01.99.95 - Spacer 2
The old gods, they were born out of hope for something. More rain, more sun, a good crop, more children. Less attacks by the enemy villages. Success in war.
In my opinion, it was a much more viable system than what we have now.
01.99.85 - Spacer 1
Just some space.
And some more space to kill the time.
You all think I'm really strange. But at least I know it.
01.99.75 - Blogless
MySpace is not gonna work out. Which is unfortunate; I kinda dug their setup.
I've made a habit of being overly open in my blogs. Its made it a good read, but I think I'm going to end up hurting folks at some point. The MySpace blog has been wiped for that reason. This blog's time is coming, I suspect, as well. I think a better place for me would be somewhere that I am anonymous, somewhere totally open, somewhere I can spill my guts and not have to worry about the audience.
That's not to say I wouldn't still write on a much more limited basis here or on the MySpace blog. I like the conversation I have with you, the reader, here throughout the year.
But no more background information.
No more family stories.
No more bitchfests concerning any close friends. Its kind of stupid anyway, wasting the effort on typing things you probably should be saying instead.
...
01.99.5 - Technical Difficulties
T and I installed a wireless network in our house a couple of weeks ago and I haven't been able to access my blog at home since.
This will remain the home of my blog, assuming I can figure out a way to fix my access to it.
I will let you know of my efforts.
01.99 - Run.Program<October>
Think what you may, no matter how boring your life is, no matter how mundane your everyday routine becomes, our solar system is screaming along a circular path in the Milky Way towards a future none of us has ever witnessed. And thats pretty exciting in a fucked up, you have no control of your destiny kind of way.
I Love the Unknown by Clem Snide. Great song. I heard that song for the first time at my university - Sarah came up to hang out and see Ben Folds on campus. And Clem Snide came up there, totally, well...unknown...to the entire crowd and I got home and downloaded some of his stuff immediately. Not because it was mind-blowingly great, but because it was totally original and honest.
New book by Chuck Palahniuk coming out. (I had to lean back to see some of his other book spines to spell his name correctly). I'm excited, but right now I count the book as one of many things I absolutely must buy right...fuckin'...now.
That list also includes a XBox 360, a flatscreen LCD television, a wireless router, a laptop, and a new desk.
My focus will remain on two much more important things.
T just turned on Grey's Anatomy for a fix. I pity her, but then I envy her that she isn't addicted to games like I am.
Today, a friend and coworker was inexplicably fired. She had worked at my company for a longer period of time than I have, and she was basically the breathing social center of the office. Its not even six hours after we found out and I already feel like a part of the office has died.
She sent an email this morning, trying to round up a bunch of people for happy hour tomorrow night. It may not be happy, but I hope she shows up and has one anyway.
October has arrived, and so far its too much like September to really make me appreciate it like I remember it. Maybe I like late October the best. I just want it to start getting just a bit on the chilly side...the sleeping is great in that kind of weather.
I came in second in fantasy baseball, which is a very big turn-around from last year's team. I benefitted from a lucky pickup of Prince Fielder at the bottom of the 1B pile during the draft. But the league was broken...much fixing to be done for next year. Things are not looking as good in the fantasy football league - I'm just a lonely duck in a flock of 2-2 teams.
That's about it.
01.98 - Untitled
I really want to write you all a spaceship story. Really, I've had this mental image in my head for ten years of an interplanetary fighter marine guy, fighting aliens (they are human-like), looking up at his support ship and realizing in a panic that the ship has lost its engines and is slowly, so slowly, dropping out of the sky onto the battlefield. And I can hear the warm whoosh of the air pressure increasing as the huge ship falls, ever faster as it drops. And our marine begins to run.
But, I'm too tired and strangely cranky to do anything that wild. Instead, I shall tell you of happenings.
You may or may not be a subscriber to T's blog on myspace (I am), and if you are (or perhaps you're a random browser of it), you now know that T and I are vegetarians. For a month. And yes, it was my idea.
Nevermind the fact that we're officially ending Day 2 of said diet, and the second day in a row that I have had meat...
T has vegetarian friends, and Carl's new fiancee is also a vegetarian, and I decided I wanted to know what that was like.
I have thought of it as a tradeoff between guilt and inconvenience. And some people would much rather be inconvenienced than guilty. And I'm definitely one of those people.
We all have levels of awareness when we do normal, everyday things like eating or driving a car. I usually don't dwell on animal cruelty when I eat a steak. I don't think about melting glaciers when I drive to the movie store...mostly because I haven't done that in about four months. But some people do, and most of those people are perfectly happy with changing their own lifestyle and not being overly proud of their mission. Especially because it may be guilt-driven, and the world is too meat-crazy to change in a day.
In Tampa, Carl's fiancee worked around us to get vegetarian meals. I winced when she picked up a teeny fish egg from off the table (was a garnish on Carl's entree) and squeezed it after Carl dared her. She didn't think it was a fish egg. Other than that, her struggle to get meals that made her comfortable also made her uncomfortable. Try getting a meal anywhere without meat and you'll know what I'm talking about. If you can get enough food to fill you up, you still are going to get dishes that are prepared as a second thought to the meat-filled meals...just because they are in much less demand by the general public.
And so, perhaps out of a moment of craziness, I decided I wanted to try it. And I haven't done well so far.
Stegs and I are going to play in a basketball league every Tuesday. Which worries me, because I haven't played basketball at any competitive level in years. And I'm not exactly basketball material - but there aren't many touch football leagues advertising. I'm picking up a pair of high-tops this weekend, and I'm hoping we start practicing often. I have a feeling the first two weeks are really, really going to suck.
We played at the park last month, and a kid walked by and made fun of my low-tops. Which is why I'm making the investment for high-tops.
We went to our job site today on the Mississippi River. I walked around on a barge in the cool late summer-almost fall breeze, listening to work getting done around me. Sometimes you feel like its dumb luck when you coordinate all these things to happen and they actually get done as you planned it. You start to get a bit too confident in your own talents sometimes.
And when I walk into the station, my client's project engineer's boss looks at me and says, "Well, do you think we can get this done like you say we can?" And I'm seriously thinking, wow, if this guy only realized I completed my degree less than a year ago, he probably wouldn't have handed the project schedule over to me.
I think that, but I say, "Yep."
He replies back to me, "Would you bet your job on it?"
And I say without a hesitation, "I pretty much am, aren't I?"
He looks down at his stack of paper and says, with a little smile, "We all are, I think."
01.97 - The Unknown
Carl wants us to move to Tampa. I'm thinking about it.
Tampa really is a great place. Relative to St. Louis living, its a damned utopia. Drive twenty miles one way, you're in a metropolis with food, drinks, entertainment. Drive twenty miles the other way and you're on the beach, enjoying yourself, letting the work blues melt away. And its March. It almost never gets below 65 in Tampa.
And its different, which is something I think Trina and I can really enjoy together.
The negative side to that idea is that my sister is five months pregs, and we're really looking forward to spending some time with baby Will before he gets old enough to remember it.
In St. Petersburg, we went to the Salvidor Dali Museum, and it was totally kick ass. If you ever liked art in a hidden message, hidden symbolism, hidden picture kind of way, Dali should be your cup of tea. At SDM, the paintings were right there, in front of our faces, and the mysteries were big enough to step into.
The aquarium was an aquarium - full of jellyfish and children. I'm not really fond of either, but at least the jellyfish are cool to look at.
Being at SDM really made me want to pick up a pencil and a sketch book again, but I haven't done it yet. I'm getting a bit worried about my FE exam in October. Haven't even started studying yet...
I'll start this weekend.
Yesterday, we finished up Act II of our fitness competition. I ran the mile and did pretty damned well on the situps, and also retained the weight loss I have accomplished over 2007. I still weigh a constant 217. But there's another real push coming, and the target will be 210 before February 2008.
I really want to play some poker.
I signed Stegs and I up for a basketball league. I have no idea about when it starts or how much we're going to suck, but I'm thinking we're probably going to need a lot of practice and conditioning. Quick. At least the idea is exciting.
01.96 - I"m Not a Pessimist
...I'm a realist, and I think I'm the happiest person I know.
We all probably think that we are each the happiest people we know, that we each possess some secret that the rest of the people in our lives don't have. We all live the right life, and it is very different than the lives of the people around us.
I think people can choose to be happy or unhappy. I think a lot of people choose to be unhappy because someone very near them appears to be too happy. Like that is their role and their role only; I have to be something else.
People choose their identities from the available niches from the people around them.
We're all just statistical averages when you look at us from a far enough perspective. 50% optimism, 50% pessimism.
A two-party government will most likely always equilibriate at 50/50. Sorry, Libertarians. Sorry US Nazis.
I believe that our expectations of each other are much too high. When I got out of high school, I thought that I deserved my relationships. Now, I think of personal relationships as natural developments of my environment. If a human relationship isn't symbiotic, it probably shouldn't exist. And they usually don't exist much longer after the mutual gain fails to exist. And if a person isn't gaining anything by knowing me, by talking to me, then why would I expect them to keep calling.
I think I keep a small number of friends and family members close just because they're interesting. So I suppose the symbiotic relationship can be based in entertainment, as well.
I have resigned to be complete friends to the people who have stuck around the most - I will try to be there for them even if it doesn't suit my own needs. To a point. I don't think that T understands these friendships.
I believe that relationships of that type, that exist not out of total need but out of choice, especially in our time....they are the ones that are special and holy. That someone will decide to be in a relationship for years and years, after all reasons expire to stay together, is a beautiful thing.
The point is that there's a world of diversity out there in terms of people, and there's a need for all of it. And I think the more diversity you acquire in terms of relationships, the healthier you'll end up being.
Yeah, call Stuart Smalley - I've stolen his gig. Shit.
Next entry sir!
