gets complicated quickly. If I say something I generally mean it. Unless I’m joking. I say what I want, don’t read between the lines. Now I may not always say exactly what I want and that’s my own fault, but if I order a CHEESEburger plain. I want a burger with cheese. Why would you think that I don’t want cheese? I would have ordered a hamburger? It makes no sense.
Now outside of the realm of food and stuffs… Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Don’t get offended, don’t get frustrated. Be honest.
That’s it for that… If I had a word to describe the sound I made after typing that I would have put it. It could be described as “I’m disgusted by myself for bringing up an actual mature topic” Some things I’d just rather not touch on at this point. I’ll eventually get to them when the thought has stewed long enough to permeate through down to my fingers.
Anyways..
Have a wonderful day.
Go Hawks!
¿Casey?
yes I still remember how to do those.
How Do You Deal With A World Turned Sideways?
Everyone goes through it at some point. That sinking feeling where you realize the situation has gone to shit. Now it could be something small, or it could be huge. It just depends what you value and what you see as important. To some, work would be a big deal if it went south, to others it might be your relationships with friends, family, or your significant other. It could even be your self perception, or health, whatever. Everyone goes through some form of this at some point in their life. Money doesn’t save you from it, it may help certain parts but not all of them. Your color doesn’t save you from it. Your gender doesn’t save you. We as humans are all susceptible to it.
For me, I’ve dealt with a lot of things. Not like some folks, but for my little brain to process it’s been overwhelming at times. Like I said I know everyone has dealt with it, but it doesn’t make anyone’s problems less important to them. For me it’s always osculated between relationships/friendships and my self image. Those are the hardest things for me to manage.
When a friend doesn’t want to be your friend, or when you look at yourself and don’t know who you’re looking at.. those are the two hardest things for me. Work is work, and I love it, but I always seem to bounce back when things go sideways, money is money, it’ll get sorted eventually as long as I’m not stupid, but trust.. trust and friendship once lost… phew. That’s no easy thing to rebuild. Sometimes it’s not even that. Sometimes you have no idea what happened(which in my opinion is way worse than actually messing up the friendship) It’s a hard thing for me to wrap my mind around, waking up and thinking “I don’t really feel like being friends with this person anymore”.
Self image on the other hand is completely in your control(most of the time). You control what you eat, you control what you do, what you say, how you take care of yourself. So how is it that we let ourselves go so far from what we think we should be? For me I’m still stuck thinking I should be this awesome guy that can run forever and never get tired, but I’m not. I’m almost 27 completely out of shape and overweight. I can’t blame anyone but me for my issues. Other folks I know have had medical problems pop up time and time again inhibiting their potential, but me? I without a shadow of a doubt could have maintained. I didn’t.
So here we are, now that I find myself or we find ourselves in these positions, what do you do? What do I do? What SHOULD we all do? I wish I knew the answer to this because I’d be a freaking millionaire. I do know a few things that I thought would work but ended up being rather detrimental to me.
First things first, distinguishing between controllable and non controllable. I gained 40lbs for me that’s a controllable. I need to work out and eat better. My friend doesn’t want to be my friend. Why? because I said stupid stuff and was rude. Ok that’s a controllable. Another friend doesn’t want to be my friend. Why? I have no idea. That is not a controllable.
Step one done.
Next thing. DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP. Yeah we all make mistakes. We let ourselves go, we screw up and say the wrong things. whatever. You’re not special when it comes to that. You’re not above mistakes. Don’t take this as it’s ok to be an ass to everyone and not care, but it’s part of growing up(which you never stop doing). You keep learning up until the moment you die. Life is a process of which no one is the master. Learn from it. Use these things to help understand why. Why did I gain a bunch of weight? Well I kept my eating habits, but I stopped working out. I became sedentary. Simple right? but that’s not why. I was unhappy with a lot of things and I lashed out in a childish way by abandoning the thing that kept me in the shape I wanted to be. I ate to feel happy but it made me fat and unhappy. Which meant I wanted to eat more. Fat Bastard summed it up rather well. “I eat because I’m unhappy, I’m unhappy because I eat” I don’t know if that was a quote from something else, but it truly is as he put a vicious cycle.
The friend part is tricky because that deals with other folks and things beyond which I’m willing to go into at this point. However, recognizing there is an issue is the first step. It’s kind of like AA I think? or that saying if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Well it’s broken, so fix it. You’ve(I’ve) recognized the problem. Now take steps. small steps but take them. You will fail again, I will fail again. It’s not going to be easy. The worst thing, the only thing I will say DO NOT DO, is give up. “Never give up. Never surrender”(galaxy quest was an amazing movie).
That’s as far as I’ve gotten. Everything else to me is a mystery. There are ideas I have for improving how you value yourself, but that’s for another blog.
This has taken a bit of a turn. I hadn’t expected that.
That’s one of my little dilemmas.
That being said. You’re not alone in whatever struggle besets you. When the world feels like it’s caving in and you just don’t know what to do reach out. Sometimes it feels like there’s no one there, but there are. There are hotlines(as lame as it sounds those people care about you, they really do). Special people who care about strangers. More often than not you have a friend, a family member or someone who cares.
In the end what do I do? I write. I talk. I record. I used to run. Maybe I should start doing that again?
What do you do?
SomeCallMeCasey 
