Play that Funky Music

Both of the front speakers in my minivan have ceased working. Being that I lack the automotive gene and the electronics gene, I have no clue how to fix it. Now I must blast the radio so that the back speakers can be heard and enjoyed from the front. Generally no problem--until I discovered that for some reason, the Cardigan's cover of "Iron Man" lacks vocals when played only on the rear speakers. Funky.

Right now I am listening to my favorite band, Cowboy, and my favorite of their songs: "Flag Tattoo." This is nice.

My calf STILL hurts. I wonder if that abominable cramp caused something to be pulled.

We received a new foster child this week (yesterday, to be exact). He's a pretty good kid so far.

I think I've been relatively boring the last couple days, sorry. Been reading another blog, btw, ar myboyfriendisatwat.com; she is making me think I need to write some poetry again. I've allowed malaise to silence my pen for a wee bit too long now.

Since I have but one reader, my works won't offend too many...

Mother, Plus Identity Update

So my mother called yesterday, primarily to talk to Lash & Aeia, but Lash was in trouble so she cut the convo short with him and all phone convos with Aeia are short.

Anyway, we ended up talking and she got to talking about my "Evan Formerly Known As Dave" post (which I'd emailed her). It turns out that she's very jazzed that I'm changing my name to Evan--as it was the name she had originally wanted for me, but had been bullied into David by my father, who shall forever more be refered to in quirky and asinine ways. Had she had her druthers, my name would have been Evan Lee Peterson (It's weird that I've been leaning towards L word middle names for myself myself). Lee is my boss' name and while he's a really cool boss, I don't think it works.

I also made the mistake of mentioning that I'm also considering a complete name change: moving Evan to 1st place status and adopting a whole new set of middle and last names. She supports it, but suggested I change my last name to Born, which is my stepfather's last name. It would be a very nice thing because she'll never be able to give him children of his own... Me, though, I just don't like the name aesthetically, and if I'm going to change my whole name, it's going to be something I like the ring of.

Right now, the front-runner new name is Evan Lash Lucio Vidal (I would then be named after my son, my maternal great-grandfather and my maternal great-great-great grandmother, whose poetry in translation is also the subject of my Thesis work as well as bearing the original first name that my mother had intended for me).

Later that evening, she also e-mailed me to apologize for never having asked me if the sperm monkey had molested me. She said she'd never asked because she knew for a fact that he didn't--because he didn't have the opportunity (which is incorrect, but the fact she thought to write and apologize at all is MONUMENTAL coming from my mother, so I'll take it as the touching gesture it's meant to be--especially since she is right that he never did).

Ouch

This morning I woke up screaming, and thankfully I woke everyone else in the house up with my screaming as well. Pain is more fun that way.

For whatever reason, my left calf decided to undergo a massive cramp around 6 am this morning while I was enjoying a good night's sleep. The pain was so bloody intense I couldn't move, I couldn't massage the cramp--all I could do was scream.

It took Denise a good three minutes to realize that maybe, just maybe massaging my calf would be a lot more helpful to my dilemma than just sitting there asking a dying man to stop screaming. Once she'd realized this, the pain was finally rubbed off and I was able to go back to sleep.

Sixteen hours later, my calf remains incredibly sore and pained, completely having thrown my ability to work out today.

I think I'm coming down with a flu or something as well.

Today was just not my day.

the Evan Formerly Known as Dave

So, my birth certificate says my name is David Evan Peterson.

I've recently dropped the "David" from mine, though not legally--not yet. Admittedly, changing my name so suddenly at the ripe old age of near-thirty (as I was still 29) can be quite confusing for the people who know me, and a difficult change for them to live with/get used to. I have been "Dave" for so long, to so many people, that it's hard to imagine me as anyone else.

The important question I'm asked least often is "why?"

Now, I share the "why?" And now, when asked the "why?" (online anyway), I can simply direct someone to this posting.

I was named David Peterson, after my father, David Peterson. Our middle names differ.

When I was nine or ten my father was arrested for molesting children (I would say the neighbor friend of his step-daughter and his own neice, but I was young, and the details are lost to me). He was quite guilty of this crime. He was also still my daddy, and I still wanted to love him. Kids are weird that way. This is the same guy who beat me when I was five because I said I was Mexican because I liked tacos. Now I like tacos and burritos--it must really get his ire up. Though I wouldn't know.

(An aside: Nowadays, if your parent is sent to prison for molesting kids you might be lucky enough to be offered counselling services. I was not. No one ever even bothered to try and find out if he ever molested me. He did not, but still... thanks for caring.)

I remember crying for what seemed forever that my daddy was a Bad Man and was going to go to prison.

He would call me on occasion from prison, all sad and contrite, and I ate it all up--hook line and sinker (I'm a lover of cliches).

At thirteen I visited him in prison, staying with his wife in Susanville for two weeks while I was there. I have two memories that are very strong from this trip--only one goes back to him: I remember feeling shamed by him for calling my step-sister a whore when she pissed me off once. Granted, it was wrong of me to call her a whore, but I wonder now at what moral authority he had to chastise me for being a thirteen year-old asshole.

He got out of prison when I was either fifteen or sixteen. He did his parole, and visited me for the first time some day during Christmas break of my senior year in high school (I was seventeen). He drove up, took me to McDonalds, bought me two CDs at Target and then dropped me off at my aunt's. All told, maybe two hours of quality time in which he spent telling me about the sexual activities with his then current live-in girlfriend. Thanks for the quality time there, dad.

Shortly thereafter, he returned to prison, presumably for a parole violation. I really don't know for what exactly. I believe I was told domestic violence. He got back out of prison when I was 22. He began writing me a lot. He'd found God... he was sorry... he understood if I never wanted to see him again... blah blah blah. I wrote him that he would have his final chance with me. He was never a father to me, but he could try to be a part of my life now, and a part of his newborn grandson's life. This opened communication for us and I started to forgive him again. He eventually sent a present for my son's first Christmas (a high chair which we kept and used for more than four years) and then I never heard from him again. Never in the past six years.

For the past twenty years I've been a fairly unhappy person. Last summer I had an epiphany that I was carrying a lot--A LOT-- of father baggage. Getting rid of this baggage seemed to be the obvious solution to some of my problems.

David Peterson is a liar. David Peterson is a closet racist. David Peterson is a child beater. David Peterson is a wife beater. David Peterson is a child abandoner. David Peterson is a child molester.

I am none of these things.

Therefore I am not David Peterson. Nor does David Peterson deserve to have anyone named after him. I sure as Hell won't be.

(It's extremely ironic that "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin is playing on my MP3 player right this second)

So, from now on, I am Evan Peterson. That's why the change.

I'm finally looking into the forms and fees for legally changing my name. As soon as I know how to fill them out, and as soon as I have the money, and as soon as I know what, if anything, I want my new middle name to be, I will legally be Evan Peterson, and will be David nevermore.

By the way, I'm accepting suggestions for a new middle name. it has to sound well spoken aloud with Evan and Peterson, and it has to look well aesthetically when written with them. Feel free to post comments of suggested names or e-mail them. I like heroic names, both fictional and mythological.

Hmph

Well, the world didn't end upon turning thirty. Everyone can take a collective sigh of relief now I guess.

My emotional roller coaster, however, is now in full swing.

Yeah, baby.

One Day...

One day left. Tomorrow is the end of the world for me. What happens next? I wish I knew.

Swag report:

Thus far, for those interested in the material things, I've received:

2 DVDs (Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter; and Daria, the Movie) from my pal Drew.

From Denise and the kids: Buffy Season 6 on dvd; a new portable cd player with car radio attachment; a cd backpack for when I'm working out; the flaming watch; Pieces of April on DVD; Fargo on DVD; swimming goggles.

Beautiful and much appreciated letters from both Adrienne and Scott numero Uno.

I've always been a big fan of swag. We DO live in a material world afterall. At least if one can believe Madonna.

Scout Horror

My son brought home a flyer about joining the Scouts today. He was very excited about it. Thankfully, when told he'd have to choose between the Scouts or keeping Karate as his extracurricular activity, he chose karate. He's not quite ready for me to sit him down and explain the anti-gay Scout organization and how it is prejudiced against many of the people in his life whom he loves.

What about the children?

What about the children?

I realize, reading through this, that a casual reader, knowing nothing about me, could say those very words, could express misplaced over-concern upon reading my own descriptions of how much a sexual libertine I claim to be.

To these people, I say watch your own houses.

My children aren't exposed to my personal life, whether it be sex with my wife or whatever--my kids aren't in the bedroom; I'm not making out with the UPS guy on the couch in front of them. I would never, NEVER do anything to harm them. When they're old enough, they'll be talked to respectfully about daddy's sexuality.

I don't indoctrinate them with my own personal religious beliefs. Again, when they're of the apporpriate age/maturity, religious decisions will be their own to make--as they were my own when I was a child.

My kids are my life. They're my first priority; as they should be.

Swag

I've been trying to supplement my spending money for ComicCon by selling a lot of my old comics and dvds on evilbay. So far, things are going ok, but I kind of hoped they'd be going better.

One of my foster kids, J., bought me a new watch for my birthday. I really needed a new watch. The one I had, a gift from Denise, was one of those metal-elastic banded watches and it was always pulling the hair on my arm. Painful and not fun. I stopped caring about the time. Now I have this real nice metal watch, with a clasp instead of elasti-metal. No more arm-hair pulling. The face is really groovy too--it has electronic flames burning upwards across the watch face.

10 days.

13 days

In 13 days the world will end. I'll turn thirty; I feel sixty, but just recently I've begun to feel as if maybe, just maybe I'm sixty going on twenty. I think I'm really just confused. All I know, is that I feel as if I'm on the cusp of something big. Big.

Anyway (fun fact: one of my bigger pet peeves is when someone says or writes the word "anyways." There is no plural form of the word "anyway;" you can't have more than one "anyway."), I think I should move on...perhaps leave a record before the world ends--just for the off chance it doesn't. Sometimes I'm an incredibly juvenile near thirty year old sixty something going on twenty.