It's My Diary and I'll Cry if I Want to

Operating under an alias grants me some additional freedom; freedom I wouldn’t have for some reason if I hadn’t ingeniously changed my name. Granted, most of the people I know have been given the link to this blog and hopefully repeatedly visit it…..yet I remain undaunted. This is my diary and I’ll cry if I want to.

As is most likely evident from the content of this blog up until this point, I often fancy myself a tough guy. A man’s man. I like beer, good music and sports. I even get into a fight once every 5 or 6 years, albeit coming away with tales of folly and misadventure more often than bragging rights.

Well my friends, I’m also a little crying bitch. In a bold and unprecedented move, I’m going to make a list of the circumstances under which I have shed tears in recent memory. And if anyone ostracizes, patronizes, or chastises me, I’ll fight them….once I stop crying.

1. A couple weeks ago I saw War of the Worlds. I hate Tom Cruise as much as the next reasonable human being for all the obvious reasons….but I pretty much cried every 20 to 40 minutes for the film’s entirety. In one of those lucid hazes that often accompany an intense hangover, I was even comfortable enough with my cowardice to tell my girlfriend who was seated next to me, “I’m crying.” She turned to me, smiled, “Oh my God, you are!” Good stuff.

2. Last night I was home briefly between the hours of 7:00 and 8:00. As the doors to my CD player no longer open (?), I did some brief channel surfing and found Jack on HBO. Jack features Robin Williams as a 10 year old kid stricken with a disease that accelerates the aging process. So, naturally, I cried when Jack stayed home from school for 2 weeks because he just wanted to be like the other boys (ie. not have to shave while in 4th grade, not die shortly after high school). This was a 10 year old kid in a grown man’s body faced with the daunting task of coming to terms with his impending premature mortality.

3. One of the live Pearl Jam discs I own features a rendition of Yellow Ledbetter where Eddie Vedder alters the lyrics such that they’re clearly anti-war/ anti-death, etc. In this version, the song’s subject enlists in the army to pay for college, ends up being killed in combat, and comes home in a “box on the back, a yeaaaaaaaah can you see them”, etc. I was listening to it on my way in to work and for whatever reason the words resonated and struck my pink chord within… and I cried like a baby. So much so, in fact, I had to put on my sunglasses to avoid contingent double-takes and jeers from cars stopped at red lights alongside me.

4. Pearl Jam’s cover of Masters of War on Live at Bennaroya Hall has had the same affect on more than one occasion. I’m apparently anti-war/killing too. Who knew?

5. Every time I see Rudy..

6. Pretty much any time it’s customary for women to cry.

There. I feel better, you?