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.
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