We Are Not Trees (a serious note)

Trees are amazing things. They grow up tall and strong. Almost all trees have leaves that are green and many turn bright orange, red and yellow in the fall. Trees offer shade in the heat of summer. Their strong arms can be a home or a resting place for a weary traveler like a bird or a child. Those big strong arms can lend a hand in helping a climbing imagination’s reach for the sky. Trees can blossom with beautiful flowers; some are even fragrant. Trees always have some kind of bark. Sometimes the bark grows thick and hard while other bark is thin and fragile. Sometime’s people take a knife and cut into the bark. They can cut in a word or symbol to mark time. Those cuts will not kill the tree. The tree will continue to grow but those cuts will always be there as a reminder of that moment in time. After years that mark may be almost impossible to find but it is still there, if you know exactly where to look.

It is easy to look at a tree and think of it as big and strong but every tree is different. Some are very strong and hard and can withstand almost anything. Some trees are soft and can easily split or break under very little pressure. Some trees are not all that strong but they can bend and no matter how terrible the storms are around them, they will bend and sway but almost never break.

People are a lot like trees. As adults we all look big and strong; it is just assumed. Some of us grow taller than others. Some blossom and are beautiful to behold. People can be watered and fed and nurtured and grow into big healthy adults. With the power of the sun, some of us may even turn bright red but it is rarely a beautiful site. We can grow to support others who need a place to rest and we can also be a great resource to add fun and joy to another person’s life. We can help to inspire the imaginations of those around us. Just like trees, we are not all strong and some of us will easily break. Some of us can snap under very little pressure while others seem to be able to survive life’s storms no matter how difficult the circumstances. Many adults, at some time in their lives, have been cut, scared by someone whose words or actions have left an impression on them. These actions didn’t kill anyone but they did leave a scar that will not go away. That scar might even be almost impossible to see, unless you know exactly where to look…but we are not trees. We are so much more. Deep inside we hurt. The cuts will heal but the pain remains. We are emotional beings that love and hurt, remember and dream.

Trees are large and powerful. We look at them sometimes in wonder but forget that we are only looking at half the tree. Deep beneath the earth are the roots. They may be just as large as the tree itself yet, for the most part, they are hidden from the human eye. Those roots have helped to nourish the tree and have helped it to grow strong and tall. Not only have those roots helped to determine the health and life of the tree, they are what keep it standing tall. Without those roots, a mighty tree would fall in even the slightest of storms. Many trees of the same type will grow up to look the same. Even though they may look similar, many are very different indeed. This is because of what we do not know, what we cannot see, the roots that are under that tree. Some are surrounded in healthy fertile soil while others are shallow and end at a bed of hard, unforgiving rock. People can be the same way.

Some people have grown up surrounded by healthy nurturing families and friends. They are strong, stand tall and can weather almost anything that life throws their way. Some people, on the other hand, have not been so lucky. Their roots run shallow and have no support around them to lean on. Just like the tree, a person with roots that have not been allowed to grow and strengthen over time, that person that does not have the nurture and support will fall in the face of adversity…but a tree is just a tree and we are not trees. We are so much more.

A tree will grow strong and stand tall for many, many years. At some point it’s time is over and it will eventually die. Those who were lucky enough to enjoy the tree will hold it’s memories while people who come later will only hear stories of what the tree used to be. There may be pictures, there may be stories, but nothing will ever match the living years shared by those who got to enjoy the life of that tree. It is very much the same with the life of a person. The memory of a person is never as great as the life shared with them. So with all of that, people and trees have many similarities, but we are not trees; we are so much more.

When the tree is gone it is gone. Trees and people alike, after their death can be taken and used in parts to help others have a better life. With people, the parts are never greater than the whole. Unlike the tree, we have something deep inside of us that never goes away. We do not go away. Our bark, our trunk, and even all our roots may return to the ground itself but we live on. We keep going, we will still be able to provide joy and laughter and will be able to climb tall and strong from here to the sky and beyond. Maybe, in many ways, we are like a tree with a soul.

We must be careful when we look at each other. We cannot assume that everyone is strong and can handle the storm we want to throw their way. We cannot see what kind of roots they have and we don’t know if they will bend and sway or if they will snap and break. We need to be gentler. Words and actions can cut deeper than the bark on a tree. Even though cuts can heal over and be almost invisible, the scars are still there, especially if you know just where to look. Not all of us are strong and some of us are barely standing. Be careful with the storms you cause in other people’s lives; be careful of the cuts you make. Enjoy a person’s life while they are here and try to nurture and not tear down. We are emotional beings that love and hurt, remember and dream.
We are not trees; we are so much more.

Dont' Raise Your Eyebrows At Me

The following is rated PG-13. Don’t complain; you have been warned.

I am going on steroids. I don’t mean something to increase testosterone a little. No, I mean hardcore, “Mexican Muscle Juice” given  to me in the back of some horse trainer parked behind Big Lots….that kind of steroids. I want to be huge. I want my biceps to look like basketballs. I want it to look like I have cantaloupes at the end of each shoulder and I want large man-lumps between my shoulders and neck that look like footballs. I know my doctor has told me that I need to keep my weight well below 200 in order for my joints to continue working but I don’t care. I want to pack on the muscle even if I have to ride around in a Hoveround to do it. I want to be the Hulk. People can all me the “Hulkaround” and that will be just fine.

Now what has brought me to this point, this life altering decision? I’ll tell you but realize that I know that this is one of those stories that my mom would laugh at and then say, “Now Mark, I think you should probably just keep that story to yourself”. Since she is no longer able to give such advice, I am left with using my own "appropriate filter system" and it has a hole in it. If I stopped to think about who might read this I would never print it. With that in mind, I will just not think about it. Kind of like I do when I type things anyway.


I had just finished doing a Google search and was really thrown off by what I had seen. I clicked off of stories, videos and images that will stick with me long after I have forgotten what my name is and where I live. I got up and went to the bathroom and when I looked into the mirror I had a movie moment flash before my eyes. My brain had one of those “Matix/Inception” moments where everything fast forwarded backwards and replayed what had led up to this moment…an entire afternoon in a second. It was like watching a video of a water balloon exploding in slowmotion, backwards and then in real time forward again.

I had decided to go walk yesterday out in the 95 degree weather with 100% humidity because it just seemed like it would be a nice thing to do on a summer day. When I got back into the car I was soaking wet and realized that I had already burned through my gallon of ginseng green tea (maybe that’s why it felt like I had a two hundred pound clock sitting on my chest). I needed to run to Office Max so on the way, I stopped at a local market to pick up some water. I saw a half price energy flavored water thing so I grabbed it. It was kind of like Gatorade but an off brand…Crocade? It was nice and bright red and the flavor was called something like “Atomic Red” or something like that. On the way out of the store I grabbed one of those freebie papers that have all kinds of stuff listed for sale.

I drank my Crocade and it tasted like watered down Kool-Aid with salt, very much like Gatorade. When I got to Office Max I sat there for a moment, still cooling down, and finished listening to a good song on the radio. I opened the paper and started looking at the cars for sale,etc. I guess it was from the heat or from things in bloom again after we finally got some rain but my eyes were really itching me like crazy. So I sat in the car rubbing my eyes and finishing off my Crocade and listening to the radio, just having a good ol’ time. Yep, I know how to enjoy the summer.

I ran into Office Max to grab a glue stick. That’s all I needed. I got it and noticed a tall young black man kept staring at me. I figured I probably knew him from the gym or something, so I gave the smile/head nod that you give to people that you recognize but do not know. Then I got in line and just enjoyed being inside in the cool. I heard a voice behind me ask, “Is that what you use?” I didn’t turn around as I didn’t think he was talking to me. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I could tell the person behind me had moved closer and to the side and asked again, “Is that what you use?” I turned and it was the young black man talking to me. I told him “Yes”, thought it was an odd question and was hoping this was not another one of those moments where I had just met another wing-nut looking for a new bff. He continued the conversation and said, “I wax”. During that sentence he stroked the contour of his very thin, highly arched eyebrow with the tip of his ring finger. “It don’t hurt that bad and it lasts forever”, he said. It was at that moment that I knew I had walked into another land mine experience and I knew that I had to make a quick decision as to whether or not I opened up that Pandora’s box or if I was just going to let it go. I really wasn’t up for it for the challenge, so I just smiled and said, “Yeah” and turned back to the now ready cashier.

What the heck was that all about? I drove home wandering if maybe he was saying that some people use glue stick to remove eyebrows and if he had me confused with a makeup artist somewhere. It was just crazy but well, I am kind of used to that. I could not wait to get back home and Google search “glue stick and eyebrows”. So that is what I did. Hmmmmmm, it seems that using a glue stick to cover eyebrows, followed by using concealer and makeup, is the preferred method of transformation for drag queens all around the world. Yes, there are hundreds of YouTube videos showing how it is done.

 So I clicked off my searches and had some vivid images emblazoned into my memory banks. I was still completely confused about what had happened at Office Max. I got up to go to the bathroom and took a quick look in the mirror….OH-MY-WORD.  Where do I start? I do remember when paying for my glue stick that my fingers had black ink on them from my cheap newspaper reading. I forgot that I had been rubbing my eyes. I had smudged black all over my eyelids and under my eyes. I was Tammy Faye Baker! Also, my Crocade was on sale for a reason. My lips were bright red. They were not just red lips though; my upper lip had a nice round circle above it. Have you ever seen that tradition Kabuki look on Japanese women where they only put lipstick right in the middle of their lips and it goes above and under their lips, kind of forming an “0”? It was that look. I was Kabuki Tammy Faye Baker!!! No wonder! That guy at Office Max must have thought that I was a big ol’ drag queen that had just done a long run of shows, couldn’t get all the old makeup off and had run out of glue stick. AAAArrrgh! How do these things happen?

It was at that moment, after the brain flashback/rewind/fast-forward that I decided to go on steroids. Hello biceps (goodbye manjunk); I want to be the Hulk. I want to be so big that it won’t matter if I roll into a store sporting a Hello Kitty t-shirt and a hair bow, no one will think I am an out of glue stick drag queen….not that there is anything wrong with that.

Everything's A Dollar

I went to Kroger tonight thinking, “Nobody will be at Kroger on a Saturday night”. So after my mile walk from the car to the front door of Kroger, I went in to buy my preplanned one item (I guess you know where this is headed). I only needed some powdered…I don’t guess I really need to tell you my shopping list but anyway, long ramble short, I had my hands full at the “Express Self Check-out”. You really don’t know how embarrassing your goofy ringtone is until it you are in this situation with a long line around you (because no one stands single file any more) and your phone is blaring at level ten the tone you have deemed to best represent yourself. I couldn’t reach my phone as I was trying to juggle my impromptu shopping list finds and I just had to ride it out while my man-card in my other pocket, melted like cotton candy in a rain storm.

During my slowly forward moving juggling act, I only dropped one yogurt (“Clean up on express isle”) and couldn’t make up my mind what to do as I didn’t have a roll of paper towels included in my act.  Since everyone around me saw it happen, I knew that I didn’t have to worry that someone might accidentally step in it, so I did what any American would do and waited to catch an employee’s eye to let them know that “someone” had made a mess. The employee, while listening, looked up at the top of my head twice. This reminded me that my head was itching. It also reminded me that I had been scratching my head and playing with my hair in the car on the ride over. For me this is never a good thing. Once my gel/varnish has been cracked, all kinds of mayhem can happen on top of my head. It can make me go from looking fairly normal to looking like a crazy, white Buckwheat. My hands were full… I had made a mess…my phone had jamboxed…and I had crazy-white-Buckwheat hair phobia. All I wanted to do was to put my juggling act in a cart somewhere, run to the bathroom to check my hair, and then come back and return to my place in line. I knew that was all about to not happen.

When I, my juggling act, and my hair finally got up to the “Express Self Check Out”, I leaned over and let everything slowly tumble from my arms down to the holding area. It was kind of like dropping things in slowmo. I reached up and felt my hair…it was everywhere and big. I did a quick finger comb over and started the scanning. Anyway, I used my best flying fingers of furry action to quickly punch in my alternate ID, so that I would get the points, and then tried to scan my fridge-fillers as fast as I could. I hate it when there is a line behind me at these places. I can feel the pressure and mob scene angst festering.

I finished in record time ( I hope people noted that) and put my hand in my pocket to get my money. Normally….well always, I use my check-card. But noooooo, not tonight! I had forgotten that earlier in the day I had gone through my different pants pockets and gathered up my one dollar bills. I think I had about forty! So, before I had left for Kroger, I decided I would grab my “pimp roll” and start making it rain inside of Kroger instead of just outside. Into that self check-out machine, I fed twenty seven dollars, one bill at a time. I felt like Forrest Gump!!! I could feel the angry mob behind me rolling their eyes and could hear the thump, thump, thump of their hearts getting faster and faster. I kept putting the dollar bills in backwards or upside down and I think every single one of them had a bent corner that caused the bill to be spit back out, ironed and then re-entered. Suddenly, I was my own worst nightmare… I was the slow driver in the fast lane…I was the guy at Subway that can’t make up his mind which toppings he wants…I was the customer at Baskin-Robbins talking on their cell phone instead of listening for their number that has already been called out ten times…I was the waitress that thought a chicken burger was made from beefchicken.  Yes, I was all of the above and I had a brief out of body experience, rolled my eyes at myself, and then hopped back in, picked up my bags/change/receipt and left the building for my mile long walk of shame back to my car. Surely, surely there is a lesson in this to teach me patience or to write out a shopping list and stick to it or something. The only thing I can think of right off hand is to never get behind a stripper at an “Express Self Check Out” line. That’s a pretty good lesson to learn though, right?

Status Update

I would like to thank all my Facebook friends for posting pics of their beautiful backyard pools. It's like paradise right in your own back yards. I would also like to thank you for posting updates as to your whereabouts throughout the day such as "@work, @ the gym,@ The Chop House for dinner",etc. I like knowing where everybody is.

On a completely seperate note, it seems that a few people in our town have come home early from work or not been where they said they were in their Facebook updates, and have come home to find a grown white man playing, sunning and frolicking in their pools. Officials say he is COMPLETELY HARMLESS and that no action should be taken...don't even call the police. Authorities recommend that residents with beautiful backyard pools (and Facebook accounts) who might come home earlier than normal or who might not be where their status says they are, to simply let out a loud "I'm home" once they get out of their cars . This will give said frolicker time to gather his belongings and climb back over the fence from whence he came.

On another completely different note, the Humane Society has asked that all owners of large dogs that can roam freely in their fenced in backyards should post a sign on the outside of the fence that reads "Large Dog" and should be followed by a truthful "Dog Bites" or "Friendly" sign. Just a quick heads-up for everybody, stay on schedule and update often!