Neither Here Nor There

There have been a lot of things on my mind lately, and I’m just going to put a couple of them together in this entry.

One. I have a couple of friends who it seems are being targeted in our neighborhood because of their alternative lifestyle.  They are a married couple, but their relationship is very “open,” and they can be very open with anyone, from the stories that are circulating.  It’s strange to me to judge someone because of their sex life, especially if it is healthy for them.  I mean, what would the close-minded think of some of the stories I could tell them from even some of my most monogamous relationships?  Or even from some of my personal relations with myself… I mean, really!  I probably would have been hunted down by an angry mob like in the old horror movies if I had lived in this community when I was single.

I was raised to have an open mind and to accept people as people.  Good people are good people, period.  In fact, freaks (real freaks) are probably healthier than many other people because they allow themselves to come unglued, unhinged, uncaged from time to time.  Escape is a good thing.  If convention is confining, find your liberty.  And if convention is liberating, then stay inside that cage so that you can live the life you want.  But when you judge, you damn yourself.  You curse Creation for its creativity.  Bah.

Two. This one has been bothering me tonight in particular.  People celebrate their mothers on days like Mother’s Day and their mothers’ birthdays.  Those days are for mom.  For my mom, I celebrate Halloween.  It was her favorite holiday, and she always made it something magical and special (and she wondered why I seemed to be drawn to the dark side even at a young age).  She died on Halloween morning when I was 12.  Every year since then, it has been of the utmost importance to me that I celebrate the day as much as I can.  Not just for me, but for her, to remember her, to celebrate the single most important person in my life before my son.

Out of my own love for Halloween, I observe it like a season, and that season has already started (Aug. 1st is the unofficial start of Halloween for me).  My 3-month observance of Halloween is all about the holiday itself, but the day itself is for my mother.  Now that I have a son, it is even more important to me to give him what my mother gave me through Halloween.  I want to share the magic of this holiday, as it perfectly captures the stories that held my imagination as a child as well as the very spiritual approach to life that my mother carried in her heart, that she passed along to me.  And while wanting to pass this to him comes from my love for him, it also comes out of my devotion to my mother, that I wish him to know something of her though he’ll never meet her.

Last October, things at home weren’t very good, and I feared I would not get to spend Halloween with my son.  That was a very frightening feeling, and it hurt.  Well, tonight, I was told my wife and son might be out of town for Halloween (my response was, while laughing, “He’s not going anywhere at Halloween”).  A relative is getting married in Louisiana the day before.  What hurts most, I think, is that I’m expected to be absolutely okay with not celebrating Halloween with my son.  It’s the most important day of my year.  My entire year centers around Halloween.  And I’m just supposed to be cool with “Oh we might not be here”???  Not hardly.

It’s messed me up all night.  Talk about looking at someone differently . . . when it feels like they don’t even know you . . .

The more I think about it,

the more I wish I could just take time off to write,

the more I wish I could start my own business;

tired of working on other people’s schedules,

living on other people’s schedules,

fighting myself day in and day out,

to be good,

to be a man,

to wear a mask,

a costume,

put on a smile,

act like I care about something that isn’t a form of art or expression of passion.

Since yesterday evening, when my wife told me the news about Peter Steele’s death, I’ve been thinking a lot about the music that’s been influential in my life, especially about the bands and artists I consider important in my life.  It seems everyone has a list of however-many-albums that changed how they listened to music, but I don’t think my personal however-many list really reflects the bands whose music found a special place in me.

So here’s the list:

Guns N Roses, Metallica, Ozzy, White Zombie / Rob Zombie, Soundgarden, Marilyn Manson, NIN, Prick, Type O Negative, L7, N.W.A. (and each member individually), Pantera, Jesus Jones, Deftones, Danzig, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Crowbar, Tool, Pepper Keenan, Rob Halford, Motley Crue, Megadeth.

These bands, artists, and musicians have shaped the person I am and my musical tastes.  They have influenced every aspect of my life, and to lose any one of them is like losing a relative.

I’ll be honest here:  There were tears when I read some of the things members of Type O have said about Peter after his death.  In fact, last night I did not want to sleep until I knew that it wasn’t just another rumor.  There were tears when I found out about Dimebag, and some later when it hit me that it had really happened.  I was still a kid when Eazy-E died, and I remember crying over it the way a kid would.  But I also broke down while recently watching a documentary about N.W.A.  They did a good job in that documentary of capturing  just how sudden it all was for the fans, and it was like living it all over again.  There isn’t a day that goes by that Chi from Deftones isn’t in my thoughts.

I mean, I know it sounds all high-school and adolescent, but music is a very important part of my life, and I feel like the musicians who make the music I consider important have touched me personally even though they don’t know me from Adam.

It’s about that time again, time for everyone to start talking about what’s going to be different next year.  Some will quit smoking or start dieting.  Some may even want to go to church more often or just start giving a damn.  Some people make long, long lists of resolutions for the new year, and usually they just dust it off again the next time and put a new date at the top, having not touched the first resolution.

I’ve been thinking about how to put my resolution since before Thanksgiving.  Since I got out of school and lost all sense of direction, I’ve taken the whole notion of a New Year pretty seriously.  It offers a prime opportunity for self reflection.  You get to assess your progress or success, or lack thereof, and I’ve been trying to use that to make myself more aware of the choices I make.

2010 will be the year of Progress.  My major goal for this coming year is going to be “making it happen.”  After the holidays, I will be putting my life back on the track to success.  I will be moving forward, no more standing still.  There will be some big changes this year, and they’re going to come quickly.

So, here’s to a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and to 2010: the year of the D.