Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in shirtyyid's LiveJournal:

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Friday, April 4th, 2008
11:56 am	My cat is an established murderer It's been a long while since I've posted. I could say that there was a reason for it or that I had some great insight into the disposition of the human condition and thus was wrapped up in something that was beyond that which could be typed into LJ. The reality is that I've been distracted, annoyed, busy, and fucking lazy with this whole sharing thing. The last two months have had no shortage of stuff going on. El Rae and I went to California and I got to introduce her to the completely insane semi-(dys)function that is my immediate maternal family. Using my awesome powers of manipulation and political maneuvering the two of us got out of So Cal without having our minds implode and all of our hair fall out. The previous traveling took me out to Seattle where I had an incredible indulgence of my id and consumed a metric assload of buckets of different kinds of really awesome wines. Work has reached a steady pace of annoying insanity. Thankfully the company is hiring another tech in the upcoming week or two and that person will likely start just as soon as I am leaving with The Dude to see England and France. This is long overdue because this week has been painfully painful. It's one of those periods in life where things stop working because they feel like it and decide that fucking with my chi is the role of every computer on the planet. As of a few days ago Amadeus turned 4 and two weeks before that Oscar turned 1. Oscar, my intrepid gray cat, found a nest of field mice out by the chicken coop under one of the hay bails. Given the title of this entry one can probably guess what happened to some 50 or so mice who insides were playfully shown off by Oscar who "relocated" various parts of various animals in interesting combinations. Now I'm just trying to get through this Friday to get home and maybe even get some restful sleep. I haven't been home in a couple days and could really use a peaceful moment or two. With any luck the computer dieties will stop giving me work, allow me to relax, and the pain will go away when the new BSG ep airs tonight. I can't wait to see Starbuck lay the smackdown on all those people and cylons who are just asking for it. I can't wait for drinking beers on the flight from Denver to Heathrow with The Dude. I can't wait for the invention of the 2 in 1 chiropractor/deep tissue massager that takes nothing but a 9 volt battery to run and I can pull it out of the closet when I need use of its services. I can't wait for Gin and tonic. Or a large french fry. Or the next great irony. M Current Mood: tired (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
10:48 am	Amy Winehouse is Homeless! This is a sad day. I hope they have it repaired by the time The Dude and I head out that way in April. Otherwise we'll end up being homeless too. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSL1330891220080213?feedType=RSS&feedName=entertainmentNews -M Current Mood: sad (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 10th, 2008
4:45 pm	One Day, One Room A day after I posted my last journal entry I got a great big lesson last night about why the lesson contained in the previous post is so incredibly relevant. For any of those not watching my journal as the entries lay vacant and untouched for weeks until suddenly I bust out with a new catharsis, I've been dealing with finding peace in the everyday conflict that is usual, unclear, good-old humanity. This morning I woke up to a personal conflict with a friend that may (or may not end up ... we'll see) being an unfortunate conversation. Once more I find myself in the place of balancing loyalties and what constitutes truth, or what constitutes "the right thing", in inter-personal relationships. As is always the case, there is no right or wrong answer. There are only collections of opposing right answers and opposing wrong answers. So over coffee and 'House' episodes this morning I sat there contemplating and meditating over my situation (one that I will not spill the specifics of this morning and last night's situation in this journal because the specific conflict is not as important as the nature of what the conflict represents. Bottom line, the human inter-personal conflict is a much more important and vastly more educational and entertaining set of questions and precisely what this journal is about) than the specific happenings in my little, little world. Anyone who knows me is aware that I am disdainful of television. Occasionally, though, specific programs come along that give me something creative or insightful or perverse to chew on. When I'm really lucky, something comes on the t.v. that incorporates all three of these things. This is the case with the television show "House". Brief synopsis: House is the quintessential "anti-hero". He is disrespectful, disturbing, unattached to common social mores and does whatever he can, with little or no regard to others, to solve his problems and satisfy his curiosity. The catch is, he's solving the mysterious illnesses no one else can solve and those are what constitutes his curiosities/problems. Bottom line, he's a complete asshole while saving people's lives and helping them leap back from the deep dark pit of despair we call "death". So this morning I put on ep 12 in season 3 "One Day, One Room" in which House is put in the odd situation of being the only doctor a rape-victim will talk to, or accept treatment from, when she contracts an STD after being sexually assaulted. House, being careful not to be too closely in contact with humanity defers to every doctor besides himself to rid himself of the responsibility of helping a young woman whose been victim to one of the worst transgressions humanity ever thought up. The part of this show that I am fascinated by is specifically what lies within the gray area of what we constitute as acting morally or immorally in human relations. Unlike fixing a ceiling, or a computer, or a kidney stone, human interaction doesn't have a black and white way of dealing with things. Relationships between two good people can dissolve into animosity or conflict not just because one person wronged the other, but because two people can genuinely think they are doing the right thing, even be objectively judged as doing the right thing (as best as any of us can do objective) and still have the opposing party, who is equally correct and equally well meaning, come up with two decent sides with two reasonable points, end up being at each others throats while being hurt and angry despite the fact that each is equally just in their dispositions. House: "Why do you trust me?" Woman: "I don't know. Can't we..." House: "That's not rational!" Woman: "Nothing's rational!" House: "Everything is rational!" Woman: "I was raped. Explain how that makes sense to you." House: "We are selfish base animals crawling across the Earth. Because we have brains, if we try really hard, we can occasionally aspire to something that is less than pure evil." Woman: (Pause) "Has anything terrible ever happened to you?" House: "What do you want me to say?" Woman: "You wanted this conversation. You wanted to talk about something that matters. Talk." In recent months I've run into conflict with a couple of friends where I acted in a manner I thought was with love and the correct intentions and the "right call" in my mind and in my heart. In each one of those instances I've found myself in a severe fight afterward and have had it thrust in my face that I did something wrong. As with anything with human relations, I'm not all correct and all incorrect. I did the best and most honest thing I could do with the information and situation I was given. And, given how human interactions inevitably work, I was right and I was wrong. I was insightful and I was inciting. I was loving and I was honest. In the episode I watched, and then rewatched today, the woman is asked repeatedly by House why she trusts him. In the end, all she can ante up is that: "There's something about you. It's like you hurt too." And that's the human paradox. In our greatest time of need, or in our greatest time of hurt, we can connect more easily with the persons who are most disconnected from us, presumably because of their disconnected objectivity, as opposed to the people who offer themselves to us 24 hours a day both imperfectly and perfectly. In some kind of close-up retrospect, I can look at this and acknowledge that I'm surely wrong on something along the way. I was also right. The same can, or should be, easily reciprocated by my "opposing party". But then again, G-d knows that it's certainly not that simple and it's certainly not that fair. One of the hardest things in human relationships is when we all do the right thing and still fuck up. We all try hard and give 110%. We all look out for the people we love with all our honour and all of our heart and it still results in a conflict with the person we're protecting. There seems to be something in the people who are less than honourable, or people who are disconnected from humanity and blatant assholes (as in the case of the House episode), who can be the perfect people to try and balance right from wrong and figure out the plight of humanity or community or oneself. Sometimes the reality is that the people we are closest to are just too close. They know to much. They're too judgmental. They have their own agenda. They want your life to be happy with a happy job and a happy relationship and a happy home. They have opinions and conclusions about how you're supposed to live your life without being privy to the one whose actually going through what you're going through (I realise here that I've stepped away from 3rd person to 1st and 2nd person with the use of words like 'you' or 'I' or 'me'). The logical fallacy about the human condition is that we try to make logical assumptions or judgments based on our own experiences which are, easily defined as, not objective, not scientific, and not representative of the entirety of the human population. We act like know-it-alls. We're not wrong in our assumptions yet we're wrong about everything we ever assumed. We're liars for pretending to know objective truth when our subjective glasses are the only thing we ever use to see when we go out during the day. We're jealous. We're mean. We're selfish bastards. And yet we're capable of love and doing good and working together against a common foe... even if the foe is not a person or living creature, but a by-product of the status quo. It's why sometimes we can get the slightly more objective stranger who doesn't know our story to talk to and spill our guts and find comfort in the brutal truth and honesty of what she or he has to say. (As opposed to the confidant who offers us the same brutal truth or honesty) That's why black and white is boring and why humanity is exceptionally interesting even after you accept the frustrating reality that there is no right and wrong in most interaction but only good luck and good timing v. bad luck and bad timing. It's why people like David Shore write characters like Gregory House. Because he's acknowledging, on the Fox network of all appropriate places, that humanity is full of decisions that are both right and wrong and that figuring out the balance therein is at least most of our mission as human kind while we roam this planet for what will ultimately only be a very very short time. It's why we have to act, wrongly or rightly, and refuse to sit on the fence out of self-loathing or self-denial and learn something profound from one another. It's why I, imperfectly, love being on this fucked up planet every day. -M (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 9th, 2008
12:19 pm	I went to the winery Wednesday and the Ameliorate Oak Goddess was pouring. Having got off work a little early on account of not having slept in three days I grabbed a bottle of the greatest red they had and headed home for a nap and a night that was a week overdue and, at the very least, should have resulted in sleep. In the end I was gone for only a couple hours when the sun came up again and I was unable to put two and two together or read off the television and nearby street sign. Of course the night spent awake till 4 am (before sleep was even attempted) still resulted in another electronical computerational solution to a bizarre problem that my roaming brain and disconnected intellect was able to piece together. Unfortunately the usual peace my mind gets with solving a problem did not lead to the usual end result of peaceful sleep that I ordinarily hope for. Instead it resulted in morning light at the wrong time and the feeling that I'm almost qualified for a study on what it feels like to give a conscious lecture while going through R.E.M. This week I kept saying to myself that I could sleep if I had a drink or I had peace or I had a bottle of pills. And because I'm a decent person who thrives on figuring out the human condition by (often) unconstructively constructively dismantling it, I spent my usual amount of time saving the world (in my tiny little microcosm) by being a brilliantly amused and constructive asshole this week. Usually this process affords me sleep. This week it was not the case. Despite finally catching up on Friday, there's a reason I couldn't sleep. It wasn't a reaction to the wine I drank or sleeping pills I refuse to take or the problem that I fixed that still didn't give me peace. It's that my brain doesn't turn off and I still have a lot of work to do to understand the universe, myself, and my immediate community. Of course it doesn't take a rocket scientist to point out that such an order is realistically impossible. I know that. What I'm realizing more and more is how I can best understand, find as much peace as I can, and learn to let go when I need to learn to let go. If I get better at that then I'll get better at sleep. Sound way too simplistic? Of course it is. But it's true. And as incomplete or imperfect as the world will always be before and after I've walked the planet, the only way we creep towards progress is to find peace in what we've accomplished and create peace in the hunger we have to do more. I know that peace and mental reprise, even for 6 hours, so that my body can reset itself is wishful thinking at best. It's also all any of us have if we're going to have any hope at moving forward, creeping ever so slowly toward progress, and making a difference. It's the reason life is worth living in the first place. We better ourselves as humans and we better our ourselves as humanity. 1 night at a time. M Current Mood: pensive (Comment on this)
Friday, February 1st, 2008
1:22 pm	almost weekend This morning started out busy and I was really hoping to have things to do and ride a wave of activity to the afternoon and get out for the weekend with a big smile on my face for getting a lot of work completed this week and kicking ass at my job. Fortunately for me I've done well and have everything done and have every reason to enjoy my accomplishments. Unfortunately for me it's barely past 1h00p and I still have to wait a couple hours for the weekend to come. This means I'm stuck at work doing nothing and waiting to see if anyone is going to give me a project to complete because I have to stay here for, at least, most of the afternoon. It's very sad. On the good side of things I've been 2 weeks now where I was congratulated at work for NOT taking smoke breaks and not buying cigarettes. I'm very proud of this and definitely patting myself on the back. I'm also going to be in Europe in April to see family I haven't seen in a while. Next month I get to see my niece in Seattle. This weekend My Cousin Vinny and I are going to hit the winery for drinks and treats. And sometime soon I get a big tax check in the post from Uncle Sam. Life isn't bad at all. Now if only the afternoon would pass by so I can get out of here. M Current Mood: bored (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 27th, 2008
8:36 pm	Just for a sister Here's boat loads of credit to a certain sister in nothern California. Anyone who can sound that cool while telling me to make my journal entries more frequent and less epic deserves extra props for laying the smack down. I definitely need to buy you dinner and a drink. You are truly fantastic and brilliant. Keep kicking ass and let me know when I can head out that way so that we can paint the town purple. M (Comment on this)
7:15 pm	I haven't consumed this many bottles of wine since early grade school This past week has been remarkably odd. It has led me to be incredibly introspective. It has led me to start to figure out some incredibly poignant queries into my universe. It has led to peace. It has led to my not smoking. It has led to decreased anxiety and increased impatience. It has led to the consumption of really really good wine. Despite a release date slated for Feb of 08 the winery over at Casa Rodena produced their new Clarion and Founders Reserve a couple weeks sooner than expected. Unaware of this seemingly premature breakthrough I entered the Casa Rodena tasting room and greeted saucy-Wine-pouring-goddess with my usual expression of warming sarcasm and dry humour. Yet despite the usual expectation of tasty reds and amusing, but less interesting, whites I was thrust upon with two new blends. Truth be told, if it hadn't been for the fact that I was on my lunch break saucy-Wine-pouring-goddess and I would have gone to town on the new stuff because it is completely rocking. Unfortunately I was invited to come back the following day with a glass of the big wet red blessing charged to the house and had to put off happiness until the weekend. In the past I've been more keen on drinking wine to dull the pain of feeling detached from the world and attempt to figure out something about humanity and how I can better relate to it. This week I'm feeling happy and more in connection with several of the folks in my life who I've felt more and more distant from over the past couple of weeks. Long and short, there's a bridge that's been built in a disconnected sorta mood I've been going through over the last bit of time. This translates into happiness and new connections with humanity. New connections with humanity mean new puzzles to figure out and new conflicts within to consider and new troubles and joys to be confused by and address. So despite the financial dent I've taken by imbibing so many really fantastic red-coloured alcoholic beverages over the past couple of days, I'm in a fantastic mood for the connection and happiness I've felt in relations with folks in my life. In just a short period of time I feel like My Cousin Vinny, The Dude, AG, El Jeffe, El Rae, 25 oz. beer woman, the Seattle people with my niece of the red curls, and even The Girl with the Focus, and I have not only made a connection with one another but figured something out. Occasionally I've worried about my consumption of wine being uncomfortably close to a problem given my ever-looming (even if ever-distant) depressing relationship with humanity. The past week I feel like I've made some progress there and thus have reason to celebrate. I don't know how far that progress goes on anyone's side or how it'll end up. I do know that it's present and affecting and beautiful. And with that in mind, Casa Rodena has a Founder's Reserve that is a steal at $43 a bottle. Grab a wee bit and get close to someone who deserves both a good love, as well as a good wine, and let your hair down. Because there's no better time than January to take it all off and run around bare and brilliant and celebratory. Because even if the temperature drops outside, that doesn't mean I won't feel it in here. And it doesn't mean that the wine will, or should, shield me from the incoming toe numbness that grumpy asshole old Mr. Winter is intent on bringing. It means that I have an opportunity to not focus on being angry and cold just because it's the easy and present thing to do and instead find something else to focus on. We'll see how it goes, where it goes, and how well it goes as time goes on. But regardless of everything else, the world feels pretty decent right now. And despite any other issues going on or crises looming in the distance, I'm glad to have an opportunity to celebrate. I'm even more grateful to have people around me to celebrate with... Current Mood: happy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 13th, 2008
6:45 pm	This weekend I spent time with My Cousin Vinny and The Dude to try and sort out the crap mood I've been in for a couple weeks. I also decided to spend time with them because Friday is one of those days that ends in the letter 'Y' and thus an opportunity to engage in whatever shenanigans the three of us can come up with. Of course, never a dull moment when the three of us get together, The Dude and I were able to turn the last two mornings into a cause for supplying more beer in place of a hangover. Unlike what it may seem like in other scenarios, the three of us together getting pissed over a pile of wine/beer bottles seems to provide a place for us to move, grow, and understand something about the universe when we get together. Unfortunately, in some ways, My Cousin Vinny is going through some personal issues with The Dude. In all of this I get to be the arbitrator between two sides that are often just as wrong as they are right. Of course there's the part where I love each of them and want to see a peaceable outcome between the two of them but there's also the frank reality of letting them get their crap out in the open. Which brings me to a new, but not so new, topic. Here I am watching The Dude and My Cousin Vinny have a silent argument with occasional expressions of what the issues are between them get indirectly explained through polite and subtle explications that seem to maybe get the two of them somewhere. And over the past several weeks I've been settling personal issues by offering up a no-holds-barred approach to settling those differences by yelling at people for their bullshit when I have an issue with their behaviour. In all of this I'm not so much angry with anyone, I just haven't had any patience in the process of conflict resolution to be diplomatic with people I generally owe the opportunity of diplomatic resolution to. This offers an opportunity to dwell on an important question. Is it more or less important to provide a correct resolution to a problem while being an asshole versus the opportunity to being diplomatic while not necessarily arriving at the correct resolution? To this question the answer I've arrived at is that, one, it's not a black and white issue. And, two, a diplomatic compromise can ultimately be more effective than a cut and dry 'here the way it is so just fucking deal with it.' And, to put it simply, this is not the first time I've had to analyze and learn from this issue. To put it complicated, relearning this same issue over and over is a whole new lesson every time because it's never the same and the circumstances never dictate a clear path to what constitutes the right way or the wrong way. So come into all of this is my friend El Rae. She, who has not been previously mentioned in my LJ, phones me up this morning and reminds me how complicated interpersonal and familial affairs can be. With personal issues of her own going on with a family member I suggested that she establish some personal boundaries with said family member who has made it increasingly difficult to deal with reasonably or logically. Of course given such a situation, being so inter-familial, solving an issue logically and/or simply is incredibly difficult and often requires an approach that isn't solely determined or resolved by the advisement of Ambassador Spock. In the end I told El Rae that she needed to take a stand and hold her ground but not be so stubborn or insulted that later on she ignore honest approaches by the offending family member to rectify the situation. With that reassurance she seemed to feel better in getting things off her chest than the prospect of shutting down or shutting out someone she feels close to. I can't blame her for that reaction. No one wants that responsibility. This has led me to really reflect about the past couple of weeks. With an exceptional amount of pain in my knees/back I've been incredibly difficult to deal with. Because I'm addicted to staying busy and refuse to take painkillers and stay off my feet for a day or two I've been incredibly active despite my physical condition. This means that I've been in pain and moving about and carrying heavy objects with only a handful of ibuprofen, a crap attitude, and a lot of people who care about me putting up with my lousy mood. Fortunately for me I have understanding friends. They've been incredibly helpful while I've been incredibly difficult. I have been struggling because the more pain I endure the more I feel it is okay to skip the pleasantries of human interaction and get to the point. Unfortunately, the last few weeks have included a number of instances where I have ignored the pleasantries and been incredibly harsh to people who I have disagreed with or found to be incompatible or incompetent to whatever I was working to accomplish. In the end I spoke with Vinny who told me that often it's not a question of whose right or wrong, but who can work together the best. Furthermore right and wrong is often not so clear-cut as we'd like to believe and that thinking one is right is often only clearly wrong if one also incorrectly assumes that the opposition is wrong. Of course, looking back, I saw myself being very guilty of this and decided to ask the question. If it's most important to be right about a problem and finding a solution is attained, does my demeanor really matter? Originally I thought that the answer to that question was that the approach I had didn't matter and I continued on about my business not giving much of a crap for others while quietly stating "I'm right now go away" to anyone who challenged me and then swallowed my handful of pills and continued on my way. It was only another week later where I stopped for a moment and realised that even if I come up with a correct answer, it doesn't mean that the "opposition" has the wrong answer or, even if they do, that it helps anyone for me to be a miserable bastard. So here I am, finally feeling better and more like normal, and look back on a couple of weeks where I figured out some big issues professionally and personally and acted in a manner that led to a variety of successes and fully analyze all of it. At the same time I look back on these few weeks and see that despite a seemingly positive outcome for me, I still really fucked certain interactions up whether I was right or they were wrong or all of the above or none of the above. So in the end I'm left considering what the right balance is. And despite normal assuredness, I'm pausing a bit longer than usual and pondering El Rae, My Cousin Vinny, and The Dude to figure out where I am in my life and how I really want to establish my demeanor to learn from, manage, and even sometimes be better than my surroundings. And while I know and have confidence in my ability to do all this, I know that none of it is possible if at the same time I don't realise that in all of this I do owe an apology to the universe for being an ass over the last few weeks. Because being right, I'm reminding myself, isn't always as important as communicating constructively. And for someone who boasts the need for working with community rather than depending on only the self, I sometimes remind me of just how much I have to learn. Current Mood: pensive (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 6th, 2008
9:09 pm	Rain, Vodka, and Vicodin A week later the pain is substantially less and the cane I've been using for the past week was only first taken to be a joke by the good folks at work. Then with screams of pain and buckets of pills (I hate pain pills and will only, at worst, take handfuls of ibuprofen) I was able to get people to embarrassingly look at me and almost feel sorry for me. The guys in the networking dept. told me that I was too young to be in such pain and then had to recount their glory days of back pains, knee surgery, and evil hemorrhoids that were/are plotting against them. Most other people felt bad and wished me well, and the people in the systems group shared my disdain for somber touchy feely moments that involve anyone feeling bad for my pain and we went out and drove one of the guys supercharged Saturn sports coupe. The good news is that despite only 124 horsepower, anemic torque, and an uncomfortable backseat, the 1.9 liter engine in just about every Saturn with a dual overhead cam engine between 1991-2002 is really quite "adjustable". Under normal circumstance I average about 37 miles per gallon in my car and enjoy a slightly better than generic ride, experience, and amusement at the attractiveness of my car. Throw in high safety standards, cool sales folks, manufacturing/design that seems to last forever, and that sacred bond between man and compact sedan and one can overlook barely adequate braking, 14 seconds to go from 0-60, and engine noises that routinely sound like "Bleah! I work just fine but fuck you for waking me up when I'm hangover!" So getting into Sys Admins Saturn with supercharged everything and a suspension that delivers a relationship with the road that feels like your proximity with asphalt is probably outlawed in most, if not all, of the 50 states, I had buckets of fun and a great escape (at about 95 mph) from the pain of the back and knees. Thankfully with the pain going away I'm not using the cane much and would like to return to work as normal and not get looks of empathy, sympathy, or compassion. It makes me uncomfortable in most instances to receive such a public regard for my well-being. Generally I feel like such regard is a wonderful thing and it shows that people have compassion and humanity, both things I cherish and respect, but personally I'm reminded this week of how much I don't want public attention. I like being the guy on the side people are puzzled by, laugh at, think is weird but fun and productive and generally alright. When it moves beyond that level I get uncomfortable unless it's someone I'm particularly close to. It's not that I'm shy... because Lord knows that I'm not. It's just that I get annoyed with humanity when people show compassion as a way to cover up and rationalize all the other selfish or fucked up things they do on a day to day basis. That's a harsh judgment of the world but one that I often see as being unfortunate only in its accuracy. So why does my being nice to someone in the office or their being nice to me for whatever reason merit verbal exchanges about the subject that are often annoying and awkward and a waste of time. I'd rather them stop being assholes in their spare time than trying to make up for being assholes in their spare time by caring about how I'm hobbling along. The funny thing is that if everyone was more in touch with their humanity and compassion and everyone reacted to the crises of others with love and hope and support and didn't talk about it to death and "feel bad about blah blah blah" and they did loving, helpful acts because those acts were the right thing to do and a normal course of everyday living and then didn't talk about it or feel bad about it at great length and didn't bug me about it... then I'd probably be okay talking about it. Maybe it's because I enjoy being ironic or maybe it's a further combination of all the other issues I have, but I don't like feeling cared for by people I don't know and feel are just assuaging their own guilt by feigning interest or making up the time they spent last night fucking someone else's spouse and then lying about it, cheating on their taxes, or spending more time in front of the T.V. when there's a small child who desperately needs some interaction. Maybe it's my longstanding disconnect with other humans that leads me to resist most forms of compassion from most people even though those very forms and moments of caring, solace, or goodwill are precisely what I would love to see in the world. Maybe I'm being confused and cynical because I refuse to see a doctor or take the hardcore painkillers I know they'd prescribe that I hate because they make me feel like I'm not in control of my reality and instead just muddle through the pain and annoyance of not being able to "Be All I Can Be". Or maybe I'm still pissed off at the Army. Either way(s), a cloudy sky and the self-decried reflective atmosphere make it a perfect day for alcohol, distractions, and meditation. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to offer the world some insight. Current Mood: pensive (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 1st, 2008
3:39 pm	My Housemate is an Annoying Moron I do a job that someone less smart than I am can do. I don't do it because I can't do something else, I do it because I find it interesting and have fun helping people with the common ills associated with running the box and it's lights and navigating folks through the black hole known as Microsoft. In computer terms what I most often do is called A+ work but ironically is about a C- on the pay and prestige scale. People who make more than I do, like Network or System Administrators, usually don't care about the work I do as much as me because it's not that interesting to them or, quite simply, they're not paid enough to give a crap. Fortunately for me though, I live on a modest budget of Cabernet bottles and coffee beans so amusement and the high I get from a little bit of altruism, a decent puzzle, and those Cabernet bottles makes it all worth while. One of the points I wrap my little brain around in this really fucking big-ass world is that even though the actions I commit myself to mean next to nothing, they still mean something. The fact is that a perfectly normal person can do the job I do. The overriding fact I hinge my entire life's meaning on is that despite the fact that another person could also do the things I do, no one can do it like me. Because of that, people get to have an unexpected laugh when I'm working on one of their issues (personal or professional), they get to be wowed when things work correctly, they get a chance to move on with their lives in a more efficient way, and, if it works out just right, get to smile and laugh and cry and have their world twisted a little upside down. End of the day, I get something out of it and get to learn from humanity and humanity gets something out of it and learns from me. It's a weird process and sometimes the plot is a bit thin or the characters seem two-dimensional, but my life is a bizarre piece of theatre that works for me whether I'm on the clock or on my own time. Per the above statement my brother is recently out of wrongful imprisonment and my other brother is able to live a little more comfortably with cancer and M.S. because I take the time to figure out a way to deal with the world that's a little bit easier than the way the ordinary idiots would have and everyone lives a little bit easier because of me. Of course before I get anointed the next 'SuperYid' the real truth is that Tattoo Boy and My Cousin Vinny would get along perfectly adequately without me. The fact I hinge my own personal meaning on is that they get along better with me and vice versa; we live better because the time we all spend on, for, or with each other. Like it or not this is about a community of people who go beyond themselves to do the right thing for people and not just that one individual person. Of course that sounds brilliant and logical and like I'm in touch with the right values that makes me a good member of the community of Jesus or Moses or Kwanzaa or the snakes who said 'Fuck You' to St. Patrick. But that's oversimplistic. The delicate balance of establishing and maintaining an identity in human relations is that we need to develop a sense of self that is defined both within and without. That means that our society, surroundings, job, education etc. all have a part in affecting who we are or who we turn out to be but that we have a part in processing all of those things and making decisions for our own. Since it's not a balance of making sure input and processed effects are in some bizarre immeasurable 50/50 balance where who we are is exactly half determined by the effects the world without has on the self and the other half of who we are is defined solely by the decisions we make, there's a constant grey-area-balancing-type-act-thing we go through. And if you don't balance it well then you're bound to suffer from varying degrees of being even more screwed up then you already are. Human success and perseverance requires community. We all need a bit of give and take so we can all come together and learn from the successes and fuck-ups of everyone else. If we don't come together and just assume we can learn it all on our own then we're being illogical, inefficient, selfish, and most of all, chicken shit. It's illogical and inefficient because there's no need to screw everything up when we can allocate screw ups over several people instead of just one. It's selfish and chicken shit because anyone who thinks they can just learn it all by themselves isn't doing so because they're smarter or stronger then everyone else, they're doing it because they're too afraid of looking screwed up, vulnerable, or flawed to the rest of everyone. Bottom line, they're holding up everyone from learning, acting, and making this place less crappy to live in because they can't get over the fact that they were disappointed once when they were a teenager and vowed never to get hurt by love again. Boo Hoo. Nobody cares, we've all been there, so get over it and stop fucking with my chi. This weekend I fucked up my back. I couldn't go out yesterday for New Year's because I was in miserable pain and I couldn't spend time with a friend I needed to spend time with tonight because I'm still in miserable pain. So, it can aptly be stated, that today I'm not only being particularly unpleasant given my circumstance, but a miserable bastard. So when El Jeffe told me today that he spend a decent sum of money buying a Dell rather than spending hundreds less and having the two of us build the machine I had to ask him why he'd do that. First he gave me some ridiculous answer about not thinking much about it followed by an explanation of the warranty. When I pressed him to explain the real reason he didn't ask me to build it with him for less money he laughed and brushed the whole thing aside as being one of those things where if you ask someone for help then you have to owe that person for accepting their assistance and he'd rather go through his life alone and invulnerable and never asking anyone for anything. What an annoying load of crap. Of course the above is a paraphrasing of the conversation along with some psychological evaluation on my part but the bottom line is that he's full of shit and it pisses me off. This is the guy who, along with the Amenity Goddess, loaned me $1800 toward puppy surgery but won't spend a couple hours with me to have fun and build a decent server for his job. Why? Because he believes that being dependent on anyone in any way is just a way of creating an opening that someone else might exploit to get close and manipulate for some crazy personal interest. What annoys me more than nearly anything is when people put on a smile and pretend to be inviting and at the same time do everything they can to keep you at arm's length in everything they do. Even something as ridiculous as putting together a computer is cause for "pleasant separation" because tweedle dumber is too afraid that by opening up to other human beings or having a real interaction or a real friend will make him needlessly accountable to others and that would be just terrible. It's just so much easier and empty to be nice and make sure no one has any real conversation about feelings or feels any emotions. I think this little thing pissed me off today because I don't want to live in a house of emotional vacuum and I'm realising that an emotional vacuum is precisely where I reside. I don't need touchy, feely-type crap. What I do need is humanity. AG does this is in overload and El Jeffe and Silent Bird-Boy had their faith crushed as little boys when they found out the Easter bunny wasn't real and haven't been able to love anyone ever since. And while we all, strangely I feel, get along just fine, the absence of genuine emotion in my home is grating. I want to live in a home where people have real feelings occasionally and not just trying to bury them out of fear or overproduce them out of anxiety of others blocking them out. These days the only folks who approach me with their real feelings are my dog and cat. And while I cherish that, I'm in need of something a little more. Because we all need each other for love and support and hugs and puppies and all that little shit here and there whether we like it or not and blocking that out, esp. over things that are the tiniest of silly pieces of bullshit like building a computer, because we don't ever want to seem incomplete or insecure or needy or human is a waste of time. More importantly, it's a waste of the smallest pieces of our collective humanities that may not seem like a whole hell of a lot, but is precisely what makes this whole life-thing worth living. Current Mood: irritated (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
1:58 pm	I should do drugs with Jeanine Garofalo I'm going to make a voodoo doll of the bureaucracy that is the United States Army. I don't know exactly how to give an abstract life-form, and then there's always the general problem of finding something that bloated, in-human, and nearly completely worthless in a personification kinda way, but I'm racking my brain for an answer. So the story goes like this: Tattooed brother joined The Army because he wanted to serve his country and learn how to kill people with his bare hands. He's also a thrill-seeker. Plus, the financial incentives made it all come together logically so long as he didn't end up dead in Iraq or poisoned from depleted uranium or limbless or crazy with P.T.S.D. or something else that could happen during war. Because he tested extremely high on his entrance exams he was given an immediate promotion going into basic training (E-3) and given a group of annoying miscreants to demean and boss around (I think that's the technical term The Army gives them). A month into the whole affair he dislocated his knee and landed in a military hospital. Unfortunately, The Army doesn't feel that dislocated knees merit medical attention. X-Rays and M.R.I.s are expensive and besides... if his knee is permanently fucked up then he has another one on the other leg. Since he never finished basic training he was unable to return to normal duty because he still had a month of basic left. This meant he was caught in a "special circumstance" that the army didn't know how to handle. Given the opportunity to stay in the hospital and maybe finally get treatment for his knee and maybe complete physical therapy for 6 months, this after he had already sat in a hospital and been ignored for 2 months already, and then start basic over as per what his doctor said might possibly finally happen, my brother had had enough. In the end my brother got up out of the hospital and walked 10 miles to a bus stop, called me back home in Albuquerque, and we arranged to get a flight home out of Atlanta. After talking with his superior officers he knew he took a chance as being reported as a deserter and would have to deal with the consequences. He didn't care. I didn't care. I wanted him to see a doctor and not be forced to sit there while no one gave a shit about him. So fast-forward 6 months and apparently the Army decided to sent out a warrant for his arrest. Despite being in touch with his superiors and doing everything he could to make the situation right and be officially discharged, some paper-pusher in some office pushed the wrong button on a computer somewhere and instead of listing him as being medically discharged, they listed him as going AWOL. This means that my brother, with a dislocated knee that was left untreated by these fuckwits, got arrested, sat in jail for 2 and a half days, was finally picked up by military police and shipped to Oklahoma to some paperwork processing plant, and was finally allowed (a week later) to call me yesterday informing me that the military was not paying for him to come home and that we'd have to invent a plane ticket that would bring him home Friday with a departure time between 4h00-7h00pm. They're such great people. They fuck him over, leave him in jail and fuck him over again, take him away from his home, work and family for a week and a half, and then tell me I'm supposed to pay for a ticket home from Lawton, OK at whatever specified time they feel like making available to get him to the airport and if his departure isn't within their time frame he'd have to wait another two weeks as they lock up and shut down the base over the holidays. And since this Friday is one of the busiest days of the year to fly and Lawton, OK is just such a popular airport with all of one airline flying in and out to one destination, one can gather how easy it was to find a seat on a flight out. In the long run I was able to get the nice American Airlines representative on the other end to book a seat on a 4h41 flight to Dallas with connecting service back to Albuquerque despite the flight being oversold. This means that for only $654 I was able to get a one way ticket from B.F.E. Oklahoma to Albuquerque so that my brother wouldn't have to sit in an army barracks doing nothing for two more weeks. And they graciously offered to take responsibility for fixing his knee if he agreed to stay for a period of 60-90 days to be evaluated and then sit for an undetermined amount of months for treatment implementation. I love our army. I love it so much I got pissed (as in I drank a lot of wine) after finally finding a plane ticket home for him that I rewatched 'Reality Bites' and had such a ball of time watching Jeanine Garofalo consume drugs and alcohol that I wanted to be there dancing to 'My Sharona' with the lot of them, smoking cigarettes with disaffected-jaded-genius-guy Ethan Hawke, and just figure out in the moment whether or not I would want to make out with Winona Ryder or just see if I can get her to go and steal me an expensive handbag. So, in conclusion, fuck the bureaucracy and I pity our women and men in uniform who have to deal with this kind of disgusting disservice to the very people who carry out the bullshit missions of the president and his oil buddies. Current Mood: pissed off (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 9th, 2007
8:32 pm	The word 'trisylabbic' has 4 syllables For a brief moment today Amadeus escaped my attention and started licking his freshly destitched wound. Thankfully his leg is fine and aside from some irritation and a tiny amount of blood, he's just fine. If only the kids wouldn't act like kids and distract me things would be perfect. This weekend has been good to me. It's also given me an odd feeling. I wouldn't in a million years complain about anything because there's just nothing to complain about, but it's been an odd feeling running all through me all weekend. It started with Green Girl and her new puppy on Shabbat and has last through this evening's wine consumption. First there was the bonding with the puppy and petting a certain lovely human sister, next was spending time with Amenity Goddess and El Jeffe's son Dr. J as he and his 3rd grade little league team rode good defense and teamwork to a victory in their basketball match-up. From then on it was a visit to SF with the greatest asset the letter 'A' ever had and then I was back to Abq. this morning. After brunch with the girl and friends, I came home to give love and pets to my kids and am now watching Dr. J and the B man (they're 9 and 5 years old) while Amenity Goddess plays some music and gets her groove on in the big scary city. The only thing missing to this weekend appears to be hanging out with My Cousin Vinny and winning a prize for something really fucking cool... I would gather what I'm feeling right now comes back to all the other issues I always think of or feel or all of the above or whatever. (I think that was a sentence). It's an all-around feeling of splitting myself and my love and thoughts every which way and feeling spent afterwards. The part where I get passable sleep these days, and really the word "passable" is just a synonym for almost-not-totally-mediocre, is starting to wear thin on me. Because it's hard to admit to myself these days that the wonderful energy and exchanges I'm getting are still leaving me missing something. I tend to feel a little like shit when I want to just pull back and stop being caring or giving to take a second and catch my breath. Nonetheless I know I need to get a touch or an ear that understands something I'm feeling for an evening. (And that's separate from those good-time fleshy relations). The reality is that I have a lot of wonderful people in my life and if I tend to get the feelings I'm going through right now I've felt guilty for it as if I were taking advantage or being unthankful or something of the sort. Reality is though that we all need our own reprieve. Consequently my body is always tired and my neck and shoulders ache because the previous night I slept on the wrong end of a friend's couch. Just like everything else in the universe, things here aren't black and white. I still get buckets of love and exchange of love from the things, organizations, and people I'm involved with. I just need to find a certain kind of love that I know I need but am unsure how to ask for it. On top of that, finding an appropriate person to share ideas, worries, happinesses, or baggage with is never all that easy. So here's to the new cds I just bought on Amazon's new mp3 site. They don't even have big brother software attached to them and are downloadable in a good quality bit-rate. Eric Blair would be so proud of me for buying more Amy Winehouse... or so I would like to think. Peace and love to all. Amadeus and I thank you for caring thoughts and love. You are all beautiful but I think I need to interact with the lot of you in smaller numbers as much as I can for at least a day or two. M Current Mood: confused (Comment on this)
Monday, December 3rd, 2007
3:50 pm	Check Engine and Sanity Amadeus is doing much better after a good weekend of relaxing, acting cute and helpless, and keeping me up all night. When he came home Friday he had a few extra bandages on him for med injections and the like. Then there was the missing limb and a whole bunch of stitches along with one of those lamp shade things around his neck so he wouldn't be able to chew the stitches out. Taken as a whole he looked pretty broken and I expected his recovery to be longer and more difficult than normal. However, this weekend I've been really impressed with how fast he's bouncing back from this. Friday he was still half knocked out from all the pain meds etc. and the poor boy cried most of the night as he was surely in a lot of hurt despite the heavy doses of painkillers. Saturday I got up and the two of us went downstairs so that I could drink coffee and get him together his pain med and vitamin blend on top of his breakfast. What surprised me was how mobile he was looking the day after coming home. Especially since neither of us slept much it was really nice to see that he was far more energetic and mobile than I ever would have expected. He even showed a great deal of strength and determination attempting to go down the stairs on his own and not requiring me to carry him. Since he does weigh about 70 lbs. I was relieved to see him head down on his own. Yesterday he was even bouncier and seemed to want to play most of the day. I stayed at home with him and kept him quiet while getting work around the house done that I had been delaying for a good long while. So today I'm tired as hell not because he was crying in pain all night but because he was really bouncy and playful and wouldn't let me sleep all last night. Thankfully there was coffee to be had this morning and a limited requirement for intense brain activity when I got into work. On another note, I worked on my car and got my 'Check Engine' light to go out. Last night my shoulder hurt like hell after doing all those exciting automechanical things and I was fine dealing with the pain since the light had gone out. Of course today I wake up and my shoulder and neck hurt like hell and I get in the car and the light comes back on. This is seriously crap-ass and my back is fucking annoyed. M Current Mood: awake (Comment on this)
Friday, November 30th, 2007
1:59 pm	Check Engine (Again) The Check Engine light comes on and then goes off. With it off, diagnostics are problematic. This is annoying me. Thankfully there are only a couple possibilities. With any luck I won't have to vacuum more money out of my pocketbook swapping parts in and out to fix this because I need to work to pay the vet bills. Car bills need to wait a month or two. Thankfully my car is in great shape and I don't dare complain too much about it since doing so could result in karma coming back and kicking my ass with a major problem because of my ungratefulness of how functional, reliable, and cool my Saturn has been to me over the years. Shabbat Shalom everyone. May your wine, bread, and candle light all kick a little ass this evening. M Current Mood: blah (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
7:20 pm	Check Engine The last week was extremely relaxing and very stressful all at the same time. I got to go out to Philly for a visit with A and R and spend time with great friends over the thanksgiving break and now I'm back to the real world here in Abq. Philly was great and I was glad to spend time with R who recently caught the cancer bug and is going through chemo. Thankfully she's doing extremely well and it's so heartwarming and awesome to see how she is trucking through all the crap she's going through to live her life and give a fantastically great 'fuck you' to the big C. A is cranking along getting things settled after the death of his father and all the other things going on and I can only tip my hat to how well they're dealing with things and continuing on living their life (in style I might add) under some pretty crap conditions. All-in-all I felt pretty honoured to get out there and spend time with them. Aside from that I must say that it was really relaxing all at the same time. I got to meet some new people who were fantastic and buckets of fun, there were chicken cheese steaks and tastykakes, east coast people and a different time zone, hot tubs and a reprieve. The thing is that over the last couple weeks, especially after the week or so in Philly, I'm being more and more reminded that my life is too busy in some ways and needs to be toned down a bit if for nothing else than my own sanity. Right now I'm riddled with worry and anxiety because the puppy, Amadeus, is in the local animal surgery having his leg removed. Unfortunately, despite all the operations and work on his acl over the past year, his leg simply didn't recover and needed to be amputated. Despite not loving the idea (as no one would) of having a loved one get his leg removed, it was and is the best decision given the circumstance. Tomorrow he'll come home and I'll be spending the weekend around the house just to be close to him and love on him. After all that I've gone through with Amadeus (and he's gone through by himself) I'm really a big anxious mess. He's such a great dog and loved so much that having his leg removed is such a moment of clarity as it is a moment of pause. Because while I'm still not sure how to slow down things as much as I know I need to in my life, I know that I need to find some kind of balance. I need to take a breath and remember that working on relationships or work itself needs to slow down enough so that I don't take things for granted and resolve to appreciate the wonderful things the Earth shoots my way on a daily basis. That's easier said than done but it's a task I need to figure out and spend time getting together. So with my 'Check Engine' light coming on yesterday I'll be hanging around the house this weekend spending time with the pup and replacing a fuel regulator. I'm hoping that taking a weekend off on top of taking it off at the house will lend itself to some reflection and give me an opportunity to put a framework together as to how to adjust to all the curveballs the universe shoots us and roll a bit better with the punches. Who knows, maybe even newsbean will come by and enjoy a glass of wine and share a hug with me. I miss her. Peace and Love, M Current Mood: worried (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, November 23rd, 2007
5:42 pm	Black Shopping Mall/Humanity Day It disturbs me to see people who are proud of themselves for getting up at 3am to head to the stores to buy crap for Santa Day. With one whole month left to spare and a seemingly infinite supply of internet shops poised to deliver a variety of low-cost purchases all over the world, I cannot see the logic of going to most shopping malls over the next several weeks at all (much less getting up at an abhorrent hour to buy shit at Macy's after spending time with family and eating a plate full of turkey). However, most people aren't like me. There are people who find shopping to be the answer and actually prefer standing out in freezing wind during the middle of the night so that they can get first dibs on the 4am-5am 1/2 off special on low cut tops, microwaves, snowblowers, and slave-mined diamond jewelry. I generally prefer sleeping in and snuggling up to a loved one on holiday off-days. I especially enjoy doing this into the later hours of the morning. In all fairness, getting up to shop at 4am might be as much of a reflection on strange or vacant societal values as it is of husbands or wives who look for any excuse not to be in bed with their spouses. Either way I find it disturbing and cringe when I see the evening news with all the pictures of shoppers who are not only happy to be awake at such an unG-dly hour, but look energetic and even appear to be training like Sylvester Stallone did in Rocky IV when he was getting ready to do battle with the evil Russian. Note to an empty 'Black Friday' shopping society: The cold war is over! Use all that energy you're expelling to prove to the world that we're the best country in the universe because we don't stay in bed to fuck our husbands or wives late in the mornings and actually let them get out of bed at 3am because the bank just issued another $2000 of available money on the families line of credit account and instead try doing anything with substance. Out-spending and out-consuming the rest of the world proves nothing except profound narcissism and stupidity. And for the record, there is nothing patriotic about spending money... even if the credit card you're using says 'American Express', running up massive debts to buy crap that's supposed to act as a substitution for giving love or practicing good, ethical values does not qualify you for a patriot, or a good citizen, or even a decent human being. So to all out there this Thanksgiving holiday (and over the course of the holidays to come) I will likely come by, provide gifts, share my time, and enjoy myself with all of my family. With any luck we'll be able to look back and remember meals, days-off, hugs, kisses, laughs, and tears rather than what the the red cheeked fat man brought us in a box with a bow. Hopefully we'll live the holidays to what they're supposed to be about. In all seriousness, I know it's a challenge to keep up with visiting family, spending time with the appropriate folks, giving back to our communities, and taking care of all the things we're supposed to take care of during this time of year. While we cannot expect to be perfect and do all the wonderful things we'd like to be able to do, the thing that we can all accomplish is the satisfaction of knowing that we have our hearts in the right place, and that we tried to share love with our families, friends, and neighbours during the holiday season and beyond. So shag your husband or wife, make breakfast for everyone some morning, give the right people a couple of extra hugs, and don't forget what this is all for. The human heart has an abundant capacity for caring and regard. Don't waste yours. Because if you do, I'll be making fun of you before you know it. Peace and Love, M Current Mood: aggravated (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 9th, 2007
12:06 pm	The other night I was with My Cousin Vinny watching the football game when we started talking about the implications and inherent prejudices that come in when we use Native Americans as team mascots in the form of savages there to invoke feelings of fear or hostility towards whichever opposing team is on the field. A similar discussion came up a couple weeks ago when the Cleveland Indians were about to take a 2-1 edge on the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship Series. So, thinking about it the past couple weeks, here and there, I pose the question: Is it really appropriate to have these mascots (Indians, Braves, Redskins, etc.) and are they racist? The conclusion I've long come to is that, in my opinion, they're certainly racist. The idea that you have some "savage" mascot represent your team portraying the intention that you'll beat the other team or disembowel them (or both) is certainly racist. (Note to self: amused by irony of the capital city, Washington D.C., that is home to the government of the United States of America has a football team called "Redskins". Since it was the American government and various colonial settlers who killed the native "Indians" in attempt to move them off "our" land, it's interesting that we use their images to represent our nation's capital football team). If we accept that using Native Americans to represent football teams the way we symbolize other teams with images of dogs or ducks is in-fact demeaning and racist, does that mean we should stop demeaning minority groups in this way or should we simply be more inclusive of who we dehumanize? Personally, I'm all for equitable dehumanization as an amusing means to the ends of pointing out the ridiculousness and illogic of how we regard mascots. As such I've thought up various teams and themes to tear down the barriers of denial and racism to finally put forth a solution that both acknowledges the problem... and then levels the playing field by inappropriately hijacking all of our minority identities so we can come together with something in common and get over it, have a laugh, and then work on other, more pressing, matters. Do I think it will work or happen? Probably not. But I always fancy the idea of anything that's not popular, not politically correct, and extremely agitating if the intent of employing the idea is to constructively attack and dismantle the common paradigm. These organizations aren't limited to one sport but to the activities the stereotype is best suited: 1. The New Miami "Cubano" Dolphins- This will be a new swim team of all Cuban swimmers. This team doesn't have a gender requirement or age limit. Anyone who can get in the pool and swim faster than the Americans wins the match and gets to handpick the resources and possessions of the opposing team/country they'd like to confiscate for themselves. 2. The Frisco Fags- These "girlie" men have matching outfits and love the butts of the NFL. They don't actually play anything but prefer to show up at other teams' matches and check out the scenery while cheering for a strap to break. 3. The Mississippi Klan- These guys play basketball out of the south and are looking to prove that corn-fed 7' good 'ol boys living in single-wide trailors are better than those inferior negroes and Jews. 4. The Mexican Border Jumpers- This Mexican track and field organization specializes in the 31 mile dash. 5. The Brooklyn Grease Monkeys- This all black team is top of their class in auto mechanics. They have contests to see who can "rewire" an ignition the fastest and celebrate afterwards at the new all-you-can eat Popeye's buffet. 6. The King David Marauders- These Jews enter math competitions using complex and highly secretive mathematic techniques to see who can count the largest amount of other peoples' money the fastest. Will these new specialty themed organizations ever take off? Likely not. But I figure getting it out there for a minute or two and giving it a second thought might be exactly what we need. Peace and Love, M -- "At the beep, please leave your name, number, and a brief justification for the unillogical necessity of modern man's existential dilemma." (Ethan Hawke as 'Troy' in the film Reality Bites) Current Mood: creative (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
8:51 pm	someone said Someone said today that they're not sure if I'm strange feigning intelligence or someone whose intelligent feigning strangeness. I told them I'm both and neither. Current Mood: mellow (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 17th, 2007
1:00 pm	trading back for back Last night, The Amenity Goddess asked for help working out a nasty knot in her neck. Of course I was happy to offer assistance and went to work on the little sod. Unfortunately, A.G.'s neck was really sensitive and took a while to work out. While I was getting the blue meanies out of her neck she reacted quickly, jerked her body, and now my back has been out of alignment and in pain all day. Kind of ironic/amusing/whatever that I cock up my back fixing someone else's. In other news, A&R land was interrupted by cancer last week. Fortunately a few hours under the knife and infinite reasons to take up smoking got the good doc out of surgery with a smile on his face offering a promising prognosis that the cancer was caught early, removed, and unlikely to have spread. Given that A&R are family for me I was ready to hop on the first flight to Philly to be with them. Thankfully it didn't come to that and instead I'm looking at getting out that way during the Thanksgiving holiday. Aside from that, I took the puppy out for a walk and am trying to get a better work out on the bad leg after a change in his pain med regiment left the 10 month post ACL surgeried leg rather ineffective. Puppy is responding to better pain meds, although I'm really worried about his liver health over a long term, and yesterday's walk put some extra strain and exercise on the gimp leg to see if we can get some more muscle built up. Otherwise life is quiet. Mostly I'm feeling it's too quiet right now. I haven't been sleeping well for about a week and that's put me in a bit of a funk, but despite not feeling on balance and a little tired (and thus part of the quiet feeling), the world is too quiet. I haven't been on an airplane in nearly a month or two. There aren't any impending adventures or doom or significant cock ups I get to become engrossed in. Work is smooth, repetitious, and easy-going. Home is comfortable. Animals are healthy. Even My Cousin Vinny is feeling better and better. The Dude promises to take me out and get me pissed for my birthday. But until that happens I'm feeling like things are too easy right now. I'm making plenty of money, work isn't over-stressing, and I generally like the people I spend my time with. What the fuck?! Even the love life isn't too bad, though I do have a little conundrum that's been exercising my brain lately. I'm loving The Muse still so not much of an issue there. But as for the thing on my mind that's worth spilling some words on is the time and availability with her. Unlike what I'm sure most people would expect to be an issue with a mother of two, double time portable doc (aka EMT), and full time single mum, I don't mind long stretches of her being unavailable because she's taking care of kids, or sick people, or both. I'm a resourceful guy and ordinarily have buckets of things to do to keep myself busy. Plus, as much as my inner-narcissist would love the attention, you can call me Mr. Superego but I'm glad saving people and kids come first in her world; I'll be happy taking the bronze in that race. Actually what's getting to me is this: Muse has had a husband, got rid of him, had other idiots, got rid of them, dealt with more stupid people, kicked their asses to the curb, and generally has been as independent as it gets. Personally, this is a sexy quality, if you're me. What gets me in this, is that in prior experience with people who have made themselves independent because of their impatience with others' bullshit (I include myself in this group), it's a really tricky balance to navigate in figuring out how not to take peoples' shit and cut yourself off from those types of issues, while not just making it too easy on yourself and cutting yourself off entirely from everyone in general because you're annoyed, think you're superiour to the lot of them, or whatever else. Personally, I've just had too many experiences/relationships with people who found it easier to cut themselves off from humanity, put up too many impenetrable walls to make sure they don't allow anyone to let them feel vulnerable, and a host of other bullshit that just says 'I got burned by idiots, assholes, fuckwits, and a host of other undesirables and thus am just not going to let anyone else in (but I might string them along for a good long while).' Because being able to not prejudge a situation because the last one that looked vaguely like it ended in heartbreak isn't easy to do... and I get that. What is easy to do is to cut yourself off from parts of the world so you just don't have to deal with it. And sometimes we need to cut ourselves off to heal and rest before heading back out there, but that's just temporary... or should be. See no one gets up in the morning and says 'I want to go out into the universe today and meet no one at all who is worth a shit and live the rest of my life fucking miserable and all alone.' What they do wake up thinking is: 'Being happy with someone cool would be a load of fun, but I don't feel like dealing with folks' idiotic bullshit and really would rather let them fuck themselves and get out of my hair while I get the kids together and out the door'. I guess the point of getting this rant out in the open is at least to do with my concern as to whether Muse is going to lead me along and never really let me in under a guise of whatever seemingly valid excuses she has (this is regardless of whether or not our relationship is of the 'fleshy' variety), vs. my own propensity to keep people at a certain distance while I try not to fail at whatever relationship bullshit/issues I am dealing with. I know I can deal with just about anything in a relationship, and I'm more than willing to hang on for a ride (and enjoy it) with Muse. I'm just wary of pouring energy into another situation with a person whose got no time for me not because of their work or kids, but because they're bloody chicken shit about being vulnerable. I guess that's why they call it a 'risk'... besides, it'd be boring if it was only predictable or easy. Of course venting all this and getting it out, I'm thinking I should just put it on the table and have a chat with a sister. Seems easier than guessing... but I suppose that's why we have these bloody journals and write things like this out... gets our thoughts, frustrations, and sexual frustrations organised and exorcised and expressed... I think. Peace and Love, M Current Mood: contemplative (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 2nd, 2007
3:37 pm	Politically Defined Ultra Right Wing: Everybody in the world who is not part of my church is evil and going to hell. Ultra Left Wing: Nobody is evil; they're just misunderstood and we should make peace with them and their underground arsenals Republicans: We believe in family values, low taxes, government non-interference, and the ability to contradict all of these values once we've reached Washington D.C. or are stuck in the Minneapolis Airport mens room on a long layover. Democrats: At least we can spell 'potato'. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)