avoidance and resolution of claims

I am Dane’s body and I am very, very achy. I am Dane’s throat and I am very, very sore. I am Dane’s glands and I am very, very swollen. I am Dane’s back and I hate him. I am Dane’s lips and no matter how much water he drinks I am going to keep them very, very chap. I am Dane’s sandman and I refuse to visit him. I am Dane’s headache and I refuse to let Advil take me down. I am Dane’s body temperature and I’ll go way, way up the second he puts a blanket on and I’ll go way, way down the second he takes the blanket off. I am Dane’s head and I refuse to get him on top of anything. I am Dane’s left butt muscle and I’m going to keep cramping up probably due to the amount of sitting he puts me through.

Subject change.

The actual experience of watching a movie is a blur of jumbled images. There are ladies in scary makeup and impractical dresses. I emerge, squinting and blinking and relieved to have passed through this trial by fire mostly unscathed. I’ve certainly ranked nice and high on my list of movies. Movies that I probably if best not want to sit through again.

I remember when I once worked in a theater. I was one of maybe three guys there on the floor some nights. All of us made furtive eye contact with each other as we passed in the hallways, all us sharing the same scared, hunted-animal look, wide blood-shot eyes darting, nostrils flaring. On some occasions I would announce the film being seen once everyone was seated. I made my first of many attempts to capture everyones attention in my choice of words and presentation. Come to today, I see as I try to seek refuge against the merciful slumber, the luminescent lights only foil this shadow of wakefulness and I stumble in my words, and come crashing into my little world of pseudo cryptic meaning.

It's true: I've done more than my fair share of complaining. It's so easy to do. It just sort of wears on you, the everydayness. Dirt and the rocks, that's what it is. The everyday dirt and rocks of a foundation you work so hard to build, and you get lost in it and then it becomes near impossible to see what you were working so hard to create in the first place.

And then all of the sudden, find yourself looking back. If you're lucky, you really see. You are able to look beyond the daily gritting of teeth, the sweating, the steady application of much elbow grease, the inconvenience of 365 days of living and you see your life for what it really is. I am an expert whiner, I am superb. My skills in this area are unmatched, it may even surprise some people to know that I am the pessimist, the realist, and the eternal optimist in this deal. I am steeped in my ways that I can't see the beauty in my life that is spilling out all over the place that I am rolling in it. I'm drenched and saturated by it.

And the recovery begins...