2013 In The Rear View Mirror

It is time to leave 2013 in the rear view mirror. To quote Charles Dickens "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." I re-entered the dating world with a vengeance in 2013. I had dated before that but it was few and far between. This past year I dated quite a bit, some good and some bad. I had pieces of my heart broken off and shoved up my ass but I also dated a few nice women that just didn't work out, some by my choice but mostly by theirs. 2013 was more about the learning curve. I learned a lot about myself this past year, some things I liked and some things I did not like. The things I found I liked about myself I want to refine and accentuate, the things I did not like I want to change and make them a positive. While I was off for five weeks, I did a lot of reaching out to women I had dated this past year (and beyond) to try and make sure we could at least still be friends. Some of the women I realize do not want to have anything else to do with me and for that I am sorry but I wanted to make my peace with them and issue any apologies necessary. It is not that I necessarily want a second chance but it is important for me to extend the proverbial olive branch. They all brought something different and positive to the table and I do want to keep those positives available to me and with me because at one point and time, I was worthy of their attention.

Getting Perspective

I recently missed five weeks of work because of a bad back and the long "vacation" helped to give me a lot of time to think. I was able to gain some perspective on my life and think about which direction I was going and the mistakes I have made in my life. Evidently honesty is not a quality that women look for and would rather be lied to than to be told the truth. A few can handle the truth but most cannot. I do not know how Charlie Sheen and some of the other great sleazeballs in history pull it off. It must be the money, the fame and the power (and probably the good looks), none of which I seem to have. What little charm and charisma I possess is not getting me too far, but as the old saying goes, you have to race what you brought to the track. Maybe I should leave the honesty about my past at home.

A Christmas Story

Three weeks ago I was facing probably the most depressing Christmas ever. At that point and time, I was facing Christmas alone and I wasn't about to horn in on someone else's family Christmas just because I was going to be by myself. My family is functionally dysfunctional, but when you have been by yourself so long, being alone becomes the norm and accepted as a fact of life, holiday or not. My family always has our Christmas celebration a few days after Christmas so I did have that to look forward to. I was saved from the fate of being alone on Christmas by a good friend who has openly accepted my past. She has accepted me for the man that stands in front of her rather than who I used to be and that is very important to me. She has questions, of course, and I have tried to answer them as honestly and as best that I can. I do not know what will happen but she did save me from a Christmas fate that i was really dreading.

Under Assault

I recently "agreed" to co-author a blog on dating. We were going to provide a point/counter point dialogue on dating from a man and a woman's perspective. The only agreement that we had was that the points would not be "personal". It sounded like a good idea to me because we both share a passion for writing, we have vastly differing view points, and I thought it could be funny. Although my co-author did not mention my name, I thought one of her first blogs was a personal attack on me and it was in response to a blog I had written several months ago. If I respond, everyone who reads her blog is going to know it was me. When I pointed out that I thought her blog was personal, her response was basically "Why did you write what you did?" Was I stupid for writing what I did? There is no doubt in my mind. My point is that she violated an agreement we had by making a personal attack on me. I could retaliate but what purpose would that serve? I often fail to remember that when you put yourself out there in cyberspace, words can have a powerful impact, both negative and positive, even if only one person reads it.

The Walter Mitty Life

I went to see the Life of Walter Mitty on Christmas Day (I never knew that many people went to the movies on Christmas Day) and it was a pretty good movie. It was one of those movies that gave me pause for thought. Walter Mitty is King of the Day Dreamers in Literature and now on the Big Screen. What I took from the movie was that it was okay to day dream but at some point and time you have to take the plunge and try to make your dreams into reality. All Walter Mitty needed was a gentle nudge to go out and go after his dreams. That gentle nudge came in the form of a day dream about a woman that he wanted to go out with. In this day dream, she encouraged him to go make it happen. It would be nice if it was that simple but that nudge needs to start from within. It is great to have a supportive partner and someone who can keep you focused, but it all starts from within. Your dreams will never see reality unless you try and put everything you have in to it.

If You Can't Be With The One You Love

I heard the song the other day by Stephen Stills entitled "If You Can't Be With The One You Love Then Love The One You're With." There is a lot to be said for the title to that song. When we get married we never think or plan for it to end in divorce. We meet a lot of people along the way that we love or at least we think we love and then that falls apart and we are searching for true love again. I have been in too many "relationships" to count now and what I am really trying to guard against is comparing the current one to any of the past relationships I have had. I do not want to bring my damaged goods to the table and make them pay for the sins of my past partners. I have had to pay for the sins of some of their past partners and it cost me (and them) any hope of a relationship. Many people believe that you run across more than one "true love" in your life but somehow those scenarios don't play out into a lifetime of love. I watched the movie Love Actually the other night and it had many different scenarios that played out. Some ended well and some didn't. I guess that describes realtionships in a nut shell. I think we all have a "lost love" that we have never reconnected with. That is why I believe in if you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with.

Why? Part II

I had written a blog a couple of months ago entitled "Why?". The theme of that post was why couldn't I find a woman who would happily send me to a strip club after a hard week of work. Now if I could find that buried treasure (maybe a stripper named Treasure?) and combine that with a woman who loved watching the Seattle Seahawks as much as I do, screamed, yelled and cussed at the TV every time they showed Jim Harbaugh's ugly, whiny face; loved watching North Carolina Tarheels sports as much as I do (I like the Washington Huskies too) and yelled and cussed at the TV whenever they show Coach K's whiny, ferret face, and bemoaned every Tarheels missed Free Throw (which has been more than I care to count this season); and took up an interest in the LA Dodgers and the NHL; and wouldn't mind dropping in on Boone, NC once in a while to catch an Appalachian State Mountaineers football game. Combine that with the first version and I might have found the perfect woman. Dr. Frankenstein will have to work over time building this woman.

I Need To Do What I Need To Do

It seems like I have the lived the majority of my life worried about the needs of others and putting others first. I have come to the point and time in my life that I need to do whatever it is necessary to make myself happy. This Saturday is my 48th birthday and I hope I have the opportunity to go celebrate with my friends in whatever manner I choose to do so whether it be massage parlors, strip clubs, Hooter's, Bikini's, or Twin Peeks or even all of the above. I was watching NCIS last night and one of the lines delivered near the end of the show was "everyone deserves to be happy." Even me. When you have major decisions to make in your life it seems like everyone has advice to give to you. I don't mind the advice and I do appreciate it, but I have to weed out the advice that is self-serving and that which is helpful and has my best interests in mind. I need to have my best interests in mind. The women that have become attached to me whether it be friendship or otherwise, have all chipped in. It seems that all of my female friends want me to stick around because they always know I am there for them if they need me. I enjoy helping people but I am at the point now to where I cannot sacrifice what i want to do for the sake of friendships. If I do become involved in a realtionship, and it is meant to be, we will figure something out. Long distance relationships are hard.

"I Have Known Him Longer"

I have had several women that I have gone out with use the "I have known him longer" as a reason to go back to someone they have dated or to go out with someone else. I have never really understood that. Because they have known the other person longer that makes some kind of difference? That makes the other person some how a more qualified candidate than me? I hate to break this to them but if he was a schmuck then, I doubt very seriously if he has changed any. I really want to let them in on another fact. You were in the relationship and he wasn't. He was only in it because he could play you like a fiddle. Since they have known the other person longer, they should know that. I have found that when it comes to dating, men and women can delude themselves into believing anything. I know I am guilty of that.

Online Dating

I must admit that online dating is the easiest way to meet women. You don't even have to come up with a good pick up line. I never was that good with those anyway. There are a lot of free dating websites out there and there are some unscrupulous ones that charge a fee every month and most of those are a scam. All that you see on those are the smoking hot, model-types that you would not expect to see on there. Where are the average looking women with "a few extra pounds"? There are some legitimate pay sites and I guess it is cheaper than paying a bar tab every weekend and getting nothing to show for that either. I can suffer rejection and be scorned from the safety of my own living room while drinking my own alcohol and I won't even have to worry about driving home. There are a lot of men that use those sites for a quick hook up but in defense of guys everywhere, there are some women that do the same thing. I have met some very nice women on some of these websites and I have also met my share of Psychos. Anybody can fill out a profile and put whatever they want. Honesty is only an option. Unfortunately, it is one that quite a few of the people view as the last option. I don't have a ton of money or a great and powerful job and I don't look like George Clooney (he is about my age) so I have to hope my honesty will win over a heart or two. I really kind of "over nerded" my profile so I go back and change it every once in a while, but I am who I am. I always reference the movie The Revenge of the Nerds. The only thing I don't have is the pocket protector and that horrible laugh.

It's Always About The Story

I have been reading a lot about writing here lately and I have come to the conclusion that is is always about the story. Everything is a story, there is a story behind everything, and everyone has a story no matter how wild or how boring. There is a story with everything. I have wanted to be a writer since i was 8 or 9 years old and now at 48, I am just getting around to attempting to do it for money. The money is not even that important although a few hundred thousand coming in would be very nice. I am learning on the fly. Right now I feel like I am crashing and burning faster than the Hindenberg but everyone has to start somewhere. That is why I write so many different blogs. I need the practice. I need to see what works and what doesn't. Picking a suitable pen name will be very key as well because The Journey To The Abyss will not need to be read by my female friends.

Russell Wilson

I took this lady I was dating to see Russell Wilson play Second Base for the Asheville Tourists early in the summer of 2011. I explained to her who he was (at that time he was in between playing Quarterback for the North Carolina State Wolfpack and the University of Wisconsin. He left Asheville in mid summer to play for Wisconsin.) She had no clue who he was and quite frankly, really did not care. I could tell he was a superior athlete because he moved so fluidly in the field around second base (he made a great diving stop at the edge of the outfiled grass and threw the guy out). The weakest part of his game was his batting. He was only batting about .220 when he left the team but you could tell he had a very compact swing and the potential was definitely there. After a record setting season at Wisconsin the Seattle Seahawks drafted him in the third round. I thought General Manager John Schneider and Head Coach Pete Carroll had wasted a draft pick. As the preseason wore on, it became clear that Russell Wilson might be named the starter. This lady and I were still dating and she wanted to buy me a Seahawks jersey. I requested Matt Flynn's #15 and after a couple of months of waiting, I finally had to "settle" for a Russell Wilson #3 jersey. The guy told my girlfriend over the phone that the Flynn jersey was back ordered for about 6 months and would I accept the Wilson jersey. I reluctantly agreed and that turned out to be the trade of the century in the jersey world. What GM on the planet would not trade Matt Flynn for Russell Wilson?

The Seattle Seahawks

To hell with dating again, my Seattle Seahawks are 12-2. Before I catch any grief, they were "my" Seattle Seahawks from the first exhibition game of their inaugural season through their 2-14 debacle under Tom Flores and through the Ken Behring years and on through the Super Bowl team of 2005 and "Referee Gate". They beat the New York Giants today 23-0 and intercepted Eli Manning five times. This years Seahawks do not win with flash even though they are known throughout the league for talking a good game. They are just rock solid on offense and defense. They win because they are solid in all three phases of the game-offense, defense, and special teams. Cornerback Richard Sherman is the voice of the defense and Safety Earl Thomas has garnered talk of Defensive MVP honors. They don't have anyone on the Defensive line that is near the league lead in sacks or any other category but they know have to get after the Quarterback. Russell Wilson is the Captain of the Offense and when Marshawn Lynch, is in full "Beast Mode", all the Seahawks have to do is put it in cruise mode. They won't have any 1,000 yard receivers and Russell Wilson will barely have 3,000 yards (Marshawn lynch already has 1,000 yards rushing) but they just win. Securing homefield throughout the playoffs is an important step on the road to the Super Bowl. If I could find a woman that is a Seahawks fan, life would be close to perfect.

The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption has always been one of my favorite movies. It is also based on a book by Stephen King. It is a classic tale of a man getting screwed over by pretty much everyone in his life and ended up in prison because of it. He gets a certain amount of redemption and revenge on those who did him in and sailed off into the sunset with a pocketful of money. I am not a revenge minded person and revenge really serves no purpose in my life. My redemption would come in the form of being much better than think I am and "upgrading" to complete and total happiness and contentment. My happiness and contentment does not involve making tons of money but it lies more in being able to do what I want to do rather than just go through the motions everyday for the rest of my life. My redemption is on the horizon.

Moving Forward

My limited readership wants positive so hear is some positive. My 48th birthday is December 21st. I am going to go to Charlotte and have the time of my life. I have a couple of meetings set up that will hopefully advance my career or springboard me into a new one, one that I actually enjoy, I can contribute to, and I can make the difference I want to make. I have always wanted to entertain people whether it be making them laugh, writing them a story, or whatever it is I have to do to make them feel better about themselves. There are times I wish people would do that for me but I am pretty self sustaining when it comes to amusing myself. All of this time i have had off has given me too much time to think and I need to pour my energy into something productive. I need to reassess who I am and where I am at and more importantly where I am going. It can only be agood thing and a much brighter future ahead for me.

The Dark Side

I have once again been "scolded" because some of the "darker" posts that I have made. I am sorry but that is real life. Not every day is great day. There are some days that you will have issues. These issues will be worked through. Sometimes life throws you a curveball and sometimes you swing and miss badly (the old timers call it the "jelly leg") because you don't always hit a hanger out of the park. There are also days/times when you need to collect your thought and get yourself together before you can even begin to talk about everything going on. I just need a few days.

Sometimes You Can't Fight Genetics

There are certain things you can't fight in life and genetics happens to be one of them. The genetic anomalies are starting to mount up for me and it has taken me a few days to process the meaning of all of this. I realize a good attitude is a major part of it but sometimes when you fight and you fight and you fight, there comes a day when you just want to throw in the towel and not get back up. It is a TKO and the fight is over. It was a very one-sided one at that.

Man With Cats

There was a group back in the the early 1980's called Men Without Hats that sang a song called "The Safety Dance." It was a reactionary song to the punk rock clubs in England where the punk rock fad had taken over and "slam dancing" was en vogue. The first line of the song went something like "You can dance if you want to but you can leave your friends behind" and I can only assume they were imploring their listeners to dance without turning it into a Rugby scrum or a free-for-all. My post-apocalyptic view of the relationship-free world has me acquiring many cats so I can face old age with some furry friends (of course this is post-Molly as well. She is not a big fan of cats). I was talking with a female friend the other night and she told me she was "done with relationships." That made me feel kind of bad because I was the last relationship she had two years ago but now I can see where she is coming from. The extreme disappointment is just not worth the effort. My mantra is quickly becoming "it is better to be alone than to wish you were alone."

It's Not Easy Bein' Me

I borrowed this headline from comedian Rodney Dangerfield. These words have never been truer in my life than they are right now. I have a past. We all do. I have changed. Not all people can say that. I also consider myself a Renaissance Man. I like to think I am intelligent, well read, a good sense of humor, and a genuine nice guy, and I am not bad looking of looks are what matter to you. I have great compassion for my fellow man as well as animals and I try to treat everyone like I would want to be treated. I think I pull that off reasonably well enough. With all of that going for me, why am I sitting here by myself tonight? Dating at my age is hard and I honestly did not realize it was this hard. Maybe I should send in a question to "Ax Ike" on the John Boy and Billy Show. I have gone out with enough women in the past couple of years to fill up the local psych ward at the hospital. These women cannot blame that on me because they were that way long before I met them. Then I see nice women, beautiful women, women that have a lot going for them, chasing these dumbasses all over the place that lie to them, use them, and play enough games with them to last three lifetimes. Yet these women will chase these clowns to the end of the earth. I could quote enough song lyrics to fill the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as far as this subject goes and why not? I am going to be sitting here by myself.

Married To My Work

If I was a writer, I would love to be able to say I am married to my work because at least that would be something resembling a relationship. I guess you could say I am married to my potential of my work because my actual job just pays the bills. My "best" seller, The Journey To The Abyss, needs to hit it big soon but I guess one key component to that would be I need to finish it first. I am about to go through the editing process one more time and i have thought of so many more things I can add to it. It needs to be as good as I can make it- philosophical, funny, too good to be true, and you have got to be kidding me- all rolled into one finely tuned story that really has no end.

On Writing

I am reading an interesting book that has sat on my shelf for about 10 or 12 years and has remained untouched for that length of time. It is Stephen King's On Writing. I have enjoyed the majority of his work over the years but most everyone always seems to want to know how someone who is successful at his craft does it. I compare it to me writing my history papers in college. I wrote them, my professors approved of them, I made A's on most all of them, but what worked for me may not work for someone else. Stephen King is a well read individual, spouting off authors I have never even heard of, but what works for him may not work for me. For one thing, fiction is hard to write. I have tried. You have to have the ability to create much along the lines of Dr. Frankenstein. You have to be able to create people and towns and families and stories that keep them all intertwined and all coming to a shocking conclusion. My book that I am working on, The Journey To The Abyss is part fiction and mostly reality but if anybody does read it, I am going to leave it up to them to figure out which is which. It is kind of like Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and part 50 Shades of Grey. A great storyteller always embellishes the truth just a little. These characters created themselves.

Making Peace With My Past

I promised someone a couple of weeks ago that I was trying to make peace with my past. I feel like I am well on the way to doing that. I have to be able to forgive myself first because I have wrestled with a guilty conscience for years and years. I have been trying to track people down (the internet does make that much easier but also a little bit scary) and you never know what reaction you are going to get. Most of these people and to be honest, all of them are women, are not as mad at me as I thought. That guilt was largely a product of my imagination but i still felt the incredible need to try and make things right. I guess I needed to make things right to help ease my conscience We had some good long talks, some productive talks, but I did not want or expect anything from these talks. I do not want to go out with them again (that was also an understanding) and I was as honest with them as I possibly could be. Whenever I started making phone calls and sending e-mails, I honestly did not know what kind of response I would recieve. I realized i ran the risk of being yelled at, hung up on, or not getting a reply to any of my e-mails. So far, none of that has happened. I would like to feel that I am doing all of this for the right reasons. I am not doing it to make myself feel better, I am doing it as an "atonement for my sins" as one lady put it but I don't think that is it either. I am doing this to right a wrong whether it was real or imagined. In the process i have had some excellent conversations. Now I face the scariest one of them all. I am sending an e-mail to someone I have only seen once in 26 years and that was only from a distance.

Cleaning Out

Yesterday I undertook the task of cleaning out my closets and getting rid of some old clothes, stuff I never wear any more, and it being the Christmas season, I wanted to donate my clothes to the Salvation Army or some other organization like that. I came upon this pair of sleep pants that brought back a lot of memories but not what you are probably thinking. I was working at a store in the 'Hood in Charlotte. I was normally in charge inside the store itself but on the coldest day in Charlotte's history, my bosses decided to send me to the warehouse on the far side of town. The high for the day was supposed to be 12 degrees, the warehouse had no heat, and I was not dressed for the occasion. Sending me to the warehouse also put me in charge of a crew of 15 gangbangers, the largest and scariest of which was a young woman who look like she played Linebacker for the Carolina Panthers. As soon as I found out I had to go to the warehouse I went running through the store trying to grab as much warm weather gear as I could find which wasn't much. The only pair of sweats/sleep pants I could find were red plaid with silhouettes of polar bears and snowflakes. It is hard to look authoritative when you are wearing snowflake/polar bear sleep pants and put in charge of the Boyz n' the Hood. All I needed was some bunny slippers and my outfit would have been complete. I caught all sorts of hell, I am glad I did not get mugged or beaten up for my lunch money, and I survived the day with my snowflake/polar bear pants intact. I have kept them all these years and can't bring myself to give them away.

It Must Be Someone Else

I have not told many people this and since I don't think anyone that knows me reads this blog so I will go ahead and say that I have been diagnosed with what they call early onset Parkinson's Disease. I am about to turn 48 years old and those words were a little tough to hear, but I did not feel any different at the time. Now I have started noticing differences. It is a slowly progressive (although some cases progress much faster than others) neurological condition that is ultimately fatal. We are talking ten or twenty years and maybe more down the road. I was told about this condition about a year ago and I had only begun to notice symptoms then. The symptoms have occurred much more frequently over the past couple of months but I have been able to keep a lid on it and no one has really noticed. There was once incident when I was trying to eat a small bag of M & M's out of the snack food machine at work and I had a bad spasm and I threw my M & M's all over the floor. Everyone that was present laughed, I was a little embarrassed but I laughed it off, no one got hurt by the flying M & M's, and no one knows the real reason the candy went flying. I have done a lot of research on the subject and the Michael J. Fox Foundation has really pushed the condition to the forefront and campaigned for public awareness on the subject. A lot of people have described the condition as "a blessing" and I am working hard to look at it that way as well. A blessing can only be a positive thing and life is what you make of it. I need this to be a positive.

Nostalgia Rules The Day

I was watching an old episode of Spin City with Micheal J. Fox this morning and this particular episode had his real life wife, Tracy Pollan, in it. That made me think of his first show Family Ties that Fox was in and that also had Tracy Pollan in it towards the end of the series run. The random thought patterns that rapidly run through my mind at warp speed and I thought of the old Billy Vera and the Beaters song that had a resurgence because of Family Ties when Michael J. Fox's character and Tracy Pollan's character broke up. The name of the song was

At This Moment

and I immediately went on you tube and looked it up. It is a really touching, poignant song and the lyrics that I focused on were

What did you think I would say at this moment when I'm faced with the knowledge that you just don't love me

. I must admit that I shed a few tears when i listened to that song all the way through. That might be why I hate love songs.

A Restless Soul

I have always described myself as a restless soul. As an adult, I have always had to be on the move, never really fitting in wherever I have been, always planning my next move, always thinking it is going to be better somewhere else, always believing that the next place I ended up was going to be my final stop, it was going to be "home." Even growing up, the only place I felt comfortable was on a basketball court or on a baseball field or in the classroom. I knew where I was supposed to be, what I needed to be doing, and I usually knew the answer. I felt really comfortable in college, like I really belonged, and in a lot of ways I was the life of the party. I fit in socially and in the classroom. I could be someone else, I did not have to be me. Now I am at the proverbial crossroads in my life. Changes need to be made and I feel like I am making the personal changes that need to be made to help me become a better and more complete person. I need to honor myself as well as others. I am trying to make peace with my past but also leave it in the rearview mirror. I want to be able to find an open, honest, trusting relationship that I feel like I belong in. I have never dealt with my emotions well but now it is time to face them head on and embrace them. I need to tell the people in my life whose love and friendship I value dearly that they are important to me and I would not be where I am without them. I have many big decisions facing me over the next several months but I want to be able to answer "why" I am making these decisions rather than just "because". My restless soul needs a permanent foundation.

The Ten Things

As promised I have started reading Mira Kirshenbaum's Everything Happens For A Reason. To her credit she does go right after it. Kirshenbaum believes that there are ten meanings of the events in our lives.
1. To help you feel at home in the world
2. To help you totally accept yourself
3. To show that you can let go of fear
4. To bring you to the place where you can feel forgiveness
5. To help you uncover your true hidden talent
6. To give you what you need to find true love
7. To help you become stronger
8. To help you discover the play in life
9. To show you how to live with a sense of mission
10. To help you become a truly good person

That is a lot to digest. Now I have to get to the concepts behind all of these reasons.

A Day Of Thought And Meditation

I always use Sunday mornings as a few hours to reflect and meditate. I don't know if it helps or not but it helps to give me perspective on the things that I have done over the course of the past week. I have studied different methods of meditation and the only thing I would change about the method that I chose is that I need to accentuate more of the positive. A friend of mine gave me a book the other day entitled Everything Happens For A Reason. The title itself tells me the author believes that there is some sort of divine reason that I keep getting kicked in the ass and taking the symbolic punch to the balls. If the author's theme happens to be that what is going on will help me build character and make me a stronger person, I am going to rip that book apart page by page, build a bonfire with most of it, and use the rest as toilet paper. I can't wait to read this book and I am assuming that my sarcasm and skepticism is understood. I promised my friend I would read this and I always try to keep my promises, especially to my friends. The only reason I could possibly accept is that I am taking this for all of my friends and loved ones so they don't have to. My friends are the most valuable things I have and I would suffer as much as possible so they would not have to. Other than that, the divine cosmic presence is having a big laugh at my expense. I am hoping the great Puppet Master in the sky gets bored real soon.

Breaking The Silence

I am breaking my self-imposed blogger silence to relate how I screwed up and would love to be able to fix it. A lot of times my words are the only way I can communicate effectively the point or points I am trying to get across. Like a lot of other bloggers out there, I have the mistaken tendency to believe that what I write is important, needs to be read, and my limited readership cannot wait until I post another blog of my insights into, in this case, relationships and dating. Texting is the worst thing that happened to me. Most of the time before I hit the send button on any deeply thought out text I think is the most important thing in the world designed to sooth my feelings and ego, I should open up my living room window and throw my cell phone as far as I can and I could used to throw a baseball 90 Miles Per Hour. It would do me and whoever is about to receive my message a world of good. I do put a lot of time, effort, and thought, into my blogs but that still does not make them meaningful. Life and death is meaningful. A mother getting a phone call from her son telling her he is being shipped out to Afghanistan is meaningful. It is a mother's worst nightmare. Whenever she informed me of this, it was like a gut punch to me so I can only imagine how she felt. I did not know this when I sent my ill-advised text and I quickly heard about it and I should have. Reality is a real kick in the ass and I could never apologize enough for thinking I was more important (and I have quickly realized I am not important at all) than a much bigger picture. I apologized for my selfishness but I cannot take back what I did and I can only hope I will eventually be forgiven. My political awareness is not on the scale of the mother's but I do know that political promises were made to pull our soldiers out of Afghanistan. I do know that a newly recruited 18 year old soldier being deployed is not a fair trade on anyone's scale. All I can do is request a Guardian Angel go with this young man and bring him home safely. The politics do matter because they have the ability to affect everyone that you know.

A Heavy Heart

This will be my last entry for a while but it is with a heavy heart that I have to say that my beautiful lady friend has decided she does not want to see me socially any more. While it would be easy to slam her out of hurt and anger, I cannot do that with her. She is beautiful, intelligent, has a great sense of humor, a greater sense of purpose, and a smile and a twinkle in her eye that could light up a room. I do love her and women like her come along once in a lifetime, just not in this lifetime for me. I wish her the best and I hope she has the most success and happiness in the world that one person can have. I also want the the next person that has a relationship with her to know how very, very lucky they are. You have a rare gem and you should admire her, treat her well, and thank God every day that you get up that she is in your life.

Rubber Ducky You're The One

I first heard "Rubber Ducky, You're The One" when Ernie of Sesame Street sang it in his bathtub playing with his rubber duck and that morphed into the disco version of "Rubber Duckie" by one of the original funk masters, Bootsy Collins from the 1970's disco era. I was out doing my walking today (yes I have actually started an exercise program) and I saw eight Mallard ducks out in the pond at my apartment complex. It must have been like a couples retreat for ducks because there were four males and four females. It was so cool to watch them dive for food on the bottom and to be in perfect tandem. Mother Nature has it figured out, why can't human beings do the same?

Friendships Should Last A Lifetime

I wrote a blog about friends the other day and that got me to thinking about some of my college roommates and those are usually your friends for life. They go through the college wars with you together, they help you stagger in from a hard night of..... studying, they see you the next morning when you have a bad headache from studying so much, and helps hide you out when a crazy girl comes after you with a gun. I remember this one..... study group... I was at and a disagreement about politics broke out (it was the Ronald Reagan era) and Dale comes charging down the steps to join the fray because he thought I was involved (he knew what a political activist I was). I was too loaded down..... with books.... to stop him but luckily one of our other friends did manage to slow him down and tell him it wasn't me. That is a true friend who would throw himself into a political discussion like that because he thought I was involved. I gave him a few of my ..... books.... and we studied and defended Ronald Reagan's "Trickle Down Economics" the rest of the night.

The Comfort Of A Warm Blanket

I can understand why Linus carried a blanket with him everywhere he went now. At the end of a rough day, there is no better feeling than crawling under a warm blanket and pulling it up over your head. My blanket protects from a sometimes very cruel world and I can be asleep within a few short minutes. Snoopy, Lucy, and sometimes Sally were always trying to take Linus's blanket away from him and he always held on for dear life. When I was about ten years old my grandmother made me an old-fashioned hand made quilt and gave it to me when I got my very own room for the first time. I carried that blanket with me all the way through college and after I graduated from college, I passed it down to the next line of my family that was coming up. Every time I get in bed and crawl under my Wal-Mart bought blanket, I cannot help but think of my grandmother's blanket and all of the comfort and protection it provided when I was growing up.

It's All About The Journey

I have done some sleazy things in my lifetime but life is all about the journey. It is where you end up not where you started or the slip ups along the way but where you end up now. Those sleazy days have taught me a lot of lessons along the way. I like who I am now. I am far from perfect. I like to think I am a good guy and a genuinely nice guy. I want to hear about your day when it is over, I want to share in your successes and failures, and I want to learn about your interests and what you like and I want to be able to intelligently discuss those with you. I have compassion and empathy for humans and animals alike. I try to treat people like I would want to be treated (except for maybe the occasional case of road rage), I am there to pick you up when you fall, and I am there to make you laugh when you are crying, and I am there to provide both shoulders for you to cry on if you need both. I am there to see you through good times and bad. I fully believe that there is a reason that our paths crossed at this point and time in our lives along our separate journeys.

Always Leave Them Laughing

I had always heard "Always leave them laughing" was a quote from a famous comedian (but I could not find out who) but I did find out that it was the title of a movie made in 1949 starring Milton Berle. I have always tried to use that as a philosophy (some times it works and some times it doesn't) because I have always thought my sense of humor was one of my better qualities. Some women I have gone out with did not think I had a sense of humor at all and that probably hurt more than anything. I have also always heard that women like the guys that make them laugh. That must be an urban legend because I have not found that to be true either. All I get is laughed at but true to my word, I am always leaving them laughing.