Yo Momma

It's Mother's Day, in case you missed the E! Network's Tales of Hollywood Moms special this afternoon. The Remix and I spent the day with her mom, who graduated with her second Master's degree this morning.

My mom is in Las Vegas, spending a month or so with her mom, who is very sick. My mom is afraid to fly, so she decided to drive. In her Mini Cooper. With her DOG. (She tried to rope me into this, by the way, but 30 hours in a clown car with my mom and a flatulent dog did not sound like my idea of a vacation. That, and I'm a little light on cash this month, which would make going to Vegas pure unadulterated torture.)

Anyway, I thought since it was Mother's Day I ought to say something about my mom. She's been good to me, for the most part. Sure, she's overbearing, annoying, needy, and deaf; but she's also kind, generous, well-meaning, and forgiving. She's constantly trying to drag me to church, but I'll forgive her that, too.

I'm a little worried about ma, mostly because she's apparently lost her mind. This trip she's on to Vegas involved quitting her job, and didn't involve taking my dad. Personally, I think it's a religious problem. Like most religious automatons, my mom is constantly looking for guidance from a figment of the world's collective imagination. When things are going well, it's easy to pretend that "God" is guiding you...if, like my mom, you find yourself vaguely unhappy at some point, it becomes a little harder. Now she's looking for something to actually happen, looking for "God" to show her the way somehow. Of course, he won't, and so she's left feeling lost. My mom has committed too much of her life to her ridiculous beliefs to turn back now--turning her back on the whole thing isn't an option. Subconsciously, she probably knows what's missing, and eventually she'll figure it out. When she does, she'll be back to thanking her imaginary friend for the guiding hand, and she'll be right again. Until she's not, anyway.

This is aggravating for me. My mom is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and I feel like she's been railroaded by well-meaning zealots into a lie she's too comfortable with to challenge. Religion is perfect for people like my mom--she doesn't want to think objectively about things like premarital sex, gay marriage, or abortion. There's too much to figure out, too many people who know more about it, too many fancy statistics, too many gray areas. No, she'd rather be told what to think, complete with a pat set of reasons that are easy to remember and inarguable by virtue of being totally illogical.

I'm not mad at my mom. I love my mom. I don't want some ludicrous and antiquated religious sham to ruin my parents' relationship or my mom's life, though. She is fortunate to have some time for "God" to help her figure out what she wants--but once she realizes he's not helping, she better get it together quickly, before she follows in all her siblings' footsteps and makes a total train wreck out of her life.

Insert Superlative Here

What the hell? Where has everyone been? I've been sitting here, with all sorts of clever things to say, but no one was here to listen so they've all disappeared into the ether that is the interwebs.

Ok, ok, you caught me...my lazy ass has been notably absent from the blog world for quite some time. (57 days or so, actually, and probably not as notably as I'd like to think.) Anyway, if you're still with me enough to be reading this, you've probably one of the people who's simultaneously reading the Remix, in which case you know most of what's gone on with me in the past two months...but I'll recap anyway.

Remix moved in, and she's wonderful. The new condo is coming along nicely, though improvements have momentarily been suspended on account of funding issues. The cats like the new place, as much as cats have opinions about this sort of thing. Work is busy, but still fun and interesting. We're eating well here, both the Remix and I enjoy cooking, so there's something delicious to be eaten on almost a nightly basis, plus more than occasional cakes. (Both the Remix and I also enjoy cake.) I quit smoking, hoping to take advantage of the climate change to break the habit.

I'm enjoying the hell out of living with this girl. She makes me laugh, she's great company, and she seems to enjoy the hell out of it right back. She's full of ideas for decorating this place, but still interested in making it our place, not just hers, and she's making it fun for me. She's watching movies from my eclectic Netflix list, and I'm picking up new music from her list. My Tivo is recording reality TV right along with Heroes and UFC fights. Our books live on the same shelves, reenergizing our individual libraries by adding a whole new list of someone else's favorites. Most importantly, though, it feels like home. For both of us, I think. Hell, I know.

Yeah, you're happy for us, I get it. If I were you, I'd be sick of reading this already too. I don't know what else to say, though. We're living together, we're happy, and damn it, it works. We've both seen enough bad relationships lately to know how lucky we are--we could be trying to sell the place less than three months after we bought it. It happens, you know. I know a guy.

I'm on my way, I'm on my waaaaay...Home Sweet Home!

Come on...all you people who read the Remix's blog, did anyone ever suspect she'd end up moving in with a guy who quotes Motley Crue lyrics as blog titles?

Today is closing day. Approximately two hours from now, The Remix and I will own a home. (Technically, I'll have my name on the paperwork, but who's being technical? Besides, she's paying half the mortgage AND picking out the bedskirt, which I think more than qualifies.) We're both really excited, I think, even in the face of hours and hours of packing left to finish before moving on Saturday.

I have nothing enlightening to say...I've been running back and forth to the dumpster all morning throwing away my excess stuff, and my brain is tired. I'm going to go sign a mountain of paperwork now, then come home to my blood-spattered cats* and half-boxed apartment and finish off the packing. Wish me luck, and the next time you hear from me will be from the new joint, tentatively entitled Pant's Labyrinth. (Yet another long story.)

*The cats went to get declawed this week. The fat one is white, and also stubborn, so the day after surgery he busted open all his wounds and now his paws look like he just massacred the Incas. After not seeing the cats for all of three fucking days, I got misty eyed picking them up (the blood didn't help)--I'm a world class loser, you heard it here first.

I'm so sore from laughing, I haven't got the will to fight.

Totally cribbing from the Remix again, stealing her habit of using obscure song lyrics to title blog posts. I'm shameless, what can I say?

It's an interesting counterpoint, this whole friends dumping friends thing. A year ago, I was recently divorced, and the friend in question was one of the people who stood by the whole time. No, he wasn't exactly full of pithy advice, that's not his style. He didn't lend himself to any epiphany type moments, either. But he sat, and he listened until he was sick of hearing about it, and then he listened some more.

So now it's my turn. I know I should be talking to him--once upon a time, when I was younger, my friends looked at me as the one to turn to for advice. (This may have been because even at 17, I was pretty sure I knew everything there was to know about everything, and sold everyone else on it pretty well. I still don't know everything, but sales is sort of what I do best.) Either way, in this case I don't even know that advice is totally necessary. I think it's too far gone at this point, all the strategizing in the world isn't going to get things back to where they were.

Whether or not there's a solution to be found is beside the point. He needs someone to listen, and I'm not doing much of a job. Our relationship is such that I don't know how to start the conversation at all. When it was me having problems, it worked, but only because I talk all the goddamn time, whether someone is listening or not. For him, it's harder--our whole relationship is based on jokes. I play straight man to his ribbing, we have ludicrous arguments about whether you can make a parachute out of a thin sheet of lead (I say yes) or whether it's actually possible to have a 0% chance of rain (I say no.)

We're running out of jokes, though. I can see the strain in his face, and I hear about it thirdhand from the Remix after her nightly talks with the female in question. He's angry, and he's bitter, and I don't know what to do. If anyone else asked me, I'd say he deserves it, based on his actions. Can't say that to him, though. So I'll sit back here, waiting for him to open the door, and hope that he finds a way to bring it up before it's too late.

Migraine, Breakups, and Italian Sodas...Happy Mardi Gras!

Oh sweet Jesus Asshumping Christ, does my head hurt. I don't often get migraines, but on a scale of one to ten, this one is a motherfucker. I missed work today, which is a rare occurrence, mostly on account of the fact that my walk to the shower made me nauseous enough I had to sit down.

I have nothing productive to say, really. I'm not tired, so I can't possibly sleep anymore today. My head hurts if I watch TV, play video games, or stare at the interwebs too long. Reading isn't going to happen, period. So I'm sitting here doing nothing.

Recent developments in the Breakup (it gets capital letters now) between Boy and Girl, some friends of the Remix and I's, have got me thinking, though. Boy (the one I'm friends with) is clearly in the wrong. I won't say why, because it's not my story to tell, but suffice it to say he's not garnering much in the way of sympathy from me--and that doesn't absolve me from my duties as a friend.

As I told the Remix the other day, the dilemma for me is simple: I know what's wrong, at least superficially. I could give Boy a laundry list of things to say, even things to do, which might convince her to consider taking him back. I can't, though. Girl is my friend too, and I'm not sure that taking him back would be very good for either of them. So when he asks my advice, what do I do? It's like being a public defender--I know he's guilty, but I also feel like he deserves the best defense I can give him. So I've decided to lead the witness. I won't tell him what to do or say, and I'm certainly not going to pat his hand reassuringly and tell him everything is alright. If he starts down the right path, though, I'll prod him in the right direction.

For this to work, for Girl to consider any possibility of getting back together with Boy, Boy needs to undergo some wholesale changes. The old Boy, the one who screwed this up in the first place, isn't getting back together with anyone. If there's a possibilty of a new Boy, he still may not be able to make up for this one--but if there's a new Boy, he'll be better off with the next girl, too. He may be an asshole, and he may deserve every bit of misery he's got right now, but my own personal experience makes me a firm believer in second chances. I don't believe they'll get back together, even if he says all the right things and means them. I think it's too far gone. It'll be easier for me to look him in the eye and respect him, though, if he gives it his best shot. Girl is the best thing that ever happened to Boy--unfortunately for him, he doesn't realize it, and Girl could do a whole lot better for herself anyway. If he can figure out what he did wrong, there's a chance he could turn out alright, whatever happens with Girl. If not, well, I'll just keep preparing myself for this same dog and pony show every four to six years, and hope I don't get tired of him before he stops needing a friend.

Eesh. That's depressing. I'm going to go back to laying on my couch trying to keep my left eye from popping out of my head. Any advice here is welcome, folks, whether it pertains to migraines, disastrous break-ups, or recommendations on a good, cheap place to get Italian soda. (I'm sort of hooked on Target's private lable brands of Italian soda...orange passionfruit mango is the favorite so far, but I'm looking forward to trying the blueberry pomegranate in about three minutes...)

Honestly, is there anything gayer for a straight man to drink than Italian soda? Ok, maybe Jagerbombs or Amaretto Sours, but in the non-alcoholic category, it's gotta be tops.

Moving On Up

So I'm sitting here having my first cigarette of the day at 6:30 in the morning on a Sunday, wondering what the hell I'm doing awake in the first place. The Remix went out to play wingman for a single friend last night, and I was going to take the opportunity to go get a little tipsy and sing karaoke with some of my friends, but somehow instead I wound up laying down to take a twenty minute nap at 9pm and didn't wake up until this morning. That's ok, I probably needed it, but now I'm up early with nothing to do, so I feel like I ought to be productive.

I signed my mortgage application this week, and did the home inspection, and everything seems to be going along swimmingly. Since it's yet to debut, why don't y'all take a look:

That's the living room, it's a good size, with maybe another 10-12 feet behind the camera in the connected dining room. What really got me on this one, though, was the kitchen:

I've got an island. I'm so excited about this place, I've gone a little goofy. I close in less than a month, move that weekend, and the Remix will move in the weekend after that. I can't wait. We're already mentally redecorating rooms and placing mannequins (you'd have to see her place to understand), and it should be a lot of fun.

I think we're doing this the right way. One, I'm the only one on the mortgage. Neither of us expect anything to go horribly wrong between us, but if it does, there's no complications caused by the living arrangements. Two, I can afford this place all by myself--it'd be a little bit tighter on the budget than it should be now, but totally doable. Instead of taking our combined rents and adding a couple hundred bucks so we could get a palatial condo we can barely afford, we've set it up so that we'll each save some money every month over what we've been paying. Even better, in a year when I get my next raise, we'll have all kinds of extra money to play with, because we're not living paycheck to paycheck now. I feel all grown up, and it's a little scary to see how naturally I'm taking to the responsibility. Who'd have thought?

Now, I'm going to go do some laundry, maybe even run the dishwasher, and then settle in and watch a movie or something off the Tivo before the Remix gets here. She said she wasn't going to be hungover...

Fallout

This post will not be about the problems some mutual friends of the Remix and I are having. The details are unimportant, the people invoved have never been of interest here before, so it seems unfair to start writing about them now, and the situation isn't nearly sordid or unique enough for y'all to be interested anyway.

No, what's interesting to me here (and notice how smoothly I pick up after disappearing for a month, with no excuse for my absence other than laziness) is the ripple effect this whole thing has had on my relationship with the Remix--which is still going swimmingly, by the way. The problem with the disintegration of our friends' relationship is that it lends itself to talking about problems. The way it'll effect our relationship with those friends individually, who's at fault, what we'll do if they work it out, now that we've effectively chosen sides, the usual things. We end up in heated conversations about why so and so should do such and such, and when we disagree, it seems to become far more important than it really ought to be.

I've discovered, to my great chagrin, that this particular effect is my fault. I'm not good at gray area, you see. I am opinionated, all the time, about everything. My flaw is that even when I agree with you, I still have a way of making people feel like I'm telling them they're wrong. I don't mean to. I get so passionate about what I think, that it sounds like I must think anyone who doesn't agree is an idiot. I don't really know how to fix it, exactly. I like that I'm passionate, and I think most of the people who like me do too. I had to apologize to the Remix today, though, because I made her feel acutely unappreciated just by being me.

We've been talking a lot, lately, about the whole "That's just me being me" idea, mostly because of our friends and their catastrophic relationship. We agree that "DJ being DJ" is an acceptable excuse for baskets of clean laundry laying out on the floor for days at a time, but maybe not so much for making people feel unimportant. So it's no excuse anymore. I'll make an effort to be better, and the Remix will keep reminding me when I'm not.

Except, of course, while blogging. It wouldn't do to have my audience, if there's any left, thinking that I suddenly no longer know everything, would it?

When it rains, it's a motherfucking category five fucking hurricane.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

• 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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.