Zero Readership

I've been thinking about a comment that 'completlybrunette' made recently. In fact I've been contemplating it pretty much daily since I read it.

It was in response to my mentioning that I might just up and quit my current job as motivation to move forward in my life:

".you seem to like to be "safe" and so I guess I'd keep looking and not quit..."

Admittedly, this bothers me. Specifically, the 'safe' comment. Although I will aggresively deny that I am a 'safe' person, I actually think that Completelybrunette is onto something. (Please, completelybrunnet, dont' take this as a smack down on your opinion, because I think what you said is true, that today I do like to completely take it safe, and that is an example of how much my life has changed and how much my marriage changed me. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think that at least a little bit of it is right).

Before I married the EX, I was in no way, shape, or form 'safe'. My knickname in Uni was 'funguy'. I was the guy who made the rules. I was the guy who challenged my friends to fun and exciting and moronic undertakings. I was the guy who said things like, when we went slumming in rural communities outside of my little Uni town, "first one to pick up a local wins free beers all night." I was the one to suggest to my first year roomy that streaking through the quad was a great idea. (of course, after he did it, he raved about how great it was so that me and the other guys had to give it a shot, but when we did the ladies in the dorm stole all our clothes and we had to roam around naked and beg for them back during the dead of winter). I was the one when I was 19 who handled bouncers with skill and was able to get the underage 18 yr old chicks into clubs (drinking age in Ontario is 19). I was the one to convince my dormmates to each write a letter on their butt and then trounce out through the snow in front of my secret-santa victims window with 'm-e-r-r-y-x-m-a-s-s' writen on our respective ass cheeks and moon her with our seasonal greetings message of joy.

Admitedly there are things I'd rather not talk about either. I broke some laws in high-school, I don't think I broke any laws in Uni, although I did get ticketed for drinking in public giving all my 'friends' a chance to run away, and while relieving myself after a rather boisterous evening at the 'Pig's Ear', in a mainstreet doorway no less. and hearing someone say "son, put that thing away." and I was like, what the fuck, I have to piss, and so I turn to the street and there sitting in his squad car is a local cop who says, 'stop peeing in that doorway' and I say, 'yessir' and put my thing away.



I wore ripped up cargo shorts to my serious girlfriends parents dinner because nobody could tell me how to dress and my boxer shorts were exposed through the rips and I didn't care and I knew and I was doing it all on purpose because I was expressing my 'independance'.

No, I'm not proud of all the crap that I accomplished in those years, and yes, I wish that I had been more studious and serious and more of a student, but after the crap I had to put up with before Uni, I'd say I was pretty restrained.

And yes, today I am, 'safe', agggghhh. I am. I hate it, and I admit it, and it's true. I, as we all do, sold out somewhere along the line. I lost, and I am ashamed.

...so, it was years, and years, and years ago, but it's the only bone I've ever broken, and I'm pretty proud of that. I actually have great faith in my immune system, in my body, and its ability to fight off infection and disease. As far as I can tell i'm immune to poison ivy. During Uni I took a field course in Ontario archaeology, and we ended up digging in a field of poison ivy, and all but three of us ended up with severe reactions to the plant. I take pride in that.

Whenever I get cuts and scrapes I don't usually tend to them. I don't, because I know that my body - my immune system - will be able to handle it.

I rarely get colds or the flu. I never get a flu shot. I've had the flu maybe once in my life.

I had chicken pocks when I was a kid, but that's it.

I believe in my body, and I believe that it is strong.

But, when I was in the fourth grade I broke my ankle playing hockey. I speak of this because I think that what happend was pretty funny.

I went chasing the puck into the corner of the rink, and ended up twisting my ankle very, very badly - so agregiously that I ended up in the hospital for a couple of days as I needed 2 pins in my bones to put my ankle back together again. That's not the funny part.

The funny thing was what happend when I regained consciousness after the accident. Yes, I actually passed out from the pain, and when I came to minutes later there were three or four adults hovered over me, including one of the refs. I distinctly remember him saying, "don't move it too much or you'll fuck it up..."

Think how reassuring that is to a 10 year old, or however old I was at the time. I'm guessing it looked pretty bad.

The part of this story that I recall with the most distaste is after I was carried off the rink on a stetcher, and in the dressing room with my grandparents and some other parents and all my grandmother wanted me to do was try to walk on my ankle. Seriously! I knew then that something heinous was wrong with me, and yet she wouldn't shut up until I complied with her wish...."walk on it and see how it feels..." Fuck that! I knew, before putting pressure on it, how it would feel. It was going to bloody well hurt. But she wouldn't let well enough alone, so I did, and damn right it hurt. I remember that too. I dont' remember the pain, exactly, but I remember that it fucking hurt. A lot.

This story is actually a good analogy for my childhood.

Don't get me wrong, I know that life is full of pain, and that to avoid pain is stupid and you can't grow through avoidance. But, when you are already in pain, and you know that standing on one leg, when your ankle is severly fucked up, will only cause excrutiating pain, then what's the point? I'm OK with pain, I've taken and am taking a lot of pain in my life, but picking at a wound doesn't make it heal any faster. Faith in the self, in your body and knowledge of your pain does.

I love my grandparents, and my grandmother - but fuck them for making me stand on my broken ankle.

It snowed today, only for a short while, and nothing stuck. Still, it was beautiful. I haven't seen any snow for about two years, so this was a nice surprise. I tried postive thinking, attempting to mentally force the snow volume to increase and for the temperature to drop, but apparently my powers are not all that acute.


It was great to watch while it lasted.

April 18th

Apparently I've decided to stay in Eugene until at least April 18th. OK, so I lie, but I had to do something. Coincedences are strange.

Recently I've been listening to a lot of Dinosaur Jr., a band I've been into for a long time now; they themselves have been around since the 80's and are credited as the driving force behind the independant scene in those days, influencing such seminal bands as the Pixies and Nirvana. Over the years I've listened to them regularly, but for the past month or so I've been putting their disc's on almost daily.

I've also recently been mentally compiling a list of bands whom I wished I'd had a chance to see while they were still together, and would go to Hell's Acres itself to see them play if they ever reform. Dinosaur Jr. was on that list.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

I'm reading through the Ticket, our local papers entertainment insert that comes with Friday's paper. Somehow, without my knowing it, Dinosaur JR. has been touring extensively since 2005. Bah.

I'm a pretty big music fan, but just not quite (and by not quite I mean I'm somewhere in the same State, but several counties removed from all the big-time music geeks) to that level where I know everything about every band and read music magazines and scour the internet for info, but I'm still always upset when things like this are happening and nobody tells me. Damn it!!

Anyway, bought tickets that night, and am now excitedly waiting - I'm not peeing myself or anything, but I am pretty excited - for my opportunity to see this band. Which probably means that I'll be offered a job elsewhere and have to move before April. That would be fine by me, though, because theoretically I'll be making a lot more money than I am now, and can travel to see the band elsewhere....Think Postive!!
Cleveland

Sent out an application last night to a museum in Cleveland. I know, pretty random, but now I'm all wacked out about Cleveland and in my mind it's the greatest city since sliced bread, or perhaps Rome. Seriously!! who wouldn't want to move to Cleveland?

I mean look at what they have there....um...the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...right? And...what else...uhhhhh...the Indians, a major league baseball team. Then there's...the Lake. Sweet!! And the Drew Carey Show was set in Cleveland...and that show was hella funny! Can the city be any different? I think not.

Anyway, from the job description I read it's very similar to stuff I've done before, it's a supervisory position, and although they didn't give a pay scale - in fact I had to send in my salary requirements, bah - it's a pretty large museum so I'm thinking the pay will be alirght. Now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they don't already have an inside person in mind for the job...

So, the day started out fine, woke up nice and early, accomplished some stuff, headed out to play some hockey at the only-rink-that-exists in town (sorry but this is really confusing to me, that a city this size would only have a single rink...still boggles the mind...)

Hockey was good, perhaps even great. It was the first time I've played in a game on ice for, oh, probably about 3-years or so. My skills were terribly rusty and my timming was crap, but for my first time in so long I was actually very happy.

Showered, bought some lunch, went to work and was in a very good mood.....

Slowly, ever so subtly, things began to change.

I still dont' understand why people act the way that people do, or why people suddenly seem to change their attitude towards you when you can't figure out what the fuck it is you've done wrong....

Sorry, just a little rant.

I was in a great mood to start my shift, but then my back began to hurt (damn, I'm gettin old), people who I thought were friends started to treat me with less than spectacular attitude and I met the customer who has the ability to suck my soul straight out of my living body.

It's true, she actually sucked my frick'n soul out of my still warm body and I wasn't able to recover for the rest of the day. Oh, My, God, just the fucking banality of it, her stupid questions. Her trying to ask me about things and she would just provide me with vague descriptions and expect me to know what the fuck she was talking about!! She was a fucking, fucking idiot and wasted about a half-hour of my life!!! And it was while having to help her with the least favorite aspect of my job in an area that I avoid at all costs. I finally snapped, I mean litterly, I just couldn't take it - my back was hurting like hell, and she was a big, fucking, stupid idiot. I actually resorted to mocking her behind her back...I do feel bad about that in retrospect, but damn, I just didn't have any other outlet for all the pent-up frustration that was brewing in the space left vacant by the part of my soul that she sucked out.

Sorry, big rant.

During my break I went to Trader Joes and bought a cheap bottle of Merlot and am now drinking my soul back into my body.

Tommorow, have to apply to a job in Waterloo, Ontario. Dont' know how much it pays, but it's a supervisorial job at a children's museum being responsible for programming. Pictures on the museums site look good. Waterloo is a good town, west of Toronto (think 2 hours), and has the biggest, or one of the biggest, Octoberfest celebrations outside of Germany. How can you not like that!

Phone call at 7:30 this morning - it's my day off - I knew who it was, so I ignored it this time. Get up a little later, and check the answering service, sure enough it's work. Ha, no thank you, I'm not going to work 8 days in a row, but I appreciate the concern.

I'm not entirely sure the new manager is better than the old manager. I believe that she is more capable, but right now she's running around like a chicken with her head cut off and is just messing everything up and pissing everyone off. There's no end in sight, no end to the madness. The other night she had a staff meeting, and it was the same night that I had decided that I was going to play in the pick-up game at the one-rink-that-exists-here-in-Eugene. I've been mostly playing in-line hockey the past few years, and it's great amounts of fun, but nothing can compare to playing on ice. Anyway, this stupid meeting was scheduled for the same evening as the game and the damn thing just kept going and going and I became more bitter, and bitter.

Didn't watch the SuperBowl. Didn't care. Unless players have skates, sticks and a puck, then I'm not interested. Lethal weapons make a sport so much more interesting.


CoffeeKate, suggests I rant about the woman situation - I think she meant about how people are moody and you can never really tell what the fuck is going on inside people's heads and I wish that I was psychic, because people actually appear to believe that I am when they expect me to know things that have never been explained to me.

Actually I think Eugenians, or perhaps Oregonians, are actually psychic and expect everyone else to be so too. It's the only reason I can come up with as to why people around here always think I know what the hell is going on about things that I have never been exposed to or told about. If you want me to know something, then frick'n tell me about it before demanding an answer to your nebulous question.

So, I've come up with this equation to explain Eugenians: Eugenians = psychic + needy. I think that covers it.

I'm beginning to think my apartment smells a little funky...I hate not knowing whether or not there are foul smells lurking about my living quarters or if I've just become used to the scents and oblivious. I spend a lot of time worrying about things like this.

I'm beginning to be quite the bar fly..hahaha. No, seriously, I've decided that since life sucks, I might as well drink lots of beer.

Anyway, I went to buy a cat toy, because I broke one of my cat's favorite toys the other day and I promised him that I would replace it, and ended up at work, and worked for a few hours. I was OK with that, and decided that I would go to some pub and have dinner and a few beers afterward. This time I went to Sam Bond's Garage, which is a converted mechanics place, therefor the name, that is now a bar/sorta food place/music venue. I"ve been there a couple times in the past to see certain bands, but this was the first time I went with food in mind. I was a little early, and so they were just serving appetizers; food isn't a real priority, apparently. But, it was happy hour, so I ended up drinking three pints. I also met some dude from Tibet and some lady from England and her husband whose from Oregon. I had a very good time talking with them, and they seemed like regulars, so I'm seriously thinking I'll go back and hopefully run into them again...god I'm lonely.

The Girl

Ok, so while I write this my cat is thoroughly enjoying his new/old toy that I just purchased him. He actually plays fetch, so I get to throw it, many, many times, and he runs it down and brings it back for me to throw again. Good times!!

So, I had an opportunity to ask the Girl out this past week, but, damn it, I didn't. No, no, I won't consider it chickening out, I don't think that I did, but I went into the situation with the intention of doing so, and I felt good and positive and I really was going to do it, but then when interacting with her (I wasn't going to do it right away, I was going to wait til the right time, of course), but then all the signals I was receiving just weren't right. A little voice in the back of my head kept screaming 'Abort, Abort, Abort....' She really wasn't that responsive, and I'm not really sure why....

Alright, so in my typical, fuck'd up conspiracy theory way, I figured that she must have somehow found out about my blog and read it and decided that I was creepy or something...no, seriously, this thought actually ran though my mind. But, come on, that seriously can't have happened. This is Zero Readership, afterall, but I still had that fear run through my mind; I coudnt' figure out why she was acting so differently than she has been in the past. Anyway, the signal I was receiving was a definate "no go...". I've since, in my imagination, built fantastical reasons why and changed some of the interactions we had into something more positive, therefor not fully negating the possibility of a relationship and am still holding out some hope.

I have to admit, thought, that this set back has actually enamoured her more in my mind than perviously, while at the same time taking off the blinders...win/win, as they say.

P.S. I've also finished my resume and wrote a cover letter for a job I've found in, gasp, Eugene. I may post my resume on here tommorow, just for shits and giggles....

I was purusing through some of my bookmarks today when I came across a link to a site called Game of Satan . I have no idea when, where, how or why this site ended up in my bookmarks...the only thing I can think of is that about a year ago I was working on a story about Satanists and came across this site. It must have amused me to such an extent that I considered it a keeper.

"Game of Satan" is some Finnish guys cyber-based, christianic(?) rant about the evil of role playing, hockey, lesbianism, and not-being-a-northern-european. Apparently people from northern europe, re. Scandanavia, are the most intelligent ever, and invented most of the good, important stuff that the world now has. I did not know that.

Now, I'm actually not sure that this isn't just a joke (the naughty video clips might be an indication), but it's an interesting read either way....

And either way, this guy is just crazy.

I just want to say that I did not watch the State of the Union address.

Thanks you.