Celebrating my birthday has always been anticlimactic mostly in my adult life, but even in my youth I felt I was overshadowed by my two older brothers and their birthdays and other accomplishments. So it’s no wonder that as I grew older I wouldn’t even acknowledge my birthday it just didn’t have any relevance, just another day and I was fine with that. The women that loved me felt differently, they wanted a party a reason to have people over to celebrate with us and I never understood why, but I loved them and they loved me so I didn’t really have a say in it. During my single years I celebrated my birthday quietly, alone with myself usually at the beach after a great dinner at a nice restaurant because I was never ashamed to take myself to dinner. The last ten years with my beautiful wife is on a completely different level she celebrates everything, that was something I had to grow into and honestly I am so glad I did because anything that warms the heart or puts a smile on my face is priceless. This year we have the pleasure of celebrating both of our birthdays in Thailand, a first for me and when my wife get the family together there is a abundance of love and laughter, we barely understand one another but the message is clear, “ we love you” it’s that simple, but it’s everything kind in the world. There’s no gifts to exchange just food cooked with more love than you can ever imagine and the smiles that light up the room. There’s simplicity or the whole thing is remarkable, there’s no disappointment because there’s no expectation, the memories are the greatest gift because I can share them.
Category: Uncategorized
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Which animal would you compare yourself to and why?
A Platapus mostly because I feel people look at me scratch their head and say what the fuck!?!? I’m not much to look at, certainly no eye candy and my body is not the wonderland it used to be, but I’m capable and can adapt to nearly any environment and fit in with many different social classes. I am well versed in a variety of topics and am smart enough to avoid politics and religion as a topic of discussion. I’m a survivor for what ever reason I am still here.
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The photo shows two prescriptions I bought in Thailand. The reason goes back nearly one year. After twenty seven years of living in Venice Florida I wanted to move, we have family in the mountains of NC. So we decided if we got the chance we would move, we did so we packed all our stuff and left Venice to our new home in NC. The house we moved to was fully furnished with a hot tub which is awesome because I sold ours in Venice because I didn’t want to move it. Once we got settled in I treated the hot tub with the chemicals the owner provided, well after a week or so I was getting dry skin, it was spotting and I thought maybe it was eczema or some other skin problem and bought some eczema cream and that was it. Over time it came and went and I didn’t want to go to a doctor that will just write me a prescription with a bunch of unwanted side effects and I’m a patient man so the cream was good enough for me. We we left for Thailand a few weeks ago it was nearly gone and I wasn’t even thinking about it, but when we got to our house in Bangkok and I started hitting the pool every day the dry spots came back and again it wasn’t that bad, but my wife wanted to do something about it and we stopped at a pharmacy near our house I showed the pharmacist my spots he and my wife talked for a bit and he gave me a blister pack with eight pills (a antibiotic of some sort) and a bottle of oil and told me to use both in the morning and in the evening. Both prescriptions cost about $3.50 America dollars hell I throw away more than that on lottery tickets so if it works great if it doesn’t no problem. after eight days it all cleared up. I still use the oil because there’s still about three quarters of a bottle left and I am back in the pool with no problems at all. I’m fairly certain that in America it would have cost way more than what I spent here and yes I know the cost of the plane ticket my point is in America I couldn’t walk into a CVS or Walgreens without a prescription from the doctor who’s visit would have cost a couple of hundred dollars, but here it’s very simple and affordable.
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What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?
Mark is my middle name it’s also the name of my first born son. Both my parents were devout Catholics and other that my oldest brother (who is named after my father) us three brothers are all bible names. Either the first or middle or in my case both first and middle, maybe they wanted me to become a priest who knows, but they didn’t have a book of baby names to refer to so my generation was named either from the bible or from previous generations. I’m fine with the bible name because I would not want to be called some of the men’s names in my family. Not that I would know the difference and care I would just make up a nickname I liked, thankfully I didn’t have to I am happy to be Daniel Mark. God bless.
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What is the last thing you learned?
I am learning to speak Thai if that’s even possible for me and honestly I don’t think I really need to know a lot of it. My wife is Thai and we’ve been together for ten years and I never saw a need to know that much about the language, but now we’re spending more time in Thailand she feels as I do that I should be able to speak to people even if it’s just to ask questions, I say why I wouldn’t understand the answer. I have picked up quite a bit of Thai mostly through my wife, but now I’m understanding more of the conversation that happens while we’re in the car with her family or during a transaction at the store so all and all I am pretty satisfied with the amount that I do know, because I will tell you for me communication is not the key to a happy marriage and if I ever do become fluent in Thai I would not want to know what she’s saying so I am ignorant and it’s blissful.
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What experiences in life helped you grow the most?
There are so many experiences in life I think the key is to recognize the ones that impact the most. usually it’s the ones that are the worse, the ones that hurt the most that crush your soul until you no longer want to go on. As a child experiences should be enjoyable like a friends birthday party or a Christmas filled with gifts or that hurt enough to teach you but not change you. Your first crush that didn’t turn out like you wanted, a broken heart can hurt and be a great lesson in life. Adulthood brings some downright terrifying experiences, the world of the unknown like how happy your marriage is going to be only to find out your in the wrong marriage, she wasn’t the one that’s after two wonderful experiences with the birth of your sons and then the horrible experience of divorce which robs you of your will to live or do anything but die. That experience alters your soul, crushes your heart to where you physically feel your heart breaking and can do nothing. Time is a great healer, it’s different for everyone for me it was many years filled with terrible experiences and very few good ones. I wouldn’t say I’m a better man today than twenty five years ago there are way too many scars on my heart and soul to say I’m better or worse different for sure, but that’s the beauty of experiences good and bad they shape us into the people we see in the mirror today and without them there isn’t that person.
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If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?
The only reason I wanted to be anyone else was for money. So it would be bezos buffet or Zuckerberg, but that was years ago when I was younger and more ignorant to the world. And at one point it was the president only out of curiosity it seems to be a very stressful job. Now I would love to be Dalhi lama. He seems to be living the best life, a very calm and content existence free from the stress of chasing paychecks or fame and fortune just waking up grateful for the day. No meetings no clocking in/out no politics to muck up the day just love, I mean who wouldn’t want that is the question. I look at the super rich mega wealthy and wonder what their life is like. Money makes people worse than what they already are so can you trust the people around you? What does it take to manage the wealth they have. I will take a headache free day any day and who can put a price on a good nights sleep.
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Every year my wife and I go to Thailand, we have a home there and will spend more time there in the future. We love getting massages and found this place not far from our house four years ago, the owner knows us and gives us discounts because we go twice a week while we’re there. The staff there are more professional than other places we’ve been to I don’t need a happy ending while my wife is lying next to me, but no matter what for me there is a intimacy that comes with getting a massage after all she’s going to be taking care of you for at least two hours. At the start my wife and I are next to each other and she gives instructions to the girl taking care of me, sore back, spend extra time there, arms too. She get right to it, there’s no conversation we will spend fifteen or twenty minutes in a massage fore play connecting to each other, she’ll feel my body’s response to her touch, I will not shriek in pain when she finds those stubborn muscles that just won’t soften. That’s when our bond becomes stronger she’s working harder more determined to get a rise out of me, but I will never utter a sound as she pokes and pulls at my body in search of a reaction to her labor. Tears run down my face, but are hidden in the darkness, she twist my body in an attempt to break me and I find out later that she was impressed with my flexibility. Years of martial arts and yoga keep this plus sized dude flexible. An hour and a half into it she starts the healing process, she has given up trying to break me and now starts to heal and comfort me which brings us closer than ever as close as lovers, emotions are high and the desire is strong. At the end we’re both spent, she’s panting and a little sweaty, I’m satisfied and a little sleepy, we’re coming down from a two hour massage that’s not unlike a two hour love making. The human spirit will always amaze me. My wife pays the bill and sets our next appointment, she gives me tip money to give the girl who is more than grateful and quietly hopes she’s working the day we show up again. Because we’re the heaviest tippers that go there.
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We have been very blessed to have the ability to travel. As a child I believed travel was solely for the wealthy as I grew older and realized anyone can travel, but my upbringing and mindset was you have all you’ll ever need right here. When I built my pan head I traveled locally, it’s not really traveling it’s riding around to new places less than a days ride from home. I never flew until I was in my late thirties it was down to Florida and I loved it, and Florida was the first state I had been to outside New England. It’s exotic, tropical and way different than CT. I loved it so much I moved there and lived there for twenty seven years. I met my Thai wife there and she loves to travel, we’ve been to a handful of different countries, but home for us is USA and Thailand. So now we’re heading to Thailand for a couple of months for some needed R&R plus I learn more about the culture of those beautiful people. The main thing I learned traveling to different countries is to respect their culture and way of life, who am I to tell them they should be living as I do? Believe as I do? American culture is diverse a million different ways, but when you are invited into people’s homes you must respect their live behind the front door. Same as with going to different countries and most other countries are not as diverse as America, but if you don’t want to end up in a foreign jail obey the laws of their land… if not say home. Yeah, it’s that simple.
Dan the man 