Truesday.

Jeez!

Damn, it's been a while. Oof. And I pay for this damn thing. So what the heck is up in my universe? Well, yes, I've been running. And eating less. I got a haircut today! Sweet.
Tomorrow I am planning on signing up for my first actual race (Well, that's partially true. I did a couple of 1 mile races when I was a kid.) in a couple of weeks. Just a 5K, but you gotta start somewhere, yes?

The writing continues... Although I am considering upgrading the office set up a bit. I went to the Apple store a while back and played around with the 24" iMac. Yummy. Normally, I'm not mad for the desktop models, but part of my job requires me to flip back and forth between Safari (Screw Firefox. Man, that thing is just touchy. More so than Safari. And that is saying a LOT.) windows, so it would be nice to have everything I need up and visible. Including the iTunes window. Nice. AND! AND! AND! My job also requires me to research. And I have to do a lot of printing (I do 2 sided printing, but...) which is taxing on print cartridges and I don't like having to use all that paper. Having a screen open to do research from would be joy incarnate. Someday, I will have the big screen. Someday.

What's on the earphones?

Well, since my exposure to the joy that is At The Gates, I've been more metal than usual. Got my tickets to see the show in July. I can't wait. OhmanOhmanOhman!
Today was the new Meshuggah, Bloodbath, At The Gates, and The Haunted. I'm admittedly a bit let down by the Haunted disc. The music is solid (the guys were in ATG) but the vocals are a little too... Well, they're just too damn male posturing.
Whatever that means. It means something to me, but I gotta live in this head, you don't. Lucky you.

I love Bloodbath. Wow.
Actually I love Michael Akerfeldt. That guy is just gold.

I feel as of late that things are kinda empty. Like I need some sort of project or goal to work towards that could help define what it is I'm doing/being. I keep going back to being some sort of writer, but I would like to add in the element of illustration to it. I have little confidence in my own skills, but I'm too much of a control freak to really work with someone else. I dunno. I have ideas. All over the place. A constant problem, really.

So I need to go to bed now. Metal rules.

One Surface-y, One Deep-y

It isn't often that I sit through a movie anymore these days, but as television has become such shit in the wake of strikes and declining national tastes, I find myself more and more getting interested in actually sitting through a movie now and again. And, I've pretty much exhausted my tolerance for all the comedies I have on DVD. The other night I rented the Kinski Nosferatu (which I have yet to watch),the Last Emperor (Expanded or something version, whatever. I really like that film, and haven't seen it without commercials in a long time. Yet to watch also.), and Waitress. Now, this type of movie (and I'm using the word in a somewhat negative manner here...) would not normally even make it into my hands at the movie shop, but my beloved wanted to see it, and I've been guilty of being one of those people who subjects others to arty, difficult works -- both music and film -- but wouldn't dream of letting someone else choose. Why? Maybe it's because I'm and only child. Maybe it's because I think I have taste. Maybe I'm just an ass. Anyway, I rented it because I wanted to watch a film my wife and best friend wanted to see, and I thought it was high time I got off my high horse and acted like the nice guy I claim to be sometimes. That being said, the film did have one thing going for it even knowing it was a romantic-type dealio: That's right. The guy from Firefly/Serenity. Ol' Malcolm Reynolds was gonna get busy with a hottie (Keri Russel). Ok, I can at least focus on that, right?

Well, the thing wasn't really that bad. Andy Griffith is surprisingly good in it, given his age and given the fact that everyone now thinks of him as Matlock. (I am not getting into the murder of the director, writer and co-star. Nope.) Keri Russel was good, and Nathan Fillion was good. It was, for the most part, a good (not great) movie. Good. For the most part. I say that because at the very end, it fell apart like... I can't even begin to explain. Did it have something to do with the director/writer's untimely demise? I don't know. But, wow. What a collapse. Too bad. But I shall press on, and not be such a snob.

What does that subject heading mean? Deep-y? Well, on my run today, I was thinking of a photograph. (I'd post a scan of it here, but I can't get this scanner working. Long story.) It was taken on February 4, 1999. Dark times for me. I was drinking really regularly, eating like a really, really unhealthy eating machine, smoking like a chimney, and spending most of my time either sleeping or hating myself. I was really overweight, really unhappy, and treated myself (physically and emotionally) like total shit.

I look at the photo and I am pasty. Like yogurt pasty. My cheeks are all flushed out. I look drunk as hell, but (and yes, I am in a bar and I'm holding a White Russian) I'm not. I remember the picture being taken like it was yesterday. My head is carrying a good deal of extra weight, and I look like a man on the way to a very bad future. I sometimes look back on those days and shudder that I got out alive. I have that blessed (sarcasm) gift of having addictive personality in my family gene stock, and at that time I was blind to it. Which is a dangerous ignorance to be immersed in.

For example...

A usual night -- usually the middle of the week, weekends started on Thursday for me back then -- let's say Tuesday, would start out with me getting a pizza (large) and breadsticks (covered in parmesan and butter) with two sides of ranch and sauce and a coke from the pizza shop I worked at. That I would either charge to my account, or hope that I could get away with not paying. The toppings? Well, back then I was quite a carnivore, so it would usually be bacon, pepperoni, banana peppers, jalapenos, and maybe ham or ground beef. After the pizza, I would finish watching the Simpsons re-run or whatever was on, and then head to the Bird (my bar at the time, a couple of blocks away) around 7 or 8. On the way, I would make sure to get smokes. Now, a sane person may pick up one pack, but since I was an idiot, I'd get two. Oops! I forgot to mention that I would have to go back to the pizza shop (also on the way to the bar) and get some cash for the night. We were allowed to take advances on paychecks. I (to put it mildly) abused this. By the time my check actually came in, I had a few bucks. Sometimes I owed money. Jeezus.

So, armed with smokes and cash, I would venture to the bird, and drink and meet up with my friends. People that I genuinely liked, but don't know very well anymore. When I look back, it feels like all of those folks -- for the most part, and those who were really close to me are still that way and I love all of them -- were just, well, acquaintances. Big time. I knew all the specials, I knew all the bartenders. I knew by heart the codes on the jukebox for the songs I wanted to hear. I knew who would be there on a Sunday and who wouldn't. I practically lived there. I was in barfly-land.

So, after a few hours of hanging there, some other fellow beerologists would venture in, and either join me and the brood for some more at the Bird, or we'd head to other locales based on a number of different variables. Better special at the Blackstone? Hot chicks at the Pub? Good band at Rubble's? Whatever. Off we'd go or there we'd stay. Time passed, smokes were smoked, Pabst's or White Russians emptied, and then... Last call. Time to go. Me, with my half pack of smokes left (and I wasn't prone to bumming cigs to others... So yes, I smoked a LOT.), did I go home, and fall asleep? Hell no! If it was a weekend, there was usually a party to crash. Weekdays, not so much, sometimes I'd go to the pizza shop and make yet another pizza, and sit up watching TV or surfing the internet. Most times, however, -- and this is the scary part to me now, and should be to everyone else -- I'd hop in my car (Yup. I am NOT proud of this. In fact, it takes a lot for me to actually write it down.) and drive to Burger King with my last five bucks and pick up a couple of burgers and a couple of fries from the dollar menu and stuff myself before going to bed. I would actually keep a little change in the car so I could afford the tax, and get the same number of items as number of actual dollars I still had leftover from the night.

The next morning, I would miss. Usually, I would skip my morning class, and sleep until noon, or -- as was the case when I worked at the flower shop -- get up right before my shift started. I shake my head as I look back on all of this. I just can't believe I made it through all that without getting myself seriously hurt or killed or jailed or... I consider myself lucky. Very lucky. Lucky that I made it to this point in my life -- which is to say happy, and okay with that (I used to love being miserable. I just didn't realize it at the time.), that I didn't end up dead or lost, and while I know I was a selfish jerk, and did make some very bad decisions that hurt a lot of people, but I console myself in the knowledge that I never did any physical harm to anyone, or got anyone physically hurt due to my idiotic actions.

I joke about that particular picture being taken in the midst of some 'dark times,' but I am totally serious when I say it. And truth be told, when I moved away from that town, I still didn't get it right. For a long time afterward. The only real difference is that I didn't drive so much after hitting the town. I know now, also, that I was headed down a very dangerous road, and that I had a real, and very serious problem. I used to do that classic "you don't understand" thing when my friends would ask why I was at a bar every single night. I was a nascent addict. Just getting rolling into a life of booze, cigarettes, and unhappiness.

And I got out of it. And I feel very lucky about that. In some ways, I feel younger than I did when that was going on. In a sense, I feel like I've given myself a chance to get it right this time.

Perhaps its age, perhaps experience. I don't know. I'm just happy to be alive in this life I have. I don't ever take it for granted.

Memories, Seventies.

I think a lot about the past. Decisions I've made, things I've seen, done, whatever. I was in the shower just now thinking about what I remember from the 1970s. Granted, I wasn't around for much of them, but there are some distinct and fuzzy bits that I can recall. So, here we go:

1974: Spent most of the year in the womb, so nothing. Nada.
1975: Still nothing. Although I do know that I had a birthday party. There were pictures.
1976: I have a vague memory of seeing President Gerald Ford on television, but that could be projecting to the past.
1977: Star Wars. Definitely the first thing I truly remember. I was scared shitless of Darth Vader, but even more so of the Sand People. Those dudes kept me sleepless for weeks.
1978-1979: Here's where it gets a bit difficult. I have some random memories of my dad still living at home (my parents divorced at the end of the decade, but I'm still a bit fuzzy as to exactly when), our dog Molly, a couple of Christmases, but what stands out are the following:
    - Being totally shit scared of any games or toys that went BAM! (the game Concentration) or BUZZ! (Operation)
    - Being bitten in the back by the neighbor's German Shepherd. That dog took a chunk out of me with a chain link fence between us. Wow, was I upset. Funny thing is, I love those dogs now.
    - Toilet training the kid across the street. His name was, uh, Jeffy (ugh), and I seem to remember his parents weren't too well off. We lived in Detroit (yes, the actual Detroit, not a suburb) while that particular area was still multi-racial (somewhat, that is, it was quickly turning into a White Flight zone) and I think Jeffy's parents were white working class, somewhat behind the curve, to put it nicely. I'm sure they were good people, just with a lot on their plate. Anyway, I toilet trained their kid. I remember telling him to aim for the big hole in the chair in the bathroom. Weird.
    - I remember being shit scared (there's that again - I was a really neurotic child) of the basement, the black leather couch with the collapsed cushion in the back room, the back seat of my mom's VW Beetle (same problem as the couch) and the garage.
    - I remember my mom working on said Beetle quite a lot, which is the reason that I love LOVE the smell of Bondo.
    - Listening to music. A lot. Bad Company's Desolation Angels, Rolling Stones' Some Girls, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, and Foreigner.
    - My early childhood attempt at trying to eat and/or drink while lying down. My dad did it all the time, and I wanted to give it a go. Nearly choked to death.
    - My mom accidentally pulling out my pinky toe nail. Long story. Not in any way child abuse. Although it does grow up, rather than out, now.
    - My mom (I guess my dad must have moved out with some seventies remaining, after he did my mom and I spent a lot of time together. It was awesome) going back to college, and our favorite game, where she would put me in this huge suitcase and carry me around the house. I wasn't let out until I got the room right.
    - Dad memories: Waking him up in the mornings by plugging his nose or opening his eyelids. Being totally awestruck by him spitting ice cubes at the dog who would (while waiting patiently) catch them mid-air. Sitting in his lap while we watched TV. Him trying to repair my favorite toy (at this particular time it was a little Air Force jet thing, with metal body and plastic wings) by trying to melt the plastic where the wings had broken. He ended up just buying me a new one.
    - I seem to remember we had a boarder at one time. Weird.
    - My mom becoming a swim coach. And a butcher.
    - The night my mom came home from playing Racquetball, and scaring me to death when she showed my the black eye she got from being hit by the ball. I nearly peed myself.
    - The occasional -- and most awesome -- water fight. In the house. Awesome.
    - But oddly, the most vivid thing I remember from that time, and the thing that has stuck with me down to my very core was a calendar I got from Baskin & Robbins. It was pink (or pinkish with orange and yellow highlights -- ah, the seventies) and it was a poster. It had the year going around in an oval, with January starting on the middle left and going around like a track until December butted up against January. That poster was on the back of my door to my bedroom for years, and it is the way I actually think -- that is to say, visualize -- time. A chain of ovals that move in that direction. The weirdest part? The links and ovals are in those colors too. Weird.

I guess a lot of the seventies will be tied up in that house in Detroit for me. I remember ringing in 1980 in Redford, at my grandmother's house, with some news report talking about the state of the auto industry (when the news used to be newsy) and the big three logos next to some talking head. But that was the eighties, and that was Redford. There are lots of other things from the seventies that come a-pourin' in as I write this, but those were the big ones. The things that mattered enough that I didn't need deep recall to get them to the fore.

One last one:
    - I remember my dad leaving, sorta. More that that, really, I remember wondering and hoping my parents would get back together. I think it was a natural response. As I got older, I began to realize that they (and for that matter the family as a whole, albeit split in two for me) were better off. My parents got along better apart, and my dad eventually met the right woman for him, and one hell of a great step mom for me. My mom, well, she focused (perhaps a bit too much, at times) on me, and other things. Some of those other things turned out to be not so great, and in some cases probably contributed to her eventual fate. That's all I will say about that.

The seventies were fuzzy at best for me, but what I remember I'm glad. I had a ton of fun.