Treading water....

I feel like I'm stuck in some alternate dimension where there is no up or down. It's like I'm in limbo, just existing. The worst part about it is that I know that just existing isn't what the intention was when I was given my life. Whatever this rut, trance, slump, or what have you is, I need to snap out of it. How can people depend on me if I can't depend on myself? How can I love someone else if I don't love myself? I realize just how good I have it, yet I don't enjoy it or try to improve on it. Not to wish harm on anyone else, but I shouldn't be typing this rubbish. This is for somebody else to write. This just isn't me.

Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool, shootin some b-ball inside of the school

Played basketball with some dudes from work yesterday. Being that I was nauseated by my performance (or lack thereof) at the previous game, I practiced a few times in preparation for yesterday. I felt although I still am not as decent as I was in highschool, that some improvement was shown. Unlike the last time we played, I actually got the ball to go through the hoop on more than one occasion and not over/under it. Granted I missed a few easy shots, but I still had a great time and didn't get too discouraged. I'm off to practice some more now.

Drink two and blog [about] me in the morning

Civil (adj.) -adhering to the norms of polite social intercourse; not deficient in common courtesy

Where do I start? Better yet where do I finish, and when/how do we finish? When people have a history between them, things can be complicated. So a few mixed drinks, a couple of laughs, and the discovery of a misunderstanding (a greeting that I didn't hear in December) later, here I am with more questions than answers. Along with the wave of pleasant feelings came a fierce undertow of dejection. Not too long after I originally began this entry, I made it to shore. Shore in this case was a bar where a few friends were that had a mariachi band performing. Here I am 3 days later feeling vexed, suffering from confusion, and finally finishing this entry. Wired magazine recently featured an article on how brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand will make you smarter. I couldn't find anything in the issue about how to be wiser....or any ads for time machines for that matter.

While I'm at it....

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects." -Robert Heinlein

"It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." -unknown

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity." -Albert Einstein

"Each place has it's own advantages- heaven for the climate, and hell for the society." -Mark Twain

"I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that will ultimately fail." -Woodrow Wilson

"The best way to predict the future is to create it." -Unknown

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter." -Dr. Seuss

Thought melange

I love driving under bridges while a train is traveling overhead.

The only thing more disturbing than seeing your father laying upside down on a leather chair in his briefs with unopened mail all over him is watching him eat meat off a bone in the backyard the following morning.

My overweight pitbull has at least twenty different nicknames and he's perfected the art of making his farts sound like a human's.

I haven't cried in a very long time.

Alligators can't walk backwards.

How is it that one day I'm in a state of total bliss and another I feel like I'm below the ocean floor?

It drives me crazy when I see anyone wearing a belt miss a loop.

I have friends in jail, some for murder.

Sometimes I don't go outside for days at a time.

Apparently my Uncle Pat is moving to South Carolina :(

Paris Hilton is nauseating.

Can someone please explain to me what an "18 hour" bra is?!

People either love me or hate me and sometimes it's one then the other.

There's something not right about grown men eating ice cream cones.

My heart holds a tremendous amount of love for a lot of people although I don't always show it.

Television rots your brain.

Is the term "Americanized" a synonym for money hungry and overweight?

There is a lot that I've left out.

Honorable mentions

Two other things that happened after the scarf scene but before the bachelor party:
I arrived home to find a copy of Sports Illustrated Latino adressed to "Ice Man" in my mailbox. My address, just adressed to "Ice Man". Not long after I call several people asking if they are responsible for such a prank I get a picture message on my phone. It was an empty toilet paper roll and the text read "Definition of a bad day."
That was from an 801 area code so I will have to wait for Robert Stack to host a new episode for any information.

Over the river and through the woods.........

Saturday........the day when most people sleep in, scurry around at Target, do things around the house, and just generally marinate. Not me! Mine started of with waking early (around 9am) with an overall woozy feeling. The night before, my friend Meathead and I went to Mix in Long Branch to have some adult beverages. On the way there, his car was howling like Teen Wolf and he also made note that he needed to change his rear brakes. So he calls me Saturday and I get dressed accordingly. We did some "typical" Saturday things- went to Auto Zone, and then to his grandmother's house (to work on the car). As we were desacrating one of the rotors with a lump hammer, grandma came out and offered us coffee- which I ironically don't drink.....EVER. So Meathead (or "Stevie" as she calls him haha) enthusiastically replied "Yeah" at the top of his lungs so that she could hear him. I wasn't still smashing the rotor, you just have to speak up for grandma to hear what you're saying. A short time later there I was, dragging my feet explaining to "Stevie" that I really don't drink coffee. As I entered the house, my nails were scraping and breaking off into the wall just like the intro to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. On the table were thee two biggest cups of coffee I had ever seen(they looked like bowls with a small handle attatched) and a plate with big chunks of mozzarella cheese and four very tiny cookies. "Stevie" took the liberty of digging in and was halted by the fact that the cheese was frozen! Meathead just barely rescued the cookies before grandma put the plate in the microwave. Now as I daydreamed looking into my reservoir of caffeinated bliss it dawned on me that the plate was in there for quite sometime. I blinked my eyes and low and behold there was an Uncle Buck sized cheese pancake in front of me. By this point grandma had taken quite a liking to me (to the point where Stevie was cut off and I was fed more cheese than him) and referred to me as "Hun" and said I was a doll. Cheese, sip, laugh, repeat; it was like my own version of Requiem For A Dream. So we finished the job on the car and talked to grandma for a few before leaving. As we were backing out of the driveway grandma ordered me inside. I complied and "Stevie" asked if I wanted him to accompany me to which I said, "I got my gun, what's the worst that could happen?!" Grandma rips the drawer attatched to the kitchen table open and hands me a carefully weaved yarn configuration. "Go ahead try it on!" It was too big to be a hankerchief and too small to be a blanket so I did the logical thing and put it around my neck. With my mind in overdrive due to my overdose of caffeine, logic told me that I was trying this scarf on to see if it would fit one of Meathead's(whose neck is like Mike Tyson's)little cousins or nephews. WRONG. The scarf was a gift for me to keep for being such a doll and helping "Stevie" out. Guess what I wore to the bachelor party I attended later that night!

Hurt-v. cause emotional anguish or make miserable

I remember my dentist, Dr. Schwartz, always marvelling over my high pain tolerance. My sensei expressed the same while demonstrating moves on me past the point where most would have tapped out, or yelped like some wounded animal. Pain as we all know, comes in many forms. If only the same people that called me a robot, and cold, or emotionless knew how things they said permeated me and to what extent they did. Once in a while I bleed, sweat, use logic and reasoning, walk upright, and sympathize with others......... at which point I realize that I am human afterall.

Everyone's saying different things to me......literally.

Why is it that almost nobody has their story straight?! I understand that even if two people are in the same situation they will both have different perspectives on things, but black is black, white is white, and gray is gray. I started writing this entry after an incident I had to deal with at work where people were throwing broken puzzle pieces at me to sort out and try to make fit. Nobody knows the truth about things except those involved and being cognizant of this makes me manic. Having to trust anyone is feat for me. Sometimes I don't believe in what I see, even if there doesn't seem to be anybody else who agrees with me.
Press play.........

Happy Birthday!

Time for some cooked celery.

Indian Thriller

Well the title says it all. I don't know how I found this clip, but I'm glad I did. I don't think Michael's mustache would ever come in that thick though.

Word Association

Most people don't associate "Saturday night" with work. In fact, most people wouldn't associate "Saturday night" with anything that I experienced on mine. The night started off with me finding out that I was going to be working with my friend who is roughly the same age and has the same amount of experience as I do. Sweet. We thought the night would be smooth sailing but it turned out to be more like going down a flight of stairs on your tailbone.

Things started off okay, some light conversation and some music emitting from the radio at a low volume. We went to the mall to pick up a shoplifter. This girl was around our age and visibly upset. Fortunately for her, we are jokesters and felt the need to cheer her up and explain the process she would be going through in the near future.

After that the shit didn't just hit the proverbial fan, it hit everything in the room. So we go to this accident in front of Aquarius Bar. I have been to this place before but never as a patron. It's the type of place to go if you want to have your melon cut open by some Crocodile Dundee knife wielding drunk from Central or South America. When we get there we see a 7 series BMW and a Suzuki Esteem in back of it with it's hood looking like an isoceles triangle. There's a young couple in the beemer and the driver of the Suzuki is on the sidewalk with his fly open and an equilibrium problem haha ha. Before the ambulance came to take the girl I asked the fellow on the sidewalk for the keys to the car (in my limited Spanish) and he started to pull stuff out of his wallet. When I clarified what I wanted, he proceeded to rifle through the interior of his car. There were wires hanging from the steering column and cigarette ash everywhere. At this point I sat him in the back of our car. The whole scene with drunk hecklers/onlookers and the comments made by my colleague and this fella made it tough to keep a straight face, let alone concentrate. Since he was a little under the weather and his girlfriend's car was getting towed, we gave this cat a ride home. *Note* Almost the entire time he was in our backseat he was repeating, "I gotta make a leak. I gotta make a leak." and "Papi I gotta make leak, or I'm gonna break my shit." When we got to his house and let him out he proceeded to "make a leak" all over the street/curb. This was about an hour into my shift!

After that we dealt with a young lady who had her ex and his family hanging from and climbing her fire escape, and the proprietor of a gas station getting socked in the mouth because of a dispute over a loose Black & Mild. I forget what else occured but I do remember my chicken caesar wrap amongst the madness.

Now we are going to another accident, only this time it's on the highway- kind of. One car has a guy and two girls in it in the left lane, and the other has none. Almost like "this little piggy" but not. Apparently 3 people ran off after they had caused this accident and rolled their car over a few times. After all is said and done we give the three a ride home. The one girl's name happened to be Massa so I decided to have a little fun. I told her that I knew my way around but that it'd be easier if she just gave me directions.
"Okay, you have to make a right up here."
"Yes Massa."
"At the stop sign make a left." (not to be confused with leak)
"Yes Massa."
It went right over their heads. On the way back we handled a brawl in and out of a fraternity house. It was quite a melee but nowhere near as funny as everything leading up to it. That more or less ended our night. Thank god for daylight savings!

Talent Show

She's so full of life, and well accomplished too!

I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so....

I don't know how or why, but this song was embedded in that brain of mine for nearly two weeks! I hadn't heard it anywhere, it just "popped" in my head one day.