All That Can Fit In a Year

How much can we jam into 12 months?

A Text From Mom: Friday June 25, 2021 - 10:00pm

It’s Friday night and a record heat wave is blasting through Montana. My lady and I sit in our living room watching Nic Cage do his best/worst southern accent with his majestic mullet in a classic picture called Con-Air in which Cage’s character is an ex-Army Ranger who sent to prison for accidentally killing an attacker while defending himself and his pregnant wife. Long story short he ends up on a hijacked plane with some of the worlds most notorious criminals with names like Cyrus “The Virus” and “Johnny 23” Baca.

As we watch mesmerized by this action thriller I receive a text from my Mom, April Franke; who, by the way, never texts me. If and when she does contact me it’s usually a drunken phone call that I ignore followed by a drunken voicemail that I half listen to.

I open the text and it reads:

‘Boo this is your uncle George. I have some bad news your mom passed away’

Even now, this moment writing this, three weeks later after the original message, just rereading it on my phone, my heart plummets into my stomach and all feeling runs out of my fingers.

I sat staring at the phone, hypnotized by the message. This was my Uncle George, texting me from my Mom’s phone, telling me that she had died. It feels fake, wrong and like a cruel joke. Yet I knew it wasn’t. I knew it was true and I had known it would be the truth someday, I just wasn’t expecting it to be so soon.

--

Getting Sober: May 11th 2020

Andrew: Hey buddy, Nick is coming into town to spend a few days over here. Did you want to have a BBQ at my place on Monday?”

-

My friend and colleague Andrew had invited me, my parter and our little girl over for a cook out at his new place along with our mutual friend from Butte, Nick who was visiting for a few days.

Andrew cooked us some well prepared jerk chicken, vegetables, and salads for dinner. Per usual I brought some fine microbrews for all of us to enjoy as did Nick.

After dinner we hung out in the back yard some before it got too cold then moved inside to bullshit for a while. The little girl needed to go home to sleep so I drove my girls home and returned to Andrews with a 30 rack of PBR. Now, already feeling a buzz, I did what I always did, I just bought more beer. I don’t know why I did this but it was just an inherent thing to do from the environment I grew up in.

Nick wasn’t drinking much since he enjoyed smoking more than drinking. Andrew and I though, we didn’t mind mixing it up. Bong rips and skunk beers coursed through my body as we watched stupid YouTube videos, laughed at each others dumb jokes and snickered at just about anything Andrew said.


This went on for a few more hours until I checked my email on my phone. I had gotten an email from a client regarding a missed day of service. I own and operate a commercial janitorial business in town and this was the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The client and her entire staff had not been in the office since March and was finally allowing a few employees back in starting that Monday. We had gotten our communication crossed and I was under the impression that it was next Monday that they would be starting, ergo I didn’t get their office clean for them the weekend prior.

Fuck. This is one of my best and favorite clients. This is a client who is attempting to come back during the worst pandemic in 100 years. Nothing about COVID-19 was really known. Could it live on cardboard? Can it be contracted through toilet seats? Is it airborne? As Chip Chipperson would say, “It wasn’t just a pandemic it was a damn panic.” That line makes me cringe too.

So, being extremely drunk and high, I decided I needed to make this right. So I drive. To the clients office. I do what I assume is the worst cleaning job of all time. I drive back home somehow without being pulled over and I flop onto the couch. Oh I forgot, before I came inside, I had hit my vape pen full of THC twice! Yes. Now that I was safely home, I decided it was a great idea to get more high.

This gave me the worst god damn spins I have ever felt in my entire life. Nothing worked to stop them. Eyes shut, eyes open, laying down, one foot on the ground it didn’t matter. I was fucked.


Now, my partner Lisa has one rule. Never sleep on the couch. Sleeping on the couch is like a fucking slap to the face to her. Sleeping on the couch indicated I’m either mad at her or worse I never came home.

Fast forward a few hours. My partner wakes up finds me on the couch and she is laying into me like she has never done before and rightly so. I have no defense and actually I think I’m still drunk so I’m not even sure what she is saying. All I can do is shake my head in self-disgust.

She leaves to go to the bathroom and as she does that, I’m still on the couch when my little girl comes out of her room. This moment changed my life forever. She came out looked at me and just stared. In that moment I felt such shame, such guilt and pity for myself. In my head she looked at me like scum. Like how I use to look at my Mom when she would pull the same exact shit to me.

What she did next saved my life.

She hugged me. She walked over and gave me a big hug and it broke me. I swore then and there, no more. No more anything. No more drugs. No more alcohol.

George W. Bush said he would have never been President of the United States if he didn’t quit drinking at the age of 40. I was 32. Imagine what I could do with an eight year head start.

—

Tell Me About Yourself: June 12, 2020

After a month of sobriety it became crystal clear that drugs and alcohol were not my only issue. Somewhere inside of me I was hoping substances/addiction were the underling issues that was causing all my pain but unfortunately it wasn’t. The bad part was I had no fucking clue what was causing my self-destructive behavior. The good part was I think I knew how to find out.

I found my therapist through my partner. We will call her Jill. Jill is a slender, pretty and thoughtful therapist who curses to get her point across and at times makes up her own descriptive words yet somehow you know exactly what she is trying to say.

We got along right away. I told her about my past two years (Divorce, losing my home, sliding into a world of depression and addiction, starting a business!) and she made it ok to feel ok with feeling that was a lot to handle.

My divorce was the cleanest messy divorce anyone could ask for. A cold war with no bloodshed on the field but plenty of fucking hurt feelings post war due to both sides trying to out nice each other while not addressing any of the issues of why they are getting divorced in the first place. The whole divorce process went smoothly. You get this, I get that, we sell the house and see you fucking later. She leaves me for the man she was cheating on me with, moves in with him in a brand new home and gets pregnant within two months (probably sooner, my math is suspect at best). My ex had told me she never wanted kids, I found out quickly she just didn’t want kids with me and honestly thank god for that.

I move into a sub level one bedroom apartment in the heart of Missoula with nothing but my dog Pepper and a new found love for weed.

Not all is bad for me though.

I find someone who will end up saving my life.

The pop artist Rihanna sings “We fell in love in a hopeless place” and that describes my relationship with my partner Lisa perfectly.

You see we met under some strange circumstances that I will get into later, for now, back to me and my problems.

Jill helps me navigate my divorce, my issues with my Mom, my sad and life altering childhood (brother dying of cancer when I was 8, sister born pre-mature and almost passing away when I was 10, mother suffering stroke when I was 11, and so it goes).

Jill helps me get my life back. I stop blaming others. I hold myself responsible for actions I took. I stop protecting those who don’t deserve it. I start standing up for myself, my feelings, my needs and I start to love myself more. Jill, like my partner Lisa, saved my life.

When I say saved my life I am not trying to imply I would attempt any self harm like suicide, but more in the sense that they stopped me from living a life a self-pity, inebriation and loathing, which I guess in its own way is just a long drawn out suicide.

To this day I still see Jill, not as frequently as I use to but that is a good sign. A sign of growth, stability and self-reliance.

Along with Jill I dove headfirst into the world of self-help, most importantly the physiotherapist Dr. Jordan B Peterson. His book 12 Rules to Life helped me realize that the only real person who can save me is me. Taking responsibility for myself, my action and my past is the only healthy way forward for me.

I downloaded this app called Blinkist that is essentially an audible Cliff Notes of non-fiction books, like Dr. Peterson and thousands of others in many different topics, all in less than fifteen minutes a book. So I dove in hard on the self-help books and the most common through line in most of these books is taking a small step towards personal responsibility. Dr. Peterson tells his clients to clean their room, an instant mini accomplishment and mental win to start the day. Admiral McRaven tells his soldier to make their bed. You can read a hundred more self-help books and they will all start the same.

Small victories build into multiple victories which leads into bigger victories that stack on more victories. Mistake will be made but the more regimented you can be with taking small, precise and prepared steps to complete goals the more you can build on that for future goals. Also with this cache of accomplishments, when you do inevitably fall, you now have a proven track record to remind yourself, yeah I can do this.

My 33rd Birthday: October 28, 2020

My whole life the number 33 has been my favorite number. It comes from my father, it’s his favorite number too because of the great white hope, Mr Buckets himself, Larry Bird.

I had stopped putting any significance to birthdays since my twenty first birthday which was a wild affair. I remember being given a “shot” called a Buffalo Bill by a man dressed like Indian Jones. The shot consisted of Jack Daniels, Jim Beam and Jose Cuevro which is usually a combo called the Three Wise Men but the twist on the Buffalo Bill is just for shits and giggles, a couple blops of Tabasco sauce is added to the mix. Indiana Jones told me he would be proud of me if I didn’t throw up from it. It was Halloween and I was dressed like an airplane pilot called Hugh Jorgan. I downed the shot and went outside to puke but to my surprise I didn’t. Just a few dry heaves and we were good.

The next big birthday I had planned was my golden birthday, my 28th birthday! What a fucking disaster that turned out to me.

Historically since I was with my then wife, even before we were married, she would make me a cake, get me a gift and maybe a home cooked meal.

Well that morning started with a cold shoulder and a silent goodbye on our way to work. She stayed at work late so guess what, no cake, no dinner and not even a gift. Oh and it wasn’t til she got home did she say happy birthday. It was probably the worst birthday ever. How could I turn that day around?

Well I found some friends, went to their house for some beers and one thing leads to another. Next thing I know, I’m doing coke off of a mirror and passing out on a couch with seven people I barely know. Stay gold, golden birthday!

Actually my 30th birthday was pretty awesome. So can’t knock that one.

So my 33rd birthday HAD to be better than my golden 28th. Right?

Well first off I forgot to renew my drivers license and since COVID was still a thing, renewals were by apt only and there were none in the great city of Missoula. So it was off to Deer Lodge for me!

I took my kid sister along with me so I had some company on my birthday. I had recently reconciled with my mother after not speaking to her for a few months because of her excessive drinking and inability to get up off her ass and take back her life. I had mentioned to my Mom that I would be in Deer Lodge to get my renewal so there is a good chance I’ll be swing into Butte to say hello on my birthday. After my appointment Tess and I both called Mom to confirm we were coming. After multiple tries with no answer, we decided to go anyways.

When we got to Butte, we knocked on Mom’s door a bunch with no answer. As we waited on the front porch of her house on Colorado Street a box truck slammed into a train trestle, slicing the top off of the truck due to the low clearance of the bridge. This is a common occurrence in Uptown Butte where there is still some train trestles that are comically low. This should have been a sign to turn around and go home but per usual I ignore big giant red flags.

After a few final hearty knocks the door finally unlocked from the inside. Mom was scooting on her ass like a dog on the floor. She couldn’t walk. She looked at my sister and me like we were Jehova Witnesses asking her if she had a moment to talk about Jesus.

“Hey Mom, it’s us.” I said. Both Tess and I instantly knew what was the scenario. Mom was either still drunk or just started getting drunk. Most likely it was a combo of the two.

This is not how I want to remember my Mom and this isn’t how I want people to remember her either. I only tell this part because this is the last time I’ll see my mother alive. It’s actually the last time I’ll actually talk to my mom in person or otherwise. If you can’t do the math I’ll do it for you. I hadn’t spoken to or seen my mother for 8 months when she died. So I’ll be addressing that in therapy you can bet your ass on that.

We were hostile to each other. I was mad because a month earlier she had promised to do her best to stop drinking in hopes of seeing her soon to be grandson (spoiler alert). Now she’s crawling to see who’s at the door. She wasn’t herself. She had been beaten down by life so badly in the past two years that she was unrecognizable both physically and emotionally. She had puffed up in her face due to the booze. She had chronic foot pain due to working her ass off her entire life. She had suffered a stroke in her early 30’s and still suffered from some symptoms of that.

Life had finally submitted my Mom and on my 33rd birthday I will see the final product of a great person who ran out of luck. I think of a song when I think of Mom now. It’s an acoustic song by the Menzingers called “When You Died” and the line goes like this.

Where do people go when they die?

How do you keep them alive?

How do you make sure that something like this

Won't ever happen again?

Not to any other friends.

That song played in my head all night when I found out she had died. What could I have done better? I didn’t talk to her for 8 months. I neglected her when she needed me the most. I was trying to play hard ball with her after decades of enabling her. I thought withholding would work. Instead it was one of the final nails in her coffin.

If you are reading this and your Mom is still in the living plane, no matter where she is or your relationship, think about shooting her a text or giving her a call. Trust me, you’ll be happy you did.

One More Birthday Gift! November 2nd 2020

I own a small commercial janitorial business here in Missoula aptly named Missoula Janitorial Service. I am the owner and operator along with nine, awesome employees. I do 95% of my work at night which means getting off work anywhere from midnight to 3 am.

I started work on Sunday the 1st and ended on November 2nd around 3 am. My last account of the night is the local ice rink which hosts Sunday night novice hockey games which if you know anything about novice hockey, its full of bad skating, hot heads and a shit ton of beer drinking (or White Claw, which is all the rave this season).

So having to wait for all the drunk hockey wanna be badasses, I don’t get home til late because of that. Also Sunday is my most busy day where sometimes I start at 8am and don’t end til 2 am the next day but those days seem to be behind me now that I have hired good help.

So when I woke up Monday around 10:30 am I was still pretty well tired and delirious, but happy to be awake to see my girls.

My birthday had been the week before and so when Ryeanna (my bonus daughter) said she had another present for me I was too tired and dumb to register that something might be off about this week late birthday present.

Inside the blue bag is a blue Under Armor polo shirt, a pack of Dickies white calf length socks and a grey fanny pack with two pockets.

Cool!

This is what I think without coffee or enough sleep. Cool gift. Cool.

Unpromted, I open up the fanny pack and inside I see two pink lines. Two pink lines on a white stick. Two pink lines on a white stick that my partner had peed on earlier that morning.

We were going to have a baby.

Speechless. There is even a video to prove it. All I can say is ‘Really?’ Over and over again. Ryeanna, who just turned four is confused and has no idea what is happening. I almost let the cat of the bag and tell her that Mommy is pregnant but I am too shocked to complete the sentence.

We are going to have a baby.

In nine months, there will be a baby (and trust me there will be) in my arms and it will be mine.

Lisa and I had had been trying to get pregnant for probably 6 months at this point. 3 without any kind of medical intervention and 3 with. Lisa had known she had difficulty getting pregnant because it took extensive research, testing and trail and errors for her to get pregnant with Ryeanna 4 years earlier.

We knew we had a good shot if we went to the doctor to help us and turns out, after 3 tries on the medication to help Lisa ovulate, we struck gold.

Trying to get pregnant when you know you have to consummate at the exact moment it requires is kind of stressful. As an adult, I never really felt pressure to perform sexually before, sadly my male porn star career died before it started (just joking…or am I?!?).

Not to get too personal but when the lady is ovulating, you jump on that opportunity, no matter how tired you are, no matter how many hours you worked that day, no matter where you are, no matter what, you have to do what you need to do. If you do that and do it enough times, nine months later, boom! You get a little human. Life. It’s amazing folks.

Pro’s and Con’s List: Buying a Home in Missoula F*(|<|ing Sucks*! May 19th, 2020

The path to generational wealth is achieved through land ownership.

This, for now, is still true in the United States. Lisa and I were both homeowners before our respective separations forced us to sell the homes we had bought in hopes they would be our forever homes.

As our luck would have it, we decided to start looking for a home to buy when the world decided to simply stop doing anything, including building new homes.

Missoula Montana became a hot spot for big city refugees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Known as a Zoom-Town, home prices in Missoula Country blew up along with cities like Bozeman, Butte and Great Falls Montana. At the hight of it, Bozeman had an average median household over $400k and Missoula hovered around $350k.

The home my mother owns in Butte in 2010 was listed at $50k. It could easily sell for $110k in todays market (2021 at the time of this writing).

So, following the usual path of most resistance, we dove in with grit and persistence. We knew the bidding wars would be intense of homes so we had set our expectations low on getting a property sooner rather than later.

The reason we wanted to start looking for a home to buy is three fold.

One: Got a little one on the way and we need an extra bedroom for him.

Two: After owning a home, you never want to have to rent again. It makes you feel like your are failing for some reason.

Three: Our property manager will eventually bulldoze our rental and upon it’s 110 year old bones, build a 4 condos at a grand total price of $1.4 million dollars.

Now where our rental is right now is on Toole Ave. If St. Patricks Hospital is the dick & balls and the train tracks are the asshole, our home is the taint (nice description huh?). The house shakes when the large trains hook up a hundred yards from our back yard. Drug dealers and homeless folk roam the neighborhood looking for a score or a shady place to spend a few days in their vehicles. A nice prostitute accused me and my dog of being Russian spies one day. True story.

What I am trying to say is if I had $1.4 million dollars to spend on a nice slice of real estate, it sure as fuck wouldn’t be on the taint of Toole Ave. with the zooted druggies and the Povorello happy wonderers.

We found out in the fall of 2020 that the house was set to be razed from our lovely neighbor who just happened to see it listed online because she too was trying to sell her condo. Our property manager is a young, naive and entitled little shit who communicates as well as an old hotdog so I guess I wasn’t surprised she would pull some shady shit like this. There were some red flags that something was rotten in Denmark. After our year lease was up in 2019, the PM offered us to go month-to-month, which suited us because we were already thinking about looking for a home to buy. No PM does month to month willingly in this town so that was an odd offer.

So now we have two deadlines with finding a new home. Find a home with at least three bedrooms so the new guy has a room to call his own and find a home because the one we are in now is being groomed for an early retirement.

-Mortgage: They also suck.

Before my mothers passing, we had met in September 2020 to talk about our relationship and how we were going to interact with each other going forward. I was hoping for a more healthy and hopeful relationship which sadly and tragically did not come to fruition. Anywho, during that time at her house in September, she reminded me that I was enrolled in the Little Shell Chippewa Cree tribe up in Great Falls, Montana.

It occurred to me that maybe I could use this enrollment to my advantage when it came to buying a home and sure enough it did. Using my credentials as a tribal member, I was able to secure a HUD 184 mortgage loan which comes with special provisions such as low downpayment and lower mortgage insurance rates. If Lisa and I would have gone with a traditional loan, the downpayment we ended up paying for the home we ended up with would have been double of what we actually paid.

In order to get the HUD 184 loan, we had to go through a special bank in Polson, MT that specializes in loans for Native Americans. This was going to be easy, we just needed to find the right home now.

Famous last words.

Well after two disappointing bids on some nice houses in Missoula, we finally (and may I say very luckily as well) struck gold on a home on our third try. It came down to us and two other parties and Lisa had worked her magic on an acceptance letter that we give the seller to convince them to select us. The letter laid out our history, our present and hopefully our future as occupants in their home.


Well sheeeet. That letter must have worked because they picked us.

So, next comes the home inspection.

Fuck.

Water heater: dead. Furnace: dead. Flooding in crawl space due to dead sup pumps: The cause of it all.

Also one other thing. A really elaborate security system.

(Foreshadowing)

So we go to the buyer with the negotiation that we need these repaired before we move in. In fact our mortgage won’t authorize closing until these issues are fixed.

Crickets from the sellers.

I ask a close friend of mine who is in law enforcement to do a quick check on the neighborhood, makes sure its safe for my growing family.

Still crickets from the sellers.

Buddy calls back. The neighborhood is great! Your house, the one you are buying….thats a different story.

Shit.

The home we are trying to buy is owned by two alleged murders who were forcefully extracted from said home at 2:30am by a group of nice men and women from SWAT, FBI and local law enforcement.

This explains the crickets on negotiations, the abandoned look of the property and the elaborate security system.

Lisa and I were shocked by this. Did we now have reservations about buying this house.


Fuck no. The house we are renting right now is 110 years old, there has to be countless terrible things that happened in this house. After a few minutes of putting out heads together we decided it was full steam ahead.

So we negotiate and finally come to an agreement to do a holdback on moneys set aside for the fixes of the home since the sellers literally have no money to make the repairs themselves. So they have to take money out of the money they will make out of the sale and pay the repair costs after close. It’s an assbackwards way of doing it but thems the rules.

Wait..wait. One more thing. They yard, its all gravel. The HOA, they hate gravel. We need to get rid of the gravel and put in sod. Oh waiter, one more holdback please!

Since I am self-employed, my taxes are different than the average 9-5 worker bee, so the mortgage company needed every last report, receipt and bank statement available from me to pass their qualifications. One thing they needed was a very specific tax statement. Sure thing I’ll get that to you ASAP.

(Sponge Bob voice over actor voice) Four weeks later.

If you have ever dealt with the IRS, especially now during COVID, it is impossible to get a hold of them, let alone to get them to send you a god damn piece of paper that you need so desperately that its literally the very last piece of information the underwriters need to approve this loan. This piece of paper from the IRS, it may or may not arrive. Ever. So what the fuck am I suppose to do?

I was able to finally convince the underwriters to accept some documents from my online IRS account after pleading and begging and physically going to Kalispell Montana ( two hours from my town) to meet with the office assistant of the local IRS officials to get this sorted out. I went to this in person visit a day after my son came home from the hospital by the way, proving I meant fucking business lady! Oh and trust me I laid the sob story on thick at that meeting. Yeah my son was just born, two weeks before that my mom passed away…yes all very sad stuff.

Whatever, it worked and two weeks later I’m signing a mountain of papers along with Lisa that state we are now proud owners of the oddest three bedroom, two bath, two car garage house in the neighborhood. From soup to nuts, it took us three months to close on this fucking house but baby it was all worth it. Look out neighbors, the Truzzolino’s are moving in.

So You Want to be a Writer? Fake it till you make it. Then fake it some more. June, 2020

I am not exactly sure where my semi-fascination with writing originated from but I can tell you it happened early in life. Just like a lot of young children who had the opportunity to grow up in a stable household and receive a halfway decent early eduction, I loved making up short stories and putting them on paper. Having a copy of something you created in your hands was fascinated to me at a very early age. I remember the first story I was really proud of, I had my parents bind it and I drew a cover for it. It was some dumb story about a red, round, smooth beach glass that I actually stole from a kid I went to school with named Daren who later in life would join the Army and eventually be killed in action by friendly fire. He kicked me in the dick one day at school and I took that dumb rock as repayment, I feel bad about it now but kids do stupid shit and this was my thing. I liked nicking small things from time to time, so what fucking sue me! No please don’t it was small items, petty things.

Ever since that first binded copy of my dumb horror story I have loved fiction. All kinds and genres, it didn’t matter, as long as it hooked me in someway, which is easy for me.

I am sure it’s been a constant thing with me subconsciously that I have always wanted to be a writer. In high school I fell in love with Hunter S. Thompson and of course like everyone my at age JK Rowling and Stephen King. In college I found the intellectuals like Ayn Rand, James Baldwin, Asimov and Orwell. In my late twenties I went noir with Chandler and Crumly. In my 30’s I look to the American classics like Hemminway and Keroack along with the great novels of history like Joyce and the Russian sad boys. Now I’m doing my best to get into poetry. I think it’s because poetry scares me, it intimidates me because I don’t understand it. It’s not cut and dry. The only time I can tell if poetry is bad is when I write some. Everyone else seems to have the key to the secret underground party except for me, but I can hear it happening through the sewer grate. Keats, Yeats, Bukowski and my favorite Richard Hugo are so enchanting to read, so daunting in their work and when you read their personal letters, they seem so sad. Maybe that is another reason I want to stay away from being a poet, they never seem happy, even when things are going great.

So for some reason in June of 2020, I think because my brain was finally able to function without the need of alcohol and drugs, I got a wild hair up my ass to start writing a novel. It would be a modern noir private eye and by modern, well it would be as modern as it could. How do you find a missing person in the middle of a pandemic? Read on reader and find out!

James Crumley lit a fire in my belly that surprisingly still hasn’t burnt out. His novels are so gritty, real and insane I feel a load of second hand anxiety from the shit his characters say, think and do. I want to write like James. He was a professor here in Missoula for a long time and has inspired millions across the world with his work. I even lived blocks from his favorite bar, the Depot, where they have a special chair in the corner with his picture and a plaque. It’s called Crumley’s Corner.

I was also balls deep in the epic western Lonesome Dove, which really put me in the mood to write something gritty, real and slightly depressing. On top of that I was binging a ton of self-help book like Jordan Peterson and a ton more on subjects of self-motivation, self-awareness and taking charge of ones life. So needless to say I was full of ideas, most of them probably not good.

One day in June, I just started writing. What came out was a lot of the frustration I was seeing happening around me that people were having with the COVID-19 pandemic. Unemployment, lockdowns, misinformation, scare tactics, conspiracy theories, lack of human decency and lack of control. The government was taking away a lot of our freedoms and we all went along with it because we didn’t want to be the asshole who got Grandma and Grandpa sick and eventually killed. That’s how it started, the book that is. It eventually evolved into a cathartic exercise in grief, airing of grievances and an exhausting exercise in discipline.

As of writing this, I have completed the final draft for the book. Middle of the End is done. As of Sept 3rd, 2021, I put the finishing touches on the manuscript after multiple rewrites and a drawn out edit from a childhood friend of mine who graduate with a journalism degree. Thank you Jake for taking on the massive task. I am truly grateful.

I am happy with the work. I did my absolute best to keep politics out of the novel and the little bit that is in it is meant to show you that it’s all fucked, no matter who your mascot is. I did my best to keep out hot button topics like gender but had to touch on items like BLM, riots, defund the police and government shutdowns. Those items hit close to home for me and subsequently for my main character Sonny. Some will maybe read it and see it as more right of center which is fine because at times that’s where I sit. Other times I am more left. Business man Nathan is sure as hell more conservative but family man Nathan can be very liberal when it comes to the quality of life for my loved ones.

I hope people read the thing and the only reason I say that is because the book is a monster. My editor suggested a bunch of passages that could be cut but I left most of it in. The side stories, the asides and tangents I felt were important to the world building of the slightly different, bizzaro like world we live in. Large books are intimidating but I always think of when I was a young lad and would wait at midnight to get the new Harry Potter book and see how large it was and think, fuck yeah! Don’t be intimidated, it will be fun to read, I promise.

I wrote in spurts. I would get home from work at 2am and just start banging out story. I would edit in the morning the previous chapters and then log details and plot points into new sheets to keep my story in order. It all came very organically. The only other time something like this happened was when I was living in Phoenix and tried my hand at writing a comic book script. It was a fun exercise but ultimately went nowhere. I wrote another small book that is honestly too embarrassing to write about but it had some good ideas in it too I guess. It just has to do with Zombies and I just can’t even right now with Zombies.

I wrote for probably seven months then would do a rewrite and reread. I loved every second of it and got utter and complete joy from the experience.

I am absolutely confident I could not have done this drunk or high. No fucking way. My mind would think of some wild shit while high but man do I turn into a slug. Unmotivated is a very watered down word to describe my mentality and overall being when using drugs. Plus, all my wild ideas came when I was laying in bed and there was no chance in hell I was going to get up, write down that thought then lay back down. Thats not how weed works for me.

Drinking? No way. The last thing I want to do while drinking is be creative. I want to do a lot of other things while drinking like watching TV or…..well just watching TV I guess. That takes away from writing time. I can say, for better or for worse, this book was due large in part to sobriety.

Raise our empty glass to sobriety! To helping me write Middle of the End. Cheers!

What to do about Mom and the Fiasco on Colorado Street - August 2021

Walking into your dead Mom’s home to try and reconcile with her ghost is a tall order. I was heading to Butte August 4th to do just that. My thinking was maybe it would be cathartic and cleansing to head to her house and speak to her privately in her own home. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy or fun but it was something I felt I needed to do on my own.

Having that mission interrupted by two half naked squatters is an order I was not ready to tackle. At all.

One of my Mom’s first cousins and his wife who I will call Twin Peaks because she looked like Laura Palmers mom, were in my Moms house, on her couch, watching her TV, smoking cigarettes and doing god knows what else the day I went to make peace with Mom.

So that fucking sucked. I just froze. I just walked in, looked around and walked out. I was floored and confused. I was upset but mostly at myself for not freaking out like maybe I should have.

The deal was this cousin said my Uncle George told them it was ok. George doesn’t own my Mom’s house. Mom still owns Mom’s house. George has no right to let anyone stay at the house.

God dammit I am still mad at myself for not saying anything but what the fuck was I suppose to do? Call the cops? No that would start some unwanted drama. Call George? Tried that, his phone is disconnected.

So I called my PIC Tessa to handle it. Her motivation runs mostly on rage so I decided to fill up her tank with this tidbit about the cousin living in Mom’s house. She went off on the ‘cousins’ and George, that dumbass, for taking things out of Moms house without permission.

I am angry that they didn’t communicate. I am angry that I felt Mom was being taken advanced of.

My sister, god bless her cotton socks, went over, changed the locks and was left a nice, long, hand written note from the Cousins about how ungrateful we are and how much work they put into helping out at Mom’s house and blah blah blah. It was really pretty shitty and petty. In the end I feel a bit bad it went down the way it did but I ask you this dear reader… Imagine for a moment…

Your Mom died suddenly. Your Son is to be born any day now. Your house you are trying to close on may fall through and the home you are currently in is set to be demolished. Now imagine some more you have a bad relationship with your Mom, who died, remember? So you go to make peace with her ghost/soul in her house where she died. And when you get there, the fucking door is locked. You hear the TV on inside and when you knock as loud as you possibly can, a half naked person you half recognize but clearly don’t know his name answers the fucking door.

Go ahead and think now. Done? You pissed off and confused? Yeah I thought so.

The Many Saints of HageStad - July 2021

Let me tell you all what happens when your parent dies unexpectedly and does not have a will using a grossly ostentatious example.

Imagine a tornado that is silent. It just suddenly depends from the heavens and lands on your life, vacuuming up your entire life and then throwing it all about like those evil flying monkeys did to the Scarecrow. No imagine a flood comes through and soaks and drowns all of your stuff. No imagine a fire erupts from the water and burns what isn’t already destroyed.

Well it’s not that bad but it’s still pretty fucking shitty.

What really happens is a process called probate. This probate is where a court now decided what to do with your dead parents estate. All of their possessions, assets and debts are to be disputed, clarified and decided in court and it takes a long time to settle. The more shit your parent has, the more assists and debt she possesses, well the longer your probate my friend. This is how it breaks down.

Probate Court = Need Probate Lawyers

Probate Lawyers = Big Money to be Spent

So as the oldest sibling I am deemed the executor of my Mother’s estate, something that requires a shit ton of paperwork and usually a lawyer, for which I cannot afford, due to the massive downpayment on a new home and the new kiddo being born. Also I paid most of my Mom’s funeral expenses which was a lot of moola as well. My sister contributed with money she raised for aid so I don’t want to sound like I did it all. Thank you to all that donated.

My dear cousin Velvet, is a paralegal at a local law firm called HageStad Law. My sister use to work there as an office assistant as well. David HageStad is one of the partners and an awesome person.

For some reason and I do not know why, he offered to help me and Tessa figure out Mom’s estate pro bono. On the cuff. On the arm. Fo Freeeeee!

God bless you David, Velvet and the HageStad team. God bless you.

The estate will be settled by next Summer (2022) most likely and nothing is really moving on it as of right now (Sept 2021).

Non of this is really all that pertinent to my story but I felt compelled to write this chapter to end it with this.

So let this be a substantial and terrifying announcement. I will even say it in bold and capital letters.

HAVE YOUR AFFAIRS IN ORDER. GET A WILL. ASSIGN BENEFICIARIES. DONT LEAVE YOUR FAMILY WITH A FUCKING MESS WHEN YOU DIE.

Thank you. Sincerely, everyone.

The Big Day: Welcome to the World Baby Bear - July 2021

Our son Bruin was born July 6th, 2021, two weeks after my Mom had passed away.

Lisa was set to be induced on the 6th and low and behold, Bruin waited to that date. We walked into St. Pats Hospital at 7:30am. The doctor walked in at 8:00am and called out the game plan.

-The drug Petosin will start being administered at 8am

-Contractions start at noon

-By dinner time we will have a baby.

Of all the things that happened in the last twelve months, this birth was the only thing that went absolutely correct and on time.

Bruin was born at 4:34PM weight 7.12bs, 20 inches.

There really isn’t much to say about that day because it indeed went smoothly.

The wildest thing that happened was around 10:00PM I flipped on KECI-TV News at 10. It has been a real long time since I watched the 10 O’clock news due to my evenings working and since I stopped working at the news station (oh yeah I worked at KECI for five years as a salesman. I could write a whole book on that chapter alone).

The leading news story was a grizzly bear had entered the tent of a sixty year old cyclist and mauled her to death. The twist was the attack happened in the township of Ovando, Montana. Ovando is home to maybe 100 people but still to have a griz come into town and kill someone is insane.

The best part was (sorry that sounds like I am saying a women dying is awesome, its not) my sales manager from KECI, Nick, was being interviewed about the attack. Nick lives in Ovando with his beautiful wife and seven hundred kids. He was on the team tasked with finding the bear and harvesting it. Nick is the manliest man I have ever met and if I was that bear I would be nervous.

As I lay in my fold out bed holding Bruin, I realized the day my son was born, whom I named after a bear, a women was killed in a very strange way by a grumpy old grizzly bear. You can’t make this shit up.

-

Let me take this moment to talk about the champion of that day, my beautiful partner Lisa.

The nine month she carried our son, I had never seen so much love, determination, joy and enthusiasm as I had seen come out of her knowing at the end of this journey, we would be gifted a beautiful baby boy.

Lisa and I met in a strange way…

Flash back to spring of 2018.

I was on a sinking ship that was my marriage and the ship was about to do that thing the Titanic did when it’s nose went into the Atlantic and then it’s ass when up and eventually it just snapped in half like an old piece of licorice that has been set out too long.

Marriage counciling led to a decision by the two of us that we needed a separation. I started to live a separate life from my wife, hoping time apart would lead to a longing for our reconciliation while she...well she had a different perspective on what a separation is.

I found out that my wife was sleeping with and secretly having a relationship with a co-worker of hers via a mysterious Facebook message from….

Dun dun dun…

Lisa!

Oh and that co-worker my wife was sleeping with was …

You guessed it.

Lisa’s husband.

Lisa and I started out talking to each other both being survivors of life & prisoners of war; trying to comprehend the fact that both our lives were simultaneously imploding due to our estrange spouses.

After a few months, I finalized my divorce as did Lisa and from there we started to connect. It started out slow but blossomed into something beautiful, healing and fruitful. We found out that we had more in common than cheating spouses. We both fell in love in a hopeless place (See I told you the Rihanna thing would come back around).

Flash forward to today (Fall 2021) and our ex’s are now wed with a child of their own. We co-parent our mutual daughter together the very best we all can and it goes pretty well. I am sure people will judge and talk and blah blah blah but guess what? I don’t care. I know everyone says things like that but honestly people get into weird relationships all the time. I don’t harbor hate or judgement towards our exes (not any more anyways, thank you therapy) so I hope they have a nice life as I hope the want the same for Lisa and I.

What I found in Lisa was this.

A patient, smart, grounded and affectionate partner who stood by me at my lowest and stands tall with me at my highest.

I would not be sober with out her today. When I told her I was done with substances, she stopped drinking alcohol in solidarity with me. When I announced to everyone on SM that I was on the path to recovery, so many people reached out personally saying they wish they too could do it but only if they had the support around them to stop drinking.

I did not ask Lisa to stop drinking, in fact at this point she could have a glass of wine every night with dinner and it would not bother me. I play beer league hockey for gods sake and I am never tempted by it. So for her to still say, no I won’t drink, is amazing and honestly the most selfless thing someone can do for someone like me.

If you don’t know this, but my heritage is strange. I have the most Italian last name of all time but I am mostly Irish and Native American or as I like to reference it as the Jordan and Pippen of alcoholism. Two pro’s running it back every single day.

Drinking is literally in my blood. I don’t know if this happens to you but I get a build up of saliva in the back of my jaw when I think about drinking a beer on my fresh cut lawn on a summer evening. I honestly drool thinking of Moose Drool. That is how much I love beer but as a famous outcast once said, no heroin is better than the smell of your babies hair. I choose life over booze. I choose family over drugs. I do not look down on people who choose those things because they can handle them in moderation. I unfortunately can not.

So if you want to kick the hard stuff find good people to help you do it. It’s honestly what failed my Mom when she tried to kick booze the year before her life ended. She didn’t have support, including my full support. In fact my Mom had a nefarious thief around her who stole her life savings and her car on multiple occasions but again that is another story for another day. I wanted Mom sober but I wasn’t willing to do the hard work and I regret that more than anything.

Find someone who wants the best for you. Find someone who will not judge you and measure your success not with others but with how you were a year ago, a week ago, a day ago.

Lisa is that person for me. I love you sweetheart.

Anything else happen this year?

GOD DAMN COVID!

I almost feel like writing about this is pointless because if you haven’t been affected by this pandemic then you sir/madam are truly the one percent of the one percent.

COVID had the potential to crush my business and thank god it didn’t. It nearly killed Lisa’s job and it completely flipped our lives on its head. It’s as simple as that.

I wish people for a second could forget the mask and vaccine argument bullshit, this damn virus will be in our lives for decades to come, whether it is eradicated or not. My son and daughter will not know a world before COVID just as I barley remember a world before 9/11.

The only funny thing I have about COVID is this. I write down my yearly goals for the business every December. In December of 2019 I wrote on the last line of my goals this statement.

“2020 is going to be our year.”

Yeesh.

Anyways, live safe, stay safe, read my book, give it away when you finish it, go hug your kids, go see your parents in person, don’t be so hard on yourself, try something new, try something that scares you, go fast, don’t die, live free and remember this isn’t a race. Life isn’t who has the most stuff, if that is your strive in life just know there is no end to up. You can never fill that empty hole, no matter how big that house is or how tricked out that gaudy truck is. Try your hardest, even when you can’t, be nice to people and animals, pet a strange dog, pick up a random cat, smile at people when they don’t expect it, do the backroads wave thing when driving and remember to just enjoy the now. This isn’t a game to be won. We all die in the end, so play it the way you want.

I hope you don’t have to go through a year like the one I did but I can tell you this dear reader, life is worth every second.

Stay alive out there.

-Nathan