Just a Start, but an Ample One

THE UNDERTAKER - PUSCIFER

Thank you for making me feel like I am guilty,
making it easy to murder your sweet memory.

You were way out of line.
Went and turned it all around on me again.
How can I not smell your lie
through the smoke and arrogance?
But now I know,
so you will not get away with it again.
I'm distant in those hollow eyes,
for I have reached my end.

So, thank you for making me feel like I am guilty.
Making it easy to murder your sweet memory.

Before I go, tell me,
were you ever who you claimed yourself to be?
Either way, I must say good bye.
You're dead to me.

So, I thank you for making me feel like I am guilty.
Making it easy to murder your sweet memory.

I'm severing the heart, then I'm leaving your corpse behind.
Not dead, but soon to be, though.
I won't be the one who killed you,
I'll just leave that up to you,
'cause I'm not gonna be here to revive you.
I'm not gonna be here to revive you.
I'm not gonna be here to revive you
I'm gonna be the one to say,
I told you so.
I told you.

Severing the heart, then I'm leaving your corpse behind.
Not dead but soon to be, and
I'm gonna be the one to say I told you so.

Stuff and Things

Just a random regurgitation of things going on in my life. I can't seem to make it a regular habit to update my blog, so I'm not going to commit to it any more.

I think that Amber and I are going to move in together. It'll be nice to have her there all the time instead of working out a schedule. Zoe has no problem with her, which puts me at ease. I just hope that, in time, the two of them get to some level of friendship. Zoe needs a female influence/confidant, even when she is with me. I'd like to think she could tell me anything, but I understand that there are some things that females can only share with one another.

Not seeing Zoe more is the only down side to my life. Stephanie leeching off of me is annoying, but there is nothing I can do about it, so I'm not going to worry about it. The law is the law. With Amber moving in, I'll be in a dual income home again, and should be able to get ahead of my debt again.

Speaking of Stephanie, I've just grown disgusted with her. When everything went down, I felt guilty, and I shouldered all of the blame on her behalf. The truth is, she was just as guilty, if not more for the problems we had. It just seems that she's out to leech off of me and/or harrass me. She calls nearly every day. She uses the money she gets from me monthly to go on trips (3 in a year) or buy irrelevant things around the house (PS3 anyone?). She's threatened me with "standard visitation" if Zoe is going to be around Amber. There are constant, last second schedule changes that inevitably end in me missing time with Zoe. It's sad and ridiculous. I had hoped that she would have the dignity to pick herself up and put me out of her life, but that doesn't seem the case. I hope in the future that this happens, but for now, I'll continue to put up with her.

The King of Pop is dead...

June is coming to an end, and I'm still wrapped up in this damn divorce. We're coming up on a year now... fuck. As usual, she jumped in feet first without doing any homework and now whatever she had going with her lawyer has lapsed. So now we're back to square one. If she had been calm, rational and actually listened to what I had to say, we would have this behind us with minimal cost and as satisfied as we could be with the situation. Instead she continues to argue with me in front of Zoe, make stupid comments and try to drag other people into it. I think she's agreed to work with me on this to get it wrapped up, but I never know with her from day to day.

Anyway, enough of that.

I feel as if Zoe and I are getting closer. I hope so. We've had some real adventures lately, and it always lifts my spirits to hear her laugh. The past week was a little rough. The heat and frustration with Steph has put me on edge, and I've been a little short with her. She seems to take it in stride, knowing when I am just irritated and when I am actually mad at her. There were two days where she showed uncharacteristic sadness. She just wanted to be held and didn't want me to leave her at Charlottes. That breaks my heart.

Amber and I have been good, but last week was a little dicey as well. She's got a lot of things going on and she is stressed. I'm stressed and so we're bickering over silly things. Both of us are bull-headed, which doesn't help things. I worry that it is putting unnecessary stress on our relationship.

So, Iran... I feel pretty strongly about this. I applaud the people for their revolution and at the same time and am irritated that those of us outside the country can only get bits and pieces of what's going on. To top it off, the death of Michael Jackson has taken up all the press. He may have been a pioneer and a huge influence, but he was an entertainment star. I think overthrowing the regime in Iran is more important, but apparently, I am the minority.

Catching Up with 2009

I need to mentally focus more on what happens from week to week, so I can remember all the stuff to post here.

Saw Star Trek this week. Wow. Great movie. I know a lot of trekkies don't care for it, and I can understand why. It was gritty and edgy; two words I would never use to describe a Star Trek movie. But it also ties in the older movies in a way that's really clever. It's a reboot, but doesn't just throw away everything that came "before". Go see it and you'll understand what I mean. Oh and the time travel thing I bitched about? Done in a way that I am perfectly fine with.

Amber and I had a... spat. No big deal, it was bound to happen. It ended as quickly as it started. She threw my own advice at me, which I had no rebuttal for. Heh. "Don't walk away from an argument." We're both still going through the growing pains of a new relationship, when we haven't been able to put the old ones behind us. It certainly hasn't been for a lack of trying. Even with everything going on in our lives and what little time we really have to spend with each other, I'm happier than I've been in a long time. She takes care of me... the way I want to be taken care of. She seems to do it so effortlessly to, like it's just natural for her. I don't ask, she just does it and says that she enjoys it, and I honestly believe she does. I hope that she understands how much I appreciate it, I don't think I can state it enough.

Zoe is growing so fast, mentally and physically. She turns 4 this next week and is already reading books by memorization to me. She's well along in her alphabet and I think she is able to sight numbers 1 through 9. She's able to write her name, my name (Dad) and Stephanies (Mom). Technically, she's capable of writing anything, but she can write those words on request without copying off of something. I'm so proud of her. She's my daughter, but she's also my friend. We chum around town doing errands, going to Six Flags, watching movies... I love her to death.

I've been working a lot of overtime at work, and I haven't had any time to hang out with friends. I tooled around on Facebook and found a lot of old friends from high school. I'm not sure really what to say to these people. Most of them are strangers now. They, like me, have gotten on with their own lives, made new friends, have their own families.

The divorce still isn't done. It's dragging out because we are not agreeing on finances. It hasn't been pleasant, but it's not been out and out ugly. I just wish we could agree and get it over with. I don't want to have to go to court, but it's looking like we have may to have a third party settle it for us.

Over all, 2009 has been a good year so far. Amber and I went to Vegas and we finally got to sky dive. I got to participate in a zombie walk. Unfortunately, I won't be going forward with boxing. I loved it, but I simply can't afford the gym dues right now. I hope to pick that back up in the future.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Can't believe it's been since December since I last posted here.

Well, Zoe, I give up. I started this blog to tell you all the things I couldn't tell you. The problem is, there isn't anything that I haven't been able to tell you. I realized that it's easy for me to keep my promise : to be honest with you about everything. Some things you cannot understand right now, but I know when you are, I will be able to sit down and answer any of your questions.

So for now, every post will say the same thing : I love you. I tell you that every day. There's no need to repeat it here.

I'm going to make this my blog then. A place to deposit my thoughts. Maybe one day you'll be able to come here and read these entries.

The Sins of the Father

It's been a little longer than I wanted since my last post.

Ms. Boo, I just want to tell you how sorry I am. I'm sorry that things didn't work out between your mother and I. We both love you very much, and are doing everything we can to make sure you are happy. It's important to both of us.

I guess you need to know a little of my history here, to understand where I am coming from. My parents (Dia as you call her, now, and my father whom you've never met as of this post) divorced when I was the same age as you are now.

I don't remember a lot of my child hood. My mother and father had me when they were very young : my mom was 19 and my father was in his mid-20s. I don't think either of them expected me. I know that my mother and I were very poor, after my father left, and that she worked full time to support us, which meant we didn't have a whole lot of time together; I spent a lot of time in the care of other people. I only saw my father occasionally, I don't think I was a priority in his life at that time.

I can't remember how I felt about either of them when I was a child. As I grew older, and they remarried, we became even more distant. I constantly fought with my mother and I had no common ground with my father. I won't go into details here (maybe some other time), but life w/ my mother and stepfather became more and more difficult. Eventually, I was forced to move out.

This isn't about painting myself as the victim, that's not my intent. My intent is to explain to you that this will never be something you have to worry about. I will always be an active part in your life, and I hope as you grow older, that you are an active part in mine.

I love you.

How This Began : a Movie Called Wall-E

Hello Zoe, it's your father (or "daddy" as you're calling me right now).

I've finally begun a project that I swore I would start before you even came into the world. These are my personal notes to you, and only you, but they are open for the rest of the world to see. I've decided to make them public in the hopes that maybe someone will read these and take something from them.

We went and saw Wall-E the other night, and it got me to thinking about the future and specifically what kind of world you would live in. It's something I think about a lot, and one of the few things I worry about. I won't be around to watch out for you forever and it saddens me and scares me, knowing this. So I'm putting these words down, hoping that you can read them when you need to, and hoping that they will guide you for when I cannot be there. While I'm still here, though, please know that you can always come to me.

It's an overused phrase, but it's no less applicable : I love you more than anything.

Back to Wall-E. I'm sure you'll see it again at some point when you are older, hopefully even laugh at it's moral lesson : the dangers of becoming dependent on technology and mass consumerism. Planet Earth has become one giant garbage dump and everything is run by one company called "Buy N' Large". Everyone left the planet a long time ago, due to the garbage problem. All that are left are little robots (Wall-Es) that compact the garbage, and only one of them works. Anyway... one thing leads to another and Wall-E ends up on a large spaceship where humans have become morbidly obese and float about on lounge chairs, always tuned into little screens, never directly interacting with one another.

Make no mistake, technology is a wonderful thing, and I fully embrace it... to a point. Technology is meant to enhance the day to day functions of our lives, not replace them. Don't fall into this trap, no matter how shiny those gadgets are. Learn how to spell and speak properly without the requirement of a spell checker. Learn how to do basic math in your head without the aid of a calculator. And most importantly, don't rely on them to relieve your boredom. There is a whole world of things to see and do. Get outside and do them. Machines are not infallible and there may come a day that they all simply stop working (I hope that day never comes).

Stay in shape. The United States is in the middle of an "epidemic" of obesity. The news calls it this, but the bottom line is that people have become lazy and don't know when to say "no more". Everyone is looking for the quick fix to get healthy again, but the truth is, it doesn't exist. The only way to say slim and healthy is exercise and proper eating. Exercise isn't always fun, but it's a lot more fun than the inherent problems that come with obesity, and there are plenty of fun things to do to stay active.

Whew. I thought I'd have a hard time writing this... not have enough to say, but I think I've gone on long enough for now. I look forward to seeing you tonight. I wish I could see you more. Maybe some day.