Category: Relationships

Finally. Self-Aware.

At exactly 11:34pm on the 8th of March, 2010, I finally became totally self-aware. I believe it to be like a dog who figured out that his shock collar finally ran out of batteries and he is free to roam around and roll in anything he wants to. And it only took an incredible amount of pain, misunderstandings, drunken forgetfulness, white lies for fear of being labeled something totally opposite of what is and anger. None of this is me. I was never raised to be this. But with this new found awareness comes the responsibility to be more proactive than reactive.

To be more proactive than reactive has not reached complete consciousness with me but I know I have switched gears by my subconscious actions. It’s a feeling and one I am familiar with. Much like the same as when I stopped being panicked when shot at but slow and methodical with calm and a weird peace. I wish there was a word for it. Back then I used to say it was “divine stupidity; commonly mistaken as courage”.  No, I think a real switching of gears happen without control and without objective knowledge. It just does.

So, with that being said, I am now going to tell you about my TA in the class  Neuroscience: Clinical and Behavioral Study. He has a neurological tick that causes him to make high pitch chirps every few seconds. It is mostly like a mild case of  Tourette’s. And I find it funny. Boy, I wish I didn’t. There has been so many times we would be studying his certain neuro disorder and he is in the back of the classroom trying to muffle his “YIP!” every few seconds. I do feel for the guy but irony is my kind of humor. I am now self-aware enough to know I am an incredible asshole.

So, I needed to get that off my chest. I always let you know what is on the noggin. Sometimes I feel the people who don’t know me at all, know me the best. Talk about irony! Waa ha ha ha!

A little something to keep you up at night

7

I’m In A Mood

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Most of my life I have been in a pretty good mood. I always try to see the bright side of life and even in times of strife, there is usually a tinge of happiness to be found. Call it optimism or call it stupidity, I call it a survival mechanism. But even us “glass half full of beer” people can have moments of “fuck my life”. (That’s my new exclamation. Like it?) Here are some resent MRAAHHH’s!

I love NPR. For those who don’t know what NPR is, it stands for News…ahem…National Public Radio and most liberal arts universities have a relay for it on their campus. I particularly enjoy the evening program, “All Things Considered” which along with news, they have stories on topics rarely discussed in the crap we call news on TV. You can be driving in the most desolate areas of the country but in mind, you are in a hospital far off in the Congo or a kitchen in south Bronx listening to a 15 year old girl who raises all her siblings in the midst of gang violence. This program allows us to understand what many choose not to.

But there is a segment that makes me want to jerk the wheel into a goddamn bridge abutment. It is when they allow authors and poets to read their own work. People who write shouldn’t be allowed to read their stuff, especially those who All Things Consider’s, well, consider. You wouldn’t want Stephen King narrating his stories, would you? He’s as close to a human beaver as it comes.

A particular poet/reader had me fidgeting like a day three meth-trip. She spoke so softly I had the radio volume turned all the way up as she over enunciates every single word. I could only liken this to a woman trying to teach a deaf person to read lips by repeating “EGG! MC! MUF FFFF FFF IN!” This made my patients dip so low I took a huge swig of my boiling coffee, completely forgetting I just bought it and still, as I type, I taste only cardboard. Oh! I forgot, you could hear her nose whistle come through loud and clear. Fuck my life!

I know this is petty but still, given the choice between listen to a smug poet read her work from the next room of a recording booth or having a fat guy eat an apple out of anger over a megaphone in a small bathroom, I would choose the latter.

Text messaging is a great invention. Those of you who read this and actually know me in “real life” know that I abuse texting. To me, it is to the point and it leaves out opportunities to be stuck in a conversation about how someone’s dog ate blueberries from the kitchen table and shit a Jackson Pollock on the living room carpet. But there also is a time and place.

Recently I went out to dinner with a friend. She’s a good person but she is also one of those people who have little regard for other people. I guess everything has come easy to her and it doesn’t occur to her that there are other people on the planet. I tolerate her.

Well, about halfway through dinner she gets into a texting battle that lasts the rest of the meal. My phone went off at least six times but I would never think of that disruption at dinner. She just didn’t get that when two people are at dinner and one is on the phone, that makes the other feel bad. And look bad. By the time she was done I had drunk two shots, had three beers and spelled “suck my ass” in peas upside down on my plate of Pad Tai. Like I said, she can’t help being who she is. That’s why I tolerate her.

Nonverbal facial gestures with eyebrows from someone I don’t know makes me want to reply with nonverbal hand gestures with my middle fingers. I was next in line at the bagel shop and when it was my turn the tattooed, pierced, blue haired dude gave me an eyebrow gesture as if to say, “You are next retard”. I didn’t thank him after the transaction. Showed him. Wait a minute…he didn’t thank me!

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Got my car totally fixed! But in the waiting room I had to watch “The View” on their TV. Don’t even get me started and don’t get me wrong, I am all about women and 100% equality but this show actually removed very important brain cells. When the mechanic was finished he asked for a form of payment and I responded, “Yes. Have some.”

If this makes some people angry, I am sorry. I just lied to you. I’m not and I don’t care. Whoopie needed to stay in the 1980’s. I am still disappointed in Ted Danson because that’s gross, man. That officially killed Cheers.

It just hit me that I am a 31 year old guy, living by myself with a cat in Idaho. I am Jon Arbuckle. Fuck my life.

*Back on track with the Fall theme tomorrow folks! I’ll be in a better mood by then. ;)*

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Is This Seat Taken On The…

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That’s rights folks, I am back on the short bus going straight to Hardee’s, er, Hades with a front row seat reserved. I guess it is just a perfect end to an amazingly shitty-ass week. I mean, this week was a humdinger. Let’s recount this for posterity sake, shall we?

I have been having tire trouble with my right front for a while. Every so often it loses pressure and though I have had it checked, there was no indication that a hole was in it. So, I concluded that gremlins sneak air out of it in transit because any other explanation could only lead to ridicule from the Les Shwab tire dolts.

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Well, I came back from a trip to find it completely flat in the parking lot. Mother fucker. At that point I knew I had to call it quits with the mystery tire and just change it. So I proceeded to get to work. The only issue was that I had a hell of a time trying to get the jack off (haha) the tire mount resulting in a great gash up the wrist. No biggie, I have had worse.

Long story short I managed to get the car jacked up and took the flat tire off. But before I could put the spare on I noticed a strange creaking sound. While I was trying to pinpoint the odd sound there was a terrific POW and the car came crashing down on an empty wheel rotor-thing, nearly severing my flip flopped wearing foot. The jack completely buckled and busted.

Holy shit I nearly shit a shoe! I kid you not that was more nerve racking than getting into a moving accident. Not only did I almost cut/crush my foot in half but now my car was crippled on pavement with a bent brake and tire mount. I have never heard of a jack completely failing like that. Have you? It’s nice to know that 28K car has a $5 jack in it. Someone is getting a letter!

So, yay for triple A. Car is in recovery and I am in credit card debt.

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I like to say that I am a professional firefighter but in the spring, hours and shifts became hard to get so I was forced back into corporate America as an office solution consultant. This week the “said” boss from Vegas took off for his cabin and left me with the glorious responsibility of firing two people. And anyone who knows me, knows that if I, so much as bump into your shopping buggy at the grocery store, I feel like I should load your car, so one can imagine how much I have been looking forward to canning people who look at me as the “wiffleball tony” of the office. (wiffleball Tony is the guy at the picnic that everyone loves and is the one to start the wiffleball game)

One of the guys I really didn’t mind letting go because, to be honest, he sucked. I have about as much use for him as I do a 4 foot novelty monkey wrench and while that sounds harsh, it really is not. He told a client her breasts didn’t look real while fixing her copier. I fired him with extreme prejudice.

The other, it was difficult and when ever I am in a position of awkward difficulty, I get the giggles. Yup. It’s awful and I am definitley bus-bound to the 7th circle. But even though I handled that like a roller skating party for the Nealy School of the Mentally Challenged, I managed to find him possible employment from a competitor. Don’t ask. People owe me favors I suppose.

To cap it all off, yesterday sealed it for me that this week ranks high on the one out of 52 to forget.  I was walking downtown and past a large window front of a small office space. On the window were pictures and at first glance I thought they were employees showing off how much fun it is to work there. I then stopped and focused in on a particularly funny photo that look much like this one:

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I couldn’t help myself. I let out a thunderous laugh that scared birds from trees. It was one of those contagious laughs you see and while you don’t know what is funny, you find yourself laughing to share their joy. But soon my joy was replaced with a cold sweat of embarrassment and shame as I browsed the other photos and looked past the pictures to see people staring back at me with a look of disgust.

Remember how I mentioned earlier about the Nealy School for the Mentally Challenged? Yeah, I was standing infront of their school. When the realization hit me of what I looked like laughing at these pictures I would have rather been in these ten other places at that particular time.

  1. Driving a Baptist Bus around Baghdad
  2. Having a “meet in the middle” banana eating party with 62 year old Russian prostitute.
  3. Farting in a yoga class full of girls
  4. Setting up a PETA booth at the Idaho State Fair
  5. Having a moped accident on live TV
  6. Watching Boogie Nights with my Mom
  7. Getting a job as a stage hand for the Hannah Montana Tour
  8. Cursed with permanent sand grain in mouth
  9. Teaching T Pain grammar lessons
  10. Eating this laptop

I swear on all that is holy I did not know they were retarded. I really thought the guy was just caught in a bad picture. That didn’t seem to matter and any other week I would apologize and make amends but this week proved to be too much. So I ran. I ran hard and fast with tie flapping in the wind. I think karma owes me an IOU for this week.

Think less of me?

21

The Traitor Pants Died

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Again, this program is brought to you by the letters “S”, “H”, “I”, and “T”.  Today is a day when we need to salute our shorts in the name of pants-past. I don’t know if you recall, but some time ago I had a favorite pair of pants that, for a brief second, betrayed me in a most egregious way. Well, my motto is to live let live and we soon became friends again; understanding that going commando would never again be an option. I wore them anywhere and everywhere and for an article that was over 6 years old, they held. The funny thing there was never a condition the pants were not suited for. I could wear them on a hike in 90 degree desert climates or trudging through five feet of snow up Mt. Will and be protected from any element. But I killed them.

Usually I have a washer and dryer. A washer to wash and a dryer to dry. But I also am one of those who irons the clothes with the dryer. Since I have moved I have not had the opportunity to get the appliances setup yet so I do it old school and break out the iron and board. That’s where we went wrong.

The traitor pants are made of magic material woven from the finest fairy goo and unicorn mane and most definitely not cotton. I, out of habit, had the iron set to linens. Right when I proceeded to iron them there was an acrid smell and I stated allowed, “Fuck! Smells like monkey burp!”. Then there was smoke.

I killed them. I killed them dead. The hole was instantaneous and not in a place that could be covered or patched. Ironically it was in the same place where I was betrayed by them to begin with. It’s a strange universe we live in folks. Strange indeed.

tombstone

27

Today Veggie Turns Two

It’s true. This blog is now two and oddly enough this is the 200th post. Weird, huh?

I just wanted to thank everyone that has shared this with me. Some have come and gone and some have come and stayed but I will be honest, I never imagined that I would meet such amazing people on this www dot  journey. I am so blessed to be able to share my life and be able to share some of yours even though we may never meet. It’s weird wild world and this trip would be so less without all of you.

The funny thing is I misspelled “macabre” in the video. Of all things, you know? And I am not sure why Dire Straits is the anthem but it seems to fit the flow. Regardless, if you have been around over the past couple of years you may recognize many of these pictures.

Thank you again. I love ya from the bottom of the heart and I ain’t afraid to say it.

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