Pre-St. Patty's Day M-ahem. AHEM!

Last week, I purchased a very cool looking Schwinn for only $10 dollars, thinking that I had just made an initial investment into my greener lifestyle-- one that would garnish returns beyond imagination. My dad happened to stop by and check it out, but much to my disappointment, he told me it wasn't gonna work.

"Pretty cool bike, huh Dad?"
"Yea... uh. Yea, it's cool. It's a girls bike."
"What? No. Nah."
"No, yea-- it's a lady bike, son."
"Oh. Well..." (under breath: gdmnit)


Mens Bikes are identified by the "skirt bar" ironically enough. A woman's bike swoops down.
And so I gave both bikes I had acquired away, thinking that I can't be seen with a girly bike. It's just wrong. I can't shame my family that way.

So off they go, and I'm off to the bike store. I asked the bike pro about it and he kinda chuckled...
"Yea... that doesn't really matter anymore. Nobody cares. A bike is a bike."

FUCK!

Photos?

So I've done a little research about blogging in the past week. This is largely thanks to a tremendous amount of downtime, due in part to my recent commitment to sobriety and mostly because I'm allowing myself to be a vegetable with a mouth and an asshole. Also, because I really like blogging/blogs. The bulk of my research consists of clicking that "next blog" link up there at the top and seeing where it'll land me.

I've seen a lot of good blogs and a lot of bad ones too. One thing I've realized is that good bloggers do NOT necessarily blogroll each other. I've found that if I stumble on a great blog, there's a good chance that the links on the right will lead me to incoherent babble. There's even one (which I've shamefully bookmarked) that consists entirely of short AIM conversations. There's an odd sense of pervasiveness in it, and I thought it might be interesting... except a recent conversation went exactly like this:


RAQUELLE

kerry: i wish your name was raquelle
me: GOD ME TOO
I WOULD BE SO MUCH BETTER
kerry: YOU'D BE MUCH BETTER
me: PIAEHPIAPHIATPAEPIAEPHIHIPIPTAPIHTEAIPHEPHIIEPA
kerry: !!!!!!
me: PIHEATPIHEAPIHAETA

You would think that the spasm of excitement (Re: "PIAEHPIAPHIAT...etc") is limited to just one entry. But one conversation is ALL keyboard spasms. I do think it's charming how kerry replied "!!!!!!" after said spasm. Anyway, if this is your bag, then you can check it out here. Raquelle, if you have any objections, just leave me a comment and I'll take it off. But let it be said that I do actually read your stuff... I just think it's kinda crazy.

But hey! that's what blogs are for. And while I have a pathetic decent readership I figured maybe it's time I take this baby up a notch. It'll be a lot like turning the volume up from a modest "5" to a very impressive "7". Rock and roll. With that, I'm going to start introducing photos in my blog. Since I have about ten thousand to choose from in my archives, I'm just gonna pick random photos and drop them, regardless of the entry's actual content.

Anyway, today I hung out with my dad and ganked a washing machine from some guy that works for him. We drove out to a shanty and picked it up around 3, came home at 3:15... had it unloaded from the trailer at approx. 3:20... and right around 4:30, it was sitting snugly in the laundry room. Yes, that's right.. it took us a little over an hour to get the motherflippa into my utility room. I literally had to take a couple doors off the hinges for it to fit. Of course, once it's hooked up, we discovered that the nozzles are treadbare, so the hot/cold hoses aren't very secure. Twist the valve to allow cold water to run through, and you're left with a high-pressure jet of very cold water on your pants. Well, I was lucky. It sprayed my dad.

There's a Song

This last week has been kind of a lull for me.

First off, I'm giving myself a pat on the back for getting a full-time job. I know a lot of people that have worked there one time or another, and they have all told me the same thing: you would be perfect for this job.

The place is called Piney Ridge, and it is, in the words of the woman who hired me: a locked facility designed to restructure the social behavior of juveniles who have been charged with a sexual offense. I know it sounds like we are brainwashing kids into the "proper" way of thinking, and the fact that all the residents are referred to as "patients" is a little irksome too, but rest assured the children there are not being tucked away out of view from society. Rather, society has been tucked away from them.

One of the things that solidifies my decision to accept this job is the fact it will carry a responsibility to others that outweighs what seems like my own monumental problems.

Which brings me to my next point. Last Sunday, I went out with some friends as usual. I drank a lot, as usual. But something very unusual happened. I fell, hit my head, and woke up in the hospital with four stitches holding a chunk of my scalp together.

I know what you're thinking. "Nice!"

That was my thought too, for a very brief moment. I don't remember the ride home. As I walked into the door, my sister had seen that I was hurt. She probably noticed in terror the purple wristband with some medical information printed on the outside. She probably saw my shirt collar, the blood diluted by rain. That feeling of "nice" dissipated very quickly. I suddenly realized how badly my head hurt. It had never occurred to me to look at my hands. They were stained in red. It must have looked like I'd just been shot.

Today, I'm completely without the concept of time as the chain of events unfolded that evening. At some point, my mother had come over. Soon after, my father was there. And there I sat on the couch in my living room, drunk, covered in blood, soaking up the streams of concern pouring from my family's mouths.

My sister was quiet. Her only offerings were brief defenses when my mother had made a generalization that was too broad. Mom, of course, was quick to develop a psychoanalysis of the past two years of my life. I wondered if in some sick way, she wanted to see me cry. I saw where her questions were leading, and she finally busted out the big one. The bazooka of inducing pity. So there, I wailed about my one lost love, how I'd done everything for her and fell short. I engaged in a stretch of self deprecating babble until my father stepped in. His angle, as it always, was logic. Fortunately, he knows that I am enough like him that I will respond to it. I felt much better once I realized that everyone was there for me. In a sick way, I lapped up the spotlight. Of course, I was still drunk, so I had to resist the urge to make jokes or entertain. We had all basically arrived to the fact that I had a drinking problem and that only a serious attitude adjustment could help.

As I said, I have no concept of time from that evening, but at some point the sun asserted itself as a cue to disperse and my intervention concluded.

After my father left, I sauntered into my mom's car and she took me to her house to get rest. The early morning light screwed into me like a bad smell. I felt slow. In fact, I pretty much sauntered everywhere for the rest of the day. The realness of my injury hadn't quite set in until I went to the bathroom, and almost fainted while standing over the toilet. My mother said it looked like I'd just seen a ghost. Later that day, I went into what my mom calls "the computer room" and saw the ghost she referred to. The computer room is actually a shrine to all things related to her children's past. Pictures of us as children were everywhere. I sunk back into an age of innocence. Even the screensaver on her computer put on a slideshow of when I was thin, healthy and in school.

"Where the hell did you go?" I asked myself.

So now, I'm coming back to the heart of it. I think there's a song that goes like that.

Returning to our regularly scheduled programming...

I wanted to make blog number 50 kind of a big deal, but it seems that I'm lacking time and energy these days. I think I may have to schedule a doctor's appointment. I've been really tired, sleeping way too long, and generally just lacking in energy.

The KC trip was kind of an eye-opener for me. I returned believing I could pretty much face anything after going through the ordeal of working 15+ hours a day for three days straight. I don't know how doctors do it. Waking up those cold mornings with barely an ounce of consciousness, I found myself at the feet of the men in women in the armed forces. All I had to do was drag tables and curtains around. I mean, there were over 600 tables and about 3200 curtains, with about a thousand metal poles to hang them up with... and it was in a venue that is the same spacial area as a wal-mart supercenter, only twice as long.

But still, there are people just like me who answer a call and in mere minutes, are doing flight checks as they prepare to take off in multi-million dollar airplanes.

And then, there's the "diatribe" I wrote on my personal myspace-- sorry the myspace page is only viewable to people I've added, and I don't plan on dispelling my anonymity here anytime soon, even though a good number of you know exactly who I am. Hopefully this blog has answered to you more about me than you dreamed of knowing. Probably too much, at that.

But I realize more and more that as I continue writing about myself, I figure out how much I don't know. I can't remember who said that first, but he was a much wiser person than I. So wise, in fact, he realized that nobody really knows anything.

There's no real news to speak of here... I'm mostly just lamenting as usual. I will try to experience more interesting things if I can. No promises.

I did meet a new girl. We'll call her AS, since I've hung out with her enough times that she be mentionable. DC is fading to the background as slowly as ever. Even though she tries sometimes to pop back in, I've acquired a sort of shield against her brusque finesse. She apologized for being how she was, but I told her I wouldn't accept because if she's simply being herself, then it'd be terrible for me to require a change. My newly developed theory is that if she really cares that much, she'll put a foot forward and make a real effort. That is one thing she has never really done, so I couldn't benefit much by hoping for a surprise.

AS, on the other hand, has her own flaws. One being that she's a tremendous beer-drinker. Secondly, she's four years to my junior-- a major flaw in my eyes that people keep telling me isn't such a big deal in the first place. I feel like it's a big deal because the environment that I met her suggested she was older. She told me last night, as if I had planned to scoop up her weekdays, that she had homework due on Tuesday. At first it didn't seem important, but I began to realize as the night wore on that she was suggesting for me to influence her away from doing her work. I can't possibly give her that, or take it from her depending on how you look at it. So I created more hesitations in the conversation and dug the first ruts of a moat before she could make too many assumptions about me.

The only thing I ever want out of life is to find a someone I an understand wholly. Yet the last thing I will ever want is for someone to assume they wholly understand me.

Next time, I'll delve about how I gave a 35 year old man a black eye. That was actually the highlight of my week, but it will have to wait.

Milestones

Pending the completion of the blog about my mission trip to Mexico, which is turning out to be something of an epic, and has yet to be published... this is my 50th post. I only started this blog in December, so I think I've done a pretty good job of coming up with something to say.

However, as Senator Obama put it, the time for change has come. I've been living the last couple of months in a state of bumbling chaos. Each thrilling victory I've experienced leads to a brand new failure of some sort. I've come to realize that every single one, victory or failure, has been under my direct control or supervision. Every effect achieved has had a series of obvious causes... from winning the job with Roark, to completely and utterly failing with DC, who is more or less the woman of my dreams. I can't remember who said it, maybe Bill Cosby or somebody like that, but it reminds me of a quote: "I'm a firm believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have."

Obviously, I haven't been working hard enough. That has got to change. So today, I feel pretty good about my luck since I'm packing for a trip up to Kansas City to work for a group of people that put together trade shows for large corporations and money-heavy organizations. The job is temporary, but I'm told to expect 5 straight days of 12 to 16 hour work shifts. When I come home next tuesday, I'll undoubtedly be changed for better or worse. Better to have a fat check coming my way, or worse for putting my back through a blender of manual labor.

I'm going to try to embrace the experience as a cleansing. A boot camp, even. I have one goal, and one goal only-- to make it through the next five or six days without falling over from exhaustion. No thinking of the future, no regretting the past. Just working. It's going to really suck, but that's probably just what I need right now. Pure, unadulterated hard labor.

I take that back. I probably will be thinking about the future while I'm up there. I'll be thinking about how I'm not going to put so much effort into winning the affections of someone that barely acknowledges my existence. I'm going to think about how to be more independent and reliable.

Anyway, I'll be back in a week or so. Wish me luck. No.... wish me hard work.

Enough is enough.

I really, really need you to do whatever you can to act as though I do not exist.

I am way too interested in you to compete with all the guys that want your attention.

I am way too sensitive to deal with being ignored by you every time you think someone is looking.

I am way too smart to keep chasing you when you obviously love being chased, but never let yourself be caught.

Seriously, please pretend like I don't exist. You're way too beautiful for me. You're too smart, too funny. I really need you to just ignore me, and not do anything at all that might give me the impression that I have a chance.

That way I can live my life and stop being such a fucking fool for you.

Thanks.

The Path

Path... a way
Pathos... the ability to elicit emotion
Pathology...the science of the cause and effect of diseases

It's all Latin to me, but really, my path has been all three of these things.

I should really begin by saying that when I was 16 or 17, I knew I was destined to be one of those guys who experienced a lot of crazy things. I knew that during my prime, I'd make the best of it. In a sense, I treated my post-high school lifespan as though it'd be short. For all I know, it may very well be. It's been six years since I graduated high school. Six... years...

I can still remember the things I'd write in my journal about how a the girl I wanted was great in every way, except for the fact that she wouldn't date me. I've changed a little. Now, I actually go after the girls I want. The problem is, I used to be able to distract myself with new crushes or infatuations back then. In a hormonal frenzy, I'd jump from challenge to challenge without so much of a thought about the previous attempts.

Now's a little different. I'm not so hormonal anymore. And instead of looking for challenges, I'm really just in a constant state of seeking encouragement. I love a good chase, but lately, it seems as though the women I'm interested in take a look at me and think to themselves, "I'm going to give him hell."

Six years ago, I would have said, "Bring it."
Today, I say, "Can you please, for the love of God, cut me some fucking SLACK!?"

Of course, it'd be easier if these women knew that they all represent the same person to me. They all represent "the challenge". Otherwise known as "the one"-- at least in the mind of a guy who once explained perverted masturbatory fantasy sketches to his father as "figure drawings".... and got away with it, it would really seem like they are all "the one".

Of course now, I'm dealing with the biggest challenge I've ever seen. But here's the big fit. In order to embrace a challenge... to conquer it... there has to be a goal. My challenge, the ever-present, fickle one... my very own DC, answered this for me just last night. When I asked her, "Why does everything have to be so difficult with you?"

She answered, "Why should it be easy?"

I might have been a little drunk, and under the spell of this woman to an extent... but it really rang true to me. It was almost... profound.

Then again, it could have just been her way of keeping me at a comfortable distance, as usual. And like someone very smart and important once paraphrased:

False hopes beget false faiths. False faiths beget false notions, and false notions beget false believers.

I refuse to be false.