family

On the job again

~ John Loraine ~ 2 Comments

Silver Mercedes-Benz E-class pulled out of the parking space and slowly rolled out of the huge rectangular parking lot towards the gates on the west side of the corporate building. The twenty-year-old car was well polished, with clean, shiny rims and tires, and with original light-blue window tint, and it never looked true to its age. Behind the wheel was a man in his mid-thirties with a mid-size black beard and dark aviator shades. The man was dressed in a nice, white-crisp dress shirt, black jeans, and black dress shoes. His name was John Brahmovski. He was exiting the company’s parking lot and heading home. It was time. It was five minutes past five o’clock. 

One after another, cars pulled out of the parking lot, exiting the premises. The working day was over. Now, people were living on their own time, at their own expense, heading home thinking about the rest of the day, their homes, families, bills to pay, dinner to eat, friends to visit, kids to take care of, or just get home and binge-watch something on TV. This is our modern life, and we are all part of it in one way or another, and there are many ways to live it. We all have our choices, and we all make our choices. As long as we all have a job, we are good. There was at least one less thing to worry about on those warm, sunny, late-summer evenings. 

The man in his mid-thirties pulled closer to the gates and waited for them to open. The motion sensors on the black metal gates triggered and pulled to the left, letting cars exit the parking lot. The man hit the right turn signal and joined the early evening post-work traffic. Inside the car, loud rock music was playing from the CD through the half-open window, and the man searched around with his right hand for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He hasn’t smoked all day. He was dying for a cigarette. This has been his first day on the new job. This might as well be the first day of his new life. Just yesterday, he’s been unemployed or unemployable, as he often joked about himself, and now he was back in business. 

The new job was with a respected car company, and the pay was decent. His new team seemed like a bunch of good people from first sight, and the first day overall went pretty damn smoothly. There was nothing to worry about. It was time to relax, take it easy, and enjoy the ride while it lasted. He knew damn well that there was no security with any jobs anywhere anymore. There was no hope for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. There is only one hope to make it home to see your family, have dinner with them, have a glass or two of red wine, and smoke a cigarette before going to bed, forgetting about the day passing. As he joined the traffic, he lit his cigarette and exhaled a huge cloud of smoke through his window and into the evening traffic. It felt liberating. It felt really good. Smoking is never fucking good for nobody, but also are so many other things that make a man feel great. Somehow, the only healthy things are the ones nobody wants to do or consume. Paradox. There was always this side and the other side. He was too young to think about the other side yet. Life has just begun. Fuck it all. Live and let live, man. Just keep it simple and keep it rolling until the wheels come off.

Mercedes was rolling on the highway, switching lanes frequently, depending on the traffic. He was an experienced driver. He saw, reacted, acted, and made his moves smoothly, feeling the traffic, reading the road and the lanes, and feeling for those who didn’t know how to drive in that evening madness. He exhaled the thick white cigarette smoke up in the air as the music blasted on the car speakers. Cigarette, music, speed, new job; he had plenty of reasons to be excited. Life wasn’t fair to him for a while, and it almost felt strange to see it change in such a new and much better direction. Why not be happy for once? Sometimes the sun shines through the rain, motherfucker, he recalled the quote from an old classic rock song. Here comes the sun over my head, he thought, driving seventy miles per hour with his front window half open and the five o’clock sun warming his face from the West. 

At home, his wife and their three-year-old son were waiting for him. He was excited to see them again after a long day at work. They’ve been inseparable for a long time, and now daddy has a new job. John was unemployed for the last five months as it was a pain in the ass to land a new gig. The prior job fired him based on poor performance. John disagreed with that conclusion as he always worked his ass off working long and late hours to get the job done. No attempts of his to make it all work were appreciated. He got no support on that job, only criticism. Fuck ‘em all, he thought. He actually thought about that firing a lot over the months that passed. He knew those fucks hated him, and he grew up to hate them back. Feelings were mutual, and the firing wasn’t a surprise to nobody at the end of the day. He had no choice. He accepted that, knowing that he was used and betrayed. Yet another corporate bullshit he had stumbled upon. That kind of shit just never ends. The saddest thing was that he was his family’s primary and only breadwinner, and they enjoyed living off his six-figure salary for the last two years. There was never a concern about grocery shopping, buying things, month-long vacations in Florida, going out to dinners, or meeting friends, and countless evenings around the family dinner table with light jazz music, a nice meal, and a top-shelf bottle of nice red wine. It all ended in one day, and they had to readjust to a new, humble, conservative life. As time went by and the countless job searches led nowhere, his shit was out of luck. He thought about his future and his family’s future more than ever.

John wrote in his journal about the day he received Food Stamps. 

“I checked my mail late in the evening after taking out my trash, and the Food Stamps card came in the mail. Inside, opened the letter, and there it was. The help from the government to me because I have fallen so low in life. I looked at it, and within seconds, I felt both sadness and embarrassment, as I had not felt for a very long time. There was more embarrassment than anything else that I felt at that moment, and I feel the same fucking embarrassment right now thinking about that Food Stamps card that has been untouched on my island table since it came yesterday. It needs activation. I need re-activation in my life as never before. I came from a six-figure salary down to this, a Food Stamps card, and two-and-a-half-month delayed unemployment compensation, which I also received earlier this week. I had to cash out my 401K plan savings from my old job a few weeks ago, losing around 4K in that transaction. And that is my life now. I never worried about saving money or spending while I had a job. Now, I have nothing, and nothing is even close to a potential future opportunity. I have fucking hit the rock bottom yet again. How did I get here? Where did I make the wrong move? I always thought I was following the rules and doing the right thing. I have signed up to do the right thing since my early days. Now, this right thing is no longer required, needed, or helped me in any way.” 

Interstate 95 was busy that evening, and John navigated the traffic as well as he could. He was not in a rush. The rush was over for him. He enjoyed this great new feeling that overwhelmed him. That was the feeling of new beginnings. The feeling of hope, new life, and a new chance, a new journey. He felt worthless so much and so often that knowing that there was a job now that needed you and paid you well, and you could be great at it, and you could build your fucking career, as a result, was a great feeling. Also, he was mainly happy because he could provide for his family again, just like in the good old days. Over the last five months, we felt like shit often. His hands were tight, nobody needed him at the job, and there were no decent jobs to get into. All he had was his loving family, his balls, and his persistence. Sometimes, there are no other options but waiting. Wating is a killer of the soul. He’s been waiting forever. There was always something else dragging him down, staying in his way, other people who were just shitty fake people he had to deal with. There was always too little or too much of everything happening at the same time. There were a lot of great moments, but there was very little to no time to enjoy them because of this or that; mainly, there was too much job bullshit in his world, and he had to make it work somehow in the name of providing a great life for his family. He would do anything for his family. 

“I do feel sad somehow. I do feel sad and useless that I am unemployed. I know that having a job at least makes you somewhat important to society and makes you feel better about the opportunity to provide for your family. I am living on my last dimes, and I don’t give a fuck about society. But I still feel down. I feel like after 50+ applications that I’ve completed and the interviews I’ve done this far, all went to shit. I don’t even feel like joining a professional workforce, but I know that I have to. The longer I am unemployed, the worse it is for me. I wish I could be as happy as I thought I could be, but I am not. The unemployment checks have not come yet; I would feel more secure once they get through. That is not much, but it is something. Right now, I will run out of money in about a month. My credit card is getting filled with more misery each day, and I know I have to spend money. I need to spend money, but also, I know that that shit will be hanging over me like a fucking seesaw. I want to be in the moment and enjoy this present moment, but I can’t. I am just not. I feel like a loser without a job or income and not much money left to live on. I would have to spend my mother’s or my son’s savings, which breaks my heart and makes me feel even more miserable. I don’t want to spend all this precious vacation time applying for jobs. I just do a bare minimum to satisfy the unemployment claim, but these fuckers haven’t completed a single of my claims yet. I don’t know what to do. I sent them an email today. I need to be more proactive with that shit. I need that misery of compensation regardless.”

It was about an hour and ten minutes commute home. It was just enough time to be with yourself and process life while driving. John’s car turned onto his neighborhood’s street, where everything seemed familiar and felt like home. The sun was still up and shining through the window of the car. He smiled, happy to see his house down the street, the second to last house on the right. Other neighbors returned from work, filling the street with their cars. John parked by his house and went inside. His three-year-old son heard him coming in and ran towards him, screaming excitedly and smiling. John picked him up, raised him high, and hugged and kissed his son. He missed that kid so much. It was always good to be back home. There was a smell of something cocking coming from the oven, and he knew that his wife was cooking something good for dinner.

“Hey, welcome back, daddy,” said John’s wife. “How was your first day at work?”

“Hey, I missed you guys,” John hugged and kissed her. “It was alright. Actually, it’s better than expected. I think this might be a good place to work overall. I work with nice people, have a nice office and a friendly environment. I’ve been looking for this job for a long time, and finally, I found what I was looking for.”

“That’s great to hear. I am glad that you like your new place.”

“Yeah, I am glad too. I was ready for anything after such a long break from work, and I would take anything at this point, but thank God, this job doesn’t suck. Fingers crossed, I can stick around at least for the duration of the twelve-month contract, and then we will see.”

“Sounds good. I’m almost done cooking the salmon, and the rice is ready. Go change, and we’ll have dinner.”

“How was the little one behaving today?”

“He was good for about five minutes, then became restless. We went outside to play, we did shopping, we tried to sleep in the afternoon, but he couldn’t, so he’s been playing and running around all day long.”

“Got it. Hopefully, he’s tired by now, and we’ll put him to bed earlier today.”

“Fingers crossed. But that kid never seemed to be tired. I am ready to go to bed right now.”

“I hear you.”

“OK. Go change quickly. Dinner is getting ready. We are so hungry, and I hope you are hungry too.”

“Yes, I am. Very hungry.” Said John and left upstairs to change.

Family dinner around the table was his favorite thing. He loved seeing his family close together, eating, listening to light jazz music on the speaker, talking, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company. He opened the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of red wine. It was a perfect occasion to have good wine for dinner with his family. It became a tradition in a way. John’s wife served the dinner, and they all ate like a small, happy family. People don’t need much to be happy, after all.

After dinner, he bathed his son in the bathtub, and his wife went to put their son to sleep. John cleaned the table and the dishes loaded the dishwasher, and sat on the rocking chair to relax. A nightstand lamp lit the room with a warm yellow light, and the classical music played in low volume on the speaker. John sat there and looked around. It was still unbelievable to him that he made it this far through all the bullshit he had to deal with along the way. Life wasn’t easy. It never is. One has to be strong to make it through and to make it work. 

Plenty of times, his hope dissolved in the daily misery and chronic depression that overtook him occasionally. He knew that sooner or later, the job would eventually present itself. The only concern was the timing. Time was never on his side. Time was running out and running fast, along with all his savings, and then there were problems, concerns, anxiety, and depression. In two weeks, it would be his thirty-sixth birthday. Birthdays were not exciting anymore. The more you mature, the more you realize that life wasn’t easy with all the problems piling up, unbearable hangovers, there was no time for anything, and there always was too much to deal with every single day. But now, things would be different. Now, there is another chance. The chance he was waiting for a very long fucking time.

John smoked a cigarette outside before going to bed. It was a warm and dark summer night. He could see the stars above and the planes going back and forth about their business. John watched the nightly sky often, and often, he thought to himself how huge this world is, how infinite the sky is, and that there are so many things out there in the universe and the world. He was just so insignificant, almost invisible part of it. Since his childhood, he has always dreamed about his big future. He was always full of hope or just a hopeful fool. Life had its plan for him, and slowly, it unfolded before him. Just yesterday, he was a useless, broke, unemployed, miserable man, staring at the same sky, wondering and asking questions. Today, his world has changed. He knew it. He felt it. He changed inside, even though one couldn’t tell yet. Somehow, he felt a bit of sadness deep down. It wasn’t the kind of sadness that you feel when you are depressed. It was the good kind of sadness you feel when you know you’ve moved on to the better things, the new beginnings. 

Back at home, he opened his laptop and wrote in his journal before bed. Tomorrow is a new day, and he will have another chance.

Journal, August 1, 2023

“Well, here I go again. My favorite month of the year is here. It is the month I was born. It is the beginning of a new life, in a way. It is the first day of my new job at this new company. The first day came and went pretty damn calm and easy. I loved the environment, and overall, the fucking office was the best I ever worked at. The people I will be working with all seemed to be nice. There seemed to be some sort of special and relaxed vibes in that place, which surprised me. I mean, the last company supposedly had a nice group of people, but something felt terribly wrong since day one. Here, it is not like that. It’s kind of relaxing. Or maybe I have matured and grown a pair of balls, and I am no longer an anxious and fearful little asshole, afraid of everything and everybody. The office, for the first time in my life, is not fucking freezing cold. From the fifth story, I have a beautiful view of Philly’s downtown skyscrapers on one side and the rest of New Jersey on the other. From what I’ve seen and heard, this job is definitely a few levels up from where I came from. I have to catch up quickly and well. I mean, I am new, and they tolerate that for now, but I have to step up so I don’t embarrass myself and don’t disappoint these nice people and myself. I will do my best. I mean, what the fuck else am I supposed to do? I’ve got my new chance in life and my career, and everything looks promising. I hope to evolve and acclimate fast and well. I am so fucking tired of constantly looking for new jobs, changing jobs, running away from my insecurities, and looking for something almost impossible to find. I mean, let’s make something out of this one. I have a twelve-month contract. They could fire me way before that if I fuck up. So I need not to fuck up or, at least, survive the next twelve months there, learn as much as I can, and my career horizon would expand significantly for any future opportunity. Well, will see how it is all going to play out. At the moment, I am happy where I am. I will try not to fuck it up. I will try to step up to the game in the best possible way. I am fucking happy I’ve landed this new fucking job at last. Thank you, God, and everybody who prayed, helped, supported, and contributed. I do have another chance at it. I am out of Business Analytics for good if this job doesn’t go well. But in the meantime, I am ready to take my chances and for this new life in front of me. Good things are fucking happening. Thanks God.”

Hungover

~ John Loraine ~ 1 Comment


It was a Sunday, the day of the Lord. I woke up with a major headache and wanted to pee very badly. I’ve been up late last night drinking myself to stupor, and now I am paying for it. I opened my eyes and looked around the room. It was the same room, nothing unusual. The room was still dark, and I wasn’t sure what time it was, but I assumed it was still night. It was hard to keep my eyes open, so I kept them closed as I rolled out of bed. I remember the way from my room to the bathroom by heart. I walked it so many times. We lived in this house for the last two years, and it was our new home. I went to the door and opened it. I was trying to walk through the door passage and hit the frame. Fuck. Why? I knew why exactly. I was still drunk as shit. I moved out of the room and into the hallway to the bathroom. My wife slept with our kid across the room.

We slept separately since the baby started to move around the bed more, pushing his way through the bed. There was not enough space for us to sleep on one queen-sized bed anymore, so I decided to move out. It was the right decision. I had to wake up early every morning to do some writing and then to start work. Back in the pandemic days, I worked from home like most people. Now, this was in history, and I had to drive to the office three days a week. Also, this was a great decision because I could get drunk or smoke cigarettes before going to bed, and it wasn’t a problem for anyone. Drinking affected my motor skills the most. I could still think well and analyze my surroundings, but my feet would not listen. With the next move, I hit the wall. Shit. I hope I woke nobody up. I was about two steps away from the bathroom. I opened the doors and hit the lights. The fucking fluorescent spotlights hit my eyes like a sucker punch in my face. My headache exploded, and I felt a sudden and sharp pain inside my brain. Damn. This red wine really got me this time. It was going down so smoothly last night. I wasn’t expecting this kind of abuse. The toilet seat looked at me, and I felt relieved. I pulled down my boxers and sat down to pee.

Sitting down to pee wasn’t homo for me. It was more relaxing, and I could really focus on the duty much faster and not miss the bowl. Also, it was more sanitary. We were busy people, and cleaning the piss smell every day was not an option or possibility. I had to work every day, and my wife had to babysit a toddler, which wasn’t an easy task, to say the least. My hard-on from all the drinking barely fit inside the toilet, but I managed to put it inside and relieve myself. The hot, smelly stream hit the toilet bowl, and my headache worsened by the second. I could feel my head pulsing. I could feel my brain on fire. I could feel my insides hurting. I could hear the loud piss stream for almost two minutes before it was over, and then with my eyes closed, I just sat there trying to get myself together and not to think too much because my head was exploding.

I felt great to get all that wine piss out of my system. It felt great to break the endless strick of the never-ending and super annoying dream cycle of the same fucking dream that rolled on and on, over and over for the last few hours of my sleep. I’m glad that my blodder decided to help me out. I glanced at my watch; it was five minutes before four in the morning. I always wore a watch on my wrist, no matter what. I wore a watch during the day, in the shower, and in bed. I am one of those people who should always have a watch on their wrist, even if you don’t actually need it all that much.

Four o’clock felt better. That meant that I could now go back to sleep and have enough sleep to fucking sleep off the wine overdose from last night before the new day began. I knew the kid would be the first to wake up every morning. He wakes up and goes downstairs to his playroom and plates. Sometimes, he gets bored playing alone and goes up to my room, wakes me up, and invites me to play with him. I love the fact that he does it. I love that my son wants me in his life, even if it’s just to play with him. As a first-time father, it is important to have, observe, and feel these things. On the flip side, I never have a chance to get a good amount of much-needed sleep. During the week, I can’t get enough sleep because of work, and on the weekend, I can’t get enough sleep because of my drinking habit.

I did some minimal calculations in my head, and I had about a good four hours of sleep before the new day began. I stood up with my eyes closed and pulled my boxers up. I flushed the dark yellow pee down the drain and walked slowly toward the door. There is a big mirror in the bathroom, and I glanced at it for a second as I was passing by. I didn’t like the look of the person I saw. The hair was all screwed up and messed up on the left side, and the face was all puffed up and swollen. I had huge dark bags under my eyes, and the eyes themselves were red and glassy. The person in the mirror was me. I hated that look more than anything. I hated to be that drunk and in so much pain. I did it to myself. I keep doing it to myself over and over again.

A couple more steps brought me to the doorway with a light switch to my left. I flipped the switch and walked the hell out of there and into the pure darkness of my hall. My room was to my left, and I rushed myself inside like I was about to lose control of my body and I needed something to lean on. Fuck. Why would I have to drink so much? I closed the door as quietly as possible and fell on my bed. I closed my eyes and dozed off in a minute. The booze was taking me over, and I had no control over it. All I could do was to sleep it off. And I slept until the morning.

The best thing about living in the suburbs is the dead quiet at night. It’s even better if your street doesn’t have street lights. Whenever the sun sets down, then the night comes. It is dark and empty outside, and also very peaceful. I love those peaceful evenings in the late Spring, throughout the summer, and early Fall when sitting on the patio outside was a pleasure. I spent a lot of time sitting outside alone in the darkness of the night and in the comfort of my backyard. I had my drinks and cigarettes keeping me company. That was the time to think, to reflect, to drink, and to forget.

I have always so much on my mind that it gets tough to pass through all that mental baggage I’ve accumulated over the past three decades. As an adult, the mental baggage never seems to go away or get even remotely lighter. There are only more shit to take care of and problems to deal with as days go by, as my youth vanes, as I am battling my demons trying to survive. I’ve had it worse. Much worse. Life was never easy on me, and I was never easy on it either. There has always been a gamble, challenge, and the next thing, whatever it was. There were days when I couldn’t fucking move, as I was so depressed and stressed out, constantly overthinking every stupid thing and making a problem out of everything. I made a slave out of myself, chaining myself to some weird, obscure thoughts and fears that paralyzed my brain, my freedom, and my thought process.

I used to be a mess for a very long time. I never had a positive thought all the way through my twenties and into my mid-thirties. Shit just could never align for me. I had to hustle all the time, and once I stopped, I fucking felt like everything stopped. And the next thing I knew, the world crumbled under my feet, and I was falling into yet another deep and dark valley of constant depression and anxiety. Maybe that’s why drinking was an easy way out. It helped me to forget. I helped not to care too much. It helped only temporarily because, on the next day, I always needed more, but the magic wore off, and the hangovers came, and I found myself as miserable as a person can be.

The sun was up and shining through the window into the room as I slept in the same position I had assumed some hours before. I fell on the bed after my midnight bathroom break. I heard the birds chirping outside, and I heard my kid running around the house, making noise, trying to get some attention. I couldn’t open my eyes just yet, but the minute my brain awoke, I felt every cell inside. I felt it through the numbing and still pulsing pain all over. The next thing I noticed was the bad breath from the red wine. Damn, how I hated that smell. I tried to flip onto the other side, and my internal pain flipped as I did that. Shit, why did the morning come so fast? I needed another night to recover from last night’s alcohol overdose. Let me stay here, in my bed, under my blanket, behind the closed door for a while and relax. Let’s just forget about everything. Maybe I could get another hour or so before somebody breaks into my room and wakes me up.

There was no liquid in my head, and my mouth was dry and smelled disgustingly of red wine from last night. I turned towards my nightstand and reached for the bottle of spring water. There always was a bottle of spring water on my nightstand. I still had my eyes closed as I didn’t want to wake up fully. Let me just sip on some water and get back to sleep. Even for another ten to twenty minutes. Fuck how my head hurt. My hand hit the bottle, and it fell out of the nightstand. Now, I had no choice but to open my eyes to pick that fucking bottle back up from the floor. I unscrewed the plastic cap and drank half the bottle right away. Damn. I was so dehydrated I felt like my eyes dried out. I put the bottle back on the nightstand and flipped on my side, closing my eyes and trying to see at least one more dream or no dreams at all. I don’t care for dreams too much. I don’t mind if I only see darkness while sleeping. I just needed another hour to pass out as I checked out in hopes of recovering better.

I don’t know how much time passed before I woke up again. This time, I was up for good. There was no reason to sleep anymore. I was tired of sleeping. I was tired of my hangover. I was tired of feeling sick. I heard sounds coming from downstairs. My wife was up there with our kid. My wife made breakfast, and my kid played as usual, refusing to eat and only asking for sweet treats. It was almost eleven o’clock at that time. I scrolled through my phone, trying to kill some more time. I checked some emails that came in throughout the week. I was so busy I couldn’t barely check them all out. Most of them were bullshit ads, subscription emails, newspaper emails, and some shit I couldn’t remember signing up for. There was nothing there for me. I checked my Instagram and Twitter apps, and twenty minutes later, I realized that I was not getting anything from any of them. What a waste of time and life scrolling through all that useless and short-lived mess of images, texts, and news, and just pretentious, miserable lives of others. What do I have to do with them? I have nothing to do with them. They have nothing to do with me. Why in the fuck were they all in my news feed at all? Life has got to be more meaningful than that. Where is the sense of looking at other people’s lives, never-ending ads, and always-toxic twenty-four-hour news cycles? Fuck all that, I thought. There is a life out there to live. There are things out there to live for. There is my family downstairs, and I am like a mental invalid watching all that bullshit with my sick head, trying to cure my own problems.

I rolled out of bed and walked towards the window. I opened the curtains and lifted the window up to get some fresh late-summer air inside. God knows, there was no air after last night in here. I walked slowly towards the bathroom. My son heard me walk and ran towards me, shouting happily. “Dady, let’s go play with me!” He said that with the most innocent and honest and brightest smile a person could have. Kids certainly have the purest and most honest smiles in the world. Adults all just pretend to be honest most of the time. I smiled back with my stoned, drunk, and still very sleepy face.

“I’ll be right down with you, son,” I said, giving him a little hug. He started to jump from excitement. He always loves to play with his dad. I wish I had that much enthusiasm to always play with him. There is never the right time. There is always something else to think or worry about. There is always the feeling of mental and spiritual exhaustion and a constant desire to be left alone in peace and quiet. Hugging my son felt great. I created that little human. He is my blood and soul. He is a part of me. He is my biggest love in this whole wide crazy fucking world. His small body felt warm and cozy against my bare skin. I felt grateful to have him. It has been my greatest joy to watch him grow, develop, and become a person. Why I was such a fuck up? I don’t know. I have my demons to battle. I am fighting against them all the time. Sometimes, they win, and sometimes I lose.

I took a cold shower, which sobered me up quickly. I wasn’t sleepy anymore; however, my face said the opposite. I washed myself really well, trying to wash out all the dirt inside of me. I believed a great shower would help me clean my consciousness and forget my sins. I brushed my teeth afterward from that annoying wine combined with a nasty morning breath smell. I really felt cleaner. I was getting back to my senses. I knew that I could start this day as a new person. I just wished that new person wouldn’t fuck up towards the end of the day like I tend to do usually. My family needs me. I need them. I have to try my best not to fuck up again. I will try today. I’m sure I can.

I got dressed and came downstairs to our living room. The kid was there happily, running around and showing me his toys, inviting me to play with him. I kissed my wife and hugged her.
“Are you feeling better? Did you have a good sleep?” She asked.
“Yes, I am much better now. Thanks for taking care of him and getting me a chance to recover a bit.” She knew the minute she saw me. She always knows.
“No problem. We already ate. I have some hard-boiled eggs for you, and a salad is on the table. Want some coffee, honey?” She asked.
“Yes, that would be great. Thank you, babe!” How lucky I was to have a woman like that in my life? One can only wonder.

Today was a new day, after all.

Embracing Happiness and Change

~ John Loraine ~ 3 Comments

It doesn’t take too much to be happy. Not much money and not much effort at all. My family was happy again while visiting Sarasota for the second time this year in July. I saw honest and pure smiles on my wife’s face. My kid was happy, too. He’s changed over the last twenty-four hours for the best. This is the place to be. This is the place to live and enjoy and be happy. Happy as one can be happy. This place, a thousand miles from our home, at the very South of the continent, is surrounded by water, alligators, snakes, golf courses, and the best beaches with the whitest sand surrounded by the warmest ocean with the most magnificent sunsets in the country, feels more like home than anything else. I fell in love with this place years ago, and every year, I cannot wait to come back there to just simply enjoy it. I think I found my home. It is here. It is in this ocean, in palms, in the humid air, sunshine, and the ocean breeze. My family loves to come down here. This place became part of my family tradition. This place became our new home. We are simply happy here. Period.

This year has been an interesting one, to say the least. Everything went a downward spiral, and I went down with it. I got fired yet again in early March and have been looking for a job since. The job search was, and pretty much has always been, a miserable experience. You are selling your soul to these corporate assholes for a stable paycheck and job security, and you try to stay optimistic and enthusiastic because you have to, and maybe somebody will say yes. Most of the time, you end up rejected. That is my story. Somehow I don’t feel like joining the workforce because I know sooner or later, I will get fucked over, fed up with all their nonsense and politics. I’ll be getting miserable waking up every morning hating my life, as the job is eating into my life, and the manic depression would settle over my head like the dark clouds before the hurricane. All those jobs, in my experience, ended similarly. There is no happy ending. There is no ending to that day-to-day working misery. It is always there. Fuck, how much I hate it all.

But the Gods were nice to me recently and gave me another chance. I’ve got another opportunity to prove myself in the corporate environment. I’ve got a new job at last. What will I do and how? I don’t know yet. Is that place the right place for me? I don’t know either. But I will be there. I will try yet again to make something work. I will try to do my best at it, and hopefully, if the stars align for me, I will make my history there and leave my mark. I hope everything is going to be alright. There is no reason to be upset. I am not upset at all. I am happy. I am happy because of this new chance and because I had another chance to spend time in my spiritual home, Sarasota, Florida.

In about two weeks, our lives will change. The change is inevitable, and it is coming, and we are expecting it to come and disrupt our family’s time together. I realize that as much time as I spent with my wife and kid this year, I will probably not have an opportunity anymore. In two weeks, each of us will have to follow our own direction, and our lives will be different. We are still a family, but life is about to happen, and it is about time to move on to the next stage of our lives. It is a healthy way of living. It is the way modern life works. We live here, and we have to follow those rules. There is no other way. I hope this change will be a great motivator for us, will bring us closer, and will make our time together even more pleasurable and precious. I know it will. I started to value my free time and my time with family only after I had the least amount of time to enjoy them. I cherished every minute spent, every occasion, every moment together. Sadly, when time is all we have and when you have all the time in the world, you don’t know what to do with it. It is only after the fact that you realize that there is not much time to spend on family quality time, and you know that you should focus on that more.

I am glad and fortunate that we are doing our best to be together and enjoy our life together. This is why we were in Florida again, and we were so happy there. I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t have any positive or negative inspiration for the future, as I know too many things I just cannot control. But what I can control is today. I can control how I behave in all those situations and make my way out of all the pitfalls. I can control my present to the best of my abilities and make it something great to think and feel about in the coming years. Then I can look back retrospectively and reminisce about the good old days when I wasn’t prioritizing the modern society’s norms and all those rules of the establishment, and where I wasn’t concerned about the money or job situation, but I was simply focused on making the best of what I have and genuinely enjoy it.

Today, I am making my own history. Today, the history of my family is being made. I am in control of my life and my family’s life. I am trying to do my best to create all those great moments for us to remember, to make us better together, and to love, cherish, respect, and value every minute of our family time. And I think we are doing just great. So long as we are together, so long…

It’s Cold in PA as Another Year is Coming to an End

~ John Loraine ~ 19 Comments


It is getting cold here in PA, and even in this early December, we all knew that winter was here to stay. At night the temperature goes as low as the early twenties, and it takes about ten minutes to warm up my nineteen-year-old Mercedes in the morning. I fucking hate this weather and these low temperatures, and I cannot stand being cold all the fucking time. Who can love this kind of weather anyway? The holiday spirit is in the air right now, and a little snow would make the magic work. But as soon as we finish celebrating New Year, I want fucking summer. I like to see the good old happy, warm, and humid days again. I want to go to the beach and get sunburned. I want a cold beer in my hand and to wear my shorts every day. My shit’s out of luck for the next three to four months. And since I’m stuck here, I will have to wait until mid-April for the nice weather to come around. Well, I have patience. I wanted to summarize this year and analyze what it has been for me, what I have done or accomplished, and what went to shit in the past year. It’s been my little tradition to write some sort of year-end reflection and set myself up for the new 2023 year of the Lord.

I don’t have too many complaints about 2022. It always could’ve been better, but I have nothing to complain about retrospectively. Whatever happened, happened, and what was lost was lost. I’ve tried my best to stay on top of my shit, but it wasn’t always easy. Nothing is easy when you’re an adult. Nothing is easy when you’re a parent. Nothing is and will be any fucking easier in the future, either. This is life, and we are here to live it. If we are no longer around, somebody else will have that privilege instead. So, it just means that I shouldn’t take anything for granted, and I should be happy to open my eyes in the morning every day and close my eyes at night, knowing that I have a chance to live another day. How I spent that time is my fucking problem. Was there anything I could do differently? Of course. We are all humans, and we love to fuck things up for ourselves and then feel sorry about that. I don’t have too many regrets in general. Maybe because I am a selfish asshole? Or maybe because I am just too fucking pumped to be who I am and to live the life that I do? One thing that keeps me going and makes me happy is that I am not stuck in one spot. I always kept on moving. The pace doesn’t matter, multi-tasking is the fucked up corporate buzzword that I fucking grown to hate, and the movement in life, as well as the movement of our bodies, means life. So I was moving around a lot, at least I’ve tried, and some things came to fruition while others didn’t. Well, will have to deal with all that shit next year. We’ll have another twelve months of surprises and bullshit.

The beginning of 2022 was rough. It was fucking cold then as well, and I have been cold and stressed out and busy at work, getting used to a new job. I landed a decent job with decent pay, and my family didn’t have shit to worry about. I think that’s a win-win. I had to struggle a lot, though, and then the stress was too overwhelming, and then the depression came in, and I had to meditate like a fucking monk to keep my head above the water. The good thing is that it worked. Meditation always does the trick. Gotta love that shit. How simple and how powerful and liberating it is! A few months into the year, I went down with a fucking flu. Flu, the one and only, the long-forgotten beautiful flu, came knocking at my door and knocked me on my ass for a couple of days. I thought that shit died when Covid came around. I was mistaken. It came back stronger than anything. I hadn’t had that kind of fever for years. It all passed. I recovered. I am strong, even when I am not. This wasn’t my time to see the other side. I had another chance. I am one lucky motherfucker.

The war in Ukraine was the most unfortunate and depressing event this year. It began in late February, and as I write this, the bombs are still flying over Ukraine like seagulls in the blue sky, destroying the infrastructure, killing innocent people, and turning that place into hell on Earth. In my earlier blog post, I have written about my feelings and thoughts about this war, so I will not rehash it here again. It tears my heart to see my homeland going through all this today after going through so much shit in its history. It was a major fucking shock, not just in my life but for people in Ukraine and worldwide. How dare these fucking russians? Who allowed them to behave like that? Who can stop these crazy fucks? Why is the world so fucking unresponsive and afraid to step in and kick their little shitty drunken asses? The everyday peace of Ukraine is being destroyed and ruined, and people have returned to the dark ages. Literally, the dark ages, because now the energy infrastructure has been impacted, and people sit in their homes without heat, electricity, and internet, just fucking waiting on another day, just fucking waiting for this shit to be over already. My dear cousin has lost his life in this fucking war. There goes another close relative death in our family and another significant loss in my personal life. I hope his and all others’ lives were not lost for nothing. I hope that Ukraine will win this war and will bloom again.

Somebody once said you couldn’t repeat the past. They were full of shit. I did repeat the past in the best way possible. Florida is my spiritual home. Since I first visited that place, I have felt completely in love with it. There are so many great memories and great trips down there that I live and breathe to return any time I can. My family went to Florida in May and stayed there for an entire month at the same place we were last year. Everything was the same, if not better. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I was living in a dream. The dream came true. I was so excited to be there again. I was so happy to go to the beach every day and enjoy the nice warm weather, walk on the whitest sand and watch the most beautiful sunsets while drinking my beer and smoking my cigarettes at the beach, thinking about life, listening to some great tunes, watching my family happy around me enjoying themselves. There is nothing better than that. These moments are worth living for. These moments are worth all the fucking money. These moments are worth twenty hours of car ride one way. These moments were so great that nothing else compares and nothing else satisfies as much.

I was happy to wake up early in the morning and start my days with my morning coffee while writing, which I kept doing every fucking day while there. The writing came down smoothly. After that, I drove to the beach for my morning run. I ran on the beach barefoot, listening to my music, the ocean’s waves and seagulls, the sun in my face, and the ocean breeze in my head. I was free and happy at once. I found my new spiritual home. I found the place where I wanted to live forever, and once there, I wouldn’t even want to go anywhere else. The place where I want my ashes to be scattered into the ocean so I can be there forever. Fuck the alligators and snakes and hurricanes. That place has so much beauty with the perfect climate, the bluest ocean, the good happy vibes, and the brightest sun ever. That fucking sun can cure cancer. That sun heals. These sunsets are unbelievable and worth watching every fucking day. They are just priceless. I am going back to Florida again next year for sure.

On the family side of the business, things have also been busy. The little one grows fast. He learns things fast as well, and looking at him now, and I wonder how smart this little fellow is for his age. I have been a moron for the most part of my life, and he’s already brilliant at three. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for him and us. I spend more time together with my son now. I always try to spend time with him no matter what, but this year, especially once I’ve settled with the new job, my wife is busy getting her education done, and we are handing out together like two great bodies. I love to see him smile and laugh and play with me. I love to see him develop and become a person. He’s already the best person I’ve ever known at three years of age. I am such a fortunate father to have a son like that.

The best thing about becoming a parent is that nothing and nobody matters as much as your child, and everything and everybody else can go fuck themselves. This is the secret power of a parent if you ever wonder how in the fuck they can handle raising their kids. They don’t give a fuck, that’s why. They have much more important things on their minds and real problems like raising new humans to worry about rather than freaking out about what other people think or say. Fuck other people. I cherish every moment I spend together with my son. I try to be there for him, play with him, and make him a happy child. I want to be his best friend. I know this will not last forever. He will grow up one day. He will change. He will not walk by me, following me around the house with every step. He will become an adult with his own problems and worries. The father figure will move down the line and maybe even stay there forever unless I do my job right.

Now about writing. I always have so much to say about writing, but my writing process could be more consistent. I have my moments where I was dedicated and focused and inspired and creative, and this shit was pouring out of me, and then I have plenty of downtime or no time for writing at all. Some days it felt like I don’t even know what the fuck to write about. But that’s the resistance. Once I am on it, I am on it, and the writing flows.

My foremost priority since late last year was to publish my second book. I had this idea in my head for about two years now, but, man, it took so much time to finally, piece by piece, get it done and be over with. The book was meant to be a collection of everything I’ve written and posted on my blog. So-called “Writer’s Blog” book. I was working on editing and rewriting a lot of material, and many changes needed to be made. I began editing early in the year and only finished by mid-November. I had to polish everything and make it shine for the book. I think I did a pretty damn good job with that. I am proud of finally getting this second book out of my system and into the literature world. I had my closure. Let that bird fly.

It was a heavy lift for me, editing everything I’ve written and published on the blog over the last three years, plus writing new stuff and regularly posting on my blog. But, at the end of the day, I did it. I fucking did it. My second self-published book “Nicetown” went for sale in the Kindle store on December fourth. The paperback is coming out soon. I need to invest in online promotion and advertising through my media channels. Who knows, maybe, this book will do something. I am hopeful. But if not, then fuck it. There is a novel in process and several other writing project ideas in my head. The hold-off is just me. I need to sit down and start working again.

I renewed my Bluehost contract and blog domain for another three years. It wasn’t fucking cheap, but I thought this fucking thing kept me writing all these years, and it was proven to be working for me. So, I will be there for at least another three years. I have also recently started my Substack page and will post all new material there. Substack seems to be the way to go. It is a new, more modern way of blogging that removes the pain in the ass of building and maintaining your own website and distributing your content. Plus, all the cool kids are there. This could be another potential to get my audience, whoever they might be. I don’t get much of anything by just running my blog. I do need to acquire some audience and write for them. I mean, I always write for myself first, but it is always better when you have a group of fans looking forward to reading your next shit. I am sure they are somewhere out there. I would’ve been willing to read some new, raw, authentic writing from a writer who doesn’t give a fuck. It is hard to find anything like that anymore these days because everyone is afraid to speak out and write open-mindedly without sugarcoating anything or being too safe, trying to appease the audience and not get canceled. A lot of people just blindly went woke. It may be about time to take a little nap for them.

As I said, this 2022 was decent, much better than the last two years, and I hope for an even better 2023. I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know what the new year will bring, but I do know that I don’t and can’t stop for anything. I must keep moving forward, work on my writing, create new content, and get some life. We only get one chance at life, so why in the fuck would I stay humble and not try new and different things? We all have to get some life before it ends. Nobody knows when that time will come around, but we all sure as fuck know that it will come eventually. There are no sequels. I need to set larger goals for myself. I mean, regardless of how shitty life can become and how busy I can get with the daily chores, I am always happy when I write. I am always satisfied when I can put out some great work. Great, in my understanding. I am not shooting for a Pulitzer Price; let me make that clear.

So, I am ready for a new fucking year. I have a little plan to go after, and I will be working my ass off. I know that the minute that clock strikes midnight on the first, the shit might go haywire. No magic happens in a new year unless we create it for ourselves. Unless we work towards getting something for ourselves and work hard to accomplish something, whatever it is. Sometimes even small victories can make your day. Sometimes even a small thing can be a major turning point. So, happy New 2023 Year! Don’t get fucked up too much. The date will change on the calendar, but all your bullshit will remain unless you decide to change something. Cheers to all of you, free people of this fair country, and let’s be kind to one another, open-minded too.

Poem: At the beach with my family

~ John Loraine ~ 13 Comments

The ocean looked calm, more or less.
Waves were hitting the shoreline,
But no more than usual.
It’s never too quiet or simple, anyway.
The sand under our feet felt rough and a little wet
From the last night’s rain
But it still felt great
To be at the beach with my family.
The kid played in the sand, and I played with him
And he smiled and laughed as we both did
At something that he enjoyed doing.
We ran on the sand, chasing seagulls,
Chasing dreams,
Chasing life.
My wife was smiling, playing with our son,
And he was happy and excited to be there.
He loves playing in the sand, building or ruining the sandcastles,
Running in the sand, falling on the sand, walking on the sand
Do anything on the sand.
We stay out there late until the sunset
As the sun was rolling down the hills, we packed
And left the ocean to be there, lonely in the dark.
It was a great day at the beach, indeed,
And sadly, there aren’t too many days like this one,
Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a poem about it.

Life

~ John Loraine ~ 9 Comments

Life? What is life? What is there about it? Why is it always have to go the wrong way? Why, every so often, does life take you to some weird fucking places and knocks you down? Where the fuck am I going? And all of us? You, me, and everybody? It is bizarre to figure out your own life. You only learn this as you go along the way and stumble and fall, down deep into the shit of it all. It always has been this way. I always thought that when I grew up and reached my current age, I would know all the tricks and have all the answers. How naive of me was that? The longer I live, the more questions and doubts I have and the more confused and puzzled I become. It is not easy to make the right decision or any fucking decision because now, as an adult, there are no small decisions. Everything has consequences, and I have to take full responsibility. Not because I have to, I could surely fuck around, but because it is the right thing to do, and this is what grown men do. They take responsibility for all their actions and decisions and fight every day to ensure that they do all they can today to make their lives better tomorrow.

I am no longer the young and careless lad I once was. I am not an old fuck either. But these are the times right now when I establish myself as a real man, my character and my personality and my lifestyle, to help me get through this fucking crazy life. I know I’ve made many bad decisions, and many things could be different today. I am not even complaining about anything I’ve done. I love my life the way it is, and knowing how others struggle everywhere in the world, I feel so fucking fortunate. And honestly, even if I fucked up a few times here and there, I wouldn’t mind it too much because I wouldn’t be the person I am today. This is all about learning that shit as you go and keep moving forward. One should never stop moving forward unless you’re not breathing anymore. That’s the only allowed permanent stop. All other times, you have no excuses. Whether you want it or not, you have to get out there and fight every day and be who you are, become a better version of yourself, and find your true passion or your calling or whatever it is you are looking for.

I remember waiting when I was younger. I remember that there always has been a lot of waiting involved all the time. Waiting until I finish high school, finish college, or university, waiting for the job, waiting for the pay, waiting to reach a certain age, a particular moment, waiting for my opportunity. There is still a lot of waiting involved today, but it is called work in progress. I am kind of waiting for a better life, easy living, more fun, less pain, and less struggle, but also I am buried in my life with my daily chores and responsibilities. I know that just by waiting, I will not achieve shit. I have to do something about it. I have to work hard. I have to work smart. I have to keep my eyes open and not miss the opportunity coming my way, sideways, or wherever direction that bitch is coming from. I have to be ready. I have to be prepared for anything.

One never knows what life will put you through until it does. One never knows what tomorrow will bring. So, the game is to be ready for anything and be strong whatever comes your way. We are all here temporarily, people you know today, your friends, relatives, co-workers, and neighbors. One day you might wake up to a phone call about somebody’s death. Somebody you wouldn’t even question living for a long time might pass away. Are you ready for this? No. Nobody is. I don’t care who you are and how tough you are. Life will keep throwing punches and curve balls at you all the fucking time, and you have to be strong enough to manage all that shit. There are battles at war, and also, there are battles in peace. The winner might not take everything, but the winner better be you. Otherwise, there comes another defeat, misery, depression, wasted years of life, and so many wasted lives. People can be kind or seem kind at first. You always find out too late about all the pitfalls and shit that come from others. Sometimes it even feels like you have nobody to lean on, nobody to have your back. You are here, all alone, on your own, with all the bullshit to deal with. Modern society is strange these days, super sensitive and very easily manipulated. You could be too. You have to be mindful and aware and have your eyes and ears open all the time.

I often sit in total despair and wonder, how could shit get more brutal than this? And guess what? Next time around, sure as fuck, it becomes next-level insane. I am learning to become kind of immune to that. I never expect things and life to go easy and smooth. I know it never will be. But I also know that I have to be stronger to stand against it, whatever it is. Something does hurt you a lot. I mean, some things will damage you profoundly and permanently, and you might stay this way for a very long time. Even if you recover, you must never forget your past struggles. They will make you tougher. They will make you smarter. They will make you more resilient. “To be alive at all is to have scars” – an excellent quote from John Steinback. That is what I am talking about. This is another way of saying, “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” However, as cliche, as it might sound, it is true as anything.

We all grow up. We all get older with time. We age differently and interestingly, and that is the fact. We get fucking old. All of us. Even if you have that plastic surgery, everyone, including you, knows you’re fucking old. With age, there comes wisdom. Some get it more and some less. I am not judging. The more I get older, the more stupid I think I become but also, the more I learn and see that I know nothing. There is just so much shit to learn and discover, so many questions, and even more questions without answers. We try to answer them all, but often we fail. It is okay to fail. It is not okay to give up trying. Plastic surgery won’t give you all the answers, either. It won’t give you any wisdom except a good understanding that eventually, we fail to be young and beautiful and full of energy as we once were back in our innocent and glorious youth. The thing is to keep up the good fight, whatever it means to you. To be as good as you can be today and try for the same tomorrow. It is hard. Nobody said it would be easy. But, if you want to get and achieve something in this life, you have to do it.

Love is there also for us. Love does not always have big boobs or a nice, round big ass. Love is a feeling. Love is the air. Love is an ocean. Love is the motivation, and love should be in our lives to help us get through everything. Many people fail at love or love somebody they shouldn’t. You can’t always tell your heart what to do, but you can make the right decision. There is always the right person somewhere out there for all of us. I’ve been fortunate to have found my love. She is always near and dear to me, my heart, and my soul. There is no price tag or expiration date. There should not be one, to begin with. Things do happen, and it might seem like the love has evaporated. It might be gone, for that matter, but also, it could be the wrong love. The wrong choice you’ve made somewhere along the way, and as time went by, it became more apparent. It is sad but true. I don’t know how to find the right one. I guess time will tell. I think you have to make a move and use the proper judgment, and then you’ll see if you were right or not.

Life wouldn’t be interesting if it wouldn’t fuck with us from time to time. That’s life. I don’t think one can be fully ready for all shitstorms that could come your way. One doesn’t know what to expect the next minute, which makes it all very unpredictable and very mysterious, in a way. I guess this fight never stops. It’s always on as long as you live, as long as you breathe, and if you want to take another breath, you should fight for it. So, it just makes perfect sense to sit back and enjoy life and every little moment. One day it is rough; another is a blast. So, what the fuck?

I do want to go back. I want to return to my emotional and spiritual home, the warm beach in South West Florida. I thought about it recently. I reminisced about the good old days and the time when my mind and soul were in total peace and harmony. There was no anxiety, depression, stress, or any fucking worry whatsoever. There is something in that sunshine that makes you feel more alive. The minute you get out of the car or a plane and look around and look up, you feel free and happy. There is no better way to get all the fucking vitamin D you can get out there. That is a secret ingredient to happiness. It does make me happy. It does make me genuinely happy like nothing else in the world. That climate is just perfect. It’s warm and consistent, and there are no significant ups and downs and fucking sideways with temperatures or anything else. Yes, it rains and storms like fucking hell at certain times, but most of the time, it’s fucking perfect. It is 85 on average every day. It could be plus or minus two, three, or four degrees. Who gives a shit? It’s still great. It makes one want to live and love this life.

The ocean. The ocean is magnificent by its nature, and it heals. It heals all the wounds that we get from the day-to-day bullshit. You know what heaven feels like when you sit on the beach watching waves, lying in the sand, or swimming in the warm ocean water. I loved to wake up early and drive to the beach for my morning runs. I ran barefoot slowly, listening to some music while still hearing the ocean and the birds. I ran with the early morning sun in my face, the beach to my side, and my bare feet feeling the wet sand on the shore like nothing else. It felt so liberating. It felt like freedom. It was not physical exercise for me. It was a joy and pure mental and spiritual joy. When my day started like that every morning, there was nothing that could upset me anymore or have any fucking negative impact on me whatsoever. I just didn’t give a fuck. I was in heaven. I knew I had it better than most. I was devouring every second of my time there on the beach every time, and I started to appreciate little moments like that more. I began to see life from a new perspective. I knew that there was a reason why I was alive and why I should love this life. I knew that I was so fucking fortunate to be there. I was so grateful for my life, what I have, and the people around me.

Sunsets. Oh, these magnificent sunsets can cure cancer, and they are perfect each time you see one. I cannot tell you how happy I have been to witness all the sunsets I did, how many thoughts ran through my mind, how much joy I had, and how much more alive I felt. There is something about sunsets that always intrigues me and makes me want to watch them more and more and more, and there are never enough sunsets. On the one hand, I could witness how the perfect day ended, how every day ended. How yet another day of my life ended but wasn’t wasted. That is the key to watching sunsets. You see them, and you realize that they will happen with or without you, and the day will become the night, the night will become a day, and life will move on, and so should we. There is the right time to start and the right time to finish. There is this time in the day to let go of all the shit that happened before and get ready for a new beginning.

On the other hand, it makes you think and wonder how insignificant we are and how much natural beauty there is in this world, and it is there for you every fucking evening for free. It is a shame that so many people take these great events for granted and ignore them or miss them even when they really can, take twenty minutes off their evening and see that magnificent and perfect scenery. I always took my time to be there, watch yet another sunset, say goodbye to the past, and welcome new and better life.

There is enough suffering and bullshit in life, but there are also many really great things here. If you focus on the wrong things, that’s what you’ll be getting, a shitty fucking, miserable life. If you choose to seek out great things, you will be happy. Truly happy as people can be. You are what you think you are. Choose to be somebody better than that person you were yesterday and see how things will start to change. There might not be a perfect life in your daily existence. There might not be an ideal woman next to you. There might not be a beach where you live, but it doesn’t mean these things do not exist and that, if you want and seek them out, you’ll be in a better place with everything you need that makes you happy. And honestly, there isn’t much the man needs to be truly happy. It is always the little things.

Turning 35

~ John Loraine ~ 13 Comments

Today I have turned 35 years old. I am halfway there, as they say. If I somehow reach 65-70, I will be retired. An old, rusty, angry retired asshole. 35 doesn’t seem as old as I would think when I was younger. I am certainly not a fucking teenager anymore, but I am young at heart, and I kept myself pretty damn well. Honestly, I feel much fucking better physically and mentally than I did at 25. Fuck 25 and 20, anything. That was the most confusing, weird, challenging, and one hell-on-a-bender experience I assume most youngsters have to go through. I am glad I lived through that shit and didn’t have to worry about it anymore. At 35, life just begins. I am now starting to think straight, getting shit done, reaching new levels, and securing a decent life for my family and me. There is a bunch of shit I’ve learned over the years, and that is what I want to share with you. I’d like to look back at these 35 pearls of wisdom and see if any of them hold up to my older age. Who knows.

  1. There is no time like the present. As cliche as it sounds, it is fucking true. Do not wait for fucking anything or anybody. Do it now. If you fail, fuck it. At least you’ll know. If you succeed. Great, well done, motherfucker.
  2. Time is the most valuable asset anyone has. Time flies; the older you become, the faster the time goes. Wasting time means wasting your life. Do not spend your time on stupid shit. Today you’re a child; tomorrow, you are on your deathbed. Think about all the time you had in life and what you did with it. Do you have any regrets?
  3. Always rely on yourself and your own abilities, no matter what. It is great if there is someone to give you a hand. This point might not be much required for you then. But in most cases, if you learn to be independent and rely on yourself, you will be better off.
  4. True friends are always with you in the worst situations. There will always be too many people to have fun with, but there will be very few or just one who will stick with you and be around and sacrifice anything to help you out. That is a true friend. Others should not be invited to any of your BBQs.
  5. Always be in great physical shape. Workouts are not just to slim down or become the next greatest fucking bodybuilder. Exercises train your body, discipline your mind, and make the real fucking man out of you.
  6. Sleep is essential. Do not fuck up your sleep schedule for anything. It is as important as your overall health. If you are sleep deprived, you are fucked, nothing feels great, life is shit, and your health will decline. It is just not worth it.
  7. Intermittent fasting should be part of the daily ritual. There is more science to that than just simply losing weight. Intermittent fasting will help burn extra fat, clear your bloodstream, clear and sharpen your mind, give you more energy, and lower your fucking sugar, cholesterol, and all other shit roaming in your body, making you feel like shit.
  8. Marry the right woman. Anything else before or after this point will be accomplished if you have the right woman to share your life with. The right woman is not the one that has the most enormous boobs or won the beauty contest. The right woman is the one that will let you be you, a better you than you have ever been.
  9. There is no more extensive and stronger love you can experience than the love towards your child. You can love your mother a lot. You can love your wife or girlfriend a lot, but when you become a parent, your love for your child will overwhelm you unless you’re a fucking robot.
  10. Always learn from your mistakes and others. Analyze your life, decisions, and misbehavior, and fix that shit moving forward. Nobody’s perfect, but the less dumb shit you’d do, the better your life will become.
  11. Being a parent is fucking cool. People who never became a parent will not understand. There is nothing to be afraid of for people who are not yet parents. You will enter a new level of your life. And it will be a better life. A life worth living and struggling for.
  12. If you want to have a great time, you have to have a great watch. Be a true gentleman and always wear a decent quality watch on your wrist. I don’t mean the expensive thousands-dollar brand, just a good mechanical, automatic, or even quartz watch. Yes, you have your phone with you all the time, and you have your fucking Apple watch or some other shit. Wear something with a soul in it, some mechanics that help you go through your life and show you the good and tough times. There is no better sound than the ticking of a watch mechanism.
  13. Clean your room, clean your house, clean your desk, clean your life. This will help you to get organized and know where your shit is at all times. Also, you will look like a professional and a responsible person instead of a constantly distracted asshole who spends half a day trying to find his socks.
  14. Read books, always. Books are the best friends, the best companions, the best source of knowledge, the best therapy, and the best inspiration. It is always hard to find time, but if you try, you will enjoy every second of reading a great book and always look out and dedicate time to reading.
  15. If the book you are reading sucks, put it away. Not every book should fit your soul and mind at the time, and some might never fit your preferences. There are so many great books to read and discover, so if the one you are reading is not keeping you engaged, fuck it. Pick another one that might open a brand new world for you.
  16. Meditations are essential. There is no more and simpler way to clear up your brain and calm down your horses than as little as five minutes of meditation. Just sit back, close your eyes, and listen to your breath. That’s it. You got it. Do that whenever you feel like you’re about to lose your shit.
  17. Most people are assholes, and you will have to deal with them all your life. That’s it, just remember that.
  18. Never be afraid of asking questions regardless of how stupid they might seem to you. If you don’t ask, you might never know for sure. You might do something stupid. You might make a big mistake. Just ask. What that fuck is wrong with you? Asking cost nothing.
  19. Always be friendly and courageous to other people. Even if people around you are indeed assholes, there are too many of them anyway. Be nice, smile, greet, talk, and acknowledge their presence. They might not be completed morans. You might find a new friend that way.
  20. Always stick for and help those in need, those who are weaker, smaller, older, or unable to help themselves. You might go to heaven for that. Why not pick up somebody else’s slack?
  21. If you don’t like your job, don’t stick around, leave. Fuck those jobs that suck the living soul out of you. There is always another job out there somewhere. You’ll get it. And if that one will not work out for you, you’ll find another one, and another one, until you retire or die before retirement.
  22. Do not buy into the job family bullshit. This is a corporate trick to make you more loyal and stick around, depend on that paycheck, while they fucking you in the ass, taking away your health, your precious time, your sanity, your personal life, and then once you are no longer needed, they’ll fire your ass.
  23. Family should always be first. If you prioritize your job or anything else, chances are high you are an asshole, you will lose your family, and you will never know what it is like to have a great family, to begin with.
  24. Forgive and be forgiven. There is no happy ending in always holding a grudge against anybody. If possible, face that shit straight, face-to-face, figure it out, talk it out. If you are willing to forgive, you will also be forgotten, no matter what you did.
  25. Enjoy every little moment. You cannot live this life twice. You cannot take anything with you once you are gone. Life is tough and unpredictable; what you have right now is not guaranteed tomorrow. You might gain everything in one day or lose everything overnight. Enjoy the little moments and remember how great they are.
  26. Music is fucking great. Great music is even better. Always listen to some great music, whatever your mood is at the time, whatever music genre you prefer, it is all good. Just listen to some beats and sounds and take it fucking easy.
  27. People don’t always say what they mean and don’t always mean what they say. Know how to separate honest talk from bullshit. Learn how to read people, and read between the lines. It is a critical skill that will definitely help you in life, whatever you do.
  28. Sunsets and sunrises are fucking awesome. Try to see as many of them in your life as you can. Whether it is the beginning of the day’s end, the sky turning colors as the sun moves up or down, making a new beginning, or finalizing yet another day, it is so powerful and beautiful to see that missing or ignoring them is stupid. It is also a very inspirational and thought-provoking moment you will never be tired of experiencing.
  29. Enjoy a good whiskey or bourbon with ice like a real man. What can be better than that?
  30. Spend more time at the ocean on the beach. It is always a relaxing and therapeutic experience, and all the bullshit in your life will go the fuck away shortly.
  31. Do not follow the masses. Have your own opinion always. Masses are dumb for the most part, and it is getting old trying to catch up with Joneses. Fuck them all. Live your life.
  32. Always dedicate time to yourself to be alone. If you are not comfortable being alone, you have problems, pal. Everyone has to get away, even a little bit, to be in their own mind and thoughts and recharge before jumping into another social, family, or job chaos.
  33. Politics is shit. Always has been and always will be. There is nobody to trust and nobody to rely on.
  34. Always put yourself in somebody else shoes. Be compassionate. It is easy to see things with your eyes from your perspective, but everyone is different, and if you want to better feel or understand another person, you’ve got to see the world from their standpoint.
  35. Life is too short to wait for retirement. Live now. Enjoy life while it lasts. We all have a one-way ticket and never know when this will end. Fuck it all. It is not all that bad, after all.

No matter how hard your shit is right now, we can be heroes just for one day.

Working Class Heroes

~ John Loraine ~ 9 Comments

Somehow these “socially-accepted norms” were developed that should potentially set you up for the future and on the right path. First, they send you to kindergarten, then pre-school, then high school, then college, the two-year institution first, followed by a four-year institution, and then you’ll have to find an internship followed by a job. Then life kicks you in the balls regularly until you retire, if you are lucky. That’s already so much fucking agenda through the formative years and into your early adult life. Damn, I feel fortunate to survive. I feel sorry for my kid, who hasn’t even gone to childcare yet. In his Working Class Hero song, John Lennon sang, “As soon as you’re born they make you feel small by giving you no time instead of it all … and then they expect you to pick a career …” John Lennon coming out of one of the most successful, famous, and influential bands in the world, in his post-Beatles life, was clearly not out of touch with reality when he wrote these lyrics. This song sounds like a pain, raw, honest, the real deal, the real shit. John Lennon felt it in his heart even though he was lucky not to deal with those social routines and principles. This song is as relevant today as it was fifty or so years ago because certain things never change.

I am at that age and presence of mind where I start to analyze what my life has been, and there it is going, and this analysis never fucking stops. I’m halfway through my best young adult years of life, and if I am lucky to live the whole second half of it, I’ll be right there on the edge of the retirement age, fingers crossed. If there ever will be such a thing as retirement when I grow old. Who the fuck knows? I like to look back at my life quite often and dwell on the past, comparing different phases I went through and the times when I struggled or succeeded. It is fascinating to see how things have changed over the years. I am not the man I had been two years ago, and sure, not the same person I was five or even ten years ago. If he were still alive today, I’m guessing John Lennon wouldn’t be the same person he was fifty years ago either. We all change with time. Small or significant changes are always happening. That is the fact. That’s life. Life changes. We have to change. But the kick is that whatever bullshit you went through before if that didn’t kill you, could potentially make you much stronger and wiser and make you who you are today.

One thing that annoys me is realizing that my life is full of things that don’t bring me much pleasure but are required to have or to do. Like jobs, for example. Like mortgage payments. Like job security. Like regular meals for the family. These fucking things don’t come from thin air, and somebody has to go out there and hustle. That’s what I do. I go out there and hustle. I can provide for my family for the time being, but on the other side, that imposed routine slowly eats me alive from the inside. I know that majority of my time is spent on the job and job-related bullshit, and that takes my physical time and mental capacity and fucking chips away at my young creative soul. It gets to the point where I can no longer live the life I used to and do things I love because there is always so much other work to do. There are all those needs and wants that I want to make sure my family has so we have a little chance to live without counting every fucking penny. However, there are consequences and sacrifices that one should be taking into consideration.

Will my son love me the same if I lose my job and all those perks? Would I be a better father if I became unemployed and just spend all my time with him while I can, while he’s still small, while everything is fun and games? He might love the stay-at-home dad option, but I know better. I know that I would never be able to focus on happiness, and I would never be able to be fully happy if I knew that I didn’t have any fucking money behind my poor little soul. I do try to spend a reasonable amount of time with my family regardless. I love spending time with my kid. I also hate when I have to work late and catch up on work at home while he’s knocking at my door asking me to let him in because he just wants to play. He’s a two-year-old child, the pure thing. He doesn’t know yet what life is about. He doesn’t know yet what it takes to manage this adult life. How many times did I hear him crying in the other room while I was working from home, and I couldn’t do shit because I was on some stupid fucking meeting, working, fucking listening to some douchebags about shit that doesn’t even matter to me anymore. It tears my heart and breaks my soul. Somehow this life keeps taking these weird turns and twists, and I feel like if not this, then there will be something else that will eat away my life. There will always be the next pain in the ass to follow, whether you want it or not. Why in the fuck, in this free and independent world, do I have to sacrifice the most valuable things in my life for the sake of some sort of security which supposedly helps us ensure a better and worry-less life? This social norm has been fucked up for a while now. The more you try to achieve to be more independent, the more you are enslaving yourself into your job or what have you, and that shit slowly occupies all your brain and soul and takes away all your free and precious personal time. This is the modern developed world we are living in today.

You probably wake up early in the morning because most jobs start early. If you have children, that’s even earlier for you. It doesn’t matter that you are tired, and the few hours you just slept did not help much at all. It doesn’t matter that you worked until late night or late evening, and there is still so much shit you need to finish by tomorrow. You want it or not, but you have to get up yet again and hustle one more fucking day. Your eyes are shot and red and tired. Your face has only one emotion, tiredness. You get older by the minute. The breathing is hard. There is this internal pain and discomfort that you have to drag with you around all day and into the night. Shit never goes right. There are always issues and problems at work. There are always problems at home too. You keep all that shit inside, and the more there is of it, the more it hurts. You hurt so often and so much that it becomes part of you now. You are the walking pain. You wish you could just walk the fuck away. Just quit that motherfucking job. Walk outside, breathe in the warm summer air, jump into your car and go. Go somewhere. It doesn’t matter as long as it is far away. Get out, get outside, enjoy the free blue sky and the birds, and the time you should have to enjoy always, but you never do. Go to the nearest bar and have a drink. Celebrate yourself. Fuck them all. Fuck those jobs! Your job has been a drag, and it always will be. And it always takes more and more of your life until you become a fucking slave. But then you realize that the bills are due, the bank account is running low, and the birthday of a loved one or a child is coming up. Your friends invited you to go out somewhere, and you just can’t afford to have your family going through the fucking government assistance program just because you don’t want to ruin your life with your job. You reminisced the good old and young days when shit was easy. Back then, you still could fuck off and walk out and change this around easily. Now, there is baggage. Now there is a family and responsibilities. By now, you are tired of fucking living with nothing and for nothing, and you want just a little bit of joy in this fucking life. I mean, how long can a person live in such misery? How do we get to live, period? Not much, as you will realize. There is just a little bit of life hidden somewhere behind all these fucking hustles and struggles and misery and depression.

Most people live this miserable “working-class” existence their entire lives. Somehow that becomes normal. That becomes your pride as a working man, your family, your fridge, your mortgage, your financed car, and all that other shit that people cannot live without. To have it, you must own it or at least go to work to pay for it. There is always a payment in our lives. Nothing’s free, pal. Everything costs money, stupid, ugly, dirty fucking money which we all are eager to earn and spend our lives making, collecting, investing, planning, spending, and dying for. I mean, not everyone can become a millionaire who doesn’t give a fuck about making daily life possible. There are so many hedge-fund babies the world can handle, and the rest have to be fucking peasants and physically work their asses off until they die, proudly like true working-class heroes. Somebody has to work to support all those rich fucks and everybody else. Somebody must work at the gas station, restaurant, bar, school, post office, construction, garbage company, etc. Today, we can clearly see that the great and powerful developed world as we knew it is not all that fucking great, and powerful, and invincible, and fucking A, not so much secure from pandemics and wars and shortages on so many things. And this is just the beginning, and this is looking to go only a downward spiral from here. Naturally, I am mentally well prepared for the worst, but I don’t know what to prepare for exactly and do not have the slightest idea about what the next day will bring. Sadly, I do not see the future at all of the bullshit going on in the world right now. It just seems like darkness all around.

I struggled a lot throughout the years with and without a job, and I know that I complain about the job while I have one, but I also know that if I lose this job, I will be fucked badly. Like probably half of the country, I am about two missing paychecks away from living on the street. All the things that now come for granted will be at risk or disappear quickly. The beauty of waking up and not worrying about paying your bills, rents, mortgages, and cars is very liberating. I think I can write much better when I am stressed about life, and the job is eating is fucking driving me bunkers, but if I didn’t have a job, my creativity would be evaporated, and all my thoughts would be about going and making some money. This is how this society is set up. You always have to work, and you always have to have that fear that will make you compliant. The fear of losing everything by sacrificing the most valuable in your life, your life. Somehow I need to and am still trying to figure out how to make it all work. How do I ensure that I can provide for my family, that we all can afford to live and do things we love, and that the fucking job is not taking away too much of my time, focus, health, and creative soul out of me?

The system was built so some will always live well, and some should always struggle. So many of these fucking mentors and entrepreneurs have made it in life, and now they are willing to share their secrets with anyone for a sum of money, providing lessons, books, podcasts, and all that other shit. One thing they all say that is the same is that you have to sacrifice everything, all your time, friends, family time, sleep, health, but you have to push through all the hardship, and eventually, you will fucking make it. Great fucking plan! Here I am sitting and wondering, how could I have all those things without killing my fucking life and soul? I guess that is the million-dollar question to be answered someday. The sacrifice has to come from somewhere.

Usually, the sacrifice has to be on your side. There is always an opportunity cost for anything. You have to decide which opportunity cost you are willing to take. What matters most to you right now that you should be going after, and what can be pushed to the side. I haven’t found a solution for that yet. I am still struggling. The more time passes, the harder the struggle becomes. The only light I can see is to enjoy this fucking crazy journey along the way, live for now, and be simply happy. There is no fucking reason to save all those millions for your retirement. I honestly think that once I am retired, I will not need anything, or not much would be necessary. I will be just like another constantly annoyed, grumpy old man complaining about life, the younger generation, and politics. If I am to miss any of these important life events just because I had a lot of “work” to do, I’d be fucking damned. If I had to bankrupt myself of every little joy in life just so I can live longer, what’s the fucking point of living longer without joy? You can’t take anything with you to the other side. The opportunity missed is the opportunity lost. Somebody once said, think, if you were on your deathbed; what missing opportunities will you regret more? It is always better to try and fail than not to try and regret forever. There will always be some work to do. There will always be somebody else in your place. There will always be the daily bullshit troubles. But there will only be a short period in this life when my son is two years old, and he is young and cute and funny and playful as he is right now, and he will be with me most of the time, and we can play and enjoy our time together. If I ever miss any of that, I wouldn’t be able to get that back at no cost. At retirement age or any other, all those precious things saved for later would be fucking useless waste of time and life. Life is too short to wait for retirement.

To all the working-class heroes out there, whatever you do, whatever makes you a few bucks today, remember one thing, it will not be like this forever, and anything will not last forever. The system that is banding you over will always be this way. Life will give you chances; you should be able to see them and take advantage. There will always be Uncle Sam, watching you closely and ensuring you have paid all your dues, but your life was not meant to be fifteen dollars an hour-for-ever. There are opportunities, other jobs, hobbies, solutions, and alternative ways of making a living. If you just keep looking out and thinking and voicing your troubles honestly to yourself, you will be able to notice the changes and see the opportunity for every problem. Life never goes in a straight line. There are ups and downs. We all should be aware of them. You must be honest with yourself first. Even if you are a restaurant worker, that can be your happy place in life too. You can make good money in a restaurant business, construction, office job, writing, painting, dancing, or something else. It is never too late to try new other things. It is never too late to ask yourself, what the fuck is making me happy? What matters to me most? How can I move along in life and make sure I stay afloat? There are so many sunrises to see.

The journey metaphor makes more sense than anything because you only live once. When this is over, there is nothing else and no second chance. Enjoying every little moment is the key. It’s the only thing you can control and must take full advantage of. Remember one thing, this is a one-way ticket ride, and once it’s over, it is over. There are no sequels. What would you be sorry for if today was your last day? What would you change? How would you live your life differently? “A working-class hero is something to be.”

End game

~ John Loraine ~ 5 Comments

“Where is this fucking world going?” He sat by his kitchen nook with his coffee, thinking. “I can’t even remember when it all began to go South. For fuck’s sake, what kind of life this is anyway?” Jack’s face was looking tired. It was tired of too many things. His sleep was poor, drinking too much, too often, writing at weird times and hours or not writing for too long, abandoned by his family, having no or very minimal human interaction, all those things. He’s been getting older by the minute, and he felt like it. It was that face in the mirror every fucking morning that he had to cringe at every time. His soul might have felt younger, but the face showed it all. There were too many messages written on it, too many scars. He could read them all too well. He did it to himself in a way. It was too late to judge now, and who was there to judge him anyway? We all make mistakes in life. For many, life was a mistake. For many, there was no life, just a miserable existence. For some, it was a fucking paradise with the sun shining all the time. He’s had it all and then some.

What does money mean now? What does fame mean now? What do these books on the shelves and beer in the fridge mean now anyhow? He looked around with a depressed look on his aging face. The grey was now showing more in his hair and three-month beard. His eyes were sat deep and looked small and tired. It was impossible to go back in time and fix things. Fuck, if only he could do that! Everything felt great at the time, and nothing was to be changed. Years later, more and more of these revisioning thoughts were coming to him, stressing his hangover brains. Maybe, it was his drinking. There was plenty of that. There is always plenty of drinking and hanging out when things are swell. Things were going well for a long time. He was basking in his fame, and his books were topping all the charts back in the day. He still had his fans, but he didn’t have his passionate soul and youth anymore. That’s life, he thought. That is my motherfucking life.

Sipping his coffee, he stood up and walked up to the window. The picture outside the window was pretty much reflected what he felt like on the inside. It was late January, and it was freezing cold. There was so much snow, and he never bothered to shovel it. His backyard looked like the place where nature goes to die. All these naked, empty, dark trees were standing there motionless. Everything was stripped from its green wealth and beauty. That fucking snow covered everything, hiding the fucked up ugly surface underneath. This was a rough winter. This was a rough life.

He drifted in his memories back to when his family was living there with him. What a cheerful great old days they were! Where did they all go? He saw his wife planting flowers and decorating the backyard. He saw his young son running around, playing with their dog. There were smiles on their faces. There was laughter and joy, and there was his family. There was a feeling of being alive. He was busy working on his next novel all the time, but once he stopped writing, and just like right now, he looked through the window, and he couldn’t take his eyes away. These were his favorite people in the world. They were the people he was supposed to keep around, support, and love till the bitter end. That was the best part of his life passing by him while he took everything for granted and got busy with everything else. Somehow you feel like other responsibilities need more attention, and you keep distancing yourself from the ones who truly love you and need close to you. There are usually more and more responsibilities and other shit that pile up over time, and eventually, you end up old and broken and alone. Sadness took over his mind and soul. The tears rolled up in his old eyes. He felt the heart trembling and the pain inside. Fuck, he said, what a fucking asshole am I? How could I miss out on them so much? Where are they now? I guess you can’t go back in time to change anything. I think this suffering is permanent.

Jack’s wife divorced him some five years ago. There were a lot of problems between the two. Jack’s writing career picked up. He was always in the center of everyone’s attention, and it took the best of him. He was never around, and he was always busy with meetings, writings, appearances, new book projects, movie projects, all that kind of shit. On the one hand, it was great to see him succeed; on the other, he appeared to be more and more away from his wife and family, and eventually, when he was around, he wasn’t sober. The constant glorifying of his works and celebrating his successes led him to drink his ass blind. That was never a plan. That was never supposed to happen.

Jack remembered meeting his wife when he was a young and starving writer. They went to the same school, they had known each other for a long time. It has been one of those moments when you realize, damn, how come I never saw this in you? You are so beautiful and caring, and I cannot stop thinking about you. He offered to marry her right there in the dorm room, and she said yes. Jack smiled again, and his stone face moved awkwardly. These were the good days of his life. These were the best days of his life. He was young and ambitious. He wanted to become a writer, and school was just a distraction. It was just another social norm to follow while establishing his writing career. The college was supposed to cover up for his writing time while working on his debut masterpiece. He finally got it. He wrote that first best-selling novel. Everything started to change around him right the next day after. He barely graduated as he became famous. It felt great. It felt rewarding. They were both happy about his success then. They’ve shared their joy and excitement. Around the same time, his wife got pregnant with their son, and there was another great reason to be happy. Jack was writing on the next book.

If I only knew what that early success would cost me. Jack was desperate. Now, on the edge of his life, he was lonely. He was going to be a successful writer and provide for his family. He’s lived his dream life. But now his family is gone, his success in the past and his writing stalled for an undefined period. Life is a bitch. Life always keeps fucking you over. You have to pick your fucking battles more carefully, pal, he said to himself. Who gives a fuck about you, old man, anymore? His coffee was now cold, but he still felt like drinking it to the end.

It was sunny outside, and it seemed like it was warm. The snow was still on the ground, which would tell you otherwise. These short and cold days were flying away from one after another like the wild birds in the sky. There was no way of stopping the time. There was no way to get back in time and fix past problems. All you have to do is to suffer well, old man. He would call somebody, but he had nobody to talk to. Nobody called him either. It’s been a while since that phone was ringing. This is life. This is a revanche. I am losing this fight, Jack thought. It was not supposed to be this way.

He strolled to the bar and picked a bottle of whiskey. He went up to his writing room. His laptop was sitting on the table next to a pile of papers and glasses scattered all over. He poured himself a drink in one of the glasses and drank it all. It felt calming. He opened his laptop and started to type:

“There he was, on the edge of life, lonely and broken with all those books dusting on the library shelves around the world. Life gave him too many chances. Most of them he wasted. It’s not over until it is over, he thought and drank another one. Living his dream cost him a lot. He paid his price in full. There was nothing left for him in his City of Brotherly Love, not love nor any future promises. Everything came and went, and not all of the memories remained in his hangover mind. Fighting the good fight and drinking the good whiskey was everything left for him to do in his empty house of broken dreams with windows shut dark from the outside world. The writing was a lonely game. Life was a lonely game too. It wasn’t too bad as long as the words kept coming and the lines were written. Not at all.”

Coming to fruition

~ John Loraine ~ 18 Comments

It’s been a while, my friend, since I lay my fingers on you and wrote something. It used to be great to wake up early in the morning, brew some strong, fresh coffee, and type my sleeping brains away. It used to be that I’d write almost every morning, and there was always something to write about. There is still something to write about. It is just that so many other things happen in our lives that require attention and then require some sort of shift in priorities. It’s been over one month since I wrote anything new, and my blog feels like a foster child with nobody to look after it. I am back at it again. Back to my writing game, back to the rhythm of the words and lines and pages.

New life is here. Many new beginnings were happening and building out this year. Good new beginnings, considering the circumstances. At some point last year, it felt like I was losing my shit. And I did, on the mental level, but I was in shape and productive like a motherfucker. This year is just like last year but with more fucking weird surprises that nobody could account for. I cannot remember my life being that fucking odd and chaotic and without any reasonable sense. Everything happened this year like a new president, new virus, new social guidelines, new vaccines, tornados in Philly, bitcoin’s rise, and you fucking name the rest of the crazy shit that we’ve lived through.

There were also some good things happening there as well. I never consider myself a lucky person. Lucky is not in my fucking dictionary, and more than that, it is foreign subject material to me. I always had to and needed to work very hard on everything to achieve anything. This has always been my truth. The thing is that this hard work made me appreciate my life and my achievements much more. This is where I struggle yet to learn how to make this life a better place to be. And I’ve come a long way.

This year also had some milestones that I’ve been planning to achieve for a while now. Today it all makes my head spin about how much shit I’ve put up with to make it all happen and how many personal sacrifices I was able to make it all work in the end. Since about a year ago, I started to think and strategically plan to leave my current workplace. The fucking corporation has gotten too close to my balls, disturbing my personal life too much and too often. I fucking hated it. I am a responsible adult, a father, and I try not to act on impulse but rather be thinking first before reacting. I’ve sucked all that shit up for the greater good of my family and me. I am the man, and I make shit happen, and I ensure everything plays out well in the end.

So I’ve suffered for a very long time while thinking about and prioritizing my exit from that corporate world, planning for my future, building my moves while setting shit up for the best. And you know what? Fucking finally, it all worked to my best advantage. It fucking did work as I planned it. I am finally getting my life back. Now I have a new place of work, a much better place, much better pay, and a much better life overall. I purchased my first home, which is a great fucking home for my family, and we are happy here. It almost feels like I’m dreaming after all the shit I went through. Waiting for all that shit to happen, waiting for a pandemic to end, waiting for a recruiter to call, waiting for a response, waiting for a decision, waiting for the sun to shine, waiting for an escape… I’ve been fucking waiting for so goddamn long that now I have a hard time believing this reality. And the truth is that if you have your fucking mind on the money and think strategically, always work towards your plan, you will achieve your desired results. You will make it all happen sooner or later.

“Good things are fucking happening.” This was a quote from Instagram, which came through at some point randomly in my feed. I’ve been thinking about it and saying it myself too often lately, knowing that no matter how hard it is now, it will be ok. Good things will fucking happen eventually! This quote makes me both smile and it inspires me, gives me some good energy, and promotes positive thinking and hope. It is hard to be positive and have any great stamina when you are literally and figuratively locked up in the fucking box with all your usual liberties taken away or suppressed. You don’t know what the fuck is going to happen in the next minute, and nobody will tell you the truth anyhow. And slowly, we become animals. This is what happened to America recently. In my case, I am happy with how things have turned out to be. The future is there, it is near, and it holds its mystery. And I am looking forward to being part of it and part of that fucking mystery.

My waiting finally came to fruition in such a short period after such a long waiting feels surreal. I remember how long and hard things were for me in the beginning and pretty much until recently. I was on the edge of losing my shit multiple times. I was feeling down, broken, and hopeless. However, I held up, took my blame, my responsibilities, and moved forward, not knowing what was out there, not knowing how it all would play out for me in the end. It’s been a year since I planned my move out of this job; it’s been about six months since I started actively looking for new positions; it’s been hundreds of job applications sent with half of them never receiving any feedback; it’s been dozens of interviews with various success and progress, and all of them going into nowhere, except one, the one that made it for me. The one I’ve been waiting on for so fucking long, and it finally came to me. All this fucking misery finally paid off. It all fucking came to fruition.

I’ve been driving home one evening from work, listening to a podcast about something, and zoning out into my world of thoughts and nonsense. I took the exit from the highway and into the suburbs, driving by the darkened streets of single homes with nicely mowed lawns, trash cans all lined up as if in the army, all color red. It’s quiet, dark, almost no people seen around, a few cars driving by here and there. And then suddenly I woke up from my thoughts, looked around, and thought, where am I? What is this place? In two seconds, it all sank in. Ok, now relax, you’re am home. I am home. It is my new neighborhood now. It is nice, quiet, and beautiful, and it only costs a jacked average home price plus a few more thousand dollars of property taxes compared to where I lived before. It’s ok; we will make it work. This is a new life and a new beginning. Life wasn’t all that fucked up after all. Good things are fucking happening.

I woke up in my bed, on the second floor. It’s dark, about the break of dawn, and I can hear the birds chirping. The sun is yet to wake up, but I beat it by at least thirty minutes. I put the meditation on and woke up with my mind at ease. I never thought the early morning meditation could be so much helpful to such damaged goods as I am. I was wrong. This meditation set me at ease and made me wake up properly and feel great. I take a shower and brush my teeth, after which I brew my coffee. I open all the blinds on ten or more windows around the house to have the early morning sunshine break-in.

I open the sunroom’s large windows up to get a perfect, wide-open view of my newly acquired backyard, which reminds me of some sort of national park with all the trees and bushes, and squirrels, and the wild nature in it. It is very chaotic; there is no sense and logic as to why these trees were planted where they were. I have this perfect chaos now for myself and my family to enjoy. This backyard is all in one, my nature and my freedom, and my privacy.

Soon after, my two-year-old will wake up, and I will hear him playing with his toys. He’ll come down to this sunroom and continue playing until his nap time. He’ll go outside with his mother at some point in the day. He loves his mother a lot. Those two are the perfect company while the dad is working. I usually join them mid-day for a bit and then later in the evening. I love them both dearly. I love them both more than life. I am a fortunate son of the bitch, after all.

To us

~ John Loraine ~ 11 Comments

It was night and dark outside. She and I were on the beach in Miami. I had a glass of red wine in my hand, and she had a cup of hot black tea. We were not married then, but we both knew our love was real and deep, and it will last for as long as it could.

The beach was almost empty, and the ocean was dark with just some sparks here and there, reflecting the city lights on the water and the moon and the stars in the deep, dark, faraway sky. We were silent, sitting close to each other as one. We did not need to talk at all; we understood everything at that moment. It was love. It was us. It was our future together, which we didn’t know yet. But we hoped it would be good for both of us. It will have us together.

I was inspired at the moment, and I knew it is one of a kind. I never had any moments like that before. I knew gods gave me a chance to think and to dream and to see what I wanted in this life. I never had time to focus on thinking about life and the future, and I wanted to do with my life. She was there near me, and that was enough. I was there for her, and I was enough.

I sipped on my glass, looking at the dark ocean. There was a star in the sky, and I saw one falling down for the first time. I knew this is a proper time to make a wish, and I did. I wished to be successful and rich and famous. It was a bullshit wish, but I felt like it was a necessary thing to do. I didn’t care about being rich or famous or successful because I never was one, and I didn’t even know what it all meant. It was just an opportunity to do whatever I wanted and never worry about money, prosperity, impressing anybody, and career, jobs, or anything at all. Life was young and simple then. Worry less.

I wanted to live my life the best I could. How I liked it to be. My understanding of life and its purpose was limited. A young man’s heart is always on fire, and his soul is full of adventure. It wasn’t about being correct or intelligent all the time or only making the right decisions. Wise decision-making usually takes much more time and comes with some life experience. I didn’t have that back then. I had my heart and soul full of adventures and my love next to me, and her dreams and passions. We were in love, and we were in our moment, creating our moment together. We were us.

It is interesting how life plays games with you and what one has to go through until we find ourselves, all the struggles and broken hearts, arguments, fights, and misunderstandings. Everything else that goes along and eats a person alive. Being with the wrong person for some time and then understanding that you’ll never get your time back and never getting your youth back feels sad. But, the sadness filled with understanding and life experiences that make adults out of young people teach them lessons that nobody else can teach. I’ve just had a bad relationship experience behind me, and now I was with my future and the love of my life, sitting on the dark beach at night, drinking my red wine, feeling in love, and enjoying every second of that moment, every breath of that fresh ocean air.

I felt some sort of comfort, and I think she did as well, the comfort of having the right person next to you and the comfort of being in love with one another. I wanted to keep her with me forever. I wanted her to be the love of my life. I knew early that she was the one, and I needed to hold her close to me. When you get those kinds of feelings, you are often right, and you have the right person next to you. I didn’t know when that it will take us six more years before we will get married and three more years before she will give birth to our son. We stuck together through thick and thin, and we are still together, and I hope we always will.

“To a better future together, babe. I love you more than I ever loved anyone else, and I always want to be with you!” I raised my glass to a toast.
“I love you too, honey,” she said, “to us!”

The greatest writer of our time: Mark McGuire. Part II

~ John Loraine ~ 1 Comment

With his fame, there also came the consequences. He was always busy with appearances and readings and presentations and speeches and meetings and phone calls. He never, since his last book, had much time for anything, not even writing. His family suffered because of it as well. They became the most celebrated and well-known families in Philadelphia, but his family took a big hit on the inside. He was never around the home too much or too often. He was always on the move and busy with something else. He had affairs that his wife was aware of, and this was the reason for their divorce. They divorced two years ago. Now each lived their own lives. The wife kept the place on the Rittenhouse square and the house in the suburbs, and Mark kept the Old City’s condo and the beach house. Their son was now in college and lived on campus by himself. He visited both mom and dad whenever he needed something, mostly when he needed the money. He was a celebrity on his campus and was busy managing the school, friends, and multiple girlfriends. Mark had numerous girlfriends himself. There was always a fan who would like to meet him and ask about the writing and a piece of advice and eventually have sex with a successful writer himself. The phone rang again.

“Hi, is this Mark McGuire?” the voice asked.
“Speaking, how may I help you?” Said, Mark.
“I would like to have you on our show in New York sometime next week. We are doing a round of interviews with successful people in today’s culture, and we would very much like to have you on.”
“Ok, I think I could make it. When is that interview going to take place?”
“Next Tuesday night, we will be live.
“Ok, sounds good.”
“Thank you, sir. Have a great day.”
“Likewise. Good-bye.”

It has been just another afternoon, and Mark knew that the writing wasn’t happening for him today. He felt helpless and hungry. Mark needed some good food, steak, maybe? He called downtown Del Frisco for a reservation. They always had the best table for him. Every time he called or just showed up, a friendly waiter and valet parking person smiled and greeted him. Mark drove his Porsche up to the restaurant’s entrance, leaving the car with the valet before entering the building.

“Good afternoon, Mr. McGuire!” Said the waiter greeting Mark at the entrance, smiling like a hundred-dollar tip.
“Good afternoon,” said Mark.
“How are you today, sir?”
“I am well, thank you. Just a little bit hungry.” Mark said, smiling back at the waiter.
“We will take care of that for you, sir. Please, follow me,” said the waiter and guided Mark to his table. Today he was seated in the far-right corner. It felt more personal and private, just like he liked it.
“May I have a double shot of Johnny Walker Blue label and Bone-in prime strip with brussels sprouts, please.”
“How would you like your steak done?”
“Medium well, please.”
“Will do. Ok, thank you, sir. Your drink will be out in a minute, and you will have your steak ready for you as you like it.” Said the waiter leaving his table smiling.

There were not too many people at the restaurant at this time around. There were a few other visitors here and there, some business lunches, and few affluent locals who loved to eat a steak for the late lunch. Mark’s drink arrived, and he sipped on it. It felt great. The expensive whiskey always tasted like a victory, like success like the fresh air. Mark loved his whiskey. The steak arrived sometime later, and Mark ate it with passion. He ordered a couple more whiskeys, drained his glass, paid, and went outside. The valet brought his car. “Here you go sir, have a great day.” “Thank you, you as well.” Said Mark and rolled down the fifteenth street to Locust and the Philadelphia orchestra parking lot. They were performing Brahms at 3 pm. Mark loved Brahms. He parked and went to the hall.

After the performance ended, there were standing ovations, as usual. There was something about watching the symphony music played live. One could witness how these most fabulous sounds in the world were made right there in front of their eyes. All the musicians played their instruments perfectly, manufacturing their perfect sound with their gentle gestures against the instruments.  Mark was fascinated. He was a regular visitor at the Philadelphia orchestra for quite some time. After the orchestra, he decided to drive around the City. He drove his car on Broad Street, the Avenue of Arts, the most luxurious and beautiful and artistic streets in Philadelphia. He watched people walking on the sidewalk; life moved around him.

Every person had their own story. Mark saw some homeless people sitting on the pavement begging for money; there were plenty of them in Philly all around. He drove down to JFK boulevard and Market street, observing everything. Driving around the City without any directions was like therapy for Mark. It was a great time to think about his life, city life, and others people’s lives. He played some classical music in his car, which always helped to clear his mind. Mark remembered how he was driving around the City in his old car when he was a young lad. After a stressful day at school, he would get in his car, get some coffee and cigarettes, drive around and just observe everything. Often, he would find himself going through the neighborhoods he has never been to before. The diversity of Philadelphia was fascinating. The neighborhoods built by the poor emigrants; everyone lived in their tiny communities, preserving the culture and the tradition of their homeland while trying to make it in America. This feeling was very familiar to Mark; his parents raised him like that.

His parents came here with nothing but a dream and high hopes for a better future for him. Even though they were not around anymore, Mark still remembered to visit them at the cemetery and leave some flowers for them. “You would be proud of me now, mother, dad. I did make it; I am a famous writer now. You said back in the day that I should better focus on the business career and try to find a job in my field of Economics, but I just loved writing so much more. Look at me now, and the writing made me a great man, the most celebrated writer in Philadelphia. I hope you are doing ok up there. Please pray for my family and me. Please ask God to help me write. I will be back to revisit you, I promise, I’ll visit soon. Take care of you both now.”

His first book, “Immigrant Song,” was about the life of an immigrant family in Philadelphia who struggled to live up to their American dream. This book was his first outbreak and his first success. The book was a story of underdogs, about endless struggle, misery, hope, and continuous perseverance. The first book was based on Mark’s personal experience. All these struggles shaped him to be the man and the writer he became. He forgot about it all a long time ago. The City was different back then. It wasn’t like it is now. Everything had a sad, depressing tone, and everything was colorless, gray, and muddy. The City seemed dangerous and nothing like it is now. There wasn’t much of “the brotherly love” left in this place back then, and even now, sometimes it seems to be the case. Everyone was fighting for their place under the sun, for their success, trying to survive. For Mark McGuire, love had a different meaning. Everyone loved him, even if he hasn’t written anything lately. It didn’t matter to the people. Once someone breaks through the regular bullshit and poverty into the world of recognition and fame and luxury, one becomes a different kind of human. You feel untouchable, indestructible, and you think above everybody and everything. Maybe that was the path of his self-destruction and creative misery?

On his way home, his son called. “Dad, I need a few hundred bucks. Can I stop by your place sometime today?”
“Hey son, how’s life? Sure, stop by. I’ll be home in about 35 minutes.” Said, Mark.
“Ok, thanks, dad. I am alright, taking this girl out tonight. I need some cash.”
“I got you, son. Stop by later then. Ok?”
“Ok. See you soon, dad. Thanks.”

Mark returned home, open the fridge, and got himself a bottle of beer. He sat on his couch watching through the window overlooking the City. He wanted to relax a bit and wait for his son to come over. His phone rang again. It wasn’t his son; it was his ex-wife.

“Hey Mark, my lawyer sent you some papers to sign. Did you get them?”
“I’ve been doing great sweetheart, how about you?”
“Mark, I’ve been same old great, thanks for asking. Can you please sign and return the documents?”
“Maybe I can. Do I want to do that? Absolutely not. Why? Because I don’t care.”
“Mark, can you stop it already, please? Just sign the damn papers, and let’s part ways once and for all. Shall we?”
“Sure, we shall. I just cannot wait. How’s your new boyfriend doing? He still lives under my roof on Rittenhouse square?”
“Mark, stop it! This is not your business. This is my life now, my private life, and I shall not respond to you and your stupid questions.”
“Of course, You don’t owe me anything. Somehow it is me who is in debt with everyone else. Have a great day, babe, ok?” Mark said and dropped the phone. He loved to drive his ex-wife crazy, especially now during the final stages of their official split and going through this long and tedious separation process.
“Asshole!” Said Jane angrily. “What an asshole!”

Mark chuckled, sitting on the couch thinking about this conversation. He thought about that folder which he received in the mail last week. Mark never bothered to open it after he saw the law office name and address on it. “Fuck, that, he thought, you, assholes can wait. And you too, honey.”
An hour passed. Mark was still on the couch sucking on his beer listening to some good old rock-n-roll tunes. Then the doorbell rang.

“Yes?”
“Dad, it’s me.”
“Ok, coming,” said Mark opening the door and greeting his son.
“What’s up, kid? I haven’t seen you in a while. How’s life?”
“I’ve been busy with school, dad. You know, it takes a lot of time.”
“Yeah, and chasing girls does as well, right?” Mark chuckled.
“Yes, it does,” Jason responded with a shy smile on his face.
“So, can you lend me some money? I am swamped and need to do a few things before tonight?”
“What a rush son, are you hungry? Do you want to grab something?”
“No, thanks, I’m good.”
“Ok, here you go,” Mark reached for his home safe and pulled a six hundred dollars and gave it to his son.
“Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem. Does your mother give you any money?”
“Yes, she does. I’ve already asked her for some earlier this week.”
“Oh, ok. Thanks for stopping by, son. I hope we can grab lunch or dinner sometime soon?”
“Yes, that we should. I’ll let you know when I’ll sort the school stuff out.”
“Sounds good. Take care, son, and it was good to see you as always.”
“You too, Dad,” Jason said, hugging his father, the greatest writer in the world. He walked out of Mark’s place, closing the doors behind him.

“Kid, you grew up so fast,” said Mark to himself, wondering, locking the doors and returning to his beer bottle. “I remember when you were so young, and your mother and I changed your diapers and carried you around the house singing songs and playing stupid childing tunes and cartoons, anything to keep you entertained and happy. Especially tough was to keep you from crying. And you did cry a lot. I couldn’t write at home for some time because of it. I had to relocate to this place from our beautiful suburb’s house to write. Eventually, this place became my writing mecca. Every time I came down here, I was able to write. Every time I brought my ex-wife here, we had the best sex ever. Every time I brought any other girl after my Ex, I had a great time. This place is full of good memories for sure. Now that the writing is gone, not too many things could make me happy again. We all were happy back in the day. Now we all grew up, changed, and each is full of their own bullshit. How did we get here? Who knows?”

Nothing happened at the typewriter an hour later either. Mark stared at the blank page, sipped on his whiskey, and still, nothing came. His phone rang again. “Fuck! – thought Mark, the damned phone always rings at the wrong time all the time.”

“Mark’s here. Hello.”
“Hi babe, are you lonely tonight?” It was one of his mistresses on the line who was indeed lonely that night.
“Hi, Anna. I am lonely, but I am kind of busy tonight.”
“Busy writing?”
“Busy not writing. Just trying to get me there, you know. I think I’ve lost it. I don’t know what the fuck is going on with me lately anymore.” Mark sounded desperate yet very serious. Just enough to kill all the companionship requests without explaining too much.
“I feel sorry for you, babe. I just wanted to be with you tonight. I thought maybe there is something I can help you with. You know, take the edge off, relax a little bit?”
“Yeah, that’s what I need, except that I don’t even have the edge anymore. When I used to have it, I wrote days in and out. Shit. Never mind me. Sorry.”
“No, it’s ok, no worries. If you want to be alone, it’s your wish. Call me later if you change your mind. I’m staying home tonight, alone and horny so that you know.”
“Thanks for a boner, sweaty. I really appreciate it. I’ll be in touch. I just got to go back to work here. Have a good night, babe, alright?, Don’t get too bored out there.”
“Good night, Mark McGuire, to you as well. I hope to see you soon. Love you.”
“Ok, bye, Anna.”
“Bye, Mark.”

The phone went dead, and Mark was alone again. It felt strange that this girl, Anna, his mistress, is the only one who truly wants his attention. Mark poured himself another drink, grabbed a cigar from his cigar case, chopped the end off, and went on the balcony. It was getting dark outside already, the air felt fresh, and the City was getting into the evening blues. He puffed on his cigar, looking at the view of the City, sipping on his whiskey, and thinking about her. “Anna is friendly to me all the time. Was there a single time that she was a bitch? No, I cannot remember. Even when I ignored her on multiple occasions, she still came back to me with love, passion, and affection. Oh, Mark McGuire, what are you doing to these women? Why everybody has to suffer around you? Am I this bad, or is it whiskey talking? There was no return to my wife, and I don’t even want to. It just feels like getting back home, back to my family. But what is my family anymore? My parents have died, they had a decent and challenging life, but they lived it proudly. My wife has a boyfriend and hates my guts. My son has his life to live and his priorities. And what about me? I am a middle-aged man, lonely as hell, trying to put my life in order. It is just a cigar and a glass of whiskey with me here. Why did I push Anna away yet another time? She is always so nice to me. She always has been. Maybe this is it? Perhaps I need to be less of a macho and more like a grown man? I guess I should. I think I do. I need to get my shit together quickly. I am Mark McGuire, the hottest writer in town and the country!

I wonder when I will start writing again? Maybe this cigar will help. He looked at his Rolex, and it was showing him 9:45 pm. The night was still young, and there is a possibility that the writing will come. Looking at the City at night was a fantastic view. It has always inspired Mark. And he just loved it. That’s why he spent most of his time in this place. He remembered the days when he arrived in Philadelphia for the first time. It was a magnificent experience. This place was so much different and more prominent, and brighter and broader when his tiny hometown in the middle of nowhere. He remembered his struggles and how his parents worked hard to make things work, pay the bills, and put the food on the table. He remembered when his mother told him, “One day you’ll get your education and will help your old parents. You are a smart kid, Mark. I have faith in you.” These words felt like a hot coffee with whiskey down his through warming down his chest and burning him on the inside. Something clicked. The cigar went into the ashtray. He put the coffee on brewing, poured himself some in the cup, and went back to the typewriter. He sipped his coffee, looking straight at the page, his eyes red and tired but focused. He put his hands up and started to type. One word followed another, one line followed another, and so on. He wrote through the night without even thinking of stopping or taking a break. Mark was alive again. He felt it in the air. Mark felt it in his soul. He was indeed the greatest writer in the world, Mark McGuire.

My old man

~ John Loraine ~ 15 Comments

I haven’t seen my old man in so many years. Looking back, it comes to me that we didn’t see each other more than we did. He was gone for work when I was thirteen, and since that time, we only occasionally talked on the phone. He would visit us about once a year, but he felt like a guest at our house. He was a stranger now since being out for so long does change a person. Back then, I was just a teenager, and not many things mattered to me. I didn’t care. I didn’t have anything to say; whatever parents decided to do was the law, and I could not question or not follow it. We separated for good for seventeen years with no visits, no photos, and just some rare phone calls. It became a new norm, a new life for all of us. Questions about where your father was, were not asked by others because everybody got used to my father being somewhere far away and he’ll never be here with us, so it doesn’t matter anymore.

My old man wasn’t always this old. I remember him as a younger man, full of energy, power, and life lessons. He wasn’t well-educated, but he was street smart. There was so much wisdom in his words that I would learn as time went by. He was right on so many levels, but the lessons he taught me were a bit pre-mature for my foolish, childish brain, and they didn’t register right away. He kept on preaching and teaching me things, and I continued to ignore them. Time has caught up with me, though. As a young man, my old man was always angry, and he never liked other people. Other people were always dangerous, mean, harmful, bad-spirited, and for some reason, they always wanted to take advantage of us. The only safe place in the world was our old house which was our home, which was the only place we could feel safe and relaxed.

I remember when I was fifteen, and he taught me how to drive a car. His lesson didn’t last too long. After the first day, I left the car crying, drowning in tears, because the old man had no patience with me, and I didn’t know when to focus on the road or his screams. The next day my mother signed me up for driving school, and some other man was teaching me the driving skills. 

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When the Man comes around

~ John Loraine ~ 73 Comments

And there he was, standing in front of the Man, facing his life, facing his fate. It wasn’t like they usually said it is: the light, the smoke, the tunnel, the virgins, the nice shiny day in the beautiful park with some relaxing music by the greatest composers playing in the background. Everything seemed too casual for the afterlife or whatever that place is called in between where you yet to be decided by God to put your sorry ass into for eternity. It did seem a very bizarre experience when Bob was standing there facing the Man.

“What’s your name?” the Man asked.
“Bob. My name is Bob Cooper, Sir.”

Bob answered with a questioning look on his face. Bob was 53 years old, alcoholic, and a selfish asshole. He had a family, a wife and two kids, daughters. Bob liked to watch sports on TV, drinking beer, vodka, whiskey, and pretty much anything that would give him a buzz. He worked for the union, a construction company, all his life, and he drank and smoked for about as long as he could remember himself. Bob grew up in a typical middle-class family in rural Pennsylvania, to the parents of a school teacher and an engineer. Bob left his home at 19 and started to live his own life because he wanted to make his own money and be his own boss in life. Bob was an asshole all his life. Even he was surprised how in the world he managed to get married and have children and remain in a marriage as long as he had. Bob never paid too much respect or spent too much time with his family. He was providing, and he was drinking all the fucking time. Nothing else mattered besides the booze, his friends, sports, and his union job.

Bob’s drinking affected his looks and health, but he didn’t care too much about it. He looked much older when he actually was. He had a heavily featured swollen face; his skin was wrinkled and old. He chain-smoked and drank something all the time. Even on his job, he was trying to slip some whiskey into his coffee. Drinking was affecting his mood and his behavior severely. He was rude and disrespectful to other people, and he was rude and disrespectful to his wife and kids.

Bob had two kids, two gorgeous girls who were always ashamed of their father. If Bob was sober more often, he would be ashamed of himself also. When drunk, Bob was becoming a religious fanatic and was praying aloud all the time. He would go around and preach to everyone. He would be talking about God and how he was a special person to be here on Earth, suffering for everybody’s sins. When he sobered up, he was not talking about God so much; however, he felt like he had to become a priest instead of becoming a nobody somewhere deep in his mind.

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One thousand Sundays left

~ John Loraine ~ 9 Comments

The traffic on I-95 was dead. My morning commute is usually rough. I was up early at 5 AM and rushed to work. I always wake up early because I have so much work to do every day that there are not enough hours in a day. I am forty years old, and I am the Director of Operations at one of the major finance companies. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, and I am working harder every day to make sure my job is done well and on time, and according to the plan. Even though I make a decent salary, I can hardly prioritize my personal life, like spending time with my family. I have been married for 15 years and have two kids, 4 and 8. I wish I could spend more time with them, but I am always busy at my job. I show up in the office before anybody else does and work long after everybody else leaves. When I come home, I work some more and then more on the weekends, holidays, and pretty much every fucking time. Often, I feel like if I stop, the job will never get done, the team will underperform, and the company will collapse, and there will be no tomorrow.

A few weeks ago, I was on the same I-95 staying in bumper-to-bumper traffic, getting more frustrated and annoyed with every minute. The radio played some random lame morning show. I decided to browse through the channels to see if there is anything better to listen to. There’s hardly anything good on the radio anymore. As I scanned through the channels, I stopped once I heard the soothing voice of an older man talking. He mentioned something about “the theory of a thousand balls,” which caught my attention, and I turned the volume up. I sat in my car listening to this older man talking while watching the dead highway. There was nowhere to go and nothing else to do.

“Ok,” said the old man on the radio. “I can bet that you are always very busy at work, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am, old man,” I replied to the radio.

“So, you are always busy, yesterday, today, and you will be busy tomorrow and so on and on … and supposedly you get paid a lot of money.” The older man grinned as he said that and continued his speech in a serious but kind voice. “They are buying your life with money. Just think about it. You are not spending your time with your family or your friends or significant others! I just refuse to believe that you all need to work that much to make a day-to-day living. You work to please yourself! But see, the thing is that you are just like a hamster in the wheel. The more money you make, the more money you will need, and the more money you will spend, and it is a never-ending cycle. Regardless of how much money you have, you will always want more, and you will work more for that purpose. Just stop there for a moment and think. Do you really need all these new things or more things that you already have? Do you need that new car or brand-new phone with all the bells and whistles or anything else that bad? And in order to have all those possessions, are you willing to miss the time of watching your kids grow up, the first dance performance by your daughter, the first baseball or soccer game by your son? Let me tell my story about how I’ve learned to figure out what is really important in life.”

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New Life

~ John Loraine ~ 10 Comments

Jack woke up early that morning. He couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t able to fall back to sleep for a while now, but he tried to stay in bed as long as possible. It seemed like the sleep was a long time gone, and all he did in the last two hours was just twisting and turning. He had a bad dream, something weird from the past was going through his mind and his dreams, and he couldn’t lose it. The minute he’d fall asleep, that same weird, strange dream came back to haunt him. It almost felt like watching the same annoying video on Youtube on repeat. At some point, he just gave up. Fuck that, he thought, I guess that is enough of the battle. It is time to wake the fuck up and smell the roses. It is another day, and it is a new day to start things fresh. Maybe it is time to start life fresh?

He went to the bathroom, took a piss, and turned the cold water on to wash his tired face. The cold water felt great. It felt refreshing, even though he still felt the same old tired. He watched his reflection in the mirror and noticed that he is not the same person he thought he was. He noticed that he’s changed. His face changed, his attitude changed, and there was some grey hair sticking out of his temples, letting him know that he’s no longer that young and careless lad, and reminding him that life went on taking its toll on him. Damn, I am getting old, thought Jack, with a bit of sadness. 

Coffee was on his list next. Jack liked a good, freshly brewed black coffee, made in the Moka pot, the way Italians made coffee for decades. The good old coffee tradition that stock with people for years, even today, in these weird fucking days, people are still brewing the same coffee the same way. It felt more authentic to Jack and more pleasurable to brew his coffee himself. Hell, it was so much better then that drip filtered bullshit or anything you can get at those fucking gas stations. The classic music radio played on his smart speaker, and it just felt normal. The only normal thing about his life was coffee and classical music. 

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Mama was right

~ John Loraine ~ 15 Comments

The story I am about to tell happened to me fifteen years ago. It might not seem like a very good or an interesting story but it makes me feel shameful of my own ego even today. This story is one of the many examples from my personal life that taught me an important life lesson. I guess they call it a turning point. It might as well be one of the turning points that changed my perception and appreciation for my mother, my family, and life in general.  

This story takes place around December, my first semester at junior college. It was just another Friday night and the four of us were hanging out. We roamed around the City, did some shopping then we had dinner someplace and a few drinks. It was a great time. I still feel good thinking about those days. And to be clear, I haven’t had any social life before then, so to me, those days were pretty good in terms of getting some life and getting to know people around me. I, my friend Gene, his girlfriend, and my new girlfriend were best friends in college. We did everything together. We all came to America in about the same time, we all were about the same age. We started college same time, took the same classes, and went out for lunches, coffee breaks, smoke breaks, and double dates.  

I was in my first year of college trying to become a decent student and eventually a decent citizen and proud office worker. It all starts in college somehow. Back then I knew a few wise things which I always kept on my: 1) I am nobody here, 2) I don’t know anybody who can help me, and 3) I need to make shit happen for me somehow. These three things basically defined my understanding of life and were driving me through the college years and eventually into the workforce. These were the thoughts of a young immigrant teenager who was brought to this country to have a better shot at life with a single mother who worked multiple jobs to support me and my brother. 

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