Better than a boot to the head

Have you ever had one of those days where you were destined to take a couple of shots to the gourd? Yep, that was today. It all started this morning with me getting up to sleep on the couch in my office (It's a long story). I drug my comforter to my office and layed down for a couple of hours.

......

Two hours later my alarm goes off and I get up to slap it around. Wrapped in the comforter I toddle back too my room to get the alarm, in the process I trip over my blanket, fall down the stairs, and bang my head twice in the process. Now I don't think I blacked out, but it took me a minute or two to really feel like myself again. My roommate comes out and asks me if I'm laying on her cat (She thought I'd tripped over him). Not, "Are you OK?", Not "Did you hurt yourself?", but "Are you laying on my cat?" Gee thanks. I'm OK. I gather my wits and my bedclothes and drag myself back to the bedroom. BTW, I wasn't laying on her cat. I then proceeded to spend the next 20 - 30 minutes reexamining my life, and what I've done with it. This isn't considered self indulgent if you've just fallen down the stairs backwards while half asleep, and whacked your head twice in the process. At this point a smart person would have called into work and said, "I've fallen down the stairs, I'm going to be late for work."

...

I ain't that person. Eventually I drag my ass out of bed, take a shower, drive to work, work, eat lunch, work, etc. I left work today promptly at five. After works was a coworker's going away party, and we had somewhere to be.

....

Harry's Countryclub. It's a bar if you don't know. We'd all gathered there for a few beers to wish him well. The seating arrangement was a little weird. I ended up sitting in a chair wedged between two booths. The first time I sat down in the chair I managed to whack my mellon on a giant mirror hanging behind me. Yup it hurt. I hadn't had anything to drink yet.

Jump forward two hours.

It is now time to break the seal. I get up to run some water through the pipes. Upon returning I sit down and whack my head again, on the same mirror. (I probably deserve that one. Should have learned the first time.) It made a loud bang, and I looked up and realized that I'd actually put a crack in the mirror. Everybody turned around and looked in my direction, but most people hadn't seen what had happened. I just played dumb. It wasn't very hard since I'd just been hit over the head for the fourth time in one day. Everybody who saw had a good laugh at my expense, and I ordered another round of anesthetic.

Jump ahead a few more hours.

Now sober again, and ready to go home. I hop in my car and rub the back of my head. It's sore. Imagine that? I get home about 30 minutes later. The roommate's cats come up to greet me. I bent over to pet one in the kitchen, and when I stood up, you'll never guess what I did.

...

Yup. I smashed my head on the underside of the counter. Now you may be asking yourself, "How the hell did he manage that?". This was on the side of the counter, that the realtor called a "breakfast bar". It's got a larger overhang, and it's a little higher off the ground than the rest of the counter. Regardless of what it's called it hurt like hell. This unfortunate event elicited a laugh from my roommate. She seems quite sensitive doesn't she.

...

I'm sure there's a moral to be had somewhere for this story. Unfortunately my head hurts so much that I can't imagine what it might be.

Marginally Literate Copywriter

I consider myself to be fairly well read. Let me rephrase that. I've read more books than most people, and I'm familiar with many of the so called classics. I'm not saying I've read all of the classics, but I'd be willing to bet that I've got a cliff's notes level understanding of a lot of them, and can maybe even fake it on a lot more.

What baffles me are some of the people that have no idea about the topics of certain landmark works. Take A Brave New World and 1984 as examples. I was sitting in a meeting with a group of people. Among this group of people were two copywriters. One of the projects that we are working on has some big brother, TIA and carnivorish type attributes, and I made a comment referencing A Brave New World and Big Brother. I think a couple of people in the room got the reference, but at that point one of the copywriters responded with a quip about the television show Survivor. WTF? I mean, holy Jesus bleeding Christ, WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCK DOES SURVIVOR HAVE TO DO WITH EITHER OF THOSE BOOKS? I can't reproduce exactly what this person said, because I think I blacked out for a second. When I regained my senses I was stricken with an overwhelming desire to commit ritual suicide in front of these people.

Let me just say, that I don't expect everyone to be familiar with every semi famous piece of literature. Hell, I hadn't read A Brave New World until a year or so ago. Even before then I knew that the television show Survivor had no business in the same sentence as A Brave New World. (Yes I know that last sentence was ironic. Too bad.) However this person was a copywriter. Someone who's craft is the English language (Am I being generous with the word "craft"?). Shouldn't you at least be familiar with who practiced your craft before you and what work they did. I have a degree in computer science, and I wouldn't have gotten through school if I wasn't at least partially familiar with the work of Pascal, Leibnitz, Babbage, Lovelace, Gödel, Turing and Von Neumann. Is this too much to ask? I don't think it rises to the level of not being able to find your own state on a map, but its getting there. OK. I'm done ranting.

Divorce Sucks

Well, I'm sitting here at work. All of my cow-orkers have left because we are going to be getting about an inch of ice in the next few hours. I'm waiting on my workaholic roommate to finish up, so we can carpool back to the house. I've spent the last 28 hours as a single person, and it feels weird.

As a big time "Type A" control freak, this has been one of the most unnerving events ever. I've never felt less in control. Being told by the person with whom you'd planned to spend the rest of your life, that she didn't want the same thing will really knock your ass into the dirt.

Until yesterday, I'd spent almost 13 years connected to the same person. First dating (3 years), then living together (1 year) , then engaged (2 years), then married (6 years), then separated and living together(6 months), then separated and living apart(6 months) and now divorced(28 hours). With a $106 and a trip to the court house, that's now over. How does it feel? I'm not sure. Yesterday was almost a year in the making, and there's not much left to feel. (Note: I just deleted most of this paragraph. After I read it, it sounded like I'd been possessed with the spirit of Stuart Smalley. "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me!" I can't stand sounding that pathetic. You of course are saying thank god, this is already pathetic enough.)

Ironically, I think this whole process would have been a lot easier, if she and I didn't still like and care for one another. If we just hated one another's guts, we could have just shouted "Go fuck yourself" into the phone yesterday, and got on with our lives. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, that's not the case. We are trying to figure out where the new boundaries belong.

On top of that, there are some other things that I need to figure out. First of all, how the hell do you ask a girl out? I haven't had to do that in 13 years. I wasn't very good at it back then. I can't imagine that I've gotten any better in the interim. I've made several attempts. None have ended well.

I think I've got the flirting thing down, but I only seem to be able to flirt with girls that I'm not interested in. How's that for screwed up?

Finally, there aren't that many reasonable opportunities for me to meet someone. I could ask out someone at work, but frankly there aren't that many that I'd like to get to know that well. On top of that I don't want to get the reputation of being "that annoying guy who hits on everybody at work". I guess there's the option of online personals. That seems to have worked for a lot of people. The downside is that when you create the account, they want you to include a picture. In all of the digital pictures of me I either look fat, drunk or like I've just been arrested. The worst of them looks like all three plus I spent the night in a South American jail. Yeah I know, I might still get a response. Some people really go for that sort of thing. I don't think I could handle that though.

At this point, I don't know. I guess I will figure something out eventually. By the way, Divorce Sucks. Enough of the self indulgent whining.

And finally..... Tom Waits is still cool. Somebody give that guy a throat lozenge.

Something funny happened on the way to the news stand.

Color me flattered. Well I managed to get my first number as a single person. I guess single is a relative term, while not official, it's close enough at this point to call it single.

I didn't even have to ask for the number. I was getting ready to leave for my christmas trip to Portland. My Mom, Sister and I were waiting for the flight to leave. It was delayed due to the lack of a crew. We were waiting long enough, that we started to get hungry. I got up to get us some food from the news stand. The clerk and I struck up a conversation that lasted several minutes. We talked for quite some time. Eventually I got the idea that I was being picked up on. The clerk wrote down his number. Yup you heard me right. Him. The clerk was a man. Kent. Well I guess its better than nobody noticing, but not necessarily the kind of attention I'm looking for. Let's hope his gaydar is on the fritz. Oh well, maybe next time it will be a girl. I can hope can't I.