49 Years Of Ambition

Some cocksucker decided to make a right turn from the far left lane and smashed into me on November 19th. I was driving to work, but my mind was on my task upcoming the next day: my first time as clock operator for the NBA G-League Memphis Hustle. I was so nervous. I had been trained to operate the clock one time, and I was told that due to staff shortages, I would be the man in charge of the clock by myself the next time I came to Southaven, MS, where the Hustle play. It was thrilling but a little stressful that I would have such a responsibility so early in my newest sports occupation on the stat crew of the NBA Memphis Grizzlies. That worry and stress got slammed out of me by the Mexican kid who sideswiped me. I mean, he didn't even slow down when I hit my horn, just kept turning as if no one was there and hit me so hard that I had a bump on my head. I let out a loud "Fuck!", pulled over to the side of the intersection that the moron presumably was trying to turn down. He had to U-turn and come back, and when he did, he and some young girl, maybe his sister, got out of the car. The girl was in tears, probably scared shitless because she was in the passenger seat and got the brunt of the crash. I asked them for insurance information, and the girl showed me her cell phone and a man's name texted out, which is not what I asked for. Finally, their parents or whoever arrived and showed me insurance information, which had three names listed under insured drivers, none of which were the name that the girl showed me on her phone. So I kind of knew I was fucked. The father had the nerve to try to laugh it off, saying to me, "Ay man, I'm sorry about what happened. But hey, stuff happens, right?" I had been doing well holding my tongue, but at that comment, I had to say to him, "Tell him to watch out." He's lucky I'm a different cat, because someone else may have had a different reaction.

The accident situation is still in limbo. I filed a claim through their insurance, but it's been almost a month and they don't want to continue the investigation until they communicate with the guy who hit me, and it appears that family isn't interested in talking. So I went ahead and got my car into a repair shop, which I didn't want to do because I have to pay a $500 deductible to get the repairs done through my insurance. I wanted that guy's insurance to pay for everything because I wasn't at fault, but if they're going to drag forever, then I had to go forward getting my ride fixed because my wife and I spent a week using only her car, and it was very, very, very difficult on both of us. I'm going to wind up paying for that deductible and also for the difference between the actual repairs and what my insurance company quoted, and while that completely sucks, it wasn't realistic that I thought I would come away not paying anything. This was my first accident, so I didn't know the other company would screw me around so much. Lesson learned.

Now that I got that nightmare out of the way, I can proudly report that, yes, I am now an employee of the NBA in addition to Major League Baseball. The Grizzlies put a lot of job listings out there before this season began, but none of them pertained to my specialty, which is statkeeping. So I went on the Grizzlies official website to look under their job listings, and lo and behold, there was an opening for stat crew that they had not made public on Indeed.com, but there it was, right there with all the other jobs they had listed such as maintenance and security and usher and food court. I can't believe this is my life, but the day they called to set up an interview, it was my first day in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on vacation with my wife, so I had to set it up for a week later. But we finally talked, and they explained to me that the stat crew job wasn't something they publicized because they had a lot of people come in who thought they could work on stat crew but were mostly just fans who wanted a job with the Grizzlies and weren't really qualified to do what it takes. That explanation made perfect sense. It's why I take such pride in my scorekeeping duties with baseball and with the company that hires me to work college football. I know how difficult it is to be still and pay attention and do those jobs efficiently, and my experience (along with having someone already on the Grizzlies stat crew vouch for me because they also work in the Redbirds press box with me) made the right impression, and I was hired. Look at me, kinda sorta networking!

This being my rookie season, I have not worked any actual Grizzlies games yet. I was told that I would work G-League Hustle games almost exclusively in my first year until I proved that I knew what I was doing. I had no problem working my way up. I was only supposed to be clock operator for one game after being trained, and afterwards, I would start training to be a stat inputter, which can be hectic and difficult but presents a challenge I want to conquer. But someone on the scorer's desk got sick, and in all of the scrambling and moving people around to replace her, they gave me three more games to work the clock, which I took as a good thing because if I wasn't doing it right, they wouldn't give me more games. I actually love working the clock because there's a sense of controlling the game that appeals to me, and once you know the timekeeping rules to which you have to adhere, it's a pretty easy gig. It's a lot less stressful than stat inputting. The morning that I worked my first game, they kept asking me if I was nervous, and I kept telling them, hey, some doofus just hit me yesterday morning, so whatever happens today won't be anymore horrifying than that. The accident really did knock the stress out of my first day as timekeeper. It was a morning game, so there were lots of schoolkids in attendance on class field trips. My favorite part of the day was sounding the horn indicating the end of halftime and the start of the second half, which the kids clearly were anticipating because the shrieks they let out were piercing. I was like, wow, I've never had this much power in my entire life.

I feel like I am finding ambition now that I have worked my way into positions in all three of my favorite sports. I recently saw a clip of President Obama discussing how unimpressive some people are who have very high status in society. He got to meet all of the heads of state, very powerful people, very rich people, highly educated people, and some of them made the impression that they're not all that intelligent or talented, but got placed in positions of prestige due to connections. And I felt that. It reminded me of my days in junior high school on the Gold Coast of Chicago, rubbing elbows with kids whose parents were very rich and powerful. Some of those kids were really bright, some of them were not the sharpest bulbs. But when you have a leg up socially, you feel like you're entitled to anything. I have felt very not entitled to anything in my life, and I was feeling especially low a couple years ago when I tried to find other work and got scammed. But then the college football gig came along, then the baseball, and now the basketball, and it doesn't stop there: there's a new data company hiring for college basketball, and their compensation is about as high as one could imagine, and they desperately want someone for Memphis Tigers games. You damn right I applied for that as well. I don't know where my limit is as far as how much side work is too much, but I feel like I might shortchange myself if I don't go for every opportunity that I can. And I have passed on some potential gigs because the timing didn't feel right or the pay. But I don't think it would be too much to work some pro basketball games and mix in some college games, and then when those seasons end in April, it will be time for baseball again. Some people who work these gigs do way more games than that, because they also do college and youth sports. I really don't feel like I'm biting off more than I can chew. If anything, I'm making up for the previous 49 years in which I didn't feel good enough to try for any of these hustles. I am motivated, I am determined, and most of all, I am grateful as hell to have these chances in sports. My uncle texted me: "So proud of you. You're living your dream!" And he's right. That fat black boy from the West side of Chicago could never have seen these opportunities in his future because he didn't have the connections of the rich and powerful or any other connections. Took a minute, but I'm finally making it happen.

48 Years Of Perseverance

I'm not the "keep pushing 'til you make it" type. Anyone who knows me knows that I get frustrated and defeated when I don't get my way. This year I had occasion to apply for different job opportunities since my day job keeps losing business year to year. It didn't go well this spring and summer. I got scammed by a job posting on Indeed, and by the time I figured it out they had already shipped me a check in my name for over $6,000 that I was supposed to use to "buy" supplies for the job. That was not going to end well. I sent it back. Then I applied to a couple of different companies that were looking for people to watch college football games and do some basic scout work for them, including the company that I worked for doing scorekeeping for minor league baseball before they went remote. I was humbled by the depth of questions on the interviews and embarrassed that I didn't know certain play calls or formations or even who won the football national title last year. I don't watch college football, mostly because I worked on Saturdays. But still, when I didn't hear back from one group and the other sent me a form rejection email, I was very down in the dumps. But the group that I previously worked with when it was Baseball Info Solutions was now starting up the same type of position going to college football games. So I persevered, swallowed my pride, and applied for that one too, and I did much better in that interview because they weren't trying to drill my football knowledge for 45 minutes. They mostly wanted to know about my real life job record and responsibilities. They also said something to the effect of "We already know about your accuracy and dedication because of your work with the baseball side, we just want to get to know you here on the football side." It seemed like a formality that I would be selected to work the University of Memphis football games. Then weeks went by, all the way into the beginning of August, and I heard nothing. That was a very tough stretch. If I wasn't good enough for this gig with all of my prior experience, what would I do? Go back to applying for scam data entry jobs? Finally, finally, they one morning sent me the contract to sign for the gig. And my perseverance paid off. I greatly enjoyed working with what is now Sports Info Solutions, even accepting the chance to work Arkansas State football games 85 miles away, and now I wait for them to develop a similar program to work college basketball games. I will certainly be applying for that too. I know now that I can't get discouraged when I don't instantly get rewarded for my efforts. The blessing will come. I just have to wait for it sometimes.

47 Years Of Weirdness

I saw a random Facebook meme this morning before work and decided to share it as my theme for the day. It said: "I'm Different. And I Like That Shit." I captioned it: "Happy 47 to me. I'm learning to embrace my weirdness. As if I wasn't annoying enough." What that means simply is, I'm not trying to hide my quirks like I always used to. I am what I am. Whatever that entails, whatever social awkwardness, whatever inappropriate comments, whatever abrasive, aloof, sometimes confrontational front I put up to get through the day, it's me. Not everyone likes me. Hell, most people probably don't. And that's fine. I find that when I'm trying to be someone else, trying to fit in and be likeable, it may work and it may not, but I don't like how it feels because I'm being someone other than me. It can take years for people to feel even a little comfortable with their traits. I feel like I'm slowly getting there. And it's not fooling myself into thinking that I'm actually the normal one and everyone else is the problem. It's acknowledging that some things I do are fucked up, some aren't, but they're all MY things. When I wear my normal khakis and collared shirt to work on Halloween and declare that I'm dressing as a big fat nerd, or when I shake my considerable backside to the music at the bowling alley while waiting my turn, or when I make a bad pun joke to my wife knowing she won't find it funny at all, I'm being me, which is different from everyone else, but what would being like everyone else accomplish? Nah, I'm going to enjoy the things that make me me, and I'm going to have days where I feel down about me and wish I was better, and I'm going to have days where I feel like I'm awesome, and everything in between. It's all good. I've always been different. Finally, I'm kinda starting to like that shit.

46 Years Of Compassion

Be gentler to yourself. You matter. Allow yourself to be a human. Don't be a slave to your tongue. Remember to enjoy. Your past is your past. Your mistakes have happened. They're OVER.

I wrote those phrases on index cards and taped them around my home desk a few months ago. It's the result of counseling I received during this trying year, the second stressful trying year of COVID for all of us. I think everyone could use some counseling during such crazy times, or at least have people who listen and give intelligent feedback in your lives. This counselor didn't necessarily say anything brand new, but I suppose at this stage I was ready to listen.

It took almost half a century, but I finally learned to stop being quite so hard on myself. That is a lesson I had to learn in order to stay alive. The stress of being a perfectionist know-it-all was affecting me and my relationships such that I didn't know how much more I could take before I started breaking down. Who knows how much damage I've done to myself to this point. But I've begun to look at life in a different manner. The old way of beating myself up for every shortcoming was not getting it done.

The result is that I don't take every angle of life and see it as a failure on my part. That's not to say that I don't recognize when I don't measure up or when I make a mistake. But I've tried to make the effort to stop seeing every mistake as some horrific personal failing that needs to be examined over and over. This life is one of examining and ruminating over mistakes constantly, as you can tell reading this blog. So it's not easy and more than a little weird to not beat myself up over errors. But it's a relief, and it allows me to enjoy life more.

Part of the adjustment is recognizing the voices in my head that try to bring me back to self-flagellation and just letting those voices happen without freaking out. For example, I received an error at my data entry job last week. I take great pride in not making errors. This was my first one in a long time, more than a year I think. I saw what it was and I know how I messed up--going too fast and overlooking a procedure. Normally that would ruin my whole day. I tried to forgive myself and let it go. But later that day I was chiding myself in an unfamiliar way. I was double-checking my work and this teasing woman's voice in my head kept saying, "Of course you're double-checking. You got an error. Mr. Perfect, who never makes mistakes, got an error. Ha ha ha." It wasn't aggressive, but more like a person taking joy in the misfortune of others, and I never heard that voice in my head before. It was the manifestation of my psyche needing to chastise me for a fuck-up, and since I didn't do it in my normal way--ruminating and cursing myself all day--it found a different way. But I recognized it and let it happen. As my wife has been advising me, I sat with my feeling instead of fighting with it or wrapping myself in it. It's such a different method than I'm used to. But I recommend it. Beating myself up didn't accomplish what I thought it would. I really did think all these years that those who are great at what they do kill themselves for every mistake in an effort to train themselves not to make the mistake again. And maybe some do that, but it didn't work for me. I would still make mistakes, and sometimes the same mistake, and I bet most everyone else does too. The sooner you learn compassion and self-grace, the less stress your spirit carries around. And take it from me, that shit's heavy.

45 Years Of Hate

No shock to anyone who has ever read this blog, but I hate myself. Like, I've never really liked myself, not for longer than a little while anyway, and most days, I hate who I am. I hate being fat and ugly, I hate switching between needing attention and quietly pouting, I hate being a needy momma's boy who lost his momma when he was ten, I hate being just smart enough to realize that I should have been much more successful in life if only I had motivation and direction, I hate the way I hate all men because I'm jealous of them, I hate not being able to satisfy my wife, and before I met her, I hated chasing pussy and valuing women only by whether they were willing to fuck me. 

In this year of coronavirus, I was in the midst of very slowly establishing a routine to get healthier physically and work on the most enduring aspect of my self-hatred, my obesity. I started working out at a gym a few years ago along with my wife, who had a couple of health scares that motivated her to join a gym and drag me with her. She had stopped going regularly because it's hard and because she was dealing with her own food and life issues. I haven't gone to the gym every single day since we joined either, but I was hitting the treadmill about once or twice a week while hitting the weights every weekend, in addition to my Wednesday night bowling league. When I really hit the gym and started eating better and dropped about thirty pounds in 2018, I noticed the change, and so did people around me, and I felt good. I mean, what obese person wouldn't feel good about losing weight and getting compliments? But we went on a cruise for Christmas that year, and I went cray cray at the buffets and really took the opportunity to relax and lay off the workout routine, and I found all the weight I lost by next spring. 

I was working back into a routine I could handle without wearing myself out, and the weights were a big part because it gave me better strength bowling, which lowered my handicap ten full pins. And I was starting to pump up the routine a little at the beginning of this year in anticipation of a family trip to Mexico in June. I wasn't trying to lose thirty pounds again, nor was I eating as restrictively as two years ago. I just wanted to be in my best shape so I could enjoy the trip without feeling worn out, and if I lost a noticeable amount of weight and started getting random compliments again, awesome. Then COVID-19 stopped everything. The gym closed because of local restrictions, the bowling league canceled the rest of the season because people weren't going to come, and suddenly I was left with self-motivation and home workouts if I wanted to keep my routine. But without a high level of discipline (and also I had a swollen ankle for a week), I fell off. I've been keeping a log of my workouts, and I didn't do a damn thing for five weeks after COVID hit our country. Then I got coronavirus myself, which ironically pushed me back to exercising regularly because my doctor said not to let the virus settle in my lungs. But I haven't been back to the gym, so my strength is wasted away, and I don't work out very hard here at home because I guess at the gym I'm motivated to really go for it since I made the effort to drive there and all, plus the circulation and A/C is much better. Or maybe those are excuses I hide behind to avoid how lazy I am. After all, in case you missed the top of this rant, I hate myself, and I always have.

I want to say that in this, my 45th year, I will do a better job of forgiving my shortcomings and trying to improve those areas where I can improve. But I know who I am and what I am. I'm a chickenshit afraid of my own shadow, and I'm mired in a lifelong routine of lying down wanting to get up and do for myself but not able due to some sort of emotional paralysis. Let me explain what happens most times when I want to do something. Take my wife, for example. I can't make myself be forward with her. Next year will be ten years of marriage, and yet I still cannot take her by the hand and lead her to the bedroom, not without an extraordinary amount of courage which takes me forever to build up. I feel like a man with confidence in himself can easily make his moves on a lady. Not me. I have to pretend I'm The Rock or some other sex symbol. It's a very taxing feeling. I don't think my wife feels like I love her very much, but I've always been like that. If you talked to "Karen," she would laugh recalling how I sat on her couch until 2 in the morning holding her hand, refusing to make a move on her until she went to bed and took off her own clothes. Same with "Grace," the one night stand who had to announce to me that she was going to kiss me as we sat on her couch. And "Sarah" had to pull her own bra off after being in my apartment, and The Co-Worker Who Shall Not Be Named had to pull me into her body with her legs while we were horsing around on my loveseat. You get the drill. It works the same way with exercise. Most days I think long and hard about getting up and putting on my cross trainers and putting on a workout video, then nightfall arrives and I get in bed and watch TV. And every time I do, I hate myself. And every time I think about grabbing my wife and showing her the physical affection we all crave and I fail to do so, I hate myself. I will never know how disciplined, motivated people do it. I mean, I guess I did it for a year working out and eating better, but then I broke and went back to my old habits.

I think the worse part of hating myself and my bad habits all my life is, I don't allow myself to feel good about anything that happens to me. I've been trying to enjoy my new car in this first month of ownership, but the monthly payments and the fear that I made a bad buy make it difficult. Any carb I eat brings on self-loathing knowing that I'm a diabetic and I need to cut down, yet I remember how much I craved sweets when I cut down before. Any compliment on a haircut or shave or clothes never brings a sense of pride, but rather a sense of envy because I think of guys much more attractive and in better shape and I hate myself for being such a loser that any small change in appearance make people feel like they have to pump me up. And I hate having to get counseling to deal with these issues because I feel awful about needing help, and I also don't think it helps me much. Like the days in my twenties of filling my nights with sex, when it's over I'm still me and I feel worse sometimes. Same with counseling. I'm trying to look forward to 2021 being a much better year like everyone else is. But in certain ways, it's going to be more of the same. Even when I can go back to the gym, or bowling, or on trips and cruises with my wife, every night when I lay down to sleep, I'm me. And it sucks.

38 Years Of Gluttony

The time has come in my life to either change my relationship with food or succumb to its temptations and die of obesity.  A couple of weeks after my wife and I returned from that cruise in which I almost passed out from the heat despite not really exerting all that much energy, I was at home alone having some kind of arthritic pain in my foot that made me search for some medicine.  I couldn't find any aspirin or ibuprofen in the house, but I came across some Oxycontin that my dentist gave me two years ago when I had some teeth yanked.  I actually contemplated taking more than one, but thankfully, I only popped one.  I'm still paying for it financially.  That one old, poisonous Oxy pill an hour later had me shaking, sweating profusely, heart racing, then it made me vomit, and I'm so dumb that I honestly wondered if I was just having a heart attack, so I called 911 and took my first ambulance ride, which cost about $1400 after insurance knocked $1500 off the top.  The emergency room doc concluded that it probably was a reaction from the Oxy that made me go through all that, but I am obese, so he referred me to a regular doctor just to get checked out.  That regular doc ran blood tests that revealed me to be a borderline diabetic.  We know by now what comes with a diagnosis of diabetes--that list of foodstuff of which you're supposed to restrict consumption.  Sugars, starches, cake, cookies, bread, soda, chips, you know, anything that actually tastes good.  So for the last few months, I've been watching what I eat as carefully as I ever have, which isn't all that careful, really.  Now, a twist in the narrative is that being borderline diabetic, the doctor told me to check my glucose every morning for two weeks and change my diet and exercise a little and see if that dropped me below the threshold where I technically wouldn't be a diabetic, and if I could manage to do that, I wouldn't have to go on any kind of medicine to slow down the way my body absorbs carbohydrates, which is what my wife has to do.  And I did it!  I've done a ten-minute power-walking exercise that I found On Demand maybe five or six times, but that's more than I usually exercise.  And I've made myself stop and think before I take that fudge cookie or Pop-Tart and contemplate if I'm hungry and eating this legitimately or if I'm just looking for a sweet flavor for my mouth, and if I'm just looking for sweets, then I'll deny myself the food totally or go for a healthier option, like an apple or banana or even the fruit gummy snacks, which aren't healthy but are better than a Snickers.

It's a situation that threatens to drive me bananas, pun intended.  My relationship with food is such that I've always gone for the extra portion, the appetizer, the dessert, the side dish, everything I could get my hands on, I consumed it.  There's a couple of reasons for that, I believe.  One is that I've had an underlying unhappiness with life that had made me use food as a substitute for fulfillment.  The other is that being poor all my life, I learned early on to take everything I could get my hands on because I don't want to waste anything.  My wife is amazed at the expired or unappealing food that I will shove down my throat just because I don't want to throw it away.  So to look at cookies and Pop-Tarts in my cabinet and constantly turn away because I'm not actually hungry has been challenging and difficult.  And to choose items on restaurant menus that give me a vegetable as a side dish over mac and cheese or mashed potatoes has been difficult too.  The fact that the doctor says my diabetes is being managed by my choices is the only thing giving me hope that I can keep this up as I enter my 38th year on Planetdre.  I have to keep making the right choices to stay around and enjoy life, and I have to step it up and exercise regularly as well if I want to go on another cruise and not drop dead.  There's all kind of obstacles in my way.  Eating healthier is expensive in this country because, like housing and education, it's something earned by the privileged.  Exercising in the midst of a workweek that grinds you down is very hard, especially if you've never been disciplined enough to work out before.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.  Next year, I have to do better for myself.  Whether that means going full OCD and making an exercise schedule and diet regime or what, I don't know.  But I'm kinda interested in doing that just to see if I could pull it off.  There's always the fear of trying something ambitious and failing.  That will always be inside me as well.  But ultimately, those are all just excuses.  I took a motherfuckin' ambulance ride.  Maybe because of the Oxy, but maybe not.  If I want to avoid the helplessness of that feeling, I have to change.  The gluttony and eating as much as I can has to change.  I'm not hanging out with the guys at the all-you-can-eat prime rib joint anymore.  I have nothing to prove to anyone by seeing if I can take down that footlong sub sandwich with double meat.  The six-inch flatbread will do just fine, thanks.  There will be nothing easy about it.  But it has to be done.

No more excuses.

37 Years Of Understanding

Marriage is hard work and takes a lot of patience and understanding.  That is the understatement of the millennium.  The wife and I have seen our reverend several times since my last post, talking out a lot of differences we've been having.  It was something we needed, because we were grinding on each other's last nerve trying to communicate and not believing that the other person was listening.  Having that third party decipher our desperate screams really helped.  The wife may still think that I've been hiding things from her, but she hasn't accused me lately, so that's some progress.  We're trying to fit a sex life into our schedules, which was hard enough when she was searching for work, but will go back to being a real task once she starts working again on Jan. 2. I feel guilty about it because I've spent so much of my free time on my football blog (inmuchlessdetail.blogspot.com) that I've neglected her.  So maybe that contributes to her feeling like I'm being dishonest with her.  I don't know.  Other life stressors may also contribute, such as our messy house, our general lack of money, and the car needing thousands of dollars of repair work in the past month and still not running right.  In this Christmas season, we've done well to make time for each other and try to keep smiling and not piss each other off.  Hasn't been easy, but we've done it.  As our marriage gets some age to it and we get to know each other better and better, I think we will have no choice but to understand each other better than we did last year, our first year living together.  Although we fought this year as well, for the most past we kept the peace.  Keeping separate bedrooms helped, because no matter how still I try to stay while sleeping, I just can't stay still.  So giving her a peaceful night of sleep has made a big difference in her demeanor.  So on this, my 37th birthday, I must double down and commit myself even more than I already have to understanding my wife, communicating with my wife, and making sure that I am attentive to my wife's needs.  There have been times when she seems truly unhappy, and I hate that look on her face because it's the look you get before you call the divorce attorney.  It will be my fault if she does, because I've neglected her so much already, but it's time for me to start focusing on what she really needs from me to make our marriage worth it.

36 Years Of Contentment

So I am officially a suburban husband.

The inarguable signals are all around. My wife and I had to borrow her uncle's pickup truck because the Corolla was in the shop for a few days and neither of us can commute to work without a car. Memphis doesn't have a public transportation system as comprehensive as Chicago, not by a long shot. So getting to work from home is impossible without our own wheels. We dream of getting a second car someday soon so that we don't have to pick each other up from work when one of us has the car. The other smaller signs include the block being totally empty of cars and people when I step outside on a weekday to retrieve the mail, the monthly bills for garbage pickup and lawn care, and the fact that none of the houses on the block look different from each other. It can be described as a mundane, humdrum, dull existence. I call it The American Dream.

Hey, where I come from, a house this nice in a neighborhood this nice is something you have to work very hard to earn. And my wife has worked her ass off for over twenty years, and she bought this house not long before she met me, so it wasn't for my benefit or anyone else, it was her reward for herself. I'm just here glomming on. And I'm really soaking up all of the relaxation that comes with living in an area where you don't have to duck bullets on the way home or worry about the neighbors playing loud music or having rowdy children. Hell, we had a next-door neighbor that seemed dangerous, and that family disappeared. Yeah, just vanished. I'm not shitting you. It was an interracial couple, black dude and white chick, and they had at least one mixed toddler running around with (hopefully fake) tattoos and a diaper and nothing else. We wouldn't care less normally, but they loved to fight. I mean, late nights, loud, and consistent. The wife wanted to call the police, they got so loud. One of them ran over our cables with the lawn mower and knocked our internet and cable out for a week. Fucked up, right? Then they upped the crazy by bringing a couple of dogs into the family, and not just puppies, but pit bulls! And if that's not bad enough, one morning I was about to take out the trash through the back door, but the wife called my attention to a bedroom window, which showed our back patio being inhabited by the dogs thanks to a broken gate. They were sniffing around our grill and snooping like they owned the joint. Oh, hell to the naw, we said, and we started investigating which phone numbers we had to call to inform the city of this problem. We had to start driving the garbage around the corner to the cans because I didn't want to risk walking out there and getting consumed. I was even considering going next door and having a conversation with these people, because maybe they would be reasonable and keep those things behind their own walls. But I must admit, I wasn't sure if they would be reasonable because nothing about them suggested that they could spell reasonable, much less understand it.

Well, maybe a week, week and a half after the dogs made their first appearance, one day, we noticed that the usual buzz wasn't coming from next door. No dogs barking, no TV blaring, no loud arguing. Sure seemed like the house was empty. And we took note every day, and so far, no one has seemed to be living next door, and this empty house thing started about a week before our wedding. So that's two months now. Just vanished. Poof! Now, the wife says that these people that were living there were not the homeowners, that the actual owners lived somewhere else and were renting out the house. Her theory is that someone let the real owners know what was going down in their crib, and they cleaned it out. Whatever happened, it was kinda awesome and scary how quickly that whole family was, from our vantage point, eradicated from the face of the earth. But it fits with the vibe of this community, which is, nothing too out of the ordinary will be tolerated. The wife has received notes about her garbage can being in the driveway when it should be behind our gate, and she says that years ago, an unapproved flower pot also simply vanished, and she's convinced that someone in the homeowners association was behind the theft. That's a little much, I admit, but I'm also thrilled at the thought of aberrant behavior being policed so vigilantly. Again, I'm from the hood in the Chi, and this is all the stuff of dreams to me.

So on this, my 36th birthday and first as a married man, I'm very content with the non-professional part of my life. Make no mistake, I'm still ambitious about getting into sports media as a new career. But at the moment, it's all about working at my (hopefully) secure position with Symcor, which was purchased by Xerox, and making plans along with my spouse to save enough money to go back to school. This personal side of my life was up in the air at this time last year because I didn't know when I would be able to make my move down here to start life with my wife. But I made the move, and I'm settling in to a comfortable existence in the suburbs of Memphis. I really am a very lucky man.

And for those times when I want to rebel a little and break out of my humdrum shell, hey, the bass on the Corolla can crank up pretty high. Had to pump out some Heavy D. a few weeks ago in honor of the late rapper. Shed a tear at the beauty of the moment. Driving through a froufrou suburb, doing 40 MPH in a 30 zone, making my little Toyota vibrate with the sounds of the streets. Suburban hubby...still a nigga to the core.

Black coffee, no sugar, no cream...

35 Years Of Fear

"Scared shitless" is the not-so-graceful term my fiancee used a few weeks ago to describe me after I expressed my displeasure at applying for a job in Memphis that would be in my desired field of broadcasting. The job was member of a "street team" for a radio station morning show. My impression of that gig is that it's not very high-paying, it's not very secure as far as how long one would be employed in that position before the station decided to cut costs and whack said position, and it's not very useful, because I imagine there's a lot of passing out flyers and setting up zany morning zoo stunts. And on top of that, there's a potential loss of money involved, because if I were to apply to that job and get it right now, I would lose tuition money that I'd have to reimburse my current employer for leaving within two years of getting that money, and I'd lose a performance bonus coming at the end of January. The only thing positive about that street crew position is that it would indeed be a foot in the door of the broadcasting industry, and that is all I want. I'm fairly confident that I will show my talent and ascend the ladder once I get that foot in the door. But I declined to apply for the job because of all the previously listed cons versus that one pro. My fiancee's reaction was to declare me "scared shitless" of going for a real position in radio when the opportunity presented itself. I took it hard that she thought of me that way, and I still to this day believe that my reasons for not applying for the gig were valid. And I believe that I would apply for that same job in February after those money issues are cleared up. But I do have to admit, I have a ton of fear inside of me. There are major, major life changes coming in 2011. I'm getting married, I'm moving to a new city that I am largely unfamiliar with, and I'm going to have to take a new job in order to make all of that happen. There's a sensation of rolling a wheel down a hill that comes with any application to a job in a city that I'm unfamiliar with before I've moved into that city. So that's scary right off the bat. Then applying for a job in radio or broadcasting adds another layer of fear because I have absolutely zero experience in those fields and I would likely be starting out at some entry-level position and hoping to give demo tapes of myself to some strangers and make an impression on them. And I think anyone hoping to break into their dream career in their mid-30s after doing something else for 15 years has trepidation about possibly failing at their dreams after all this time. So on this, my 35th birthday, I can only acknowledge the bundle of fears that I still possess. I can plan on being opportunistic and taking advantage of whatever comes my way, but the fact is, there's a moment before I approach a producer with my demo, before I press "send" on my online resume, before I call a prospective employer in Memphis, when I have to overcome a gigantic ball of fear inside me that has always stood in my way whenever I wanted something that I didn't think I was good enough to have. But hey, I'm 35. There are only so many opportunities that I can pursue. I have no choice but to overcome those fears.

34 Years Of Thankfulness

I recently posted my status on Facebook as "(Me), despite all his bitching and moaning, is pretty darn lucky." This was sparked by my fiancee calling before she went to bed just to tell me she loved me. That's not the first time she's done that, but it just struck me as special because of how miserable I've been the last several months, living on a shoestring budget now that my credit cards are in a debt consolidation program and can't be used by me until they're paid off, wondering when my fiancee and I will be stable enough to decide on a wedding date, living alone in my house despite having a fiancee...the madness never seems to stop. The reason I'm home typing today is because I had to use a sick day because my ankle is swollen, but a day off from work is something I'm always glad to take. So for once, I want to acknowledge the fact that I have many things to be thankful for, like said fiancee, and my family, and my job, low paying as it may be, and the roof over my head, and the food in my fridge. You know, things that 98% of us take for granted every day, including me. And since I haven't posted in a while, I'll touch on a couple of popular subjects that make me even more thankful.

I'm thankful that I'm not Tiger Woods. But I have to be clear about this. Under no circumstances will I say that Eldrick--I feel nasty calling him Tiger, considering that probably every single slut he had called him that as he came--had a bad life screwing a Swedish underwear model, slipping out of the house to bang every white girl he came in contact with, sometimes slipping them into the house (which is either the ultimate pimp move or a sign of a serious sexual addiction problem, or both). No, that lifestyle, amoral as it was, would seem to be the dream of every heterosexual male, except for one small part--the "wife" part. In today's modern sports world, Derek Jeter is the example held up as the guy who can fuck anything he wants and get no public persona hits because of the simple fact that he ain't married. But there are thousands of guys out there like him. They're what I like to call "adults." Nobody, and I repeat, NOBODY, should ever get married living the lifestyle that Eldrick did. There is absolutely no reason to vow that you will be faithful to one woman under God and the world knowing damn well that you won't be. I'll allow the possibility that he didn't realize how much he needed to get his freak on until he said "I do," and maybe he was intending to be faithful to Elin Nordegren, but that still makes him a child because you have to understand yourself enough to know that you're not ready to be in a committed marriage. I would allow that Elin agreed to an open marriage that would let him screw everything that moves, except I'm not sure why she then would be so upset with him that she'd bash his mouth in with a 5-iron Thanksgiving night. And all reports now say that she's divorcing him, so she's clearly not happy with his actions. The part that makes me glad I'm not Tiger is his reaction to all of this. For two solid weeks, whore after whore after whore came out of the woodwork and made some huge claims about Tiger--oops, Eldrick--that shocked and titillated certain people, and he hasn't confirmed or denied one of them. Not one! What kind of man either does all the bold things he's accused of doing and hides behind his website when he's exposed, or doesn't do those things and hides behind his website while skanks make cash off false stories about him? Oh, and cost him cash, too, because sponsors are dropping Mr. Woods left and right while he cowers under his silk covers. I don't care if he came out and cried in front of everyone, or if he came out in sunglasses and told everyone to kiss his Cablanasian ass, but to say absolutely nothing in hopes that this would blow over is wrong on every level. Thank goodness that I'm not as afraid of the world knowing the real me as Eldrick Woods is.

And also, I'm thankful that I wasn't Chris Henry. Henry was an NFL wide receiver who was such a malcontent that the Cincinnati Bengals cut him a few years ago, not because of his production on the field, but because he was dealing with various arrests and legal issues and was driving his coaches and bosses crazy. The Bengals brought him back this season, however. Character doesn't matter in sports so long as you can make the play. What, you don't think O.J. wouldn't still be getting tryouts if he could prove that he can still run the ball? Anyway, Henry was not with the team because he was injured, and he decided last week that a good use of his free time would be to chase his fiancee out of the house during an argument over wedding expenses, watch her climb into a pickup truck and drive off, and pursue the argument by jumping into the pickup truck and banging on the window yelling at her. He didn't stay in the truck very long. He fell off in the street, split his head wide open, and died the next day. What an incredibly stupid way to go. The sports media coverage was predictably slanted toward portraying Henry as misunderstood and a guy who was turning his life around and behaving well, blindly ignoring the fact that he was chasing his fiancee and may have had a violent message or two for her once he caught up to her. So if he didn't fall out of the truck and crack his skull open, he was on his way to not turning his life around and getting arrested again for assault and battery, at the least. I shouldn't have been surprised at the cameras capturing members of the Bengals wailing like some tragic thing had happened, especially when one of those men crying was Chad Johnson, a man so caught up in fame and the media spotlight that he legally changed his last name to Ochocinco in some bizarre tribute to his number, 85. Chad's tears probably didn't start until he felt the heat of a camera light on his skin. But I was a little surprised that of the many various media that I listen to--four sports podcasts daily, as well as a lot of ESPN television in the evening when I come home--only one expressed the opinion that this was a bad guy who died a bad, violent death, and the world's better for it: The Boers and Bernstein show in Chicago on 670-AM. Everyone else either ignored it or said that it was a horrible thing to happen. No it wasn't! It was a funny and really ignorant thing to happen, and it couldn't have happened to a more ignorant guy.

So on this, my 34th birthday, I recognize my need to be more aware of the good things in my life instead of always whining about the bad things. I may not have fame or riches like Eldrick and Chris Henry did, but at the moment, I wouldn't want to be either of them. Well, maybe Eldrick, not because of the pussy, which is nice but ultimately unimportant, but because of the moolah.

33 Years Of Opportunism

Ballots were handed out at my job a few weeks ago voting for 2nd shift's various characters, such as Most Likely to Transition to a better job in J.P. Morgan Chase, Most Helpful, Most Outspoken, etc. The last category was for Most Quiet, and almost immediately after the ballots were distributed, several people approached me asking for my last name so they could rock the vote for me. I didn't have to guess which category they were putting me down for, but after that day I forgot about the ballots until the awards show happened this past Friday. I have to admit, I expected to be in the running for Most Quiet, but I didn't necessarily expect to win. There are close to 100 people working 2nd shift, so I didn't think I'd be able to beat everyone out. But the nominations came up on the TV screen, which displayed the nominees for each award with their name in lights and music in the background, and for Most Quiet I was the 2nd nominee displayed. It was so funny because my name popping up was immediately followed by several people in the room saying, "Who??" I was so quiet that a lot of folks legitimately didn't know who the hell I was even though I've been working 2nd shift now for a year and a half. I guess if I'm that unknown, I deserve to be named Most Quiet, and indeed I won. Now, I didn't vote for anybody in any category, and I dismissed the whole thing as silly the day that ballots were handed out, so you'd think I would be embarrassed or nonchalant about winning. But, once again proving myself to be a hypocrite and proving that when it comes to the spotlight I have no shame, I basked in the "glory" of my win, stretching my arms out when my name was called, strutting down the red-carpet aisle, and accepting my award with a big smile as if I accomplished something. I grabbed the microphone for an acceptance speech, and, no lie, I heard several people gasp at the prospect of me speaking, and one woman said, "This should be something. I haven't heard him say a thing in two years." I then gave my one-word speech: "Shhhh..." Then I took a bow and headed back to my seat in the back of the room as everyone laughed and applauded.

Hey, if I thanked the Academy and took forever in my acceptance, then I wouldn't be deserving of Most Quiet, now would I?

But here's the thing: Those close to me who work with me every day don't think of me as very quiet. When someone does something stupid at work, or my boss gets on my ass about my numbers, or something happens that pisses me off, I'm not quiet at all. I'm quite loud and outspoken about dumb shit. I don't say much when things are going smoothly, but there are days where everything seems to be going off the rails and I appear to be the only one capable of steering the train back on track. A good example would be last month, when an account in my workgroup that has a lot of difficult instructions became a problem because I wasn't there to work on it for a few days and people in a different workgroup tried to do it. They screwed it up, but it wasn't their fault. There are a lot of instructions that were accidentally cut off of the online instruction page for that account, but because I've been working that account for a couple of years, I know what instructions are missing, and I work the account the right way. I have mentioned to previous supervisors and team leads that the instructions need to be fixed, but no one listened, and now people were running up to me saying "I'm so glad you're here!" because I returned from having a few days off early in November and I was known as the only guy who really knew how to work that account. Really, when you're running up to me saying "I'm glad you're here!," you have major issues. Because I had mentioned the problems with this account's instructions page many times before, I decided that I was going on a full-on crusade to have this taken care of once and for all, and I talked to team leads and supervisors from 1st shift, who seem to take these things more seriously than 2nd shift, and I grabbed Maria Perez, one of my old supervisors who got promoted upstairs, as she was walking by. And I explained to everyone, one by one, in a calm voice that--how did I put it--this account's instructions are extremely fucked up and someone needs to get off their ass and fix it. After four or five days of different people consulting with me about what needed to be added and subtracted from the page, the job was done. If I wasn't so quiet, this could have been done months ago, I admit, but the point is, when I take charge of getting something done, I'm not quiet at all. I'm rude, crude, brusque and straightforward, and I'm relentless, never pulling up until I accomplish what I need to accomplish.

On this, my 33rd birthday, I am reflecting on that bulldog attitude that I have at certain times that make it such a laugh that I won an award for Most Quiet. I am who I am, and I wouldn't want to change that. And who I am is a quiet person by nature who gets loud and aggressive when he senses the achievement of an accessible goal or the stench of incompetence. I'm like a chameleon in that respect. Last Friday I made a section of a room gasp in shock when I opened my mouth to speak, while another section of the same room winked at me as I accepted my award, knowing that I can get vociferous with the best of them. I like to think of that as being opportunistic. Like one of my favorite wrestlers growing up, Arn Anderson, I will take shot after shot waiting for the right time when I can hit my one good blow that does as much damage as many shots by other people. In other words, when I strike, I make it count. Looking back at my birthday entry from last year, it seems that I decided to keep my cloak of invisibility a little while longer, until I choose my moment to stand up and make myself heard. That's not so much being anonymous, that's just being opportunistic, and I don't think I want to live any other way.

32 Years Of Anonymity

That's two years in a row now that someone wondered why I didn't make a big deal of my upcoming birthday upon finding out about it. This time, it was my team lead at work, Tasha, who doesn't know a thing about me and never expressed a desire to. "You gotta tell us about things like that," she cooed. "We're like a big family!" Yeah, right. All In The Family, maybe. When I told the people I used to work with on 1st shift that it was my birthday, the reactions ranged from surprise, of course, to pity that I was spending my birthday working. But it's all good. I wouldn't have done anything today but clean the house anyway. What am I gonna do, go out clubbing?

The fact that no one knew my birthday was coming is but a small piece of my daily routine. I'm Mr. Anonymity. I'm the modern-day Mr. Cellophane, for you fans of the musical Chicago. Every day I trudge to work or school or both, and I trudge home, and I barely say a word or have a word said to me. Really, I might be known by some as That Weird Guy With The Headphones, because for almost 20 years now I've hardly been out in public without my headphones on, usually big ear-covering ones too, "kickerboxes on your head," as a former co-worker once called them. The bigger the headphones, the less I have to hear, plus they double as great earmuffs for those Chicago winters that my girlfriend will get to experience when she moves here in the next few years. I could be some cult figure like the loudmouth preacher downtown with the portable loudspeaker or those guys that dress in silver and gold bodypaint and do mime performances on the corner. There might be some punk band in Wicker Park whose members dress in baseball caps and huge headphones and nothing else, as some odd homage to that eccentric fat guy who always looks like he could kick the world's ass. But I would never know. And that's how I've always wanted it. Speaking up and making my presence known is not something I like doing most of the time. After I got to know my co-workers at my jobs, I wound up loosening up and being the class clown, so to speak. But my demeanor is the same for most of the day--head down, no smile, walking with a purpose, going where I gotta go, doing what I gotta do. Sealing off the whole world in a way for various reasons, be it shyness or lack of social skills or lack of confidence or, in those really special moments, hatred of the entire human race. (If you've ever wondered why I refer to myself as Planet Dre...)

My latest problem at work may not be directly tied to my attempts to be anonymous, but it's loosely connected. See, my job is rather simple when you break it down: Type in P.O. box number, scan a header ticket to start a batch, open all the mail sent to that box, enter the check amounts, run the check through a check reader, scan a separator ticket between each check, end batch, move on. Boring, I know. But apparently, the way I do my job is not satisfying this items-per-hour ratio that's been established by people above me who don't do this job and therefore don't know how impossible it would be to keep up that ratio for all 7 or 8 or however many hours you're working. The ratio is 133 items per hour. That means that in addition to checks, you can staple the material inside an envelope that has no check inside (we've been getting a lot of Christmas cards lately, for instance) and add that to your batch at the end when you close it, and you can also add the unprocessable items for those checks that may have something wrong with it, like a missing signature or it was sent to the wrong P.O. box, so it's not just 133 checks per hour, it's 133 items. But seriously, if you sit down and start working on a bundle of mail, like I do, you run into missorted envelopes in the wrong bundle, you run into a large amount of material that has to be taped together because the automatic mail opener sliced the pages up, you may have to photocopy an envelope because if it's cardboard (FedEx, DHL, etc.) it's too big to fit into the image machine...you run into a lot of shit that takes up too much of your time to process 133 items per hour. It's impossible. The way that co-workers are getting around this number is that they're pre-staging their work, meaning they're opening the envelopes and taping letters and making copies and all that good stuff before they ever start to type in boxes and check amounts. That saves time from their items per hour, but it doesn't get as much work done because they're spending hours pre-staging and not working, whereas I just sit down and work because that's how I prefer to do it. My supervisor Lucy, this ogre of a woman who obviously got off the first boat from Russia years ago hoping to wrestle bears in America for money or something, has been on my ass virtually every day for the past two months because my items per hour was below 90. But when she thrust the November numbers in my face showing me how many other people in my workgroup have better IPH rates than me, I noticed something in the total items column: Only one person in my workgroup nailed more than 10,000 items total last month, and that was yours truly. Then I remembered that I was on vacation for a week in November because I spent several days in Memphis after Thanksgiving! You'd think Lucy would be thrilled to see that bit of information when I pointed it out to her. Her response: "It doesn't matter how much work you do." I never thought there existed a job where someone could be told that it didn't matter that they produced more work than anyone else. Did I mention that I haven't made an error in my mail extraction job duties all year? I tie this to anonymity because when you're just a number in a humongoid company like J.P. Morgan Chase, no one has time to listen to individual issues. Something like this should be handled on a case-by-case basis, and someone should have the common sense to back off the most productive worker in the workgroup instead of smothering him daily just because his items-per-hour number is low. Since I produce more than workers who work more hours than me, it seems that the items per hour isn't that damn important. Oh, and Lucy showed me the numbers for December 1-15 just to bitch at me more about how my IPH hasn't improved since she started yapping at me. Guess who's done more items than anyone the first 2 weeks of December as well? But of course, how much work you do doesn't matter. How retarded.

So in this, my 32nd year on Planet Dre, I vow to work even harder in college and continue my push towards (hopefully) Columbia College and a degree in radio. Anonymity has worked well for me for the most part, but I'm starting to get a little tired of it. I can see a time where I shed my cloak and reach for the spotlight and let the world see and hear what my warped mind is creating. The right time, the right place, it all has to come together in a perfect mix of my guts, someone's need to smell-la-la-la-la what I'm cookin', and a whole hell of a lot of luck. But every day that I am told that my hard work doesn't matter because it doesn't fit the mold, I get closer and closer to being ready to leave behind my carefully constructed wall of anonymity and go for what I want.

31 Years Of Learning

"I can't imagine not wanting some recognition on your birthday," said my girlfriend when I told her that no one at work knew today was my birthday and I planned to keep it that way. Yet when I attended a meeting in which a proposal to announce recent birthdays was shot down because no one knew a way to legally find out whose birthday has recently occurred, I chimed in, "Well, today's my birthday, so I guess you can start with me." Later, I told my module's team lead as well. Thus, a perfect ending to a year in which I learned that I will never stop learning, whether I'm attending school or not. Today I learned to never assume that I can reject a chance at grabbing some recognition. I believe that I tried to downplay my birthday every other year as well, and wound up telling everyone so that they would wish me well. This year I learned so much about myself, from January, finally pulling off a one-night stand without falling hopelessly in love, to February, dealing with losing my apartment and living in a basement while piecing together a good enough interview to land my current job, to delicately putting together a long-distance relationship built on common ground and respect and not lust, to patiently building a new life with a new outlook and a new apartment. And the learning can only stop if I want to close my mind and stop it, and that's not something I'm interested in. I want to take every lesson that's coming to me, whether it's painful, enlightening, or whatever.

My most recent lesson before today was very painful--don't hold on to plastic bags too long. I was caught in a long line Wednesday at Walgreens behind those proverbial little old ladies from Pasadena, and I had four plastic bags of Christmas presents in my left hand. I absentmindedly let all of those bags dangle from my left ring finger, thinking that I'm going to put everything down on the counter once I got there. But getting to the counter took forever, because the ladies took forever. I felt the blood get cut off on my finger, but I didn't put the bags down because I would have had to pick everything up off the floor once it was my turn in line, and I was anticipating my turn coming any second now. My finger went numb. I didn't really think anything of it, because I've been caught in line before with bags that cut off the circulation in my hand, and it came back once I was able to get my bags together and arrange them in a way that wouldn't hurt nearly as much. Well, it's Friday, and my finger is still numb. It's just the tip, but it's still scary. At least the nurse at my job didn't think it was a very big deal. She says that it seems to be a very bad bruise and that if the feeling isn't back by Monday, then I should find a doctor. The side of my finger underneath got the feeling back this morning, but the rest of it is still dead. So the lesson: Don't ignore a limb going numb, dumbfuck, drop the bags already!

I have gifts for my girlfriend in Memphis, but instead of paying for postage and sending them down there, I figure I might as well accompany them. So next Sunday night after work I will fly down south for not my wildest New Year's ever, but my most meaningful. I had a feeling that next year would be a big year for me even before I met my girlfriend, and I can't think of a better way to start that year than with her. She has supported me fully ever since we got together, and sometimes I still can't believe I'm with her. I can't wait.

Happy holidays to all!

30 Years Of Futility

God was trying to send me a message this morning. I fell asleep last night with my stereo on the all-sports station, so the very first thing I heard when I woke up this morning was that the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts was leaving his team to go to Florida because his 18-year-old son was found dead in a Tampa suburb. In other words, no matter how bad I feel about my plot in life, at least I still have life.

I was going to write a long essay about all of the things I've learned in 30 years of futility, but the recent events have shown me that the one lesson that I need to learn before anything else is to learn to love myself so that I'm not looking for love in all the wrong places. And I have yet to learn that lesson. I fear that my life will continue to stall until I learn that lesson, but it's not easy, learning to love yourself after hating yourself for years and years. I'm having trouble even liking myself. So I'll just smile and thank those who send me best wishes, and I'll go out tonight with "Shelley" and try to enjoy myself and forget about the fact that absolutely nothing in my life is working out the way I want. But I'll try to have fun. After all, I only turn 30 once.

A Year Older

Today I turn 29 years old. Yikes.

Next year I will turn 30. With nothing to show for my life.

Now, that's no one's fault but mine. I realize this. It's still depressing as hell, but I know that we all get out of life what we put into it, and I haven't put shit into my life. But with the impending loss of my job and the full load of classes that I will take next semester, I am moving forward and making strides in an attempt to make something of myself. I may come up short ultimately, as usual, but if I don't put forth the effort how will I know?

This is turning into the year of sweeping the trash out of my life. It started with the Karen situation in March. Then I put my trust in Sarah's hands, and got squashed for my efforts. I fooled around with a woman I worked with this summer, and I bought her a present for her birthday a few months ago. Today, I got absolutely nothing from her. Not a gift, not a "Happy Birthday," not a fucking word. And we saw each other several times, so we didn't miss each other. I was a little hurt, a little disappointed, a little angry. What I wasn't was surprised. When I made the decisions to lay down with these walking vermin, I knew what I was getting into (except with Karen), so any bad results that occurred should not surprise me at all. We're not talking about women with great personal histories. And hell, I don't have much luck either, so the combinations were combustible from day one.

So in 2005, my resolution is to stop associating with people who I know are pieces of shit and expecting my efforts to treat them with respect and dignity to be appreciated. Karen? Obviously out of my life. Sarah? She called today, but I didn't answer or call her back. For what? As for the woman at work, I never plan to speak to her again. I have to surround myself with quality people if I expect to have a quality life. It's hard enough to focus and stay straight. It's much harder when your support group consists of whores and dirtbags and selfish people who care about no one but themselves.

My next blog will be after I return from Lexington for New Year's with Jane. Wish me luck.