I’ve been taking a sabbatical from my Blackberry 8700g for the last few weeks… Mostly because of how screwed up things got via ill communication.

That’s not to put down the Blackberry. No sir, it’s more along the lines of the statement I made a few months ago that SMS/TXT messages are the devil. If someone wants to get in touch with me via txt… well, shit, find a better way to do it (one with context). Hell, I have a phone number — leave a voice mail.

The fact is, if people really want to get in touch with me — they’ll do it. Too many ways to do it with better context than stupid txt messages.

Coming up on three weeks… Life without it just reminds me about that feeling someone died.

The feeling leaves me a stranger
A strange man, in a desperate world
Of closeness, comfort, sweet sounding melodies
And the warmness of her heart

Known no vortex as powerful as this,
The evolution of desires has past the realm,
To want and desire from this day forward
Is the evidence of my feelings

I’m a stranger to this feeling,
The attraction and happiness have never felt so near,
Her heart breaks through the fragile bounds
I need some time
A time to work with things
For instance, my dreams and thoughts of her loving

© 1998 John P. Fontana

So where was I?

Oh, yeah… Dwelling on inevitability. Surgery. All that joyous stuff that makes life grand for me. August 7th, 2007 was an extremely surreal experience in that my focus had to be elsewhere instead of impending doom and gloom (thank you Oren Koules, Jim Sherrin and Doug Maclean). Surreal may be a strong word for it. A grand, welcome distraction might be a better phrasing. Having a friend come over to spend some time with me and further distract me only aided to things.

The next day was no better – wanting to deal with that story and yet lying in a hospital gurney most of the day while waiting an angiogram: the pre-operative procedure as bad as I dreaded (but with a great staff of physicians trying to deal with my issues and some medical breakthroughs since my last angiogram that kept me from being bed ridden).

You know, I feel like I’m being shallow in the details but at the same time — there weren’t many meaty details before I was trucked off to the ninth floor at Tampa General Hospital where I stayed overnight before surgery. Besides pain issues with thanks to the angiogram, everything went swimmingly.

And how can I properly term my stay at TGH besides saying I was surrounded by good omens and positive energy? Days previous to surgery, I’d gotten a religious card sent to me with the only Patron Saint I identify with. It’s sorta grim but after I learned about him (and wrote about a poem where I invoked him) I didn’t see it as an ill omen as-so-much familiarity. I can deal with familiarity.

When I got to the ninth floor, who greets me warmly but an old friend from High School who works as an Registered Nurse on the floor? It was good mojo to see her, realize who she was and have come right up to me and say hi.

Another thing that was positive and yet drenched with negativity was a nurse I had overnight who I couldn’t understand due to her accent. She was warm, pleasant and tried her best to overcome things and I foudn myself mad that I had gotten frustrated with her.

(more…)

How many times have you been supportive of someone who is close to you or who has meant something to you in the past, all the while you end up feeling like crap for doing it? Not because of you giving support to this person, but because of the topic?

It’s almost like what should lead to a breakup… Being there for someone but feeling trampled on in the relationship. You care and want to be there but you can’t keep being a friend for someone when they don’t respect you or even consider what certain topics/phrases do to you inside.

Respect… And Disrespect. If you are there for someone when they need you and they aren’t there for you, if you will apologize to someone about things – but they won’t ever apologize about any anger they’ve caused… It’s just not healthy and just not worth it. Friendship or more — it’s a two way street.

Show me some respect or find another person to dump on… I’m not playing the inanimate teddy bear any longer.

My biological clock is tickin’ like this! (stomping feet) At this rate, I ain’t neva’ gettin’ married!” — Marisa Tomei (as Mona Lisa Vito) in My Cousin Vinny

A couple of months back, my friend Terra had asked me if guys start having the biological clock thing and start feeling antsy about things. This was inspired by her friend Marc who seemed to be getting that way in wanting to settle down (I forget the exact details of the conversation). I do remember telling her that generally I (as a guy) felt like it was time to grow up and some people also must get it.

I never expected a feeling of dread that I am missing out on more (love, family) until today.

I’m rather chronic with wanting to get involved and I know I bitch and whine elsewhere about my prospects.. Yet I’ve never felt like I would want, need or have a child. That’s probably still the overall realistic truth (I’m single, I am not dating, I am not sleeping around, nor am I the type to just sleep around)…

Yet last night, out of nowhere while my head was weaving it’s magic through the dreamscape — i had a child. I mean, I was the father of a little girl that appeared in the wandering farscapes and such of my subconscious. A little blond haired girl with glasses who thought I was going to be upset with her that she bought herself a toy instead of something else she needed. I re-assured her I wasn’t and put on a happy face. I also ended up — while trying to fix her glasses — breaking her spectacles by accident.

But what has nagged at me is my knowing the girl thought I was her father and I was her father.

I really need to get my mind off this subject and the entire subject of romance right now. Nothing good is going to come from a forced encounter with a stranger that I meet in this state-of-mind…

Hand it to Matt over at Defective Yeti… He takes the time to break down the entire Karl Rove / Valarie Plame scandal and show why it’s a scandal.

Usually a comedy blogger, Matt shows his chops on something much more meatier.

Every time I bring a dog up at home – watching dogs for friends or having another dog in teh household – I get a flat out “no” from family.

Excuses and lack of discussion – and gang-up-on-John BS.

Well, how do I break it to everyone that I bought a dog months ago? Especially when I show up with her next week?

Well, Johnny’s got a job interview on Tuesday and unless he breaks his hands between now and then, it should be a shoe-in position. I’m way overqualified for it but it’s a couple of bucks for a couple of hours of work. Better than sitting at home all day and waiting.

So Deep Throat has been revealed. An enigma of Americana politics has been answered.

The reason I am writing about this at all is some anger I have from the likes of the media and their interview candidates after Mark Felt admitted to being Deep Throat. Unethical twits G. Gordon Liddy and Robert Novak, along with serial-asshole Pat Buchanan, were the guys interviewed on air with regards to what they thought of Felt being Deep Throat.

Liddy has no credibility to state what he thinks of Felt – and by his answers on CNN and on MSNBC, you can see he would have prefered everything kept “in house.” Liddy complains that the evidence should have been taken to a federal grand jury – and in the age of conspiracies and cover ups, everything would have discretely been swept under the rug and Liddy never would have served time for his lawbreaking.

Novak has no credibility to make claims that Felt was a traitor or unethical for what he did. Novak himself is a criminal that has not been arrested as of yet for revealing the identity of a CIA agent. If you compared Felt to Novak specifically – these two operated on opposite ends of the political spectrum in what they did. While Novak was used as a tool of the political powers-that-be to get back at their enemies (Joseph Wilson), Felt was protecting the government from itself (and the powers-that-be) by revealing any information at all to Bob Woodward and letting it become public. One man is the epitome of public corruption and the other is the epitome of public service. That’s not trying to make a saint out of Mark Felt and everything he has ever done for the FBI or the government, I don’t know the man enough to make that assessment, but that is heralding him for blowing a whistle on dirty shenanigans that were ongoing in the government and letting the public know.

And Buchanan? Ok, well — Pat is Pat and Pat has always been an asshole of grandoise proportions in one way or another.

I got a response from Councilmember Hoyt Hamilton of the Clearwater City Council over the Ferry idea that I floated with them.

He brought up the fact that they had offered a free ferry in 2000 and it saw a little bit of ridership and before it, a private ferry was in service that charged 3 bucks round trip and did poorly.

I got encouraged that someone replied at all… And now I’ve gotten my head on straight and typed up another letter, thanking him for it and then talking about some issues that I have with what he brought up.

The Free Ferry operated on weekends alone. I have no clue what the hours were. It operated for 3 months total and saw some 2650 riders. Losses were 500 smackers a day. Ok, good. Now how come you were only operating it on weekends when tourists are on Clearwater Beach or trying to get to the beach all week? Were you specifically tryign to cater to the locals who would be beach hopping on the weekend?

How much advertising was part of this free ferry service? I wasn’t a beach visitor in 2000 and don’t recall any press about the ferry being in existence – let alone publicity about using it to get to and from Clearwater Beach.

If you’re goign to do something, you can’t just do it half assed. That’s what Clearwater seems to have done with the ferry while it was in operation. I’ve been out on the beach during tourist season this year and I’ve seen how the spring break crowd is confined to the strip…. That or traffic dodging while trying to walk the Clearwater Memorial Causeway.

My reply letter is already typed up and ready to send. I’m glad I got a response. Now let’s see if Pam Iorio (or one of her staff) or Rick Baker (or one of his staff) reply.