Sleep Before Waking

I’ve realized, in my hiatus from this blog, the last three posts have been ridiculously low tone. Loss is just about as sunshiny as a chimp’s ass, so let’s redirect, shall we?

I fecking love funny Haikus. They just brighten my day and often in a completely broadsided kind of way. Who expects a Haiku to make you laugh? Nobody!

So if I can recall the rules of the Haiku, it is as follows:

Line 1: five syllables
Line 2: seven syllables
Line 3: five syllables

So far, over the course of this exploration, I’ve only managed to remember two. And a mighty two they be!

spell ‘necissary’
truly the hardest of aims.
I fail gracefully.

Well, water heater,
You’re Antediluvian.
*wipes soap from her eyes.*

After posting about one of my dearest and oldest friends, Adam Drake, I’ve noticed a good amount of people have been searching for him. Since I love him as much as I do, I feel he should get as many letters as possible.

If you would like to help Adam Drake, please write to the politicians of Colorado, petition the legislature to reconsider their judging of Juveniles as adults and putting them away for life, please his case to the governor directly, letting him know Adam went to jail for killing a child predator, OR if none of those moves suit your fancy, write Adam a letter. It’s a long day in a tiny cell, he’d probably love to hear from you.

Adam Drake’s Address:

102616, LCF
49030 State Hwy, 71
Limon, CO 80826

Let him know Caitlin loves him and sent you.

This is Adam Drake. Everyone watching LockUp probably thought, man what a goofball. I thought, oh god, I miss him.

Wasn’t expecting it to make me laugh and cry and at the same time, but it did. Seeing him as an adult (last time I saw him was just before he was sent to Colorado from Massachusetts, just before he turned 18, just before he shot a man.)

The laugh montage is Adam Drake. The shrugs, the smiling, the laugh, the pain in the ass anti-establishment breaking of silly rules; that is Adam Drake. He shouldn’t be in jail for life without parole when half of his prison is filled with sex offenders and gang members who killed for fun and raped for frolic. Adam isn’t a sex offending gang banger, he’s a shrugging, laughing goofball who shot a child predator in self defense and I’d let him babysit my daughter.

God fucking damn it. He shouldn’t be in prison.

That is all.

Jackson Carrigan

April 16, 1963 – November 09, 2009

John “Jack” Carrigan, 46 , of Malden, formerly of Concord died Monday November 9, 2009 at his Malden home.

Born in Concord on April 16, 1963 he was the beloved son of Mary Elizabeth (Tobin) Carrigan and the late Philip A. Carrigan Jr. He attended Concord schools and was a 1981 graduate of Concord-Carlisle Regional High School. As a senior at CCHS, in June 1981, his magnificent oil painting “Maureen’s Place” won a citation by the Scholastic Art Awards at the 54th annual National High School Art Exhibition in New York City.

He was a 1986 graduate of Massachusetts College of Art, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in English.

For the past four years he has been employed as a supervisor in the Graphic Design Department at Spire’s in Dorchester. He had previously worked in Graphic Design at Unigraphics in Saugus for three years.

For many years he played guitar in various rock groups throughout the Boston area.

In addition to his mother, survivors include his two sisters, Maureen Read of Concord and Eileen Powers of Mesquite, Nevada, two brothers, Philip A. Carrigan III of Milford, New Hampshire and Kevin W. Carrigan of Rockport, six nieces and nephews and two grandnieces. He was also the uncle of one late niece.

Funeral will be held Monday November 16th from the Dee Funeral Home, 27 Bedford Street, Concord Center at 9 am followed by a funeral Mass in Holy Family Parish, Monument Square, Concord at 10 am.

Contributions in his memory may be made to Epilepsy Foundation of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, 540 Gallivan Blvd., #200, Boston, MA 02124 (www.epilepsyfoundation.org/local/massri/donations.cfm).

Obituaries never really sum up a person, do they? We aren’t our accomplishments, our awards and our jobs. Nor are we the money we make or the school we went to. We are so much more than that. He was so much more than that.

Jack Carrigan inspired me when no one else did. He inspired everyone he encountered. He related to, conspired with, fought along side, built up, and held high everyone he cared for, no matter how beaten down they’d been by those in their path previously, no matter how beaten down he had been himself. The world should mourn the loss of this man, not just his siblings and their offspring.

May this man be the next Monet, appreciated for the god he was, despite not getting to live to see it.

You were my hero, Uncle Jack. I’ll miss you.

IF

It is, I’m not lying. From every professor, one after the other.

First it was my Shakespeare Professor, as we dissected As You Like It. “There is much power in if,” Shakespeare said, and I wondered.

The next day I had Directing class. As we dissected some aspect of stagecraft and why we considered ourselves good Directors, which was a question I had some trouble with given my humble nature. Bahaha, you can’t tell if I am kidding, can you? It’s ok. No one can. But that’s beside the point, suddenly she breaks out with, “It’s the possibilities of “As If.” And I noticed it, I will tell you true. I noticed.

THEN we careen around the corner into Creative Writing class and my Professor (Andre Dubus III) comes in toting a book from which he reads a selection. What was that book called you ask? What if?

As a result of these strange coincidences, I have decided to take this as a sign of something truly deep and moving, and perhaps life hanging. That sign is:

The word IF is stalking me.

Ever have a song come on the radio, (or on Pandora, in my case) that instantly sinks into your very bones and digs in to remain there for the rest of time? That happened to me the other day, and despite my best intentions, I forgot it and let it go. And yet, the song would NOT go quietly.

I turned on Pandora today while I cleaned, something I do every time. (And I have been cleaning, a lot.) The song came on again, this time, first.

“Speed of Sound” by Coldplay

The progression of those first few notes just plays some hidden chord in the very center of my spirit and I go somewhere…not here.

This has happened a few times before in my life, one of the best examples is the first time I heard “A Sort of Homecoming” by U2 (my favorite band). That song called to me like a captain to the sea. It stayed with me until it almost felt like the song was playing a part of me I could only experience when I listened to it, or when I was in Ireland. Yes, Ireland…for some reason.

Well, it happened again. I see Ireland when I hear this song. Odd, since I am going to Ireland this New Year’s and instead of just envisioning this existance; standing in a field on a hill with this song playing, instead of just letting that visual exist in my mind, I am GOING to make it happen. I am bringing my iPod, headphones, and a very understanding friend. I may cry. I’m not sure.

I’ve had a similar experience once before. “Lucky Man” by the Verve inspired an image of standing on the Great Wall of China. I did that very thing, and I turned on that very song…it wasn’t quite what I saw in mind, given that they brought us to the most unhappy and hateful staircase on the planet; 2400 steps straight up into the ether. I made it less than halfway…not quite how I’d dreamed it.

This time around, I’m going full tilt. The field, the song, I claim the experience now. No one can take it from me.

No one.

I’m in the computer lab, wasting my time on Facebook and the interwebs, trying to keep the tendency to fidget at bay. It makes me feel a little redonkulous to be facebooking in the computer lab, but that isn’t half as bad as the guy next to me doing research on Kanye West, so I stand righteous.

Man I need to go potty.

Good god, that Nubian Goddess has the most badass blonde hair I have ever seen.

Did you know that Shakespeare is responsible for a good deal of the phrases regular schmoes say? It’s true. An example of such is NOT forthcoming because, as the title of this blog states, I’m not an overachiever. I don’t need to prove my statement to you! I just to pass the next 50 minutes without losing my mind.

Oh…and find the bathroom. At some point.

I am truly patient with children’s entertainment.

Well, I would like to be. I’ve seen everything from Sesame Street Live to the Toe Jam Puppet Band and in all honesty, I’ve thought, “Wow, this was rad for the wee ones. Look at them, I feel like I’m at a Beatles Concert right now.”

Then this new show came on Nickelodeon. The Fresh Beat Band…

I want to kill each and every one of them.

Now, it isn’t the music. The music is spectacular. Catchy, less than completely obnoxious, by NO means Barney caliber, but the banter? Oh dear god, the banter between musical numbers literally makes my eyelids melt with the fury of my eyeballs rage at having been forced to witness such a thing.

Now, I know kids don’t think twice about banter being a bit too cheesy for even the dankest deep dish, but at some point, she will be old enough to realize that normal people don’t get into these sorts of situations and if they did, they’d be committed to some lunatic asylum within a fortnight. As a result of this show, I have started contemplating rooftop machine guns and Anthrax. Ok, not so much.

I might be on a government list now because I mentioned Anthrax.

……Anthrax.

They say Queen Elizabeth I said that, but it is most likely not the case.

I SAID IT!

Anyway, my apologies to all who sauntered here for a bit of a read the past month. I am now a full time college student at UMASS Lowell, I was cast as Cookie in Neil Simon’s “Rumors,” I am a photographer, an aspiring honor student, I’m writing a novel, AND I have a life. Therefore, the blogging has taken a mild side seat to the rest of my world, but I do still have thoughts. Overwhelming, all encompassing thoughts… on how to best live your life. I will tell YOU how to live your life shortly, if you give me a chance. (I’m kidding. I’m no Pisces. OH, the zodiac humor. I’m a geek.)

A war with casualties to challenge even the French American War, the battle between these seemingly simple and commonplace Confectionery toppings claims innocent lives by the thousands. Do not be fooled by their facade, for a man who underestimates the glee derived by these mortal foes from killing random Ice Cream Parlor patrons is as good as dead. Sprinkles bring nightmares to put Pennywise to shame.

Now, to aide you in your attempts to survive the accursed battlefield of the Sprinkle/Jimmie battalions, I bestow upon you this timeless, necessary knowledge -

SPRINKLES

VS.

JIMMIES

- did you catch that?

Let me clarify, if you wish to survive an onslaught of ravenous fury from an avalanche of murderous Sprinkles, you will learn you some sense, right now!

To the left you see RAINBOW SPRINKLES.

To the right you see CHOCOLATE JIMMIES.

Get it right, survive the night.

Fail to comply and awaken to the searing pain of being flayed alive by millions of homicidal Jimmies.

Now there are many in the country who would claim that the word Jimmies is racist and was commonly used as a slur to describe people of darker skin tone. Well, get it straight, in New England we had enough class not to use such ridiculous and offensive words as insults, so IN New England, Jimmies is not a racist word, it is a fucking Sundae topping. So shut your mouth.

But you know what IS a racist word?

COLORED.

Hence the aforementioned RAINBOW Sprinkles. If you order your Black Raspberry Chip with Colored Jimmies, I will kill you. I absolutely, cannot request such a thing as Colored Jimmies on my ice cream. The word Colored catches in my throat like I tried swallowing a switchblade. Yes, it is true, 90% of the populace is accustomed to the word Colored and would have no reaction to ordering such a thing as Colored Sprinkles on their ice cream, but somehow Jimmies is just out of fucking line.

Jimmies may have been offensive in Talulah, Mississippi, but Colored was derogatory and offensive EVERYWHERE!

Straighten up and fly right, people! And get my Mint Patty with Chocolate Jimmies, please? Thanks.