Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Tag: inspiration

  • Kicking Bad Habits (But Holding Onto Superman)

    Kicking Bad Habits (But Holding Onto Superman)

    I used to chew my fingernails, did for as long as I can remember. Then one day I realized I stopped. No conscious decision was made, I didn’t make it a goal… one day I looked down and my nails were long. When I clip them now sometimes I clip too short and then they look like they used to when I chewed em.

    Stopping other things haven’t been as easy for me. It took me two bouts in treatment centers before I found sobriety, and then it was AA that paved the way for me to find a solution that worked. I’ve not had a drink in almost 31 years now and for the most part I don’t think about it at all. Sure when someone has some rum the smell is appealing, but I don’t feel the need to take a drink myself. Avoiding certain situations that might put me in danger of a drink is normal behavior for me. Friends are sometimes concerned about drinking around me but it doesn’t bother me. What does is if they get stupid drunk, stupid drunk is no fun for anyone.

    When I quit smoking 20 years ago, I was all set to quit on January 1 – I bought the patch, the lozenge, the gum and a hypnosis tape to listen to. When the 1st came around I quit without any of those things and was just grumpy for a few weeks. To this day I still have dreams about being a closet smoker, it’s weird. I can’t stand the way smokers smell today, can’t imagine being that smelly for as long as I was.

    At work I would order a milk shake every day after lunch, got pretty expensive but I did it every day. This year for my New Year’s resolution I quit shakes, that was kind of hard to give up the sugar rush I had every afternoon, but so far I’ve been free of them. It was an easy change to make, but I still get the occasional craving for one after lunch.

    I’m sure I have other bad habits that I could attempt to change, but none come to mind right now.

    In my bedroom there is a nice sized Superman collection; memorabilia, action figures, statues, paintings and more. On Facebook I saw a queen sized bed set that was Superman, but I felt like that might be too much. One thing I don’t want to quit is my love of Superman.

    I’ve been a Superman fan forever. Read a ton of his comic books, seen all the movies, watched all the cartoons. It’s the things he stands for an his goodness that I like so much.

    There is also a story – when I was working at Children’s National Medical Center for a grant that served kids that were terminal; one of the patients made his way up to the 6th floor to see his favorite nurse. When he passed my desk he saw one of my Superman figurines and looked to see me, with hair and Clark Kent glasses. That kid became convinced I was Superman.

    Whenever Donnell would come for his appointments he would ask to see Superman and I would get to “fly” him to all his doctor visits. People started calling my Superman and it kind of stuck. Donnell was a great kid.

    I don’t have the muscles, the spit curl, or the cape – but I try to do as he would do. I help, listen and bring hope. When I think there isn’t anything I can do, I look for something positive to bring. It’s corny, but it works for me.

    This summer a new Superman movie is coming out. I’m already planning to take the day off after opening night so I can catch the midnight showing.. What I’ve seen of the new movie looks very good, especially like Krypto and how he’s being portrayed. The actors and actresses all appear to be good fits for the story. James Gunn has a lot of characters slated to be in this one, I hope it isn’t over crowded and too complicated. I also hope the story isn’t rushed. Mr. Gunn has done a great job on other movies so I have high hopes.

    If I find another habit that I want to break; whether by self-discovery or someone else pointing it out. I’ll do what I’ve done before and use my super power, of doing the right thing, to make sure I succeed.

    Superman inspires me to be a better person.
    Always has. Hopefully always will.

  • To Change: A Rose By Any Other Name

    To Change: A Rose By Any Other Name

    One of my supervisors (and friend) at the office wants me to stop using the word change when talking about modifying procedures. He’s well intentioned. People see the word and roll their eyes or sigh in frustration at the status quo being updated once again.

    It’s not really a concern for me, I can use a thesaurus and find other useful creative words that mean the same thing as the dreaded word… but I don’t think it’ll make a difference. People are fearful of the concept of things being done different and of challenging themselves more than they are the use of a word in a communication.  (more…)

  • Writing

    The earliest things I remember writing for pleasure were stories of Pegasus II and Cygnus with my friend Ted, I think we started talking about them in Spanish class (as we weren’t big on paying attention). We had characters that were partially named after Spanish verbs like “Jorge Dar” was a character. It was our comic book based on ourselves and my practicing religion of the ancient Greek gods. It was interesting to try to write in a way that I found readable – I’m not very good with dialogue still to this day, but I keep trying. I kept writing those stories until I was about 21 or 22.

    Once in a while I’d write a different story – a house fire and all the neighbors come and gawk, the little girls charred doll clutched in her hands and the father drives off in their Buick regal,  I liked that one, don’t know what happened to it; a student struggling to learn something new in class and the teacher who just wouldn’t change the way he taught – it was very rough; the rock and roll band playing in local bars, drinking and causing trouble… stories that kind of reflected what was going on with me and how I lived.

    Then I didn’t write for a good long time.

    In drug and alcohol treatment they suggested I keep a journal and write down my thoughts and actions for the day – I wasn’t a big fan of that idea, it reflected on when my Ma found my diary on my bed and was mad at what I wrote. It was shortly after xmas and I had received underwear, socks and t-shirts (among many other things I’m sure) and I whined a bit… ok, maybe a lot, in my diary about receiving socks and underwear. Her thinking at the time was that I left it our purposefully so she’d see it, but I doubt I was that clever – sometimes I was just a whiny teenager who enjoyed complaining. So keeping my thoughts on paper where someone else could see them didn’t seem like a good idea – I’m often misunderstood. 🙂

    In 1998 I was published in The Grapevine. I had read in the magazine that they needed stories to print from members. So I thought for a good long time and then wrote my piece they put in their wet drunk section. I have that framed as it was the first thing that made it out of my paper and into something else.

    It was 1999 when I started working at Children’s Hospital in Washington DC. I made some fast friends in my department and connected departments – one of those was Staci. Staci is a psychologist, that means she asks lots of questions, and many lunches were spent with her, Christy and others just talking. When I would share stories Staci would listen intently and sometimes she would say “You should write a book.” I never really took her seriously, this was just my life we were talking about nothing that would capture anyone’s attention.

    But that suggestion stayed with me and I started to jot down notes here and there and eventually decided to write where I could keep it always (I remembered not being able to find my old stories) so with the internet being new and blogs not that popular yet, I launched “Jamez in the life” on Blogger in 2005, and I started to write about whatever was on my mind.

    So of course the first story had to be about comic books. I wrote about death in comic books and how one time it mattered and then it didn’t. Then I wrote about a visit to my friend Julie’s (she also always wanted me to write a book) and smoking (as I had recently quit).

    Shortly after that I went to school for a year (just to prove I could do it) and then I began to write for grades and wrote about learning, that was pretty exciting… and I even wrote about the dreaded math… During school I posted 15 to 20 stories a month, usually pretty short.

    I try to get 4 posts a month now and sometimes that’s a struggle. It’s not that I don’t want to write, things get in the way or there are things that I can’t write about for confidentiality reasons and some porn that shouldn’t go here (I did submit it to a magazine though).

    I often have many different stories in my head all rambling around trying to find a place to go and when they coalesce I obsess about them and on occasion can’t sleep until I get them out on paper (or the electronic equivalent as the case usually is – though I did write about a savage beating I stopped, on paper as I didn’t own a laptop at the time.)

    My friend Staci came to Scottsdale this week to talk about some new therapy that she’s really excited about – it includes mindfulness meditation, of which I’m a big fan. So she and her husband had dinner with me and I let her know about my blog, she might even stop in and read a story or two. I hope she likes it – it was her idea after all 🙂 We even talked a bit about her research and meditation being good for you and how it seems so hard to find the time to do it.

    I’m glad I have this outlet – sometimes just writing something out can change my attitude on a situation – seeing it play out across the scenes and help me to see other points of view and become a better person.