Dan the man

Spend time with myself. Every morning I wake up around 4:00-4:30 am, just me and the quiet I splash cold water on my face to get the sleep out of my eyes, I do some stretching and sometimes I hang upside down on my inversion table, that really gets the blood flowing to the brain. Once I’m fully awake I start coffee and see what the weather is like if it’s nice enough I sit outside and have coffee, the sky is still black the only noise is the creek in the front of the house. I look around at nothing but trees and forest the closest neighbor has their outside lights on mine went off hours ago so it’s dark, very dark this is my time. No TV no internet no cellphone just me and the world around me. Daybreak is about 5:30 the sky begins to brighten nature begins to awaken. First the birds start singing their morning songs the morning breeze moves through the leaves of the trees the sky gets brighter. The first of the three people who go to work drive by 10:00 minutes later the second and 30 minutes after them the third. I don’t know them they live in the same neighborhood as us, but we’re in the mountains and close neighbors are far away and I believe we all live here for the same reason, to get away from people, from the grind from the world up here it just us and nature.

To pass time and to show friends and family what we’re doing. It’s kinda funny how that leaves a bad taste in my mouth like we’re bragging about our lives, l remember as a child we would go to visit friends as a family and the adults would set up chairs and there was a movie screen set up and a film projector or sometimes a slide projector and they would play a movie or show slides of their recent vacation and there was a lot of questions and answers and talk of dream vacations. My parents were very humble at least my dad was, but my mom was a little showy and if it got too much my dad had to talk with her about spending money and showing off. We were a generation of hand me downs and frugality mom was proud of her ability to manage the household expenses, having to feed and clothe four boys had to been hard, but she managed to save a little bit here and there and get herself a little something so she could still feel like a woman. It’s that kind of upbringing that keeps me and my brothers from not putting much on social media. Ours wives on the other hand seem completely comfortable to put more than we would and I like I’m sure my brothers have to have the talk with my wife about how much to share so she does a lot of private sharing. Her family and culture view it with pride my family and culture not so much, but I have over the years changed myself and see the success of others as their business not mine. So for me it’s finding the line in the sand which is why I have never found success on social media.

Drinking smoking and carrying on. The smoking I started around fifteen years old and did until I was thirty eight years old. I wasn’t a heavy smoker maybe a pack a day on a bad day. I also started smoking pot around the same time which led to eating mushrooms and acid and I really enjoyed that time, I saw some amazing things that I tried to describe but failed every time. On a Friday night we would stand outside a package store and ask people to buy beer for us because we were underage eventually someone always did and then we would go hang out, a store parking lot or the woods anywhere we felt we wouldn’t draw attention to ourselves. We would smoke and drink talk until all hours, that would all change once one of us got our drivers license. Driving under the influence wasn’t a big thing when I got my drivers license even if you got pulled over you would be able to talk your way out of it as long as you were coherent and the policeman weren’t under the same strict standards that they are today and I believe it’s because they knew you, knew your family and friends most likely you were in school with their son or daughter so they cut you some slack and followed you home and had sure you got into the house. Thankfully I quit all those bad habits and for years I didn’t drink or do dope, I adopted a healthier lifestyle and smoking was my only vice.

Hancock, he’s got all the great powers will be drunk and disorderly doesn’t give a shit and can still fight the bad guys. His only kryptonite is women of his same kind, easy fix find a human like his ex did problem solved.

I think dogs make the best pets. I’ve had about eight or ten dogs all of different breeds, mostly mutts because they seem to be the most loyal. I’ve had cats and I will say everything people say about cats living on their terms is correct, they own you not the other way around and you better keep that litter box clean or else there will be a surprise waiting for you when you get home. Having fish makes no sense to me, you’re going to spend money, a lot of money and for what? To watch them swim in the prison cell you call an aquarium? You can get the same exact thing on your smart TV without all the maintenance. My first wife liked exotic birds so we had two parrots not the little ones the big expensive ones that talk very well. And they live like eighty or ninety years, when we got them we had to get a big cage nearly six feet tall so it takes up a ton of room at first it was fun we would clip their wings and nails and teach them different words and we would leave the radio on for them. We had good intentions but they just never stopped talking, to quiet them they told us to put a blanket over the cage and they would think it’s nighttime and sleep well that was bullshit because they would panic and scream until you took the blanket off. So the last pet I had was a dog that my ex took with her and that was thirty plus years ago, it turns out I am okay just taking care of myself and honestly I won’t shit in your bed or maybe I will.

There was a time in my life maybe thirties to fifties when I could connect with people at a level that even had me thinking “How”. I believed I could have sold just about anything even burial plots. Many people have told me I have a gift of really understanding people even women which I always had an uncanny ability with. I could talk a nun out of her BVDs roll in the hay all night and she would have no regrets. Woman are drawn to me like a moth to the flame. My wife of the past ten years gets the best of me because all her friends connected with me in ways I never believed possible and in my youth I would most likely to them up on it because I have and it’s a shitty thing to do and hurts more people than you realize, but and I’m not making excuses here but the relationships I was in in the past didn’t have the comfort of my marriage now, my wife gives me everything I was looking for she’s the complete package. I had great relationships, but they all had at least one red flag and I would overlook it for the sake of the relationship, the trouble with that is all those red flags add up until you can no longer stay quiet and then that conversation becomes an argument filled with words you never wanted to say, but they flowing out of your mouth faster than your mind can tell you to stop. After that it’s a few months of “trying “ only to fail miserably and both of you want to strangle each other. So after a few relationships like that I stayed single and slept around because it was easy for me, but it also made me look at myself and I realized I was a douche bag big time. When I met my wife I wasn’t looking for anyone and I didn’t just fall head over heels in love with her, those first few months when desire is strong and you’ll overlook anything to get her in the sack it was nothing like that she wanted to more than me but I wanted to wait and see how this goes. This year marks our ten year anniversary and there was never a red flag or puppy love or any of that nonsense it’s been a dream come true for me I love her in ways I can’t describe she showed me the best version of myself and for that I owe her exactly that.

Well, we moved from southwest Florida for a few reasons the weather was one of them. The past five or six years had been miserable with a seemingly endless summer and that means running the A/C 24/7 and that sucked big time. I always looked forward to winter because I could shut off the A/C open the windows and enjoy nature, after years of constant A/C we moved to the mountains of NC. Much better weather wise, windows open for six or seven months a few cold months and done. The best season there is fall because of the leaves changing and the colder temperatures, this year we decided to go to Thailand from February to May and the weather here is blistering hot with overnight temperatures in the mid eighties, apparently March and April are their hottest months and honestly I don’t know why we decided to come here then, but we are and it’s hot so we’ve been traveling to the beach often and the mountains as well. All and all I love the fall in western NC.