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If you DO want to know, welcome to my blog |
For those who actually want to follow my thoughts, ideas, moans, and gripes, this is the place for you! For those of you who are returning...I questions your judgment, you poor souls. 
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| Fire extinguishers are heavy, y'know? Just kidding. I mean, they are heavy, but I rarely actually need it. Rarely. See, I'm one of those guys that can burn water—and I really don't care, because I hate cooking. I hate cooking like I hate doing fractions. Funny story about fractions: I can put an x and y together to get the computer to make coffee, just about; My 4th grader asked me to explain fractures and I looked like a monkey humping a football. I contemplated just burning the textbook, but I figured I should save the fire extinguisher; it was spaghetti night that night. So yeah, my love affair with cooking. That would entail pulling hair and vicious spankings, if there was one. We'll call it my relationship—another term that hides all manner of abusive sins. Cooking and the holidays. Go hand in hand, right? Sure they do! My wife makes pies, delicious potato soup, these little cookie cups you put no-bake cream cheese filling in. I make anger rollups dipped in hatred sauce. That's not fair, I can make a mean mac-n-cheese with fried wieners. Bur who's eating picnics on New Years Eve? I just don't understand the rhythm of it I guess. I don't understand any rhythm, actually. I dance like an epileptic and sing like a wounded cat. Even my metronome can't keep a beat. So how am I supposed to mix, stuff, place in oven, mix, put on stove, take out of oven, let cool, warm up, mix some more, remind self where fire extinguisher is, mix, throw up hands in air, open the oven-cum-incinerator, curse, curse some more... AUGH! I have stress just thinking about it. Why am I writing about all this? Because I'm hungry, and my wife doesn't feel good. The leftovers are gone from Christmas. Even the cold mac-n-cheese is gone. (Hey, don't judge; I can eat a mess of cold mac-n-cheese! It's gourmet for me.) I'm reduced to prowling the kitchen and looking for something edible—pizza rolls or something, maybe a jelly sandwich. Food is on my mind, but so is how flammable the curtains are. So I'm complaining, and gnawing on the bones of my own irritation. But I am hungry, so I reckon I ought to wrap these ramblings up. Quickly, too, because the grilled cheese I started a paragraph ago has now become a road flare. Gotta run; misplaced the fire extinguisher again! |
| Nope! No thanks! I hear people say it often: "Man, I wish I was young again!" "Young" was not a good time in my life; I'd rather not repeat it, thank you very much. My youth was spent among bullies, lower-middle-class semi-poverty, self-imposed exile, and Jerry Springer! (Interesting side note, I lived in Cincinnati during the time Springer was ousted form city council, supposedly for paying a lady of ill repute with a check—what a moron! Yet he went on to be an absolute genius, serving America up the thing it seems to have wanted most then and to want even more now: GarbageTV. All hail the Circus Master!) Everybody has their bully stories. Some people have stories of being the bully, others own the perspective of the victim. I'm the latter. I have ADHD, which makes it hard to focus on things and really catch on. In the 80's, though, that was what my mother called psychobabble. All I had to do was "settle down and stop rutching." (Routching? Rootching? Did Mom make that up, or is that really a word? I refuse to Google it. The All-Powerful Algorithm might bully me about looking for made-up words. See? There's that ADHD; a story without parenthetical asides and tangents is a story not worth telling!) Where was I? Oh yes: if I stopped wiggling and paid attention, I'd be just fine. Oh, and Mom's magic formula for dealing with bullies was straight out of the new testament. Turn the other cheek. Ignore them and they'll stop, and turn the other cheek. Although it's another tangent, I must share my great-grandfather's take on that. JeeJee (GG) said: "If a man strikes you on your left cheek, turn to him your right, as the Bible says. I guess if he strikes that one, too, you can pummel the tar out of him, though!" I wish I'd gotten to meet that old codger. Well, Mike, Mike, and Justin didn't feel the need to go away after I ignored them. In fact, they found a passive little mouse of a boy to be a fun target. Recess, classroom, walking home from school—they'd spawn like baddies in a video game, my own personal monsters. Bugger! And I had a big brother whose obligation it was to bully badger me to the point of distraction. The hardest part during all of this was simply not understanding them. I don't mean that in an autistic way, although I was slow to learn social cues. (That's a whole other "when I was young" story.) I just didn't understand why people wanted to be so mean—wanted to be so mean. So yeah: youth=bullies. Youth also contained an intimate understanding of privation. Ever have to ask your neighbor if you can fill buckets and jugs of water from their hose spout so you can flush your toilets and have drinking water because dad couldn't or wouldn't pay the water bill? Ever shiver under blankets because he did the same with the electric? Thankfully, I don't recall both at the same time, but I strongly remember both. That's a level of embarrassment one never seems to shake off. But we were never hungry; Mom always found grocery money. In fact, we even ate out a lot. Mom was not a good cook, so Dad took us out to Burger King or Riley's several nights a week. I reckon a lot of that money could have gone for water and electric. Not a family of financial geniuses, to be sure. Well, without said water or electric, it was difficult to bathe or have clean clothes. Old clean clothes, hand-me-down's and often torn-up shoes. I'll leave you to imagine how furiously that fueled the bullying. So what does one do in such a situation? Once I was old enough, I put on a leather jacket and torn jeans (which wasn't hard; that was the only kind of jeans I owned), and started smoking. I became a sheep in wolf's clothing, one of the outsiders, the hoods, the tough guys. People left me alone for the most part, then. But there's a flip side to that coping mechanism— everyone left me alone. For years it was hard to make new friends (aside from my two new besties: Jack Daniels and Jim Beam). Well, harder than usual. Then I was suddenly all growed up, few friends, no skills aside from self-taught computer geekery, a bad reputation, and not a single set of presentable clothing. The rest of the story's not very interesting: I joined the service, did my stint, got out, got married, etc. But those younger years left their mark. In a clearing stands a boxer, a fighter by his trade And he carries a reminder Of every glove that cut him Too true, and too young to win those scars. So I swim against the stream of the popular urge to be a kid again. I wouldn't mind having the body I had back then, the one made mostly of cartilage that would bend and bounce when I fell, and would quickly uncrinkle itself if I slept wrong on the pillow at night. I wouldn't mind that part of youth again; but if it comes with the rest, I'll stay the same old man, with the same scars and the same sore swollen joints, still unable to understand why people still want to be so mean. |
| It's rather common knowledge how failure can breed fear. But isn't it interesting how success can do the same thing? A person wonders if they can perform to the standard they themselves have now set, whether management views success as a norm or as a fluke? I am a billing manager at my company, but I am also a closet programming geek. I have created several custom apps for my company now, and people are starting to use them. Now, there's nothing a geek likes more than to have his "product" used. But what if people don't like how it works? What if I have to go back and change it and I don't understand what I did? What if the apps don't perform as expected and produce negative results downstream? Letting go and letting it be a success is so stressful! It's not just at work, though. For instance, I don't like to give or receive gifts. I don't mind doing it anonymously, for charity or something, but I don't like the unspoken social obligation of quid pro quo. It's not because I'm stingy; it's because of fear. If I get someone just the right gift for their birthday, they seem to expect that every gift I give from then on will be just as brilliant. But what if it's not? If I win that game, am I thought less of if I don't win the next one? If this pie knocks everyone's socks off, am I on the hook to be Gordon Ramsey next time? If I wire in this light switch right this time, am I suddenly the family electrician? Is doing your best actually setting you up for failure? Should we shoot for second best instead? Hedge our bets? Under-promise and over-deliver? Just random thoughts today, I guess. Today's entry is no more than second best. I'll try to live up to my previous posts next time. (…or will I…? ) |
| On those mornings, we'd watch the TV as closely as our folks watched it on election night. We weren't waiting to see who the next president would be, though. We were waiting to see if Winton Woods Schools were closed due to snow. If they were, Our Lady of the Rosary, my childhood prison-cum indoctrination center, was closed too! SNOW DAY! Back then, it seemed like we had a lot of snow days. I'm probably wrong, but the past several winters feel like they've been a lot drier than in my childhood. Oh, one or two years out of five we might get a couple real snowfalls. But it was so much more permanent back then. So much more romantic—romantic in the literary sense. A teacher once put it in perfect words: "'Romance' is 'anywhere but here, any time but now.'" It was certainly "anywhere but here;" it was a different world. Especially when we had the opportunity to experience that world because there was no school! It's still a fuss when it snows. I have to slog the car out from where the plows (intentionally?) blocked me in—if they even plowed my street at all! Scrape the windshield, salt the walkway, track salt all over the house, get yelled at for tracking salt all over the house, vacuum up the salt that I tracked all over the house, go back out to the mailbox because I forgot to check for that package of yellow agate marbles I just had to have for some reason, track the salt inside again, get the broom, endure the eye-rolling, etc, etc... It was a fuss as a kid, too, don't get me wrong—a fun fuss!. But looking back, I wonder if the fuss was really that much fun at all. It seemed like it took a half hour to get ready and forty-five minutes to actually get to the sled-riding hill. five minutes to trudge up the hill, one minute to go back down (hopefully on a sled if one's big brother wasn't feeling bullyish at the time and miraculously avoiding a spinal injury along the way), and repeat that about five or six times, getting more and more tired each time. By the sixth time down the hill, it was no fun anymore. We'd walk the forty-five minutes (which now seemed like two hours) home cold and cranky, the aforementioned big brother now quite in the bullying mood, peel off our clothes and stand over the heat vent trying to get feeling back into our chilblained feet, fingers, and faces. But for some reason, exhausted as we were, once we were warm...we'd beg to do it again! I remember, years later, taking my own children out to sled ride. I have to say it took about half the time to get twice as cranky when I was an adult. And while there was no bullying (not from me, anyway; but there was an older brother involved that may or may not have behaved with perfect decorum), there was certainly no going back outside once we went home. I guess nothing lasts forever. "Nothing gold can stay," says Mr. Frost. Well, nothing white can or should stay either, I suppose. It used to make me sad; now I only feel relief during when it all melts away. Oh look, my phone's buzzing and jumping around. What's it telling me? Great—looks like it's going to be one of those one-in-five years this year. Onward cometh the white death! I better go check the mailbox to see if my tub of banana-passion fruit jam has arrived...before I sprinkle the salt this time. |
| I'm tired. I like to tell people that that I got tired back around 1998, and I still haven't recovered from it. 1998. Man, it just doesn't seem that long ago. "That's just so nineties," they say on HGTV. "Hey! Watch it, the nineties weren't that long ago!" I yell back at the TV, as if they can hear. (I actually have a sneaking suspicion the TV can hear; it seems like the more I complain, the more commercials I am afflicted with while I try to watch my show.) But it was a while ago. Just like everyone else, my body reminds me just how long ago it was by running an audit every time I try to do something. Back in '98, I could help a friend move in the morning, mow the grass in the afternoon, and hit the pub in the evening—just another day. Now, however, I put up a half sheet of drywall and some interior trim, my brain starts asking: "Should you really be doing all this work? Kidneys told me they object, and we've had multiple reports from Back and Knees and that the warranty on them ran out back in 1998. You will be penalized for this effort: later on, you won't be able to get off the couch without sounding like a sty full of annoyed hogs." Relegated to the couch by about 2:00, the feeling doesn't pass, though. "Activity taxes, buddy," my brain intones implacably. "Now it's time to fight a nap. If you nap, I'm not sleeping tonight. If you don't nap, I'm telling Eyelids to quit for the day. Good luck trying to see your show on HGTV!" Great. So there I am, using the muscles in my forehead and scalp to try to keep my eyes open. Come dinnertime, I'm too tired to cook, and it turns out I'm almost too tired to chew a bologna and cheese sandwich. (Strangely, though, I have plenty of energy to seek out the worst foods possible to snack on during Help! I Wrecked My House!) Bedtime brings no relief anymore, either. As soon as I am horizontal, I'm like those dolls my daughter used to play with— the ones that opened and closed their eyes depending on the position of the doll. As soon as I'm on my back, my eyes are open. The brain comes back online: "Hey, you remember all that stuff you didn't get done and came close to giving you a panic attack? Yeah—let's think about all those. Right now!" My wife asks me if I'm feeling okay because I'm shaking from trying to battle my own brain. "Fine, honey, just my nightly nervous breakdown." "Oh, okay. Night!" Morning rolls around and 1998 is one more day away in the past. Really? It's almost 2026?! The kids are grown and moved out, the bills are paid, and the driveway is all shoveled out. And I'm still exhausted! I get up and slog through my morning routine, sipping coffee out of a mug that I got on my birthday when my daughter was two. I hold the mug up and look at it, wrinkling my brow. "I wonder what the joke on this meant. I don't really remember. But I know one thing: it's so nineties!" |
Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong." We've all been victimized by this law at some point. When the Universe sees things are going fairly well for you, it sends Murphy down to burn out the bulb you were using in the attic so you wouldn't fall through the ceiling; to open up a hole in the shore just deep enough to let the water go over the top of your fishing boots to make a new lake inside and around your already-cold feet; to make your phone take one more second than usual to open up your camera so you're sure to miss the once-in-a-lifetime photo of Lady Gaga covered in soft-serve ice cream and being swarmed by seagulls down on the beach. But there's more to the law that's never mentioned. "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong…but not always!" And that makes things worse, gets your hopes up, gives you that good old sense of false confidence. Eighty percent or ninety percent of the time, Murphy'll get ya, like Lucy moving the football in Charlie Brown. But every now and then, the Universe lets you kick that ball nice and square. Yep, for a time, it's smooth sailing. Everything is la-de-da fine. It's at those time that, unexpectedly, the Universe randomly says: "Murphy! See that lady down there carrying the Ming vase? Raise a crack in the sidewalk in front of her about a half inch while she's not looking. Now let's get some popcorn and just watch...!" Think about it: you ever notice how your keys are always in the wrong pocket when you get to the front door with an armload of groceries and you have to try to reach across your body like a contortionist to get them, all without dumping your celery, fig cookies, and frozen enchiladas all over the ground? And then, one Tuesday, you go, "You know what, I'm prepared this time, I'm going to just reach around here…" And the keys aren't there! They're in the correct pocket this time. You can almost hear Murphy and the Universe giving each other a high five and saying, "Gotcha!" You might think this is all so much exaggeration and conjecture, but I tell you I speak from experience—so much so that I'm considering getting a tattoo on my forehead that reads: "Murphy's Bitch." I'm not superstitious...but you won't catch me sleeping in a Murphy bed. I'm sure that, in the middle of the night, the thing would all of a sudden spring shut into the wall, gobbling me up like an angry hippo. I refuse to use Murphy's Oil on hardwood floors; I have no doubt I would stand up, step on the floor, slip, fall, and break a femur or something. I won't even listen to Art Murphy's jazz music on the off-chance his MP3's bring a virus with them! I now sit here with my finger hovering over the Submit button, wondering what evil will befall me for calling out the Murphy Macroverse in this way. But I won't let bad luck hold me hostage. (And that would be bad luck; the best ransom a kidnapper could hope for for me would be about a hundred and twenty bucks—tops. He'd shoot me just for the inconvenience I caused him!) Just do me a favor: double-check that slick spot outside the door that might have unexpectedly turned into a solid sheet of ice overnight; don't practice that dance with the kids where you have to jump up in the air, trying not to get your scalp caught in the ceiling fan; don't make that big purchase just thinking you know you have enough in the bank to cover it. Remember: the Universe might be watching. Try to have a lucky day. And don't worry—I promise to keep Murphy too busy to bother much with you anyhow. |
| Hello - My Brain Is a Dangerous Place Welcome to the Breakneck Ski Lodge and Resort, where we put the "hospital" in "Hospitality!" Take a chance on our double-black-diamond Cracksnap Slope to slide some "fun" into your "Funeral!" Tickets available with your local travel agent; Medicaid and Medicare both accepted for deposits. Hello - I'm a Wannabe I wish I could write like David Sedaris. His anecdotes and stretches remind me, in a weird way, of an extended version of Erma Bombeck. Don't remember her? You might've been too young; or you might've lived in the wrong part of the country. Ms. Bombeck was a columnist in the early 1980's who wrote wonderful anecdotes for the newspaper. These columnists, may you younger readers understand, were the original bloggers. Both Bombeck and Sedaris can take the most mundane feature or event of everyday life and turn it into an interesting, often hilarious piece of writing. When I emulate them, my output is usually waterlogged, uninteresting, and uninspired. If boring was a career, I'd be a CEO! Hello - My Name Is Irony I have a stack of planning calendars in my office stretching back to the time I started at this company. Right beside it is a stack of each notebook I've ever kept. I also have an electronic notebook that spans the same time period. The walls and shelves in my office sport a bunch of clocks: a tiny bedside alarm on the file shelf in front of me; a tasteful room clock by my white board; a digital projection clock on which the projection feature only barely works next to my window. And I am still scrambling to be ready for each meeting and to meet each deadline…and to update my personal blog more than once a month. Hello - Remember Me? I'm Irony My personal finances are a wreck. I know: nobody cares, but stay with me on this. I am in debt so far that lottery tickets run away when they see me coming. I halfway pray that someone steals my identity so the collection agencies go after them for a while—suckers! I took Accounting 101 half a lifetime ago, and was only moderately proficient in making sure the Debit Column and the Credit Column balanced to a Zero Column at the bottom of the ledger. I have no financial background, no financial prowess, and I only understand macroeconomics about as much as a third-grader understands algebra. My job title? Billing Manager! Hello - I'm Done, Now My mind is like a TV whose remote control channel button is stuck. Squirrel? Hell, the whole forest distracts me—even when I'm in the city! So thanks for reading along as I think through some of the many randomish name tags I wear on any given day. The Ghost of Christmas Present said: "Know me better, man!" Well, I'm more the Writer of Whenever Present. Know me any better now? Well, I wouldn't tell anyone if you do—you might be the next one Sallie Mae wants to talk to about how to contact me regarding overdue student loans. If so, just tell them: "Hello? Oh. - His name is Ima Boutt Broak. Good luck!" |
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