Left Of Sean

“Oh what a night, late December back in ’63″

Ok, so it was early July in 2010, but you get the idea.

Man this was a fun July 4th holiday and we barely saw any fireworks.

My gracious hosts took me to Thousand Oaks, California to visit Bobby’s parent’s house and a wonderful neighborhood picnic that is held each July 4th.  There was food, festivities, games (for the kids), and did I mention food?

There are boats, a lake, skateboards, kids wrecking skateboards into cars, boats capsizing, and a cold, California breeze.  Add in alcohol, a drunk senior citizen (the am-ba-lance had to take her away…..and she seemed happy about it.  I’m thinking this isn’t her first brush with a meat wagon ride!), and a loose firehose and you have yourself a fun filled 4th of July party.

I joke, but let’s now add in Bobby’s parents.  These are two of the nicest, most gracious, wonderful people I’ve ever met.  I kid you not.  I’m not just sucking up for an invite again next year.  I was cold and Bobby’s mom, Irene, actually offered me clothing to wear!!

I am a stranger to them.  I’m the guy from Oklahoma that they’ve only heard about.  But they treated me as one of their own and that makes them very, very special indeed.

Thank you Irene and Don.

By the way, Don wrote songs for Elvis.  How cool is that?

What a place to grow up though.  The Roberston’s live in a gated community in Thousand Oaks a few miles west and south of Bobby and Suzy Q.  They have a private lake with several “islands” in the middle.  When Bobby was a kid, he would head out to the large one closest to their house and camp out under the stars with the dog.

Don would be working in his music studio late into the night and hear a rapping at the door.  He’d look down to see the dog…..who had jumped back into the lake and dog paddled back to the house.  Yep, right out of Mark Twain novel…..but in a much cooler locale.

After our bellies were full and we had a few drinks in us, we decided to do what most drunk, over-stuffed people do: drive a boat.

After failing the weight distribution part of the boating course, we circled back around to recover the cooler full of beer we lost and headed out to Chicken Rock.

Chicken Rock is a large rock cliff at the end of the lake.  This is a famous (well, famous to Bobby and his family) rock Bobby and his brother used to jump off of.  Most people chicken out, hence, Chicken Rock.

So we watched Bobby jump off the rock and drove back home.  I didn’t need to climb to the top of the rock to know that I’m chicken.

What a day.  The kids had a blast.  The adults had a blast.  And the neighborhood was glad the riff-raff left their side of the city.

Here are a handful of pictures of the day.  Enjoy…

Wow, two installments in one week.  You might be asking what you did to deserve this.  I look at it not like you deserve it as much as it’s inflicted upon you!

Enjoy!

******

Dear Sean,
I have a supervisor who knows her stuff, and I respect her judgment and guidance. My problem is that she’s very emotional. When she gets upset at something that someone says—which happens constantly, and is usually over nothing—she talks about the person endlessly and vitriolically with her other friends in the office. Also, when she gets upset about a work-related issue, she cries—to me, in my office. For example, the other morning she came into my office, closed the door, and sobbed about what she thought was a snippy comment that someone made in a meeting. She will now hate this person with unbridled passion until a superficial conversation makes them friends again. I have no idea how to deal with this drama. My wife says that women are just different, and I should learn to accept it. I’m at a loss as to how to react.

—John Doe

Dear John Doe, your wife is a moron and probably an easy crier too.  But you’re even dumber for putting up with it.  Dump your wife and get you a young hot thing with no emotions and tell your boss to grow the fuck up and stop acting like a 12 year old little girl.  If she complains, file a harassment complaint with HR and get that idiot fired.  If that doesn’t work, spread a viscous rumor about your boss so she’ll stop talking to you too!

******

Dear Sean,
I recently moved back to my hometown and reconnected with a bunch of my old buddies. While visiting my best friend, whom I’ve known my whole life, I saw that he had a new dog. The dog spends his entire day in the apartment in a crate much better suited for a smaller breed. My friend lets his dog out of his cage only twice a day, 20 minutes at a time. If the dog doesn’t respond at first call, he swiftly kicks it until it whimpers and crawls back into the cage. I told him that’s no way to treat a dog. I checked with our other friends, and they’re also horrified and have told him the same thing. He has no family here anymore, so if I called the authorities and he was arrested, he’d lose his lease and be homeless. This poor dog doesn’t deserve its life, but I’m afraid I can’t do anything without also putting my best friend onto the street.

—Doggone

Dear Doggone, give me the address of this fucking asshole and I’ll take care of it.  Tell him to consider himself lucky that I don’t know where he lives right not because I’d have him locked in that cage all fucking day.

******

Dear Sean,
I’m going to marry my boyfriend of six years in a few months, and we are excited about starting a family. We were best friends during college, and our relationship has matured into a very loving and supportive one. There is one issue that bothers me: his alcohol consumption. We are both moderate drinkers, but he will go through phases of binge drinking that lead to unsavory results. I find his slurring and stumbling unattractive, and he has broken promises to me about drinking with his friends. Last night he soiled himself on his walk home, something he’s never done before. He has a family history of alcoholism and is defensive about this issue. Whenever I discuss my dissatisfaction with his drinking, I come off as judgmental, so I go the route of forgiveness. But I’m feeling angry about his behavior, and I’m even starting to get cold feet. I don’t want to police his drinking habits, but I don’t know how to make him understand that I’m not comfortable with his recent antics.

—Concerned

Dear Delusional Stupid Girl, you do NOT have a loving and supportive relationship if your douchebag fiance acts like this.  Wake up and smell the vomit: he’s an alcoholic you twit.  Either get him some help or dump him.  But do NOT marry him.  God, are you really this fucking stupid?

******

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Here’s my response to my last post!!

Be Drunk
by Charles Baudelaire
Translated by Louis Simpson

You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”

And no I’m not drunk….yet!

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When I was a child, I just knew I was going to be something special when I grew up.  I knew I would be a lawyer or an engineer or even a doctor.  When my parents bought me my first guitar at age ten I just knew I would be a rock star.  At forty-two I still have that dream.

There have been many dreams and schemes throughout the years: golfer, writer, attorney, photographer, computer programmer, actor, artist.  The only one that came true was the computer programmer.

I’m here to tell you, it stinks.  Don’t get me wrong, I kind of like my job and I’m grateful for the job, especially in this economy.  But the grind of 8-5 every day and living with the corporate bullshit that goes along with the job is about as much fun as having a catheter inserted.

Even at this age I dream about what it will be like when I grow up.  What am I going to do for the rest of my life?  I still think about this even though my life is halfway over.

But at this point, I think I have it figured out what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.  I have figured out the perfect career for me.  It does not take any additional education.  It doesn’t take any special training.  It is something every person in the world can do, but I’m a master at it.  You can do it too.

Give up?

I’m going to be a Professional Dreamer.  That’s right.  I’m leaving my amateur status behind and heading for the big time.  I’m going to DREAM for a living.

What does this job entail, you ask?

I’ll tell you.  I’m going to win the lottery.  Once I win the lottery I’m going to buy everything I ever wanted so I can dream some more.  This is going to be tough.  It entails lots of daydreaming.  It will require long showers where I’m totally in the dream zone.

Sleeping in the car is essential.  Drinking too much alcohol is a requirement.  Living my life in a fuzzy haze is my new mantra.  Setting unrealistic goals will be a daily occurrence.  In addition, changing those goals in a timely fashion is what dreaming for a living is all about; sometimes hourly.

So tomorrow I’ll get up and go to work at my designated time, just like I will for the rest of my life (and just like you will for the rest of your life too).  I will trudge through the mediocrity of life as an analyst, living my life as dully as possible.  And in another 30 years when I have retired, I will sit on my patio looking into the distance, thinking about what my life should have been.  An old man, coming to the end.  I will continue my profession right up to the day I die.  That’s what dreamers do.

I carry around a notebook everywhere I go.  I keep this notebook so I can make notes on things I want to write about or observations I see.  On the inside sleeve I have written a quote.

It’s never too late to be what you might have been.
George Eliot

While that quote has good intentions, it rings true for almost all of us.  We are all living what we might have been: Dreamers!