Running Away From Home

He’s never met my son.

I wish he could walk still.

She crossed the line from love to hate a long time ago.

I cried yesterday when the song we once danced to played.

His failing body is the truth he can’t escape.

I sometimes miss my brick neighborhoods.

She never asks why I don’t come.

There’s no room for me there anymore.

Pedro's Fortune (Part1) - Starting Somewhere

My sister Veronia was dark in every way. Her hair was shiny and black with eyes darker than brown and a persona that could be summed up accurately as dark. She rarely seemed jovial or exuded happiness. When she did it seemed unnatural even forced. My relationship with her was at the best of times strained and at the worst of times violent and explosive.

I was the steretypical annoying, sappy, worshipping younger sibling that begged for attention and knew few boundaries. Her response to my attempts to become just like her and align myself with everything she did and all-things-like her was by almost any standard mean-spirited.

She did not share anything with me, material or otherwise. Her friends displayed contempt toward me and her life was kept top secret, especially from me. If I dared to cross the intangible boundaries, and I frequently did, a storm ensued. She would first plead her case to my mother who did not have the emotional energy to respond and, having a different nature, did not understand why Veronica did not want to be best friends with her younger sister. She analogized all sibling relationships to the one she shared with my Uncle CJ, they were best friends and never fought with each other the way Veronica and I did.

Part two of the episode, after having received no back up from my mother, would be to take matters into her own hands vigilante style. I was no cowering push over and\, quickly, learned how to stand my ground. Perhaps my Irish temper was an asset in these instances but it was really not my style of relating to people and the confrontations left me mentally, and often physically, injured.

After all the drama, I still longed for a relationship with my older sister. One that was tender, supportive and safe. One day far into my future, I gave up on that dream.

Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?

We'll eat our dinners in silence,
answer our own burning questions and ponder our dreams without opinion.
Brother-less and lonely, we'll tread stoically through the day.

We'll look for you in places that you won't be found
and desperately hope that you're watching over us,
from a so-called better place.

Someday a young child might look up to us
but soon she'll know too that all the heroes, cowboys and angels have long since disappeared.

I love the universe

Just when I start to feel like a big misunderstand dork; the universe sends me an email (no lie!) to make me feel better. See below...


Most people quickly forget car types, brand names, and whether or not you could throw a Frisbee, Jennifer, but forever remember the broadly smiling, animal talking, tree hugging eccentrics they befriended.

Go for the latter.

Putting the "U" in Unforgettable,
    The Universe


Happy Friday.x

Christmas in Prague

I was somewhere in Eastern Europe the day my childhood pet, an untrained, completely out of control Dalmatian named Ringer died. Ringer was my humble yet attention-starved servant from the day she arrived unexpectedly when I was thirteen and remained my charge until I moved on to greener pastures (or faster lanes) in my early twenties.

It was Christmas and bitterly cold as you would imagine Eastern Europe to be this time of year. I was homesick and the phone call home cost a lot (even with the advantageous exchange rate) but no price was too high for me. I was sure it would make me feel better to speak to someone back home. I longed for familiarity in the form of fuzzy navels served in plastic red cups and mashed potatoes made with condensed milk; but the bad news was blunt with the completely opposite effect.

So, I spent the rest of that Christmas day with a friend in an expat bar drinking Czech beer, playing pool and getting high with three Dutch guys who did not speak much English while It's a Wonderful Life played on all the small TVs in the back drop. It was the first (not last) time that I felt I may have ventured too far away from home to ever truly go back.

Call me Ishmael and other reasons I love reading

I started a new book today. First line: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

I can sit with my coffee obsessing about a sentence like this for days, and, well, I guess I will.

I am in awe of the way the greats such as Proust, Dickens, Joyce, Chekov, Fitzgerald, Bronte and, of course, my beloved Hemingway could arrange only a few words that disrupted societies, created world-changing outcries of emotions and, on a smaller scale, send a lonely aspiring writer into a spiral of daydreams that linger indefinitely...all this decades after their graves have grown cold.

My Friend's City

Chicago will forever remind me of you. I can still see your eyes lighting up like a child as the city backdrop seemed to embrace you when you proclaimed, "Welcome to my city!" (with an emphasis on the my!)

America was not your birthplace and, truth be told, Chicago could more accurately be deemed my city considering I grew up only a short drive from the place; nonetheless I was totally convinced. As you walked your awkward walk down the sidewalks, leading the way to all your favorite spots and then made yourself at home ordering expensive bottles of white wine at upscale restaurants for lunch, it felt to me as if this truly was a city that belonged only to you.

We followed your lead through the sculpture park by the pier and sat with coffees, people and dog watching by the lake with the locals. In the evenings, we enjoyed Gallo al Vino on the Italian side of town and the three of us were comrades and partners in crime. In Chicago and out, we had a surrogate family feeling toward each other. We were the best of friends.

It's been years since an icy road in a far away place took you away from your wife and friends. Today I was thinking of Chicago which always makes me think of you. I know I am not the only one.