As Luck Would Have It

I cannot  BELIEVE I am so stupid and gullable and....fucking....LOVELORN that I fall for her every time she calls.  Maybe I should go out with Julie from work and see what happens.  She's certainly bright and energetic and ambitious, hell she's taking a german language course on the outside for some damn reason which is a common thread for us since I took german in school for seven years.

Anyway, I decided to break out the organic vodka.  Not to drown sorrows or anything, but just because I felt like it.  I haven't gotten smashed on vodka since October 31, 2000.  I really should have waited until halloween to make a proper anniversary.

Work is going good.  I am tech lead on the biggest project the firm has ever seen for AT&T, and multiple overlapping releases have gone to QA without any bugs which is a big deal around here.  I almost never have anything come back on me and its usually something that already was in production but noone had cared until whenever.  I feel good about work right now even though I sent the hewglitt a sort-of-kidding message about finding me a gig out in New Zealand with him.  He is the only one I know I could actually learn from.  Everyone else bores me.

We talked for over an hour tonight.

We've agreed we drove each other nuts, and that neither one of us had the other pegged and that we each have hangups that happen to feed off each others.  Bad combo.  We also acknowledged we love each other very much and nothing seems to be able to replace that.  We're not getting back together, but it seemed cathartic to some degree to be able to tell her I love her and I care what happens to her.  I even went so far to say that if I were a slightly more impulsive person I'd say I'd take care of her again just to know she was being taken care of.  I wondered aloud what it would be like to be roomates that weren't actual mates and she said we would kill each other.  I dunno.  It's not really confusing because what I feel for her is very clear.  I love her so damn much.  And here's a kicker for you, if she wont see me right now because she's seeing someone else, how do I reconcile that with the idea she was cheating on me?  If she's into cheating, she wouldnt have a problem seeing me while she sees someone else.  So either shes not seeing someone else, or she was never cheating on me, or both.  Robert Macnamara once said "you have to be willing to consider the source of your own reasoning" meaning, you have to be able to ask yourself "why do I believe this".  I think its very convienient, and interesting, that I was raised by a guy that instilled in me a distrust for women and that I grew up thinking my mate was cheating on me even though I never proved it.  I think maybe I've been as crazy as a rat in a tin shithouse.

I had no idea, but they apparently held a rally in Lee's Summit today.  Combined with some bike rally that shut down Ward parkway during rush hour and we had the worst traffic on this side of town in recent memory. 

[this paragraph deleted due to stupidity]
 

My landlord called today and, long story short, offered to sell me one of two rental houses he has in Mission Highlands after he's done remodeling them.  I went and looked at them and yeah, ok, they look fine.  Smaller than I would choose for myself for some reason even though I have no real use for more space, but they look fine.  The area is quiet and established, certainly safe and as crime-free as it's going to get so close to Mission Hills.  I went to work after that and basically wandered around for three hours before going out with Pete for a bite at the Blue Moose - he had never been.  I like their food for the most part but their desserts are just bizzare.  Once I got a "molten chocolate cake" and it was partially cooked cake batter.  I complained so they replaced it, saying they didn't know what happened.  I got it home and it was exactly the same.  Someone is hitting the pipe over there.

I hite the treadmill today before going out and added 4% incline and more speed to up the intensity.  It felt good.  I'm trying to ease into incline since I am after all a kinda large individual and don't want to start getting angry letters from my knees.

Angie gave me a ration of shit in an email the other day and I have yet to respond, I prolly should tomorrow.  In an entry a few days ago I talked about how she and mom decided I wasn't in little league and yada yada yada.  Well, apparently this was months ago and all Angie said was she didn't remember.  I don't remember everything she said except for this - "don't shoot the innocent".  Oddly enough I've never thought of her as innocent since she talks alot of shit about me, or has in the past few years anyway.  She also said I was critical of her decision to cut the old man off, which I remember but don't remember being inordinately critical about, so maybe she's been pissed all this time.  Who knows.  It was a good point though, I should have at least asked about it before jumping all over her.

I looked at a house saturday that I liked - 1800 sq feet or thereabouts, hardwood floors, newly renovated.  The marble shower is a nice touch as is the granite countertops and island.  More than I need?  Sure.  But nothing exceeds like excess.  Besides, its not extravagant or anything, it's just more room than I need.  Anyway that was yesterday - I filled out an application and the guy calls back today and says it's mine if I want it.  I'm waiting on a callback from my landlord who apparently wants to talk about me staying before I just take off, but I don't see me staying here.  I abhor carpet, it has one too many living rooms and frankly it's just not my cup of joe.  So - with any luck I'll be moving this coming weekend.  WHICH was almost in peril because my brakes went out this evening and every time I take it to the lexus dealership I practically have to saw an arm off to get it back, I thought I might not be moving.  Fortunately it was just a vacuum hose, so I fixed it myself.

Got on the treadmill twice today, 30 minutes the first time and 20 the second.  What else did I do...oh, that's right.  Nothing.

Wait a minute.  I did too do something, I went and looked at another house but the bedrooms were too small for my bed.  Stocked up on vegetables at Wild Oats, THEN I did nothing.
 

When she goes stormy
I run for cover
rolling like thunder clouds
hanging above her
ring in the witching hour
spells that I'm singing
rain comes and drowns me out

I never liked the Foo Fighters until I heard their accoustic album Skin and Bones.

So I got my treadmill thursday night.  Sadly, I hurt my knee moving it so I couldn't use it until saturday.  I like it, though.  It's a little short for running but something would have to be chasing me for that to happen so I guess it works out fine.  I've been on it twice today.

I started looking at houses today since my lease is up this month.  I looked at one down on 103rd that's really nice, has hardwood floors and plenty of space.  It's a little more than I'd like to spend and am still actually considering finding something up in Smithsville where I can be closer to Jen and Damon.  I went up this evening and we all went to Longhorn in Liberty for dinner and to hang out and wait for Jen's baby to drop to the floor.  No such Luck.  Supposedly, she's going to "induce" on monday which sounds really bad.

Here's a piece I like:

Let me not pray to be sheltered from
dangers but to be fearless in facing
them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of
my pain but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in life's
battlefield but to my own strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to
be saved but hope for the patience to
win my freedom.
Grant me that I may not be a
coward, feeling your mercy in my
success alone; but let me find the grasp
of your hand in my failure.

Rabindranath Tagore,
Fruit-Gathering

Had bloodwork done today at the doc - good news.  In 30 days my cholesterol has gone from 330 to 215, my triglycerides have gone from 599 to 303 and my H1AC went from 8.8 to 7.1.  HDL and LDL are still bass-akward but after only a month this is a great leap forward.

I committed to a treadmill today - I'll go pick it up thursday evening.  It's nowhere near the one I bought a couple of years ago, but for 200 bucks it won't matter much if it breaks in a week.  If it does, I'll buy a new one and forever curse craigslist as the home of the ripoff.

I proved my case at work that will save us umpteen bajillion hours of work.  I made the client work with both genesys and cisco components at the same time so they can run against either IVR.  What does that mean?  It means I be the man with the plan.  Since I said bajillion: Did you hear president Bush was briefed on a plane crash in south america recently in which three Brazillians were killed?  He responded with "Oh my gosh that's terrible.  How many millions is that?"

I like to recite random things I read in books over the years.  The following is either from Born to Win or Games People Play, I don't recall which since my memory has it's flaws.  I read this book on transactional analysis while sitting in jail the summer of 1987 and has been floating around in here since then - welcome to this permutational serengetti known as my brain:

An ego state is a consistent pattern of feeling and experience directly related to a corresponding consistent pattern of behavior.  There are three ego states:  The Parent, the Adult and the Child.  The Parent ego state contains attitudes and behaviors incorporated from outside sources, mainly the parents.  Outwardly it is expressed as critical, nurturing or predjudicial behavior.  Inwardly it is experienced as old parental messages which continue to influence the inner child.  The Adult ego state is not related to a person's age.  It is oriented toward current reality and the objective gathering of information.  It is organized, adaptable, intelligent, and functions by testing reality, estimating probabilities and computing dispassionately.  The Child ego state contains all the impulses which come naturally to a child.  It contains recording of experiences, responses, and the positions taken about the self and others.  It is expressed as old (archaic) behavior from childhood.

The more I think about it, I think it was Born to Win and it referenced Games People Play.

I talked to mom tonight and was telling her about my preceding post where I recalled the whole pancake thing - she goes "oh by the way I was talking to Angie and we decided that some of your memories are not real."  I said, "WHAT?"  to which she replied, "Well, remember this thing you told me about where you said you remembered being in little league and we wouldn't buy you the team ballcap and substituted a cheaper one and you heard the announcer calling you out during the game as an 'oddbal' because yours looked different than everyone else on the team?  Well, you didn't play little league so that never happened.".  I about came unglued.  Not only did it happen, but mom KNEW my coach - I think his wife worked with mom at the bank or something.  In typical fashion I would knock the cover off the ball in practice but would strike out in the actual game because the crowd gave me a panic attack.  I even remember the name of our pitcher, Clark Cantebury.  To think that my mom and sister get together to do their little snooty wine drinking nonsense and sit around deciding what happened to me and what didn't.  I am furious.  Was, anyway.  To think of all the pain I experience as a child and two people who either didn't care to know what was going on or can't remember themselves actually believe they know better than me what my own friggin experiences were.  This is typical for my family   Noone wants to talk about their role, noone wants to say yes, I stood by and watched you get abused for years on end and it affects you even today.  You're just fucked up and there's no reason for it other than you making bad choices.  You had an idyllic childhood and you remember nothing correctly.  And I thought the old man was the only one around with his head in the sand attitude.

Then:  My first memory was in the summer of 1972.  I was five years old.  I remember asking mom if there would ever be another 1972 and she said she didn't know.  My memory of that moment, as are alot of my memories of my childhood, was from a perspective 50 or so feet above the street looking down at my house.  Remember fruit stripe gum?  I used to put a stick of that in my mouth then run down the driveway laughing like the character in the commercial.  Floating above the house looking down at that driveway, I used to often think of that happy scene.  Sometime that year I almost burned the house down when I got ahold of dad's zippo lighter and went around the house seeing what would catch on fire and what wouldn't.  The wicker clothes hamper would not, the bath towel hanging above it would.  Woosh.  I don't recall catching a beat down over that incident - it was usually a nothing situation that led to me getting whipped.  If I were to think of a happy time that was a semi regular occurence it would be 12:30 pm, cartoon carnival on channel 4, peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of milk.  A random happy moment would be when we moved to mountain home in 1975 and dad pulled the couch out from the wall and discovered a half-eaten pancake I had lost.  I had been wondering what had become of that damn thing.  That scene was straight out of Gilligans Island or something where the skipper reaches behind a rock and comes up with a Gilligan's lucky rabbit foot or maybe a slingshot and just stares at it when a half-grimace on his face.  I used to love that show, now it just pisses me off.  Somewhere along the way I got tired of Gilligan being so flipping stupid. After about the 50th time I lamented how I would have had to whip his ass for giving the professor plastic explosive for use as dental fillings I stopped watching.

Now:  I'm 41 years old.  My mom loves me, a few assorted friends love me, but that's it.  Noone to spend my life with, to make happy, to sacrifice for.  How in the hell did I get here....I remember more or less the individual events but I would have never dreamed I'd end up here, renting a duplex and my most prized possession is a sleepnumber bed followed closely by a reclining couch.  A happy moment is usually one where I have solved a technical problem at work that leaves some people wondering how I arrived at such a conclusion.  Hence my moniker that I intimated to my therapist today.  Reading this, I think she's very perceptive.  I think I need some lecithin.

I am definitely lonely.  It shouldn't be this way.

I'm single, have been since the middle of July, or thereabouts.  After a 2 year relationship with arguably the least compatible woman I've ever been with, I find myself ok with being alone and realizing, frankly, that I'm not ready for a relationship anymore.  We almost got married twice, we were going to have a child, all kinds of stuff.  In the end our incompatibilities outshined what made things work and ka-boom.  Oddly enough we more or less buried the hatched today after calling each other all kinds of awful names.  We won't get back together, that's for sure.  We're done.  But at least I got to say how I felt and so did she, now it's more or less dropped.  End of story.

One thing it taught me is that I need someone responsible.  Someone to touch and hold and kiss and love on are good things, but you can do that with anyone.  It's the part that meshes with your own soul and personality that makes or breaks the relationship.  For us, it was her basic lack of sense of responsibility, more to the point social responsibility.  Lots of things don't matter to her because she's not the one doing it.  I want a woman that knows she is but one soul among billions and we're all connected, and what she does matters and who she associates with matters.  Jesus.   What the hell am I talking about.

I'll list off a few traits of the perfect woman.

Compassionate
Intelligent
Committed
Funny, and can laugh at herself
Has a career or something that sets her apart in either skill or attitude.  Maybe that means, believes in something.  I say that because if I met an artist that sells three paintings a month to pay her rent she wouldnt qualify so much as having a career as being set apart in skill and attitude.  And that would be ok with me.  She's not a bum.
She wants to continue to grow and recognizes we can continue to do this until the day we die, and every time we do we learn something about ourselves we couldn't possibly know until this moment.  Maybe that just means she believes in the same things I do, at that fundemental level that to one degree or another drives your actions when noone is looking. 
I would say she's beautiful, but that's not always something that's apparent to me right off.  I have known at least a couple of women that I don't recall thinking much of in terms of looks when I met them, only to realize one day when I woke up that I loved her and suddenly she was the most beautiful woman in the world.  I certainly thought that of my nameless ex at one time, but not so much when I met her.  So, give me a woman I get along with that I learn to love, and she will be the most beautiful woman in the world.
I don't know what else there is about her.  I am quite confused about this subject alot of the time because I can be such a sap and am maybe so in love with the idea of being in love that I let myself get sucked in by women I probably shouldn't give more than the time of day to.  My kingdom to the person who helps me figure this out.   I know and have been told I am a very complex person, so maybe another complex person is in order. 

Mom always says I tend to walk off and leave my mouth running.  I think I've confused the subject enough for one night.
 

Dear Dad.  You are one worthless piece of shit, you know that?  How could you fucking do what you did to me through my whole childhood?  I'd like it a little better if I thought you were just evil but I know you're a psychopath.  Pure, unadulterated psycho.  I remember being 11 years old and wanting, one time, to watch something on t v during dinner instead of it being what you wanted.  You SCREAMED at me "  *I'M*  GONNA WATCH WHAT   *I*   WANT!!!".  I remember another time when I was 16 and came home an hour late and all the lights were off in the house which was a clear sign you were waiting for me.  As soon as I walked in the door you attacked me, ripping my shirt because you had to grab a fist full of it AND hit me in the face a few times with the same hand.  The night I left the bread out when I was 10 you left so many black and blue marks on my back I could have passed for a friggin zebra if you were standing behind me.  The time you punched me in the chest in a grocery store...I think I was 8..maybe 9...I remember people looking at me then him and doing nothing.  I hope I never witness that kind of thing because I'll go to jail for beating some kid's dad.  Remember the time you called me a goddamn sonofabitch and told me to "come on!  Put 'em up!" and I said "I'm not gonna hit my DAD."  to which you replied "why not, you don't have any respect for me!".  Nice.  Maybe I should have knocked some sense into you but I didn't want to hurt you, as much as you deserved it, assuming someone can possibly deserve a beating.

My car you bought me then held over my head...my first car, a 1975 monte carlo.  You always checked the mileage and if it was off by a foot you freaked out.  But I got you and you never knew.  Me and my friends took it out when you were out of town and before you made it back we took the dash apart and painted over an 8 so it looked like a three.  You bought it hook line and sinker and by the time you noticed something was off it was too late to do anything about it because I didn't know shit and you couldn't prove it wasn't always like that.  Bastard.  When I was 12 I started sneaking your cars out when you were in San Antonio partying with your Farkle friends until 2 in the morning.  Me and Victor would take out the chevy or the buick or the other buick and just RAG the shit out of it.  That's how I learned to drive, running around the streets on a friday night with him taking curves, revving the engine to the breaking point, slamming on the brakes, you name it.  Remember when you noticed the lifters on the regal were getting loud and were basically ruined?  That was me.  Yep, I did it.  It was funner than hell, too.  'Course, by the time you found out because my sister caught me and gave me up when you got home you got your pound of flesh.  You beat me so bad I couldn't sleep that night.  Not to be outdone, I did it again.  One night I snuck into your room while you were asleep and took the keys right off your dresser and went out.  I think I was 13 by then.  Vic couldn't believe I did it.  But I did.  You weren't going to break me and make me into what you wanted me to be, which was nothing.  No voice, no will.  But I did have a voice, and I did have a will.  More will than you.  I should thank you because developing my sense of "noone will defeat me or break me" got me through jail when I was 18, even helps me today when problems come up that half a dozen other people throw their hands up and declare they cannot solve.  I know I can, because noone breaks me and some friggin problem sure as HELL can't.  If I want to win, I win.  That's what you taught me I guess, through your sheer force of will in trying to prove I was nothing.   

You caused me nothing but pain, and I really wish I had been born to someone else.  The only weird thing about it, if I had become someone else maybe I wouldn't be here now, maybe I wouldn't have the values I have, maybe I wouldn't be as good a person as I am.  On occasion I wonder what I would have turned out like if you had been a loving father and told me I could be anything I want.  That's a useless thought, and I know it.  All I have is who I am now, and I am determined to end up happy.  In spite of knowing you.

Hi Dad..

I once tried to talk to you about how you raised me.  Must have been the summer of 2005.  I said you were a very angry person when I was growing up and what did you say?  "No I wasn't, I mean, unless I didn't get my way.".  That was the first and last time I tried to talk to you to try and gain closure or otherwise resolve the issues with us.  It all started for me in the spring of 1974 when this seven year old boy wandered into your bedroom one night when you and mom were in the bathroom getting ready for bed.  I heard you say, "He's nothing but a stupid sonofabitch anyway."  Mom said, "No, he's not!" to which you replied, "He is, too."  I never forgot that and I even hear it sometimes as a 41 year old man.  I shake it off as old parental messages trying to influence my inner child but textbook thinking only gets me so far.  

I have no idea how you were raised other than what your sister told me, that granddad was a very violent man.  Congratulations, not only did you not break the cycle of violence but your oblivious to the damage you did and the ideas you perpetuated.  First prize to the old man on the couch watching the cowboy game.  Growing up I did anything I could to get away from you which ran the gammet from walking on my tip toes when I was 12 to driving on the highway out of town until I ran out of gas when I was 16.  I never thought past getting away, so invariably I had to call you and mom and tell you where I was so you could get me back home.  Oddly enough you were never mad at that point but if you had caught up to me early you would have thrown me off a bridge or something.  How many times did you beat me black and blue for everything from leaving the bread out to spilling my milk on the kitchen table.  Yes, I cried over spilled milk.  I have half a dozen positive memories from growing up - showing me how to change the brakes on my car, the family picture we took in Mountain Home in 1976 and the three times you took me fishing.  OK, five things.  The rest is a blur of anxiety, pain and despair. When I finally told a shrink you took me to that you were beating me senseless on a regular basis, you and mom convinced him I was lying and were smirking when I came back in the room as if I had made the whole thing up.  I gave up after that.  I even got myself locked up several times to get away from you but all that did was get me a criminal record I almost didn't live down.  I guess in retrospect all those years of holding me back and only offering "because I said so" as a reason gave me a healthy disregard for people telling me I couldn't do things just because.  I took up software engineering when a friend told me I didnt have the mindset for it, I took both the blue ribbon and grand prize in art at the fair two years in a row because everyone at school thought my drawing skills were a fluke and I wouldn't win a damn thing, I learned to slalum ski within two weeks of learning to ski on two and was running circles around all of you by the end of the summer because you told me it was too difficult for a kid like me to learn.  I could go on, but how do you cover years of abuse on a page full of text.  Some people say you choose your parents and come into this world with a specific lesson to learn - if that's true, maybe I came into this world to learn the lesson that I'm worth something, that I'm worth what everyone else is, that I have value.  Or, maybe I had to spend years in pain to come to be able to take it away from someone else.  Noone knows pain better than someone who's experienced it, right?  Maybe grief counseling is my destiny.  Why in god's name I had to have you for a father during the best years of my life so I could spend the second half happy is beyond me.  Sounds like a load of shit all of the sudden.  In the end it doesn't matter what I went through, it only matters what I do.  On second thought, you did teach me something else.  How not to be.

That was the long version.  The short version is I fucking hate you and hope before you die you realize you are dying alone because of who you are.  You made *you*, now if you'll excuse me I'm going to try and make *me*. 

Your son

Sunday, 4:40 PM.  I'm so bored I'm watching the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.  Finding out that if I ever want to go redneck I just need to let myself go, start drinking heavily and park a truck in my front yard then never mow it again.  And I can do that.

I might be a little OCD.  Not sure, though.  I just can't let ANYTHING go which plays havoc with my relationships.  I cannot be out-argued or out-debated.   It is simply impossible.  If you can argue your point for an entire year, I can argue mine for a year and a day.  I'm not saying anything talked about will degrade into an argument, but if you start talking out of your ass and you're wrong, you're going to hear about it.  God help you if you're talking about taking away poor people's voting rights or some other right-wing nonsense.  I'm a nice guy, I swear I am.  If a homeless guy on the corner looks like he's wondering if today's the day he's going to get a five dollar bill, I'll drop a twenty in his hand as I roll by and then watch in my rearview mirror as he gathers his shit and runs off to reserve his bed for the night at the YMCA.  Or, maybe he's hitting the liquor store but that's not my concern.  I have to believe people that say they need help haven't completely given up and descended into a daily battle for bottle-quota.  Did I mention I can be a little on the naive side?.   Part of my compassion comes from once being homeless for a whole day, it's not an easy life.  The hardest part is finding a bathroom.  And frankly, it doesn't matter that it was for only a day, I didn't know that at the time.  When you have nothing and nowhere to go and noone wants you, 5 minutes from now is no different than next week.  Time stands still.  For those that it only slows down for, I think those are the ones that drink.  Then it stops.

You'd think Jeff Foxworthy would find some new jokes.  I'm just saying.

I was in a car wreck on May 28th in the plaza.  7:45 pm on a wednesday at the corner of broadway and 47th, there were at least a hundred witnesses.  It was my first wreck, and was also the only car I've ever owned that could actually take a hammering.  It was a gold 1996 Lexus SC400.  Was, that's right.  Friggin kid totalled it.  It was the beginning of the end for me and my now-ex, as it proved to be the catalyst for more fighting and disagreements and her wanting to stay at her house more often and eventually, my seeing that this was a two year relationship that I knew was doomed on day 0 but didn't let it go because....anyone?  Anyone?  I'm not going to talk about her much on here since it's over and I am not really wanting to relive any of that.  Not even the good times.  In retrospect, it was like living in a bad remake of the The Grifters and my girlfriend is Angelica Houston with that other cat being the one I can never actually prove exists, but he does.

Now it's 5 oclock.  I think I'm going to make okra gumbo tonight.  It's my own recipe really, more of an indian dish than anything gumbo-ish, but my grandmother called hers gumbo so I call mine gumbo.  I have these farmer friends up in Platt City that give me organic okra on a semi-weekly basis so I start with that and add tomatoes, garlic, onions then to that I add Cumin, Corriander, Cardommon, Tumeric, Chili Powder, a touch of Cayenne, Ginger, Clove, salt and pepper.  Oh yeah, and Nutmeg.  Oh yeah, and Cinnamon.  It's really, really good.  I used to spoon it over rice but now that I'm on a lower-carb diet I have forsaken rice for air.  Just the gumbo, please.  I also gave up diet coke, the most insidious substance on the face of the earth.  For the uninformed, aspartame a.k.a. NutraSweet spent years trying to get approval from the FDA as a food additive and was denied time and again  because of concerns about the lack of long and short term studies as well as concerns about the chemical makeup of this stuff.  Thankfully for them, their CEO later became part of Reagan's transition team in Nineteen eighty whatever and magically Nutrasweet was then passed through with flying colors.  Who was that CEO?  A little guy named Donald Rumsfeld.  I swore I wasn't going to start rambling about the injustice of it all.  Oh, well.  Maybe it will be entertaining.

The Brave One is a fine movie, by the way.  Skip over the first fifteen minutes and start watching where she gets out of the hospital.  You just don't need to see the first part unless you crave gratuitous violence.  Suffice it to say, her fiance is killed by street thugs and almost kills her too and she swears vengeance.  Death Wish ala Jody Foster.

That's it for today I think.  What's funny is I don't even remember what i was originally going to talk about.  All I know now is, none of this was it.