| Ok. Lots to say and not much time:
My new job is slightly more engaging than watching a slug attack a dish full of dog food. Sadly, it's still far better than my last job. Far, far better. I hope I get to do something other than read manuals sometime in the not-too-distant future.
I've partially emerged from my lazy rut and have been back on my bike a couple of times a week for the past few weeks. Today I had an amazing 30 mile ride through the rural Mississippi country side. I love that I can ride 4 miles from my apartment and be out on a lonely country road. I love that it doesn't get dark until nearly 8 around here. I love that there's so much warm weather around here. If only we could do something about the rednecks in pickups passing with only inches to spare and people thinking it's ok for the 120lb labrador retriever to roam free. Next time, I won't forget the dog mace.
Next weekend, I'm going on my first hiking excursion. It'll be an overnight to Sipsey in Alabama. I just got back from the store (stoe if ya frum 'round here) where I spent a shameful amount of money on the essentials for hiking like matches, bug spray, utensils, flashlight etc. I still have to rent the pack and buy a sleeping bag and food. Oh and I need a compass, biodegradable soap and a couple pair of non-cotton socks. I'm going to purchase all that at the overpriced outdoor store here in town because I want it to stay in business and that's all they had that I need for this trip.
Last night I had an incredibly disturbing dream. I dreamt that my sorta-ex-girlfriend hooked up with this guy I knew in college that we called swole. We called him that because he was a swollen gym-rat. He had a horrible personality. I'm not exactly sure why this dream disturbed me so. I think it's because I lost out to an idiot asshole with a few muscles. I was genuinely surprised since she's occupied far less of my brainpower lately.
Finally, I think that life is getting better. At least I percieve it to be on an incline. I'm not sure whether this is more influenced by the new job or the prozac and I've decided I really don't care all that much. I'm going to keep doing what i've been doing and hope things continue to improve. Don't worry, I'm not superstitious like a baseball player so I won't be wearing womens underwear or not washing my left armpit or anything wierd like that. And I definitely won't be refusing sex from attractive women if the opportunity presents itself. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| I don't think corporate america has a place for me. It is my suspician that deep down, I'm too outside the box. I put on a good show, mind you. Of course, I do the typical corporate monkey-dance for the biweekly cash injection and good bennies but something about the whole thing seems like a sandpaper handjob.
For several years, I've been looking for the perfect occupation. The perfect way to spend my time and get paid. Apparently, there's nothing out there I enjoy doing and can make a decent living doing. I think I've exhausted all my avenues except becoming a trophy husband and given my propensity to regurgitate profanities, I doubt a debutante would want me enough to get hitched and support me into perpetuity.
So, my new job is at a very conservative division in a very conservative company in a very conservative town. Have I mentioned that I also live in a very conservative state? The upshot is that I know exactly how to conduct myself. No ambiguity whatsoever. If it think it could be misconstrued at all, I just don't say it. Also, it simplifies my wardrobe. All dress shirts and slacks all the time. Khakis are ok too. That leaves only one question, when to put on the tie. I think I'll keep an assortment of conservative ties in the conservative drawer at my conservative desk in my conservative department in case I need to meet with other conservatives.
Really, this is an incredible positive step up from the completely unprofessional environment I worked in just two short weeks ago. The contrast is astounding. Stunning really. My culture shock is so thorough that I'm not really even sure what to think yet. I just wish the two people I work closely with had a little more personality. A dirty joke would go a long way here.
One thing's for sure though, I'm ready to know what the hell I'm doing just so I'll have something to fill my day with. I'm tired of reading manuals already.
I'm aging like Boone's Farm. Poorly. It seems that the older I get the worse off I am.
I've been damn proud of myself, though. Two days on the job and I haven't been late yet. Also, I've been getting to bed early and waking up early enough to make my lunch and have breakfast.
Last night I made the most fantastic vegetarian spaghetti. Beer goes incredibly well in spaghetti sauce.
An astounding number of my new firm's internal documents have unforgivable grammar, spelling and punctuation errors. It annoys me to no end.
Oh, according to the handbook, I'm to conduct myself in a manner which 'Always reflects positively' on my new employer. Strangely, I've not had a drug test and it doesn't look like I will. Several of the techies I met should probably be tested too. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| Three days until I start my new job. I'm filled to overflowing with unexcited ambivalence. The whole thing feels gray.
Visited the coast this week.
Burned my neck working in the yard. It's the only way I get to be a redneck.
Partied too hard last night. Way too hard. Met Bill. Bill bought tequila shots and anounced that he was a dom. It was a bit wierd. Even for me.
Met a girl named Cameron. I thought I knew her and she thought she knew me. We must've been lovers in a past life. I don't believe in reincarnation, though.
It seems that I attract inner demons. I suspect that this is different than others. Different than it should be.
I have a duplicitous, decieptful and hateful second-consciousness living in my brain. Whenever I get tired or down, it happily points out all of my shortcomings and amplifies the negative.
In an effort to excise this, I had the doc prescribe some vitamin P. He says two months and I should see some change. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| The brutal honesty of our quasi-relationship was the natural sum of self-dilusion, inner-obfuscation, inexperience, lust and an insane belief that we just weren't right for each other.
We got drunk and told each other that we were too fucked to have anything that wasn't equally fucked up. Later, we explored our dark sides with power exchange, bondage, humiliation, denigration and sex. Good sex. Sex mingled with pain and complex emotions. Sex propelled by self-loathing.
We told each other that we couldn't have a relationship. That we couldn't settle for each other. That there was someone better for each of us. That we weren't and wouldn't be really serious. We fit like OJ's glove.
I was beyond naive to think that I could keep it at bay. I was severely deluded and stupid. Retarded really. I actually thought I could ignore the only worthwhile feelings to show themselves in a long time. Oh sure they were orders of magnitude weaker than signals from distant stars but they were there. That was undeniable. I could control it if only we saw less of each other.
Smoke and mirrors.
We're best at decieving ourselves.
"She's the emotional equivalent to Chernobyl and I'm Three Mile Island," I told myself. "I can't get attached."
It was already too late.
She started to issue emotional paper cuts. Unsubtle actions which revealed that she was capable of what I wasn't. She was able to keep the feelings squashed.
One Wednesday, she announced she was spending the weekend with an ex. Another day, I discussed cooking dinner with her thinking she would come over. A few hours later she cheerfully told me that her parents were cooking an incredible dinner and she was eating with them.
I wasn't invited.
One day, she asked me if she could stay with me for an extended weekend then cancelled to drive 4 hours and spend it with an ex. I agonized for a week before deciding to tell her I have to back off. When the moment came, I was surprised to hear myself asking her to be more serious. A day later, I reconsidered and withdrew my offer. A few days after that, a minor miscomunication resulted in us not talking for several months.
I spent a large amount of brainpower deciding on her Christmas present and never gave it to her.
In late January, she came to get her stuff. It was stilted, palpable and near-malicious. We reopened the lines of communication so I could confirm that our plane had crashed. It had. She'd been lifted away from the scene by her ex and I was left to find my own way out of the forest.
Thursday, I had to go to where she works. My pulse raced. My palms went clammy. Beads of perspiration popped out on my forehed. I cursed myself for suffering from such adolescent bullshit. I saw her a half a block away but I'm not sure she saw me. We didn't speak. That night, the second bottle of saki cleansed my mind of her.
I am still wandering in the forest. Occasionally, I stumble across the wreckage and realize that my efforts at self-rescue have been in vain. I also realize that I'm not yet ready to stop walking and that I'll get there sooner or later. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| It was against our better judgement but we had been doing it for years.
For decades, really.
It was ingrained and none of us was about to object. Not by a longshot. Instead, we sang along in half-hearted, barely-above-talking whisper. Pathetic almost-harmony, noone wanting to stand out.
By now it was a rite of passage. A long-ago-new, once-joyous celebration degraded to stupidly humiliating ritual by the passage of time. By ungrateful and ill-conceived notions of self-respect, dignity and pack mentality. By white middle class inability to enjoy public celebration. Really, by inability to show or enjoy strong or public displays of emotion.
This particular incarnation was led by a tiny octoganol accordian. An accordian tired of being man-handled by a short stout Greek but powerless to do anything about it. The Greek was an American. Barely. Second generation American since his mother had been pregnant at their arrival 50-something years earlier. His parents had naturalized before passing on. He was American and as an American, he played his part in the ritual. As a restaurantuer he couldn't deny them the distinct pleasure of this ritual. Since this particular flavor of half-resented half-loved ritual is only delivered in America.
It was during the second half of 'Happy Birthday To You!' that I realized the wait staff had led us all in the Real Version. The version no chain restaurant would touch with a ten foot pole because they'd be eaten alive by royalties.
I dimly realized that it was the dawn of a new phase in my life. The dawn of the thirtieth birthday and the class reunion. I'd survived High School Graduation, College Graduation, the epoch of the wedding and friend's kids only to find myself lonely and miserable staring down 30.
Thank God I'd befriended a someone slightly older than me in the time since moving to the buckle of the bible belt. It had only taken three years but I'd done it. I'd made some friends who invited me out of my crappy apartment on a semi-regular basis. If it weren't for this guy, a high school football coach, and another guy, the father of a coworker's kid, I would have been the first of my small circle to plunge into the great daunting unknown that is a person's 30s. I would be the first of my cirlcle, my posse, to enter the third decade of existence. As if it were some significant accomplishment. As if it were the 1300s again and 30 made me wise and respected.
The timing was impeccable. I'd been drinking myself to sleep for several weeks and showed no signs of stopping in the near future. 30 privided more fuel for the fire. The rest could be summed up in a few depressingly simple sentences.
Crappy job. Crappy town. Crappy life. Crap.
How do I compare to all those assholes I graduated HS with? The friends I kept up with were a mixed bag. Mostly single, a few were married with kids. Of the married ones, most were unsatisfied with their significant others. One friend(friend?) was such an ass that he pressured his wife into opening their marriage after a rushed pregnant wedding. All the while fully confident that she'd never actually go through with it. Nevermind that he had been going through with it since well before she lent her resigned, pregnant and weary consent. Part of me wants to take her to bed just because he's such a monumental prick and deserves no less.
How do I compare? I'm single, intelligent, educated, liberal and make a comfortable living. Since I've only been out of college a few years, I don't really own anything of any value yet. I've come to the conclusion that I'm retarded when it comes to self esteem, self respect and attracting the opposite sex. A conclusion that many of my male friends must be reaching for themselves by now.
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