Miracles do happen

I totally just made that up. With no liquor involved.  Cool.

First off, Merry Whatever-it-is-you-celebrate. 

I could lace this blog post with innuendo and double entendre, but for some reason I don’t feel like it tonight.  I mean, yule logs, eggnog and mistletoe jokes are easy holiday entertainment, but I’ll spare you that.  At least for now.  No promises what I end with.

It’s now 9:25 PM on Christmas Eve and through my headphones blares my Rockin The Holidaze playlist.  I’m celebrating Festivus with Blink 182, My Chemical Romance, Brian Setzer Orchestra, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Save Ferris and (of course) Snoop.  It’s good stuff.*

After arriving home from Christmas Eve at my brother’s place, I sat on my bed and thought back to last Christmas and how completely bummed I was.  My Drama Queen turned 14 this past summer and with the exception of last Christmas I’ve never been without her at the holidays.  In 2010 D.Q.’s mom made a magical reappearance in her life after a four-year absence and the judge gave mom a week of visitation at Christmas.

Early Christmas Eve morning we arose and I took my daughter to the airport in Buffalo.  After watching her plane take off, I went home to mope in private.  Of course I obsessively tracked the planes progress and once I saw she landed I became impatient waiting for the phone call.  It came about three minutes after she disembarked.

“Hi daddy,” she said as I answered.  “What up, yo?”  I replied.  “Happy to see no snow?”  She told me she was happy, however she would be happier if her mom was there.  I started freaking and asked my daughter if she called her mom’s cell phone.  The long and short of it is that Baby Mama left her cell phone at home for the four-hour drive to Las Vegas to retrieve her daughter.  She rolled in almost an hour after landing and I somehow stopped my aneurism from bursting.

As I was freaking out and trying to figure out how to get her from Vegas to L.A., I was on Twitter and there are a ton of you who offered assistance and moral support and I’m still blown away by that. (Baby Mama saved a couple hundred on airfare, so she made the four hour run to Vegas, then the trip home)

In the midst of this I somehow began tweeting with someone I’d followed for a while, but didn’t know much about.  The initial conversation had something to do with Blackberry and how I was waiting for Verizon to get the iPhone so I could urinate on my Blackberry.  For the record, the first thing I did after getting the iPhone was to wiz on the old phone.  I even offered to let my dog do the same.  But I digress…

Through tweeting, I found out she had a novel published and I discovered that we enjoyed many of the same things.  And she was cute.  That didn’t hurt.  My plan for the holiday was to stay in Christmas Eve and day and spend it alone, so this distraction from my loneliness was very welcome.

We tweeted and BBM’d on and off for the rest of the day.  Christmas Day too.  As we talked, I was amazed at how many of the things that she said sparked ideas for blog posts, fiction writing and the book that was languishing in the middle of chapter four.  The funny thing is she wasn’t feeding me ideas, we were just conversating and ideas popped into my brain.  After a few days I mentioned that she was turning into my personal muse.  She thought that was kind of rad, so The Muse was born.

During the past year we’ve developed a friendship unlike any I’ve ever had.  I’m not sure why, but there are some things I don’t talk with my friends about.  With my self esteem issues the past few years, I don’t like to talk about crappy stuff, mistakes or stupid things I’ve done.  For some reason I think they’ll judge me, even though I know they won’t.  With The Muse, I can talk about anything.

This past year has been rough for me physically and financially.  In October 2010 I notified my boss that I needed to go on temporary disability because of neurological problems that were affecting my ability to do my job and to drive. Three days later I was (wrongfully) fired.  Nice, huh?  Since then my health has gotten progressively worse.

The reason I bring this up isn’t for sympathy, but rather because you need to know what a huge dick I became for a few months. My doctor couldn’t find the right combo of meds and some of the combos made me irritable as hell.  But she stuck around.

I can’t tell you why I often subconsciously sabotage myself when it comes to relationships, but I do.  I’ve also had a couple of real shitty relationships and it’s made me extra skiddish, which puts pressure on this relationship sometimes.  I’m not used to people doing things without a motive of some kind and I know that’s frustrated the crap out of her.

Over time feelings developed and we spend as much time together as we could when we lived a six hour drive apart.  We’ve seen each other several times and talked almost daily.  It was good.  My Muse helped me through a fewl occasions where I said, “Screw it all.  I give up on life,” and I don’t feel as bad about myself as I did before.  When all I can see is the bad stuff in my life, she reminds me of the good things and I appreciate that.

In June, Drama Queen and I moved back to California to be near our family and that was kind of tough.  The Muse and I both have the, “if it’s right, it will work out” attitude, but the reality that what was a six hour drive is now a six hour plane ride.  And it sucks.  But we keep what we have going.

I’ve often marveled at how random events seem to work out in the long run.  That thought is pretty much the only thing keeping me going these days.  I’m not one of these people that believe in fate or anything, but listen to this run of bad luck and how it seems to be partially subsiding.

I moved to Toronto for a radio job that never materialized.  If I hadn’t moved to Toronto, I never would have ended up in Buffalo eight months later.  While in Buffalo, an editor for Skunkpost.com (a major Western New York website) pushed me to start this blog.

The only reason I started using Twitter was to promote the blog and if I hadn’t been blogging, I’m sure I never would have ended up with the circle of friends I ended up with and thus likely never would have found my Muse.  The Muse is the one who nudged me forward to seriously attack the book and she’s the one who hooked me up with my agent.  Again, I’m not saying it’s fate, but it’s kind of a cool circle of life.

If you take nothing else away from this, please remember that the shit in your life will eventually turn to fertilizer, which will help your life blossom.  I totally just made that up. With no liquor involved.  Cool.  Feliz Navidad.

*In case you care, here is my Rockin The Holidaze playlist.  There are a few things that aren’t appropriate for the kids table, if you know what I mean.