We're all human casseroles

And all the issues and labels and classifications. Every child has some medically diagnosed problem. Every child has a personal manual of operation that rivals that of a fighter jet. Complicated, pampered pieces of equipment. I suppose I wouldn't have minded the ability to label my child's stubbornness, insubordination or hyper-ness with some medically apropos certification, at least then I could tell all the other mothers — who glaringly judged my parenting through the behavior of my children — in JCPenny when my daughter melted down (because the shoe laces where brown and not white) that she had "Shoe-Lace Sensitivity Disorder" or whatever other excuses they're selling these days. Parents treat their children like unique inventions, yet they are not. We're all temporary ingredients. Label things if it makes you feel better. Fat Free. Organic. No Salt. You'll live long enough to have it all turned around and changed too.

I wake up and don't recognize my own hands. These snarled and twisted dry branches. Fragile twigs. I don't recognize them as I hold them to my eyes. Where did I go? At some point they went from delicate to decayed. I've vanished. Old. Too old for many things. Excitement. Hope. Learning. I'm far too old to learn about these new rules. These new names. To care about their "origins" and their "ancestry". I respect history as much as anyone else I suppose, but America is about solid, unassuming, simple names. Simple things. Simple rules. Now everything is turned sideways and upside down and I doubt very much I'll live to see it turned back to what I once knew, where I'm comfortable. I'm an irritation that the world is waiting to remove me — that is until their HMO approves the procedure. I don't like it here anymore than they like me around. Their names and their foods. Their worrying about meaning and the world. The world cares no more about your love for it than it does destroy them by hundreds and thousands in an earthquake or volcano or tsunami. The world does things because it has simple rules, uncomplicated by nuance or stress. It merely is in motion and we're merely in the way. It doesn't care about your complex names or your food obsessions. It doesn't care that you're trying to save it.

I'm tired of trying. That's why I've started to drink.

The above is my new attempt at, well, keeping this blog going. It's hard to write about things in my life in a real or tangible way without hurting someone. I'm pretty sure that's why God created music and fiction. To unfutter our fear into a form that, while unreal, has elements of truth that help us work things out. Life is complicated, forget that the fact that we're bumped against other people's complications. We all need outlets. This will be my attempt at creatively finding ways to say things without saying them. To perhaps engage you in a story that is real and unreal. People that don't exist but are people you may know.