Jobless Journal Part II: Break on Through (To the Other Side)

I am the Lizard King - I can do anything! (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

It takes a while to get used to the fact that you don’t have to go to work. Apart from the occasional long weekend or a week off here or there, working is all I’ve ever known for the better part of 31-years.

So I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised that I still found myself getting up early every morning (had to get the kids ready for school anyhow) and I still found myself wondering what it was I had to go and shoot that day. Routine, I found, was harder to break than I thought.

With no real plans and nothing to photograph, I tried to keep my camera skills somewhat sharp by shooting my kid’s Rec & Ed basketball games. I must admit it was a bit strange taking pictures of little kids playing ball instead of Division I college players, but it was kind of fun and definitely long overdue (I should take more pictures of my kid’s activities, maybe now I will.)

By the end of my second full week of unemployment, I was feeling a little more relaxed about my situation and I actually began enjoying my newfound freedom. I felt confident that the uncertainty I’d been feeling was only a blip on the radar, and I would be much better served to embrace this time in my life rather than fear it. At least that was the mindset I took into last Saturday – a day that morphed from fairly normal to anything but, before the clock struck 12.

It all started with me feeling pretty crappy. Not emotionally, but physically. All the stress and lack of sleep associated with my mid-life upheaval had left me battling a horrible cold. Saturday was day three of the cold and by then I was well past the worst of it – the sore throat, watering eyes and runny nose part - now I was on to the thick-congested-yellow-snot phase.

This part of a cold is actually my favorite part of being sick. Not so much because I love blowing huge gobs of snot out of my nose (which I do) but more because of what the cold does to my voice. I’m not what you’d call a good singer, in fact, I’m not ashamed to say that I pretty much suck (my own mother used to tell me I couldn’t carry a tune even if I had a bucket) but for whatever reason, when I’m in the throes of a head cold, usually day three, something wonderful happens to my vocal chords, and not only does my speaking voice become much deeper (think James Earl Jones or Barry White) but suddenly, I can sing too.

Notes I can only dream of hitting when I’m feeling healthy, suddenly become routine when I’m all stuffy and I can’t breathe - high notes, low notes, and everything in between - nothing is out of range when I’m reaching for a Kleenex! It’s the one highlight of every cold I’ve ever suffered – sure I feel like crap, but man can I sing.

This phenomena, coupled with my newfound outlook on life, came into play in a strange way by night’s end, but first came a day filled with Rec & Ed basketball and the year-end team party that followed.

My son’s team crushed their opponent to finish the season in second place with a 7-3 record, so everyone was happy as we headed to the party hosted by the team’s coach. The party was an interesting mix of kids and adults mingling in the same space, but in different realities – a theme that would continue throughout the rest of the day and most of the night. Before long, the adults soon became the kids, and the kids became the adults.

This point was hammered home when I overheard one of the moms talking about the team party from last year where one of the dads was showing off his head-standing prowess. Without thinking I blurted out, “Hey, I can stand on my head too.”

The moms all laughed.

“No, I’m serious,” I said, “I really can.”

Before I knew what had happened, I found myself in a head-standing competition against another dad as all the kids at the party became petrified with embarrassment.

It had been a while since I last stood on my head, maybe a few years, maybe more, but head stands are sort of like riding a bicycle, once you’ve got it down you never really forgot how to do it, and unlike singing, head stands were something I was pretty good at.

I learned how to do them at a fairly young age, probably 8 or 9. My mom taught me when she was taking yoga classes in the early 1970’s. (That sort of thing was really taking off among the hippie set back then, and my mom was definitely a hippie.) I got the hang of it fairly quickly, and before long I was adding my own signature moves to the standard head stand, including scissor kicks, torso twists and my favorite – slowly dropping my legs down until they were parallel to the ground, turning my body into a perfect “L” and then slowly raising them back up until I was bone-straight once again.

I didn’t do headstands all that long, maybe a few months, but that was all it took before the skill was ingrained into me, apparently forever (I keep waiting for the day when I can no longer do them, but so far they seem just as easy at age 45 as they did when I was a kid).

Staying in balance - even at 45! (Photo by Eamon Horwedel)

The season-ending party was no different. Once the gauntlet had been thrown down, I quickly took off my jacket and my hooded sweatshirt. I emptied my pockets of loose change, car keys and anything else that might tumble out once I was inverted, and then I looked for a spot in the middle of the basement floor where I had enough room to perform my routine.

After I found a section of floor to my liking, I got down on all fours. The carpet was nice and plush and really soft. It couldn’t have been more perfect. The one thing I hadn’t taken into account was my cold, but once I planted my head into the carpet, put my knees on my elbows and then slowly raised my feet skyward, the congestion in my head magically disappeared. (Standing on one’s head, it seems, is much more effective than Vick’s Vapo Rub when it comes to nasal decongestion.)

Once I was in a perfect headstand, a smattering of applause broke out among the parents, but I was far from done. After 15 or 20 seconds, I began my routine of more intricate positions. First came my scissors move, which was followed by more applause, then came the torso twist, and even more applause, and then came the real show-stopper, my parallel leg drop, which left everyone speechless. Finally, after several minutes, I lowered my legs back into their starting position, slowly raised my head off the floor and then suspended my body off the ground in a triangle formation using nothing but my hands. The place went nuts.

The other dad tried his best to match my upside-down prowess, but he crashed and burned in less than 10-seconds, drawing roars of laughter. It was all in good fun, and just what I needed to pick up my spirits. After that, the rest of the party was fairly normal – the kids ran around the house and played as the adults either chatted by the bar or watched Butler beat Florida in the NCAA Basketball Tournament on the large screen TV in the host’s basement.

As the evening wore on and the party began to fade, my wife informed me that I needed to take our middle daughter Ella to yet another party at her friend’s house on the other side of town – a karaoke party.

This was like dying and going to Heaven for Ella, who just so happens to be a good singer – maybe too good, because she never stops singing from the minute she wakes up until the minute she goes to bed. (I can’t say for sure if she continually sings while she’s in school, but I wouldn’t doubt it). She was giddy with excitement when I dropped her off, and the party’s hostess was just as giddy.

“When you stop back to pick up Ella, make sure you come in and have a beer," She said, "and maybe you could sing something too!"

I graciously nodded and said. “We’ll see – maybe.” But in my mind I was thinking, “No frickin’ way.”

I promised my wife I’d pick Ella up at 10 o’clock, but the phone rang at 9:30 and there was my daughter on the other line, begging with all her might to stay until 10:30.

“Dad, this party is sooooo much fun!” She said. “Can’t I stay until 11?”

This time it was my wife who was saying “No frickin’ way!”

Eventually we all compromised on 10:45.

So there I was, at quarter till 11, standing on the same porch I’d stood four hours earlier dropping off my daughter, only now I was picking her up and when the party’s hostess opened the door she was even giddier.

“GREG!” She squealed with delight. I looked over my shoulder to see if someone named Greg was standing behind me. No one was there.

“Come on in.” She said. “Take off your coat, grab a beer, you can’t leave until you sing – pharrtty rrhules.” She slurred happily.

“Yeah, well, I wish I could, but I really just came to pick up Ella.” I replied.

“Oh Greg!” She laughed. “You’re succhh a khhidder!”

The hostess was obviously a little tipsy, but she was a happy drunk, and one who apparently wouldn’t take no for an answer. Before I could decline the offer a second time, she had me by the arm and was leading me to the basement, where once again, for the second time that day, there was a strange mix of children and adults co-mingling in the very same space, but in a much different way.

“Hey everyone, Greg is here!” She announced as we walked into the party that definitely was in full swing.

Those who didn’t know me waved and nodded, those who did know me looked over my shoulder to see if some guy named Greg was standing behind me. He wasn’t.

“You guyzzz rrreeemember Grrreggg, rrrright?" She said. "He's susshhh a ghhoood shingggerrr! Heee’ssh goinggg to sshhinggg again tooonighhht!”

A cheer went up from the drunken crowd. My daughter Ella walked up to me and said, “Dad, who the hell is Greg?”

“I guess I am.” I said.

I’ve never been a big believer in reincarnation, but apparently everyone at the party who didn’t know me seemed to remember me from a previous occasion. So, near as I could figure, I’d either lived a previous life as some guy named Greg, or some guy named Greg, who looked a helluva a lot like me, had been at one of their previous karaoke parties and had really lit the joint up. Either way, it didn't look like I was going to get out of there without giving some kind of vocal performance.

“Dad, you’re not really going to sing are you?” Ella asked, somewhat horrified at the thought.

“Hell no, I’m not gonna sing!” I said.

Ella breathed a sigh of relief.

But then I winked at her and said. “But I think Greg just might.”

“Dad, don’t do it,” she pleaded, “it’s going to be soooo embarrassing.”

“Relax.” I said, “Take a look around Ella - everyone here is so plowed they’re not going to remember any of this anyway, and I’ve already embarrassed you in front of every one of your friends, so what have you got to lose?”

Ella knew it was a fight she couldn’t win, so she tried to limit the damage by looking through the karaoke songbook for me to try and find something I might actually be able to sing. That’s when I remembered my good luck – I was in day three of my head cold! Of all the nights to stumble unarmed into a karaoke party, this may have been the best.

“Don’t worry Ella.” I said confidently. “As long as they have some Doors tunes in that book, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

I knew if there was any singer whose vocal range wouldn’t present a problem for me, it was Jim Morrison’s, and with my cold, any song by The Doors was fair game. I really wanted to sing “Love Me Two Times” but the book had only three songs by The Doors: “Break on Through,” “Hello, I Love You,” and “Light My Fire.”

Of the three, “Light My Fire” seemed the easiest, so I told the karaoke master to cue me up. He did, but he told me I was 15th in the cue line.

"Fifteeeenthhhh!!!" The hostess said, somewhat shocked at the potential lengthy wait, " Thhisss is Grrreggg!!! You bedderrrrr mooove' emmm up, dammittt!!"

Apparently that did the trick because the next thing I knew I was on-deck.

Most of the songs I’d heard from my brief time in the basement were sappy, modern, top 40-Justin Bieber-type tunes sung by groups of pre-teen girls who stood a good five-feet behind the microphone rendering them barely audible, so the thought of unleashing some classic Jim Morrison on the unsuspecting crowd was a pleasant one.

I had a few minutes to think about the song I was about to sing and sort of get into the Jim Morrison mode. This was a bit of a problem since I was nearly twice Morrison’s age when he originally sang “Light My Fire” and let's face it, not only was I way older than Morrison, but I was nowhere near as Adonis-like. Heck, I’d never even seen a real life pair of leather pants let alone worn any. The last thing I wanted to do was bring shame to one of my favorite singers, (or my daughter) but I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing, even without leather pants, and I was willing to give it a try.

Before I knew it, the karaoke master was announcing my name … sort of.

“And now, ladies and gentleman, please welcome Greg to the stage as he sings “Light My Fire” by The Doors.

Without really trying, I’d somehow become the center of attention, but for some reason I didn’t mind. I took off my coat and handed it to Ella, and then I walked calmly to the makeshift stage in the middle of the basement where for maybe the first time that night, I removed the microphone from its stand and actually used it as it was meant to be used - namely somewhere closer to the singer's mouth than five feet away.

“Check one – check two.” I blurted into the mike, and for the first time since I’d arrived at the party, a healthy dose of volume bounced off the basement walls, startling everyone into attention - even the seventh grade crowd who'd never even heard of Jim Morrison, or The Doors.

“All right,” I said, “let’s do this!”

The karaoke master cued the music and immediately the song’s lyrics flashed on a projection screen hung on the far wall of the basement. I didn’t need the lyrics. I already knew the song by heart, so I ignored the projection screen and began to roam freely about the basement as the familiar opening organ riff to the classic tune filled the air. Without missing a beat, I began to smoothly croon the opening lines of the song:

You know that it would be untrue

You know that I would be a liar

If I was to say to you

Girl we couldn’t get much higher

I don’t know if it was any good or not, but it seemed pretty effortless, and I was having fun doing it.

Come on baby light my fire

Come on baby light my fire

Try to set the night on fire

Try to set the night on … Figh - uuurrrrrr!!!

I was really feeling it now, and the sheer volume of my deliverance pulled everyone in – even those at the bar in the far corner of the basement. The seventh grade crowd looked on in confusion, but I knew it was about to get even better after the song’s instrumental break.

The time to hesitate is through

No time to wallow in the mire

Try now we can only lose

And our love become a funeral pyre

I felt like I was in fine form. The notes were easy to hit, my voice felt rested and strong, it was if the "Lizard King" himself was channeling through me. I cruised through the next few stanzas gathering momentum along the way, making sure to amp up the volume and the intensity of my voice with each line. Finally, as the song drew closer to the end, it was time to really cut loose. I’d been waiting for this moment all along, and now it was here:

Come on baby light my fire

Come on baby light my fire

Try to set the night on fire

Try to set the night on fire

Try to set the night on fire

TRY TO SET THE NIGHT ON ---- FIGH--UUURRRRrrrrr!!!

The last line brought down the house. Even Ella seemed surprised that her old man could pull it off. I think she may even have been proud of me. The party hostess came over and congratulated me.

“GRRREGG!!!" She screamed, "Thhhat was awweshomme!!!

My ode to the past must have sparked something in the crowd, because the very next selection was Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”, but I was done singing for the evening. I’d had enough excitement for one day - from head-stand contests with basketball player's dads, to emulating Jim Morrison in front of adulating, drunken adults and shell-shocked, sober seventh graders, I was pretty sure there wasn’t much more I could expect, or want, from a 24-hour period, so I gathered up my daughter, said goodbye to everyone at the party, and went back to being Lon.

I think Greg would have been proud.

Jobless Journal - Trying hard to look up in a down world

Life is funny that way - bad for the squirrel, good for the vulture. It's all in how you look at it. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

I never considered myself to be a negative thinker. In my mind, at least, I always thought I was fairly positive. But the way you perceive yourself and the way you actually are don’t always jive – sort of like seeing yourself in a full length mirror at a hotel room right after you get out of the shower and you realize that no matter how svelte you thought you were, the truth is you’re packing on 10-extra pounds.

And that’s how it is with my outlook on life. In my mind things are just rosy, but when I stop and actually listen to the crap that comes out of my mouth, I can’t help but realize I’m really one cynical son-of-a-bitch.

This, I think, may be a problem as I try and plow forward on my own as a freelance photographer. Mainly because another huge personality flaw I possess is my uncanny ability to speak whatever is on my mind, no matter how proper the time or the place. Some folks find this trait refreshing, I guess because they always know where I stand. Others maybe not so much, especially when what I’m spewing forth is laced with a healthy dose of “that sucks” or “what a bunch of shits!”

Fortunately, these past three weeks of being unemployed have left me with plenty of time to not only do some job searching, but also some soul searching, which hopefully will give me the opportunity to improve not only myself, but my outlook on life as well.

I’m no shrink, but it seemed logical that the first step in trying to change my negativity and cynicism might be to find out why the hell I’m that way in the first place.

It was time to ask myself some hard questions. To peer into my past and find out why I’m like this. Could I simply be a creature of heredity? After all, my old man certainly isn’t the most positive guy on the planet. In fact, he can be such a downer I’m surprised he hasn’t put in a job application to take over for the Grim Reaper if or when the time comes.

Could it be that I’m simply turning into my old man?

As I thought about that harder, I remembered that my dad, the Grand Poobah of Doom himself, once told me that I was too “peptimistic.” (I wasn’t really sure where he came up with that one, but my old man’s vocabulary consists of hundreds of almost, but not quite actual words he tosses around with such clarity and assurance it makes him sort of a redneck version of Confucius.) It was a slap, to be sure. My own father, the most negative man on the planet, was telling me that I had a ruddy outlook on life - and that was when I was still in high school!

Since there’s nothing I can do about heredity, I tried to put those questions out of my head and focus on other factors contributing to my doomsday attitude. For example, does geography play a part? More specifically, does being a Cleveland sports fan have anything to do with my overall malaise?

It may sound stupid, but I’ve never known anything in my life but losing and being let down. I’m like one of Pavlov’s dogs in that way. As soon as a Cleveland Browns or Indians game starts, immediately I start to cower with fear waiting for the next way they'll figure out how to lose. It’s how I’ve been conditioned for 45-years. I don’t even know how to react if they win.

Maybe that’s why I felt such a sense of relief last March when my mother died, or this March when I was laid off. It was the worst-case scenario, but it’s also what I expected so it felt comfortable to me in a perverse way. Sadly, over the years, I’ve become used to gray skies and shitty weather ... of coming in second and expecting less.

And yet …

Well, that’s the funny part. I always thought of myself as being a positive thinker, of being able to do whatever I put my mind to, despite my cynicism. I have confidence in my abilities. I love to compete and I love to win - but I don’t mind getting beat either. I don’t take myself too seriously and I love to laugh. Plus, I think I have a pretty good perspective on what’s really important in life.

It’s a strange dichotomy being a cynic with a positive outlook. Like I told my dad back in high school, “Yeah, well, maybe you’re right – maybe I am peptimistic, but I like to think I’m optimistic too - let’s just say I’m an optimistic pessimist!”

This confused my father quite a bit until I explained it to him like this: “Life sucks Dad… but it could be worse!”

And that’s the mantra I’ve carried with me my whole life. Certainly, I’ve been dealt a great deal of heartache and hardship these past few years, and certainly I’ve done my fair share of complaining about life in general, but I’m proud to say that I don’t think I’ve complained all that much about the hand I’ve been dealt or the fairness of events that have taken place. I know there are no guarantees in life and I know things aren’t necessarily going to get any better, and, in fact, may even get worse. (If the Cleveland Browns have taught me anything, it is that.)

I always tell my kids that no matter how good you are at something, chances are there is someone else who is even better. But the good news, I tell them, is the same can be said in reverse – no matter how bad you are at something, there’s always someone who sucks even more!

For their sake, and my own, I’m going to try my damnedest to try and think more positively about the future. To that end I’ve vowed to stop watching the evening news and instead read a book. I also will no longer willingly root for the Cleveland Browns (or any other professional Cleveland sports team for that matter). In addition, I will only talk about the weather when it is sunny and warm with a gentle breeze and I will always drive safely with both hands on the wheel, without uttering so much as a whisper if someone cuts me off, tailgates me, or passes me on the right shoulder.

From this point forth, I also promise not to honk my horn or call someone a "selfish bastard" as I wait patiently behind them at a drive through ATM machine while they fuddle around in their purse and/or wallet for a good five minutes after they’ve finished their transaction before pulling up.

It won’t be easy. It’s hard not to be at least a little cynical from time to time, and to be honest, people who exude that smiley, positive, cheery “everything is so great” attitude tend to irritate the crap out of me and immediately make me think they’re completely full of shit. But from now on, I really, truly am going to try and be more positive, because let’s face it, things haven’t been going all that great lately. In fact, you might say things really suck right now.

The good news, I suppose, is that it could be worse!

Laid Off - Not working can be hard work!

Hanging out with nothing to do. Is it Heaven? Or is it Hell? (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

My mother always said it was better to be “pissed off” than to be “pissed on.” I always liked that saying, it made sense after all, but two weeks ago, something I never thought would happen to me, did in fact happen – I lost my job.

I was “laid off.”

A lot of things go through your mind when the carpet is pulled out from under your 26-year career as a photojournalist, but the one thing I couldn’t seem to shake from my head after the whole thing went down was the single burning question: Is it better to be “laid off” than to be “laid on?” Because being laid off certainly feels a lot like you’re being laid on.

It wasn’t like it was any big shock or anything, I could sense it coming for a month or so before it actually happened, but when it did happen, it still caught me by surprise. I can only relate the experience to watching a terminally ill loved one suffer for months, but when they actually die, somehow you’re still not ready for it. And like the death of a loved one, the death of a job – of a career – is just as painful, and the steps of dealing with that pain and grief are very similar.

First comes the relief. Why I felt relieved, I’m not sure, but it might have had something to do with the fact that it truly was over. No more walking on eggshells. No more uncertainty (as it pertained to my previous job). In essence, I was free and it felt pretty good, at least for a while – maybe an hour or two.

After that came another kind of uncertainty, and this one, I fear, may stick around awhile. This uncertainty leads to high anxiety – the kind that keeps you up at night while you try to find some way, any way, to think about something other than the fact that you are now unemployed for the very first time since you were 14-years-old.

But it’s not a constant. With the fear comes a dose of excitement. The “Hey, I don’t have to work today!” feeling. Unfortunately, that excitement is usually quickly replaced with the “Holy crap, I don’t have a job!” feeling of doom.

It’s a seesaw battle every day for a guy like me. It’s especially tough when you go from very much being sought after for 26-years, to suddenly no longer wanted - kind of like being Mel Gibson or Charlie Sheen, only I’m not cashing in on being bat-shit crazy.

Nobody can really predict how anything will come to an end in his or her lives, but I certainly would never have figured my last day of work would have ended the way it did – not in tears, but with a chuckle, sitting in an office being fired by the very same folks I’d photographed earlier in the day at a business expo where they were extolling on how great everything was going with our company and how the economy in Washtenaw County was on the upswing.

Well, I guess it's great for them – they’re still working.

The irony of the situation didn’t escape me, I laughed a little as they handed me my walking papers. The whole situation made me think of my mother, the very same woman who died last March nearly a year to the day I was being let go (from now on I proclaim we skip March completely and go straight to April) and even though she didn’t leave me much when she died, my mother did leave me with a sardonic sense of humor, one I knew I could rely on to help me get through this thing - how do you put a price on that?

So what now? I was already going through a full-blown mid-life crisis, now I was about to go through a full-blown mid-career crisis. What does a 45-year-old guy with mad skills do at this point in his life so he doesn’t go mad?

As it turns out, being unemployed is actually a pretty busy way of life. The filing for unemployment, trying to scrape up enough cash to buy camera gear, getting portfolios together, making calls, trying to remember to eat, sleep, and occasionally go to the bathroom, all eat up a great majority of time. It’s like I graduated from college again … or just died, I’m not really sure which.

Luckily, if my perspective was ever at stake, Mother Nature put an end to that by destroying half of Japan with an earthquake/tsunami combo the very next day, reminding me that my "so-called" problems were really just a hill of beans compared to being swept out to sea and drowned, or being slowly poisoned to death by nuclear fallout.

Who knows, maybe the Mayans were right. Maybe it’s all over in 2012 and all I gotta do is get to December and then the jig is up! (Or maybe they just got tired of making their calendar by the time they got to the year 2012 and they just stopped - hard to say).

The aftermath from the whole event has been fairly amazing, if not amusing. The other day I got a letter in the mail made out to me in scribbly children’s handwriting. There was no return address, but inside the letter was a Meijer gift card for $25 and a little typed note that said, “Please accept this gift, we feel really bad for you and your family.”

I was touched, and I did go out and buy dinner with the gift card, I just feel bad for the poor little guy (or gal) who probably envisions me standing all disheveled by the side of the road holding a cardboard sign that reads, “Will shoot family portrait for food.”

The amount of help I’ve received has only been surpassed by the amount of advice. Everyone seems to know what I should do, or at least, could do, with the rest of my life. Everyone, that is, but me.

“Now you can go and do something you’ve always wanted to do,” they tell me, “something you really love.

But what if you were already doing what you really loved? What if it was your dream job? What if the next job you get should have been your first job? You know, the one you hated so much you left it to go and do what you really wanted to?

It’s an interesting thought.

Soon, all the kind thoughts and support will begin to fade in much the same manner they fade in the weeks and months following a funeral. It's not that people won't, or don't still care, but life goes on, like it or not, whether you're alive or dead, working or unemployed.

In the meantime, I’ll try and stay a photographer and I think I’ll keep writing too; both bring me joy, and if I were to be swept out to sea tomorrow (or if the Mayans weren’t kidding around with this whole Armageddon/calendar business and the world really does come to an end in 2012) I’d rather not spend my last days doing anything other than what I’ve been doing for the past 25-years.

It’s the one thing I’m really good at and what I truly love to do.

Why change now?

Stuck - The Fine Art of Going Nowhere

Floating ... sinking ... going nowhere, doing nothing ... stuck! (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Today I’m stuck.

Stuck in a rut that I can’t seem to, and don’t really want to get out of. I was stuck yesterday too. And the day before that, and the day before that.

Every dream … every thought ... stuck in neutral, trapped in mud.

Hard as I try, I keep going back to the beginning - back to square one - doing the same thing over and over and over again. Just an endless cycle of spinning my wheels … going nowhere … doing nothing.

If I died today I guess I would have had a good life - a wife, three kids, a handful of plaques and a trophy or two. But today I don’t feel lucky. Today I don’t feel blessed. Today I just feel stuck.

I thought about exercising. I thought twice.

I thought about writing something funny. Nothing came to mind.

I thought about reading a book but turned on the TV instead. Nothing was on, 135 channels but not one thing.

I folded a load of laundry and pulled the vacuum cleaner out of the closet. I never plugged it in; I just put it back in the closet and left the floors dirty.

I opened the fridge to see if there was something good to eat even though I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t find anything so I shut the door. I opened it again just to make sure.

I walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror - I was old. I washed my hands even though they weren’t dirty. I dried my hands and then looked in the mirror again. Still old.

I felt my neck for a pulse – still alive.

I walked back into the kitchen and flipped through a stack of CD’s. I opted for quiet.

I grabbed my jacket and keys and opened the door. It was raining outside. Hard.

I hung my coat in the closet and threw my keys on the kitchen table. A wasted day, a wasted week, a wasted month, a year, a life. No ambition. No motivation. No stimulation. Just emotional straightjacket, spiritual quagmire, buried-in-an-avalanche stuck.

It won’t last forever, probably not even the rest of the day, but right now I’d trade places with just about anyone else in the world.

Today I’m a loser, a whiner, and a complainer. I have no positive thoughts, not a one. Today I’m miserable and shitty.

Today I suck. I wouldn’t want to be me if I had a choice. But I don’t. I’m stuck with my no-good-rotten self for the rest of the day, probably tonight too. Maybe tomorrow will be different.

Maybe tomorrow I grease the skids and move forward, if just a little.

Maybe tomorrow I don’t look so old or feel so worthless.

Maybe tomorrow the sun comes out and dries up the rain.

Maybe I do 50 push ups and break a sweat. Maybe I eat something healthy and go for a run.

Maybe I write something funny or go for a drive. Maybe I take a good picture or chat with a stranger.

... Or maybe tomorrow I wake up and stare at the ceiling for an hour before I get out of bed. Maybe I don’t get out of bed at all. Maybe it never ends. Maybe I stay like this till the end of my days.

It’s not that great, but it’s not so bad.

Sometimes I'm fine standing still, doing nothing, going nowhere. Sometimes heaviness and doom are my friends. Sometimes it’s better being worse.

Sometimes I just want to be stuck.

But sometimes I don't.

Sleepless in Ann Arbor - Things that make me go, hmm?

If only my brain had one way. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

I don’t sleep much these days. Actually, I guess it’s been about 14-years since my last good night of sleep.

Back then I could blame my lack of slumber on my newborn daughter. Two years later, my second daughter was the culprit, and then 16-months after that, my son - infants, especially breastfed ones, make a night of uninterrupted, blissful sleep pretty much impossible.

The problem was once they started sleeping through the night, I found that I still couldn’t. Somewhere in those five years my body became programmed to wake up every few hours to unite a crying infant with its mother’s boob, wait for them to tank up, and then return them to their crib.

And that’s where I stand today – minus the baby, boob and crib parts.

I may have the world’s largest diseased prostate gland but I’ll probably never know because even though I routinely wake up and take trips to the pisser in the middle of the night, I’m pretty sure my prostate isn’t to blame. Sometimes a funky dream is the guilty party, but more often than not it’s my maladjusted biological clock combined with an extremely overactive brain.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to shut off my brain.

Ever.

And it’s not like every thought entering my skull that wakes (or keeps) me up at night is even worthwhile. If I stayed awake worrying about financial woes or my health or something like that, it might make sense, but usually I’m thinking about something stupid like: I wonder if everyone sees color the same way? Is my green the same as your green? What if we only both know it to be green because that’s how our brains have been trained? What if my green actually looks like your red?

This is the kind of shit that keeps me up - and when I’m up, my brain really starts a grinding.

I wonder what will keep me up tonight? (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Here’s a small sample of some random thoughts that were bouncing around my noggin this very morning between 5 and 5:15 when I awakened for no apparent reason.

How can BP pump billions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for the better part of a year and gas prices don’t budge, and even go down, but lately if a camel farts in the Middle East, gas prices shoot up 30 cents a gallon overnight?

Are people just religious because they’re afraid of death? And if so, why isn’t that fear strong enough to make us glorify Jesus with amazing paintings like the kind Caravaggio painted during the Baroque period? That was some good art!

Why is it that spring is the only season that doesn’t already feel like it’s arrived when it finally does? I mean it already feels like summer well before June 21st, and it already pretty much feels like fall by September 21st, and it for sure feels like winter long before December 21st, so why doesn’t it already feel like spring well before March 21st?

If students are smart enough to get into college (say the University of Michigan, for example) why then, aren’t they smart enough to look both ways before walking out into the street? And why is college when most of them start smoking? Certainly they’re smart enough to know that cigarettes aren’t good for them. Not to mention they’re twice as likely to drink themselves to death than any other demographic.

If I had to lose one body part, which one could I do without? What if it were just a finger? A toe? An organ? How about senses? Would I rather be blind, deaf, or dumb? Would I miss it if I couldn’t smell anymore, or would it be a blessing?

Should I get rid of my 3-iron and put another hybrid in my golf bag?

Will I ever get cancer? I wonder if I have it now but don’t know it yet? Do you not have cancer one day, and then the next day you do?

Did the folks who jumped out of the Trade Center even know what was going on at the time? I wonder if they felt a strange sense of calm as they fell to their deaths?

What if I won the lotto and threw away the ticket without ever checking my numbers? If I did win, would I really be happier, or just less broke?

Why does hair appear in so many different places on my body at different times of my life? I had plenty of hair on my head for 20-plus years, and now it’s mostly gone, but I have plenty on my chest and my back, and lately in my ears and my nose. Even my eyebrows are starting to look a little too Thomas Edison these days. My legs, however, are smooth as a baby’s ass when they used to be plenty hairy – what’s up with that?

Is my mother really dead, or is she just playing a cruel joke on all of us? Can she hear what I’m thinking right now, or is she just rotting away in her casket? I wonder how long before she’s nothing but bones?

Why do we equate heaven with the sky and the clouds, and why do we think dead relatives are always favorably looking down on us? What if they’re really disgusted by us and are hoping we don’t die soon because they’re enjoying their time away from us? If there really is a heaven, how far back does it date? I mean could Thomas Jefferson be having a tryst with Anna Nicole Smith right now? (Assuming, of course, they’re both in heaven).

What is so hard about golf that I couldn’t become a professional? I mean it’s really nothing more than getting your body to repeat the same thing over and over again with a great amount of consistency and mental fortitude. Why couldn’t I do it?

I wonder if my kids will ever get married? I wonder if any of them are gay and don’t know it yet? I wonder what they’ll be when they grow up? I wonder if they wonder what they’ll be when they grow up?

Are dreams really just little slices of what it’s like after you die? You know, not always good, but always very interesting. Or do you just fade to a black nothingness and that’s it?

If I took every day of my life when I was sick, or just had a headache, and added them all up, I wonder how many weeks, or months of my life I will have wasted feeling like crap?

When do criminals turn bad? We all start out innocent babies; at what point does someone start down the wrong path? Are some people truly just evil? How can that be?

Do people really die in their sleep, or do they wake up first in a terrified panic alone in the dark? Is drowning truly the most painful way to die? I wonder if you know you’re going to die the second before a fatal car accident? How does anyone know?

Where should I put my son in the batting order this year?

How come some people can play musical instruments so well, and other people really suck?

If the world were made up of nothing but people like me, how many businesses would go bankrupt in less than a month?

Why do dogs like humans so much?

Is anybody really, truly happy?

Why the hell can’t I just shut off my brain and go back to sleep?

Hmm? Now I have one more thing I have to think about ... CRAP!!!

Family Portrait

The Horwedel kids - circa 1982. (Photo by Olan Mills Studios)

The coupon came in the mail one day in late August of ‘82. Normally, a coupon like that would be tossed in the trash (like 95% of all our other junk mail, and occasionally the actual mail too if my old man got to it first) but for some reason my mother saved this coupon and set it aside.

None of us kids paid any attention to the mail – that was mom’s job – so I don’t think any of us even noticed the coupon or what it was for. We also hadn't noticed the fact that my mother had been scheming to get us into a portrait studio for a few years. The coupon for a free sitting at Olan Mills Studio and a $15 - 8 x 10 was just the final push she needed.

“Kids, we haven’t had a family portrait in nearly five years.” She said to us, seemingly out of the blue one day. “I’ve got this coupon for Olan Mills in Sandusky, I think we should get one done before you all go back to school.”

Looking back, I can see my mom’s point. I was about to be a senior in high school, my sister Dina was off to her first year of college, my brother Lance was going to be a freshman in high school, and my other brother Duke was a seventh grader – it was hard to say when any of us would be living under the same roof again after that summer, and I think my mom wanted to make sure she marked that transitional time in her kid’s lives (and hers too) by having us sit for a formal portrait.

That was where my mother severely underestimated the amount of resistance with which her idea would be met.

“Ahh, for Christ’s sake Mom, none of us wants to wear some stupid monkey suit to some stupid portrait studio so we can roast our asses off under some hot lights for two hours!” I complained.

“Yeah Mom, Lon’s right.” Lance chimed in. “Why can’t we just set up a tripod and shoot one ourselves?”

“Because I know you guys too well.” My mom said. “You’ll probably go and do something moronic … besides, Lon can’t print color in his darkroom and Olan Mills can. Now just make your mother happy and go and do this Goddammit!”

“Fine!” I snorted, “But I’m not wearing a stinkin’ suit.”

As luck would have it, I didn’t have a suit that fit anyway. Nor, it turns out, did my brothers. We’d all been victims of growth spurts that summer (thank God) and my mother soon realized that the $15 – 8 x 10 could well cost her hundreds of dollars is she were to outfit her three sons in new suits for the portrait.

Quietly, we all breathed a sigh of relief, except, of course my mother, who wasn’t so easily deterred.

“Well, just wear dress shirts then.” She said sternly.

“Awww Mom, c’mon!” We complained in unison.

“Look, you’re getting the picture taken and you’re going to look nice.” She fired back.

“Wait – whaddaya mean ‘you’re getting the picture taken?’ Don’t you mean ‘we’re’ getting the picture taken?” I asked.

“Oh no! I’m not getting my picture taken.” My mother said, realizing for the first time that maybe we had the upper hand.

“And why not?” I asked.

My mother fished around for a good excuse, but all she could come up with was: “Because I just got my hair cut and I look like a damned squirrel.”

“Well if you ain’t doin’ it, we ain’t doin’ it!” I said.

My mother calmly lit up a cigarette, gave me her patented "evil eye" and then blew a puff of smoke in my face.

“Guess again!” She said.

It didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem right. But we kids knew what we had to do. We loved our mother very much. We couldn't let her down. That’s why we knew it was both in her, and our, best interest to directly disobey her.

As painful as we knew it might be, we surely didn’t want to saddle my poor mother with some cheesy portrait - one that didn’t reflect the true, rebellious individuals she had raised. We needed to give her something that was uniquely us … something she could really be proud of … something she wouldn’t soon forget! A photo she would cherish for years to come – one that would more accurately reflect the individual spirit in all her kids, but most importantly, one she would never place on a mantle or a wall anywhere in the house. Even if it meant she was going to kick our asses when she saw the finished product.

Getting all four siblings on the same page was the easy part. None of us wanted any part of a formal sitting anyhow, so once we decided to change “formal” to “abnormal” we actually started looking forward to the photo session.

The first part of the ruse was for us boys to pick out dress shirts and ties from the closet we shared, making sure we complained every step of the way so my mother wouldn’t become suspicious. My sister actually orchestrated the whole thing, and for the first time in our childhood, we actually worked together as a team. It wasn’t exactly "Oceans 11" or anything, but it was pretty exciting. There we were, trying to pull a fast one on our mother – the same woman who had brought all of us into the world - and the same woman who let us know as often as possible she could just as easily take us out.

Picking out clothes we had no intention of wearing was easy - picking out clothes we actually wanted to wear proved a little more daunting. My sister kept waffling back and forth between something slutty Goth, or something slutty punk, eventually settling for a hybrid of the two complete with a plastic lobster. My brother Lance quickly chose a “British rock star” look, which wasn’t much of a stretch since he was a really good guitarist already. My youngest brother Duke had his sights set on a military look, which also wasn't much of a problem until he threatened to boycott the whole thing when we told him he couldn’t bring real weapons to the sitting. We got him to change his mind when we told him he could smoke one of my dad’s cigars instead.

I, unfortunately, had no idea what the hell I was going to wear. I toyed with the idea of showing up in just my underwear since I had been a notorious streaker as a child, but my sister had her reservations about the photographer even taking a photo of us dressed as we were, let alone mostly nude.

Eventually I settled on a very unoriginal “We are the 80’s” look, complete with a dorky headband it looked like I stole from Olivia Newton John, and an open shirt with an arrowhead necklace I actually did steal from my dad.

Once our outfits were chosen, we stuffed them into a gym bag and hid them in the back of our 1976 Gran Torino station wagon. As luck would have it, my mother scheduled our photo session on a weekday in the early afternoon, meaning my dad would still be at work. Our other stroke of luck happened to be the fact that our mother didn’t drive - that and she was more than happy to get us the hell out of the house for a few hours, meaning she wouldn’t be along for the session either.

Unsupervised, it was our responsibility to make good on our promise to our mother, but it was even more important to make good on our mission to remain ourselves.

A mile out of town, I quickly pulled the station wagon off the road into a cornfield I often went parking with my high school girlfriend. Once safely out of view, my brothers, my sister and I, changed out of our dress clothes and into our official portrait session attire. If any of us had second thoughts, none of us voiced them.

We remained nervously quiet the rest of the drive to Sandusky. I think we were more afraid of getting into trouble from the photographer than we were my mom. At that point it didn’t matter. We pulled into the Olan Mills parking lot without saying a word. My sister checked her hair and makeup in the rearview mirror one last time as I grabbed the coupon off the front seat. Lance snatched his guitar out of the back of the station wagon and slammed the tailgate shut. Duke stepped out of the car, glanced out over Lake Erie, and lit his cigar.

The four of us walked shoulder to shoulder toward the studio. As we approached the front door, a well-dressed family of four who had just finished their session, exited the studio. They froze, somewhat horrified at our sight. The dad grabbed up his wife and two little girls, both dressed in pink frilly dresses, and pulled them away from us.

“Excuse me sir.” I said politely.

My brother Duke just tipped his army helmet and calmly said, “Good day, Ma’am.”

Behind us we heard the nice family of four scurrying through parking lot, followed by the sound of slamming doors and tires squealing. Ahead of us we heard the gasp of the studio receptionist when she saw us walk into the waiting room.

“Is my three o’clock here yet Phyllis?” The photographer shouted from the studio in the back room.

Phyllis wasn’t quite sure if we were the three o’clock, or if we were there to rob the joint. My sister and I assured her that we meant no malice, and we were, indeed, her three o’clock appointment. While we were talking to Phyllis, the photographer popped his head in to see what was taking so long. When he caught sight of us he stopped dead in his tracks and did a double take.

Duke snapped his heels together and saluted him.

A moment of awkward silence followed as the photographer looked us over. Phyllis waited for someone to say something or tell her what to do. Silence continued to hang in the air when a huge ash broke off the end of Duke’s lit cigar and flitted down onto the floor. Seconds later, the photographer erupted in laughter.

Soon, we all were laughing - even Phyllis (nervously).

“Come on in kids.” The photographer said, still chuckling and shaking his head in disbelief. “But son, first you have to put out that cigar.”

In the end, everything worked out just fine, and even though he made my brother put out his cigar (he did let him keep it in his mouth) I’d like to think we made that photographer’s day. He still posed us in an awfully formal fashion, but in some ways it made the picture even more funny and unique.

After the shoot was over, we drove back to the same cornfield and changed back into our duds. When we arrived back at the house my mother asked us how things went.

“Ahh … just fine." I said, "It wasn’t so bad after all.”

Like I said earlier, the mail was always my mother’s thing, so none of us knew for sure when D-Day would arrive, we just knew we were in for an ass-whoopin’ when it did. Then, one day while we were watching TV in the living room, we heard my mother crying in the kitchen. Not knowing what possibly could be wrong, we went to check it out, and there, on the kitchen table were roughly eight proofs from our photo shoot.

Slowly, we began backing away, fully expecting her to wield a wooden spoon from underneath the table and start smacking us upside our heads. But she was unarmed (not even a measuring cup) and she couldn’t stop crying. Soon, we realized she was crying from laughter.

We couldn’t believe it, our plan had actually worked! We’d directly disobeyed her wishes by trying to capture the essence of our individualism with our quirky portrait and our mother seemed to truly appreciate it.

My mother liked the portrait so much she proudly displayed it in our house right up until the day she died last March. The week she died, my brothers, my sister and I, found ourselves under the same roof for the first time in a long time, just like my mother had predicted nearly 30-years earlier.

We looked through a lot of family photo albums that week, but I think I can safely say our favorite photo came from that hot afternoon in late August, when we all piled into our Gran Torino station wagon and headed west toward the Olan Mills Studio in Sandusky, Ohio, with the warm summer wind in our hair, and cigars a blazin'!

(For the record, we had so much fun the first time at the Olan Mills Studio; we actually made a repeat performance the very next year – with coupon in hand, of course.)