When I'm Not Around

What would you say to me
If you could say anything?

What would you do
If I said all the things
I want to?

Do you think about me
As much
As I think about you?

So now
What
Do I
Do?

What's in a word?

Lonely

Happy

Sad

Don't

begin to capture

what

they're supposed to mean.

So,

what

are we supposed

to say

in

stead

?

Cold Wednesday Night

Bloody Hell!

It's December already, the snow is falling and _it_is_getting_COLD!

aaannnnnndddddd...I still haven't put my Christmas lights up yet! If it ends up being anything like previous years I'll be standing on my ladder about 18 feet up in the air while the fastest, coldest, most bone-biting wind on the face of the Earth numbs my nuts (and the rest of me too). In case you think that isn't such a big deal, keep in mind that (1) you can't hang Christmas lights with gloves on and (2) holding on to an aluminum ladder with bare hands is the closest equivalent to licking a frozen pole as you can get.

I do all this to decorate my house with admittedly cheesy Christmas lights my lovely wife never totally approves of, hoping-against-hope that said lovely wife might bring me a hot chocolate/coffee/anything to defrost my innards which never actually shows up (she's usually inside taking a nap on the couch by the fireplace - sometimes it's like owning a cat), and at great risk to my own immediate well-being and future health of any potential offspring I may help create also with the aforementioned and always formidable lovely wife.

So why do it? For the kids, of course. They like it and that's good enough for me.

Wish me luck - I may not be able to type for a while.
Tony Iacoviello, Iacoviello Homes 289.237.9896 tonyiacoviello@hotmail.com

Wishing, waiting, wondering...

I WISH:

• that my heart would stop hurting and that my eyes would stop crying.  I've had enough for one lifetime, thank-you.
• that my feet knew which way to walk...or run.
• that I could stop wishing for things to be different and just accept them for what they are.
• that one day my sons will know me for who I truly am.
• that knowing me would make them love me even more.
• that my hands could draw like they once did.
• that my eyes could see the pictures that used to inspire my hands to draw.
• that my body would stop aching.
• that my mind would stop racing.
• that I could feel God in my heart like I once did.
• that I could feel His hand guide me like I used to from time to time.
• that I could lay in a hammock bathed in sunlight hearing nothing but the wind for one whole day.
• that I could read a book that would make me laugh and cry and smile and feel joy.
• that I could close my eyes and remember, really remember, what it was like as a child sitting under the stairs in my grandmother's backyard in the middle of August.
• that I could close my eyes and be sitting at her kitchen table as she shuffled around and cooked or sitting on her living room floor next to her as she knitted and watched The Galloping Gourmet, Julia Child, Yan Can Cook, and Pasquale's Kitchen interpreting the foods and recipes to her that she never had any intention of trying.
• that I could hear her say, "Tunderstorm" one more time.
• that I could see the point.
• that I could swim.
• that I was standing on top of the tallest mountain.
• that someone would fix something for me.
• that I wasn't afraid to write a book.
• that it was snowing right now.

I wish I knew what I really wanted to wish for.

But, I still believe in wishes so that's something, I guess.

Tales from Timmy's . . . Always Fresh

What follows is a collection of various posts that originally appeared on Facebook (with a little editing) all referring to time well spent at Timmy's while taking a break from house flipping.  Hope you enjoy...

June 15 at 3:31pm via Facebook for BlackBerry
What does it mean when you've been out of that freezing cold pool water for quite some time and your penis isn't unshrinking and, in fact, looks a little smaller?

June 24 at 9:01am via Facebook for BlackBerry
Our Father who art in Heaven, may our team play with clear minds, speed in their feet, and desire in their hearts. And no matter what happens today please don't make us look as bad as those f'ing French!

July 12 at 10:16pm

‎( . Y . ) ( . Y . ) ( . Y . ) ( . Y . ) ( . Y . ) ( . Y . )

Can't get enough!

July 29 at 2:48pm via Facebook for BlackBerry
Honestly...crackwhores gotta be the ugliest kind of whore there is. Anybody disagree?

August 4 at 3:22pm via Facebook for BlackBerry
I have just discovered what, in combination, has to be the fattest, laziest, most slow-witted, least attractive male-female couple in existence...and they procreated...twice! God have mercy on us all.

August 4 at 3:55pm via Facebook for BlackBerry
People really should stop buying tatoos 'on sale'.

August 7 at 1:58pm via Facebook for BlackBerry
I am just hoping that my current evacuation doesn't take my liver and kidneys with it! Why is it I can never remember the last time I ate corn and/or peanuts?

August 9 at 10:24am via Facebook for BlackBerry
I know I've made this observation before but, I have to state once again that wearing a t-shirt with skulls, flames, or skulls and flames on it does not a) make you a man and b) definitely does not make you tough.

August 10 at 8:16pm via Facebook for BlackBerry
"Cute" takes on a whole new meaning in East Hamilton.

August 10 at 8:24pm via Facebook for BlackBerry
Did you know that the weirdos at Tim Hortons come in shifts? The night shift is a lot creepier but not as loserly as the day shift.

August 25 at 1:35am via Facebook for BlackBerry
Surprisingly...customers at Timmies at 2 am are less classy than the ones at 2 pm.

The ones at 2pm don't intentionally mess up the Mens' room to the point where the Timmie's employee on duty walks in and exclaims, "Holy Shit!". I'm not sure if it was actually 'holy' or not but, by his expression and the movement of his head in a circular surveying motion, I think it's safe to assume that someone pinched 5 loaves and tried to feed the masses. Not sure if there was any fish.


September 23 at 3:03pm via Facebook for BlackBerry

Even the prettiest girls can be ruined by improperly proportioned eye spacing.

October 20 at 10:03pm

Another night without a wife sleeping in my bed with my two boys who will at some point either (a) kick me in the head, or (b) kick me in the nuts. Gotta love family :-)

Did you know...?

Did you know: when eating dried fruit, a tiny little dried apricot is actually a whole apricot?

Eating them like potato chips while mindlessly watching television after a long hard day at work is not recommended. Two or three should be sufficient, daring a dozen (or more) is just silly or stupid depending on whether you're a glass is half full or empty kind of person.

Should you dubiously disregard this advantageous advice, you'll need to rapidly race to the nearest coffee shop the next morning to return them, after a brief stop at the Department of Wastewater Management, to Mother Nature herself to use as fertilizer for some other bowel bubbling communal comestible as she sees fit.

Also, if you do find yourself in such a ridiculous race, trying to explain to a personable police officer that you were just trying to righteously return that delinquently defective turtle, the one that keeps purposefully poking his harrowingly harassing head out, to its rightful home will not get you out of whatever wistfully wicked ticket for speeding or other infarcted traffic-related infraction you are about to remorsefully receive.

Or so I've heard.

Mother-lover, there it goes again.

Moving In and Checking Out

Had this little thought while walking on the beach in Punta Cana a little while ago that feels like a long while ago. I'm sure it's most likely not very original and has probably been done much more successfully by someone other than me (or is that I?), but I'll give it a shot in the interest of having something to write about if nothing else.

Relationships are freaking hard.

"Duh" you say? Hold on to your horses because I am actually going somewhere with this one and not because I am in the midst of any revelatory relationship crossroads or other such zentastic juncture in my existence. Maybe it's from watching the fairly long term marriages of people close to me (3 I can think of off the top of my head) completely disintegrate. Maybe I'm just a midge more melodramatically melancholic than someone in his mid thirties really ought to be but, who's keeping track?

There are a lot of things going on at any given time in a relationship of any kind, but more specifically in the 'romantic realm' between men/women, men/men, women/women, Richard Gere/hamster, Michael Hutchence/David Carradine/leather belt, or whatever other variation there may be. There are issues of interest, shared space, personal space, trust, respect, and in the "digital age" (does that make me sound gregariously grandfatherly enough?) there's always the lecherously lurking possibility of some extra-relationship MySpace mischief, Facebook philandering, or sexting/textual intercourse creeping in. As if having to worry about your partner becoming interested in a "real person" wasn't bad enough, now the utterly ugly possibility of them finding 'virtual love' makes things that much stickier. The fact that most peoples' online profiles are about 5% reality and 95% wishful thinking doesn't seem to matter much in some people's quest to be "happy" or, at very least, to find some distraction from what Wordsworth described as the "dreary intercourse of daily life".

Not that I don't understand the desire to have a little fantasy along with your Frosted Flakes, whether it be Tony the Tiger or Tina the Tigress is entirely up to your discretion but, there are lines that need to be respected in order to prevent the Nuclear Family from reaching critical mass and turning into Chernobyl II overnight. Maybe those lines have become maddeningly murky since most people don't consider texting (and to some extent email) to be 'serious' conversation, or maybe we foolheartedly feign stupidity to help us minimize and rationalize what we would otherwise characterize as a one of the most damningly dastardly deeds someone in a relationship could commit - cheating. Whether you do it with your body or your words, the knife cuts just as deep. If you're lucky the wound develops a scar and, while it is ugly to think about and look at, you can generally get on with your life pretty much the way it was before save for those fleeting moments you're drying off after a shower and catch a glimpse of that gimp gash out of the corner of your eye and feel like crap all over again.

Maybe it all starts before it even starts? It seems like we've done a really good job of teaching people how to be independent. This is a great thing since far too many people, women in particular, were thrown out into the cold after a relationship (generally a marriage) ended badly and they were left with no job, no money, no credit history or references and no idea of how to get any of the above. Men have generally always been taught to be independent, at work and at play, and now we've driven the same message home for women but, somewhere along the line amidst all this talk and teach about 'standing on your own two feet', separate bank accounts, cars, sinks (which I actually kind of like), being prepared 'just in case', and so on; we've forgotten to talk about being interdependent, about finding that shoulder you can lean on, about giving yourself to someone else wholly and completely instead of piecewise and halfheartedly, we've forgotten to talk about Trust. I think (maybe I do that more than I should) that if someone really places a value on trust, on the trust someone bestows upon them and the trust they've reciprocated with, it becomes exceptionally difficult to toss it out with the trash when Boy/Girlfriend version 2.0 comes along. Maybe it's always been this way but, it seems that like diapers, toilet brushes, and so many other things Trust has become a disposable commodity.

This all begs the questions: does all the preparation someone is doing 'just in case' their partner decides to leave them become a self-fulfilling prophecy? and, can anyone ever really move in when they're already emotionally prepared to check out?

It's not a question I have the answer to but, I hope someone figures it out real soon. Maybe that Jesus, Yaweh, Allah, Buddha, Krishna, Ron Jeremy - dude might have something to say.

You never know.