February 3rd, 2014 by Corey A. Edwards
What do you do when you see a cat? Let’s say a cat in a store window peering out at you, for example? Well, I dunno about you but, when I see a cat, my first urge is usually to go and try and interact with it, the polar opposite of my typical reaction at seeing another person.
So, now that I’ve outed myself as one of *those* people …
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January 19th, 2014 by Corey A. Edwards
This collection of vignettes, observances, and rants accumulated over a four day period in Charleston, South Carolina where I was employed as a vendor at a trade show.
I don’t travel much. This is my first trip in that direction: approximately six hours in the air, southeast with a connection in Atlanta. It’s the farthest south I’ve been on the east coast, maybe on the continent.
Anyway: stuck on a plane, stuck in a hotel room, stuck in a booth, and stuck in my head, the urge to document and rant came. Short of screaming to the heavens, I felt the need to express myself, so into my phone and computer the impressions and observances went – mostly as they happened or shortly thereafter.
Now, with only the slightest of apologies, I present them to you.
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September 9th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
The present “view” at Big Dam (circa 2010)
(continued from: A Flood of Memories – Part 2 The Big Thompson Flood of 1976)
The river changed for me after the flood and, to this day, it is not the one I remember from my early childhood. The river we ice-skated on in the winter and that I caught my first fish from, on a piece of black thread with a rusty, found hook is long gone. A hazy but persistent memory that continues to define a very distinct and distant period of my life.
Floods update the shape and course of the rivers they spring from. The rushing water carves new beds from old banks, uproots foliage, rolls boulders, and deposits new layers of mud and sand where before, perhaps, there was none. Floods remove old landmarks and create new ones. Floods destroy human built landmarks and redefine how and where it is wise to place them.
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September 2nd, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
A car peeping out from its impromptu grave – Ernie Leyba/Denver Post File
(continued from: A Flood of Memories – Part 1 The Big Thompson Flood of 1976)
The next day dawned and, from my perspective, nothing was different – but it was.
We had no power and there was a queer smell in the air, a smell of mud and propane. After being told of the evening’s events, my mom allowed my brother and I to walk down to the corner above the falls with the stern admonishment to avoid the edge of the washed out road. We were to go no further than the falls.
Later that day we learned why my mom had been so adamant that we explore no more than what we could see from the road: two of of our neighbors had investigated the scene below the falls already that morning and had reported finding, among other things, a nude woman asleep in the silt.
Except, of course, she wasn’t asleep.
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August 26th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
Big Dam Falls at Chasteen’s Grove
In the summer of 1976, when I was 7 years old, the river I lived near – The Big Thompson – suffered a flash flood of unheard of proportions. 143 people lost their lives in the rushing waters, five of whom were never found. My family, though living in the affected area, suffered little but inconvenience and shock as the human world around us reeled from one of nature’s little hiccups.
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July 1st, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
It must have been the summer of 1974 or so, I would have been five or six. My maternal grandparents hadn’t seen me since I was a baby, so my mom decided it would be a good time for a visit. We didn’t have a lot of money, though, so it would just be mom and I making the trip, my father and older brother would stay home. As a further expression of our finances, mom and I wouldn’t be flying from Northern Colorado to Southern California but busing.
Being wee, I knew none of the reasons behind why we were going. All I knew was, I was going on a big trip for the first time and I couldn’t wait.
You know you’re young when the prospect of taking a bus from Northern Colorado to Los Angeles with your mom sounds like an exciting adventure.
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June 24th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
“What happens when you send an atheist to interview a faith healer? You tell me – I can’t watch.”
The house bearing the address I was given is a drab, neglected ranch, the yard littered with assorted dingy vehicles, tarp draped filing cabinets, and abandoned appliances in various states of repair. It is the kind of yard from which vicious dogs leap, not the manicured, peaceful zen garden of a new-age professional.
I exit my vehicle tentative with caution.
What the hell am I doing here? I hate this kind of thing; meeting new people is bad enough but interviewing them for an article in a spiritual newsletter is even worse. When I took the job as webmaster for the local, new-age bookstore, I never intended to have to pay this much lip service to the dizzying array of beliefs that are the store’s bread and butter. I’m a total skeptic, an unrepentant atheist, yet here I am, about to interview what amounts to a new-age faith healer.
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June 17th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
May 27th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
(Part 1 of “Lost and Foundry” can be found here)
The longer I worked at the foundry, the farther I rose up in ranks – whether I wanted to or not – and it wasn’t just because of my abilities.
First there was the appointment to head of Monument Sprue, a change that mainly involved me going to lots of pointless meetings and wandering around the foundry with a clipboard, talking to friends – not because it was part of the job but because the position and clipboard gave me the excuse and camouflage to do so. Then they allowed me to move to patina and, in short order, made me head of that department.
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May 20th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
In the mid 90’s I found myself in a very precarious position: the husband in a married team of new parents, unexpectedly locked out of their business by their silent partners for suspicion of embezzlement.
While this presents a story all on its own, suffice it to say that our business partner’s accusations were eventually discovered to be unfounded (the butler did it) but the damage was done and, in the meantime, I needed work!
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May 6th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
Poking about my “writings” folder, I discovered this piece entitled “for after the divorce,” written circa 2006. Intrigued I read it and was stunned by both its honesty and darkness. I knew I wanted to share it but I wasn’t sure why and so I mothballed it again until I understood the urge. There are some uncomfortable moments here and so much has changed in my life – all for the better! – why dredge up the clotted ichor of the past?
I eventually realized that the urge to share it had to do with the realization that we are so often capable of pulling ourselves out of the deepest and darkest places. Very shortly after this was written – a few months or more – I started that elusive career and, though my marriage did fall apart and even harder times were to come, it was an adventure that has led me to the amazing place I am now.
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March 18th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
I recently saw a t-shirt (online, of course) that read: “When I was your age the internet went “Skawee Reweert!” I laughed out loud … and still find it odd that I must clarify that by adding: no, really.
But I can go one better: when I was your age the TV went “Raaaaaaatch! Ka-tchk-tchk-tchk-tchk!”
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February 18th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
December 29th, 2012 by Corey A. Edwards
August 4th, 2012 by Corey A. Edwards
November 8th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards
The bus home is crowded, even though I arrived with many minutes to spare. It is so crowded, I have to take one of the less comfortable seats up front but that’s okay because a cute, young woman arrives thereafter and has little choice but to take the space next to me.
What fun!
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June 27th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards
June 25th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards
“Are you a racist?”
The question comes from the back of the bus. It is not inflected in the way you might expect: no anger, no indignation, no shock; just a loud, open question that hangs in the air like a heavy curtain pulled between those of us in earshot and our lives of careful make-believe.
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June 17th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards
Just a quick notice that I am in the process of moving from the Google Blogger platform to a WordPress blog integrated with my website, www.coreyshead.com.
The blog is still called “Brother, I Can See Your Skull.” and, once everything is fully migrated, I will be shutting down the Blogger version of the blog for good.
You’d think I would’ve done something like this a bit this sooner but I only just recently got off my ass long enough to move to a server that can handle the requirements of PHP and MySQL.
Other than the new features of categories and tags, it should be a very similar experience and I can assure you the same level of quality and attentiveness with which I have attended this space … *cough*
Hotcha.
May 16th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards
January 13th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards
The Skull
The skull may skulk;
a visage grim
with proof that life
is tissue thin
but that is not the breadth of him
Forget you not:
the skull doth grin.
cae
I just added a gallery of skull shots to my website and, thinking of posting that fact here, readied myself for a fairly common question I hear: what’s with the skulls?
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January 3rd, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards
July 28th, 2010 by Corey A. Edwards
Just waaaaaaaaaay busy with things other than my own creations.
April 8th, 2010 by Corey A. Edwards
So … where the hell am I?
Great question. Soon as you figure it out, let me know.
My one consolation is that the bulk of the blogs I follow seem to be in a similar state of shrugged shoulders.
I can’t imagine anyone even checks here, anymore. I sure as heck don’t.
That’ll make it doubly interesting once I get back to it. (and I will – my damn muse can’t wander the desert, without me, forever)
Luckily the world is already full-to-bursting with other folks who are driven, creative, and innerestin’; I hardly miss myself.
Hotcha.
December 23rd, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
Much to my dismay, my computer is in a coma.
Until such a time as I can afford to get it fixed, you can count on my blog, along with the rest of my online activity, to be curtailed significantly.
Happy Holidays …
October 28th, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
October 10th, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
When I moved from my home of Larimer County, Colorado to Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula in 1999, I did so with an optimism built on the spine of my young family and a sense that I had an opportunity to reinvent myself.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that my young family’s spine was broken even then and that you cannot reinvent what was never completed in the first place.
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March 30th, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
I’m sitting at the computer, typing away, when out of nowhere a grape hits me in the elbow.
My daughter, Mel, is lying on the couch just a few feet away, sniggering, her back to me as she watches a dvd. My cat, Ralph, has just come around the corner of my desk and is looking up at me in my dismay.
“Did you just throw a grape at me?” I ask, indignant, reaching down to retrieve the offending fruit.
“What?” my daughter laughs.
I playfully toss the grape back at her and it bounces off her head.
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February 22nd, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
February 17th, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
I was talking with an attractive young woman the other day about my job when she asked me if I found it cathartic.
She’d read somewhere that working with dough could be cathartic.
Now, what we were really doing was a little light flirting in the form of trying to assure each other that we aren’t stupid, even though we’re both employed at a supermarket.
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February 7th, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
So, how about that Superbowl last weekend, eh?
What about that one play with the guy when he had the ball and it was like, wow? And that other one, where the guy got tackled? And that one call – WTF was the ref thinking? Well, at least that one team won. Unless you were rooting for the other team, the Cincinnati Bagels or whatever …
Okay, I admit it: I didn’t watch the Superbowl.
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January 28th, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
So I’m in San Francisco last weekend with a buncha danged professionals and I’m feeling the odd man out. (I mean I felt strange in their company. Get your mind out of the gutter)
Anyway, they’ve all got nice cars, successful careers, wallets full of cash, and really great clothes. Especially the shoes. Every one of these bastards has what appears to be a brand new pair of shoes on their feet – sneakers or leathers – that probably cost more than my diet since September, and there I was in my four year old, beat to shit, steel-toed, brown hiking boots with obvious, whisker-like black laces. The original, brown ones were worn out and all I had were these stiff black things that I stupidly decided to replace the others with just before the trip.
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January 15th, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
In the dream I am surfing on a baguette pan like the kind I use at my new job. Sometimes it’s a four-channel pan and sometimes it’s a six but the four-channel works better because the wheels are bigger and not as recessed (which is interesting because baguette pans don’t have wheels).
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January 11th, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I worked first as a janitor for Hewlett Packard and then, some time later, as a security guard.
The first job, a delight of mop buckets, floor buffers, and trash bags, had a shift that ran from 7pm to 3:30 in the morning. It was an odd schedule but not too hard to get used to. Besides, I only lasted three months at the job.
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January 6th, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
I seem to be the most creative when I’m happiest and vice versa.
I suppose this follows. What makes you happier than being in the midst of a creative project?
The downside is that, when times are tough, my muse deserts me. It’s a little like how, when stressed, some of us contract stress-related illnesses, which add to the stress (which is a damned stupid system, if you ask me).
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December 29th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
Most of the year I think of myself as an optimist but, as the new year approaches, its awful, preceding holiday extends a pair of ragged talons, hungry to rend the fabric of my cheery façade: New Year’s Eve.
I find it odd that I don’t remember any New Year’s Eve celebrations from my youth – and no, not because I was wasted. I’m talking about when I was but a kid: between the ages of birth to 17 or so.
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December 18th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
Between the holidays, freelance, and my part-time job, I am finding little to no “Corey” time, thus the lack of entries here.
Fear not, I shall strike a balance (likely after Christmas) and resume posting, soon.
Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays, ever’body!
December 13th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
A couple of weeks or so ago I started a short writing project for this blog.
At first it was intended as just a single post, then it grew into something that, out of kindness to my hapless readers, I would have cut into separate parts but in the end I realized I shouldn’t post at all.
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December 5th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
November 23rd, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
This post is an addendum to another, located here: The After School Special
A call to my brother yesterday left me with the urge to append an addendum to the heartwarming, lip-smacking tale of my childhood’s clandestine pet food consumption.
For one thing, I’d forgotten Gaines-Burgers.
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November 19th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
When I was growing up there weren’t a lot of snacks in the house and what there were we weren’t to eat. We didn’t have much money and my father didn’t hold with snacks. You ate at mealtimes and that was that.
Unfortunately, when you’re growing, there are times of nearly constant hunger. You’re satiated for so little of the time and then the gnawing comes back, a sympathetic vibration of your metabolism stretching your bones and tissue to fill your DNA’s incontrovertible requisition form.
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November 17th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
One cold, January day in the early 80’s, with eyes on an expedition into the iced-over irrigation ditch behind our house, I decide a pair of black, rubber overshoes would be my best choice of foot gear. I’ve not worn such a thing in forever, a combination of woolen stockings, waterproofed boots, and diligently avoiding standing water having replaced the cumbersome, black and, truth be told, hated rubber overshoes of my youth.
Sometimes, however, they’re just the thing.
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November 13th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
It is a pleasant summer day, the sun radiating down to heat our pleasant and bustling tourist destination of a town. I am on my knees behind the counter, busy taking inventory of a shipment of pseudo-prayer flags; squares of cloth emblazoned with brightly colored, new age motifs, strung together with black, cotton string, and selling for $41.50 apiece, retail.
The store is only moderately busy; tourists and regulars milling about the crystals, books, and tarot cards like lazy bees in a somnolent flower garden.
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November 5th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
“… well, girls usually like my eyes.”
“Your eyes?”
“Yeah: my eyes. The women I’ve gone out or flirted with typically comment on my eyes. Your mom regularly did, so have many others.”
“Uhhh, dad?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s a kind of … a girl’s secret … a way of saying …”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Well, when there’s nothing … when you’re not … it’s what girls say to a guy when there’s nothing else to say anything nice about.”
“Oh.”
November 4th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
A young boy, unsteady in cowboy boots, walking down a steep drive:
“My legs are slippery!”
October 28th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
My life is such a jumble these days – so insane.
Learning the ropes of single parenthood
Personal rediscovery
Legal skirmishes with a loved-one turned enemy
Financial insecurity
Career frustrations
The seemingly endless scrutiny of custody-related authorities (this last one will have you second-guessing your choice of footwear, folks)
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October 22nd, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
It is difficult to say what the exact cause of random stupidity in young men is but a good, general suspect is boredom. More windows have been broken out of boredom than hate, revenge, or any other reason.
In the early 90’s, I was employed at a mall record store and was frequently confronted by the twin specters of my own boredom and stupidity.
Most of the time our store was active with browsing adults, shoplifting teenagers, whining children, and sarcastic employees but certain times – say around 10:30 am on a Wednesday during the off-season – contrasted sharply with this otherwise boisterous environment.
It was on such a morning that I reached a personal zenith in boredom related stupidity.
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October 18th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
cae posing as a Security Guard – 1989-1991
In the late 80’s and early 90’s, I worked as a security guard at the Loveland, Colorado Hewlett Packard plant.
A sprawling complex of assembly and R&D, the plant was plagued by random waves of climatically inappropriate creatures inadvertently shipped to it in crates and pallets from places all over North America and the world; it wasn’t uncommon to find a gecko on the wall -in winter.
One year we were infested with the strangest, scariest looking arachnid I’ve ever seen.
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October 13th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
