Frustrated, Tired, Scared

I am tired of my “friends”. What happened? I used to have a few sets of friends and now I just have one.

Oh that’s right. I’m not in college anymore.

Oh that’s right. One of my best friends made out with my girlfriend.

Goodbye two sets of friends. Say goodbye to the last one? I can’t. They’re family. What’s wrong with me? Why do I expect everyone to live up to some standard I made up for myself? Only a few people will always adhere to that standard, but when they falter it’s the most frustrating thing ever. I want to give up on this stupid thing, but I can’t. I can’t when I do it for them. Whatever happened to “do unto others as you would like to be done to you”? Does anyone even do that anymore? I don’t want to do it anymore. I love saying, “Fuck everyone else”, and have been saying it a lot lately. I imagine I will be saying it even more in the future. Is this any way to live my life? No. Can I find better people to surround myself with? No. Probably not, this is the best I’m going to get, so I’m going to have to deal with it. Shit.

I tried to put a football team together. I was frustrated. I knew it would only cause more grief and frustration, even if I was able to successfully put together a football team. I ended it before it began. I’m going to play with guys who are putting their money where their mouth is. Instead of having someone else pay up front for them and create the team for them, they’re going to pay up front for themselves and join a team. The only person they’re going to answer to is themselves. Of course it’s not as fun not playing with your “friends”, but it’s also not fun dealing with even 1 person that flakes out. And there’s bound to be that person. Even on the individual basketball teams I’ve played with through this league within 3 games have gelled together, most of us have become friends, and by the end of the season we’re ratting each other out for not making good plays, or even worse, not showing up to games. I know that I can rely on myself though, and that is what counts.

It is just so tough, knowing that I would have to depend on other people to hold up their end of the bargain. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about people when doing this, it is to not trust anyone and to do your best with what you have. I understand, we did it all throughout college, and even I was guilty of it. Delegate a little responsibility here and there, and when people came up short, you had to cover for them…I was the one coming up short in many of those instances. I’m not going to deny it. People get busy, people forget, people just don’t care…this is all the norm and I’ve come to expect it, and it’s going to happen anytime more than 1 person is working on anything, and are not getting paid to do it. This is what has become of us. “If I see no incentive to do something, why do it?” No incentive for me? Well fuck you then. Why should it be important to me? Why should I care?

This is my downfall. This will be all of humanity’s downfall. Sure, completely overblown, but I don’t care. Will there come a point where every single person in this world is only looking out for the well being of themselves and their direct relations? I already see this happen every day to and from work. In fact, I put on this mask everyday when I’m stuck in traffic. If cutting you off means that I get home faster, so be it. But me, I’m just a scared, angry, isolationist punk. But, let’s test you. Let’s say you get home from a long day of work, and someone is sitting on your steps. Just to make it more interesting, let’s say he’s a male, and the type of sorts that you would be scared of, whether it be the bum on the corner of the street with a bottle in hand, or the black guy with baggy clothes that you passed on your way out of Safeway. Whoever it is, put him there, on your steps. Now, give me your immediate reaction. Do you feel like driving away? Turning around? Running possibly? Do you have the GUTS to go up to this guy and ask him what he’s doing on your doorstep? Do you yell from your vehicle, “Hey! Get the fuck off of my property before I call the cops?” How many of you were not scared? How many of you would’ve been willing to just say “Hello” and ask the guy what he was doing there and if he needed any help? Then, continued to open the door to your house/condo/apartment/hole in wall in front of him when he said he would be leaving soon? Or giving you that straight answer? Because, even though I’ve never been placed in this situation, I’m the guy that’s eyeing that scary looking bum on my doorstep, and trying to figure out what to do next. Even when the guy hasn’t even done ANYTHING to me yet. Anyway, I’m going off on a tangent. I don’t trust anyone, and I’m so goddamned scared of everyone else.

That’s it, everyone can hate on me now for speaking what’s true to me. Rambling over.

The Eve of Christmas Eve

Well, here I am. Almost 4:20 and 2 people left in my department including me. Everyone else was excused except for me. I think I am being punished. Ah well. I get paid an extra $37 dollars for being here, and they don’t. But is it worth my time? Meh. Maybe, maybe not. I would rather be at home playing poker. I haven’t played in almost a week. I am experiencing withdrawals. Michelle has the whole freaking holiday off (from yesterday until the 3rd) so good luck to me in trying to fit in some cards between now and then.

And you know what the sickest thing is? The most wrongest thing (I know, it’s not a word, but I had to convey my message by making your mind mess up in trying to read that word) is that there’s a tournament on PokerStars on CHRISTMAS day. $530 buy in. And I want to go try and win a satellite to get in to this damn tournament. Ham, Turkey, Roast, Presents, Christmas Music, Family, Friends, Fiance be damned! I want to go burn my money!

I’ve spent a lot of money on gifts this year. Just like I did last year. I can’t believe I bought two people Ipods. This year, I don’t know what I bought, but somehow it’s already added up to $700. And I’ve still got to buy things for 3 people, or I suppose just give them money. Looks like it’ll end up being around $900 for my Christmas this year. Yuck, goodbye to basically a whole paycheck.

Rave: I checked my 401K balance and over the past 8 months, it’s made $700! WOOHOO! Go money working for me! Go Europe and Asia! Kick some business ass and return all the money to me, not doing anything here. Anyway, what I do here at work is take TECHNOLOGY phone calls. Printer broken? Call me. Adobe not loading properly? Call me. Pop up blocker settings not allowing you to view the web site properly? Call me. In fact, just call me period. Because I’ve been taking so many damn phone calls in my life, I think I’ve taken more phone calls EVER. A typical day I wait anywhere between 10 to 25 minutes in between 5 to 50 minute long calls. Each call is different and interesting, so it’s a lot better than any previous phone job I’ve ever had (I can probably survive this for another 6 years at most, whereas I could only survive those other positions for about 2 years max). It gives you a lot of time to surf the net, read up on things, read books and joke around with your coworkers. Pretty nice. On a day like today though, it is killer. I am on my way to an hour without a call, and that’s been about the norm all day.

THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH WEB SURFING I CAN DO. I become exhausted and bored of looking at things. It is hard to shop online for things too when I don’t really have the money. Sad to say, what I was looking at was a computer desk for my new house, not even something I really want. Ah well. Also, the book I am reading, at times, reads like a text book. Great. I’m back to reading stuff that puts me to sleep. It’s all very basic and rarely makes interesting points. But I’m halfway through, so I’m dying inside to finish this stupid thing. My next book on the line up? “Rich dad poor dad”. Wow, I’ve heard a lot of great things about this book too…guess what? It’s probably going to be another sleeper. Excellent.

I’m wearing the shirt I lost in Vegas (I think). I lost this shirt, and had to buy it again. This shirt doesn’t feel as good as the last one. It’s a bit itchy, but maybe that’s because I didn’t wash it? I’m wearing it with a hoody. So that none of my coworkers tried to be over jovial today with me, I wore my hood most of the time. Some of them made comments about how I looked like a “gangster” or a “thug”. Right, like they ever knew what that looked like.

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve written, I apologize. I have an hour left to my shift, so let’s see how much time I can waste in writing in this thing.

I just took a big old dump. That wasted 10 minutes. And on that note, I’ll end this, with 45 minutes left to go. So, in all actuality all of this took me 5 minutes to write. I’ll write something more fantastic on another day.

Too Early

Wow, 2 am once again. It is way too early in the morning to be awake.

Too bad I haven't gone to sleep yet.

Just wanted to say, I've got hilarious friends, and a woman that really loves me.

Funny how one night can make your mood change.

Hopefully I'm not bipolar? Maybe I was just having the Sunday night blues.

So Freaking

Bored.

That is all.

I need a new hobby or something.

Some sort of change.

Maybe a change of mentality.

All the money in the world and nothing to spend it on.

The perfect life, but not grateful for it.

The only thing that got my heart rate going tonight was sliding on black ice...going down a hill at 40 MPH and almost right in to an SUV. Luckily he swerved. I didn't cross over that far though.

That's the first time I've felt excitement in about 2 weeks.

Short Sunday night post.

"If you're bored, you're boring"

It's the "Holiday Season"

I’m going to write whatever I want to. And writing like this is easier than by hand I’ve found. Definitely, it’s less personal, but at least your wrist doesn’t hurt after writing 3 pages.

The holes in my hair suck. I want to bic my head just so I can get rid of them. I wonder what people think of it. Usually I don’t care. But, it is weird. And it takes explaining. I was listening to NPR the other day on the way home and they were talking about the woman in France who had her face transplanted after her dog had attacked her late one night and basically destroyed her face. She was taking (just like all transplant patients) anti-rejection medication so that her body doesn’t fight her newly grafted face. The way it works is it prevents white blood cells (the good ones that I have too many of) from attacking the new skin/muscle etc. That way, the body accepts the foreign object(s) and you can live with that new metal hip in your side, or in this case a new nose, cheeks, lips and forehead. Anyway, I was thinking, hey! Maybe if I took that medication my cells would stop killing off my hair and focusing on better things. Who knows? I suppose it is worth a shot.

I freaked out about Christmas shopping (YES CHRISTMAS) a few days ago, concurrently going through a rough patch in poker. After a month long $1000 up-tick I quickly lost $400 in 2 days. I said fuck it and took the whole roll out. I’ll try again after Christmas. I’ve got presents for half the people I need to buy them for…Christmas is freaking expensive. Oh, and all you mother fucking bitches that complain and whine about being politically correct, STFU. Really, no one cares. Great, we’re offending 4% of the United States population that DOESN’T celebrate Christmas. Did they ever complain before? Not really, maybe a quiet “Sorry, I don’t celebrate Christmas”. But, of course the “non-celebrators” (truly, unhappy people with nothing better to do) had to stand up for people that I’m pretty sure didn’t need or want any standing up for. Go fuck yourselves. Life really must be horrible for all of you. They’ve even started coalitions for both sides *rolls eyes* And I prolong this ugly circle by complaining about it myself. So, I’m stopping.

Quick survey (I guess for people reading). If you had the chance to purchase time, I suppose at a rate that was negotiable, would you? What would your hourly rate be? Would you do things differently if you knew you could purchase time? And by purchasing time this could mean plenty of things…prolonging your life, prolonging a certain day, or event that you were involved in. My now fiancé and I have a saying of “we’ve got more time than money”. But, if you had enough money, would you purchase time? I guess it all depends on your situation.

Bellagio is holding the World Poker Tour championship in April. The large tournament is a $25,000 buy in. I’m wondering if I can get in through a satellite online. That would be pretty insane if it was possible.

It is hard shopping for parents. It is hard shopping for me. The only things I want you’ll need a loan for. I think that also goes for most parents. Like Lucy on the Charlie Brown Christmas special last night, “My parents get me all these clothes and toys and stuff…but what I really want is some Real Estate!” I used to love the Charlie Brown Christmas. Now that I watch as an older person, I can see that Schulz was trying to get across the over commercialization of it all…the play that had nothing to do with Christmas, Snoopy wins the Christmas light contest, people complaining about toys they’ve received…ok, boring I know, sorry.

Thank God tomorrow is Thursday.

That’s all for tonight. I’ve seriously had a lack of things to write about.

One Liners

I’m not tired. And I’m listening to trance music through Pandora so I’m just going to stay up and write one liners until I feel like I can easily fall asleep.

Bass lines are key in almost all music, thank God I can play the tuba.

Semicolons are idiotic, just like many other rules in the English language.

Lazy Americans should just make a language called “American”.

I can stay up and keep playing poker, but the games get tougher the later it gets, more rounders and delirious maniacs.

I try to cutoff my play around 1:30 am.

Overall I’ve lost $40 tonight.

I emptied Elvin’s bank account.

Next, I plan to empty Mo’s, my mom’s account and Greta’s.

It will be weird to have all my money back.

Rarely is there any sense in playing –EV games, yet somehow I always get sucked in and think I’m having fun.

I’m actually bored with them.

I love my headphones.

I am worried about Christmas, not having enough money to get everyone what they want.

My legs, specifically my calves, ache today for no reason.

I hide my warm slippers in my room because my mom tends to throw them in to a closet where it takes 10 minutes to find them.

I can’t wait to move out.

The longer they push back the house, the more angry and depressed I get about being here.

If I let my water sit long enough it starts to taste like ice.

I think when people aren’t expecting something from behind them they turn to their head to the right.

Maybe that is based on what hand you are.

It is taking forever to setup Michelle’s stupid Neteller account.

It is weird to call someone a fiancé and to be someone’s fiancé.

The drugs don’t work, because I don’t do any anymore.

I am consistently sober.

I killed a baby spider tonight, I wonder if that is alright.

There is a song that ends in “Symphony” but I cannot think of what it is right now.

It is one of my favorite songs because of one line.

Today all I did at work was play poker against my coworkers.

They weren’t very good and got angry at me for taking their money.

A car just drove in to my cul-de-sac at 1:30 AM.

I must not have a lot of friends because of my overly competitive personality.

I get very tired of competing.

Too many people care too much about status, hopefully everyone will notice that those who are truly ahead of everyone else only measure up to themselves and their own expectations.

My finger nails are too long, I will cut them tomorrow after taking a shower.

I was invited to play flag football tomorrow, I don’t know if I will play as I have this sinus infection that causes me to cough.

People who play the harp are idiots, learn a more useful and readily available instrument.

When I retire I plan on buying a cello and learning how to play a few concertos.

I try not to look at this word document so much, the white hurts my eyes.

Check out Bireli Lagrene, John McGlaughlin, excellent guitarists who will make you smile.

Last Friday I watched “Chicago” for the first time, B+.

I wonder the percentage of people out there who have a foreign chemical in their systems right now, only for the US.

I would put the number at 34%.

I watched FareinHYPE 9/11 tonight, talk about *yawn*.

Just thinking of that stupid rebuttal movie makes me want to sleep.

Sometimes I keep my poker UIs up just to taunt myself in to playing more, I have pretty good will power.

On the night I asked Michelle to marry me, I requested the pianist at Canlis play “Autumn Leaves” as it is my favorite jazz standard.

I owe $500 on my credit card, mostly from the proposal, gas and food.

I just checked the calendar and freaked out because I thought I had lost a day.

In fact, it’s just past midnight, so we’re early on in to Saturday.

I had a massage on Wednesday, the lady said I might have scoliosis, never before have I thought about my spine this much since she mentioned it.

I use my blog to tell anyone random things since no one is going to talk to me at 2 am in the morning unless I’m drunk with them, I write until I am bored of myself.

So to sleep I will go.

10%, Cough drops and water, Amazing and crazy dreams

What a weird day and night. Go to church. Get preached to on how I’m in the top 10% of those who are truly blessed. I’ve got all my necessities covered. Food, shelter, clothing…love. So thank you. Thank someone. Because I am truly blessed. And to think of myself as in the top 10% of this world as far as just those necessities goes is a little wake up call to stop worrying about not driving a brand new S4, and to stop worrying about how my future wife isn’t getting a 2.5 carat diamond because I couldn’t afford it. Because I am so much better off than so many people right now. There are kids who are going to go to sleep afraid right now that they’re house will be bombed, invaded by a rebel army, or in school tomorrow that they’ll become hostages. Some will die of starvation or disease, things that I have never experienced. I really don’t know who to thank for all of my luck, but this is why I believe that wasting time is such a crime. If you’re not happy, do something about it. Or at least try to dissect everything little fucking thing to figure out what’s causing you anguish, like I do. Because there are the 90% out there in the rest of this world that would give up everything to have the opportunities you are given once you have the basics covered.

Enough preaching. I love cough drops. They prevent me from coughing or so I think. I wonder how many I can have of these. I’ve eaten about a fourth of a bag already. It’s even better because I drink water to chase down the cough drop and it tastes really cool on my sore throat. Just like drinking water after brushing my teeth. I’ll fill up a whole glass of water and then only take a sip before I go to bed. I do not know why I do this. I guess it is just comforting to know that there is an entire glass of cold water waiting to be drunk any time throughout the night I feel parched at all. However, it bothers me that dust and fabric and who knows what floats through the air and more than likely lands on the top of my water. Once, I was in a room with brand new carpet and had an open glass of water. I set it down for 30 minutes and when I went back to drink it, it felt like I was drinking a hair ball, but was actually tons of tiny little pieces of fabric. I coughed.

Why do I sign on to instant messenger? No one talks to me. I am always the one to start the conversation. I suppose I will stop using instant messenger. My cough drop is crunchy.

I don’t know if the family guy was new tonight or not, but there was a part that almost killed me, e.g. I was laughing so hard that I almost coughed up a lung…maybe there was blood in my phlegm? I’ll have to check the next time…Anyway, Peter comes home unhappy for some reason, and Brian is sitting on the couch. He tries to cheer him up by dressing up in a banana suit and shaking maracas and rapping something about “Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!!” and it said that across the bottom of the screen. The way he rapped and Peter’s non-reaction were priceless. Those definitely made my night along with an early Thanksgiving.

My parents decided to do the turkey tonight. I can’t believe that I’m not asleep right now. Usually turkey puts me right to sleep. Anyway, my mom (the best cook ever, combined with my dad) is going to be working till about 8:30 pm on Thanksgiving, so we won’t be having the turkey (or will we) on Thursday. Therefore, we decided to have a few family members over for turkey tonight. It was the best turkey my parents have made in 3 years. Maybe because it was a fresh turkey? This one wasn’t frozen. Or maybe it was because I was so hungry?

I am closing up my Halls Defense bag of 50 cough drops so that I don’t have anymore. I knew I shouldn’t have bought these. D’oh. A day and a half left until my partial vacation starts. And then no more vacation until NEXT AUGUST maybe? Wow. Am I going to go insane? Naw, I’ll just call in sick for some much needed 4 and 5 day weekends. Heh.

I want to write something awesome. I want to write something crazy. So I will try to do so before I go to bed. While in church this morning, I was thinking about my grandma who recently passed on. As I was doing so, I was looking around at all the people seemingly worship and sing their hearts out to a song I was slowly picking up on. I wondered how many people were there because of a promise made to them. A promise of heaven. I wonder if my grandma made it there seeing as my grandparents were some of the most devout religious people I have ever met.

Almost a week ago, I had a dream that I had died and gone to some sort of heaven. Call me crazy, but this heaven was a food court, and in one corridor of the food court it had a few receptionists working. I walked up and was greeted by a, “Hello Seth, we’ve been waiting for you, welcome to heaven”. I was amazed by this dream because as of right now, I’m torn between wanting to believe and not believing, or at the least having “faith in something”. In this dream, the receptionist took me back to a hallway of doors. Each door was white, and behind each door I could look in and see beautiful scenes of my best memories. The woman receptionist squeezed my hand tighter as we moved from door to door and I could see so many wonderful things about my life on Earth. The last door as we made our way back to the receptionist’s desk was a black door, and I knew this is where all my skeletons and demons were held. I opened the door to see things that scared me, times when I felt numb and like I wasn’t me, embarrassed, angry…but the most shocking thing is the receptionist was gone and suddenly I was in this room, alone with so many things swirling around me. And I heard God’s deep rumbling voice which said something to the effect of, “So you didn’t believe in me did you?” I couldn’t see him, but it was like he encased the whole room and was watching for my reaction. I slowly started to cry and screamed out loud that I was, “So sorry I didn’t believe, I just didn’t know!” And that is when the dream ended. I woke up and my pillow was wet from my crying, and it took me an hour to go back to sleep, but by then the rest of the house was already getting up.

I am a big believer in my dreams. And I don’t think that déjà vu is your mind thinking too fast. I know when I have dreamt scenes in my life. I also have dreamt now twice that Michelle will bear a baby girl. Both times she was a gorgeous little girl. Hopefully the next time I dream of her I will find out her name…I don’t care if this sounds cheesy, this kind of stuff is the core of my being. I hope for any sort of dream when I sleep and every time I wake up I scan my brain and try my best to remember at the least snippets of my dreams. That wasn't that amazing or crazy, but at least I tried. Now can I go to bed?

Money Isn't Everything

A short post by me. 12:14 am and I wanted to be asleep 2 hours ago.

Ah well.

I was tired. Now I am delirious.

Money isn’t everything. That is the title of this post. I would just like to say, that the more money I make, the more I spend. What would make me happy? Being able to go to sleep at a decent time and then wake up whenever I wanted to. The FREEDOM to wake up at any time I believe is worth some amount of money…possibly a lot? How much do we pay to wake up late? Some probably more than others. Do you put a price on your time? I hope not. Doing so could drive a person insane. Unless you were super greedy like that, or infatuated with money.

I woke up at 5 am this morning, praying it wasn’t 7. It wasn’t. But I was still awake and couldn’t sleep. But I was trying to sleep and couldn’t.

I have a sinus infection. Coughing up yellow shit is not attractive to anyone. In last night’s finale/marathon of Laguna Beach I heard a song by Keane that I like. Tonight’s episode of Real World wasn’t that good. I stopped watching halfway through. I saw my first episode of House tonight, and…meh. Do I watch a lot of TV? I guess. What a waste of time. Too tired and too much of s i n u s headache to do anything else.

Free pizza tomorrow at work. Nice. Hump day, get on over that hump and roll down it. New book, “The world is flat” (and many other biased world views in a multitude of pages and small simple facts and anecdotes leading to a roundabout way of making some semblance of a point).

I don’t understand the Firefox logo. It is a fox on fire that is surrounding the World. Like World Wide Web I suppose. It is all too literal. Whoever came up with it must have said, “This is it, this logo is perfect”. Guess what logo-comer-upper-guy? THERE’S NO MYSTERY TO IT WHATSOEVER! Don’t you want to be hip chic post-mod W in ’06 stylin’ wilin’ out and high ballin’ it ta death? Well, you could have made it MORE CONFUSING so that people could feel like they were part of this hip indy rock crew that everyone for some reason thinks they’re in, but really not because everyone is the same when they’re naked and scared of dying. Look at me, I’m bitching at the Firefox logo guys.

And this has turned in to a much longer post than I wanted it to be. 7 minutes though. Not bad as far as wasting time tonight.

ION I started off the post wanting to talk about money because I’ve lost $500 since last Thursday. Half my paycheck! Woohoo. Not really. Welcome to my life, post-bonus. Trying to play for real is hard. But, I’ve just got to adjust, and I’ve already made a mini-comeback tonight of $100. How do you make the Euro sign? Because that would be like EURO 67 or something like that. They kick our ass where currency is considered.

OK, I’m going now. Seriously. Evening y’all.

So Much Negativity

I’ve realized, I think a couple nights ago after my last blog post that there’s a TON of negativity in here. That’s not that fun to read, I think, so I’d like to spend the next few minutes writing about stuff I love, enjoy, and that overall make me happy, because there are plenty of them and of course naming them off just has a good all around affect on me and possibly people reading. So, instead of rants for today, let’s try raves. These are in no specific rank, I’ll just pop ‘em off as they come along.

Craig’s list. I love craig’s list. Never before have I seen the internet come to such an immediate reality. Usually I email, browse web forums (like craig’s list), read the news, sports, blogs, and everything else possible on the web, but craig’s list is like immediate gratification at it’s finest, and not in a sick way. For example: About two months ago, a $5 computer I bought from Sharebuilder broke on me. The hard drive crashed. It started making weird “clicking” noises, and bam, game over. This I was ok with because it more than served it’s purpose, and had a return on investment of about 1000%. Yes, the investment was still $5, but still, I don’t know of any other investment that could possibly give you that kind of return in that short of time. Return on investments make me very happy, but that will be listed later. Anyway, craig’s list. I posted up my broken computer + monitor for free and within one day it was out of my house. Craig’s list is a great place to get rid of trash. And knowing that the service is free, and people are so trustworthy of others using it that I think really amazing things can happen. In fact, really amazing things are happening through the intarweb every day. But in general, I think Craig’s list is meant for the good.

A good, competitive game. There is nothing better than watching two teams, or two people battle back and forth. It could even be rock paper scissors for all I care. But if both of the parties involved are putting their entire being, their whole hearts in to the game, it means everything to them, and to me. Regardless of the outcome, I love to play and watch…almost anything. And yes, I may be overly competitive sometimes, but I blame my upbringing. Everything was a damn competition with the kids I grew up around. We even made a competition out of punting a soccer ball…throwing a football over the light pole…silly idiotic things like this. But thinking back on these things makes me very happy, and even last night, watching an intramural flag football game that was extremely close…I could do this at least once a week if I had the chance. Here’s hoping that my ex-football team the Athletic Supporters makes it to the championships this year. We were one game away last year!

Chocolate and cookies in general. I love chocolate. In fact, I have a mini crunch bar sitting on my desk right now that I’m going to peel open and consume. Cookies I think are the perfect dessert. Typically they don’t get the consumer very dirty, no utensils are needed, and they go great with milk. How many things go great with milk? A few I’m sure, but more than likely a cookie tops that list in so many books.

Music. Listening and playing. I was just thinking about this on the way home from work the other night. I know, I am a complete dork, but I don’t care, I’m going to admit it: While pulling out of the parking garage last night, I had my music tuned in to 106.1. I’m a total pop star fan boy, but I don’t care about admitting this either. The second latest Gorillaz song “Fun Inc.” I think it’s called was on. Suddenly while taking a left turn at my first light, I was in a club in pioneer square and imagined myself gyrating my hips and moving my shoulders and head in my awkward fashion. Oh yeah, I was stylin’ and singin’ along. Awesome. Also, I like to figure out piano and guitar songs that I hear and can’t get out of my head. It makes me happy to dissect things that everyone else thinks are the “best song ever” but when you plunk it out on the piano everyone thinks you’re some sort of genius, but in fact the music is really simple (maybe this is why they might be geniuses? Who knows.) Music and just sounds in general serve so many purposes for me. I think I might have to die if I were ever to go deaf.

I’ve been taking a shower downstairs ever since I moved home. Why? My sister and I wake up at the same time, and we both take showers right when we get up. So, I go downstairs. I like to say it’s because that shower has a taller nozzle (it does) but there is something I especially like about the downstairs bathroom: there is a window right next to the tub. I especially like this in the winter months. Why? Because I open that sucker wide open and I can feel the frigid air (40 degrees and below) blowing in and out of the bathroom. The mixture of that and a warm shower makes for an interesting time. Sometimes the gusts of wind will come and hit my back, but I flip around and let the water run down my back…ahhh, feels so good. So refreshing. Another great part of it is that once I’m done, I open the shower curtain to the window side and get a little bit of an air dry. But it is a freezing air dry. Right above the window though, there is a heater pointing downwards, and there is no way to describe this feeling…but imagine, you’re wet, you’ve just come out of the shower and you’re grabbing for your towel. Suddenly two gusts of air hit you, one from your right side and one from above you. I guess you can compare it to those bathrooms that have those blow dry machines. I like the way those feel. Add that to the list of “good feelings”.

Pounding hard on the clutch, shifting and flooring it. This is probably the only reason I drive a stick. Is to feel this rush. To have the ability to red line it through each gear I choose to and burn ridiculous amounts of fuel. When you’re stuck in traffic for 10 hours a week, once you get some open space whether it be on the side streets or on the freeway on ramp on a Friday night all you want to do is gun it. I don’t think automatic drivers can ever understand this feeling because…they just couldn’t. It’s almost like, with a manual, the car has become a living extension of you. How you control the engine is up to your feet and your hands. All the reports I’ve been reading has me thinking that the manual is the thing of the past which makes me very sad. I do not want to be lazy like everyone else, and the tiptronic or flipper pads are just as boring as an automatic would be. There is just something to be said about having the ability to “drop the hammer”. And burn outs? One of the most fun things to do when bored. *sigh* If we ever get to a point where there aren’t any more sticks I’m just going to buy old cars.

Ok, so I’m continuing on this rave post 24 hours later. I’ve got an hour left to my shift, so let’s see what I can come up with.

Discounts and sales. I love getting stuff cheap. If something is 50% off it almost doesn’t matter what exactly it is. 36E Padded bra? Sure. I might need that some time. Thank you discount! But seriously, if I get a coupon or rebates of any kind, I’ll look for any excuse to use them. You probably might find me in Linens and Things (although very late at night) with my $10 off $50. Online shopping is notorious for having major discounts (probably due to the lack of actual employees selling you the item and low overhead) and I like to do a lot of my purchases through online stores. Plus, then I have the ability to pine over things just by going to the web site. The last purchase I made was for my 20” LCD monitor. I thought about it for THREE WEEKS before I bought it and would stare at the picture online every night until I mustered up the strength to buy it. And I couldn’t have been happier.

Cuddling. I love to cuddle. Before Michelle and I were dating, we went to a LOT of concerts. That was like, “our thing”. And I think the way I snagged her (in my drunken state) was with a lot of cuddling. I needed someone to stay with me. Going home alone and drunk is one of the worst things ever, but let’s leave that out because this is a happy thread. So, I’d have her stay with me and cuddle until 2 and 3 in the morning until she was starting to fall asleep and then she would get up and leave. But cuddling with her is the best. Sometimes I laugh out loud when I’m cuddling with her because it’s so good. When that happens, I feel so lucky to be cuddling with her. Just talking about it makes me feel stupendous (I’m running out of adjectives here! My vocab sucks the past few days).

Q-tips. I don’t care. They say don’t stick them in to your ear, but I KNOW a lot of you guys do. Well, me too. I call them “eargasms”. Oh, so good. Cleaning out your inner ear. Who knows what kind of damage I’m doing, I don’t care. It just feels so good though. Almost like a massage for your ear.

Scaring people. This might not be that great for them, but I LOVE to scare people. Well, I like to get scared too, but getting scared but other people is fun afterwards, but it sucks right when it happens. Anyway, I like to sneak up on people, and my mom is notorious for this. She turns up the radio when she’s at home alone, and might be washing the dishes. I quietly open the lock on the door, slip off my shoes and glide on the wood floor until I’m right behind her. Then I grab her shoulders and yell, “MOM!” and she usually screams and tries to smack me a few times as I flee from her slaps and pinches laughing very hard. I do this to a lot of people though. Scaring people in general (because most people don’t expect it!) is a great thing to do. If one of your friends goes to the bathroom, just hide around the corner outside the bathroom and as they’re walking out, jump out at them. I once tried to do this at QFC, you would think that no one else would be in that bathroom, but I accidentally scared an older woman who dropped her purse and grabbed her chest. At the time I was HUGELY embarrassed and apologized profusely, but now that I look back on it, I can’t stop laughing about it.

Which brings me to my next point: Reminiscing. There is something to be said about having history with people. “Remember when?” I think is one of the greatest openers when you’re between friends that have multiple inside jokes and plenty of stories to tell. This is what is awesome about being friends with people for your whole life. When I look back on all the great times I’ve had, I realize that if I was forced to die today, I can say that I’ve lived a full enough life and definitely have been a lot more lucky than MANY people in this world.

Rewarding myself. I did this a lot in college, a lot less so now that I’m working. But, believe it or not, I worked my ass off in college. I may have seemed like a slacker, but I definitely put my work in when I felt like I needed to. And when I was finished with that last final, every quarter, I celebrated in my own ways. Maybe going out to party. Maybe having a few drinks with the roomy. Maybe going out to a good dinner on the Ave or downtown. There is this amazing feeling you get when you’ve worked so hard on something, and the moment you’re done with the test, or turned in that paper, or finished presenting, it feels like this giant weight has been lifted off your shoulders. Almost like you can fly. And I try to ride that feeling as long as possible.

Ok, that took 30 minutes. I’ve got 30 minutes to go. I think I can surf the web for that long. I’ve definitely got more to my list, but I’m not sure if I can accompany each of them with an explanatory paragraph. Maybe I will just list them.

http://www.pandora.com/
Popsicles followed by Gatorade followed by ice water on a hot day
Getting my hair cut/shaved
Pay day
3 day weekends
Fixing things/taking apart things with tools
Drinking cold bottled waters
Dancing with my headphones on
Sweet love
Comfy couches and beds
Warm slippers
Having the ability to be half naked most of the summer
Picking big boogers
Eating fast food/Applebee’s happy hour late in to the night/hot dogs/onion rings/tartar sauce
Mom’s home cooking
New shoes along with new shoe smell/new car smell
Wearing sweats
Going for a long run
Really soft Kleenex
Hot cocoa and a good book at SBUX
Grumpy old guys that call the seahawks “seachickens”
U-village mall because Jamba Juice being right next to the ram which is near Pottery Barn. Eat, drink a smoothie and then go rest on cool couches.
Massages, half the fun is paying to get naked (under towels!)
5 for $5 or 10 for $10…anything. Mrs. Field’s cookies, totino’s pizza…you name it, I’ll buy it.
Clothes that no one else has.
Pictures
Eavesdropping and people watching
Flamboyantly gay people along with homophobes
Christmas lights, Candle light (when the power goes out)
Not tying my shoes
Getting lost/traveling

And…now it’s time to go home. Maybe I should keep this list going? Probably not.

Annoying Things/Rants/Complaining

Ah, finally, a direct, full on rant post. Have you been waiting for one of these? Probably not. Most of my posts are the same thing anyway, so it’s not much different. But now it is time to give a “shout out” to all the little things that get my heart rate going at an accelerated rate, and my blood pressure a little bit higher. Look out heart attack! Here I come.

Tail gaiting in traffic. Traffic in general actually. Why do people DO THIS though? This morning, I’m driving down highway 9 and it’s backed up for at least the next 3 miles, with cars stop and go at about 5 miles per hour, MPH if you will. Now, unlike 85% of the rest of this lazy ass country I drive a stick. I’m an anal purist like that. Driving without a stick is not driving. It’s disabled driving. It gives you the opportunity to eat, smoke, do your makeup, talk on your cell phone and change the radio station while making sure your GPS navigation system is all working at the same time. When you drive a stick, good luck on doing HALF of that at the same time. Yes, sure, sometimes I drive with my knee. But still, I guarantee if we break it down when we look at accidents, the number of accidents per stick driver compared to the number of accidents per slush pump driver…the difference I think will shock people. Maybe we should just all switch back to manual! Imagine what a difference that would make on traffic. Probably none, because people are still idiots no matter what kind of car they drive.

Free right turn on red. People are turning LEFT in front of you jackass. NO ONE is coming. Just TURN. You’ve made a full and complete stop for the past MINUTE and watched as NO TRAFFIC IS COMING YOUR WAY. Just GO. I am on the horn about this one constantly. Way to go Mr. No Free Rights. You win the award for safest driver. And for those of you questioning these rants, here’s a little freaky statistic you might want to think about the next time you’re waiting at a stop light: Americans on average spend FIVE YEARS at stop lights. FIVE YEARS OF YOUR LIFE WASTED. I’ll probably end up above the average because of how bad traffic is around here, but at least I’m trying my best to keep close to the average.

Going 55 in the left lane. (this must just be a traffic rant then? Sure.) The left lane is meant for PASSING. Drive faster. Someone wrote in to the Seattle Times last month and said they camp in the left lane for a reason. “To make the highways safer for my fellow Seattlelites.” BULL HONKY! There’s a reason that people flash their brights at you and honk.

The best though are the people that cut you off and then give you the finger. I don’t think there’s anything better than this.

This reminds me of the family guy episode when Peter is a correspondent that does the segments about what really pisses him off.

To continue: People that receive emails, voicemails, text messages, and DON’T RESPOND. Why do you people do this? I’m leaving a voicemail, writing a text message, sending you an email for a reason. I’m LOOKING for a response. I want to know what you’re thinking, how you’re feeling, what your opinion is of something, whether or not I can meet up with you, grab my eye-glasses that I left there, where we’re going to meet for the night…I think this is the whole “one track mind” thing. And no, it’s not just guys that do this if that’s what y’all are thinking since I mentioned that. Everyone does it. Even I am guilty of it from time to time. But, I think I try harder than a LOT of people. There are those out there that get REPUTATIONS for never calling back, emailing back, texting back. I do not want to be one of these people.

People who are close minded about food. If you’ve never tried it before, how can you know whether or not you like it? Something that really irks me when I’m sitting in a Japanese or Chinese restaurant…hearing a woman, probably in her early 20’s next to us asking her boyfriend seriously, “Don’t they have fries or burgers here?” What the heck! What are you? There’s a reason that people eat the type of food that they do. It’s probably GOOD FOOD. And from what I’ve noticed, trying something new rarely kills a person. I think this kind of fear of the unknown is just unwarranted.

This is amazing, at this point I have run out of things to whine about. I will take a break writing until I think of more.

(3.72 hours later)

Have you seen that Passat commercial with the boom box at the edge of the garage roof and the song playing, “All By Myself”? That is an awesome commercial and that song is stuck in my head right now. That is all.

Weird Hierarcy

I was just thinking about my standing today, while I was standing and my manager came by and was talking to me about my 401K. I am thinking of taking a loan of about $2K out, tax free for first time home buyers. We’re a bit short to make 20% down on our house, and my manager joked and said it’s “Time to hit the card rooms”. Making money like that though is TOUGH. When I’m playing for fun it’s different because when I lose, it’s really no big deal. However, when I play to win, and only to win, it gets frustrating. When you play to pay your bills it’s hard.

So my manager strolls by and is talking to me about how he’s so lucky he didn’t have to go through that and what not, blah blah blah, wow, do I really want to tell this story? Not really. Ok, so it’s weird how businesses work. Are people above others? No, not really, but in business standings, possibly. In fact, I am so lost on what point I’m trying to make, I’m going to stop writing about it right now.

Bellevue Square: That’s where I’m going to tonight to see Alex at his new job in Nordstroms selling shoes. Interesting. I could never do that. I think I would tell the truth too often. “Ummm, yes ma’am, those Stilettos really accentuate what a fat ankle and calf you have! And when was the last time you cut your toenails?” Gross. They would have to pay me double what I’m making right now in order for me to walk around in a suit and help women try on different shoes. No thanks.

In other news, I found out that we may be closed the day after thanksgiving which I have mixed emotions about. I had planned on working that day, because they were offering me time and a half plus my regular hourly pay, in essence two and a half times (roughly $57 per hour pre-tax) for being here and doing nothing. Over the past few years I’ve heard that the days after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and the day after New Year’s eve are all a godsend because you make a ridiculous amount of money and don’t do anything. People have brought in Playstations, computer games to be played through the network and XBOXs. We also have a TV here, and I’m sure we could find some cable, but I would be MORE than happy to make that hourly rate for just surfing the net. My boss says it’s probably not going to happen. For those of you reading this and dear to my heart that have received gifts every Christmas from me, say goodbye to your presents if I don’t get to work one of these holidays. All my money is going to be going to this house. D’oh.

I am always surprised when I make it through a Monday. I always think that Mondays are the worst and hardest days to live through. The more I think about it, it is probably Tuesday or Friday. Mainly because Tuesday you’re not even half way home yet, you’ve still got to face Wednesday, but you’ve had enough time to forget about the weekend. On Fridays you’re just aching to get through and get home and get your weekend off to a fantastic start…who knows, I can’t decide, but I wonder what percentage of people look up and say, “Aww man! Friday again! I don’t want to go home!” That would be my kind of job.

I also wanted to let everyone know that there is nothing on TV on Sunday nights at 1:12 am. If you find something on expanded cable please let me know. I ended up watching the Dave Chappelle stand up, and I basically have that thing memorized I’ve seen it so many times. Nothing else was on. “Please believe me!” Hahaha, everytime I say that I laugh. I guess you would have to see it in order to laugh along with me. Is this getting annoying? I’m wondering if writing every day is worth it, because a lot of this is just pointless fodder. But do I have to make a point every time I write? Probably not. I definitely had intentions on doing so given the title of this post, but now that I’ve gotten pretty far through it, it looks as if the point was weak to begin with. I really miss writing essays on given topics that we had in school. That was always interesting to me on how I could take different twists and see how teachers would react. In high school I used to write, “I love hot dogs” in the middle of some papers that I didn’t really care about just to see if the teacher was in fact reading them or not. A few teachers never wrote comments next to these little remarks. I wonder if they just read the first sentence of every paragraph just to see if it makes sense…then there are those speed readers. I understand that there are people who read fast, but the people that just flip through books amaze me. What the heck? They avoid “useless words”? I don’t know how I could understand anything without reading the words “the, and” etc. But I’ve been told it’s all about “Forcing your eyes to move faster”. I like to enjoy my reading though, and I’m not sure how anyone can enjoy their reading if they’re speed reading.

There’s a new Herbie Hancock CD out right now, and he did the same thing as Santana, teaming up with “cool new artists” and having them sing over their instrumentals. There’s this John Mayer song I think it’s called “Stitched Up” on that CD. Pretty cool stuff. I’d recommend it. What would living in the deep dirty south be like? This post is completely random and I think I will end it here.

Sobering, late night thoughts

Sobering? WTF is that one might ask. Well, I haven’t had a drink for more than a week now. Even this great weekend we’re having right now, still not one drink. Not a beer, not a redbull vodka, not soco and lime, not, nope, not anything. Just regular food, not even fast food. But, no working out this weekend, because the weather has been absolute crap, and I have no access whatsoever to any workout equipment. As many of my other posts have been, I think this is going to be another complaint post. Or maybe a self-overanalyzing post. Yes, maybe so. We will see how it goes. I wish this was more private, but then again only a few people know about it, and others that read it don’t really know me, so I don’t give a shit.

Here goes:

I am tired. I am not tired. I am restless. I am bored mainly. I am very, extremely bored. I am afraid to do things I might think are fun because once they’re done its back to the boredom again. I am AGAINST wasting any time whatsoever. Sure, work is a waste of time for the most part, but at least I’m getting paid a ridiculous amount for the work I do. I am struggling at work because I don’t care. Would I care in another job? Probably not. Am I teaching someone else something very valuable to their lives? No. Am I doing something that’s very valuable period? Probably not. People wouldn’t DIE if it wasn’t for me doing my job. Maybe I should become an EMT? Those guys are my freaking heroes. But even still they have their downtimes, and I’m sure the every weekend bar fight or drunken falling causing broken jaws gets old after a while. And that’s the thing. Everything to me gets old. And this is where this boredom stems from.

My car is the same. My house is the same. My girlfriend is the same. This language is the same. My knowledge has changed a miniscule amount between today and yesterday, thus basically the same. Gambling, sex, drugs, music, it’s all the same. Sure I could get really tossed and go fuck around with all my money, but what would I end up with? A headache, cottonmouth and an empty bank account. Great. I’m behind where I started, yet have nothing to show for it. As if having SOMETHING to show for it would be any better! See what I’m getting at? Even with everything, it is still nothing. Driving home tonight at 12:45 am, I didn’t feel like me. Sometimes I mind-fuck myself and think about what I look like on the outside of me. Or what the shell of my being looks like, or how my soul is. I wonder if I’ve got any soul left in me. I feel broken. Tonight I told Michelle to go do her own thing because I was planning on going up to Bellingham for basically Pol’s last night up there, and maybe to party with Anthony and Japanese people. But not really party though, be the guy that sits around watching TV and yawning while everyone around him is getting trashed. When I found out Neil had left already, it was alright. I didn’t know if I wanted to go anyway.

I’ve heard that alcohol can add to the depression, and also be very bad for my eczema. So I’ve dropped that until December 31^st. Because, what better way to bring in the new year than on the verge of puking! *sarcastic* Last year, new year’s eve SUCKED. Michelle and I baked cookies at her house with no one there, and watched the freaking fireworks while I tried to get myself drunk enough that I could sleep and that I wouldn’t be so angry about how little of fun I had that night. We once had a family party with like 10 people there, and I think it was just my sister and I were the only people under 20 at that party, with a few of my aunts and uncles already passed out on the couch when the silent countdown went by. And I looked around at faces that were trying to fake it, telling me “Happy New Year” and giving kisses on the cheek, but I didn’t believe it. So I left for what was my typical high school through college new years 2^nd party, and even that one sucked.

By the time I got there, people were cleaning up (at 12:45 am), a few people were puking off the back porch, and the rest were past out well before the ball dropped. Amazing. Anyway, this is just a glimpse of how I feel right now. That probably describes it the best. My two worst, and un-favorite new year’s eves. As if I had some sort of list or something. There are only a few I can remember.

What about the rest of everyone? Are you guys genuinely happy? How do you keep your routine fresh and new? Are you constantly finding new things to keep your interest? Do you set small goals for yourself and achieve them? I feel like I should know myself well enough to get out of this funk. I should just be able to say to myself, “Stop it, feel better”. Right? I don’t want to be an idiot and read self-help books, because them shits is just like alcohol. The more you read in to it, the better you feel while you’re doing it, but once you finish, you’re really just back to where you started, but with less money again.

I need to get a hair cut. I want to get a hair cut. I want this bald spot on my head to go away. It’s embarrassing. I want to see another Jamie Cullum concert. I watched “Garden State” for the first time last night. I enjoyed it. I think I will buy the soundtrack.

You ever wonder what other people are doing right now? Or imagine yourself in their shoes at this instant, guzzling a beer and putting an arm around a buddy and possibly burping and scratching your belly? Out of the blue last night I said, “I wonder what Joey Lawrence is doing right this instant”. And for effect, I added his comical “Whoa”. I got a slight laugh out of Michelle.

This is how bored I am. I wonder what B- TV show stars from the early 90’s are doing on a Friday night at 10 pm. Because, it’s probably more interesting than what I was doing at that point, an even sleeping I think, if said person was doing so, could possibly even be better than my wondering, since dreams offer means of escape.

I was reading over really old emails, and I am a much better writer 2 years ago. I wish I could pinpoint where it all went wrong. I think I better stop writing before I get too hungry and can’t sleep.

‘Night.

22 minutes

That’s how much time I’ve got left in this dark, yet overly lit place. This cubicle. 22 minutes left. All I’ve got is the web, some stale “chewy” chips ahoy cookies a 92% eaten apple, an apple juice soaked paper towel, paper, pens, two half empty bottled waters, a map of the US and my schedule, 23 plastic forks, 2 plastic knives and 2 styrafoam boxes to keep me busy.

Oh, and also this. http://www.altf.com/blog/index.htm I hate the idea that I’m linking you to someone else’s blog, (since the attention should be on me! Duh) but, I really like that one. I also hate the fact that I’m going to say “a picture says a thousand words” so there, I said it, but at least I admitted to the hatred of it, for the lack of a better saying. Sometimes sayings are sayings just because they make the most sense, yet make no sense at all. But we understand it. To foreigners though, or those that don’t understand the saying, it’s not possible for a picture to say a thousand words, it’s just an object. Not a living thing that can speak. (Or can it!)

19 minutes now and the world is slowly moving.

Slow enough, that when I look at the clock in the lower right hand corner of my monitor, what I see is that only 3 minutes have passed.

Therefore, you can, or one can, deduce that it took me 3 minutes to write the previous two paragraphs. Is that shabby? Maybe, but I had to at least think of what was coming out of my fingers, which are connected to my brain, which I think, I am talking to a random online audience, but really I’m not. I’m just watching letters appear on my screen, which somehow make up words that, really, in the end, make no sense whatsoever when placed together. Thanks for wasting everyone’s time though, I think to myself.

16 minutes.

Do I have something with checking the clock every three minutes? It seems like the number 16 should be an odd number. Or at least the number 6. I mean, c’mon. Look at the number 9. It’s just the number 6 upside down. And is something that is upside down the exact opposite of another thing that is right-side up? Not necessarily.

I really, really, can’t wait for the weekend. I think I was deprived this past weekend because of the Seahawks bye week. I think, admitting that is somewhat sad. What is your existence like? Why is it, the things that I could find the most happiness in, I may feel the most embarrassed about admitting to everyone? The fact that I use the color pink, or even have fruity shirts, have the ability to wear whitey tighties from 6th grade that have holes on them, and more than likely multiple skid marks, how I dream about having a big wheel big enough for me, possibly motorized and cruising along the Kirkland strip, watching the sun slowly set behind the mountains and the red sky reflect against the water below. Cool grandpa blue blockers included.

6 minutes and I’ve been “working” for the past 10.

Still more than 5, and the countdown is tough to watch. I wonder how many people go through this? The hardest thing about it, I think, is knowing that I’ll have to sit through an hour of traffic on the way home. But, it’s what I’ve got to suffer through in order to “afford” things that I don’t necessarily “need”. Oh well, everyone else will be happy with it I hope.

Wow, I think this was the most uninteresting post I’ve made yet.

Let’s see: There’s a lot of snow in the mountains. I’m about to go snowboarding. Politics is screwed up. Too many kids have died in Iraq for nothing. Initiative 901 will put a ban on smoking indoors. I am happy about this. When you get too many people, and not enough money together, bad things can happen. Rioting in France, that I wonder about. Purchased engagement ring. Basically broke. Getting the hang of making money playing poker without bonuses backing me up, just like I used to in the old days. I hate 56K, people should really get with the program. Sometimes I have to pee mid-morning, but I don’t wake up because I really don’t want to get out of bed. Then, when I do wake up with my alarm, my alarm freaks me out and I have to make the largest pee ever known in man kind. I’m still at work and I was supposed to be gone a minute ago.

This is my life.

-2 minutes.

Halloween, but nothing to do with it.

So I didn’t get a chance to do my “weekly Sunday night” write. They are usually worn, tired, crazy and possibly delirious, depending on how late in the night it is. Last night, I didn’t write. Today, I decided to write. I figured, let’s try a whole post from work, possibly? Unless I’ve done that before? I don’t know.

Last night I washed all my dress pants (well the ones I typically wear, which amounts to THREE of them) and let them sit in the dryer. They’re probably wrinkled. And because of that, I didn’t pull any of them out this morning and iron them. Because I am somewhat lazy, and I have other business casual attire that will suffice. So they’re probably sitting there, all alone in the dryer, wrinkled and cold, wondering when they’ll see the light of day, or at least the dark warmth of my closets and all their friends. ( “Why hello there striped shirt!” ) Ok, we’re having a potluck at work today and I’ve ate way entirely too much sugar. Also, I’ve had my first taste of caffeine since Friday night. What am I? Mormon? Sheesh. Either way, I’m probably going to crash (hard) in about 30 minutes, or be up and running around until 2 am tonight.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, my pants. So, all things considered, I am having trouble breathing right now. Unlike my counterparts here, I have gone back 3 times to the potluck to grab more food. I am skipping my lunch and leaving it in the fridge so I don’t have to worry about it tomorrow. Hopefully no one else here at work eats it, although they’ve been SUPERBLY good about not eating anyone else’s food. Side note: There has been 4 different Sobes of 4 different flavors sitting at the bottom shelf of the fridge for the past 3 months. I want to scream. They are unopened, and no one has claimed them, nor have they drank them. I wonder, does someone drink one of them, but immediately replace them and make sure they are in the same order as before? I don’t think this is the case. No one is THAT anal, and if they are, it’s crazy that I would even THINK they would be like them. To get to the point: I want to drink them. I want to drink at least one. It SEEMS LIKE NO ONE IS GOING TO DRINK THEM! Three months! I mean, c’mon, at least move them or something. Get them out of the fridge and away from my wanting eyes, my pining eyes…such sweet carrot juice…elixirs of life. Part of me wants to believe that some social studies major is running some sort of experiment on relationships at work and has placed these Sobe bottles in major traffic area fridges around the nation to see how certain workplaces react and how respectful they are.

When I used to work at Eddie Bauer, my lunch was stolen about once every 2 weeks. It was disheartening. I would always complain to my manager who would also get angry. It got to the point where I was thinking that I could put my NAME on my bags of food and no one would eat them. You know what the FREAKING worst ever was though? When I was working at WAMU and dropped off HALF of my leftover Teriyaki. Someone…some DEVIL had the audacity to eat JUST THE CHICKEN, and leave the rice. Remember, this food was HALF EATEN already! I couldn’t believe it! I was shocked.

And I always said to people that would laugh at my misfortune: “If these people would just ask for some money, I would go and DRIVE them to the teriyaki place/store/etc. and BUY them the food, since they’re so BROKE and hungry they OBVIOUSLY have to eat mine”. Since that point, I’ve wanted a job where my lunch was stolen so I could secretly POISON it with laxatives, and other dubious (does this word make sense here?) items. These moochers would pay. But, until then, I’ll thank my lucky stars that most everyone I work with makes ENOUGH money to bring their own lunch, or at least buy it.

Tangent: It’s snowing up in the passes now. I talked to someone named Christine Burton today also. Burton is a snowboarding company, they made my snowboard pants. Snowboarding is coming very soon. Check back for updates about how people tell me I should be a professional snowboarder but I am content in them just telling me so. End tangent.

So, this bird flu thing. That’s kind of scary. Here I am, eating my breakfast this morning, and the news is telling me that if it comes to the states, TWO MILLION PEOPLE could die? 2 million? Ummm…doesn’t that mean one of those people could be me? It always could be me I suppose. But I hate how they use these scare tactics…and now, I’m washing my hands after going to the bathroom. Look at how the news has changed my life! *sarcastic* I’m worried about eating Turkey this thanksgiving, chicken…and maybe even pork, since it’s “the other white meat”. Wouldn’t it be funny if it was the pig flu? *chuckles* No, it wouldn’t be. And those that laughed at that joke don’t understand how much we, as 60% (or whatever it is, 95%) overweight Americans rely on pork. Those that laughed should be ashamed of yourselves. Hang your heads.

I drink one gulp of sprite, and chase it down with water. That is weird, but I like it because I feel it washes that sugary aftertaste down my mouth and prepares me for another sip of POP.
Ok, so I didn’t really get to touch on the things that I really wanted to talk about: Finally paying for the engagement ring, the great time I had at a couple’s party on Friday night, and how much of a pain moving is…but maybe when I feel like complaining and talking about things that we feel like we SHOULD be interested in, I’ll let y’all know. Until then, remember that drinking sprite out of a straw is better for you because it doesn’t touch your teeth. Unless…you’re one of those weird people that swishes it around in your mouth like Listerine. Because there are definitely those people out there. Just try not to be one of them.

Hump Day

So this should tell you something about the day I'm having today: I brushed my teeth with my pointer finger.

That's right ladies and gentlemen. No tooth brush for me! No sir. My girlfriend basically thought the idea of me borrowing her tooth brush was "gross". And that brushing my teeth with her toothbrush was more gross than me doing so with a finger. I just want to let you all know, for those that haven't tried it yet: It doesn't really work. The paste gets all over your lips, your teeth, you don't really feel clean, your finger is sticky even after long rinsings. Yeah, it's not that great of an idea. The toothpaste doesn't even foam up! I mean, how can you get clean just by "applying" toothpaste to your teeth? I don't know if you can or not. Which sucks, because I have a dentist appointment next Tuesday, and of course I've been doing a great job of flossing, brushing for at least two minutes (and trying to do so softly) and also using the rubber pick to strengthen my gums. My teeth should be in the best shape of their lives as I usually floss about once a month maybe, instead of the once to twice a day I've been doing for the past month and a half now. I mean, honestly after this whole flossing hoopla I can successfully say that I floss my teeth “every couple of days”. That’s right. 1 month straight of flossing once to twice a day makes up for the rest of the year not flossing. Gross. I know that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t care. There are people in this world that don’t even take showers…let’s not even talk about dental hygiene!

Today I played in a multi table tournament for $30 on Party Poker. I placed 32^nd out of 720 people for a whopping $118.00. But, it sucked almost 4 hours out of my day and I felt completely drained and emotionally wrecked. That’s what “going deep” in MTTs (multi-table tournaments) do to me. You have to be on the ball 100%. 1 misstep in a no limit tournament and you’re gone. That’s what is so stressful about it. I definitely made a few errors, raising when I shouldn’t have, folding when I should have called, but somehow I still made it in to the money. Skilled players can make it to the money. Skilled players who have luck on their side can make it to the final table. That is the difference.

The only reason I am writing tonight is because I am not tired. I thought I was tired, but got a second wind. I guess all these nights of staying up until 2 am during my “bereavement leave” have set my body clock to that. Unlucky for me. I have to wake up at 7 tomorrow when I’m used to getting up at 9:30 and 10:00 am now. The rain sure has a way of putting a damper on things. I need to pay off my credit card. Stupid credit card. Why do I pay for basically EVERYTHING with it? I’ve got cash in my wallet. I’ve got my check card which will pay for it with basically cash. But no, I’ve got to let a little $150-$2500 (my credit limit) hang over my head every month just so I can feel like I’m “building credit”. BUILDING CREDIT? Please. I’ve had a credit card since I was 18. That’s 5 years of doing this. Over these 5 years I’ve paid off two cars. The first one co-signed, the 2^nd fully under my name. When they ran the credit check on me to apply for a $400K loan on our house, mine was next to perfect. I think they told me the only way I get any better is if I pay off a mortgage and am over 25…40 something old like that.

Ok, now I remembered what I really wanted to talk about. I always used to say, “There are no absolute truths in life”. Someone corrected me by saying, “Yes there is, it’s death”. So, I stand corrected. The only absolute truth in life is death. Everyone that is living right now will die. What you do between the moment you are born and the moment you die is more or less up to you. Having said that, the inevitability of time was quite disturbing to me as I was lying in bed and not being able to sleep tonight. I thought to myself, “God, the last time I worked was more than a week ago. What happened to 7 days? Why is it that when I’m working the week seems to move ever so slowly, yet when I’m free to do as I please, here I am, 7 days later with not very much to show for it, but at least more to show than if I had been working? 7 days.” Just yesterday I was thinking about how well the Seahawks played and how excited I was to have 3 more days off. Just yesterday I was eating Applebee’s with Michelle and telling her how nice it will be to have 5 days off. Just yesterday I was discussing with my manager how much time I could take off. You won’t believe this, but they gave me the option of a month. They’d only pay me a week, but still, I could take a month off. That would definitely be nice. So, I took what they would pay me for. Any drop in income right now would hurt a lot. And that’s what is scary about not having a job to me. Every month we’re going to basically have $1000 between Michelle and I after the mortgage and bills. Somehow we’ve got to build up some sort of nest just in case one of us loses our jobs…has some sort of mental breakdown…has to buy a new car…enough to get by while we’re scrambling to find something basically…this is scary to me. Definitely one of those “high risk high reward” type of deals. Something I am used to I suppose.

Wednesday is hump day. I didn’t do any humping today. Definitely with the brushing of teeth with finger, but definitely not with the humping. For those that haven’t seen it, NYC beats Chicago in Nike Basketball Battlegrounds. Of course they win, NYC always freaking wins. And that’s why we hate them. Chicago had a huge lead going in to half and they blew it. I think one of their main guys got hurt though. Also, I watched about 6 episodes of “Breaking Bonaduce” while playing poker. That guy is a trip, and his wife deserves an award for sticking by him as she’s done. I guess it’s tough with the kids and all. Last I checked, the Houston Astros were up 5-1 in the 8^th inning, so unless Pujols hits some sort of grand slam + 1 I don’t think they’re going to be playing another game. ‘Stros ‘gainst the chi’sox for the World Series. What a sleeper. Sox in 5.

Did I mention I was on the road to losing weight and getting “cut”? Yeah, that’s happening by new year’s eve. I’ve cut out a lot of drinking over the past few weeks (even though it was already at an all time minimum) and I’ve been working out at least every other day, and worked out a lot during this vacation. I’d like to get rid of the gut first, but it’s shrinking very slowly. I guess it’s a lot easier to put it on then get it off. I’d like to end tonight’s post with something memorable or at least witty. On this desk there is stationary with fish on it and a cat swimming with the fish with scuba gear on. The title reads, “Fishy Business”. I laughed that “one laugh” at it the first time I saw it. Like that one “Hah!” you let out when you see something like that. Wish me luck at my next two days of work, I’m sure they’re going to suck.

Sunday nights + Random

The Sunday nights are always the toughest. Always the loneliest, always the longest, shortest, most dreaded. The only thing I can hear is typing. Quiet whine of the computer beside me. I’m starting to learn that I lack focus. That I can do great at things if I just keep my mind focused and driven. But sometimes those thoughts sway, my mind wanders. And for that split second that I’m not paying attention, things that could go wrong…can. Not that I’m saying that they do. I’m just saying that suddenly things swing against me that I can’t control…bah, it’s not all bad at all. The only reason that I write in here is out of sheer, complete boredom.

Let’s see, what to talk about this week: I’m about halfway through my bereavement vacation. It’s been nice to have some time off from work. I definitely have taken as much advantage of it as I’ve wanted to. The past few nights I definitely wanted to go out…well out more than I did, but not doing so is better for me. I’m on a mission to cut 5 pounds by the end of this month, and get more “cut” (period) by the end of the year. That was my new year’s resolution, I slacked, sure, but I’ve still got time left. BAH. The typical mind of the procrastinator. Either way, the past few days, now that I’ve had time off, I’ve been doing 2 and 3 hours of working out, and not just cardio…but cardio for an hour. Weights for an hour…hitting the punching bag for an hour…the gut is definitely what I’m hoping to get rid of. I am very tired of it. The sad thing is, lots of people would say I am skinny. But the stupid BMI calculator says I’m overweight. Of course, the “lots of people” that would say I was skinny are also fatter than me, so I suppose that doesn’t count. BAH, body image is so boring to talk about.

The movie “Crash”. Highly recommend it for people that haven’t seen it yet. It’s one of those movies where people do, act, and say exactly what many of us are thinking. Can I also admit that I bawled at one point in the movie? If you can figure out what point that is, cookie for you. And it’s got that weird “karma” thing going to it too. Personally, I’m starting to believe that there really aren’t any “good” people in the world left. Most everyone is on an “even keel” doing both good and bad every day. Now, there are definitely the people who lean more to each side, and being able to recognize each type of person is a very strong tool when dealing with the rest of the human population. Where am I going with this? Religion: a tool for the masses to keep in check. Karma (yin-yang, balance, etc): a tool for the non-religious (and some religious people) to keep the masses in check. Where do people GET this notion? It’s absolutely ridiculous. Take a high enough population and things are going to happens to multitudes of people, the same way, the same time, or NOT HAPPEN AT ALL. This is my only problem with the film “Crash”. I don’t think that things come back to you, it’s just your head putting that on you. You ran over someone’s cat, and then your bird died the next morning…two completely separate events, yet for those “believers”, it “serves you right”. BS. You make up some story, some reason for the way things are…guess what, you had choices. Yes, everything happens for a reason. But, I look at this I think differently from other people. There is a reason to every action. I broke my hand. I shouldn’t have punched this wood desk (don’t worry, I didn’t break my hand). But, when “shit happens”, what is the point of just reasoning it off like that? I don’t see it…but there are SO MANY EXCUSES: “It was God’s will”, “I deserved it”, “Karma”…So funny how humans work. When things are going in their favor, it’s all their doing. But suddenly when the down swing hits, they try to excuse it away, try to make up for it, or try their best to explain it.

I hate to say it, but life is completely random. If you’re reading this though, you’re probably alive, and doing pretty well since you’ve got internet access somewhere…more than likely indoors too, warm and fed. That’s the exact description of me. And whatever sort of random placement I received here on this Earth I’m damn thankful for…but it makes it so hard questioning it. Why me? Why here? Why am I doing better than 70% of the rest of the World population (maybe 90%?)? This stupid roundabout questioning never gets me anywhere (intention of pun here…once reading over it a second time), yet I tend to do it from time to time, maybe to keep my head in check? Maybe to pull some focus away from the current task at hand? Maybe to make myself feel less significant? Who knows.

Random.

A little sweat.

Tonight, my palms sweat a little. Hold on, I gotta check to see if the rice is still cooking. Ok, back. The rice was STILL in fact cooking. Well, not really cooking but on the “keep warm” mode. That means that it’s done cooking…well, don’t ask me actually, I’m not really sure exactly how the rice maker works, other than the fact that it makes rice by heating up.

Back to the palms. This weekend has been pretty ugly gambling wise. I’m so glad I get to admit it to someone…this blog at the least, because complaining about it to other people who don’t gamble and even those that do probably don’t care to listen, think I’m a complete idiot, etc. blah blah blah. I don’t really like to other people whine, so I don’t try to whine to them. At least, petty whining about stuff that is preventable. So, party poker puts up a blackjack portion of their site. Shit. I’m screwed. And I did. I really did screw myself. But you know what though? Not really. Because since I got home from Vegas, I’m still up a RIDICULOUS amount playing blackjack. And it wasn’t my money that I lost either. That’s the scary thing.

Either way, back story: Party poker and multiple online gaming sites provide bonuses to their players just for playing. Yes, they give you money to play with. Why? They figure most of you are going to lose anyway, so might as well give them some extra money to lose. A lot of people deposit too just to get those bonuses. I am one of them. Playing break even poker I make roughly $22 an hour playing bonuses on Party poker. When I’m losing anywhere between $10-$15 an hour and when I’m winning I’ve seen upwards of $50 per hour. Well, the past 3 days I’ve been playing on Edz’s account. It’s my money, but I don’t think about it as such. In May I gave Elvin $500 for his account, and 5 months later it was $1700. Hell of a return if you ask me. $600 of it I used for Vegas, $350 of it I just lost tonight. So let’s see, that should put his account at roughly $750. Still up $250 for 6 months? Eh. Not bad, if we’re talking interest. And that’s $250 for 25 hours of work. I should be $1850 for 25 hours of work, but it’s not due to aforementioned spending/losses. Today, I worked the bonus, got finished, decided to play a bit…not just a bit, decided to play it ALL. Got up. Got down. Got up. Got down. Got down. Got broke. That’s about exactly how it went. But remember, this isn’t my bank account. That’s the thing. I don’t look at this thing at all. I can’t withdraw from it at any time. The sad thing is, I’ve got 4 accounts like this. At least a grand in each of them, and one with $2200 in it. So much of my money spread out. And I think, after 1 more $100 losing session at blackjack, I’m done with it.

So, let’s go over the rough numbers (because I know you all care so much) I don’t really, but it’s something to talk about at 1 am on a Sunday night when I’ve got nothing better to do. And thinking about money is interesting to me. In Vegas, I lost $3700. When I got home, I won $4800, $1000 of which I left online. That grand is currently $280. The sad thing is, any money that is online ISN’T MY MONEY. I tell myself, I am more than willing to lose it, and if it’s gone, so be it. So, since Vegas, since September, I’m up $100. HAH! That is a joke. BUT, since my GOOD Vegas trip, I’m up overall. And that’s what counts, is the long haul. So this little weekend stint where I lost $500 isn’t really counting I’ve decided. It did make my palms sweat, and I’ve got 4 more accounts to play hopefully for a minimum of a $400 return.

Wow, that’s a lot of talk about online gambling and money. HOW BORING. *Yawn*

Let’s go over my last two weekends: Boring. Sit at home. Sleep. Nap. Watch TV. Watch TV until sleepy and then nap. Drink a glass of champagne to feel like you’re having a mini party for yourself. Surf the net. Punch the punching bag. Shower, sleep. Itch. Complain. Pay for food. Pay a lot for food. Worry about money. Drive, far. 2 hours round trip. Worry about gas, in turn worry about money. Enjoy fall leaves. Be depressed about not partying. Think about losing weight. Think about everyone drinking right now. Think about how the glass of champagne wasn’t enough to fool myself, but it is making me tired. Sleep. Wake up in the middle of the night not able to sleep. Gamble. Be sad while listening to Damien Rice’s “Cannonball”. Send a text message at 1 am to people who know the song. Get one reply and one jealous girlfriend. Question life. Stare at the ceiling. Be numb. Wear colors that don’t show dandruff. Realize you’re going to get 6 hours of sleep tonight. Maybe less if you keep writing. Not care. Sneeze. Blow your nose, look at the snot, throw snot rag away. Vacuum. Eat cake. Desire to be elsewhere, doing other things. Daydream. Walk the dog, carry the dog, laugh at carrying the dog, run away from bears in the forest, but not really bears, probably a squirrel falling out of a tree. Eat Costco hotdogs. Eat Mongolian grill. Huskies bye and a rare Seahawks win in a different house. What not to wear, nudity and more sleeping. A hurried exit. A short phone call. Text messages. Sweaty palms. Boredom quickly followed by depression. And, here we are, catharsis. So good to be writing again, although I wish it was in my journal. Ah well, this will have to do. Do I write too much? Do I write too little? This quote always runs through my head, it’s one that often bothers me too: “If you’re bored, you’re boring”. If A, thus B. Unfortunately, I must be. Sleep is the only thing I can do to avoid it I think.