More than just a guitar
Current mood: artistic
Category: Life

More than a guitar

It was late at night. The time when the day's long moments of work and stress begin to fade, after the sun has gone to its ancient hiding place and the stars begin to free themselves of its latent light so as to begin their cosmic set of magnificence. My wife and I sat on the back porch of our small country mobile home busy in the usual conversation about ourselves, our dreams and desires, our goals and what we must do to make our lives more meaningful. The moths were engaged in their usual neurotic dance with the porch light and my eyes were beginning to grow groggy from the beers and the long day.

            We were both beginning to feel the fatigue as we walked up the porch and into our home, children sleeping soundly. At first it was faint like those curious moments of nostalgia when you hear an old song or smell a forgotten fragrance, but then it grew stronger and stronger. The smell of smoke began to fill our nostrils as we continued our conversation in the tiny place we call our kitchen until one of us stopped mid-sentence in alarm. Eyes big we started in search of the foreboding smell. The smoke grew stronger.

The feeling of panic began to set in. Adrenaline pumping through my veins I started to grow frantic while I tried to locate the source. Sniffing like droopy hounds we followed the scent to the laundry room where it seemed strongest. I pulled the dryer and washer away from the wall to examine the electrical outlets. Nothing. The scent grew stronger. Wisps of smoke began to gather at the ceiling like the first tinges of fog after the rain. All my senses on high alert I told my wife to get the children out of the house. She ran to their room and began rousing them as I quickly fetched the nearest phone and dialed 9-1-1. I told the operator that we saw signs of smoke in the house but no visible flames. She told me that an engine was on its way. I had mixed emotions as I hurried to the children's room where groggy eyed children clung to their mother as she started leading them out of the house.

After years of being a volunteer firefighter I had seen the outcome of such evenings. The shoeless occupants of a blazing  home standing on a neighbor's lawn watching all their hopes and dreams  swim in fahrenheits unimaginable. "Hell I'm not even wearing any shoes," I thought. I slipped into an old pair of "flip flops" that seemed handy, yet small. Instinctively, I found my guitar and headed outside.

My wife had taken the children next door to her mother's house and my father and brother-in-law joined me on the back porch. Suspecting an electrical fire, I located the power box and killed all the power. The house seemed to die in a moment. The moths hesitated for a second, then lost interest and flew into the night. My wife returned to my side as we all continued to try to locate the fire. Pulling apart the siding and vents we looked into the underbelly of the house.

No fire.

I pulled the cover of the air conditioner off.

No fire. "Where is it?" I thought.

We returned to the laundry room and looked some more. The smell seemed to come and go. We walked into the kitchen. Strong scent. My wife paused.

"Wait a minute," she said. She stooped down next to the dishwasher and drew a long breath through her nostrils. She looked at me and in the half light I knew she had found the source. She threw open the dishwasher and the smell strengthened ten-fold. We both laughed in relief as we saw the remnants of a plastic cup melted on the heating element.

That was when I picked up the phone to again dial 9-1-1, then I realized that I was still clutching my guitar. I paused for a moment and set it down to tell the dispatcher that all was well in our world. After I put the phone down I picked up the old guitar. Why in the panic did I grab it I wondered. I mean, in the face of loosing everything it had little monetary value.

"This is more than a guitar," I thought. I had had this guitar through all those defining moments of adulthood. I had played this guitar for hundreds and for hundreds of hours. I had learned to play on this guitar, I had lost and gained so much in the presence of this guitar. In the dawning moments of that night I realized how much I cared about this seemingly inanimate object, happy to not have lost it. 

8:57 AM - 7 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Nerves
Category: Life

It's 3:16 in the morning and my eyes are heavy. I really shouldn't be sitting here drolling out type for the sake of hearing my fingers clack on the keyboard, but I find that it is calming my nerves.

Nerves. Today was really tough on my nerves. This year so far has been pretty tough come to think of it. But I wouldn't exactly put that remark in the "complaint box." So far this year I have had a lot to be happy about.

What's that you say? It's only January 6th?

Hey!

Shut your pie hole!

This MY space, MY blog, MY year.

I'll be happy if I want to GOD DAMMIT!

So like I was saying... Today... Well yesterday, was really quite a lot. I had to work the morning shift after closing the night before. If you've never done it, I'm sure you don't have use all your fairy imagination dust to conjure up the image of a man slaving away his night and then diving into bed at one thirty in the morning only to wake up at eight in the morning to drive back to work and deal with shitty customers for an additional dose of work day.

Shitty customers. Did I mention my nerves? Yeah, well every now and then people like get on them. Today was one of those days. I had to work the drive through (a nasty demeaning job that requires me to grovel at the feet ( or window) of the unabashedly rude for the sake of keeping my job whilst remaining politically correct in speech and manner the ENTIRE TIME.

Its a sport.

My customers routinely play this game called "how much rude can Levi can take before he throws another frappaccino on the hood of my car. ( Yes it's true. It only happened once and it wasn't one of my finer moments in customer service. I did, however,  get to keep my job.)

I probably don't need to tell you that though I had to apologize to our very rude patron, I really wasn't sorry.

Today was equally bad, I am proud to report, however, that I did restrain my exceptional talents of propelling tasty frozen Starbucks beverages at high velocities in the direction of my customers.

But I'm not complaining.

It's now 3:33 in the morning and my eyes are heavy. I really shouldn't be sitting here drolling out type for the sake of hearing my fingers clack on the keyboard, but I find that it is calming my nerves.

Nerves. My nerves were again assaulted during the second part of my day as Amber put on my future mother in-law's birthday party. Yesterday I found out that Amber was solely responsible for putting it on. It isn't fun watching her stress out about having to throw a last minute birthday party for her. Luckily, she did a damn good job and I was very proud of her.

I always have such a hard time when I hang out with the in-laws because I feel like such an out-law.

The fun part of the night came when they finally came out and asked me to attend a Monday night Christian bible study. That was tough. I had to politely decline. You know, that whole Buddhist thing. Religion is such a big division between us and the source of a lot of friction. I wanted to just say yes so that I would finally be one of them, but alas, I stood my ground.

I have principles dammit!

It's 3:44 in the morning and my eyes are heavy. I really shouldn't be sitting here drolling out type for the sake of hearing my fingers clack on the keyboard, but I find that it is calming my nerves.

I'm up writing right now because I can't sleep. The real reason my nerves are shot is because I'm worried about my Dad. During the birthday party he called and I heard his pleasant voice on the phone. It always touches a cord in my heart because I know he only calls me when he feels extremely lonely.

He is sick.

Recently we found out that he has type two diabetes. Not a real big deal unless  you don't take care of it. I have a hunch that he isn't doing as good a job taking care of it as he claims he is.

This week he suffered from some sort of arm injury that turned his arms black and blue. The doctors are not' sure what happened so he is scheduled for a whole slew of tests. I've never had to deal with this type of stuff with my Dad before. It's a whole new level of stress. I'm driving down to see him tomorrow.

My dad is a mans man. He has always been able to do more push-ups than me. He is an all American. I used to hang from his biceps with my feet dangling when I was a kid. He's always been one strong dude. And now his health is failing and its weird to see. I guess I've always thought he would live forever.

I love my dad.

It's 3:52 in the morning and my eyes are heavy. I really shouldn't be sitting here drolling out type for the sake of hearing my fingers clack on the keyboard, but I find that it is calming my nerves.

I guess I'll take another crack at this sleep thing. Goodnight. And thanks for listening.

3:15 AM - 7 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

A thought inside of Levi’s head
Category: Life

happy new year. try not to fuck this one up will you?

* a thought inside Levi's head*

1:24 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

The week of hell
Category: Blogging

So I've finally tuned back into to the good ole myspace after a few days of pure hell. This week I picked up as many shifts as I could, sometimes only taking off a few hours before returning to work so that I could cover our Christmas expenses and some pretty hefty car expenses we have been waiting to pay.

Over the last few days I have noticed that everyone at work as been getting ill with flu like symtoms. I knew this would happen as it always does around this time of year. I had hoped that because I have been working out and keeping shape that it woud skip me this year.

Nu uh.

No such luck.

Saturday I worked from 8am to 1pm then returned to work from 7pm to 12:15. During that nights shif, our shift lead became serioulsy ill. She is a good friend of mine so I gave her my overcoat and made her sleep in the back.

I knew as soon as she told me she was sick that I was going to get it.

The next day was Sunday. I had to wake my happy ass up at the crack of 6:30 to drive through the fog to work again. I worked until 11:45.

When I got off of work I noticed that I was extreemly exausted, but i just chalked it up to being overworked after opening and closing.

When I got home I dove under the covers and noticed that no matter how many blankets I piled on top of myself, I was still freezing. DAMN... I HAVE A FEVER I thought.

It got worse. As I tried to sleep I noticed that my stomach was starting to rumble and then cramp giving me extreme abdominal pain. FUCK! NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!  I screamed in my head. NOT TWO DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS!

Apparently, my body's not a good listener.

What better way for it to get back at me for all the sleep deprivation and grueling work I have put it through recently than to become extremely ill.


So as my body began to convulse and my fever worsened, I realized. I hate my body. I thought that after the hellish work week I subjected myself to, I would be able to come home and get some sleep in time to wake up refreshed for Christmas!

HaHa! What a joke.

So it gets worse. About an hour after I notice that I'm actually sick, I get really nauseated. I told Amber, "I think I'm going to throw up." She promptly removed the brand new bedding she bought the other day in a frenzy. Apparently you have to dry clean it. She's a real thinker you know. Then she went and got me a bucket. It probably wasn't more than a minute before I had to use it. GROSS.

Now, I don't get sick very often but when I do - it's violent.



But I had some help. Amber was there and her words and her soft touch helped out a lot. Behind every man there is a good woman holding his head while he pukes.



But the story really gets juicy, literally. Soon after I first started heaving my guts out, my body decided that vomiting just wasn't getting the job done fast enough. The captain of my brain ship then gave orders to open up BOTH valves, simultaneously.




Yeah!

That's right. At one point I found myself sitting on the toilet crapping my guts out and heaving bile into a large salad bowl. This went one for hours.

There was a time when I really did want to die. It hurt so bad, my headache was so intense that every heave was murder. I was freezing and dehydrated. Whenever I got the chance to get back into bed I would toss and turn out of complete agony.

I kept trying to take some aleve but I would throw it up as soon as I swallowed. Eventually I was able to hold some down and my fever broke. And I was able to get some sleep. Today I'm in recovery.



Only to find that Amber is now sick. Poor thing.




What we really need is a big bottle of this:

1:56 PM - 6 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Animal abuse - Busy procrastinators should never own pets
Category: Pets and Animals

All my life I have been an avid animal lover. I loved all anything and everything that had to do with animals. Eagles, wolves and any species of cat were among my favorite, but all animals had a place in my heart.

But then I grew up.

I fell in love.

I adopted a whole family.

I got really busy.

This created a huge problem with my interface of the animal kingdom. You see, I have had two cats since 1997. I can still remember the day they were born. I was 15 and the only cat we had "Tiga" (that little floozy) popped them out right underneath the garage sink.

I immediately fell in love with these little creatures. We gave several away but decided to keep two which we named, Yoda and Sylvester. I still have Yoda and "Silvy". I have now had these cats for over 10 years! I can't even believe it's been that long.

The problem is this, when I became a busy dad and husband, I pretty much lost all love for my animals. At least it felt that way. Amber isn't a fan of animals, or at least having them indoors. My cats had always been inside/outside animals. When we moved here, however, things changed for them.

Out they went!

Because we don't get to hang out that much, its pretty much the out of site out of mind thing. Me and my feline homies haven't really gotten to chillax in a long time. Which is odd, because for years they were my best friends, especially Yoda. He is a sweet cat with a loving but not clingy temperament. He used to follow me around the house and hang out wherever I was. I am definitely "his dude" because if you ask any cat owner they will tell you, you don't own the cat, the cat will decide if he wants to own you!

So today I let my boys in the house for an hour or so, so we could catch up. They really enjoyed themselves.

But the cats arnt my big problem.

I also have a dog.

My friend Josh had to move to Utah so he asked me if I could take his beloved dog and care for her. I love dogs so I asked Amber and she said that if I really wanted her I could have her. I took her.

That was a mistake. Apparently I don't have time for a dog. I never thought that I might be one of those people who neglect their animals. But apparently the grown up Levi is not as much of a dog lover as the younger Levi.

As I said in one of my blogs, this has been the year for me to get rid of a lot of bad habbits. One of those bad habits is neglecting my dog. The poor thing sits out there every day and is so bored and lonley that she destroyes everything she comes into contact. She actually ate my porch (well, all the astro turf on it)!

Well today I decided that I would change this very bad habit. I spent the whole morning teaching her to sit stay come blah blah blah. And you know what I found out? My dog is freaking smart! After just a few minutes working with her she was catching on to everything I wanted her to do. So my new resolution is to get my dog trained.

I took a picture of her, and my porch today.



We have a lot of work to do!

12:31 AM - 4 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

Why do I have a problem with this book? Let’s get to killing teenagers people!
Current mood: cynical
Category: Religion and Philosophy

I have a problem with this book. And for the first time in my life I am completely fine saying that.

If you know me or have been reading my blogs for any length of time, you will know that I am deeply curious, skeptical and cognoscente about religion. Specifically, my cynicism is chiefly centered on Christianity. Why? Very simply, it has caused the most problems for me. It has made my interaction with fellow humans difficult and forced.

Because?

Most of you know I was raised in a very controlling Christian sect called Jehovah's witness. Eventually I discovered that there were some very fundamental problems with this organization and began to do my own research on them.

We obviously know how that turned out.

The point is... When I left them, I began my own search for God. I felt that I would always be a Christian at heart. I just thought that I was a bad one. I couldn't help but think that God was a little one sided seeing as he had all his Christian "children" telling me that I am living my life in sin. Technically, until just a few days ago, I have been living with a married woman, though separated and going through a long divorce process. According to most Christian sects, this is LIVING IN SIN. Even though I became dad to three kids who really needed me, and even though I brought this family together and found true happiness, I am still, technically, a bad person.

This didn't make any sense to me. So I started reading the bible again, but this time without anyones "help." What I found disturbed me. While reading the bible without actually reading anything into it. I found that I had some pretty big problems with it.

For the most part. I find it personally hard to believe that the supreme ruler of the universe had anything to do with penning anything in the Old Testament. The all-loving, all-knowing God that mainstream Christianity purports watches over our every move, also likes to kill anyone who doesn't agree with him, this includes children and animals! I find that the bible does contradict itself. Its odd hearing myself say those words because for the better part of my life I would vehemently deny this secularly over popularized phrase, instantly refering to scriptures in the bible which support and an overall theme of God's coming kingdom from Genesis to Revelations. I could do this on command.

I was raised to be a minister for Christ's sake. Literally.

Now people, before you get up in arms about what I'm saying here and run and unsubscribe me, remember I am not trying to attack anyone at all. I am Agnostic, this means I admit that I cannot possibly know all the answers. I do approach the subject with a great deal of respect for others beliefs. I have been on both sides of one extremely high fence.

From fundamentalist right wing conservatism, to agnostic democratic liberalism.

Think about it. Religion is one of the biggest reasons mankind goes to war. It controls our thinking, methods, social systems and even our very thought patterns. People DIE for their religion. I suppose that's why it interests me so very much.
Now that I have achieved this freedom, the ability to logically think out and scientifically debate concepts without the benefit of anyones careful religious preprogramming kicking in, I feel I should constantly put it to good use.

Now back to what I was saying about the kids and puppies. After grabbing my copy of the holy book. I found that a fresh read prompted many questions about why God wanted ancient Israel to go ahead and murder anyone committing what we would label minor offenses today. God's dealings with ancient Israel simply are not cohesive with the God of the New Testament. The New Testament God has four very outstanding attributes. They are, Love, Justice, Wisdom and Power. A God with these abilities would not, at least by my calculations, be capable of the murder of millions of people on genocidal proportions. This would not be either perfect love or perfect justice.

I ran across a website today talking about this very subject. It is www.godisimaginary.com

Here is what I was reading:

If you look in the Bible, there are an amazing number of people that God wants his followers to murder. For example, in Exodus 35:2 God lays down this commandment:

For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.

Then look at Deut 21:18-21. It says:

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. They shall say to the elders of his town, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.

Then there is Leviticus 20:13:

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.

If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.

In other words, if we actually listened to what God says, we would need to kill at least half of the people in America tomorrow. After all, Isaiah 40:8 says, "The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever." The word of the Lord tells us to kill half of the U.S. population.

There are two things in this that show you that God is imaginary. First there is the utter stupidity of these verses. Second, there is this fact: If God is an all-powerful being, he would kill them himself. There would be no need for people to do the murdering. These people would already be dead, and Wal-Mart would be closed on the Sabbath through lack of employees.

Notice that believers completely ignore these parts of the Bible. That is because they know that the verses are insane. By acknowledging that their God is insane, they prove that their God is imaginary.

1:44 PM - 18 Comments - 17 Kudos - Add Comment

Not just another rainy day
Category: Blogging

Right now it's pouring rain. At this very moment I can hear it pound of the top of my aluminum roof. I guess sometimes living in a double-wide has its charms. I have often wondered why some people hate the rain. I have wondered why it brings them down and makes them sad and depressed. Amber is one of those people.

It's perplexing to me because I feel exactly the opposite. I LOVE the rain. As I listen to it now it almost sounds like music. Like the sound of waves on the beach and waterfalls in the forest, the sound of rain calms me and makes me feel at peace.



Even these days I can just sit in my car snuggled in a big coat and listen to the rain pound on the roof and the window. The millions of tiny droplets tantalizing me with sound from every direction - nature's orchestra.

This is the first day this year that it's really poured like this. It awakens in me a calm I had forgotten I could have. When I was a little kid (probably 2 or 3) I remember driving down main-street in Visalia. The candy canes were hanging and the rain was pouring down like it is now. I remember how the streetlights and Christmas lights glistened and reflected off of everything. Everything seemed so alive and so fantastic. I still feel the same today.



I just got out of work again, tonight is tomorrow already, just another reminder that life slips us by while we desperately try to hold on to it, but I found myself comforted and mesmerized by the rain as I drove home. The lights were shining and the simpleness of the traffic lights shining off of the black pavement was stunning. I think its been a while since I stopped to think of how beautiful it actually is.

1:33 AM - 15 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

How to make a healthy Levi
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

I have done a lot of changing this year. Overall, it's a very good thing. I find that I have changed so much from the age of 18 to now that I am an entirely different person. My older friends at the time told me this would happen, but I didn't believe them. I felt very confident in who I was at age 18. That may sound strange, but it's true.

I thought I knew where my place in the world was and I thought I knew EXACTLY where I was going.

Boy was I wrong.

Over the next few years my life would change so drastically that my entire world-view would alter. It was as if I was living in this bubble...


...
and one day it popped.

It wasn't an explosive all-of-the-sudden thing though. It's like my bubble got popped from a tiny pin and slowly all the air hissed out of my world. Then came the point when the deflated bubble started to suffocate me and I had tear through it.

Yeah... that's what it was like.

Over the next few years I would loose my faith and find myself, find true love and find a sort of responsibleness inside myself and mature greatly.

This year I felt that I had to make some extreme changes. I felt as if I was being held down by an enormous weight on my shoulders. This weight were my obvious bad habits that I had been to lazy to care of in the previous years. I felt I was ready for a change. It was time to get rid of them. So this year I did.

I quit smoking
I quit drinking (except on rare occasions)
I lost weight.
Started eating healthier.
Set up boundaries with my mom
Set up boundaries with my dad
Talked to my little brother
Reconnected with my cousins
Came to a comfortable place on religion in my own mind.
Started taking martial arts
Found ways to deal with stress
Got a car
And set a wedding date.

That's the year in summary. But its not over. Maybe there will still be some major changes. One can only wonder. Overall 2007 was a good year for me. I hope 2008 will be even better!

So - How was your year? TAG

9:50 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

What the hell are we going to do? April 6, 2008
Current mood: excited
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

So yesterday we finally received the word that Ambellina is divorced. You don't know how long we have been waiting for this day. We have often joked that we were going to run down to the court house the day we found out and get married. It is such a relief for this to finally be over! But now we have a lot to figure out.

This whole time we have been waiting it felt as if this day was never going to arrive. I really did think that we would probably pack our bags and head for a weekend in desert paradise!






We still might do something like that. We really haven't made up our mind, but as soon as we announced to a few people that we might just go "get it taken care of," the family got up in arms about it. Apparently they want us to have a "real" wedding so that they can "enjoy it with us."  Amber's mother said that the purpose of a ceremony is to be able to share it in front of the people you love. While I don't think it's the "Purpose," the more I think about it the more I do want to have a wedding where my friends are able to celebrate it with me.

For the last year we have been talking about how if we are going to have a wedding its going to be something small. The more that we think about it though, the more we realize we're going to have a real problem pulling that off. For one thing, everybody and their brother will want to come to this thing.

So now the trick is going to be to pull off a wedding somewhere in between this...







and this...







Last night Amber and I sat down and each made a list of all the people we could think to invite. Her people and my people. We were shooting for under a hundred people.

Yeah.

Not going to happen!

At least we'll get a lot of presents.

We are probably going to have around 300 people at the wedding unless we can have some knocked off. Just kidding, kinda.

That's just problem number 1. There are going to be a lot of problems that we have to overcome in order to pull this thing off.

The first problem is that we don't have ANY money. I'm sure we'll figure something out though. We can be pretty resourceful when we put our minds to it.

The second problem is religion. This is the biggest problem for me. This is where I'm getting hung up. I am not a Christian, but our entire family is hefty duty fundamentalist "have you found Jesus yet, no I didn't know he was lost," Christians. And since we have not made known our position on the matter (because of the enormous amount of turmoil it would cause) everyone is expecting a "certain type" of wedding.






I have been thinking about this long and hard over the last few days and discussing it with close friends.

If we are going to make this wedding work without sparking an all out religious war, it looks as if I'm going to have to sell out and at least have a Christian minister. I do not, however, want my wedding to turn into just another excuse for  an evangelical sermon. If we do this... I want it to be strict and to the point. Sure we could have generic scriptures read or whatever to appease the in-laws.. but that's about all I want to go down. I'm not down with an over-the-top Christian wedding. I would rather shoot off to Vegas.

So what is my final position? Well, for the last year and a half  I have been engaged to marry this woman...





And dammit, I'm going to!

April, 6 2008

3:08 PM - 11 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

Levi is getting married
Current mood: happy

As many of you have heard, Ambellina is now divorced. This means we can finally get married. We are not sure exactly what we want to do. Stay tuned. I have to run off to work, but I'll blog about it later today. Just wanted to say good morning and share the good news!

3:57 AM - 6 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment