Stress Managment

So, like most everyone else, I have people who expect things that simply cannot be done. This is not because of a lack of effort or desire, but because you have things in life that are just outside of your control, yet have a direct bearing on you.

Things like shipping companies. Curse them and Bless them at the same time.

I find, after some time, that the best way to manage these types of stressful moments is to be fully prepared, able to answer any questionyou can think of, and a few you wouldn't for good measure. People are strange, and can ask off the wall question,or have great insight and try to ferret out a fault or omission.

Be true, and be concise. Give your info, and leave no room to be questioned further. This impresses those who seek to challenge, and puts fear in those who lack the courage to speak their mind. Either way, it puts the pressure off of you.

A shill for the Swoosh. . .

So, Nike has a little ad campaign for the world Cup. Granted they're just out to make a ton of money off of the backs and gnarled fingers of the poor Bangladeshi and Guatemalan peasants who make the items, but since I can't change that by myself. . . shop away, America!

Sports

I'm coming out of the closet.

I love soccer.

A sigh of relief comes from my wife right about now. :)

I have since I was a boy. One look at me would tell you that I haven't played, and truthfully until recently I didn't even think about it. But I'm coming to terms with myself, and I'm going to focus on the things that I have wanted to do. I'm too late to do anything serious with it. Some doors are closed. However, that doesn't mean that they all are.

I want to be out there on the pitch. I want to run and find space, take the pass and set up the man coming open. I want to kick the snot out of the ball and have it bend to my will.

but fitness comes first.


More coming.

Taupe

I was thinking about what I said this morning about my wife, and I keep thinking that's not really true. It seems too harsh. I mean it's not like she was oblivious to my well being or anything. I dunno, I guess somethings which are implied in real life, when you look at them on the page, take on a life of their own.

Or, I could be nuts.

Either way, better to cover your bases.

I love Cake .I love the quirky beats and combinations, the deadpan lyrics in John McCrea's baritone. Listening to Wheels from Pressure Chief, their latest album. Granted, Cake sounds like Cake, and just about everthing from them has that sound. You could walk down the street and hear it out of the door of some bar and say, yeah, that's Cake. Like a lot of good things, it works; it's best to not fuck with it.

You hear that Dave Matthews? Good, now put down the electric before you get flushed down the river with the rest of the shit on the tour bus.

The morning grind

So, Having a pepperoni pizza on an upset stomach is not such a good thing.

My friend Marie has already chastized me for that. My wife would have too if she wasn't busy preparing for another test in Biology today. I feel she's ready. She's got a very good system for studying. I'm proud of her, she's been doing great since she's gotten back into school life.

I've been ill for some time now, going on five days. I'm more annoyed than anything else. It's not enough to keep me from work, but it does make for anxious moments. It's sapped a lot of energy from me. I find myself even less motivated than normal to do tasks around the house. I guess I should kickstart myself on that.

Oh well, the day's not going to just run itself. Time to get started.

In the news today. . .

So some guy takes a Glock 9mm to work and tries to blow away his boss. A couple of people are hit, but it looks like they'll pull through.

Normally you look at that and go, wow, that's messed up. Maybe think another 30 seconeds on it before turning to the sports or scanning the net for pictures that were on Paris Hilton's cellphone. What a shock that they're all of her? Who would have thought she's an egocentric whore?

I mean, really, who knew?

I'm normally in that same boat, about switching channels on reality, not thinking about Paris Hilton. Today there there was one small change. It happened where I worked. Now I won't lie and say I went tolunch with these people who were affected. I work as a contractor, one step above garden slug, but it pays pretty well for around here. I have delivered systems to where this happened, and I've talked and had friendly conversations with those who were affected. Friendly conversations are part of the job. We're supposed to aid in the fact that we're ripping their computer from them and replacing it with one that my or may not work as well as their previous one. It's a challenging proposition, and one that can be a little stressful if you let it. I give myself enough stress to let this add to it. So it's a good fit for the moment.

So, I know there people. I can say I like them. and it feels odd to me. i would expect to fell something. Anything. And while there may be some tinge of regret, it is diminished and not significant. I don't even feel numb. And perhaps that is what it is. Yet I cannot help but wonder if this could have been avoided. And I think that it probably could have been. I found some details,as to the background, that decorum and keeping my job prevent me from from going into, but there is some part of me that thinks, "Yeah, this really didn't have to happen."

As I have learned from my own personal trials and travails, communication is a really important thing to have and to keep with those around you. This is true for any reason you can imagine.

"Bat Country" no more

"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."

-Raoul Duke re: Hunter S Thompson

Son of a bitch.


And yes, never did a quote so fit someone so well.

Sometimes you see things and you think, yeah, that was going to happen. It still doesn't change that when they do, you still can't get over the loss of it all.

A confession is in order.

I never smoked pot, took acid, coke, crank, mezcaline, peyote or speed. The amount of alcohol I have imbibed could probably fill a keg and still have some space left.

As such, I am highly unqualified to talk about the experiences of a man who lived more or less permanently stoned about his ever loving mind as a matter of principle.

That's fine, you don't need to be stoned to appreciate Thompsons work any more than one would need to be a pedophile, to like the work of Townsend and The Who. It might help to explain Michael Jackson, but that's another issue.

Shit like Michael doesn't need to fit into this, but that was Hunter. He'd work in the current with the obscure, with his own perspective of the world from his compound in Aspen. A walking, talking, drinking, dropping Paul Bunyan, telling tall tales laced with equal parts truth and anger. Part of the story, but it was never about him. I remember as a kid reading an article about a drinking buddy in Aspen, whom he nearly cracked the neck of if he had been stronger, who praised Reagan.

241 dead Marines in October 83, by a bomber who was from a group that was financed by the US government that traded arms for hostages. We killed our own, by being the almighty bastards that we were destined to be. By God, this was America.

"Semper FI! Semper Fi! 241 dead marines in Lebanon! And who killed them?"

That thought, that image was the first time that I questioned our nation and its infallibility. Such a great nation couldn't fuck up that much, could we?

Oh, but boy can we ever, as I would learn over time.

Some people called him nothing but a wasted loser, spewing shit. A waste of humanity. To those, I say, as I am sure he would agree, go fuck yourself. The thing lost on some who focus on the drugs and the antics is that, in spite of it all, or perhaps because of it, he had a point. It's a point that a lot of people have who are on the outside now, looking in on today's America. This land is a great land, the best in the world. Freedom is a wonderful gift, and a treasure. But as for a lot of the people in this land? A load of douchebags, pig fuckers and crazed razor bladed freaks, waiting to cut you to sell your blood for their next rock of crack.

"Pearls before swine" he dubbed it. And that was the genius. Simple. Profound. Eloquent in its harshness. Gonzo journalism may live on in the heart of some bitter hazed blogger, but it will never be the same.

Thompson wrote about "the edge", that no one can relate to what it is like to be on the edge until you are at it or just past it. Some have said perhaps this was his reaching the edge, or that maybe he was sick. The fact is we'll never know. No note, no real knowledge of what was in his head (apart from the bullet) when he killed himself. And that, for a person who was as fiercely private as he was outspoken, is exactly the way that I would figure he would leave us. Frankly, it's not our goddamned business.

Rest well, old man. At least you don't have sit through the show anymore.