Having one of those days...
My job is stressful, but I love it, and apparently it can't be both.My boss is pissed, I'm uncoachable. My girlfriend is pissed, and long past the expiration date for listening to any venting about work. Now things are weird, and I give up for today. I want to crawl under my desk, suck my thumb, and cry myself to sleep. Instead, I'm going to justify why my job isn't unmanageable, just high pressure, while simultaneously trying not to get defensive about the barely unspoken implication that maybe its not really that stressful and I'm just incapable of coping; and all this while making sure I don't go too far the other way and give anyone the impression that I'm just making a play for some sympathy and attention.
I really party like a rock star on Fridays, huh?
1.05.2007
27 spins around the sun
As of tomorrow, the earth will have circled the sun twenty-seven times since the day I was born. Since January 6th, 1980, the U.S. has fought two wars in Iraq. The best president of my lifetime saw his approval ratings climb because of an ill-advised blowjob. The worst president of my lifetime recently decided it was ok for the government to read your mail.
Since I was born, my hometown of Chicago has seen eight sports championships. The single greatest basketball player of all time once signed a scrap of notebook paper for me in a restaurant parking lot. The worst team in all of baseball has lost over 2000 games. The Bears haven't had one Pro Bowl quarterback.
Since I was born, Pauly Shore has made fourteen movies. So has Martin Scorcese. This is not ok.
Since I was born, The Stones have gone on tour eight times. The New Kids played over 750 shows in a four year span.
Since I was born, I've gained over 260 pounds. I've grown over five feet. My hair has been brown at times, and occasionally auburn, and most recently awfully gray. My glasses have gotten progressively stronger every year for the past twenty.
Since I was born, I've been engaged twice, married once, and divorced once. I've spent five years in college, without getting a degree. My combined earnings for the entire time I've been working are about a year of my father's salary. I've learned a lot, forgotten more, and looking forward to many more years of the same.
More importantly than all the above, though: Since last year, this time, I've fallen in love, again, with a beautiful woman that I never deserved a second chance with. Since last year, this time, I've broken down the old walls I'd put up to survive my marriage, and reopened passages that I never thought I'd be allowed to use. I write again, even if it's just this tripe. I cook again. I look forward to spending time with the Remix, rather than dreading spending time with the ex. I'm able to look myself in the mirror every morning with respect and a touch of amazement, unable to believe I've come this far but proud as hell to have made it.
I don't remember exactly what I did last year on my birthday. The way things were going then, probably nothing to be proud of. This year was perfect. Gifts from the Remix, then dinner. Curled up on the couch with a cup of tea and homemade kolaczki, watching Nip/Tuck...Happy Birthday to me. Life is good, again, and this next spin around is looking like it may be the best one yet.
Since I was born, my hometown of Chicago has seen eight sports championships. The single greatest basketball player of all time once signed a scrap of notebook paper for me in a restaurant parking lot. The worst team in all of baseball has lost over 2000 games. The Bears haven't had one Pro Bowl quarterback.
Since I was born, Pauly Shore has made fourteen movies. So has Martin Scorcese. This is not ok.
Since I was born, The Stones have gone on tour eight times. The New Kids played over 750 shows in a four year span.
Since I was born, I've gained over 260 pounds. I've grown over five feet. My hair has been brown at times, and occasionally auburn, and most recently awfully gray. My glasses have gotten progressively stronger every year for the past twenty.
Since I was born, I've been engaged twice, married once, and divorced once. I've spent five years in college, without getting a degree. My combined earnings for the entire time I've been working are about a year of my father's salary. I've learned a lot, forgotten more, and looking forward to many more years of the same.
More importantly than all the above, though: Since last year, this time, I've fallen in love, again, with a beautiful woman that I never deserved a second chance with. Since last year, this time, I've broken down the old walls I'd put up to survive my marriage, and reopened passages that I never thought I'd be allowed to use. I write again, even if it's just this tripe. I cook again. I look forward to spending time with the Remix, rather than dreading spending time with the ex. I'm able to look myself in the mirror every morning with respect and a touch of amazement, unable to believe I've come this far but proud as hell to have made it.
I don't remember exactly what I did last year on my birthday. The way things were going then, probably nothing to be proud of. This year was perfect. Gifts from the Remix, then dinner. Curled up on the couch with a cup of tea and homemade kolaczki, watching Nip/Tuck...Happy Birthday to me. Life is good, again, and this next spin around is looking like it may be the best one yet.
1.02.2007
Ain't Too Proud To Beg
When she asks me to do things, I listen. I don't jump, necessarily, but I always hear her out. I need reading material. So here we are. Reading material.
I wrote once about my innate resistance to change, even if for the better. This, thankfully, has not changed. My wallet overstuffed with old gift cards and student IDs, my high school football jersey buried in a drawer somewhere, the three earrings I wore a lifetime ago packed neatly somewhere in my parents basement--my inability to give up bits of my past. It has little to do with nostalgia, that green and gold #77 jersey doesn't hold any special sentimental value. My recollections of my sleeker and stronger days don't need any physical reminders; I've integrated both good and bad memories of who and what I am and have been pretty firmly into my sense of self without needing any souvenirs. I just like to keep stuff.
I have a pair of shoes. I got them sometime after the Remix and I ended it for good (or so we thought), and before I met the future ex-wife. They're simple brown Rockports, one of the only brand names to carry the extra-extra-wide sizes I need to accomodate my freakish feet. (There's probably a whole other blog entry there, but no one would ever want to read it.) They started out nice, heavy leather and thick soles, rock 'n' roll enough to wear with jeans at a bar but serious enough to settle down nicely with a pair of khakis and a button down.
Dozens of rainstorms, errant drops of beer and Jack Daniels, tripping over curbs, and a steady diet of road salt all took their toll over time. The supple leather grew stiff, and then surrendered completely to a texture more like well worn cotton. The heel of the right shoe is wedge-shaped, worn smooth on one side from thousands of miles of working the gas pedal. The soles are a distant memory, in some places worn thin enough to see the leather bottom of the shoe. The heels are crushed, from day after day of jamming my monstrous feet in without bothering to untie them. The laces are so frayed that the brown covering is all gone, exposing the densely intertwined bits of string that just barely hold the tongue down.
I love my shoes. I don't have any memories with them, there's no pictures of me with the shoes at the Grand Canyon or cuddling up on the ferris wheel at Navy Pier. For the last year or so, everyone I know has mentioned at one time or another that I really needed new ones, but I never quite made it out to buy any. And then.
Monday, the Remix and I went out to see Harriet and Mr. Spy for a new year's party. The Remix wasn't appalled enough to forbid my wearing the shoes in public. Just barely. She laughed when she said it, there were no hard feelings, I don't feel like she's running my life--but when she asks, I listen. You have got to get new shoes. Today. She was right, too.
So here I sit, a brand new pair of shoes resting comfortably by the door on my left. Simple brown Rockports. Similar enough to my other pair that they could be twins. Yes, the kind of twins where one has grown up to be a eminent heart surgeon and the other just came off yet another three day crystal meth binge, but twins nonetheless. The new shoes are great, just as comfortable, easier to walk in (you try to balance in shoes with a third of the sole missing), and snappy enough to hang with the khaki pants crowd. There was no reason not to get new ones, I just needed a prod in the right direction. Well, more like a horse kick in the right direction, but you get the point.
She couldn't have made me do it. She wouldn't have, either. She knows I hang on to things. The leopard print pillow she made me all those years ago. The songs she downloaded to my computer in college. The story that I wrote for her the day she needed one worst. It's not sentimental. Really. I just like to keep stuff.
I wrote once about my innate resistance to change, even if for the better. This, thankfully, has not changed. My wallet overstuffed with old gift cards and student IDs, my high school football jersey buried in a drawer somewhere, the three earrings I wore a lifetime ago packed neatly somewhere in my parents basement--my inability to give up bits of my past. It has little to do with nostalgia, that green and gold #77 jersey doesn't hold any special sentimental value. My recollections of my sleeker and stronger days don't need any physical reminders; I've integrated both good and bad memories of who and what I am and have been pretty firmly into my sense of self without needing any souvenirs. I just like to keep stuff.
I have a pair of shoes. I got them sometime after the Remix and I ended it for good (or so we thought), and before I met the future ex-wife. They're simple brown Rockports, one of the only brand names to carry the extra-extra-wide sizes I need to accomodate my freakish feet. (There's probably a whole other blog entry there, but no one would ever want to read it.) They started out nice, heavy leather and thick soles, rock 'n' roll enough to wear with jeans at a bar but serious enough to settle down nicely with a pair of khakis and a button down.
Dozens of rainstorms, errant drops of beer and Jack Daniels, tripping over curbs, and a steady diet of road salt all took their toll over time. The supple leather grew stiff, and then surrendered completely to a texture more like well worn cotton. The heel of the right shoe is wedge-shaped, worn smooth on one side from thousands of miles of working the gas pedal. The soles are a distant memory, in some places worn thin enough to see the leather bottom of the shoe. The heels are crushed, from day after day of jamming my monstrous feet in without bothering to untie them. The laces are so frayed that the brown covering is all gone, exposing the densely intertwined bits of string that just barely hold the tongue down.
I love my shoes. I don't have any memories with them, there's no pictures of me with the shoes at the Grand Canyon or cuddling up on the ferris wheel at Navy Pier. For the last year or so, everyone I know has mentioned at one time or another that I really needed new ones, but I never quite made it out to buy any. And then.
Monday, the Remix and I went out to see Harriet and Mr. Spy for a new year's party. The Remix wasn't appalled enough to forbid my wearing the shoes in public. Just barely. She laughed when she said it, there were no hard feelings, I don't feel like she's running my life--but when she asks, I listen. You have got to get new shoes. Today. She was right, too.
So here I sit, a brand new pair of shoes resting comfortably by the door on my left. Simple brown Rockports. Similar enough to my other pair that they could be twins. Yes, the kind of twins where one has grown up to be a eminent heart surgeon and the other just came off yet another three day crystal meth binge, but twins nonetheless. The new shoes are great, just as comfortable, easier to walk in (you try to balance in shoes with a third of the sole missing), and snappy enough to hang with the khaki pants crowd. There was no reason not to get new ones, I just needed a prod in the right direction. Well, more like a horse kick in the right direction, but you get the point.
She couldn't have made me do it. She wouldn't have, either. She knows I hang on to things. The leopard print pillow she made me all those years ago. The songs she downloaded to my computer in college. The story that I wrote for her the day she needed one worst. It's not sentimental. Really. I just like to keep stuff.
12.28.2006
My kind of town
There's probably two potential posts in here. Hell, there's probably five, but I'm going to try to do it in one. Why? Because I'm lazy. Deal with it.
I spent Christmas in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada. No, I'm not a gambling freak degenerate who disregards family and sentimentality to while away my holidays at a blackjack table. I'm a regular old degenerate who happens to have family in Vegas. My mom's whole family packed up and moved west when she was eighteen, and she stayed here to marry my dad. Everyone stayed out there, so every couple of years we spend the holidays under the neon lights.
My mom's family is white trash. There's no other way to put it, really. It's a fantastically dysfunctional family, full of emotional train wrecks--and I love every one of them. My uncle Fred (the gay one who doesn't pay taxes and gambles away all of his money, not the one who used to be married to my Aunt Liz but got divorced when he knocked up his daughter's teenage friend during a coke binge shortly before he went to prison but now hangs out with the family on holidays because he doesn't have anyone of his own) and I have a running joke where he tells me I've got more Vegas genes than Chicago--I drink, I smoke, I dropped out of college, I've been divorced, I like to gamble, I have bad credit, and I don't go to church. He's right, I think, and I'm not ashamed, either.
Here's the thing. My dad's family is great--I love them, and they love me. But they're all polished and ready for display, older kids getting doctorate degrees in history and kindergarteners who spout off Jesus-isms like junior Pat Robertsons. They're the easy kind of religious Republicans--they've never needed actual help from God or their government, so it's not hard to believe in either. Christmas in Chicago means Christmas carols, and the younger kids reading the nativity story from the bible, and egg nog, and board games. No alcohol, no drama, just your standard by-the-book Christmas.
My mom's side of the family is awful. At Christmas dinner, my cousin Laura (the one who just got divorced, then almost killed herself and totaled her car driving drunk, and then spent the insurance money on a boob job) got in a drunken screaming match with her mom (the one who just remarried her second husband because she had no place to live). My aunt Vicky (the one who just got married for a third time to someone she's been dating for about three months) and her new husband were not speaking. My uncle Ed (the one who got off of heroin and married his rehab counselor) and his wife (the ex-rehab counselor who got them both hooked on painkillers after she got a liver transplant) cornered my grandma and told her that they were sad it was going to be her last Christmas. (They were both high.) My aunt Sue (the one who's been in not one, but two, crystal meth comas in the past year and moved back in with her ex-husband so that she could afford her drugs, all of which seems to have aged her forty years) continued her lifelong habit of ignoring her teenage kids' obvious cries for help (my cousin Steph is pretending to be a lesbian at 15, and her brother Daniel is clearly actually gay and confused at 13) so she could attempt to flirt with my dad...
I could go on, forever, but here' s the thing--Christmas was a disaster by Chicago standards. Fighting, drunkeness, a poker tournament, more fighting. And at the end of the night, a bunch of us packed into a couple of cars and hung out at the casino until dawn. I loved it. No pretending to care about some fictional baby in a barn 2000 years ago. No forced politeness. No gushy sentimentality. We're a real family, not a Norman Rockwell painting. Sometimes we drink too much to have a good time. Sometimes we don't like each other. Hell, some of us don't ever like each other. We get together for the holidays because that's what people do. Most importantly, though, by cutting out the bullshit, the posturing, the overcompensation, we happen to have a blast, too. It's not normal. It's far from ideal. But it's a real family, a living thing with unsightly blemishes and bad breath. We love each other fiercely, in spite of the substance abuse and deviant sexual behaviors, in spite of the fact that my brother and I are the only ones who've even seen a university classroom, in spite of the fact that everyone is broke, in spite of the fact that we have to.
It's easy to love your family when they look like my dad's. Sure, I'd be embarassed to take my mom's family to church on Christmas day. But you know what? I'd be embarassed to take my dad's family to a casino on Christmas night--and y'all know where I'd rather be.
I spent Christmas in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada. No, I'm not a gambling freak degenerate who disregards family and sentimentality to while away my holidays at a blackjack table. I'm a regular old degenerate who happens to have family in Vegas. My mom's whole family packed up and moved west when she was eighteen, and she stayed here to marry my dad. Everyone stayed out there, so every couple of years we spend the holidays under the neon lights.
My mom's family is white trash. There's no other way to put it, really. It's a fantastically dysfunctional family, full of emotional train wrecks--and I love every one of them. My uncle Fred (the gay one who doesn't pay taxes and gambles away all of his money, not the one who used to be married to my Aunt Liz but got divorced when he knocked up his daughter's teenage friend during a coke binge shortly before he went to prison but now hangs out with the family on holidays because he doesn't have anyone of his own) and I have a running joke where he tells me I've got more Vegas genes than Chicago--I drink, I smoke, I dropped out of college, I've been divorced, I like to gamble, I have bad credit, and I don't go to church. He's right, I think, and I'm not ashamed, either.
Here's the thing. My dad's family is great--I love them, and they love me. But they're all polished and ready for display, older kids getting doctorate degrees in history and kindergarteners who spout off Jesus-isms like junior Pat Robertsons. They're the easy kind of religious Republicans--they've never needed actual help from God or their government, so it's not hard to believe in either. Christmas in Chicago means Christmas carols, and the younger kids reading the nativity story from the bible, and egg nog, and board games. No alcohol, no drama, just your standard by-the-book Christmas.
My mom's side of the family is awful. At Christmas dinner, my cousin Laura (the one who just got divorced, then almost killed herself and totaled her car driving drunk, and then spent the insurance money on a boob job) got in a drunken screaming match with her mom (the one who just remarried her second husband because she had no place to live). My aunt Vicky (the one who just got married for a third time to someone she's been dating for about three months) and her new husband were not speaking. My uncle Ed (the one who got off of heroin and married his rehab counselor) and his wife (the ex-rehab counselor who got them both hooked on painkillers after she got a liver transplant) cornered my grandma and told her that they were sad it was going to be her last Christmas. (They were both high.) My aunt Sue (the one who's been in not one, but two, crystal meth comas in the past year and moved back in with her ex-husband so that she could afford her drugs, all of which seems to have aged her forty years) continued her lifelong habit of ignoring her teenage kids' obvious cries for help (my cousin Steph is pretending to be a lesbian at 15, and her brother Daniel is clearly actually gay and confused at 13) so she could attempt to flirt with my dad...
I could go on, forever, but here' s the thing--Christmas was a disaster by Chicago standards. Fighting, drunkeness, a poker tournament, more fighting. And at the end of the night, a bunch of us packed into a couple of cars and hung out at the casino until dawn. I loved it. No pretending to care about some fictional baby in a barn 2000 years ago. No forced politeness. No gushy sentimentality. We're a real family, not a Norman Rockwell painting. Sometimes we drink too much to have a good time. Sometimes we don't like each other. Hell, some of us don't ever like each other. We get together for the holidays because that's what people do. Most importantly, though, by cutting out the bullshit, the posturing, the overcompensation, we happen to have a blast, too. It's not normal. It's far from ideal. But it's a real family, a living thing with unsightly blemishes and bad breath. We love each other fiercely, in spite of the substance abuse and deviant sexual behaviors, in spite of the fact that my brother and I are the only ones who've even seen a university classroom, in spite of the fact that everyone is broke, in spite of the fact that we have to.
It's easy to love your family when they look like my dad's. Sure, I'd be embarassed to take my mom's family to church on Christmas day. But you know what? I'd be embarassed to take my dad's family to a casino on Christmas night--and y'all know where I'd rather be.
12.07.2006
Last Minute Magic
I've grown up to be a fairly responsible adult. Granted, my standards for this are low--paying my cable bill on time, remembering my dad's birthday, doing my laundry before I'm down to one pair of clean boxers, and a million other things you probably take for granted.
Time management is still an issue though. Not when it really counts, mind you. When I'm at work, I can get more done in half a day than some of my coworkers do in two. Getting to work on time, on the other hand, not so much.
My problem isn't a lack of time to get stuff done. Not by a long shot. Say I have to be at work at eight, like this morning. I was up at six-thirty, out of the shower and dressed by five to seven. If I leave my house at seven, I'm at work in forty minutes. Due to the vagaries of suburban traffic, if I leave my house at ten after, I'm at work at five after eight. So what do I do this morning? I put my jacket on, get my shit together to leave...and sit down at my computer, reading blogs and sports news I could easily get at my desk, until seven-fifteen. I'm a moron.
I have a similar problem Christmas shopping. I had plenty of time to get it all done, just like the rest of y'all. I got the remix taken care of early, because I knew exactly what to get and where to get it, and because she's the one I'm most excited to give a gift to. The rest of my gifts, though? I feel like I still have time. I do, sort of. But then again...my family is exchanging gifts next Sunday. Between now and then, I have two Christmas parties, my brother's graduation party, a trip to St. Louis for a Bears game, a Holiday reception for a work event, and probably at least one more after-hours work event. So how many shopping day do I have left? One. Next Wednesday or Thursday, whichever I have free. And here I sit bitching to the internet about how little time I have left to go shopping. Awesome.
Time management is still an issue though. Not when it really counts, mind you. When I'm at work, I can get more done in half a day than some of my coworkers do in two. Getting to work on time, on the other hand, not so much.
My problem isn't a lack of time to get stuff done. Not by a long shot. Say I have to be at work at eight, like this morning. I was up at six-thirty, out of the shower and dressed by five to seven. If I leave my house at seven, I'm at work in forty minutes. Due to the vagaries of suburban traffic, if I leave my house at ten after, I'm at work at five after eight. So what do I do this morning? I put my jacket on, get my shit together to leave...and sit down at my computer, reading blogs and sports news I could easily get at my desk, until seven-fifteen. I'm a moron.
I have a similar problem Christmas shopping. I had plenty of time to get it all done, just like the rest of y'all. I got the remix taken care of early, because I knew exactly what to get and where to get it, and because she's the one I'm most excited to give a gift to. The rest of my gifts, though? I feel like I still have time. I do, sort of. But then again...my family is exchanging gifts next Sunday. Between now and then, I have two Christmas parties, my brother's graduation party, a trip to St. Louis for a Bears game, a Holiday reception for a work event, and probably at least one more after-hours work event. So how many shopping day do I have left? One. Next Wednesday or Thursday, whichever I have free. And here I sit bitching to the internet about how little time I have left to go shopping. Awesome.
12.05.2006
Who Needs Sleep?
Why I can't sleep is something of a mystery to me, and yet here we are. My eyes are so tired they hurt, and I'm yawning uncontrollably, but when I go to bed I find myself gazing at the ceiling, thinking about nothing.
A list of things I have to do this week, hopefully getting everything on paper will get my brain off strike and let me go to bed...
A list of things I have to do this week, hopefully getting everything on paper will get my brain off strike and let me go to bed...
- Finish Christmas shopping. (I got my mom and the Remix done today...I'd love to tell the interwebs what I bought, but frankly I don't trust y'all to keep it to yourselves.)
- Buy my brother a graduation present. This wasn't on the list until the Remix reminded me. Whoops.
- Get my new dress shirt pressed and starched. By friday. Better do that tomorrow.
- Get my dress shoes polished. By Friday. Hmm...there's a rapidly developing theme here...
- Last, but not least, I need to plan out my trip to St. Louis for the Bears game on Monday...apparently the people I'm going with are not the planning types, but I can't just roll with it. The Remix would be so proud.
Ok. That's all I have for today. Fantastically disinteresting, I know. Catch you on the flipside, interwebs...hopefully after a few hours sleep.
12.02.2006
Home - Heat + 8" of Snow = Sappiness
What a week...after hustling my ass off trying to prove that I still have what it takes to be a damn fine fast food employee, they turned us loose at 6pm last night to head for home. Of course, Chicago was under eighty-seven feet of snow, so my mom called four times to beg me not to try to drive home, but the air outside was clear, and the ground was dry, so I said the hell with it and hit the road.
It was a smooth roll home, for the most part. Besides the parking lot of my building, I didn't really have much trouble with snow. Of course, when I rolled into my apartment at 10 last night, I discovered that my heat was off. I was too tired to look up the maintenance number, so I grabbed an extra blanket and a sweatshirt and bundled off to bed.
I couldn't stomach another day in Michigan. I couldn't do it. I missed home, sure, my own bed and my own cats (any cats, really, it's not like the Holiday Inn has rental cats you get with the room), but most of all I missed my Remix. It's kind of funny, actually--we've gone five days without seeing each other before (five years, but that's a different matter entirely), but almost as soon as I'd left I was wishing I was home with her.
I didn't just kind of miss her, either. It was an acute sensation, a literal ache. It wasn't the absence, exactly. It was the unavailability. Even when we're busy at home, when we can't get together during the week because of this thing or that, there's always some comfort knowing that we could drop everything and be together if the need was there. Four hours from home, not so much. We talked on the phone every night, but after a while those conversations become a little disjointed and tense, the layers of nicety peeling back to reveal the raw frustration underneath, the chafing at not being able to wrap our arms around each other and fall asleep.
I missed home while I was gone, sure. I knew I would. I just never realized that home wasn't my icy apartment in the suburbs. Home has warm arms and sexy eyes, fabulous legs and an easy smile, thick brown hair and a perfect laugh. And I think home missed me, too.
P.S. -- Don't forget to leave me some music suggestions, kids.
It was a smooth roll home, for the most part. Besides the parking lot of my building, I didn't really have much trouble with snow. Of course, when I rolled into my apartment at 10 last night, I discovered that my heat was off. I was too tired to look up the maintenance number, so I grabbed an extra blanket and a sweatshirt and bundled off to bed.
I couldn't stomach another day in Michigan. I couldn't do it. I missed home, sure, my own bed and my own cats (any cats, really, it's not like the Holiday Inn has rental cats you get with the room), but most of all I missed my Remix. It's kind of funny, actually--we've gone five days without seeing each other before (five years, but that's a different matter entirely), but almost as soon as I'd left I was wishing I was home with her.
I didn't just kind of miss her, either. It was an acute sensation, a literal ache. It wasn't the absence, exactly. It was the unavailability. Even when we're busy at home, when we can't get together during the week because of this thing or that, there's always some comfort knowing that we could drop everything and be together if the need was there. Four hours from home, not so much. We talked on the phone every night, but after a while those conversations become a little disjointed and tense, the layers of nicety peeling back to reveal the raw frustration underneath, the chafing at not being able to wrap our arms around each other and fall asleep.
I missed home while I was gone, sure. I knew I would. I just never realized that home wasn't my icy apartment in the suburbs. Home has warm arms and sexy eyes, fabulous legs and an easy smile, thick brown hair and a perfect laugh. And I think home missed me, too.
P.S. -- Don't forget to leave me some music suggestions, kids.
11.30.2006
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
So I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere at “Pizza School,” learning to make pizzas just like they do in one of the world’s largest fast food chains. Unfortunately, I signed about twelve different confidentiality agreements, so I’m not really going to say anything more about that. Good stories, but not worth getting fired over, you know?
Anyway, this leaves me forced to write about something else. I drove here, four some hours from home, and all the way I listened to Christmas music off my MP3 player. I’m a sucker for Christmas music, I love it, and I’m thrilled that the socially acceptable time for listening is back. (Not that I’m above playing it softly in the privacy of my own home in mid-June, mind you.) I’m thinking I can probably get a blog entry out of this, so here it goes. My all-time Christmas CD, in poorly thought out form. I’m sure you’ll be less than thrilled. Please, by all means, make suggestions. They’re beyond welcome, it’s more of a craving…I know there’s great Christmas music out there that I’ve never heard of (the Remix can attest—saying my taste in music is refined is like saying Britney Spears flashed everyone her uterus by mistake—horseshit.) So tell me what you think, what you like, and if there’s something I just gotta hear that didn’t make my list. And without further ado:
1. Holly Jolly Christmas, Burl Ives – Yes, the one from that stop-motion animated Rudolph special I’ve seen a thousand times. I love the memories I have of this one. Sitting in front of the TV in my pajamas on Christmas Eve, with a bowl of popcorn my pops just made, giddy with anticipation and barely able to sit still for the whole movie.
2. Merry Christmas From the Family, Montgomery Gentry – I know Robert Earl Keane did it first and better, but did you? Didn’t think so. If you’ve heard it, you’ve probably heard the one that actually made the radio. My sense of humor is just juvenile enough that this still makes me laugh.
3. Baby It’s Cold Outside, Dean Martin – This is the first close call on the list. Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald are both among my favorites, but the mental image of Satchmo trying to storm Lady Ella’s castle during a blizzard is just this side of nauseating. Dean had the personality to sell it right…I mean, who can’t picture Dean Martin smooth-talking some poor virtuous neighborhood girl right out of her dress? (Good Christ, do I think about this stuff too much, or what?)
4. Winter Wonderland, Harry Connick Jr. – The instrumental version, I think it was in When Harry Met Sally. This is the kind of rollicking Connick solo that makes me curse the day I quit piano lessons. I’d give my left big toe to be able to play a piano like this.
5. You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch, Boris Karloff – It’s Boris Karloff. Singing. What else can I say? I’d sort of like to know how ridiculous I look bellowing along to this in the car. I’m somewhere between a bass and a baritone, and to match Boris on this one I do that goofy face where it looks like you’re fighting back a tremendous belch in an effort to will up the bottom notes from the depths of my chest. It’s gotta be as hilarious as it is off-key.
6. Blue Christmas, Elvis Presley – Only the King can pull off a Christmas song that’s this ostensibly sad and have this much fun hamming it up. Sure, he says he’s going to have a blue Christmas without you, but it sounds more like he’s looking forward to getting rip-roaring drunk and passing out in the mashed potatoes and then blaming it all on you when he wakes up the next day.
7. Christmas Waltz, Frank Sinatra – Connick’s version of this was close, but Frankie does it best. Even in a Christmas song, Sinatra sounds like he’s simultaneously wishing you a happy holiday and dropping his hotel room key in your girlfriend’s purse. He was just that kind of guy.
8. Merry Fucking Christmas, Mr. Garrison on South Park – Ninety percent of the time, I’m above South Park. It’s rude, and gross, and pushes the envelope just for the sake of doing it. And then they go and do something like this…and totally redeem themselves! Seriously, anytime you can combine two of my favorite pastimes (swearing and mocking religious/political extremists) and make it a Christmas song to boot, you’ve got me sold. I’m a sucker like that.
9. Frosty the Snowman, Leon Redbone and Dr. John – Two of the most distinctive voices I know, doing a raucous and nonsensical version of a traditional Christmas classic. The first time I heard this, I thought it was just the greatest Christmas joke since the nativity. Brilliant.
10. O Holy Night, Anyone – When it’s done right, this is simply one of the prettiest songs ever. I’ve yet to find a version that’s totally satisfactory—there’s lots of soaring, beautiful recordings out there, but not one I can sing along with in key. I’ll let you know if I find one, or maybe someone here can help me out.
11. Let It Snow, Bing Crosby – A perfect crooner’s song, for the perfect crooner. Bing may have been a violent maniac in real life, but behind the microphone he’s as smooth as glass. His voice is low enough to rumble the windows, but it’s silk the whole time. Plus, there’s a groovy clarinet part. Don’t get to say that often enough.
12. Dominic the Donkey, Lou Monte – The Italian Christmas donkey? Seriously? Did they cut this track with me in mind, or are there other people in the world who take a ridiculous amount of pleasure in that phrase. I’m going to say it again…Italian Christmas donkey…look at those endorphins go.
13. Feliz Navidad, Jose Feliciano – I know how bad this is. Really, I do. There’s more good memories here, though…two years ago, roadtripping with a couple of good friends to see another get married the weekend before Christmas, the only time my buddy in the back seat woke up was when this came on the radio, and we’d scream it out until we had no voices left, at which point he’d lay back down on the seat and go back to bed.
14. Merry Muthafuckin’ Xmas, Eazy E – Again, uncontrollable swearing and a Christmas song? Count me in. This one doesn’t even make any sense, it’s just a jumble of poorly conceived innuendos and drug references, with no real point….it’s wonderful.
15. White Christmas, Bing Crosby – It’s too good not to put Bing on here twice. This song is sort of a catch-all for Christmas memories for me, December 25th is just another day until this comes on.
So there you have it. Again, please feel free to hit me up with suggestions. I’m going to exhaust my stash before we’re even halfway to the holiday. There may be another entry forthcoming with all the Christmas music that I can’t stand…
Anyway, this leaves me forced to write about something else. I drove here, four some hours from home, and all the way I listened to Christmas music off my MP3 player. I’m a sucker for Christmas music, I love it, and I’m thrilled that the socially acceptable time for listening is back. (Not that I’m above playing it softly in the privacy of my own home in mid-June, mind you.) I’m thinking I can probably get a blog entry out of this, so here it goes. My all-time Christmas CD, in poorly thought out form. I’m sure you’ll be less than thrilled. Please, by all means, make suggestions. They’re beyond welcome, it’s more of a craving…I know there’s great Christmas music out there that I’ve never heard of (the Remix can attest—saying my taste in music is refined is like saying Britney Spears flashed everyone her uterus by mistake—horseshit.) So tell me what you think, what you like, and if there’s something I just gotta hear that didn’t make my list. And without further ado:
1. Holly Jolly Christmas, Burl Ives – Yes, the one from that stop-motion animated Rudolph special I’ve seen a thousand times. I love the memories I have of this one. Sitting in front of the TV in my pajamas on Christmas Eve, with a bowl of popcorn my pops just made, giddy with anticipation and barely able to sit still for the whole movie.
2. Merry Christmas From the Family, Montgomery Gentry – I know Robert Earl Keane did it first and better, but did you? Didn’t think so. If you’ve heard it, you’ve probably heard the one that actually made the radio. My sense of humor is just juvenile enough that this still makes me laugh.
3. Baby It’s Cold Outside, Dean Martin – This is the first close call on the list. Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald are both among my favorites, but the mental image of Satchmo trying to storm Lady Ella’s castle during a blizzard is just this side of nauseating. Dean had the personality to sell it right…I mean, who can’t picture Dean Martin smooth-talking some poor virtuous neighborhood girl right out of her dress? (Good Christ, do I think about this stuff too much, or what?)
4. Winter Wonderland, Harry Connick Jr. – The instrumental version, I think it was in When Harry Met Sally. This is the kind of rollicking Connick solo that makes me curse the day I quit piano lessons. I’d give my left big toe to be able to play a piano like this.
5. You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch, Boris Karloff – It’s Boris Karloff. Singing. What else can I say? I’d sort of like to know how ridiculous I look bellowing along to this in the car. I’m somewhere between a bass and a baritone, and to match Boris on this one I do that goofy face where it looks like you’re fighting back a tremendous belch in an effort to will up the bottom notes from the depths of my chest. It’s gotta be as hilarious as it is off-key.
6. Blue Christmas, Elvis Presley – Only the King can pull off a Christmas song that’s this ostensibly sad and have this much fun hamming it up. Sure, he says he’s going to have a blue Christmas without you, but it sounds more like he’s looking forward to getting rip-roaring drunk and passing out in the mashed potatoes and then blaming it all on you when he wakes up the next day.
7. Christmas Waltz, Frank Sinatra – Connick’s version of this was close, but Frankie does it best. Even in a Christmas song, Sinatra sounds like he’s simultaneously wishing you a happy holiday and dropping his hotel room key in your girlfriend’s purse. He was just that kind of guy.
8. Merry Fucking Christmas, Mr. Garrison on South Park – Ninety percent of the time, I’m above South Park. It’s rude, and gross, and pushes the envelope just for the sake of doing it. And then they go and do something like this…and totally redeem themselves! Seriously, anytime you can combine two of my favorite pastimes (swearing and mocking religious/political extremists) and make it a Christmas song to boot, you’ve got me sold. I’m a sucker like that.
9. Frosty the Snowman, Leon Redbone and Dr. John – Two of the most distinctive voices I know, doing a raucous and nonsensical version of a traditional Christmas classic. The first time I heard this, I thought it was just the greatest Christmas joke since the nativity. Brilliant.
10. O Holy Night, Anyone – When it’s done right, this is simply one of the prettiest songs ever. I’ve yet to find a version that’s totally satisfactory—there’s lots of soaring, beautiful recordings out there, but not one I can sing along with in key. I’ll let you know if I find one, or maybe someone here can help me out.
11. Let It Snow, Bing Crosby – A perfect crooner’s song, for the perfect crooner. Bing may have been a violent maniac in real life, but behind the microphone he’s as smooth as glass. His voice is low enough to rumble the windows, but it’s silk the whole time. Plus, there’s a groovy clarinet part. Don’t get to say that often enough.
12. Dominic the Donkey, Lou Monte – The Italian Christmas donkey? Seriously? Did they cut this track with me in mind, or are there other people in the world who take a ridiculous amount of pleasure in that phrase. I’m going to say it again…Italian Christmas donkey…look at those endorphins go.
13. Feliz Navidad, Jose Feliciano – I know how bad this is. Really, I do. There’s more good memories here, though…two years ago, roadtripping with a couple of good friends to see another get married the weekend before Christmas, the only time my buddy in the back seat woke up was when this came on the radio, and we’d scream it out until we had no voices left, at which point he’d lay back down on the seat and go back to bed.
14. Merry Muthafuckin’ Xmas, Eazy E – Again, uncontrollable swearing and a Christmas song? Count me in. This one doesn’t even make any sense, it’s just a jumble of poorly conceived innuendos and drug references, with no real point….it’s wonderful.
15. White Christmas, Bing Crosby – It’s too good not to put Bing on here twice. This song is sort of a catch-all for Christmas memories for me, December 25th is just another day until this comes on.
So there you have it. Again, please feel free to hit me up with suggestions. I’m going to exhaust my stash before we’re even halfway to the holiday. There may be another entry forthcoming with all the Christmas music that I can’t stand…
11.25.2006
Go Speedracer, Go!
I don't run much. By much, I mean ever. My pop used to joke (when comparing me to my slimmer and more fleet-footed brother) that I wasn't built to run far, just ten yards and through a brick wall. He's right, too. I'm pudgy at best, but with broad bulky shoulders, a huge squarish head, and tiny little legs. Exactly the wrong size and shape to run anywhere at all. Add to this the fact that my football playing days are a good eight years behind me now, and I'm up to a pack a day of Marlboro Blend No. 27s, and you've got a textbook example of someone who shouldn't be anywhere near an 8k "race" at 9 in the morning on Thanksgiving day.
Obviously I wouldn't be telling you this story if that wasn't exactly where I found myself on Thursday, in a huddled mass of people under the morning sun preparing to run around the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. The Remix was with me, of course, since she instigated this whole thing, bright eyed and flush with the prospect of pounding 4.9 miles of pavement before lunchtime.
We somehow managed to park a solid mile away from the registration area, which meant I was already tired and ready for a cigarette by the time I got to the table. I went to the huge bulletin boards to find our numbers, and was surprised to find my name unironically placed amongst the others, as if I belonged. We stood in line for a good ten minutes, listening to people younger and spryer than I compare past times and issue challenges. This is something I never liked about the runners I've known in the past--with the exception of the Remix, and a couple other friends who managed to both run and not talk about running at every break in the conversation, most people I know who own a pair of running shoes feel the need to discuss it with you at every interval. One of my college buddies married a "runner," who will still tell you about the absolute rush of hitting the street at 5am on a December morning as she pops twinkies in her mouth like tic tacs. Ok, we get it. You ran a marathon once. You're the size of a Volkswagen now, isn't it time to let it go already?
I was dismayed to discover that the entry fee for this event included the cost of renting a tiny piece of plastic which through some sort of advanced ESP technology will enable the organizers to publish online exactly how out of shape I am for all the world to see. Apparently the humiliation of trying to run is not enough, they have to time me, too. I tied my little plastic tattle-tale to my shoe and stood cracking my knuckles while I watched the people around me contort themselves into all sorts of positions in the interests of stretching.
The people watching was great, though. Middle-aged men with expensive Nike and adidas track jackets and spandex pants; soccer moms in ear-warmers, faces set in their best imitation of grim determination; parents with strollers, trying desperately to explain to their kids why it will be fun to get pushed over a bumpy trail for an hour when they could be on a swingset somewhere. Directly in front of us was a man dressed like a giant turkey. Directly behind, a teenaged girl wearing what could only be a spandex tent. In the middle of all of this, here I am in an ISU t-shirt and ancient blue basketball shorts with paint stains, trying to look like I have some idea what the hell I'm doing.
The Remix is an angel. Once the starter's horn sounded, she trotted patiently along beside me at a much slower pace than she'd have set for herself. At first, I did my best to be funny and self-deprecating, making the people around me chuckle as I'm inclined to do anytime there's more than three people around to potentially form an audience. That was while I was still able to talk. By the first hill, I was breathing like a wounded water buffalo. By the end of the first mile, I had to take my first walking break. As my lungs pounded against my ribs, I tried to urge the Remix on without me, if only to spare myself some embarassment. She wouldn't go, at least not until I'd walked half of the second mile and did not look to be gaining any steam. I made one last push with her coaching, another 3 or 4 tenths of a mile, and finally gave up. She took off, bobbing and weaving through the racewalkers as she struggled to catch up with the pack.
I took my time the rest of the course, jogging and walking intermittently, determined to finish but not quite enough to find some untapped reservoir of athletic ability. An old man with a limp gritted his teeth as he worked his way by me on the left. A gay man and a tiny terrier pranced by me on the other side. I'm convinced that the kids in strollers were laughing as they blew by. Even the racewalkers looked sympathetic as their ferocious pacing outstripped my unique run-stumble-walk-run-pray for death strategy.
I might have finished even worse, but for the added motivation of my new training partner. Around the turn of the fourth mile as I plodded on in a sort of shuffling half-jog, a tiny blue haired old lady overtook me and then left me in her dust. That was too much. I ran the last 8 tenths of a mile as fast as I could manage, determined not to be run into the ground by anyone's grandma. When I crossed the finish line, unable to breathe, talk, or think, the Remix greeted me with a banana and a glass of water, beaming at me in the sun while a curmudgeonly race volunteer cut the timer off my shoe. I'm proud I finished, and according to my plastic friend, in about an hour and fifteen minutes. Could be worse. Could be much worse, actually. The remix and I started our trek back to the car. I'm glad you came, she said. It's fun doing this stuff with you. Limping to the car, feeling smug just for finishing the damn race, my beautiful girlfriend on my arm and oblivious to the array of musclebound gym boys, I couldn't agree more. I'm glad I came too. I love you. And I meant it.
Obviously I wouldn't be telling you this story if that wasn't exactly where I found myself on Thursday, in a huddled mass of people under the morning sun preparing to run around the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. The Remix was with me, of course, since she instigated this whole thing, bright eyed and flush with the prospect of pounding 4.9 miles of pavement before lunchtime.
We somehow managed to park a solid mile away from the registration area, which meant I was already tired and ready for a cigarette by the time I got to the table. I went to the huge bulletin boards to find our numbers, and was surprised to find my name unironically placed amongst the others, as if I belonged. We stood in line for a good ten minutes, listening to people younger and spryer than I compare past times and issue challenges. This is something I never liked about the runners I've known in the past--with the exception of the Remix, and a couple other friends who managed to both run and not talk about running at every break in the conversation, most people I know who own a pair of running shoes feel the need to discuss it with you at every interval. One of my college buddies married a "runner," who will still tell you about the absolute rush of hitting the street at 5am on a December morning as she pops twinkies in her mouth like tic tacs. Ok, we get it. You ran a marathon once. You're the size of a Volkswagen now, isn't it time to let it go already?
I was dismayed to discover that the entry fee for this event included the cost of renting a tiny piece of plastic which through some sort of advanced ESP technology will enable the organizers to publish online exactly how out of shape I am for all the world to see. Apparently the humiliation of trying to run is not enough, they have to time me, too. I tied my little plastic tattle-tale to my shoe and stood cracking my knuckles while I watched the people around me contort themselves into all sorts of positions in the interests of stretching.
The people watching was great, though. Middle-aged men with expensive Nike and adidas track jackets and spandex pants; soccer moms in ear-warmers, faces set in their best imitation of grim determination; parents with strollers, trying desperately to explain to their kids why it will be fun to get pushed over a bumpy trail for an hour when they could be on a swingset somewhere. Directly in front of us was a man dressed like a giant turkey. Directly behind, a teenaged girl wearing what could only be a spandex tent. In the middle of all of this, here I am in an ISU t-shirt and ancient blue basketball shorts with paint stains, trying to look like I have some idea what the hell I'm doing.
The Remix is an angel. Once the starter's horn sounded, she trotted patiently along beside me at a much slower pace than she'd have set for herself. At first, I did my best to be funny and self-deprecating, making the people around me chuckle as I'm inclined to do anytime there's more than three people around to potentially form an audience. That was while I was still able to talk. By the first hill, I was breathing like a wounded water buffalo. By the end of the first mile, I had to take my first walking break. As my lungs pounded against my ribs, I tried to urge the Remix on without me, if only to spare myself some embarassment. She wouldn't go, at least not until I'd walked half of the second mile and did not look to be gaining any steam. I made one last push with her coaching, another 3 or 4 tenths of a mile, and finally gave up. She took off, bobbing and weaving through the racewalkers as she struggled to catch up with the pack.
I took my time the rest of the course, jogging and walking intermittently, determined to finish but not quite enough to find some untapped reservoir of athletic ability. An old man with a limp gritted his teeth as he worked his way by me on the left. A gay man and a tiny terrier pranced by me on the other side. I'm convinced that the kids in strollers were laughing as they blew by. Even the racewalkers looked sympathetic as their ferocious pacing outstripped my unique run-stumble-walk-run-pray for death strategy.
I might have finished even worse, but for the added motivation of my new training partner. Around the turn of the fourth mile as I plodded on in a sort of shuffling half-jog, a tiny blue haired old lady overtook me and then left me in her dust. That was too much. I ran the last 8 tenths of a mile as fast as I could manage, determined not to be run into the ground by anyone's grandma. When I crossed the finish line, unable to breathe, talk, or think, the Remix greeted me with a banana and a glass of water, beaming at me in the sun while a curmudgeonly race volunteer cut the timer off my shoe. I'm proud I finished, and according to my plastic friend, in about an hour and fifteen minutes. Could be worse. Could be much worse, actually. The remix and I started our trek back to the car. I'm glad you came, she said. It's fun doing this stuff with you. Limping to the car, feeling smug just for finishing the damn race, my beautiful girlfriend on my arm and oblivious to the array of musclebound gym boys, I couldn't agree more. I'm glad I came too. I love you. And I meant it.
11.10.2006
Never met a metaphor I didn't like
I am taking a day off on Monday. This is odd. I have, since I began my current job two years ago, taken only two days off. I am adjusting to the idea slowly, and finding it not entirely unpleasant.
The Remix and I are spending the day together; doing nothing in particular. We may go shopping for a suit (I don't own one, or at least not a whole one, and this seems like a situation I should remedy.) We may spend all day drinking wine and making out like high schoolers playing hooky. We may go see a movie. We may even just curl up at opposite ends of the couch, legs entwined, reading books and chasing away cats. It doesn't matter to me. Her presence is relaxing, a whole uninterrupted weekday is tantamount to a two week vacation for me.
Four days from now will be the one year anniversary of my divorce. It's been a surprising year. I fell in love, which I hadn't anticipated. I didn't get depressed, which I had both anticipated and dreaded. Being prone to depression is hard to explain to anyone who's not had the experience. It's a little like walking on an icy sidewalk--you know there's a good chance you're falling on your ass, but until you feel the cold seeping through your pants you don't even realize you've slipped. For a while, I drank too much, flirted with the wrong girls, made just a few too many jokes with that uncomfortable edge that everyone can see right through. I could have slipped, but I didn't. I pulled myself up, tiptoed carefully for a while, and eventually the danger passed.
The Remix was waiting at the other end of the sidewalk. Tall and beautiful, aching to be loved, and generous with her second chance. The timing was perfect--any sooner, I'd have been too fragile for this to work; any later and I might have been too calloused to give it a real chance. To say that she's everything my ex-wife was not would be unfair, to both of them and myself. There is no comparison, and to attempt to qualify her as juxtaposition to someone else is both senseless and cruel. The things my ex-wife did wrong were not entirely her fault. We didn't fit together, period, and for all our good intentions our attempts to mesh were doomed to end in grinding gears and a cloud of noxious smoke.
The Remix fits. Her intelligence, her beauty, her grace, her varied and impressive talents--all the things that make her an incredible and unique individual--make sense to me. They fit my idea of a life, and of a person to share it with. She makes me better, without ever making me feel bad about who I am. It's not a sense of completion, exactly. It's more like infinite potential. We're not good because of who we were before we met. We're good because of who we can be because we're together.
The Remix and I are spending the day together; doing nothing in particular. We may go shopping for a suit (I don't own one, or at least not a whole one, and this seems like a situation I should remedy.) We may spend all day drinking wine and making out like high schoolers playing hooky. We may go see a movie. We may even just curl up at opposite ends of the couch, legs entwined, reading books and chasing away cats. It doesn't matter to me. Her presence is relaxing, a whole uninterrupted weekday is tantamount to a two week vacation for me.
Four days from now will be the one year anniversary of my divorce. It's been a surprising year. I fell in love, which I hadn't anticipated. I didn't get depressed, which I had both anticipated and dreaded. Being prone to depression is hard to explain to anyone who's not had the experience. It's a little like walking on an icy sidewalk--you know there's a good chance you're falling on your ass, but until you feel the cold seeping through your pants you don't even realize you've slipped. For a while, I drank too much, flirted with the wrong girls, made just a few too many jokes with that uncomfortable edge that everyone can see right through. I could have slipped, but I didn't. I pulled myself up, tiptoed carefully for a while, and eventually the danger passed.
The Remix was waiting at the other end of the sidewalk. Tall and beautiful, aching to be loved, and generous with her second chance. The timing was perfect--any sooner, I'd have been too fragile for this to work; any later and I might have been too calloused to give it a real chance. To say that she's everything my ex-wife was not would be unfair, to both of them and myself. There is no comparison, and to attempt to qualify her as juxtaposition to someone else is both senseless and cruel. The things my ex-wife did wrong were not entirely her fault. We didn't fit together, period, and for all our good intentions our attempts to mesh were doomed to end in grinding gears and a cloud of noxious smoke.
The Remix fits. Her intelligence, her beauty, her grace, her varied and impressive talents--all the things that make her an incredible and unique individual--make sense to me. They fit my idea of a life, and of a person to share it with. She makes me better, without ever making me feel bad about who I am. It's not a sense of completion, exactly. It's more like infinite potential. We're not good because of who we were before we met. We're good because of who we can be because we're together.
Oddities
There is a cat in my pantry. This is neither unusual or particularly disturbing (after all, there's no food in the pantry, so hygiene is a non-issue) but it occurs to me that I have no idea when the cats learned to open doors. Maybe I need security cameras in here...strange things may go on when I'm at work.
11.09.2006
That's the way it crumbles...Cookie-wise.
It has been a very strange week, thus far. A coworker put me in an awkward situation on Tuesday, one that I'll refrain from writing about, since I read this at work from time to time and would really hate for it to become an issue. (Praticing some decorum, new for me.)
The Remix wrote today about how frustrating her life can be, lugging a duffel bag full of wrinkle-proof clothes around because she's always coming here. I can sympathize, I've even been there before, been the one who has to travel, who's never home, who has to choose between waking up in a strange bed and waking up alone. I didn't mean to put her in this position, and as far as I'm concerned, it's easily remedied. I've always been willing to go to her, to be where she lives, to make it easier. I'm willing to do more, if necessary. I'd like her to move in, sooner than later, if that's what she wants. I'd like there to be no travel, no conditions, no concessions involved in our spending time together.
I told her tonight as we were talking about this that this may just be the phase of the relationship where boundaries take center stage again. We've gotten comfortable together--not complacent, just familiar. There's still passion and laughter and cuddling and love, with plenty to spare. I think every relationship has this point, though, the point where precedents have begun to be set, consciously or not, and you have to scramble to make sure the ones that you don't like don't make that deadly switch from precedent to expectation. It's a good thing, honestly. Her frustration is apparent, but at least we're talking about it in the pre 800lb gorilla stage. It's more a capuchin monkey, or possibly a small chimp, and that's pretty manageable.
I say all of the above rationally, and without doubt. I say all of the below fearfully. Because it's also scary. She assures me that it's not me, that it's not too much time together that's the problem, and I trust her. The fear is there, though. A tiny seed of doubt, way back in the nervous part of my brain, just enough to make my stomach clench and heartbeat race for a moment, and it's gone. What if, what if, what if...what if we do start spending more time in her place, on her terms, but the problem doesn't go away? What if it is me, or the sudden intimacy, or simply that trapped feeling that occasionally clouds a relationship? What if she's not as sure as she's been?
What ifs are dangerous territory. Spend too much time there, and all sorts of nasty things can crawl out of the dark, each one bigger and more terrifying than the next. I know she loves me. I know I love her. She said she was feeling neglected the other day, attention-wise, and my heart sank. Not because I don't have it to give, or because I wouldn't gladly give it. No, my heart sank because nothing had changed on my end. That's the scariest part of a relationship--those moments when something has changed, but you feel the same. "I love you, but I'm not in love with you" wouldn't hurt if everyone agreed. "I just want to be friends" is harmless, unless you desperately want more. It's not the idea that I'm not doing something right that scares me. It's the idea that maybe, somewhere, there's a microscopic chance that somehow what I'm doing right is just not good enough.
I'm hesitant to post this now, after writing it, because I don't want her to feel bad--I know this isn't how she feels. The shadow of a doubt, that lingering fear, is a little thing. I feel it acutely, I think, because I don't want it to become true, and because I've seen it become true before. I broke her heart, the last time. If she's afraid to get too close, it's partly my fault. If she's defensive of her turf, and her time, it's partly because I so callously disregarded those things before, when I could pretend not to know better.
I don't want to lose her. I don't want to be scared. I don't want her to be unhappy. If it means packing an overnight bag every other weekend, sign me up. If it means going back to weekends alone, wondering how it went wrong, I'm RSVPing unable to attend. I'll do what I can, and I'll hope like hell that what I can is what she needs.
The Remix wrote today about how frustrating her life can be, lugging a duffel bag full of wrinkle-proof clothes around because she's always coming here. I can sympathize, I've even been there before, been the one who has to travel, who's never home, who has to choose between waking up in a strange bed and waking up alone. I didn't mean to put her in this position, and as far as I'm concerned, it's easily remedied. I've always been willing to go to her, to be where she lives, to make it easier. I'm willing to do more, if necessary. I'd like her to move in, sooner than later, if that's what she wants. I'd like there to be no travel, no conditions, no concessions involved in our spending time together.
I told her tonight as we were talking about this that this may just be the phase of the relationship where boundaries take center stage again. We've gotten comfortable together--not complacent, just familiar. There's still passion and laughter and cuddling and love, with plenty to spare. I think every relationship has this point, though, the point where precedents have begun to be set, consciously or not, and you have to scramble to make sure the ones that you don't like don't make that deadly switch from precedent to expectation. It's a good thing, honestly. Her frustration is apparent, but at least we're talking about it in the pre 800lb gorilla stage. It's more a capuchin monkey, or possibly a small chimp, and that's pretty manageable.
I say all of the above rationally, and without doubt. I say all of the below fearfully. Because it's also scary. She assures me that it's not me, that it's not too much time together that's the problem, and I trust her. The fear is there, though. A tiny seed of doubt, way back in the nervous part of my brain, just enough to make my stomach clench and heartbeat race for a moment, and it's gone. What if, what if, what if...what if we do start spending more time in her place, on her terms, but the problem doesn't go away? What if it is me, or the sudden intimacy, or simply that trapped feeling that occasionally clouds a relationship? What if she's not as sure as she's been?
What ifs are dangerous territory. Spend too much time there, and all sorts of nasty things can crawl out of the dark, each one bigger and more terrifying than the next. I know she loves me. I know I love her. She said she was feeling neglected the other day, attention-wise, and my heart sank. Not because I don't have it to give, or because I wouldn't gladly give it. No, my heart sank because nothing had changed on my end. That's the scariest part of a relationship--those moments when something has changed, but you feel the same. "I love you, but I'm not in love with you" wouldn't hurt if everyone agreed. "I just want to be friends" is harmless, unless you desperately want more. It's not the idea that I'm not doing something right that scares me. It's the idea that maybe, somewhere, there's a microscopic chance that somehow what I'm doing right is just not good enough.
I'm hesitant to post this now, after writing it, because I don't want her to feel bad--I know this isn't how she feels. The shadow of a doubt, that lingering fear, is a little thing. I feel it acutely, I think, because I don't want it to become true, and because I've seen it become true before. I broke her heart, the last time. If she's afraid to get too close, it's partly my fault. If she's defensive of her turf, and her time, it's partly because I so callously disregarded those things before, when I could pretend not to know better.
I don't want to lose her. I don't want to be scared. I don't want her to be unhappy. If it means packing an overnight bag every other weekend, sign me up. If it means going back to weekends alone, wondering how it went wrong, I'm RSVPing unable to attend. I'll do what I can, and I'll hope like hell that what I can is what she needs.
11.04.2006
There goes my hero....
Awesome moment of the week number four: I hired my first ever employee at work. I've had people working under me for over a year now, but this kid is the first one where I've done all the interviewing myself, put together the job offer myself, and actually made all the decisions without my boss being directly involved. Now let's all cross our fingers and hope he doesn't turn out to be a colossal fuck up, shall we?
Awesome moment of the week number three: I get to go to pizza school! Woo hoo! My company works closely as a produce and logistics supplier for one of the major pizza chains, right? I have absolutely nothing to do with this, ever, in any way, but somehow my boss elected me to go with the account manager to a three day school where they teach you to make pizzas, deal with lunch rushes, properly attire your employees, etc., etc., etc. Apparently it's something they have in place for new franchisees to learn the ropes before opening their doors, but much cooler to learn just exactly how much cheese constitutes "extra" when you know you don't ever actually have to do it again.
Awesome moment of the week number two: This would totally be number one, but as you'll see, nothing could beat the top of this list. I'm bursting with pride, regardless. The Remix is going all Rodney Dangerfield and heading back to school. She's been selected (as one of two--TWO!--people from her company to go back for a master's degree, on the house. Great deal for her--job security, free education, and obviously she's the apple of the boss's eye. I had no doubt when she told me that this was a possibility, as long as I've known her she has excelled in everything she's ever wanted to do, and probably lots of things she didn't want to do at all. She's brilliant, beautiful, and (bewilderingly enough) batshit over me. I'm a lucky boy, folks. Anyway, like I said, this would totally have been the coolest thing about my week, but...
Awesome moment of the week number one: Ok, so my apartment is at the far end of a looooong hallway (we're talking The Shining all over the place) from the laundry room on my floor. I'm walking back from the dryer and as soon as I open the door at the end of the corridor, I hear the yelling. Reggie! I am not in the mood! Get off me, now! How can you do this to me? Get the fuck away from me! Uh oh. This woman is sobbing and practically screaming, and here I am standing in the hallway in my flip flops and gym shorts with a basket full of whites. I freeze momentarily, wondering if I should intervene or just mind my own business, panicky images of rape, a beating, or worse running through my head. Just as decide that maybe I ought to ring the bell, hopefully break things up and give the screaming woman a chance to escape or ask for help, the door opens. A black cat shoots out the door, and I've got goosebumps waiting to see what's going to follow. (A battered wife with a black eye and a seething Reggie--who is undoubtedly 6'5", 300 pounds, and fresh out of prison--is nothing for me to try to deal with before I've had my coffee.) Sure enough, there's the woman. No black eye, thank god, but definitely having herself a good cry. As she opens her mouth to yell again (oh please God don't ask for help! What am I getting into?) I cringe. And then. And then. Reggie! I told you I can't fucking deal with this today! Get back in here, now! Back in here? Huh? Oh jesuscocksuckingchrist, the cat? Seriously? I can't help but laugh, out loud and uncontrollably as I walk by, listening to her sob quietly into Reggie's fur as I pass. You're so mean to me. So mean. How can you do this to me, you bastard?!?
See, school (grad or pizza) and new hires are great, but nothing compared to being the knight in shining armor who rescues a poor, desperate woman from her abusive cat. I'm a hero, I know. No need to thank me. Any of you would have done the same.
Awesome moment of the week number three: I get to go to pizza school! Woo hoo! My company works closely as a produce and logistics supplier for one of the major pizza chains, right? I have absolutely nothing to do with this, ever, in any way, but somehow my boss elected me to go with the account manager to a three day school where they teach you to make pizzas, deal with lunch rushes, properly attire your employees, etc., etc., etc. Apparently it's something they have in place for new franchisees to learn the ropes before opening their doors, but much cooler to learn just exactly how much cheese constitutes "extra" when you know you don't ever actually have to do it again.
Awesome moment of the week number two: This would totally be number one, but as you'll see, nothing could beat the top of this list. I'm bursting with pride, regardless. The Remix is going all Rodney Dangerfield and heading back to school. She's been selected (as one of two--TWO!--people from her company to go back for a master's degree, on the house. Great deal for her--job security, free education, and obviously she's the apple of the boss's eye. I had no doubt when she told me that this was a possibility, as long as I've known her she has excelled in everything she's ever wanted to do, and probably lots of things she didn't want to do at all. She's brilliant, beautiful, and (bewilderingly enough) batshit over me. I'm a lucky boy, folks. Anyway, like I said, this would totally have been the coolest thing about my week, but...
Awesome moment of the week number one: Ok, so my apartment is at the far end of a looooong hallway (we're talking The Shining all over the place) from the laundry room on my floor. I'm walking back from the dryer and as soon as I open the door at the end of the corridor, I hear the yelling. Reggie! I am not in the mood! Get off me, now! How can you do this to me? Get the fuck away from me! Uh oh. This woman is sobbing and practically screaming, and here I am standing in the hallway in my flip flops and gym shorts with a basket full of whites. I freeze momentarily, wondering if I should intervene or just mind my own business, panicky images of rape, a beating, or worse running through my head. Just as decide that maybe I ought to ring the bell, hopefully break things up and give the screaming woman a chance to escape or ask for help, the door opens. A black cat shoots out the door, and I've got goosebumps waiting to see what's going to follow. (A battered wife with a black eye and a seething Reggie--who is undoubtedly 6'5", 300 pounds, and fresh out of prison--is nothing for me to try to deal with before I've had my coffee.) Sure enough, there's the woman. No black eye, thank god, but definitely having herself a good cry. As she opens her mouth to yell again (oh please God don't ask for help! What am I getting into?) I cringe. And then. And then. Reggie! I told you I can't fucking deal with this today! Get back in here, now! Back in here? Huh? Oh jesuscocksuckingchrist, the cat? Seriously? I can't help but laugh, out loud and uncontrollably as I walk by, listening to her sob quietly into Reggie's fur as I pass. You're so mean to me. So mean. How can you do this to me, you bastard?!?
See, school (grad or pizza) and new hires are great, but nothing compared to being the knight in shining armor who rescues a poor, desperate woman from her abusive cat. I'm a hero, I know. No need to thank me. Any of you would have done the same.
10.30.2006
Writer's block
Hm. I'm very much jonesing to write something today, in short story form, but seriously bone dry on ideas. Worst feeling in the world, if you've ever put pen to paper in an attempt to create something. I've written one decent short story in the past year. (If you'd like to read it, feel free to leave me a comment, I'll be happy to send it to you. I'm at the point of trying to submit it for publication, and I can use all the intelligent criticism I can get, you know?)
Truth be told, I'm pimping my last story here in a vain attempt to boost my ego enough to get something else started. I know the last one is good, good enough anyway. If enough people tell me so, maybe I can prod my brain enough to get another one free.
I've got the stories I can't write. The ones that hurt to remember, the ones that would kill me to write honestly and would suck any other way. There's gotta be something, though. Something worth putting down, playing with, pretending I might publish. Wish me luck...
Truth be told, I'm pimping my last story here in a vain attempt to boost my ego enough to get something else started. I know the last one is good, good enough anyway. If enough people tell me so, maybe I can prod my brain enough to get another one free.
I've got the stories I can't write. The ones that hurt to remember, the ones that would kill me to write honestly and would suck any other way. There's gotta be something, though. Something worth putting down, playing with, pretending I might publish. Wish me luck...
10.26.2006
Coda
Read the post under this one first, or this won't make any sense.
After all this family feuding was done, the Remix was reeling. This was mostly my fault, I exacerbated the situation by a wanton misreading of her tone in some early e-mails, leading to the always disastrous "I-thought-we-were-joking-around-and-you-were-near-tears" effect. (E-mails should come with coded fonts for tone...you know, the text turns yellow automatically if you're scared, or blue if you're sad, or stays a harmless shade of teal when you're just chatting. This would be both helpful and aesthetically pleasing...the sarcastic purple being my personal favorite.)
Anyway, my mom essentially managed to nail down both the Remix and my own worst fears about the situation--that someone would feel slighted, no one would be happy with what they had, and the whole day would be an overly tense high wire act trying not to further hurt anyone's feelings. I think I defused that possibility, but the potential was slightly terrifying.
One good thing, though. Even at it's worst, while I was yelling at my mom (bold red letters, possibly in all caps or underlined, under my new color/tone system), I never made it about the Remix. Eons ago, the first time around, she was always in the middle. It was unfair, and an impossible position for her to navigate.
Oh yeah. Also may have mentioned that I love her in the e-mail to the parents. Not that it's a secret, obviously, or even a surprise, but certainly different. We've gone public, baby! Woo hoo!
After all this family feuding was done, the Remix was reeling. This was mostly my fault, I exacerbated the situation by a wanton misreading of her tone in some early e-mails, leading to the always disastrous "I-thought-we-were-joking-around-and-you-were-near-tears" effect. (E-mails should come with coded fonts for tone...you know, the text turns yellow automatically if you're scared, or blue if you're sad, or stays a harmless shade of teal when you're just chatting. This would be both helpful and aesthetically pleasing...the sarcastic purple being my personal favorite.)
Anyway, my mom essentially managed to nail down both the Remix and my own worst fears about the situation--that someone would feel slighted, no one would be happy with what they had, and the whole day would be an overly tense high wire act trying not to further hurt anyone's feelings. I think I defused that possibility, but the potential was slightly terrifying.
One good thing, though. Even at it's worst, while I was yelling at my mom (bold red letters, possibly in all caps or underlined, under my new color/tone system), I never made it about the Remix. Eons ago, the first time around, she was always in the middle. It was unfair, and an impossible position for her to navigate.
Oh yeah. Also may have mentioned that I love her in the e-mail to the parents. Not that it's a secret, obviously, or even a surprise, but certainly different. We've gone public, baby! Woo hoo!
Family Feud?
Sweet Jesus....So I throw that last self-righteous, pandering post up about how the Remix's family is being difficult, blah blah blah, thinking that all the holiday family drama is over, right. Whoops.
Out of nowhere, when I least expected it, LOOK! There in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, no, no, wait, it's...my mom going all Maury Povich about the division of time on Thanksgiving. Thanks ma. Appreciate it, there wasn't enough stress swirling around this holiday, let's have the easy part blow up in our faces too.
Here' s the story. The Remix's family event starts at 4. We are definitely too ancillary to the scheduling to request any changes, so that was the one we were going to have to work around. No problem, though--ma and pop are staying home on Thanksgiving, and they'll be happy to have us, whenever we can be there. Baby brother and his fiancee aren't a factor, they're not coming by until later. Hit the Remix deal at 3:30, jet around 5 or 5:30, make it to my parents' house for a 6pm dinner....So I e-mailed ma, laid this plan out, sat back with a self-satisfied smile and patted myself on the back for a job well done. For about five minutes, anyway. Then I got the e-mail.
You don't love us. You don't want to come over. Waah. Your dad's feelings will be hurt. Boo hoo hoo. When we're dead you'll hate yourself for not spending Thanksgiving with your family in a thirty-six hour festival atmosphere. Poor little me. *
*Portions of this program may have been paraphrased, edited, or totally fabricated, all in the interest of illustration.
Ok, so she's got reasons. I'll admit it. The ex-wife didn't like my family. Actually, it was less dislike and more like apathy. In a way, to my mom, that was worse. Not only did she not want to spend any time with my family at the holidays, she didn't particularly care whose feelings this would hurt, my own included. So for three years or so, I saw my family infrequently at best, and never at the good times. We'd stop by on Christmas Eve, sometime around one or two, and by six the ex would be sighing and checking her watch, anxious to get on our way (usually, so we could spend the night at her parents and open presents under the tree on Christmas morning, like ten year olds.) It was awful, and I feel bad.
Counterpoint, though. The Remix and I see my parents/family all the Goddamned time. Like, once every couple of weeks. The Remix loves my parents. She asks to go see them, goes out of her way to make time for them, etc.
I told my mom off. Good, too. I told her I wasn't going to feel guilty. I told her that we'd done everything we could to ensure that they got the most of the day, and if it wasn't good enough I would stay home and cook my own damn turkey. Hell if I'm going to get steamrolled by my mom, I'm no mama's boy...
I apologized by the next day. But she got the point. Everyone's ok now. No permanent damage, no guilty consciences, and no cloud over what should be an otherwise delightful day. When the dust cleared, I found myself still grateful for the family I have. They may be clingy and overbearing, but at least they want me around.
Out of nowhere, when I least expected it, LOOK! There in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, no, no, wait, it's...my mom going all Maury Povich about the division of time on Thanksgiving. Thanks ma. Appreciate it, there wasn't enough stress swirling around this holiday, let's have the easy part blow up in our faces too.
Here' s the story. The Remix's family event starts at 4. We are definitely too ancillary to the scheduling to request any changes, so that was the one we were going to have to work around. No problem, though--ma and pop are staying home on Thanksgiving, and they'll be happy to have us, whenever we can be there. Baby brother and his fiancee aren't a factor, they're not coming by until later. Hit the Remix deal at 3:30, jet around 5 or 5:30, make it to my parents' house for a 6pm dinner....So I e-mailed ma, laid this plan out, sat back with a self-satisfied smile and patted myself on the back for a job well done. For about five minutes, anyway. Then I got the e-mail.
You don't love us. You don't want to come over. Waah. Your dad's feelings will be hurt. Boo hoo hoo. When we're dead you'll hate yourself for not spending Thanksgiving with your family in a thirty-six hour festival atmosphere. Poor little me. *
*Portions of this program may have been paraphrased, edited, or totally fabricated, all in the interest of illustration.
Ok, so she's got reasons. I'll admit it. The ex-wife didn't like my family. Actually, it was less dislike and more like apathy. In a way, to my mom, that was worse. Not only did she not want to spend any time with my family at the holidays, she didn't particularly care whose feelings this would hurt, my own included. So for three years or so, I saw my family infrequently at best, and never at the good times. We'd stop by on Christmas Eve, sometime around one or two, and by six the ex would be sighing and checking her watch, anxious to get on our way (usually, so we could spend the night at her parents and open presents under the tree on Christmas morning, like ten year olds.) It was awful, and I feel bad.
Counterpoint, though. The Remix and I see my parents/family all the Goddamned time. Like, once every couple of weeks. The Remix loves my parents. She asks to go see them, goes out of her way to make time for them, etc.
I told my mom off. Good, too. I told her I wasn't going to feel guilty. I told her that we'd done everything we could to ensure that they got the most of the day, and if it wasn't good enough I would stay home and cook my own damn turkey. Hell if I'm going to get steamrolled by my mom, I'm no mama's boy...
I apologized by the next day. But she got the point. Everyone's ok now. No permanent damage, no guilty consciences, and no cloud over what should be an otherwise delightful day. When the dust cleared, I found myself still grateful for the family I have. They may be clingy and overbearing, but at least they want me around.
10.23.2006
None of my business, most likely.
Sorry, one more thought for the day. Apparently, I'm not welcome for Thanksgiving at the Remix household. Not by the Remix herself, of course. Her dad still has it in for me, or for her, or for anyone she's dating--whatever the case, he's afraid I'll upset the social dynamic of the event. He's right, maybe. I'd be the only person there who cares about his daughter enough to consider what she wants, the only person there who would see how his stubbornness still hurts, the only person there who's willing to love the Remix on her terms. I'd be the first boyfriend who remembers what he was, the ways he hurt the one person I would fight to protect. I was there. I was there when he wasn't, and I suspect that's the one thing he could hold against me. That and the fact that my last name has a rolling R and my family eats Thanksgiving dinner with tortillas instead of dinner rolls.
It hurts her, I know. It hurts that my parents both welcome and want her there, not just because she's my re-girlfriend, but because she's fun, and smart, and nice to have around. Familial obligations mean something in my family, possibly because they never feel like obligations at all.
I would still go. If the new lady of the house will have me, I'll gladly sit in, put on my most charming demeanor and enjoy my reconstituted mashed potatoes with the rest of the family. He doesn't have to like me. He doesn't even have to look at me. But I'm not going anywhere, chief. I'm going to be around next thanksgiving, and the one after that, and so on ad infinitum. We'll have to sit in the same room, eventually. For her sake, for his wife's sake, I hope he learns to swallow his pride and play along. He's done enough damage, here. It's never too late to man up. I just hope he learns it soon.
It hurts her, I know. It hurts that my parents both welcome and want her there, not just because she's my re-girlfriend, but because she's fun, and smart, and nice to have around. Familial obligations mean something in my family, possibly because they never feel like obligations at all.
I would still go. If the new lady of the house will have me, I'll gladly sit in, put on my most charming demeanor and enjoy my reconstituted mashed potatoes with the rest of the family. He doesn't have to like me. He doesn't even have to look at me. But I'm not going anywhere, chief. I'm going to be around next thanksgiving, and the one after that, and so on ad infinitum. We'll have to sit in the same room, eventually. For her sake, for his wife's sake, I hope he learns to swallow his pride and play along. He's done enough damage, here. It's never too late to man up. I just hope he learns it soon.
Good times, bad times, you know I've had my share.
Yesterday, the best friend and I dragged our girlfriends (best friends in their own right) out to see Frank Caliendo at a comedy club here in town. Good time, all around, lots of laughs, no tension, no arguments before or after. A stark contrast, really, to the last time the Remix and I went down this road.
You see, when I was a kid, from the second half of high school through my first four years of college, I had friends. Good friends, the kind who would step in front of a truck to save you, without a second thought. Bad friends, the kind who complain about your girlfriend when she dares to keep you from them, no matter how infrequently. Unfortunately for me, and for the relationship I once had with the girl I still (again?) love, I didn't really get the second part, at least not when it was important.
"The Guys," as we collectively called ourselves, were a tight group. I don't regret the friendships, the laughs, the good times. Like any past relationship, I prefer to think of the times we were good together, and not dwell on the way I grew up, out, and away from their influence.
We're still friends, sort of. The best friend was one of the gang, and he's like a second brother. I still see the others, off and on, at weddings and superbowl parties, and it's still fun. For a while. For your benefit, and my nostalgia, let's profile the gang...
Yo was a good guy, with a heart of gold and a liver of asbestos. We were good friends, roommates in our college dorm, our girlfriends similarly situated in a dorm across campus. He's still a good guy--when he's sober, and therefore rarely. By the time he drank himself out of college, there wasn't much to say to each other, really. When Yo and I are together now, it's still too tense, something too big has changed between us, mostly my own fault. It's not just my mistake, though. I judge, without meaning to. I can't drink until sunrise anymore--and my unwillingness is a sharp enough contrast to shame him, even when I don't mean to. I'll always remember him, though, talking softly and without the self-righteousness I was always too guilty of, while I lay crying in my bed, depressed and lost after the Remix and I cashed it in the first time. A lot of friends, a lot of places, would have still been good people without being so kind, but he was anyway, and with no selfishness.
The J-Dog is the one I talk to the most, the most grown-up, married to his high school sweetheart, the girl we used to tease endlessly for anything and everything she could say or do. When he married her, I think it caught up to us all. We mocked him because he had what we didn't, what we couldn't--someone who loved him anyway, even when he was trying to light pop cans on fire, or saving gay hardcore porn as someone's desktop when they had the poor judgment to go to a class. She still loves him, more than we did, and rightfully so. We used to think that each other would be all we'd ever need. The J-Dog proved us wrong, so much so that he doesn't need us anymore. And still, when the mood is right and enough empty beers are on the table, we can still laugh, still remember what it was like watching American Ninja with tears rolling down our faces because we were laughing so hard.
The Dragon is still the baby of the group, the youngest both in years and maturity. When we were chasing girls, he was doing jigsaw puzzles in his bedroom. When we were getting married, he was flirting via emoticon with freshmen on AIM. He still doesn't have a real job, a girlfriend. We've joked for years that he might be gay, but I hope for his sake that he isn't. Not because I don't approve, but because if he is, the last 25 years must have been torture, stifling himself to save some face. He was a sidekick, though, the best kind. Never had a bad word for anyone, never one to ask you the tough questions, The Dragon is the one who would never ask you to act like a grown-up. Want to do a J at nine in the morning? He's in. Want to get drunk two hours before your Spanish final? You know who's buying the first round. My good memories of the Dragon are too numerous to count, but they're all about the same. Sitting back on a couch, with a good buzz, laughing and planning. The Dragon used to talk about hitting the lotto and buying us all houses in the same cul-de-sac, with a bar in the middle. We laughed and agreed, and then slowly everyone moved on to their own idea of the perfect house, none of which involved spending the rest of our lives together.
Zorba the Greek was the sweet, dumb one. Smart as a bag of hammers, but always prosperous, making the kind of money at 18 that I didn't see until three years of post-college work. Now he's the rich one, the club kid, sleeping with 20 year olds every night until he settles down to marry a sweet and silent virgin with Greek parents. Racist and misogynistic, homophobic and cruel, somehow we all overlooked it, all the time, and he was one of us. We used to play poker at Zorba's house, with his dad and uncles, and I believe that's where I really learned the game. Staying up all night, when we'd wake his mom up at 3 she'd wander bleary-eyed into the kitchen to whip up a snack....usually four or five courses, with dessert. We had fun, then, but like everyone else, we have little to talk about anymore. He's my realtor, for what that's worth, but he's not much more, not these days.
I don't miss these guys, exactly. They're still largely the same, and if I wanted to spend a weekend drunk off my rocker, reminsicing about high school football and arguing about movies, they're all still there. Back then, I blew it with the Remix because I couldn't give that up, I didn't want to, and I certainly wouldn't let her take it from me. Now, I'm happier sitting at home with the Remix, talking about whatever strikes our mood, cuddling on the couch and reveling in each other's company. I used to feel like I didn't know who I was, separate from my friends. Now, I don't know who I am when I'm with them. I can see the ghosts, lurking in the shadows of my brain, occasionally leaping forward for a belly laugh or a round of shots, but the rest of the time I'm on the outside looking in, remembering how good it used to be but painfully aware of how bad it always was.
You see, when I was a kid, from the second half of high school through my first four years of college, I had friends. Good friends, the kind who would step in front of a truck to save you, without a second thought. Bad friends, the kind who complain about your girlfriend when she dares to keep you from them, no matter how infrequently. Unfortunately for me, and for the relationship I once had with the girl I still (again?) love, I didn't really get the second part, at least not when it was important.
"The Guys," as we collectively called ourselves, were a tight group. I don't regret the friendships, the laughs, the good times. Like any past relationship, I prefer to think of the times we were good together, and not dwell on the way I grew up, out, and away from their influence.
We're still friends, sort of. The best friend was one of the gang, and he's like a second brother. I still see the others, off and on, at weddings and superbowl parties, and it's still fun. For a while. For your benefit, and my nostalgia, let's profile the gang...
Yo was a good guy, with a heart of gold and a liver of asbestos. We were good friends, roommates in our college dorm, our girlfriends similarly situated in a dorm across campus. He's still a good guy--when he's sober, and therefore rarely. By the time he drank himself out of college, there wasn't much to say to each other, really. When Yo and I are together now, it's still too tense, something too big has changed between us, mostly my own fault. It's not just my mistake, though. I judge, without meaning to. I can't drink until sunrise anymore--and my unwillingness is a sharp enough contrast to shame him, even when I don't mean to. I'll always remember him, though, talking softly and without the self-righteousness I was always too guilty of, while I lay crying in my bed, depressed and lost after the Remix and I cashed it in the first time. A lot of friends, a lot of places, would have still been good people without being so kind, but he was anyway, and with no selfishness.
The J-Dog is the one I talk to the most, the most grown-up, married to his high school sweetheart, the girl we used to tease endlessly for anything and everything she could say or do. When he married her, I think it caught up to us all. We mocked him because he had what we didn't, what we couldn't--someone who loved him anyway, even when he was trying to light pop cans on fire, or saving gay hardcore porn as someone's desktop when they had the poor judgment to go to a class. She still loves him, more than we did, and rightfully so. We used to think that each other would be all we'd ever need. The J-Dog proved us wrong, so much so that he doesn't need us anymore. And still, when the mood is right and enough empty beers are on the table, we can still laugh, still remember what it was like watching American Ninja with tears rolling down our faces because we were laughing so hard.
The Dragon is still the baby of the group, the youngest both in years and maturity. When we were chasing girls, he was doing jigsaw puzzles in his bedroom. When we were getting married, he was flirting via emoticon with freshmen on AIM. He still doesn't have a real job, a girlfriend. We've joked for years that he might be gay, but I hope for his sake that he isn't. Not because I don't approve, but because if he is, the last 25 years must have been torture, stifling himself to save some face. He was a sidekick, though, the best kind. Never had a bad word for anyone, never one to ask you the tough questions, The Dragon is the one who would never ask you to act like a grown-up. Want to do a J at nine in the morning? He's in. Want to get drunk two hours before your Spanish final? You know who's buying the first round. My good memories of the Dragon are too numerous to count, but they're all about the same. Sitting back on a couch, with a good buzz, laughing and planning. The Dragon used to talk about hitting the lotto and buying us all houses in the same cul-de-sac, with a bar in the middle. We laughed and agreed, and then slowly everyone moved on to their own idea of the perfect house, none of which involved spending the rest of our lives together.
Zorba the Greek was the sweet, dumb one. Smart as a bag of hammers, but always prosperous, making the kind of money at 18 that I didn't see until three years of post-college work. Now he's the rich one, the club kid, sleeping with 20 year olds every night until he settles down to marry a sweet and silent virgin with Greek parents. Racist and misogynistic, homophobic and cruel, somehow we all overlooked it, all the time, and he was one of us. We used to play poker at Zorba's house, with his dad and uncles, and I believe that's where I really learned the game. Staying up all night, when we'd wake his mom up at 3 she'd wander bleary-eyed into the kitchen to whip up a snack....usually four or five courses, with dessert. We had fun, then, but like everyone else, we have little to talk about anymore. He's my realtor, for what that's worth, but he's not much more, not these days.
I don't miss these guys, exactly. They're still largely the same, and if I wanted to spend a weekend drunk off my rocker, reminsicing about high school football and arguing about movies, they're all still there. Back then, I blew it with the Remix because I couldn't give that up, I didn't want to, and I certainly wouldn't let her take it from me. Now, I'm happier sitting at home with the Remix, talking about whatever strikes our mood, cuddling on the couch and reveling in each other's company. I used to feel like I didn't know who I was, separate from my friends. Now, I don't know who I am when I'm with them. I can see the ghosts, lurking in the shadows of my brain, occasionally leaping forward for a belly laugh or a round of shots, but the rest of the time I'm on the outside looking in, remembering how good it used to be but painfully aware of how bad it always was.
10.20.2006
Turn, and face the change.
We moved to a new office today. Predictably, everything was fucked, from the get go. The phones didn't work, the computers didn't work, the fax machine ate everything you put into it, and everyone was a little haggard by the end of the day.
My new office is nicer, by a long shot. It's sunnier, there's more room to spread out, everything is easier. I wouldn't dream of going back. Not everything is different, but the things that are most certainly are better.
However, I was almost freakishly stressed out, all day long. My shoulders ache, a sure sign of extra tension, and I'm exhausted. Upon further review, (and what, really, do I not subject to further review) I realized that even as a grown man, change makes me uncomfortable. Different, I like. Changing, not so much. My new office is better, without question. Yet I find myself stubbornly resisting to learn the new phone system and futilely complaining about the (beautiful) courtyard my fellow smokers and I are relegated to. I don't like having to stand idly by while major changes are foisted on me by powers beyond myself. The adjustment is too rough, like slamming on the brakes and taking off in a new direction. I like the new stuf, sure. I just don't like getting there. And in a couple weeks, I'll never want to leave the new place.
I'm like this in other ways. Give me eel sushi and pig's feet in my pozole--just don't ask me to go somewhere new to try it. I'll try The End of Alice--but only if I casually pick it up while the Remix makes dinner, otherwise I'm going to sit on my couch and reread A Confederacy of Dunces again. Bring on shared apartments and kids and marriage--just don't start telling me all the things I have to do differently.
This last is sort of what I'm driving (meandering?) at. When the Remix and I were first dating (does that make her "the Mix?" Hmm...) I wasn't ready for the relationship we were trying to have. Now, five long years later, I am. We always loved each other. The requirements haven't changed, I have. My priorities are different. The five years sucked, for the most part. Without them, we wouldn't be here. I changed on my own. No one asked me to, no one forced me to. We're different now, both of us; but in all the important ways, nothing has changed.
My new relationship is nicer, by a long shot. It's sunnier, there's more room to spread out, everything is easier. I wouldn't dream of going back. Not everything is different, but the things that are most certainly are better.
However, I am not stressed out. Upon further review, I'm not missing anything. I don't feel like the car is turning without me. I turned by myself, and somehow ended up back on the road beside the person I love the most. I'm ready now, sweetheart. I'm with you now. And it only took a couple of dates to know that I never, never want to leave the new place.
My new office is nicer, by a long shot. It's sunnier, there's more room to spread out, everything is easier. I wouldn't dream of going back. Not everything is different, but the things that are most certainly are better.
However, I was almost freakishly stressed out, all day long. My shoulders ache, a sure sign of extra tension, and I'm exhausted. Upon further review, (and what, really, do I not subject to further review) I realized that even as a grown man, change makes me uncomfortable. Different, I like. Changing, not so much. My new office is better, without question. Yet I find myself stubbornly resisting to learn the new phone system and futilely complaining about the (beautiful) courtyard my fellow smokers and I are relegated to. I don't like having to stand idly by while major changes are foisted on me by powers beyond myself. The adjustment is too rough, like slamming on the brakes and taking off in a new direction. I like the new stuf, sure. I just don't like getting there. And in a couple weeks, I'll never want to leave the new place.
I'm like this in other ways. Give me eel sushi and pig's feet in my pozole--just don't ask me to go somewhere new to try it. I'll try The End of Alice--but only if I casually pick it up while the Remix makes dinner, otherwise I'm going to sit on my couch and reread A Confederacy of Dunces again. Bring on shared apartments and kids and marriage--just don't start telling me all the things I have to do differently.
This last is sort of what I'm driving (meandering?) at. When the Remix and I were first dating (does that make her "the Mix?" Hmm...) I wasn't ready for the relationship we were trying to have. Now, five long years later, I am. We always loved each other. The requirements haven't changed, I have. My priorities are different. The five years sucked, for the most part. Without them, we wouldn't be here. I changed on my own. No one asked me to, no one forced me to. We're different now, both of us; but in all the important ways, nothing has changed.
My new relationship is nicer, by a long shot. It's sunnier, there's more room to spread out, everything is easier. I wouldn't dream of going back. Not everything is different, but the things that are most certainly are better.
However, I am not stressed out. Upon further review, I'm not missing anything. I don't feel like the car is turning without me. I turned by myself, and somehow ended up back on the road beside the person I love the most. I'm ready now, sweetheart. I'm with you now. And it only took a couple of dates to know that I never, never want to leave the new place.
10.14.2006
The way to a man's heart...
So right now, there's a lemon-garlic chicken, four miniature apple pies, two pans of gratin potatoes, and a pan of rolls baking in the oven at casa de Remix. Could I be any happier?
On the agenda for next weekend, the best friend, the BFGF, the Remix and I will be taking in the 7pm Sunday show of Frank Caliendo's recent comedy tour. (Yes, we know it's the senior citizen special, but we saved four dollars a ticket. Fuck, that's a watered-down beer for each couple to share.) I'm really looking forward to it, to be honest. For all the cool things to do around my apartment, I very rarely do any of them. Here's hoping it's a good time, and a good show.
On the agenda for next weekend, the best friend, the BFGF, the Remix and I will be taking in the 7pm Sunday show of Frank Caliendo's recent comedy tour. (Yes, we know it's the senior citizen special, but we saved four dollars a ticket. Fuck, that's a watered-down beer for each couple to share.) I'm really looking forward to it, to be honest. For all the cool things to do around my apartment, I very rarely do any of them. Here's hoping it's a good time, and a good show.
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