ArroganceIsHealthy

On being 30...and sick.

2012-01-17T00:56:00.000-08:00

How did this happen?

For Christ's sakes you grew up listening to Eddie Vedder and Ani Difranco.

Its not so much of a breakdown launch, more of a simple examination of fact; this isn't really who you are. You gave up eating meat because McDonald's disgusted you. Learned to play the guitar because the piano wasn't portable. Dyed your hair every different color. The 90s was awesome.

But this story ends here, because regret is a waste.

Prevention, however, is a different story.

So is medication.

30 isn't really that old anyway.

Rise of the Man-Eating Vendetta Tree

2011-08-09T23:12:00.001-07:00

On a disheveled king bed under the whirring of ceiling fans in a big empty house at the edge of the Phoenix suburbs is where our hero lies, night after night, contemplating life; glad for new opportunities.

I see how it happens now.

You don't agree to it, you just slowly run out of other options. Its a surprise, like a Jack in a box; sometimes its funny, and sometimes its startling. Sometimes the handle is defective, like a pin on a grenade; you crank it and nothing comes out, but you keep turning it, possessed by horrible anticipation. Years can go by while you work even harder, making time go by faster, afraid you are going to miss something that you have already missed.

Something happens after the death of your childhood. I don't mean the transition to adulthood - I'm referring to the experience of looking back over your shoulder, down the mountain at the now-unreachable city that was your home for your entire life and realizing that you've got to figure a way to extract all of the emotion from that place and transport as much of it as you can to wherever you're going before the image of it completely falls out of your sight and you're left with a bunch of confusing new feelings that you have no emotional frame of reference for.

In our backyard in the 80s there was this huge old tire that someone had cut open and made into a decorative piece for the flowerbed. In a dream I had as a teenager I witnessed a rape occur in that tire from the kitchen window that looked down on it. That was shortly after I had my first brush with death.

In 1991 at Children's Hospital of Detroit a ten-year-old me lay bandaged from head to toe, jacked on morphine, unknowingly fighting textbook odds against a rare form of illness associated with complications like blindness and death. Slowly over the years after recovery, my skin went back to its normal color, my doctor visits stopped, and I forgot all about it. It was like burying a bomb; instead of exploding, it sprouted.

It grew into a destructive and terrifying thing nobody had a name for.

Exnolalovers Unite!

2011-06-07T22:30:00.000-07:00

I always say the same thing about New Orleans, LA....

The thought usually comes somewhere along that endless bridge over the swampland just west of the city, "I don't know when I'm ever going to get back to this place." And then I immediately begin to miss it. Its been over ten years since I left that city and although it was the right thing to do I never quite got over it. Feelings linger in me, waiting for my ears to catch just a snippet of some popular song of that era as a cue to crescendo. (Train's Meet Virginia comes to mind). I would bet its probably like that for a lot of ex-NOLA-lovers.

We stumbled into Snake and Jake's one night. It was years ago already and I don't even remember how we got there. This was during my fearful antisocial years when I needed heavy alcohol to heavily socially lubricate myself. I couldnt recognize it as a bar in my drunkenness. It looked like somebody's burned out garage. In my state it must have looked something like the house of a cartoon witch - deep within a forest of old old oak trees. I flirted heavily with a girl from DC that I didn't find attractive at all and about the only thing I remember was our conversation.

"Dude. Don't move to DC. Ever. Don't do it."

In that cramped space under a number enough strands of christmas lights to violate at least three city codes we talked about how New Orleans was dirty, and how we loved it just for that. How living in New Orleans made you feel connected with people in a way that living in other places did not; Detroit and DC in particular. If you can swing it, New Orleans is a great place to live. I just couldn't swing it. Not when I was 18.

I wonder sometimes now what it would be like to live there at 30. The city is so tiny that you can't help but feel that its your own. Take a walk down any one of those crooked, deserted streets just after the sun goes down and listen for it; the sound of expectation, the anticipation of more noise. It could be any noise. The roll and pop of the streetcar. The bass of a car stereo system passing by. Voices singing. Hours may go by in between these events, but something else will come. Always. Find a seat in some off-the-beaten-path bar after midnight and the cast of characters in it will continue to rotate.

New Orleans is unstoppable. Age hasn't stopped it. Modernization hasn't stopped it. Not even hurricanes have stopped it. Even now the city bounces back with a vengeance. Newly swept and painted streets tell hundred-some-year-old stories from a new perspective. Even the newest blacktop gives way to cobblestone in spots. People still talk to you, even if you are a stranger. This unfaltering spirit is what gives the town such character; sought after like a fountain of youth. Reflecting on it now makes me want to go back. Soon, I hope.

Remembering/Forgetting two of the hardest years of my life

2011-03-24T00:58:00.001-07:00

When I was 25 I was addicted.

To cigarettes, no. Alcohol - that was earlier. Hardcore drugs, not quite. When I was 25 I was addicted to Houston, Texas. I couldn't get enough.

Houston is a very large, very full city full of warm smiling people and 24 hour restaurants of every different sort. There's no zoning in the city proper so the streets are all crooked, cracked, and disproportional, kind of like some of the houses, and the people also. The residents of Houston, TX are unlike any you meet anywhere else. They look different, they act different, and some of them talk a little bit different. People are very interesting looking and beautiful; dark exotic combinations of Hispanic and Asian genes. And you also have your standard silver-haired Texecutives and Bottle Blondes with tits to Jupiter; all with varying degrees of southern twang, and all friendly. I loved every bit of it and I still do.

I don't get there as much anymore but I think probably the greatest memories I have from my 20s, which are going to end in a minute (an event for which I will not shed a single tear as I am probably the happiest person in the history of the universe to be turning 30; believe it), originated in Houston. The last time I drank until I puked was in Houston, TX (hopefully we will leave this memory fondly in place in Houston and not drag it to another city to be revisited any time soon). Alexa and I kicked ass at the pool table that night too. I sank 6 or 7 shots in a row and then fucked up by scratching on the 8 ball - not uncommon for me. The first time I played piano for a large audience and got PAID was there at Leon's lounge and it occurred on some out of tune baby grand with a collection of perfect strangers who threw money at me for playing pretty much the only songs I can well enough; Love Song and Wicked Game. I drank for free that night. And of course, my best memories are of the friends I met from going there time after time.

I couldn't make friends in my own city. The reason why used to be a mystery to me, one that I grieved over. It wasn't rocket science. Being young, and new to a strange place so different from the one where I grew up with its cacti and sand in lieu of green trees and gray skies, one where I didn't really know a single soul, still carrying a strong residue of my awkward teenage years provided an atmosphere that catered to retreat. I tried and tried to break out of my shell and just kept getting more exhausted. Something was wrong, and as grateful as I was (and still am) to have had the support of a few coworkers holding me up, this kind of support was not very well-received as it was received under some very false pretenses.

But thats done now. Its a new day. I'm reflecting because I managed to stir up a very strong memory tonight on one of my tragic melodramatic trips down memory lane. I happened to drive by the apartment complex where I used to live and so I swung in, parked the car and took a little walk. Most of the people I knew there are gone; thats how it goes with apartments. The doors and walls of all of the units had been painted these varying lush and somewhat red versions of terra cotta (these colors are popular here, who knows what they're called - blood in the sand, perhaps?) from their former color, which I don't even remember now.

It looked good. There was a candy machine and a coke machine next to the ancient pepsi machine out by the pool - which I never used until I moved out. I strolled past them on the path up to my old place - apartment 1023. I proceeded past it, as I'm obviously not going to go in and camp out in front of the couch drinking diet pepsi all night and playing guitar like I would have if I lived there, passing the apartment next to it, which seemed to no longer be inhabited by the nice elderly German lady who was my neighbor (she was in her 80s), and the apartment next to that (which no longer had the plants I had become so accustomed to seeing out on the front porch) toward the parking lot. I couldnt even remember which spot had been mine.

I've forgotten much of it already, but somehow I get this feeling that the apartment itself has not. I almost want to knock on the door and ask the newbies if they can feel my emotional stain still in place. I guess I didn't realize it at the time, but I was very unhappy within those 700 square feet of space. Maybe they ought to rub the place down with sage. As I came back down the walk though, heading toward my car, I did remember one thing. In early 2007, after returning from a refreshing week in Houston where we had celebrated a new friend's 24th birthday that has lived on in legend ever since, I strolled down that path with my suitcase behind me, popping and rolling over the squares of sidewalk, to find my lease renewal within the jaws of the clip on the wall just beside my door handle. I remember sitting in Alexa's car that morning in Houston, telling a friend how much I did not want to return to Phoenix and seeing the lease hanging by my door just cemented it into place.

Thankfully its a new day (with many new people ;) Thankfully my life is in a better place; one thats more comfortable. Someone I still respect a lot told me once that when it comes to jobs and cities and..well, everything, "You're going to move around until you're comfortable." Since then I've learned to be watchful of the things that make me uncomfortable. Its tricky business.

These things sometimes come in a form I do not expect.

Phoenix, Take 7

2011-03-17T01:34:00.000-07:00

Its the sixth anniversary of my move to Phoenix.

6 whole years. Bring it on #7.

You Don't Have to Fuck These People or Raise Their Babies.

2011-03-17T01:18:00.000-07:00

Its always like this

Me and a cup of tea. Dim lighting. The clock hour hand swung back around onto the single digit side. There's something refreshing about the night.

And something exhausting. When you work your life away; I enjoy it though. If I wasn't constantly preoccupied with something I would be a puddle of mess. My mind finds things to be preoccupied with; its who I am. I don't have a facebook, I just remain a ghost, lingering in the background of other peoples photos. You don't need to know who I am.

I liked it when it was my journal. Then it was my livejournal. Then it was myspace - which was cool because there were pictures and music. Facebook was the beginning of a new terrain I didn't want to cross into, especially with my job being where it was. DId you know that 1 out of 5 divorces are because of facebook. How many people are fired because of it? Thats the last thing I need is for one of my friends to write something absolutely ha-larious on my wall that my coworkers do not think is hilarious. Thats why I have 2 phones too. That, and I sell drugs, of course.

I just need to write. I need to sort this out and I have learned the hard way that I need to do it courteously and not involve other people that are not going to understand it in it. This is my deal. I had a long conversation with a coworker today, who is one hell of a resource, about the psychology of business. Business is all psychology. Its not evil that you have to become a different person for your job, its just reality, because your job is not - Reality that is.

Your job is not who you are. You don't have to fuck these people or raise their babies. You don't have to arrange their funerals even though sometimes you would like to ;) These are hard lessons to learn. Its a good thing I learned them fairly quick. This is also why celebrities are also always getting called out for being dipshits and douchebags; people really don't understand that they are real people forced to live their lives in front of a camera. Count me out.

And Hollywood.....has inspired a lot of great songs and movies. Like a good friend of mine said, "I loved it until I lived there." I'll keep my Lover City, Phoenix AZ, although San Diego is quite seductive even though there is never any place to park.

In a lot of ways I feel about my writing the way I feel about my job; I don't need to do it to be funny. I don't need to do it to be cool. I love it when I do manage to do these things and hope I hone the craft enough to one day put it on display. But I don't need a lot of people to see it. I don't need it to make people like me like I don't need to play the guitar to try to be sexy (even though it does feel good every once in awhile even if I only do it on weeknights in my bed in front of my cats and a portable DVD player with Penelope Cruz all over its ass trying to get me used to the way the Spanish language sounds when its spoken out loud)...

I just kind of need it to help me get back on track after my quarterlife quake.

2011-03-09T20:21:00.001-08:00

One of my old friends is a successful entrepreneur.

One of my old friends is a biotech research manager.

One of my old friends is in a famous band.

I don't talk to any of them; I just stalk them online every now and again.

The enormous pride that I feel at knowing these incredible people is....well...its enormous.

I used to sit tight at moments of recollection like this, trying like hell to avoid the intense feeling that my life had somehow gone astray.

I don't feel like that anymore.

But every once in awhile...for a second...I feel like I was stuck for a few years of my life.

Its not a good feeling. It was so much worse when I was actually there and in denial of it.

Denial in a way is worse than the inability to realize your dream because its the inability to realize reality, and then, in a sense, its better, because in your own reality, you can create your own dream.

Yes this is what I spent nights awake thinking about..

I was so stupid.

Don't be stupid; surround yourself with people who have class. Intelligence.

Surround yourself with people who will tell you what they think, even if it might hurt a little.

Be true to yourself so that you can find the people who will like you for who you are, make way for the opportunities that will benefit you, and live the life that will suit you - one that you will enjoy.

Because it might not last long.

And if thats too negative for you than clap your hands, Tinkerbell.

Clap them until they bleed.

2011-03-09T19:55:00.001-08:00

There are no kids in this house,

and there never will be. At least not while I'm in it.

Its not sad. More of a relief.

I used to tell myself I didn't like kids. But I do.

Then I used to say I couldn't be a dad. Maybe I could.

I don't really care about the dad part - its the lifestyle I'm not cut out for.

I like quiet too much (and expensive ties).

I don't want to drive my SUV to costco on Sundays...

Its just not me; I aim to travel the world.

A friend in the inner circle called and told me she was pregnant.

I was ecstatic.

I have more fun watching my friends have kids than almost anything.

Marriages...jobs....divorce... thats all just routine stuff

(Don't tell anyone but I do get excited about divorce).

I thought this stuff was all going to be so foreign when I was young but it seems like more of the same shit really...

I want the different shit.

On Being a Fraud

2011-03-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

The night had that liquid velvet feeling.

Sadness really is a disease; recovery is slow, and little by little, you gain use of parts (of your mind) that stopped working.

I'm glad I was never 'one of the guys.'

Dudes talk about the absolute dumbest shit.

And fist bumps? Yea....I've expressed how I feel about that in text messages.

(Comic gold that will not be shared in an uncopyrighted arena such as blogger)

I don't have a facebook.

I never wanted one.

My mind is an ever-changing story.

When you miss 4 or 5 chapters, seriously, do yourself a favor and put the book down.

There will be no hard feelings about it. It just is what it is; The Past.

They say 1 in 5 divorces is brought on because of facebook.

Are they sure its just 1?

Like my neighbor at work said the other day, "its not even an accident waiting to happen - its already happened....you know what I mean?"

He always says "you know what I mean."

Its like the way I always say "Basically"

Creatures of habit we all are.

Your feelings might change, but your instinct is more stubborn.

Feelings and instinct are not the same thing.

When the two contradict eachother, its hard to figure out which needs to change.

My instincts were always pretty solid.

Feelings on the other hand....not so much, huh?

Convincing yourself and others around you that you are not who you are is tricky business.

If you get really good at it, you kind of become the new person.

Eventually, you will be confronted by the old person, and the old person may even win the confrontation and decide to take the control back.

If this happens, everyone that met you as the new person might is at a loss.

But you are at more of one, because you are the one who knows what a fraud you are.

Sleep, and other things I like...

2011-02-09T23:14:00.000-08:00

Do you think famous people ever dream about being anonymous?

Working a job at a bank, maybe, or in a hospital overnight - so they can come home and watch movies and drink coffee all day?

Its not bad really.

Normal life is not bad.

Its sort of like that old saying, 'You don't have to have a lot of money to have style.'

I guess you don't have to have a lot of profile to live a large life.

I like music, but I think I like quiet even more; thats probably why I gravitated toward writing as a hobby. But I always wanted to be in a band.

Come to think of it, I don't really know why anymore; I don't envy my friends in bands.

Not really. (Maybe a little)

You always work with someone thats not as committed as you, spending time in bars - gravitating toward a late-night lifestyle, doing songs that probably at least half-bore-the-shit-out-of-you at least half of the time.

I just want to learn a few songs and take them to an open mic.

I used to give myself these guilt trips; I was like a walking guilt trip.

Regretting that I hadn't done this or that with my life, that I wasn't here or there by this age.

29 is still pretty young.

When your car goes into the ditch, I guess there's no point in focusing where you're not going - the focus should be on getting your car out of the fucking ditch.

My car was in the ditch for awhile....

Not being depressed is probably the single greatest thing I ever did for myself;

Picking a puddle of mess up off the floor and having enough clout to say,

"This is NOT how I'm about to roll for another decade."

If you stay in one room too long, not only will the carpet get vacuumed around you, the housekeepers will expect you to remain there as well.

Surround yourself by people who move you.

Become someone who moves.

If you find someone to get in your way, ask them to kindly step out of it, move around them, or lastly, move them.

Just be careful - they will resist.

I like my early mornings, the gym, and my little office where nobody ever bothers me...

even though I get lonely back there sometimes.

I like my house with my 2 cats (its technically their house)

And I like my summer trips to California, and Texas.

I love Santa Monica Pier, and I love my friends and my parents.

And life, even if it was a struggle to get this one,

Or maybe because it was a struggle to get this one.

I haven't written in a long time, or played any music.

I guess I was lucky; I was given an opportunity that was entirely different and it entirely changed my thinking.

Like that saying, 'Its the journey, not the destination.'

After two hallmark card sayings in one entry thats probably a good place to stop.

I also love my sleep. :) ZZzzz

You're So Cool

2010-12-03T23:07:00.000-08:00

Some things don’t go away.

I can remember what shirt I had on the day of that funeral. I can remember the color and the way it felt. Its cool blue fabric was stitched together in a way that allowed the breeze of late summer Michigan air through its pores, rustling the hair on the back of my neck behind the collar . I remember I wore that shirt helping somebody move earlier that summer. It was one of those shirts, kinda like a polo, that you could dress up or dress down. Made of an indestructible, snagless material that held its own against the corners of cardboard boxes, and ink pens alike, yet with sleeves soft enough to wipe my face that day. It was a button down. One of the last short sleeve ones I ever had - I never wear those anymore.

Now, I dress. I dress in the way that all nakedly ambitious and destructively power hungry young men dress; in ties, and blazers. In slacks and cardigan sweaters. Watches and hard-sole shoes. I should be embarrassed of how well I do it, but shame is something I have learned not to wear in public, like most of my true emotions. In the mornings while I'm holding my hands close to my chest, manipulating the buttons of my shirt I find it best to say a little prayer to myself in remembrance that this is all just a costume and not really who I am.

But I need to pretend.

I didn’t cry that night. I didn’t really even cry at the funeral. But a week later, randomly, when I returned back to school I found myself crying in the back corner of the library with a friend who offered me tissue as she watched from her identical plastic chair on the other side of our isolated little table, stunned, wondering where this had all come from. I don’t even talk to her anymore. That was ten years ago.

I used to be able to cry on command. I was sure my parents hated me for it. Their subtly confused facial expressions were enough evidence at the time. I was no tough guy. No football hero. Just a sullen kid that wasn’t weird enough for any single cruel label in particular, so instead subject to a hundred. Girls didn’t talk to me. I was not, “one of the guys.” I didn’t own a single football jersey or baseball cap and I spent my time after school playing the piano. Where I grew up, that didn’t make me any more marketable as “the sensitive type.”

Slowly throughout the ensuing decade I shopped for personality traits that would better suit my purpose; to be taken seriously. I always said I hated symbol worship until I realized it applied to clothing. My voice needed work too. It was painful for me to listen to; awkwardly high at times, squeaky even. I never landed the gig as a rock singer I always secretly hoped for, so I tried like hell to be one. I grew my hair and I took up guitar. I spent hours at the gym, where I would watch other guys interact with eachother like animals at the zoo. I was always trying to figure out what I was missing.

The attitude wasn’t enough. Around every corner was someone I had been to middle school with who knew another version of the truth. They could see through the veneer of thrift clothing and rockstar boots to my inner weirdo. I was never going to mature out of loserhood unless I escaped, and so, shortly after my 23^rd birthday, I left Michigan and moved to a place where I knew nobody, and more importantly, nobody knew me.

I packed that shirt along with a dozen others that I never wore again; some of which are still hanging in my closet. It seems like a single momentous day is attached to each one. There’s the black one with the plain white buttons that I got on clearance for six bucks. It had short sleeves too. I wore it one night when a friend and I were the party stars at a bar near Mack and Alter. Some of the homes that line the river channel there still have the boat docks in the back that were used to smuggle booze during prohibition. Then there’s the blue dragon tshirt with the high sleeves that I slipped on the first night I arrived in Savannah, Georgia and didn’t take off for the next two days. It still smelled like River Street as I was packing it to go home. The blue button down, however, had a particularly vivid memory attached to it. All these years, and all these miles, and all these ideas of an identity later and I still remember that.

I’ve since reached out for a new life. It was a long reach, fraught with bare, painful emotion that took time to grasp anything fruitful. I was desperate to connect with somebody – either a friend or a lover, but after many unstable trials it started to seem like I was doomed to disconnect from everybody. As I slowly met people I’d find myself out and about, in the middle of a crowd having a great time one moment, only to be sitting on the floor in my small apartment moments later with a silent phone that held only the phone numbers of friends in faraway places and my parents. To this day I’m not sure which was worse; being alone or pretending I wasn’t.

This was before I had a managerial level job. My clothes were a few years out of style since I never bought anything new. I didn’t find it necessary. I rarely went anywhere other than to work on the night shift at the hospital – which should have been almost entirely insignificant except that it was the bulk of my life. At that point I was still reaching and hadn’t yet managed to get ahold of anything solid enough to use to pull myself up. When I finally did, it happened all of a sudden, and I tricked myself even better this time that I had forgotten about everything that had happened before.

It seemed like that was eons ago, until yesterday at work when a coworker and I were talking about suicide. She said she had known somebody whose daughter had hung herself quite a few years back – a tragedy all but forgotten. The funeral was an open-casket, and on the daughter’s neck there was a very visible mark. That was the last time my coworker ever went up to the casket at a funeral. I didn’t have any Kleenex this time. It didn’t take a week for me to react either. Suddenly I found myself in tears; my coworker sitting across the desk from me, wondering where all of this had come from.

Necktie or not, I could have sworn I felt the hair on the back of my neck rustle behind the collar of that blue shirt as I myself gazed down into an open casket for the last time, looking at a very similar mark.

Frenemies

2010-11-24T22:04:00.001-08:00

Main Entry:	frenemy
Part of Speech:	n
Definition:	a person who pretends to be a friend but isactually an enemy; a rival with which one maintains friendly relations

Its stressful to have a frenemy.

Make the executive decision and alleviate the situation; decide that the person is your enemy. Like the saying goes, keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Make the choice; nothing on that person's part will change. They will simply be moved into the category where they belong - so every time they start acting a fool, it will not disrupt the balance, but rather, be right on par with what is expected.

Its like the feeling of waiting for someone to hit you. Like taking a slow-motion punch. For eons, you know its coming, but you still have to decide what it will feel like, because you don't know yet. How bad will it hurt? Will it damage my teeth? Will it break my nose? Like that feeling of falling, at the exact second you realize its going to happen, it happens, but still somehow there's that feeling of watching a pot boil in between.

Constantly hearing things that you question whether or not are true, constantly feeling as if you've done something wrong, or upset somebody, constantly worrying if you can trust somebody; these things are not exactly the cornerstones of friendship. Just draw the line.

It exists whether or not you choose to see it anyway.

Cosmonaut Dream Log: $156000

2010-08-30T06:21:00.000-07:00

Right.

"You're just going to give me this money?"

He looked at me with a face of certainty. A chiseled jaw as solid as rock and eyes unflinching until he smiled.

"Thats our job. You're our future."

"Right but...you don't even know anything about me now?!"

"It doesn't matter."

Random. I didn't ask any questions. I took the money and ran. I tucked the check in my pocket and looked over my shoulder approximately every 1.5 seconds until I reached the Chase Bank in Flagstaff, or wherever. $165000. Way more than I needed. Grad school only costs 25. Grand, not dollars. (Are you fucking kidding me). I'll go to the school right here in town. Evenings, online, whatever. Just give me the degree.

I hadn't seen him in ten years. No, eleven. Since New Orleans. I almost didn't even recognize him. I'm surprised he recognized me; enough to give me over 150 grand. He worked in Las Vegas somewhere. For Hugh Hefner or something. Promoting social welfare. I didn't ask.

Then I woke up, thinking, God this could make a damn good Short Story.

In Mother Russia The Dreams Have You....

Love is the Most Important Thing

2010-01-10T00:16:00.000-08:00

I don't love you.

Sitting here on the cold tile floor in front of the heat vent; the only saving grace in this old house that leaks like a sieve through the winter, I'm thinking about what that means. The drapes around the window rustle slightly as the icy whisper of mother nature finds its way into the conversation I am having with myself. I'm just pretending the windows are there for a reason, like you are pretending I am.

The space heater is in the bedroom, still blowing at the bed from its usual spot on the wooden floor, in front of the oversize red shag rug that the bed is parked on. I never bothered to pick my clothes up after you left. I just went for my robe; a gift from someone else, and the coffeepot. I still stay up at night wondering how these things happen. Who would want to do this in a freezing hundred some year old house within the confinement of a three foot range of heated air? Apparently we would. The only question surrounding this desperation is who I hate more, you or myself?

Its not a mystery anymore. This is not a 'let the chips fall where they may' scenario. There's no way to look at you ever again without fully acknowledging that I am using you for sex. I'm not even that attracted to you, its the thrill of it that does it for me. I'm not going to ever call you just to talk. You haven't met my friends and I don't plan on introducing you. I cross my fingers in my pocket whenever we're out hoping that we won't run into anyone I know.

One time when we were at the movie theatre I saw one of my work buddies buying popcorn and strolled right past him without saying anything. Maybe you saw him too, but seeing as how the two of you were perfect strangers you could have given him your driver's license and he would have never figured out who you were. Maybe you could have even exchanged numbers and started dating, it wouldn't have even bothered me. He already knows everything about you sexually.

In the beginning I met your parents, In the beginning it was for real. Give it a try. Why not. A little companionship will do you good. Then I told you that it wasn't working for me, the way that I had planned to in case what I anticipated would happen happened. But somewhere the line blurred. You called me a few months later and somehow my need for something real overlooked the fact that this was not real and then it became real in a very unreal way. Whats a proper ending to something that never properly began. I still remember sitting around this same kitchen in my boxers that night, a few summers ago wondering that exact question.

The sound of my cellphone vibrating against the floor hurls me back into the reality of the present as I realize my best friend is calling from California. I don't pick up. We haven't talked in forever and there is too much to catch up on to attempt now. The half pot of coffee in the coffee maker beckons dangerously; I'll probably just wind up telling him about you anyway. The confusion is beginning to get to me. And, seeing as how he knows me better than myself sometimes he will probably tell me something that will play on my mind for hours afterward. He has a very cunning and skilled way of doing this without pissing people off.

It doesn't matter. I have to work and you're not worth losing sleep over. Thats kind of what this is all about anyway. Who has time for relationships? You're a big girl. You know the rules. You should be ok. I've admitted the truth to myself and you should be able to do the same. Even if you call again. Even if we do this again, for another couple years. Even if I continue to feel all of these other feelings that I cannot figure out, at least I've figured out that I don't love you.

And love is the most important thing.

Burn in Hell, Lumbhergs of the World.

2010-01-06T01:19:00.001-08:00

I caught Office Space on TV this weekend....

TNT or some shit. I don't know.

One of those networks that turns a 90 minute movie into a three hour event, injecting an extra 90 minutes of commercials while editing all the swear words out. You know, not like, a beep, or just an erasing of sound altogether but the way they do it is actually an art-form of lameass politically correct compliance that destroys all of the trademark lines in the movie.

For example, picture Peter dreaming about the trial he will have when he is found out about the Superman 2 virus; the judge is towering over him, ready to stab the air with the gavel and threatening in his menacing judge-voice. I expected to hear, "Peter Gibbons, you will be sentenced to a Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Prison," but this classic line somehow morphed into, "Federal Pound-Me-Into-Ash Prison."

LAME. But I'm not even mad about it, I get it. Kids watch this shit. Good. Let them learn about the evils of corporate dictatorships while they are young so they will be prepared. Show these children the way - Show them that you need not have dreadlocks and hoes to be a gangsta, that even if you're white and you work for a software programming company in Dallas that may as well be fictional, you can still roll like you from Compton or Tha D.... Its the situation, not the scenery.

I so identified with that character growing up. I knew I would wind up where he was, I knew I would have some kind of douche, know-it-all gradiose unholy joke of a boss and I knew I would find a way out of the situation, just like he did. I even got the sexy girlfriend. But it was tough. I worked for a few cows. I had bizarre coworkers. There were days when I was in my internship where it felt just like that scene where the 3 guys go over to Chotchkie's (sp?) to have coffee and sit there in front of that red-checkered tablecloth, in those tiny seats looking miserable and ask the age-old question to eachother, "what if we're still doing this when we're 50." Chris and Justin and I used to do that.....

Glad that shit is over.

222 Means a Six Shot Latte Morning.

2009-05-12T02:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was impressed by something least expected.

Glass in my eye.

2008-10-20T20:02:00.000-07:00

There was blood everywhere. Blood in front of me. Blood behind me. Blood to the side of me. Blood all over my hands. It was a typical days work in the hospital lab - "the dungeon" as I like to refer to it. Its in the basement where there are no windows and crazy smells. There's even the occasional tortured scream. The place sometimes seems like a torture chamber.

"Hey man, you wanna do this one real quick before you go to lunch?" I turned in the swivel chair that was too high for me to face my coworker, who was offering a specimen with a smile and said that I surely would, took the specimen from him and turned back to the microscope and within minutes, resumed hunching over. Lots of things in labs are not built for blundering hairy apes over six feet tall such as myself. The predominant gender in this sect of the workforce is that of the female, and the predominant height is a height well under my own.

Extra large latex gloves can sometimes be a challenge to find, along with extra large labcoats, and extra large face masks. Extra large egos, however, can be found effortlessly. Extra large materials for my extra large hook hands to work with would be nice also but this, in terms of the extra tight budget all laboratories tend to be on this is a completely extra unrealistic fantasy. Labs are good at budgeting. I have a theory that this is because labs are full of frugal women who are good at prioritizing and unlikely to take risks. The nursing workforce, on the other hand, makes me wonder how nurses can receive up to $20000 sign on bonuses when healthcare is allegedly undergoing a huge crisis, but I see I digress as usual.

Flashback to me in an undersized swivel chair hunching over a microscope counting blood cells. This time I'm counting what you call reticulocytes. Retics (for short) are immature red blood cells that have been pushed into blood circulation early as a protective measure against some traumatic event, like a severe loss of blood. This particular procedure usually involves manually counting at least 1000 red blood cells under a microscope and determining the percentage of retics present. Yes, it sucks. Usually two glass slides are prepared with patient blood and 1000 cells are counted on each. Afterwards the counts are compared to maintain accuracy.

So, in switching from the first slide to the second slide, I go to secure the slide onto the stage of the microscope using the little metal clasp most microscope stages come equipped with, and my large fingers lose their grip, letting the small clasp fly back into position against the corner of the glass as the glass chips, and (>FLING<) lodges a tiny piece of glass just behind my lower eyelid.

And that is the story of how I got glass in my eye. And yes, I did get it out with no trouble.

Terrible Cliches Exist For a Reason

2008-09-15T15:41:00.001-07:00

Its hot, and I need to shower, and thats pretty much how I feel on the inside too - in need of cleansing.

I slept 15 hours last night. I had to. I had to get away from my thoughts. The things that we require emotionally as human beings are not always, or dare I venture to say, NEVER what we first anticipate needing. Sometimes they are the exact opposite of what we want. Sometimes the right thing to do is the thing that scares the hell out of you. Sometimes these questions plague you until you cannot do anything but think about them. Sometimes you can't sleep, or eat, or even leave the house. So here I am, leg sticking to the leg of the desk in my bedroom, in my apartment, in Arizona, lost in a world of thought.

What the fuck is it in me that has such twisted requirements and why? Is it really my ego - and does it need these things to compensate for a lack of self confidence?

Look at the relationships people choose to get themselves into. Everyone knows somebody, at least ONE person, who gets into one bad relationship after another after an even worse one. The whole while this person doesn't seem to realize that instead of addressing the issues they obviously have with themselves, they create more issues. I suppose these people have an insane fear of being alone because they don't know how to face themselves. Sounds terribly cliche, I know, but there's a reason for terrible cliches.

In the meantime I still need to clean my apartment. Its probably not going to happen today.

Like A Herd of Cows

2008-09-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

"Thats a great idea. When I started here I wondered how that worked - is there some hierarchy of authority or all we all just like....cattle in a field?"

This was me voicing my opinion about the new scheme they are trying to implement at my job, although I had not yet recognized it as a scheme. Career track. Graduation of authority. Supervisory plan. Bullshit. Whatever you choose to call it.

Actually, I'm all for it to tell the truth, but I am no longer under the impression it will make much difference. The deal is you have the team, then you have the team lead, then the assistant supervisor, and then the supervisor. Its good that they finally added titles to these positions because they had previously existed without being recognized.

The con is, they may not actually involve much of a pay raise. Or at least thats what everyone has been saying. One rather notorious coworker of mine explained it to me.

"Oh its complete bullshit. There isn't goona be any more money. I even asked, I said ' so these positions involve more money' and The Director says, 'I didn't say that,' and so I ask, 'so they're NOT going to involve more money and he says, 'I didn't say that.' Everyone was laughing. Yea - what a joke. You can't fucking fool me I've been doing this shit too long and I have had EVERY one of those positions. It doesn't mean shit."

Management; its all about TRICKS. Maybe we really are just cattle.

Tea and Toast Fueled Thoughts of Breeding and Best in Show

2008-09-13T00:37:00.000-07:00

Its dark.

I move through the seven hundred some square foot apartment I inhabit, back and forth from the kitchen to the bedroom with barely any light, ready to sink my fangs into whatever food is left in the house. Another cup of tea, another slice of toast. Another cup of tea, another slice of toast. Tea and toast tea and toast tea and toast. Most of the time my food supply runs on bare bones like this. The floor must play host to at least 1000 crumbs.

At night the thoughts come. This is why people like myself gravitate towards it - the night. Mysterious and powerful qualities have been attributed to the fall of the sun by probably every culture throughout all of history. Something about brain waves slowing down causes neurotic minds like mine to move in a more comfortable rhythm.

I can still hear the laughter of a coworker telling the story of a twelve year old grandson who asked a girl in his class out.

"It was so cute! He said, 'Nana....I asked a girl out.' Really quick. and I said, 'Oh. Where are you going with her?' And he kind of looked at me strangely and so I said, 'Oh! You mean like, to be your girlfriend?' And then he said, 'yea.' So I asked, 'What made you decide to do that?'

The answer was I don't know. Is this a raging example of social programming, or is it just me? Cute story though.

It happens all the time. I'm at work minding my own business, and all of a sudden somebody drags their kid in. There the kid is, bouncing and gurgling, face full of food and hair full of tangle, and I feel bad for a second, because I really don't fucking care. Maybe I'm just that far gone. Either way its good for a laugh. I usually lean over to my gay coworker and whisper, "So whose goona win best in show this year?"

And we laugh and laugh and laugh.....