Who's driving the car?

There are times in my life, even more often now that I have this fucking blog, where I feel I have to speak in philosophically vague metaphors about certain things in my life for fear of starting a war of words with certain people if I discuss them in great detail. Yet, I feel I need to get these things off my chest. This is one of those times. So, I'm cracking my knuckles and preparing to furiously type away.

I've always resisted change. Not that I lack the ability to adapt, it's just...it's like I'm driving home, and while it's a road I've traveled thousands of times I absolutely hate the thought that there will possibly be some sort of detour along the way because I never learned the side roads that will get me back on the road to my destination.

I'm on one of those side roads right now, and Mapquest is telling me exactly where to go. The only trouble is that the road in front of me is leading right off of a cliff. Twice in the past, and now I'm speaking literally, Mapquest had lead me right to the middle of an open field. According to their maps, I was AT my destination, yet I was at the end of a gravel road and a cow was twenty feet in front of me staring at me. Of the dozens of other times I've used Mapquest, I've made it there safe and sound with no problems. That considered for the sake of this metaphor, the odds are favorable that I will get back home safely.

But that road ahead sure does look like it's going right off the edge of a cliff. But for all I know it could just be the crest of a steep hill. I won't know until I go over the edge. It's a leap of faith.

And suddenly, I have four people in the car with me. In the back seat, one keeps asking if we're there yet, one is screaming at me that I made a wrong turn back there and one is repeatedly asking me why I'm even on this road trip. As we approach the point of no return, those three people are screaming at the top of their lungs and there are no signs of them shutting up.

In the passenger seat next to me, the fourth person is telling me in a soothing voice, "Buckle up and floor it! Those people in the back seat don't have seat belts. If it's just the crest of a hill, we'll ramp up and make them hit their heads on the ceiling. If it's a cliff, we're the only two with airbags. At the very least, either way they're gonna shut the hell up very quickly."

I'm trying to focus on the soothing voice as I step on the gas, but the screaming voices are making me swerve all over the place. Three sets of hands come up from the back seat, trying to grab the emergency brake. I'm fighting them off with one hand and steadying the wheel with the other. I look to the passenger seat, and the fourth person is smiling at me saying, "Yeah, let's do it!"

Right now, at this very moment, I'm freeze-framed at the moment before we reach the edge. And to make this a metaphor within a metaphor, the batteries to the remote control are now dead.

For tonight, I'm just gonna turn off the TV. I'll find new batteries tomorrow.

Mom's visit

My mom came to visit me on Friday night. She spent the week at my Aunt's house in Norman and this was a great opportunity to stop by and see me. The last time she visited me was a couple months after Colleen and I broke up and I was at my one-bedroom apartment, or as I liked to call it: My deepest, darkest dispair with wood paneling.

She brought me some rugs for my new place. Always being on the lookout for a Big Lebowski reference, let me say that (ahem) they really tie the room together. We had a great dinner and I took her down to Arnie's, intrtoducing her to my firends and to the music of Cairde Na Gael. She bought a CD.

The entire visit was near perfect. I was elated to hear that my mom had finally learned some basic internet skills. I've been trying to get her online for years. However, this part of the tale has a dark side. Being a life-long democrat (as am I), my mom had finally taken that big leap into the technological wonderland in order to find like-minded individuals that share her beliefs, but now...

Between dinner and Arnie's on Friday night, we spend time at my apartment catching up. Somehow, the conversation turned towards 9/11, and I witnessed my sweet mother turn into Oliver Stone. She's found a LOT of information online (and a few books) on "what really happened" on that day. Now, I'm as open-minded (and suspicious) as the next guy, but hearing those words come out of my mother's mouth really freaked me out. A little begging and pleading for a change of subject and the night was back on track.

Saturday, I vegged on the couch watching the Mythbusters marathon, took a nap and popped in at my friends Tony & Jenny's house for what was the start of their dinner party. I had to be at Arnie's to work the door, so I could only stay for a very short time. Note to self, I really need to make more time for those guys.

Today, I spent a little time at the office taking down some ceiling tiles for what will be my next office. Before my company was in this building, it was a graphics output bureau. And this was back in the days when computer graphics was in its infancy...back when EVERYTHING took up twenty times more EVERYTHING than it does today. I was supposed to rip out any unneccesary cables from the suspended ceiling, but all of them save one was connected to something in the wall. The one I was able to pull out without any snags was a fifty foot SCSI cable, which boggled my mind. Did they really have an old-school optical drive set up two rooms away?

Now, I'm set for a night of TV and Internet. Oh, joy!

Say anything about Jerry Maguire

I was at my desk today when I suddenly flashed on two movies: Jerry Maguire and Say Anything. I have no idea why these two movie popped up at the same time. I haven't seen either of them in years.

The more I thought about it, the two films had three things in common: 1) Same writer/director (Cameron Crowe) 2) Cameos by Crowe's friends and family (Eric Stoltz, Crowe's mother, etc.), and 3) A similar theme, in this case being with someone because of them or just the idea of having someone there.

I kept on doing my work, but that last thought kept haunting me. Recently, I've felt like I've needed to be alone. Until now, I kept telling people and myself that it's that I've gone from working my ass off on one project, to working my ass off on all the work lined up behind it, all the while packing up all of my stuff and moving into a new place. That was a lot of change to have happen in such a short period of time and I believed I was having trouble adjusting to it.

That point was very valid...and very true. Yet, there was something underneath that made me uneasy about that being the sole explanation to my malaise. When I flashed on those two movies today, and that common theme, it hit me. the real change I need to adjust to is being alone. When Candy and I broke up, I never had that adjustment period where I was by myself, able to identify myself as a singular person. We were still roommates, and while there was no ill will, no bad blood between us, I found comfort in having her around; having someone there to talk to at the end of the day.

I had to break things off with Libby recently. There are many reasons for this, but I will not speak of fault here in order to prevent a flood of emails and text messages from her arguing about it. Suffice to say, I told her I want to be left alone. I realize now why that really is for the best. Even if things were to work out, there's no way I feel I could be around her without deep down having it all be about just having someone around.

So, in keeping with the spirit of last night's post, my new dastardly plan is to become comfortable with me before I can have someone else in my life. Now that I've had this realization, I have this ambition to better myself.There's one and two on last night's list. This blog covers number three on the list, and as Chuckles the cat figure eights around my ankles, I'm four for four.

Number five doesn't apply, although getting lost on the internet and in digital cable could count. My bank balance is dwindling, so number six is out. Number seven? Let's not go there right now. Number eight, I'll have my friends to lean on in this quest. So technically, I got about about five and a half out of eight.

The odds are pretty good now, particularly if you take what G.I. Joe used to say, "Knowing is half the battle."

Preparing my delivery for the line "Good evening, Mr. Bond."

Months ago, I posted about how I would make a horrible spy. However, with the discovery that at any given moment you can find a James Bond flick somewhere on digital cable, I feel pretty confident I might make a good Bond villian. I've determined that all I need is:

1. Ambition.

2. An elaborate plan to get what you want.

3. A compulsive need to tell you enemies about your elaborate plan...perfect for me because I can't shut up about anything!

4. A cat to pet while you're planning your dastardly deeds (optional).

And here's where I run into some snags:

5. Access to some vital infrastructure, such as water supply, gold stockholds, bank servers, etc.

6. Massive amounts of capital for which to fund my plan. Now that my credit rating is on the mend, I could try for some sort of loan..."Hey, approve this loan and I'll make it worth you're while, or at least let you live."

7. Some leggy, large breasted blonde to be my right hand (Steve, add sleazy joke here)

8. An army of mercenaries. Of course, I got a few buddies who could be persuaded with pizza and beer...

Hey, it's something for me to work on.

Worst. Laundromat. Ever.

It's been over a year and a half since I had to go to the laundromat. The laundromat I used to go to pretty much forced me to come back time and again because of their charge cards. You could only add money to the cards in dollars, but the washers always charged $1.75 (the dryers were free if you washed there). I kept trying to figure out how much I had to add to the card each time and end up with a zero balance. Yet every time I had just enough on the card, I'd forget detergent and I'd have to charge more to the card to buy some of theirs, and it would always screw up my equation.

Why didn't I just quit when I got down to a quarter? Because of the principal of it, dammit! I wasn't gonna let them beat me...granted, I had some stange issues back then.

Finally, one night, I had it all figured out. I was walking out of that place with a zero balance, come hell or high water. but when I had my clothes loaded and put in my card, they had raised the prices by a dime. Those bastards changed the rules of the game. This made my quest a bit more difficult. For the next month, I'd leave with a balance of a nickel or fifteen cents. It was perfect timing that I, at long last, got my balance down to zero on my last load before moving into the duplex with my own washer and dryer. I won, and I was never to return to that place.

Tonight was my first laundry night at my new place. Keeping my word, I wasn't about to crawl back to that old place. Tonight I tried one just down the street from my apartment. I had high hopes when I saw that it was coin operated. My hopes were somewhat dashed when I went to the first washer and opened the lid. It smelled like someone was cooking Indian food in the agitator. The two double-loaders next to it smelled okay, so I was on my way.

The next problem was the bill changer, which, in the words of the attendant, "it has a real problem with those new-fangled twenty dollar bills." I was curious if he meant the new design of the twenty dollar bill or the CONCEPT of a twenty dollar bill. Naturally, they didn't have change for a twenty, so I went next door to the mexican video store to get change. The cashier mumbled something about no change without purchase, so I bought a dulce de leche candy bar and went back to the laundromat.

Next problem: no air conditioning with ten dryers running and a couple patrons who apparently thought that lunch meat and sour milk make a decent deodorant substitute. While my clothes were washing, I went outside, had a couple smokes and talked on the phone for a while.

Drying was another matter. Every one of the dryers had the words "No Good" carved into them. Not scribbled with a magic marker, but ETCHED into them with a screwdriver or a pocket knife. I gave them the benefit of a doubt and started to load my laundry. I started to load four washers, but one of them was obviously the one that dryed the Indian food, so I split all of my clothes between the remaining three.

The two outside dryers had roughly the same timers on them, and the middle one ran about twice as long, yet only dried about half as much. I pondered that over the next hour, because that's how long it took to get my clothes almost completely dry. I figured I could lay them out at home for a couple hours and they'll be ready to put up.

The last part of this tale can be summed up in the following way: Coin operated laundry next door to a bar in a part of town with a high bum population. There was about ten feet between the door to myt car, and in that space I got hit up for spare change three times. I gave them all the same line that I spent all of my change inside, which was a total lie, but only one of the bums called me on my bullshit. He called me a fucking liar and demanded some of my spare change. When I called him a fucking drunk and told him no, he called me an asshole and went into the bar. I've never had someone try and make me feel bad and then prove my point in one fell swoop.

So, in summary, the search is on for another laundromat. Any suggestions, guys?

A Fritschie Home Companion

Just got home from seeing A Prairie Home Companion at the Circle Cinema. Damn good flick. There's a strange thing I have about Robert Altman films. Every film of his I see I like, but cannot for the life of me explain why.

His style is very unique, as if you're a fly on the wall for the story. Actor's lines are delivered on top of one another, with background conversations in the mix as well. Not like other movies, where anything in the background is played way down so your focus is solely on the foreground. It's strange how an altman film feels so different for showing action and dialogue as they would actually happen would feel so different. It really deepens the performances of the actors as well. They get lost in their characters and so does the audience.

Another strange effect of Altmans films, and I say this as a pop culture freak, is that they are the hardest films to make references to. First of all, not many people see these movies, so the reference is always lost. Secondly, the dialogue is written and performed in a way that nothing really sticks out in your memory. There is never a build-up or a pause that winks at the audience that allows for a catchphrase to be born. Given my usual taste in movies, that would be frustrating as hell, but it's not.

Like I said, I don't know why I like Altman...I just do.

Friday night I went and hung out with a couple friends I haven't seen in years. It was so much fun to catch up with them. By the end of the night, they asked my help getting past this one point in God of War, which is a game I have never played. They were having trouble jumping over this one fire pit. I gave it a shot and got past it within five munutes. It was enough for me to regret selling my Gamecube.

Saturday morning, I got up early and decided that it was a nice morning for a bike ride. I got up, got dressed, walked out my back door and found my bike had been stolen. No biggie. It was a cheap display model from Target that only cost me about thirty bucks or so. The theives left behind the lock, which was the same padlock I used on my locker in high school. That lock combination is the only thing I fully remember from high school. The rest is either a blur or delightfully repressed.

So, I went back inside, punched up From Russia With Love on the DVR and relaxed on the couch. A lazy day at long last. That night I went over to my friends Gene and Heather's house for a party. Strange, I had more alcohol than Thursday night, with even emptier stomach and I barely got buzzed. I had a great time just hanging out until three and went home.

Today I got some writing done, which I haven't done in several months. There's a certain clarity I find in just ignoring the outside world and getting lost in my own little world. It felt really good. Then I tried to trim my hair on the sides and back, and wound up cutting all my hair off again. Oh well, it's now summer, so this will feel a lot better letting it grow out from here. I figure I could go a couple months before the next trim, which I will leave to the professionals frome here on out.

I feel the inertia of the past couple months starting to subside. I'm not feeling fully comfortable in my new headspace, but I'm at least getting stuff a little more sorted out and feeling a lot less stressed.

Bleh...

Went out to the bar last night, and I had my normal amount of alcohol...but it kicked my ass. I guess I didn't have enough for dinner because I was drunk off my ass. I switched to cokes and water to sober up enough to drive home, but once I laid down to go to sleep, the room started to spin. Not in a get-ready-to-hit-the-pinata-let's-spin-you-around kinda way...no this was as if my bedroom became a ride at the state fair. I crawled out of bed and made it to the bathroom just in time for "next thing you know, ol' Jed's a millionaire!"

Thirty minutes of puking, complete with drenching cold sweats and a debate with myself over whether or not to sleep on the bathroom floor. I got enough energy up to crawl into bed and the next thing I remember is the alarm going off.

I stopped by QT on my way to work and got a tanker of iced tea and the largest Gatorade they had. The workload in the art department was light and my boss asked me to help clear out boxes from one room to another. Just what I needed: manual labor. I got through it all and then sat at my desk to rest.

I got through the rest of the day just fine, and now I'm relaxing a bit before going over to a friend's house. I think I'll be sticking with water tonight.

When in doubt, speak in metaphors

God help me if I'm called a a character witness for anyone in the near future. First of all, I've been so bogged down in everything going on in my life lately that the world beyond my troubles and confusion is a blur. My answers would simply be, "How the hell should I know?"

At my job, it's easy. Information is written down somewhere so that any questions raised can be answered easily enough. But when it comes to my personal life, every question is either rhetorical or loaded.

The best I can figure is that I can either retreat to what i know is safe, or go so far out of my element that I can fall back on the fish-out-of-water excuse if people sense that I'm starting to panic.

All I do know is that I'm feeling quite a bit of intertia from all this busyness I've put myself through. I feel that if i slow down too quickly or rashly decide to steer it into a willow tree, I'm gonna get a face full of steering wheel.

Better buckle myself in...

Square Three, redefined

So much for my vow to not go a week without posting.

So, I got through the big project, got caught up with all of the work lined up behind it, got through the garage sale, and packing up everything I owned (and a whole lot more that I didn't know I owned), moved and unpacked it in my new place. The end result being that I have lost about twenty pounds due to the stress and heavy lifting, I'm burned out, and now I have to adjust to life on my own (if you don't count Chuck the cat), a new tighter budget and (on the up-side) digital cable with DVR.

Sunday afternoon I said goodbye to Candy and saw her on her way to Oregon. Even though we got to discuss the nature of our relationship when we were interviewed for People, it was really hard when she left. As I discovered, she was much more to me than an ex-girlfriend or a roommate. She was really there for me, and it was really hard for me to finally realize that I wouldn't have her there to listen to me rant when I had a bad day or laugh with me when I told her of the strange things that were happening around me. The conversations I shared with her on a daily basis were, essentially, the first drafts of what you read here on the blog.

The only thing that kept me from breaking down was walking inside and realizing all of the cleaning that was left at the old place. Candy took the good vacuum cleaner with her, and I was left with the task of cleaning up the final rooms with my little stick-vac...having to stop every three or four square feet to empty out all of the cat hair.

I took Monday off to take care of the last of the stuff: cleaning the kitchen, moving the last of my stuff, doing the last of my laundry, etc. I unpacked my last box at around 10 that night, hung up all of my pictures and settled in for my first night in my new complete home.

The adjusting to my new lifestyle might take a while. This kind of major change in my life has caused me to designate it as Square Three. This was a long time coming, yet I had very little time to fully realize the impact this would have on my life until I had a moment to catch my breath after the last box was unpacked.

As for now, everything I do seems alien. Even things I used to love to do feels weird. Once I get the hang of things, I feel like I'll emerge from this latest funk a different man. A better man, who's better organized, more mature, wiser, and a man who knows what he wants out of life rather than constantly adding to a list of what he doesn't want.

I know I have to do this, and I've started with this new place. I've done my best to make decisions that are more adult, more responsible. When I needed stuff for the new place, I didn't go the easy route. I could've bought the cheap silverware at Target that would've broken within a year, but instead I found service for twelve at Foley's plus a full set of knives that will last me forever (and at 75% off, mind you). I actually made a point of getting a new bath mat that actually matches my shower! I feel like I need to take up skeet shooting just to reclaim some masculinity back to my soul.

Lots of shit going down

Well, everything at work seems to finally be on an even keel, even though the water could and probably will get choppy at a moment's notice.

Yesterday I made some phone calls about possible apartment choices. The one place I was raving about in my last post turned out to be a raw deal, and by that I mean that by the time I got a live person on the phone, the asking price had shot up over a hundred bucks. I gave them the benefit of a doubt and asked if they might have something else in my price range, and they gave me a list of addresses that ranged from downright shitty to "What, you want FOUR walls...and a roof?".

So, I decided to check out this other listing I found. The price was suspiciously low, but I stopped by the place and looked in the window of the apartment below it, which was being fixed up. It wasn't half bad. It was kinda old, but it had it's charm. From a casual look, the only thing I saw was that the kitchen was REEEEALLY small. It looked as if you couldn't open the refrigerator door without hitting the oven and vice versa. No dishwasher, no disposal, bare bones kitchen.

I stopped by the manager's office today and put in an application, which was approved practically sight unseen. I got a key from them to take a look inside the place, and it looked like it was gonna work just fine for the amount of stuff I had. The kitchen wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The only problem was that the stairwell leading up to the place would make it nearly impossible to fit my big-ass sofa in the door. I didn't even have to measure the space, it was years of experience of playing Tetris telling me there was no way in hell I was fitting the couch in there.

The silver lining was that there was another place downstairs that was almost identical. I took a look around and made the decision to take this one. All I gotta do is get a new showerhead, kill the spiders in the bathtub, maybe slap on a coat of paint and this place will be pretty cool. The bedroom closet is only 18" deep, but I don't care. I'm a fluff and fold kinda guy anyway (Steve, insert your joke here).

Now that I got the apartment, I gotta start moving. I took a carload over tonight, had dinner with Candy and went back home to set stuff out for the moving sale. Sweet Jesus, there's a lot of stuff here. We got everything priced, I rana around to about ten places trying to get someone to change out thirty bucks for some singles so we can provide change(thank you, Dirty's Tavern, for helping a brother out).

But once we finished setting stuff out, we realized an added problem: Security. We've got all this crap out here overnight and no one's watching it. So, I'm staying out here until 4 a.m., and Candy will take over for me then. I'll try to get a couple hours shuteye and come out to help her with all of the garage sale vultures that will be showing up at the butt crack of dawn, ready to haggle a 25 cent item down to 23, count puzzle pieces to make sure everything's there, and gush over things that to every else but them is a total piace of shit (I'm expecting that Neil Diamond Christmas CD will be going fast with this crowd).

So, if you're up early Saturday or Sunday and you'll be in the 31st & Mingo area, stop by and buy some of our crap. The address is 9229 East 32nd Place.

P.S. - The People Magazine article is on newsstands now. So pick up a copy...then read it...then decide if you would like to purchase the magazine. It turned out pretty good, even though it does make me sound like a total slob, plus my hopes of being on the cover were dashed because Angelina Jolie just HAD to have her baby...Jeez, first she picks Brad Pitt over me and now she's stealing what could have been my moment in the spotlight. Thanks a lot, Angelina, really...CALL ME!

The Arnie's Bar logo didn't make the cut, sad to say. It wasn't airbrushed out, but instead obscured by the coffee cup in my hand.

There were two other couples in the article, and one of the other guys was also a graphic designer...coincidence?