Lopaka Lounge

This is the time of year when people stop and acknowledge all that they’re thankful for.  I think that’s a great idea.  You know what I’m thankful for…?

1. Me!  Yes, that’s right.  Dare I say it?  I put myself at the top of the list!  I’m my own best friend and I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to develop a strong personal relationship with myself.  I know, I know; that’s the most barfy self help thing to say–but it’s true!  Love thyself!  <<Cue vomit sound>> 
2. Ray.  I am the mostest luckiest man in the world to share my life with such a great guy.  You really know what makes him great other than the fact that he’s one of the nicest most respectful people in the world?  He puts up with me.  I’m not exactly a walk in the park.  I have, as they say, a rather dynamic personality (or personalities if you ask Ray).   I love Ray and he loves me right back and for that, I am truly thankful.
3. Lifestyle.  Ray and I made a scary decision to leave the big sexy career jobs back in Chicago for the sunny skies of Arizona.  We took a huge gamble and you know what?  We both found employment related to our work experience, built a fantastic house on some land, live well within our means and have hardly any debt (Thanks to Ray and his experience with banking and the fact that we are quite frugal).  I think the only thing we really spend money on is food which leads me to number four.
4. Diet.  A few years back I became really ill.  I went to three different specialists who insisted nothing was wrong.  At the suggestion of a friend, I saw an herbalist/acupuncturist.  Around the same time, I started reading about chemical sensitivities and food allergies.  After a few acupuncture treatments and a crash course in self education, I discovered the crap they put in our laundry detergent to make it smell spring fresh was making me ill.  This had a profound effect on the two of us and we started asking; just what is in the products we use today?  We found out and were shocked.  It’s no wonder there are so many health problems in the world.  Nowadays, we go to the market and buy fresh fruits, veggies, and whole grain everything.  Ray prepares fruit and nonfat plain yogurt for both of us every morning.  He also makes great meatless comfort food meals for dinner.  He cooks almost every night and it is always good–always.
5. Families. Even though our mothers have had a few health issues and our elderly relatives are getting way up there in age, both of our families are doing alright.  There is no major drama.  The brothers and sisters are fine and the nieces and nephews seem to be holding it together.  Ray’s sister Mary is going to retire after forty plus years of teaching and my oldest sister Betty is about to graduate from law school.  She has three kids and a full time job!  I have no idea how she does it.  I am very proud of her.
6. Everything. For the most part, I’m happy, healthy and I’m not in need of anything.  The air here is fresh and the sky blue and at night, I can see all the stars.  We leave work every day at 5:30 and get every other Friday off.  There is occasional fun travel and our faraway friends actually make the trek out to Stolen Horseshoe to visit.  Oh I could go on–and will!  I love: How the whole house fills up with the smell of yummy food at dinnertime.  Arizona sunsets.  Summertime in the pool with my man.  A good belly laugh.  Pillow talk.  Singing.  Seeing the mountains again.  A long hot shower.  Monsoon thundershowers.  Meteor showers and being able to see them.  My morning walks with coworker Jean.  The two little plants on my desk.  Karen Carpenter’s voice.  Choral music.  Playing my guitar.  All the wildlife around our home–even the rattlesnakes.  Riding my motorcycle.  Chatting with cool people online from all over the world.  Sex (I love sex, what can I say?).  Being creative.  Getting a haircut from my man–that, by far, is one of my most favorites.  We have so many little things making it all worth while.  That makes me thankful.
7. You.  Yes, you!  I am so thankful for the people who read my blog.  I am also thankful for the few that take time to write a comment or email me just to say they enjoyed the read.  Blogging was my experiment—my exercise to force myself to write frequently in hopes of honing my skills.  Your readership, kind words and participation make it all worthwhile.  I am totally blown away by your feedback on something that scared me so much, I waited forty one years to try.  For that, I am very, very, very thankful.  

Over the years, I have found that–for me–an important part of life is acknowledging the things I am thankful for.  I try to do it every day.   Yes, I’m sounding like Oprah but I swear that it all really turned around in a good way when I stopped focusing on what I didn’t have and started steering my attention on what I did.  After taking the time to determine the difference between want and need, superficial things became less important.  Yes, I want an iPhone.  No, I don’t need one.

It’s weird.  I am so ambivalent about this post.  I’m trying to express a true revelation that I had but it just sounds kind of, “Neener neener neeeener!  I’m happy and you’re not!!”  By all means, that’s not what I’m trying to say.  I just feel that having an Arizona sunset right in my own backyard is just as valuable as having an iPhone–if not more so.

I’m going to post it anyway though.  Rule number one about writing–be honest. 

Happy Thanksgiving world.  Thanks for everything.  I wish the best for everyone–honest!

I have noticed that Brian and Brian have done this “seven random and/or weird facts” thing on their blogs.  Since I’m not up to being very original today, I’m going to share my seven random and/or weird facts:

1. I have a superfluous third nipple.  It’s on my left side and not that noticeable.
2. I’m left-handed but I bat, shoot, golf and pick at my superfluous third nipple with my right. 
3. I am fluent in American Sign Language.  My ex is deaf.  He was totally hot but an asshole who cheated on me left and right.  I was going to say that he was a totally hot asshole but it just didn’t sound right–it looks much better when I sign it.
4. When I was six, I had a major head injury.  I flew over the handlebars on my bike going down a hill at a high rate of speed landing on my chin, fracturing my skull, shattering my teeth and biting off a small portion of my tongue.  I spent a week in the hospital and my ears have been ringing ever since.  I’m sure that explains a lot.  It’s probably why I’m gay.
5. I used to jump out of airplanes.  My first jump was on my eighteenth birthday.  It was liberating.  It was also very expensive and eventually someone I knew died doing it–so I quit.  You’d think major head trauma at six would be enough but noooo we gotta jump out of planes as well.
6. In 1993-94,  I was writer/director Frank Darabont’s assistant on his film, “The Shawshank Redemption”.   I had a teeny bit part where I played a hippy smoking pot in the park when Red gets out of jail.  The scene was cut but I have a copy of it.  Here is my tiny IMDB profile  (I used to go by my first name of Robert).  Even though it was a closed set, I was given full permission to photograph it.  NOTE: Tim Robbins doesn’t like to be photographed.  I have a ginormous box of photos and negatives from the production.  Ebay anyone?
7. When I was a small child I woke up one night with my Aunt Carrie sitting at the edge of my bed smiling at me.  It scared me because she lived about thirty miles away.  I shut my eyes real fast and fell asleep.  When I woke up the next morning, my mother told me that Aunt Carrie died.  Many years later I confessed to my mother about “thinking” I saw Aunt Carrie at the foot of my bed.  She told me she was not surprised and suggested that Carrie may have wanted to visit me one last time.  Apparently, Aunt Carrie doted on me and thought I was the cat’s meow.  Who knew?

So that’s it!  Glad there were only seven.  I could go on but I think it’s best to leave ‘em wanting more. 

What are your random and/or weird facts? 

The other night we watched a documentary about Iraq’s descent into chaos and warfare caused by poor decisions made by the US.  It was called No End In Sight.  Although it was thought provoking, I am not one to think something is factual just because it’s in a movie.  I try to be very level headed about one person’s opinion of what is the truth.  That being said, the movie did push some buttons and I highly recommend it.

 This is from the movie website: “NO END IN SIGHT is a jaw-dropping, insider’s tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the Spring of 2003), Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, and General Jay Garner (in charge of the occupation of Iraq through May 2003) as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts.”

The trailer:

The film highlighted how George and his buddies basically dismantled the entire Iraqi government and army without doing anything to fill that void.  In creating such a situation of total chaos, the whole country has fallen apart.  It’s still falling apart!  Hundreds of people are being kidnapped and murdered every day.  There is hardly any water or electricity.  An entire country full of people who already didn’t like us now loathe us. 

And I’m spooning in my comfy bed with my man and a purring kitty.

Argh!!  How could I be so insensitive?  There’s a fucking war going on and I’m sitting here blogging about how it’s all about me and in reality, it’s not.  It’s all about us. 

How can you have a war on terror anyway?  Can anyone actually win such a war?  That’s like having a war on bad taste.

So many people ask; Where are the protest songs?  Where is the anti-war activity of the American youth?  How are we going to end this war?  Well, I know exactly how to end it–reinstate the draft and start rationing.  Tell the American people that they have to give up their iPhone because with a few minor tweaks, it’s a homing device for a missile.  Tell families that it’s manditory to start shipping their eighteen-year-olds off to deathcamp bootcamp to become trained killers.  That’ll piss people off and then maybe they’ll put down the clicker and do something about it.  Maybe they’ll get mad because someone is rattling their cage.  Is anybody picketing the war?  No, they’re pickteing the fucking studios over the writer’s strike.  Yeah, that’s important.  God forbid something would effect the TV.

The problem with this current war is that no one here in America is without.  Everyone knows there’s a war going on but nobody sees the result of it.  Hardly anybody has to confront or deal with neighborhood kids being shipped away only to return in a plastic bag missing an arm.

Now for us, living here near Fort Huachuca, we see it.  Ray and I worked with this woman who’s fiance’s son was in the Army.  We heard countless stories of the boy’s heroic work in Iraq on the Global War on Terror.  Then we heard that he had been killed.  I don’t even think he was 20.  I can’t express what it did to me to see on the front page, a full color photo of that woman and her fiance crying in front of his dead son’s casket.  Now their wedding is off.  They split up.  Dad decided to re-enlist and go after the people who got his son.  I’m just waiting to see him come back in a box to be put to rest next to his kid.  Doesn’t that sound peachy?

I’ll admit that at first, I gave Mr Bush a pretty fair chance but he is so inarticulate and dense, that with each word spewing out of his mouth, my level of disgust rises off the charts.  After seeing this film, I am in Code Red on my Bush-O-Meter.  The guy just has to go.  I think if a politician really wants to win the White House they should adopt my campaign slogan:  “Vote for me.  I’m not George.”

Ray got home yesterday afternoon from LA.  He went out to see his mother for her 91st birthday.  I had the house to myself for the weekend. 

I love an All About Me Weekend.  Playing whatever music I want to hear, making a mess in the kitchen and jamming on my guitar like I’m a rock star (which I’m not), are some of the things I love to do in my solitude.  I always have so much fun and did this weekend but I have to admit,  it sure was good to have him come home. 

After chatting about the weekend and some dinner we both flopped into bed.

I woke up in the middle of the night.  Ray and I were laying there spooning while Parker kitty curled up in a ball next to us.  My little white noise machine was whirring away in the distance accompanied by the soft rumble of Parker’s purr.  There was no moon so it was pitch black.  All you could see outside was the night sky speckled with millions of stars.  It’s the little moments like these where I feel as if I am a man of great wealth.  Money, cars, sex, drugs–whatever fills that void can never match up against spoonin’ with your man next to a purring kitty.  Never.

I kissed him on the back of the neck, closed my eyes and said thankyouthankyouthankyou over and over in my head until I drifted back to sleep.