My girlfriend and I were e-mailing back and forth about our relationship and how relatively fast we are moving. This is what she wrote this morning:
"You are right about the red flag of your past relationships. Whenever I read the archives in your blog (which I did in the wee hours of this morning), it always sobers me and makes me realize that this thing could end any minute now. I would never force you to give me one good reason to stick around because I don't know if there is anything you can say to really change the way I feel sometimes. Only time will really change that. The longer that we are together and the more I get to observe you, the more confident I will become of your feelings for me. Until then, I stick around because I have made a choice to do so, a choice to trust that the way you say you feel is real. I stick around because I want to give us the best possible chance of succeeding."
She's not the only one who wonders whether I'm real. I am very very scared of the fact that I felt over-the-moon in love with the trash that I dated before. I am scared that I wouldn't know how to fall in love with a good woman because I fell in love with any women who showed me some attention. Hell, I'm scared that I could give in to some random trash who came on to me just because I'm so used to trash. I'm scared that sluts with no morals or standards are my true element and that dating a woman who waited for the right man and hasn't slept around is aiming a bit too high. Maybe all of that means that a part of me or most of me isn't ready to be in a real relationship. I honestly don't know. But a big part of why it's worked so far with me and my girlfriend is that we can discuss things like this in the open with no boundaries. I'm so far from perfect it's not even funny. But she's been accepting thus far. It would kill me to hurt her as a reward for her patience. And maybe that's the true sign that this is real--I can't stand the thought of doing something to hurt her after all the faith she's invested in me. Fuck my desires and fears, I can't hurt her. I won't hurt her. She doesn't deserve it. And honestly, I don't deserve her.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Friday, October 27, 2006
Beggars Who Are Better Off Than Me
I remember a report some years ago that said a beggar in the right area on an eight-hour shift can make as good a salary as any other minimum-wage worker, if not better. It makes sense when you think about it. Add up all the loose change, throw in the key $1 or $2 tip from a very giving or very guilty rich guy or girl, and that can easily get up to $5 or $6 per hour. There was a tall black guy everyone called Slim who stalked outside CBOE for the entire ten years I worked there. He briefly sold Streetwise newspapers for a while, but mostly he's always just lurked and begged. In a hurry to, what else, get lunch, I nearly ran him over one day not long after I started there, to which he replied, "Excuse the hell out of me!" I just glared at him. Guess who's still down there, and guess who's not? So maybe begging is the way to go. After all, I'm sure Slim's received more money from Bill Brodsky and the other jackass tightwads down there than me and many others who actually worked for CBOE.
There's always interesting observations about beggars in Chicago, especially working downtown as I do. But a couple of incidents made me wonder if they're not better off than some of us believe they are.
Two weeks ago, a guy was standing at an intersection with a paper cup in his hand looking for change from people coming out of a Walgreens. Not an unusual sight, except he was rocking a leather jacket with a Kung Fu-looking insignia on the back. Even I don't own a leather jacket. It was nice too, black and blue and in better condition than you'd expect. I guarantee the retail value on that sucker when it first sold was at least $200. I'm sure it's damn near worthless now, but still, if you have to beg for change, I'd think you'd sell the leather jacket to some goodwill shop or something and find another coat. That same goodwill shop would probably give you a different coat for nothing, and selling that leather number would certainly pay for several meals.
Then, a week ago, I'm standing outside the train station and waiting for the bus to take me home, the last leg of my commute. A tall kid, no more than 17 but three inches higher than me, has to tap me on the shoulder in order to beg because I have my trusty headphones on, which have probably shielded me from an estimated 650 other chances for someone to beg me for something. He apologizes for bothering me, then asks if I can swipe my bus pass through the train turnstile so that he can get on the train. He's dressed like a typical teenager, i.e., his clothes are worth more than my wardrobe. He's also holding a canned pop. Um, maybe if you hadn't bought the pop, son, you could have afforded to go home or wherever you were trying to go. After I turn him down, I notice him wander back over to a posse of about three other young males, and I would wager my house that at least one of them had a working cell phone on them and could call someone to come pick them up. But it's easier to just beg strangers to pick up the slack for you. I'd also bet that people have been giving him things all his life because he's tall, black, and male, and he looks like a potential hoops star. I would make a joke about his Hummer being in the shop, but maybe he's not good enough to make an AAU coach or wannabe agent buy a vehicle for him. Keep working at it, kid, there's countless numbers of people willing to give you a ride anywhere you want if only you can consistently stick that turnaround jumper.
There's always interesting observations about beggars in Chicago, especially working downtown as I do. But a couple of incidents made me wonder if they're not better off than some of us believe they are.
Two weeks ago, a guy was standing at an intersection with a paper cup in his hand looking for change from people coming out of a Walgreens. Not an unusual sight, except he was rocking a leather jacket with a Kung Fu-looking insignia on the back. Even I don't own a leather jacket. It was nice too, black and blue and in better condition than you'd expect. I guarantee the retail value on that sucker when it first sold was at least $200. I'm sure it's damn near worthless now, but still, if you have to beg for change, I'd think you'd sell the leather jacket to some goodwill shop or something and find another coat. That same goodwill shop would probably give you a different coat for nothing, and selling that leather number would certainly pay for several meals.
Then, a week ago, I'm standing outside the train station and waiting for the bus to take me home, the last leg of my commute. A tall kid, no more than 17 but three inches higher than me, has to tap me on the shoulder in order to beg because I have my trusty headphones on, which have probably shielded me from an estimated 650 other chances for someone to beg me for something. He apologizes for bothering me, then asks if I can swipe my bus pass through the train turnstile so that he can get on the train. He's dressed like a typical teenager, i.e., his clothes are worth more than my wardrobe. He's also holding a canned pop. Um, maybe if you hadn't bought the pop, son, you could have afforded to go home or wherever you were trying to go. After I turn him down, I notice him wander back over to a posse of about three other young males, and I would wager my house that at least one of them had a working cell phone on them and could call someone to come pick them up. But it's easier to just beg strangers to pick up the slack for you. I'd also bet that people have been giving him things all his life because he's tall, black, and male, and he looks like a potential hoops star. I would make a joke about his Hummer being in the shop, but maybe he's not good enough to make an AAU coach or wannabe agent buy a vehicle for him. Keep working at it, kid, there's countless numbers of people willing to give you a ride anywhere you want if only you can consistently stick that turnaround jumper.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Making The World Safer, One Full House At A Time
A bill was recently passed in Congress that had something to do with potential terrorist cells passing money back and forth through international bank accounts, and a rider was attached that restricted what business offshore gambling accounts can do with American citizens. What all of that means is that when I tried to play online poker last night, I was informed that some people in a handful of states, due to legislation in said state, were being barred from playing for money now, and the rest of America should be barred in another month or so. Illinois was one of those states with ongoing legislation. Boy, am I glad I won over $300 the last time I played so that I have a sizable amount to withdraw. But this is bullshit. This Chicken Little sky-is-falling administration doesn't have a fucking shred of proof that some group in Aruba running an online poker site is funnelling cash to terrorists through poker, but they'll try to shut it down, just in case. Those who really want to play will find illegitimate sites that are much less safe, they'll win and never see their money because a lot of those underground sites are crooked, and how exactly does that help shut down terrorism? I bet I can hook up with Mark Foley and find some teenage pussy all night long online, but I can't play poker for money. This nation is so bass-ackwards sometimes that it's really pitiful.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
And The Beat Goes On
My small little worries and anxieties kept drumming along the last couple of weeks while the world kept a-spinnin'. After three days in Memphis with my girlfriend that frankly couldn't have gone much better, one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind after I returned was, Wow, all this happiness and feeling good and feeling confident about myself and thanking my lucky stars that I have this woman in my life--I went through all these same feelings with "Karen" after our first few dates. This was after I felt very depressed for the three days leading up to labor Day weekend and couldn't figure out why, then I realized that I responded to Karen's personal ad on Labor Day three years ago. But all is well. I could have gone into a tailspin and started ruminating about everything that happened again, but I refused. This is what time and having a supportive person in my life has done--instead of brooding and stewing, I've developed the ability to breathe, find something to do that takes my mind off things, and if that's not enough, I can call my girlfriend because she actually likes talking on the phone with me and doesn't mind helping me through my episodes. The last episode I had was maybe a couple of months ago, when I was already having a shitty morning and I heard one of those songs that remind me of Karen, and instead of turning it off, I figured I was already in a foul mood, so why not go down the well and see how deep it measures. Still pretty fucking deep, as it turns out. But when I got home that evening, I talked things out with my girlfriend, and we had a great conversation about everything we both were feeling. She didn't just pooh-pooh me and say it will all be okay. She actually conversed with me and helped me work through things. It's really awesome how open and honest our relationship is, not just because she's not a lying whore but also because I'm not a lying whore, either. This is how I always wanted a relationship to be like. And in a way, the best part is, I can realize that it may not work out for various reasons, like the long distance between us or one of us being unhappy with the pace, but whatever the reason, it's not going to crush my soul. I'm truly giving it my best honest effort and if it doesn't work, then it wasn't meant to be. But there's no hiding anything, there's no game-playing, and I'm not going to go insane if she and I can't make it. I will snap if I find her secret website, however. :)
The three days in Memphis started six hours later than it should have because I have a very nasty procrastination habit, which is to say that I missed my fucking flight again. That same toiletry ban that I railed against in my last post got me. When I got to the area where they scan my body, I only had about 15 minutes to make my flight, but they told me that those toiletries would be allowed in my walk-on luggage if they were 3 ounces or less each, so I tried to go through because I thought everything I had was 3 ounces or less. I forgot about my big can of aerosol deodorant. So that was five minutes wasted scanning myself because I had to turn right back around and take my luggage to be checked. By the time I did that, it was 10:48A, and the flight took off at 11A. So the woman at the counter wouldn't even let me throw the toiletries away and check my bag as a walk-on because she said that due to the location of my terminal, I could never make it before they closed the doors to the plane ten minutes before take-off. The news only got worse: The next flight was for 4:55P. It really hurt me to call my girlfriend and tell her this, and it was extremely painful to hear her voice when I told her. She sounded so disappointed. But after snapping at my waitress at a restaurant because she was trying to serve me while I told my girlfriend the news, I realized that I needed to calm the fuck down and cope because I was going to be at O'Hare Airport for the next six hours and it was nobody's fault but mine. So after walking for a few minutes, I came across a bookstore, I called my girlfriend and got a recommendation for a book, and I passed the time reading a frightening memoir that made my childhood look totally normal, Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. ( I also got her an Oral Sex for Dummies book, so that she's not completely in the dark when we do it for the first time.) Before I knew it, it was time to fly, and I was hugging my girlfriend and eating at Applebee's and checking into a Drury's hotel that had a long black hair under one of its pillows and a bed so soft in the middle that I thought I was going to fall through.
My girlfriend left a couple of gifts sitting on my hotel bed for my arrival. She kept hearing me talk about how much I was looking forward to the week off so that I could just soak in a bubble bath and relax, so she bought me a bottle of bubble bath, and a box of chocolates to enjoy while I soaked. She also got me a card that said in part: "If I sounded disappointed this morning its because I savor every minute I spend with you! Here's to a hundred delicious moments." I sent her a text message when I saw the gifts and the card and told her how awesome she was. But she wasn't the only one with a surprise. I mailed her an early Sweetest Day card because I knew I wouldn't see her when Sweetest Day came around at the end of October, and it was sitting in her mailbox the day after I arrived in Memphis. Talk about timing. That same evening, we had dinner with two of her friends, so now they don't think that she made me up or something. The next day we tried to have a romantic walk along the Mississippi, where I wanted to lay my first kiss on her, but the wind was cutting us in half and making my eyes water. So that evening we had a great dinner at Texas de Brazil, which had the exact same endless-cuts-of-meat concept as Pogo de Chao here in Chicago, and after that, she decided to scratch me under the chin on my neckbeard because "I just wanted to do that," and I decided that there couldn't be a clearer signal for me to move forward than that, so we had our first kiss that night on her couch. The next day, my flight departed in the evening, so we had time to have pizza at her favorite pizza place, watch a movie, and discover more joys of kissing. We could have made out for another half-hour, as it turned out; my flight was delayed 28 minutes.
As if to give me something to laugh about for the whole trip, the morning after I arrived in Memphis, the news of Terrell Owens's "attempted suicide" was all over. All I could say was, this is so T.O. No one had been talking about him for a while, he just got dumped by his fiancee, and the trick publicist he's banging probably wasn't giving him enough attention, so he staged a scene where she got home and he had pills hanging out of his mouth. Pathetic. And all she can say in her press conference a couple of days later, after she had been the one who called the cops saying Owens was trying to commit suicide, was that he had 25 million reasons why he wouldn't kill himself, referring to his contract. Real quality ladies you're choosing there, buddy. But hey, if she wasn't a drama queen, she wouldn't be attracted to T.O. in the first place.
Like I said, the world just keeps turning...
The three days in Memphis started six hours later than it should have because I have a very nasty procrastination habit, which is to say that I missed my fucking flight again. That same toiletry ban that I railed against in my last post got me. When I got to the area where they scan my body, I only had about 15 minutes to make my flight, but they told me that those toiletries would be allowed in my walk-on luggage if they were 3 ounces or less each, so I tried to go through because I thought everything I had was 3 ounces or less. I forgot about my big can of aerosol deodorant. So that was five minutes wasted scanning myself because I had to turn right back around and take my luggage to be checked. By the time I did that, it was 10:48A, and the flight took off at 11A. So the woman at the counter wouldn't even let me throw the toiletries away and check my bag as a walk-on because she said that due to the location of my terminal, I could never make it before they closed the doors to the plane ten minutes before take-off. The news only got worse: The next flight was for 4:55P. It really hurt me to call my girlfriend and tell her this, and it was extremely painful to hear her voice when I told her. She sounded so disappointed. But after snapping at my waitress at a restaurant because she was trying to serve me while I told my girlfriend the news, I realized that I needed to calm the fuck down and cope because I was going to be at O'Hare Airport for the next six hours and it was nobody's fault but mine. So after walking for a few minutes, I came across a bookstore, I called my girlfriend and got a recommendation for a book, and I passed the time reading a frightening memoir that made my childhood look totally normal, Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. ( I also got her an Oral Sex for Dummies book, so that she's not completely in the dark when we do it for the first time.) Before I knew it, it was time to fly, and I was hugging my girlfriend and eating at Applebee's and checking into a Drury's hotel that had a long black hair under one of its pillows and a bed so soft in the middle that I thought I was going to fall through.
My girlfriend left a couple of gifts sitting on my hotel bed for my arrival. She kept hearing me talk about how much I was looking forward to the week off so that I could just soak in a bubble bath and relax, so she bought me a bottle of bubble bath, and a box of chocolates to enjoy while I soaked. She also got me a card that said in part: "If I sounded disappointed this morning its because I savor every minute I spend with you! Here's to a hundred delicious moments." I sent her a text message when I saw the gifts and the card and told her how awesome she was. But she wasn't the only one with a surprise. I mailed her an early Sweetest Day card because I knew I wouldn't see her when Sweetest Day came around at the end of October, and it was sitting in her mailbox the day after I arrived in Memphis. Talk about timing. That same evening, we had dinner with two of her friends, so now they don't think that she made me up or something. The next day we tried to have a romantic walk along the Mississippi, where I wanted to lay my first kiss on her, but the wind was cutting us in half and making my eyes water. So that evening we had a great dinner at Texas de Brazil, which had the exact same endless-cuts-of-meat concept as Pogo de Chao here in Chicago, and after that, she decided to scratch me under the chin on my neckbeard because "I just wanted to do that," and I decided that there couldn't be a clearer signal for me to move forward than that, so we had our first kiss that night on her couch. The next day, my flight departed in the evening, so we had time to have pizza at her favorite pizza place, watch a movie, and discover more joys of kissing. We could have made out for another half-hour, as it turned out; my flight was delayed 28 minutes.
As if to give me something to laugh about for the whole trip, the morning after I arrived in Memphis, the news of Terrell Owens's "attempted suicide" was all over. All I could say was, this is so T.O. No one had been talking about him for a while, he just got dumped by his fiancee, and the trick publicist he's banging probably wasn't giving him enough attention, so he staged a scene where she got home and he had pills hanging out of his mouth. Pathetic. And all she can say in her press conference a couple of days later, after she had been the one who called the cops saying Owens was trying to commit suicide, was that he had 25 million reasons why he wouldn't kill himself, referring to his contract. Real quality ladies you're choosing there, buddy. But hey, if she wasn't a drama queen, she wouldn't be attracted to T.O. in the first place.
Like I said, the world just keeps turning...
Monday, September 25, 2006
On The Road Again...
...but certainly not ridin' dirrty like Willie Nelson. Ol' Willie had his tour bus raided by cops recently and was busted for Mary Jane and mushrooms. Must be the musician's life, or maybe at his age Willie doesn't give a shit about hiding his stash anymore. Of course, I can't blame him--I love mushrooms myself, especially portobello.
I'll be technically not on the road but in the air visiting my girlfriend in Memphis tomorrow, and I will return Friday evening. I haven't seen her since she came here in July. I'm a little beat up physcially due to illness, work, and a night of bowling this past Saturday, but I anticipate once I see her, everything will be just fine. She has a very calming effect on me, like I can stop fretting and worrying once I'm in her presence because everything's going to be alright. Those who know me know that it's foreign to me not to fret or worry, but something happens when I talk to her that tames me. When I figure out why that is, I'll let you know.
So I go to print my boarding pass, and this sentence appears below it:
"Effective immediately, the TSA has informed Northwest that travelers are not allowed to transport any liquids, gels, lotions or similar items in their carry-on luggage."
Damnit, I knew I couldn't get away with that dangerous bottle of aftershave forever. This is fucking ridiculous. It's bad enough that I have to kick off my shoes so that they can inspect my Dr. Scholl's Foot And Gun Powder Bomb, but now I can't even bring along a travel-size tube of hand cream? You know, toothpaste can be classified as a gel. Can I not bring my own toothpaste now? The toothbrush itself can be used as a dangerous weapon, why not ban that as well?...Oops, guess I'd better shut my trap, lest I give them any ideas.
The really sad part is that when Osama and his homies decide to do their thing again, there's nothing we're going to be able to do about it. Giving up these and other assorted freedoms aren't doing anything but bringing us closer to the kind of regulated extremist society that the terrorists would love us to have.
I'll be technically not on the road but in the air visiting my girlfriend in Memphis tomorrow, and I will return Friday evening. I haven't seen her since she came here in July. I'm a little beat up physcially due to illness, work, and a night of bowling this past Saturday, but I anticipate once I see her, everything will be just fine. She has a very calming effect on me, like I can stop fretting and worrying once I'm in her presence because everything's going to be alright. Those who know me know that it's foreign to me not to fret or worry, but something happens when I talk to her that tames me. When I figure out why that is, I'll let you know.
So I go to print my boarding pass, and this sentence appears below it:
"Effective immediately, the TSA has informed Northwest that travelers are not allowed to transport any liquids, gels, lotions or similar items in their carry-on luggage."
Damnit, I knew I couldn't get away with that dangerous bottle of aftershave forever. This is fucking ridiculous. It's bad enough that I have to kick off my shoes so that they can inspect my Dr. Scholl's Foot And Gun Powder Bomb, but now I can't even bring along a travel-size tube of hand cream? You know, toothpaste can be classified as a gel. Can I not bring my own toothpaste now? The toothbrush itself can be used as a dangerous weapon, why not ban that as well?...Oops, guess I'd better shut my trap, lest I give them any ideas.
The really sad part is that when Osama and his homies decide to do their thing again, there's nothing we're going to be able to do about it. Giving up these and other assorted freedoms aren't doing anything but bringing us closer to the kind of regulated extremist society that the terrorists would love us to have.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The Death Of The White Sox--Up Close And Personal
My uncle got tickets to last night's Tigers-White Sox game from a co-worker, and he gave them to me and a friend of ours who also works with him and who used to be a teammate of ours in a bowling league. For those who aren't aware, the Sox led in the race for a wild card playoff spot (best record in the American League among all teams who aren't leading a division) for most of the season, but have lost that lead to the Twins. Now the Sox sit about 5 games out of the wild card spot with 12 games left in the season, so when I listen to sports talk radio on my headphones during work, it's 20 minutes of Bears love for every 3 hours of Sox hate. It made perfect sense that free tickets popped up for last night's game because the Sox were swept 3 straight games over the weekend in Oakland, then came back Monday night to get a foot put up their ass by the first-place Tigers, who were still only 6 games ahead of the Sox, so technically the Sox could beat them and still be in the race to win the whole division...but instead, they got killed. So sports talk yesterday was full of death knell sound effects and gagging sounds. Yeah, sure, NOW Sox tickets are available to whomever wants them. No one else has called me all year saying that they have tickets.
Oh, did I mention that the game-time temp yesterday was going to be about 50 degrees?
I expected a sparse, negative crowd of vitriolic, disappointed guys mixed with a few asshole Tigers fans, but I was pleasantly surprised. The fans were die-hards, very enthusiastic and supportive, 38,850 still rooting for the only major-league team in Chicago, even though most of us realistically know that it's just not our year. But my favorite player, A.J. Pierzynski, made us feel like miracles are possible for one night, hitting a grand slam in the 4th inning that proved to be the only hit the Sox needed to win behind Freddy Garcia's one-hit pitching performance. (Freddy's looked high all season long, keeping with the marijuana theme that has followed him since reports came out that he toked with regularity during this past off-season, so he's the one pitcher who can throw two straight 1-hitters. I know, bad joke.) For one more night, the Sox Pride was out and in full force, and I was glad to be proven wrong in my assumption that the wake would be last night for the upcoming funeral. They aren't quite dead yet.
All we need is Pierzynski grand slams every night for the rest of the season. That's realistic, no?
Oh, did I mention that the game-time temp yesterday was going to be about 50 degrees?
I expected a sparse, negative crowd of vitriolic, disappointed guys mixed with a few asshole Tigers fans, but I was pleasantly surprised. The fans were die-hards, very enthusiastic and supportive, 38,850 still rooting for the only major-league team in Chicago, even though most of us realistically know that it's just not our year. But my favorite player, A.J. Pierzynski, made us feel like miracles are possible for one night, hitting a grand slam in the 4th inning that proved to be the only hit the Sox needed to win behind Freddy Garcia's one-hit pitching performance. (Freddy's looked high all season long, keeping with the marijuana theme that has followed him since reports came out that he toked with regularity during this past off-season, so he's the one pitcher who can throw two straight 1-hitters. I know, bad joke.) For one more night, the Sox Pride was out and in full force, and I was glad to be proven wrong in my assumption that the wake would be last night for the upcoming funeral. They aren't quite dead yet.
All we need is Pierzynski grand slams every night for the rest of the season. That's realistic, no?
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
My Luck Isn't Always Bad After All
Just won a four-hour online poker tournament that cost $5 to enter and had 716 entries. That was good for $814.45. Right before I entered the tournament, I bought airline tickets to see my girlfriend in Memphis at the end of the month. I believe that trip is now paid for.
Monday, September 11, 2006
5 Years Ago Today...
It was a Tuesday, and I was working at the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and I was going through my everyday routine of arriving at about 8A, having breakfast, and hitting the trading floor at about 8:20 to get ready for the 8:30 opening bell. I went on the floor at maybe about 8:15 on this day, and I saw a couple of friends glued to one of the many little 13" TVs that were always on all around the floor. On the screen is a shot of a building that appears to be on fire. I asked what happened, and one friend said something like, "Oh, it's weird, man, some yoyo accidentally flew a plane into the side of the World Trade Center." That blew my mind. How did someone manage to fuck up that bad and fly a plane into a big-ass building like that?, we wondered. It already had taken its place in my mind as one of the three most memorable moments that I saw on TV at work, along with the Oklahoma bombings and the O.J. verdict.
Then, right as we're standing there cracking jokes, whatever channel we were watching broke in with film of another plane flying into the building right next to the first one. The announcers' voices were shaking as they emphasized that this was not live footage of the first plane being replayed, but rather tape of a second plane hitting while they were filming the damage from the first plane. Everyone's eyes on that trading floor got as big as saucers, and we were frozen watching the coverage and muttering in disbelief, "This ain't no fucking accident."
The opening bell never happened.
In fact, once word got out that New York wasn't opening the markets at all, the floor slowly emptied out as people realized that something sinister was happening. The Pentagon plane announcement came a little over an hour later, and I distinctly remember saying to the co-worker who would become my lover a few years later, "I don't believe this is happening." It really did seem like a movie script playing out, an Independence Day-like scenario. I moved from trading post to trading post talking to co-workers and colleagues, trying to make sense of everything. By 10A, the floor was nearly empty, Bush was bumping his gums on TV, and the feeling I remember the most was the frustration from 8,137 news channels not being able to give any insight at all on who may have done this or why. I had to hear a number of theories from those around me, and most were way off base, but all we could do was theorize. Finally, with the floor completely bare, the Powers That Be gave word that there would be no trading that day, which meant that we the CBOE staff could finally leave. Yes, buildings being bombed for no reason, and the floor reporters and their supervisors were staying put until the higher-ups gave us the green light to leave. Hey, we weren't traders or brokers, and if trading did occur that day, we had to be there or else lose a day's pay. Actually, a couple of reporters left before the official word because they feared their lives over losing some salary. Everyone has their priorities.
Outside, it was bedlam. Not only is CBOE across the street from the Board of Trade, which obviously felt threatened due to their importance in the nation's economy, but it's a few blocks from Sears Tower, which obviously felt threatened due to their importance as one of the nation's most popular and most visible attractions. So, basically it was every person for himself, a bright, sunny day featuring hundreds of people hailing cabs, stuffing buses, and looking at each other with a mix of fear, sadness, compassion, and cluelessness, if that's a word. A usually empty LaSalle Street bus at 10:30A was filled with folks rushing home to their loved ones, with more filling up behind and in front of us. As usual, I had my headphones on, so I didn't hear what people were talking about with each other. What I did hear was the newswoman on a pop station that I was listening to trying to find an escape break in to say that one of the towers actually collapsed, with a countless number of people still in it. My body went cold, just as it is right now remembering all this. The thought of that happening, a building that big crumbling to the ground with so many people still inside...I could not even imagine how horrific that scene was. I wanted to throw up. The newslady announced the second building falling minutes later, and the usually loud and obnoxious morning guys were completely stunned silent.
There are a million ways 9/11 affected people, from the emotions to the actions it spurred some to take (like Pat Tillman, a damn good free safety for the Arizona Cardinals who quit football in his prime to join the military and wound up killed in Afghanistan) to the impact on the way we live. Me, I was financially affected by the fact that CBOE lost money a bunch of ways--the stock market dipped after 9/11, traders left fearing their safety in a downtown building, and security guards and metal detectors and new electronic entry methods were brought in. The staff lost their twice-a-year bonuses, a hiring freeze thinned us out trying to cover more ground when reporting the traders' quotes, and eventually a new hybrid system was phased in where traders could enter their quotes from their own handheld devices, and we were phased out, although that may have happened eventually with or without 9/11. I wasn't all that much affected by the trauma of the situation because ever since my mom's death when I was 10, I've become a master of hiding my feelings and not letting things get to me (which is why "Karen's" betrayal finally made me snap, because years of shielding my heart from pain exploded right in my face). I felt for the victims, sure, but I didn't know them, so they seemed as distant as the victims of all the other worldwide terrorist attacks. There was a trading firm in the towers that had an office in Chicago, so some guys at CBOE knew some of the victims, and being even that close to it made my stomach turn. I had no desire to get any closer. Getting very far away from it all really is the lasting impression that I have, in the form of realizing that because of how we as a country do things, someday something is going to happen that makes 9/11 seem like just a beginning. So I would love to get away and move out of the U.S., but at the moment I'd have to play the lottery a lot more than I care to in order to do that.
Sometimes I'm amazed at the political football that those in charge have turned 9/11 into. It's like they don't care about the lives involved and just want to use the event to shine a light on the other party's shortcomings. As jacked up as Bush and the rest of the Republicans have been at handling it, it's not like if a Democrat were voted president that Bin Laden would immediately be found. It's pretty clear that he will be found when he wants to be found, and not a second sooner. They're all concerned with the same things--making sure that those close to them would never be a victim of something like this (or have to go fight against it), making sure Social Security funds continue to be funneled into Capitol Hill call girls' purses, and pointing fingers at the other guys and taunting them, saying it's all their fault. I'm obviously no political pundit, but I'd say one of the most glaring things coming from 9/11 is the way it showed our "leaders" for what they really are...and the people of America for what they really are. I mean, when the lasting image of Bush is him hunched over a children's book on 9/11 trying to fathom what happened like he's a 2nd-grader who was just told there is no Santa, and that's our chief executive, what the hell does it say that he got re-elected?
Then, right as we're standing there cracking jokes, whatever channel we were watching broke in with film of another plane flying into the building right next to the first one. The announcers' voices were shaking as they emphasized that this was not live footage of the first plane being replayed, but rather tape of a second plane hitting while they were filming the damage from the first plane. Everyone's eyes on that trading floor got as big as saucers, and we were frozen watching the coverage and muttering in disbelief, "This ain't no fucking accident."
The opening bell never happened.
In fact, once word got out that New York wasn't opening the markets at all, the floor slowly emptied out as people realized that something sinister was happening. The Pentagon plane announcement came a little over an hour later, and I distinctly remember saying to the co-worker who would become my lover a few years later, "I don't believe this is happening." It really did seem like a movie script playing out, an Independence Day-like scenario. I moved from trading post to trading post talking to co-workers and colleagues, trying to make sense of everything. By 10A, the floor was nearly empty, Bush was bumping his gums on TV, and the feeling I remember the most was the frustration from 8,137 news channels not being able to give any insight at all on who may have done this or why. I had to hear a number of theories from those around me, and most were way off base, but all we could do was theorize. Finally, with the floor completely bare, the Powers That Be gave word that there would be no trading that day, which meant that we the CBOE staff could finally leave. Yes, buildings being bombed for no reason, and the floor reporters and their supervisors were staying put until the higher-ups gave us the green light to leave. Hey, we weren't traders or brokers, and if trading did occur that day, we had to be there or else lose a day's pay. Actually, a couple of reporters left before the official word because they feared their lives over losing some salary. Everyone has their priorities.
Outside, it was bedlam. Not only is CBOE across the street from the Board of Trade, which obviously felt threatened due to their importance in the nation's economy, but it's a few blocks from Sears Tower, which obviously felt threatened due to their importance as one of the nation's most popular and most visible attractions. So, basically it was every person for himself, a bright, sunny day featuring hundreds of people hailing cabs, stuffing buses, and looking at each other with a mix of fear, sadness, compassion, and cluelessness, if that's a word. A usually empty LaSalle Street bus at 10:30A was filled with folks rushing home to their loved ones, with more filling up behind and in front of us. As usual, I had my headphones on, so I didn't hear what people were talking about with each other. What I did hear was the newswoman on a pop station that I was listening to trying to find an escape break in to say that one of the towers actually collapsed, with a countless number of people still in it. My body went cold, just as it is right now remembering all this. The thought of that happening, a building that big crumbling to the ground with so many people still inside...I could not even imagine how horrific that scene was. I wanted to throw up. The newslady announced the second building falling minutes later, and the usually loud and obnoxious morning guys were completely stunned silent.
There are a million ways 9/11 affected people, from the emotions to the actions it spurred some to take (like Pat Tillman, a damn good free safety for the Arizona Cardinals who quit football in his prime to join the military and wound up killed in Afghanistan) to the impact on the way we live. Me, I was financially affected by the fact that CBOE lost money a bunch of ways--the stock market dipped after 9/11, traders left fearing their safety in a downtown building, and security guards and metal detectors and new electronic entry methods were brought in. The staff lost their twice-a-year bonuses, a hiring freeze thinned us out trying to cover more ground when reporting the traders' quotes, and eventually a new hybrid system was phased in where traders could enter their quotes from their own handheld devices, and we were phased out, although that may have happened eventually with or without 9/11. I wasn't all that much affected by the trauma of the situation because ever since my mom's death when I was 10, I've become a master of hiding my feelings and not letting things get to me (which is why "Karen's" betrayal finally made me snap, because years of shielding my heart from pain exploded right in my face). I felt for the victims, sure, but I didn't know them, so they seemed as distant as the victims of all the other worldwide terrorist attacks. There was a trading firm in the towers that had an office in Chicago, so some guys at CBOE knew some of the victims, and being even that close to it made my stomach turn. I had no desire to get any closer. Getting very far away from it all really is the lasting impression that I have, in the form of realizing that because of how we as a country do things, someday something is going to happen that makes 9/11 seem like just a beginning. So I would love to get away and move out of the U.S., but at the moment I'd have to play the lottery a lot more than I care to in order to do that.
Sometimes I'm amazed at the political football that those in charge have turned 9/11 into. It's like they don't care about the lives involved and just want to use the event to shine a light on the other party's shortcomings. As jacked up as Bush and the rest of the Republicans have been at handling it, it's not like if a Democrat were voted president that Bin Laden would immediately be found. It's pretty clear that he will be found when he wants to be found, and not a second sooner. They're all concerned with the same things--making sure that those close to them would never be a victim of something like this (or have to go fight against it), making sure Social Security funds continue to be funneled into Capitol Hill call girls' purses, and pointing fingers at the other guys and taunting them, saying it's all their fault. I'm obviously no political pundit, but I'd say one of the most glaring things coming from 9/11 is the way it showed our "leaders" for what they really are...and the people of America for what they really are. I mean, when the lasting image of Bush is him hunched over a children's book on 9/11 trying to fathom what happened like he's a 2nd-grader who was just told there is no Santa, and that's our chief executive, what the hell does it say that he got re-elected?
Saturday, September 09, 2006
A Little Something For My Sensitive Peeps Out There
Very briefly: Tried to watch the movie Crash the other day for the first time since "Shelley" and I saw it last year. Couldn't get through the first thirty minutes; I noticed a tear in the corner of my eye and had to turn it off. That movie is powerful enough the first time you see it, but watching it the second time knowing all that's going to happen is downright gut-wrenching. My girlfriend still says it's not as good as the gay cowboy movie, though. I guess one day I'll have to grab my strap-on and sit down and watch the damn thing.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
The Face Of The NFL--Hypocritical Pink!
I just turned to the NBC broadcast of the first game of the new NFL season, and singing the theme song and therefore becoming the first face of the season that I see is Pink. And she's singing suggestively and wearing a top that looked like it had been sitting in a closet for years, not because it looked old, but because significant pieces of cloth were completely gone. And all I could think was that a few months ago, she was all over my radio singing a song that said in part: "Maybe if I dressed like that, maybe if I talked like that...I don't wanna be a stupid girl." What does she call herself now, I wonder?
And for the record--keep in mind that I'm a horrible gambler and can't predict my own pathetic life, much less anything else--Carolina over Jacksonville in Super Bowl XLI: Battle of the Expansion Scrubs.
And for the record--keep in mind that I'm a horrible gambler and can't predict my own pathetic life, much less anything else--Carolina over Jacksonville in Super Bowl XLI: Battle of the Expansion Scrubs.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Boy, That Explains A Lot
According to a local newspaper yesterday, a Forbes.com report named Milwaukee and Minneapolis as the two drunkest cities in America. No wonder I could actually find a date in those two towns.
Anywho, I've been busy setting up house in my new apartment, putting together tables and desks and shit. I've also had a couple of six-day workweeks recently, once because I went through certification for the new platform we'll all be using to do our jobs once all of the accounts migrate over, and last week I just went in for some overtime pay. There aren't many people left at my job that started with me. Most of them have been shown the door due to too many errors or some other form of incompetence, and some got out for whatever personal reasons. There's a lot of turnover here, which explains why they lowered their standards and hired me. So I'm doing my damndest to hang on and not give them a reason to send me packing. I mean, yes, I'm still tardy a lot; that's just a bad habit I've always had, and I just can't seem to lick it. But I'm not being unprofessional, I'm not making bad/gross jokes, and I'm taking on all assignments unless they try to give me an account with instructions that I simply cannot comprehend. "All assignments" includes running the garbage on my way out almost every night. I even volunteered (well, someone pointed at me because I'm a man, but I could have refused like when they asked me to do something similar at CEDA) to go to the garbage room and arrange the bags so that they weren't spilling over into the hallway. The only weird part about that is that someone took down all of our names after we did it, but I didn't ask why, and I haven't heard back about it since, and that was two weeks ago. Hmm, I don't know if I'm cool with my name floating around on a piece of paper for some unknown reason. But then again, I'm paranoid.
My ladyfriend and I continue to talk almost every evening about anything and everything. Recent topics include glancing vs. gawking, raising a child, lazy Sundays, and oral sex. We'll be able to finish each other's sentences by this time next year at this rate. It feels so good to know that someone misses you as much as you miss them when you're apart. It's always been so one-sided for me, so this is new. And she's a smart cookie, so she still tosses things out here and there to indicate that she's not fully trusting of me yet. I need that. It's a reminder of the piece of crap I've been before when women have trusted me. This blog may be filled with rants and raves about how wrong I've been done, but I have to always remember that my response to being wronged or abandoned has been very immature--lying, cheating, angry letters, accusations, emotional abuse, shutting down. My actions have been very ugly, almost as ugly as what's been done to me, and my friend, having never been in a relationship, needs a lot more time to make sure that she won't be another victim of my temper if we don't work out. There's not much I can do until she arrives at that place except keep being myself and assuring her that I'm real and my feelings for her are real. But I am not discouraged, not when she says she's "in this for the long haul" and tells me that a 90-minute conversation wasn't long enough on a given evening. I really believe she's my life partner. She just may not know it yet.
Anywho, I've been busy setting up house in my new apartment, putting together tables and desks and shit. I've also had a couple of six-day workweeks recently, once because I went through certification for the new platform we'll all be using to do our jobs once all of the accounts migrate over, and last week I just went in for some overtime pay. There aren't many people left at my job that started with me. Most of them have been shown the door due to too many errors or some other form of incompetence, and some got out for whatever personal reasons. There's a lot of turnover here, which explains why they lowered their standards and hired me. So I'm doing my damndest to hang on and not give them a reason to send me packing. I mean, yes, I'm still tardy a lot; that's just a bad habit I've always had, and I just can't seem to lick it. But I'm not being unprofessional, I'm not making bad/gross jokes, and I'm taking on all assignments unless they try to give me an account with instructions that I simply cannot comprehend. "All assignments" includes running the garbage on my way out almost every night. I even volunteered (well, someone pointed at me because I'm a man, but I could have refused like when they asked me to do something similar at CEDA) to go to the garbage room and arrange the bags so that they weren't spilling over into the hallway. The only weird part about that is that someone took down all of our names after we did it, but I didn't ask why, and I haven't heard back about it since, and that was two weeks ago. Hmm, I don't know if I'm cool with my name floating around on a piece of paper for some unknown reason. But then again, I'm paranoid.
My ladyfriend and I continue to talk almost every evening about anything and everything. Recent topics include glancing vs. gawking, raising a child, lazy Sundays, and oral sex. We'll be able to finish each other's sentences by this time next year at this rate. It feels so good to know that someone misses you as much as you miss them when you're apart. It's always been so one-sided for me, so this is new. And she's a smart cookie, so she still tosses things out here and there to indicate that she's not fully trusting of me yet. I need that. It's a reminder of the piece of crap I've been before when women have trusted me. This blog may be filled with rants and raves about how wrong I've been done, but I have to always remember that my response to being wronged or abandoned has been very immature--lying, cheating, angry letters, accusations, emotional abuse, shutting down. My actions have been very ugly, almost as ugly as what's been done to me, and my friend, having never been in a relationship, needs a lot more time to make sure that she won't be another victim of my temper if we don't work out. There's not much I can do until she arrives at that place except keep being myself and assuring her that I'm real and my feelings for her are real. But I am not discouraged, not when she says she's "in this for the long haul" and tells me that a 90-minute conversation wasn't long enough on a given evening. I really believe she's my life partner. She just may not know it yet.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Men Vs. Women
From my archive of random e-mails I've received throughout the years that I just had to save because they were so accurate...and this one is especially funny because it reminds me of the very different personalities in the creative writing class I took last semester...
Remember the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"? Here's a prime example offered by an English professor at an American University.
"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written on the paper. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."
The following was actually turned in by two of my English students:
Rebecca (last name deleted), and Gary (last name deleted).
THE STORY:
(first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
(second paragraph by Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17,???*?? he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things round her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.
(Gary)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret Mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"
(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.
(Gary)
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of FUCKING TEA??? Oh no, I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels."
(Rebecca)
Asshole.
(Gary)
Bitch.
(Rebecca)
DICK!
(Gary)
Slut.
(Rebecca)
Get fucked.
(Gary)
Eat shit.
(Rebecca)
FUCK YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!!
(Gary)
Go drink some tea - whore.
(TEACHER)
A+ - I really liked this one.
Remember the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"? Here's a prime example offered by an English professor at an American University.
"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written on the paper. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."
The following was actually turned in by two of my English students:
Rebecca (last name deleted), and Gary (last name deleted).
THE STORY:
(first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
(second paragraph by Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17,???*?? he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things round her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.
(Gary)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret Mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"
(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.
(Gary)
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of FUCKING TEA??? Oh no, I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels."
(Rebecca)
Asshole.
(Gary)
Bitch.
(Rebecca)
DICK!
(Gary)
Slut.
(Rebecca)
Get fucked.
(Gary)
Eat shit.
(Rebecca)
FUCK YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!!
(Gary)
Go drink some tea - whore.
(TEACHER)
A+ - I really liked this one.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
My Brain Hurts
I've been thinking lately, and you know that's never good.
I got beat in a game of online poker last night that was especially painful because I had the best hand and went all-in for a lot of chips after the first three cards hit the table, and a guy called me who didn't have anything to pair with what was on the board, but he didn't want to give up his high cards, so he closed his eyes and hoped for a miracle. He got it on the fifth and last card, and I was gone. I let off a string of profanities, punctuated with something like, "God, why don't you just kill me now? Please???" That's probably the 7,812th time I've asked for that to happen, and no such luck yet. My mind flashed back to a conversation I had with a friend a few nights ago. The friend asked me if there was anything about my life that I regretted or would change, to which I responded, "What wouldn't I change?" No matter how much the friend persisted, I couldn't really come up with anything other than dancing like an idiot and making mix tapes the night before I won the citywide spelling bee as a way of blowing off the building pressure as something I wouldn't change about my past. I've done pretty much everything else in my life in a manner that I wish I could go back and change, and I do mean everything. I then tried to apply that in my mind to the expletives and wishing that God would strike me down, and of course it would make sense that I would regret all those moments and wish I could take them back.
But I don't. I may be proven wrong if I think hard enough, but I don't believe there is a single thing I've ever said that I would take back. Every threat, every curse, every joke, every veiled insult had a purpose at the time, and I don't feel the need to reverse anything that has ever come out of my mouth. Yeah, I'd be very disappointed if I did have a heart attack and die the moment I asked to die, but shit, I asked to die, so how could I be that upset? It's how I felt at the time. At that moment, I wanted to be dead, so I wouldn't take it back because it's how I felt. And it's giving me a headache trying to figure out how I could possibly reconcile not wanting to change anything I've ever said against wanting to change everything I've ever done. That doesn't make sense. Maybe it's the whole "actions speak louder than words" thing, or, like I said, maybe it's just never going back on things I said because that's how I felt at the time. I really don't know. But I cannot think of anything I ever said that I would take back, no matter how embarrassing or alienating or asinine. They were my words, and I felt the need to utter them at the time, and I'm not ashamed. Okay, maybe a little.
And if you're confused after reading all that, imagine how I feel.
I got beat in a game of online poker last night that was especially painful because I had the best hand and went all-in for a lot of chips after the first three cards hit the table, and a guy called me who didn't have anything to pair with what was on the board, but he didn't want to give up his high cards, so he closed his eyes and hoped for a miracle. He got it on the fifth and last card, and I was gone. I let off a string of profanities, punctuated with something like, "God, why don't you just kill me now? Please???" That's probably the 7,812th time I've asked for that to happen, and no such luck yet. My mind flashed back to a conversation I had with a friend a few nights ago. The friend asked me if there was anything about my life that I regretted or would change, to which I responded, "What wouldn't I change?" No matter how much the friend persisted, I couldn't really come up with anything other than dancing like an idiot and making mix tapes the night before I won the citywide spelling bee as a way of blowing off the building pressure as something I wouldn't change about my past. I've done pretty much everything else in my life in a manner that I wish I could go back and change, and I do mean everything. I then tried to apply that in my mind to the expletives and wishing that God would strike me down, and of course it would make sense that I would regret all those moments and wish I could take them back.
But I don't. I may be proven wrong if I think hard enough, but I don't believe there is a single thing I've ever said that I would take back. Every threat, every curse, every joke, every veiled insult had a purpose at the time, and I don't feel the need to reverse anything that has ever come out of my mouth. Yeah, I'd be very disappointed if I did have a heart attack and die the moment I asked to die, but shit, I asked to die, so how could I be that upset? It's how I felt at the time. At that moment, I wanted to be dead, so I wouldn't take it back because it's how I felt. And it's giving me a headache trying to figure out how I could possibly reconcile not wanting to change anything I've ever said against wanting to change everything I've ever done. That doesn't make sense. Maybe it's the whole "actions speak louder than words" thing, or, like I said, maybe it's just never going back on things I said because that's how I felt at the time. I really don't know. But I cannot think of anything I ever said that I would take back, no matter how embarrassing or alienating or asinine. They were my words, and I felt the need to utter them at the time, and I'm not ashamed. Okay, maybe a little.
And if you're confused after reading all that, imagine how I feel.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Friday, August 04, 2006
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Frying Eggs On The Sidewalk--Who's With Me?!?
Goddamn, it's hot.
Moving on...
I wasn't online for a couple of days last week because the phone company AT&T--reminiscent of my current employer, Chase, because both have had a myriad of name changes--promised that my line would be connected in my new apartment last Thursday. And it was. For a couple of hours. It was fine when I left the house for work that morning. When I got home, the line was dead again, and wasn't reconnected until I was at work on Saturday. Grr. But it's too damn hot to get aggravated, so I'm killing a couple of Gatorades a day and hanging in there. I'm no longer living near the lake, so not having air conditioning is unbearable, and I think I will have to do something about that very soon.
Not much else is happening. "Jacob" was in town last night so that we could go trade some guys in the high-stakes baseball fantasy league before the trade deadline. We're in first place, and we didn't trade any of the great young talent that got us there, but we slightly upgraded the offense. Now we have to hang on for two more months before we can celebrate. It will be an even longer distance celebration than I thought; he and his girlfriend are moving to a winter home in Montana. My furniture was delivered a couple of weeks ago, and because I was actually standing there watching it happen, there was no drama this time. The couch and loveseat are sitting pretty in my apartment. It wasn't easy--they did have to remove the legs from the couch--but it was done, and it wasn't impossible, as the asswipes who tried to do it the first time were claiming. I put the coffee table, the TV stand, and the computer desk together so far. I still have to do the end tables, and a computer chair when I finally go buy one. The living room looks like a human lives in it, for now. We'll see how it is in a couple of months. And the job is going along fine. They have let some people go lately, but because those releases seem to be performance-related, I'm not sweating anything. As I figured, with time I have become very damn good at this gig. The bonuses at Chase are not given to everyone like they were at CBOE. You have to earn a bonus based on the job and attendance, and while I'm still tardy occasionally, I don't leave work early or just refuse to show up. So my supervisor told me that she approved me for a bonus. To celebrate, I'm getting a replica of Allen Iverson's "HOLD MY OWN" tattoo on my right calf.
Or, since my box fan literally burned out while I was typing this post (and I do mean, burned out, complete with burning smell coming from the cord), maybe I'll get an air conditioner.
Moving on...
I wasn't online for a couple of days last week because the phone company AT&T--reminiscent of my current employer, Chase, because both have had a myriad of name changes--promised that my line would be connected in my new apartment last Thursday. And it was. For a couple of hours. It was fine when I left the house for work that morning. When I got home, the line was dead again, and wasn't reconnected until I was at work on Saturday. Grr. But it's too damn hot to get aggravated, so I'm killing a couple of Gatorades a day and hanging in there. I'm no longer living near the lake, so not having air conditioning is unbearable, and I think I will have to do something about that very soon.
Not much else is happening. "Jacob" was in town last night so that we could go trade some guys in the high-stakes baseball fantasy league before the trade deadline. We're in first place, and we didn't trade any of the great young talent that got us there, but we slightly upgraded the offense. Now we have to hang on for two more months before we can celebrate. It will be an even longer distance celebration than I thought; he and his girlfriend are moving to a winter home in Montana. My furniture was delivered a couple of weeks ago, and because I was actually standing there watching it happen, there was no drama this time. The couch and loveseat are sitting pretty in my apartment. It wasn't easy--they did have to remove the legs from the couch--but it was done, and it wasn't impossible, as the asswipes who tried to do it the first time were claiming. I put the coffee table, the TV stand, and the computer desk together so far. I still have to do the end tables, and a computer chair when I finally go buy one. The living room looks like a human lives in it, for now. We'll see how it is in a couple of months. And the job is going along fine. They have let some people go lately, but because those releases seem to be performance-related, I'm not sweating anything. As I figured, with time I have become very damn good at this gig. The bonuses at Chase are not given to everyone like they were at CBOE. You have to earn a bonus based on the job and attendance, and while I'm still tardy occasionally, I don't leave work early or just refuse to show up. So my supervisor told me that she approved me for a bonus. To celebrate, I'm getting a replica of Allen Iverson's "HOLD MY OWN" tattoo on my right calf.
Or, since my box fan literally burned out while I was typing this post (and I do mean, burned out, complete with burning smell coming from the cord), maybe I'll get an air conditioner.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
You Know You Grew Up In The 80's When...
From my archive of random e-mails I've received throughout the years that I just had to save because they were so accurate...
You know you grew up in the 80's when...
> You know what "Sike" means
> You know the profound meaning of "Wax on, Wax off"
> You know that another name for a keyboard is a "Synthesizer"
> You can sing the McDonald's Big Mac, Filet-o-fish, Quarter Pounder
with some Fries song
> You know who Mr. T is
> You know who Fat Albert is, and who was old boy wearing the pink mask
> You remember watching Sesame Street, 3-2-1 Contact, and The Electric Company
> You ever wore florescent neon clothing
> You rolled your jeans
> You remember Brittany, Christina, Justin, and JC on the "All new,
Mickey Mouse Club"
> At some point, you dressed "preppy"
> You ever wore the "hypercolor" shirts that changed color from hot
pink to orange whenever you stood in the sun or got hot!
> You felt cool when you wore 2 pairs of socks
> You could breakdance or wish you could
> You wanted to be The Hulk for Halloween
> You believed that "By the power of Greyskull, you HAD the power!"
> Partying "like it's 1999" seemed SO far away
> You though that Transformers were more than meets the eye
> You knew that knowing is half the battle
> You wanted to be on Star Search
> You can remember when Michael Jackson was black
> You wore a banana clip during some point during your youth
> You remember garbage pail kids and owned some
> You knew what Willis was "talkin" about
> You knew "Rut row raggy" and "Zoinks"
> You HAD to have your MTV
> You actually thought "Dirty Dancing" was a REALLY good movie
> You remember when ATARI was a state of the art video system
> You owned any cassettes
> You were led to believe that in the year 2000 we'd all be living on
the moon
> You remember and/or owned any of the Care Bear Glass collection from Pizza Hut or the Muppets glasses from McDonald's
> Poltergeist freaked you out
> You knew who Ben Stein was before you could win his money, "Bueller?"
> You carried your lunch to school in an ET, Gremlins, Dukes of Hazard, Knight Rider, Strawberry Shortcake, or A-Team lunch box
> You ever pondered why Smurfette was the ONLY female Smurf
> You know what leg warmers are and probably had a pair
> You wore biker shorts underneath a short skirt and felt stylish
> You wore your Izod shirt with the collar up
> You had a Swatch Watch with the Swatch Guard
> Your legos collection started with the free sets in a Happy Meal
> You remember when Happy Meals came in a box, not a paper bag
> You remember when Saturday Night Live was funny
> You had Wonder Woman or Superman underoos
> You know what a "Push Up" ice cream is
> You had to come inside when the streetlights came on
> You had to change into play clothes after school
> You owned or knew someone with a Commodore 64
> You hated Scrappy Doo
> You recorded songs off the radio with your boom box
> You wish you had a light saber
> Somehow, you still know all the words to songs played on VH1's "Big
80's" (It's been 7 hours & 15 days...")
> Your arm was full of rubber bracelets
> You know who Cobra Commander was
> You will not admit it now, but at some point, you listened to New
Kids on the Block or Tiffany
> You ever said, "Like, gag me with a spoon"
> You ever wondered what happened to Saturday morning cartoons
> You had to get up to change the channel
> You can still sing 1 to 12 from the Pinball machine on Sesame Street (or the Electric Company)
> You thought the "Thriller" video was pretty cool
> You remember the first time you went into a video store to rent a
movie
> You wore those wide, colorful shoelaces
> You remember Gem
> Quiet Riot's "Cum on feel the noise" was the best song- ever
> You know where "I want my two dollars" came from
> You still cannot go into the water because of that damn movie - Jaws
> El Debarge's "Get a beat to the rhythm of the night" plagued the
radio every hour
> You remember life before minivans or SUV's when all large families
had station wagons!
If you can identify with at least half of this list then you, my
friend, are a "Child of the 80's"
Now how old do you feel?!?
You know you grew up in the 80's when...
> You know what "Sike" means
> You know the profound meaning of "Wax on, Wax off"
> You know that another name for a keyboard is a "Synthesizer"
> You can sing the McDonald's Big Mac, Filet-o-fish, Quarter Pounder
with some Fries song
> You know who Mr. T is
> You know who Fat Albert is, and who was old boy wearing the pink mask
> You remember watching Sesame Street, 3-2-1 Contact, and The Electric Company
> You ever wore florescent neon clothing
> You rolled your jeans
> You remember Brittany, Christina, Justin, and JC on the "All new,
Mickey Mouse Club"
> At some point, you dressed "preppy"
> You ever wore the "hypercolor" shirts that changed color from hot
pink to orange whenever you stood in the sun or got hot!
> You felt cool when you wore 2 pairs of socks
> You could breakdance or wish you could
> You wanted to be The Hulk for Halloween
> You believed that "By the power of Greyskull, you HAD the power!"
> Partying "like it's 1999" seemed SO far away
> You though that Transformers were more than meets the eye
> You knew that knowing is half the battle
> You wanted to be on Star Search
> You can remember when Michael Jackson was black
> You wore a banana clip during some point during your youth
> You remember garbage pail kids and owned some
> You knew what Willis was "talkin" about
> You knew "Rut row raggy" and "Zoinks"
> You HAD to have your MTV
> You actually thought "Dirty Dancing" was a REALLY good movie
> You remember when ATARI was a state of the art video system
> You owned any cassettes
> You were led to believe that in the year 2000 we'd all be living on
the moon
> You remember and/or owned any of the Care Bear Glass collection from Pizza Hut or the Muppets glasses from McDonald's
> Poltergeist freaked you out
> You knew who Ben Stein was before you could win his money, "Bueller?"
> You carried your lunch to school in an ET, Gremlins, Dukes of Hazard, Knight Rider, Strawberry Shortcake, or A-Team lunch box
> You ever pondered why Smurfette was the ONLY female Smurf
> You know what leg warmers are and probably had a pair
> You wore biker shorts underneath a short skirt and felt stylish
> You wore your Izod shirt with the collar up
> You had a Swatch Watch with the Swatch Guard
> Your legos collection started with the free sets in a Happy Meal
> You remember when Happy Meals came in a box, not a paper bag
> You remember when Saturday Night Live was funny
> You had Wonder Woman or Superman underoos
> You know what a "Push Up" ice cream is
> You had to come inside when the streetlights came on
> You had to change into play clothes after school
> You owned or knew someone with a Commodore 64
> You hated Scrappy Doo
> You recorded songs off the radio with your boom box
> You wish you had a light saber
> Somehow, you still know all the words to songs played on VH1's "Big
80's" (It's been 7 hours & 15 days...")
> Your arm was full of rubber bracelets
> You know who Cobra Commander was
> You will not admit it now, but at some point, you listened to New
Kids on the Block or Tiffany
> You ever said, "Like, gag me with a spoon"
> You ever wondered what happened to Saturday morning cartoons
> You had to get up to change the channel
> You can still sing 1 to 12 from the Pinball machine on Sesame Street (or the Electric Company)
> You thought the "Thriller" video was pretty cool
> You remember the first time you went into a video store to rent a
movie
> You wore those wide, colorful shoelaces
> You remember Gem
> Quiet Riot's "Cum on feel the noise" was the best song- ever
> You know where "I want my two dollars" came from
> You still cannot go into the water because of that damn movie - Jaws
> El Debarge's "Get a beat to the rhythm of the night" plagued the
radio every hour
> You remember life before minivans or SUV's when all large families
had station wagons!
If you can identify with at least half of this list then you, my
friend, are a "Child of the 80's"
Now how old do you feel?!?
Thursday, July 20, 2006
My History (7th In A Series)
This is the story of my old loveseat, RIP, and how I acquired it via the first of many psycho white chicks I would encounter. I'll call this one "Sheila."
The loveseat is gone now. It had been sitting in the walkway between the front and back of the house I live in since I moved into the basement. I tried to take it with me into the basement, but there is a sink built into the wall right at the doorway, and the mini couch wouldn't squeeze past it. So it sat outside the door in the walkway until I felt like moving it to the garbage, but my aunt kept telling me to wait until specific days so that the weekly garbage men could scoop it the very next morning, but she never told me which days would be good. Finally, with me moving out of the basement and onto the first floor, my aunt's husband got sick of looking at the thing and set it on my back lawn for three days. I thought he was going to leave it there until I moved it, but when I came back from picking up my Memphis friend from the airport last week, it was gone. Guess he was waiting for that mythical garbage crew. I told my friend that it was a good sign that she never crossed paths with the loveseat because with all of the action on that thing between me, "Adrienne," The Co-Worker Who Must Go Unnamed, "Sarah" and her vibrators--not to mention it was where I sat when I gave that skank "Karen" her Christmas presents--it represented my old ways vanishing into thin air just before she came to visit me for the first time. But the story behind the woman who gave me the loveseat is funny. Oh, I was pissed at the time, but it's funny now.
This was late 1998, and I was working at CBOE, living in that roach and mouse-infested studio and about to move into my first one-bedroom apartment. But I was hurting for furniture, since I was throwing out the couch my uncle gave me for the studio because it was very uncomfortable. I happened to be in the company of a couple of generous people at my job. A blonde named Aiden who did her job basically a foot or so from me every day knew that I was moving to a bigger place, and her mother had recently died, so she gave me some of her mom's dishes and bought me my first cordless phone as a housewarming gift. I still have most of the dishes. I smashed the cordless phone after losing a bet, probably that jackass Keith Foulke getting lit up again back when he pitched for the White Sox. But anyhow, the other person feeling generous towards me was a woman who was very quiet and introverted and hardly spoke to anyone. Sheila caught my attention because she seemed to be, like me, socially awkward and much more likely to keep to herself at all times. I am the one who started trying to talk to her because she didn't seem to have any friends at all. She worked behind the electronic book at the station I worked at, but she floated around and helped at different stations, so I didn't see her all the time. Not only that, but if I talked to her for more than a minute or two, she would pretend like she had to wander over somewhere else and help out, even though nothing would be going on. But I kept trying to get closer. After all, she was shy like me, and she was thin and pale and a plain Jane, which has always attracted me.
Now, when I tell you about these two red flags, you're going to wonder what the fuck made me keep pursuing her, but I'm telling you, at the time my self-esteem was so low that I legitimately figured that the stranger she seemed, the better chance I had. The first red flag was that absolutely EVERYONE I talked to about her either said that she kept to herself and they didn't know much about her, or...they warned me to stay away. This old white man who never had a bad word for anyone even told me, "I don't think you wanna talk to this one, son." The general consensus was that she was either a little or a lot crazy. They cited episodes where she would start crying under the pressure of a lot of work, or start banging her head against the computer monitor, or start screaming. That was my second red flag--I witnessed her reaction once when the trading floor became active, and let's just say that it involved said head-banging as well as pencil-chewing. Her face turned even more pale than it already was, and at least one person tried to console her, to be rebuffed angrily. I think the traders in my crowd and Aiden all looked at me at this point, as if to say, "See? We told you she was crazy!"
Undeterred, I kept trying to speak to her daily, if only to say hi. One day, I was able to get enough of a conversation going to tell her that I had moved into an empty apartment, and without hesitation, she volunteered an old loveseat she had at home if I wanted it. I admit, I said yes more because I wanted to see her outside of work than because I cared about the loveseat. We played phone tag one weekend, with her not getting back to me on a Sunday until after I had bowled in my league, and I wasn't going to move shit at that point. But the next Saturday, I rounded up "Ronnie" and "Drew," got an older playcousin to bring her van, and told Sheila to hang tight at her apartment, which as it turned out wasn't very far from the place where I moved. When I went down to the garden apartment, it was about six o'clock in the evening, and it had been snowing lightly. So when she opened the door with her reading glasses on, in the twilight surrounded by the winter setting, my heart melted to butter. Sheila had always been polite and kind to me, nervously running away after a couple minutes of chatting, but she had never been crazy when dealing with me, and for some reason this scene made my imagination run wild, and I basically decided at that point that she was in my sights, no matter what. I even stifled a laugh when I saw the loveseat, which was--and you can't imagine how hideous this thing looked--orange with white swans all over it. Hey, it was hardly used, so what the hell. We moved it out, and I tossed some line upon leaving about how I should take her somewhere some time to make up for it. She giggled.
At this point, I was still Mr. Chickenshit and couldn't just step to her face and ask her out, so I asked a female friend who worked close to her to ask her for her e-mail address, and then give it to me so that I could ask her out by e-mail. Yes, I have no balls. I sent the e-mail, but I didn't have my own computer at the time, so for about three or four days I would come to work in the morning, say hello to her, wait for some kind of reaction to the letter good or bad, get nothing, run to one of the computers on the trading floor on my break, and check my e-mail to see if she sent a response there instead. Finally, one morning she continued to ignore me, but there was a response in e-mail form. I tried to save it over the years, but I lost it somewhere along the way, and I'm very mad that I did because it was so fucking funny. Basically, she said that she couldn't go out with me because we have "class issues," I guess meaning that she had it and I don't, and because I'm fat and she's skinny, and because her sister dated a Nigerian last year and her parents were very upset, and because she just came off a relationship with a younger guy and she didn't know if she wanted to go there again. (She explained that she was 40, which shocked me, because she sure looked much younger, that is until she stopped dying her hair black and the gray streaks multiplied daily.) It was a four-page e-mail. She shoved some bull about how I was a nice guy in there too, but basically she totally slammed the door in my face. I had my usual mature reaction, writing back, "Don't let your parents know that there was a black man in your apartment taking your furniture; they might disown you. I'm so sorry that I bothered to ask you out."
Cue the Fatal Attraction music.
Sheila called me the night that I left that e-mail in tears. I remember that I happened to be watching sports over the phone with Ronnie at about 10:45P, or else on a normal night the phone's ringer would have been turned off and I would be fast asleep. I clicked over on call-waiting, heard her sobbing, and clicked back and simply told Ronnie, "Um, Sheila's on the other end in tears. Let me talk to you tomorrow." Sheila then spent about 45 minutes bawling and apologizing for hurting me, and I don't remember much of the conversation because there wasn't much to it. She just kept crying uncontrollably and saying, "I didn't mean to hurt you!" And I just kept trying to calm her down and tell her that I didn't mean to react so angrily, but I was hurt. Basically, her excuses for not going out with me were total bullshit, so to this day I still believe that I didn't react as badly as I could have. But for the sake of ending that phone conversation and keeping the peace, I apologized for my e-mail, eventually we said no hard feelings, and I got the nutcase off the phone. We never spoke at work again, and a couple of months later, she was no longer working at CBOE.
I didn't learn any lessons from that episode other than when the WHOLE FUCKING WORLD is trying to warn you that someone's bad news, listen to them. But every time I laid some cow on that loveseat, I thought about Sheila and how I so wanted her to be the person I was with. I wondered what kind of incredibly melodramatic episodes I may have escaped by Sheila not being the person on the loveseat with me. I used to chuckle and think that I escaped some real crazy shit by not hooking up with her. But the last time I looked at that thing before it disappeared from my back lawn, I actually didn't think of Sheila at all. I thought of the women that I did have on that couch, and the black hole I fell into over the last couple of years as I ran around desperately looking for someone to love. And now I can't help but wonder if the hell I may have endured with Sheila could possibly have been worse than the hell I endured without her.
The loveseat is gone now. It had been sitting in the walkway between the front and back of the house I live in since I moved into the basement. I tried to take it with me into the basement, but there is a sink built into the wall right at the doorway, and the mini couch wouldn't squeeze past it. So it sat outside the door in the walkway until I felt like moving it to the garbage, but my aunt kept telling me to wait until specific days so that the weekly garbage men could scoop it the very next morning, but she never told me which days would be good. Finally, with me moving out of the basement and onto the first floor, my aunt's husband got sick of looking at the thing and set it on my back lawn for three days. I thought he was going to leave it there until I moved it, but when I came back from picking up my Memphis friend from the airport last week, it was gone. Guess he was waiting for that mythical garbage crew. I told my friend that it was a good sign that she never crossed paths with the loveseat because with all of the action on that thing between me, "Adrienne," The Co-Worker Who Must Go Unnamed, "Sarah" and her vibrators--not to mention it was where I sat when I gave that skank "Karen" her Christmas presents--it represented my old ways vanishing into thin air just before she came to visit me for the first time. But the story behind the woman who gave me the loveseat is funny. Oh, I was pissed at the time, but it's funny now.
This was late 1998, and I was working at CBOE, living in that roach and mouse-infested studio and about to move into my first one-bedroom apartment. But I was hurting for furniture, since I was throwing out the couch my uncle gave me for the studio because it was very uncomfortable. I happened to be in the company of a couple of generous people at my job. A blonde named Aiden who did her job basically a foot or so from me every day knew that I was moving to a bigger place, and her mother had recently died, so she gave me some of her mom's dishes and bought me my first cordless phone as a housewarming gift. I still have most of the dishes. I smashed the cordless phone after losing a bet, probably that jackass Keith Foulke getting lit up again back when he pitched for the White Sox. But anyhow, the other person feeling generous towards me was a woman who was very quiet and introverted and hardly spoke to anyone. Sheila caught my attention because she seemed to be, like me, socially awkward and much more likely to keep to herself at all times. I am the one who started trying to talk to her because she didn't seem to have any friends at all. She worked behind the electronic book at the station I worked at, but she floated around and helped at different stations, so I didn't see her all the time. Not only that, but if I talked to her for more than a minute or two, she would pretend like she had to wander over somewhere else and help out, even though nothing would be going on. But I kept trying to get closer. After all, she was shy like me, and she was thin and pale and a plain Jane, which has always attracted me.
Now, when I tell you about these two red flags, you're going to wonder what the fuck made me keep pursuing her, but I'm telling you, at the time my self-esteem was so low that I legitimately figured that the stranger she seemed, the better chance I had. The first red flag was that absolutely EVERYONE I talked to about her either said that she kept to herself and they didn't know much about her, or...they warned me to stay away. This old white man who never had a bad word for anyone even told me, "I don't think you wanna talk to this one, son." The general consensus was that she was either a little or a lot crazy. They cited episodes where she would start crying under the pressure of a lot of work, or start banging her head against the computer monitor, or start screaming. That was my second red flag--I witnessed her reaction once when the trading floor became active, and let's just say that it involved said head-banging as well as pencil-chewing. Her face turned even more pale than it already was, and at least one person tried to console her, to be rebuffed angrily. I think the traders in my crowd and Aiden all looked at me at this point, as if to say, "See? We told you she was crazy!"
Undeterred, I kept trying to speak to her daily, if only to say hi. One day, I was able to get enough of a conversation going to tell her that I had moved into an empty apartment, and without hesitation, she volunteered an old loveseat she had at home if I wanted it. I admit, I said yes more because I wanted to see her outside of work than because I cared about the loveseat. We played phone tag one weekend, with her not getting back to me on a Sunday until after I had bowled in my league, and I wasn't going to move shit at that point. But the next Saturday, I rounded up "Ronnie" and "Drew," got an older playcousin to bring her van, and told Sheila to hang tight at her apartment, which as it turned out wasn't very far from the place where I moved. When I went down to the garden apartment, it was about six o'clock in the evening, and it had been snowing lightly. So when she opened the door with her reading glasses on, in the twilight surrounded by the winter setting, my heart melted to butter. Sheila had always been polite and kind to me, nervously running away after a couple minutes of chatting, but she had never been crazy when dealing with me, and for some reason this scene made my imagination run wild, and I basically decided at that point that she was in my sights, no matter what. I even stifled a laugh when I saw the loveseat, which was--and you can't imagine how hideous this thing looked--orange with white swans all over it. Hey, it was hardly used, so what the hell. We moved it out, and I tossed some line upon leaving about how I should take her somewhere some time to make up for it. She giggled.
At this point, I was still Mr. Chickenshit and couldn't just step to her face and ask her out, so I asked a female friend who worked close to her to ask her for her e-mail address, and then give it to me so that I could ask her out by e-mail. Yes, I have no balls. I sent the e-mail, but I didn't have my own computer at the time, so for about three or four days I would come to work in the morning, say hello to her, wait for some kind of reaction to the letter good or bad, get nothing, run to one of the computers on the trading floor on my break, and check my e-mail to see if she sent a response there instead. Finally, one morning she continued to ignore me, but there was a response in e-mail form. I tried to save it over the years, but I lost it somewhere along the way, and I'm very mad that I did because it was so fucking funny. Basically, she said that she couldn't go out with me because we have "class issues," I guess meaning that she had it and I don't, and because I'm fat and she's skinny, and because her sister dated a Nigerian last year and her parents were very upset, and because she just came off a relationship with a younger guy and she didn't know if she wanted to go there again. (She explained that she was 40, which shocked me, because she sure looked much younger, that is until she stopped dying her hair black and the gray streaks multiplied daily.) It was a four-page e-mail. She shoved some bull about how I was a nice guy in there too, but basically she totally slammed the door in my face. I had my usual mature reaction, writing back, "Don't let your parents know that there was a black man in your apartment taking your furniture; they might disown you. I'm so sorry that I bothered to ask you out."
Cue the Fatal Attraction music.
Sheila called me the night that I left that e-mail in tears. I remember that I happened to be watching sports over the phone with Ronnie at about 10:45P, or else on a normal night the phone's ringer would have been turned off and I would be fast asleep. I clicked over on call-waiting, heard her sobbing, and clicked back and simply told Ronnie, "Um, Sheila's on the other end in tears. Let me talk to you tomorrow." Sheila then spent about 45 minutes bawling and apologizing for hurting me, and I don't remember much of the conversation because there wasn't much to it. She just kept crying uncontrollably and saying, "I didn't mean to hurt you!" And I just kept trying to calm her down and tell her that I didn't mean to react so angrily, but I was hurt. Basically, her excuses for not going out with me were total bullshit, so to this day I still believe that I didn't react as badly as I could have. But for the sake of ending that phone conversation and keeping the peace, I apologized for my e-mail, eventually we said no hard feelings, and I got the nutcase off the phone. We never spoke at work again, and a couple of months later, she was no longer working at CBOE.
I didn't learn any lessons from that episode other than when the WHOLE FUCKING WORLD is trying to warn you that someone's bad news, listen to them. But every time I laid some cow on that loveseat, I thought about Sheila and how I so wanted her to be the person I was with. I wondered what kind of incredibly melodramatic episodes I may have escaped by Sheila not being the person on the loveseat with me. I used to chuckle and think that I escaped some real crazy shit by not hooking up with her. But the last time I looked at that thing before it disappeared from my back lawn, I actually didn't think of Sheila at all. I thought of the women that I did have on that couch, and the black hole I fell into over the last couple of years as I ran around desperately looking for someone to love. And now I can't help but wonder if the hell I may have endured with Sheila could possibly have been worse than the hell I endured without her.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
And The ESPY For Worst Actor Goes To...
I'm watching the Cubs get butt-fucked on national television by the Mets right now, and after showing the classy Wrigley Field faithful litter the outfield with trash again, they showed a replay of Dusty Baker reacting with anger and frustration after another Mets home run. This was so hilarious that I had to write about it. This loser Baker doesn't EVER react when his team shits the field day after day after day. I listen to talk radio every day at work, and they love playing his postgame comments because they're so relaxed and calm that he seems resigned to the fact that his team sucks. He says stuff like, "Well, we can't do nothing till the injured players come back, I just want my team back," which is a nice way of telling the guys playing for him right now that they blow, and he takes a very lazy, California-cool attitude to everything, as if there's nothing he can do about it. And now that the ESPN camera is on him, he's putting on a show in the dugout as if he's really in a rage about his team giving up two grand slams in one inning, which is not easy. Pathetic.
I also hear that he has high-ranking homies in the media here in Chicago and nationwide who have been receiving calls from Dust asking to put a soft light on him and not criticize him and call him a boob like most everyone else does. I'm thinking the two jags calling this game, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, are part of Dusty's posse. All they can talk about is how the wind blowing out is really helping the Mets hit those home runs. I guess this wind is supernatural and only works when the Mets are at bat, and I guess I'm just another bad guy ripping the Cubs for no reason because they're not really as bad as they look. I actually want the Cubs to fire Baker at this point for the same reason that I want the Knicks to get rid of Isiah Thomas ASAP--because the longer black men stay in such high positions with no fucking clue how to do the job, the worse it reflects on any other blacks who someday aspire to those positions. The rich white guys who own teams already are hesitant to hire us, as proven by the microscopic numbers. Zeke and In Dusty We Trusty don't help matters.
I also hear that he has high-ranking homies in the media here in Chicago and nationwide who have been receiving calls from Dust asking to put a soft light on him and not criticize him and call him a boob like most everyone else does. I'm thinking the two jags calling this game, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, are part of Dusty's posse. All they can talk about is how the wind blowing out is really helping the Mets hit those home runs. I guess this wind is supernatural and only works when the Mets are at bat, and I guess I'm just another bad guy ripping the Cubs for no reason because they're not really as bad as they look. I actually want the Cubs to fire Baker at this point for the same reason that I want the Knicks to get rid of Isiah Thomas ASAP--because the longer black men stay in such high positions with no fucking clue how to do the job, the worse it reflects on any other blacks who someday aspire to those positions. The rich white guys who own teams already are hesitant to hire us, as proven by the microscopic numbers. Zeke and In Dusty We Trusty don't help matters.
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