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It is the eve of the new year, and I feel like I am standing on the precipice of a cliff on standing on one leg balancing plates in both hands held out at my sides.  It is a deep chasm, a steep fall, with rocky walls, and floor with jagged stone to mash me from my sudden stop from descent.  New years are about rebirth, about transforming into a better person, day by day, week by week, month by month, until at the end of the year, you are a better person then you were last year.  It is about renewal and cleansing, a shedding of the old, dry dead skin of the old year, no longer useful, but raw, rough, irritating. This is a process I have undergone myself many times, with my weight, with my work, with the clutter in my house. In 2013, I determined to lose about ninety pounds.  To meet that goal, I exercised everyday.  I set my alarm for early the next morning.  I deprived myself of the food I was wont to eating, substituting healthier, more nutritious foods, salads, soups, fruits.  I e

I am not a history fan, because as stories go, most of history is messy and complicated.  Whereas fiction can be bent and manipulated, like casting spells.  Fiction can be perfected, honed.  It lends itself to beats and rhythm, crescendos, and releases.  History on the other hand is not so malleable.  It is like stone.  An artist can only chisel away details to show the statue underneath, but, after all the effort, history still is just what it is, a large sculpted rock. My dislike of history is so strong that I eschew even historical fiction, which although a fiction, still relies on certain unmovable details and facts which the author cannot eliminate or change but somehow incorporate into the work as a whole.  I purchased the first issue of Rasputin realizing that it was historical, the main subject being that mystical creature of Russian myth, large, dark, black-bearded, whose powers lie in the dark realms, and, upon whom a myriad of evil acts are blamed, including the seduction

I have to admit, outside of a few exceptions, people who create for merely shock value do not impress, especially when the shocking expression is void of any real substance or meaning. I am not overly impressed with Lady Gaga’s stunts. I never particularly bought into Andres Serrano or Robert Maplethorpe. Although I find Gwar humorous and a really interesting show, I never was tempted to become a devoted fan. Some shocking so-called art irritates me, not because it offends me, but because it is vacant of really any substance or meaning, that its shole raison d’être is its shock and the inherent commercial appeal arising from the controversy. I will never enjoy a Katy Perry song after hearing her “I Kissed a Girl,” a song trivializing the sexual confusion some teens suffer through as they develop into adults. I think it is especially ironic that Perry had formally sought success as a “Christian” recording artist but had failed. So when I first listened to the Vaccines song “Post Break U

If I were asked what kind of weather I preferred, I would have to reply the cold, drizzly winter’s day. The Rio Grande Valley does not have many such days.  Usually, the sun burns hot in the sky year round, basking everything in such bright light that anything exposed to its rays seems to pale and bleach.  The unforgiving sun removes the dye from billboard signs and cars.  It evaporates the wet greenness from grass and vegetation, leaving behind a dry yellow and brown.  It burns the skin to dark brown.  It leaves deposits of salt and other minerals after pulling out the body’s juices. Simply, the cold, grey day is mythological event, a setting only existing in far away places such as Seattle or London, which may as well be Neverland.  When the occasional grey, misty day does present itself, I relish it.  I celebrate it, decorating myself and my house in the necessary and customary adornments.  My wife retrieves the thick white feather comforter, and we cover our bed with it, giving

“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as as his partner.’  So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.  The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.” Genesis 2:18-20 About a week and a half ago, I was walking from the parking lot where I park my car and began walking to my office.  The walk measures approximately a block and half and requires utilizing three separate crosswalks, two of which have pedestrian lights.  The office poses a barrier to a main thoroughfare through the town, and the developers diverted the roads around the building in a large square.  As a result, many cars speed around that square to get to the highway which lies j