Urine, aren't you?

I work in what most would consider an "industrial" environment.

(Totally NOT my work)

There's lots of heavy things to crush you. You get to periodically wear hard hats.  I wear steel toed boots.

And if I'm to be honest...all that makes me feel pretty butch!  'Cause I've never been the hairiest or most manly of men.

(RAWR, Tiger!)

So I don't mind that I get to wear Dickies everyday.

But what goes along with this potentially deadly environment where you can get smashed and mashed and killed by falling stuff is a pretty clear ban of having cell phones on your person.


At any time.

At any place.

But the management and powers that be carry them.  Everyone takes a phone call from time to time.  Including my bosses.

And I can't be out of touch.  I have a mother.  I have family.  I have a need to be able to be reached.  Ultimately, that was why I got a cell phone so many years ago.

My boss tolerates me "adding up figures" on my phone pretty well.  "Adding up figures" is code for text messaging. 


Or being on Facebook.

Or doing something other than earning a living and being productive.

So when patience wears thin and I'm about to get smacked down or fired for my insolence, I have to take my texting and phone antics into our single person restroom.  And this works.

Or it did.

Last week, I retreated to the restroom for a "break"...and I was being as productive as one should be in a restroom on a break. 

And I was texting away.  Like I always do.

And I have sure hands.  Like...I have hands of a surgeon.  I have long, dexterous fingers.  LONG, luxurious fingers.  I'm sure handed.  I could have been a proctologist.

(Not TOO far from the truth of my hands!)

I was finishing up my business and text messaging madness and my phone was caught by a FURIOUS wind and was blown asunder in my always sure hands. 


And my brand new Android phone, replete with shiny new snap on case and screen protector, surely tumbled.

And it fell in slow motion.  Turning and catching the gleaming florescent light as it did.

And it plopped straight into the water of the urinal.

The urinal I had just made a deposit into.

I mean...it could have been worse.  See THIS picture I found when Googling images for this blog.

(I'm not sure what is more shocking...that he lowered her down into the pit, or that she did it and is laughing about it.  This couple has a healthy, HEALTHY relationship.  Just sayin!)

I was shocked at how fast I sprung into action.  My neurotic, Jerry Seinfeld mind said, Whoa, whoa WHOA, man...you just dropped that into that pit of germs!  Let it go man...'cause, man...it's gone!

But my cheap, refusing to spend any more money side steam-rolled that emotional talk.  

My hand shot like a laser into that warm water and removed the phone. 

I was like a Marine in Boot camp at Paris Island as I disassembled that phone.  I meticulously dried every part of the phone, the case and the battery.


I reassembled it later that day and it worked fine.

I had to laugh as I told my coworkers about my mishap.  Strangely, none of them wanted to use it to play Angry Birds anymore.

All in all, I feel pretty stupid.  My phone lives, I didn't have to spend another $200, and I'm lucky.  The only drawback is that my phone still has the faint aroma of my work's bathroom.


I still got off lucky!


Keep the phones out of the bathrooms, kids!

A Car Crash with Raymond K. Hessel

One of my all time favorite movies and books has to be Fight Club.  It's so quotable, and speaks so many great truths to dudes in my general generation.  It's not really about guys merely beating each other up.  I mean...it is...but it's more.



(Whoopee...I'm manorexic and I fight other guys!)

And an often overlooked scene in that movie is about Raymond K. Hessel.


Raymond K. Hessel doesn't die at the hands of Tyler Durden, therefore his existence and all his tomorrows are all going to be super special.  And that makes sense.  In a Tyler kind of way.


(Raymond promises to quit his shitty job!)
 
He didn't die, so he realizes his life is a gift.  Because Tyler put a gun to his head.
**********************************
And then there is the car wreck scene.  "We are having a near life experience!"

Life gives you lots of car wrecks.  There are literal car wrecks.

(About to have a near life experience...you gotta LET GO to have these, I hear)
 
And then there are the metaphorical car wrecks. 
 
Those are the ones that are hard to get over and carry on from.  You know the ones...a bad marriage ending and dying a slow, passionless death. 

(These folks are mid-car wreck...happening right NOW!)  

Going to prison.  Having a death in the family.  Losing a cherished relationship that you thought would be your rock for the rest of your days. 

All car wrecks.

And all, hopefully, things you get to walk away from.

When you survive a "car wreck"...you don't take life for granted as much.  You value the sunshine on your face.  You know that you MIGHT not have been here...if only one other thing had gone differently.
**********************************
I have a friend who was in a horrible car wreck.  She e-mailed me images and dozens of pictures of the wreck that happened years ago.  Long before I knew her.  I was horrified.  Mortified.  That anyone lived through such carnage where you couldn't tell there was a car at all left me shaking and cold.  Nothing shocks me.  These pictures of what she lived through shocked me.




(Okay...she's punch me in the mouth if I intimated this was her pink car.  She's not a pink kind of girl)  

She's my living, breathing, miracle...my car wreck friend.  Car wreck friend is alive in all the most grand and awesome ways.  And spastic.  And awesome.  She is the most Raymond K. Hessel person I know.  And I love that about her!

That she lived through such a terror is a miracle and a blessing.  That she is in my life is a blessing.  I believe that.   

She lives every day as if she's having a "Near life experience."  She realizes what she has because she knows she was THIS close to having nothing left.  And God Bless her for her appearance(s) in my life.
************************
On a daily basis, everyone reading this feels somewhat "normal".  And there's nothing great or off or painful or stellar about it.  Feeling normal is just "normal."  It just is.

You see, I lost a close relationship recently.  And it was wrecking me.  Killing me.  Tearing me apart, if you're Henry Rollins.

Every day in every way.  And a great friend called me out on my "woe is me/Debbie Downer" bullshit I was going through and putting everyone else through.  'Cause I was a pain in the arse to be around when I was low and slow and dejected. 

He said to me..."Why would you waste your sanity and time chasing something that doesn't want you? Something that wouldn't chase you?!  Something that wouldn't show up if you were in the hospital?!  Something that wouldn't show up if your mother died!?  Why are you sad and wrecked over something that does not care that you're sad and wrecked?"  And I felt pretty dumb after that.  If I'm to be honest.  And I'm rarely honest.
 

A few days went by.  And I realized at work one day after that...that I was okay.  That I had that nondescript feeling of feeling "normal."  Where nothing was amiss, and nothing was wrong.  I wasn't missing anyone's anything.  I was Raymond K. Hessel's freedom.  

I wasn't checking facebook for signs of life or for evidence that I was missed.  

I wasn't missing something.  

I wasn't sad.  I was okay.  I was good.


(yes, I feel like a surfing penguin)
 
**********************
Everyone reading this has had a car crash.  In most instances, whether you walk away or not is your choosing.  You choose to be either the person who got divorced/who got dumped/who got hurt/who got imprisoned, or either you choose to walk away and live a vibrant, amazing life.  A life like Raymond K. Hessel.

I'll keep on walking.  And I'll keep living, thank you.

Breaking up is hard to do...on Facebook

EDIT: This isn't supposed to be some Debbie Downer blog.  Not at all.  It's kind of meant as advice/funny laugh at the "Charlie Brown guy going to kick the ball" type of thing.  Don't be bummed...it's all good and things are all on the upswing with all systems go.  Here's to quoting Toy Story..."To infinity...AND BEYOND!"


I'm okay...you're okay! ;)
*****************************************

 Breaking up with someone and ending a relationship is hard.  And I think that's the biggest no-brainer statement I've ever written.  Carrie Bradshaw could have written that one, really.  Or sadly.


It's never easy to break up with someone.  It's even harder to be broken up with.  I've had to find out the latter more and more over the last five years, for whatever reason.

And I just had a relationship end. 


No...that's not entirely true.  I had THE relationship end.  You know...THE one.  The one you were to marry.  The one you thought was the last one you were ever to be with. Forever.


And it was as hard as you can imagine.  Having to gather all your worldly possessions, find a place for them, and be gone out of another's home.  Sooner rather than later.  Well...that just sucks.

And as hard as the ending of that relationship was (is), the real quandary, the real riddle is this: what do you do with all your common Facebook possessions!?!

A bit of back-story, if you will...
******************************
We decided to really go for it.  We decided that all the preamble, all the messing around was done, that we both knew...just KNEW that we had found our match in each other. 

And that we wanted the marriage. 

That we wanted the kids. 

We wanted the white picket fence and the happily ever after with each other. 

Because up till that day, we'd just been joking.  Just been messing around.  But we had a meeting of the minds (a treaty?) and I was to move out of my awesome duplex rental and into her home. 

And we were to spend the rest of our lives together.

And then we weren't.
*********************************
Did I mentioned this sucks?

So, in the matter of a week (give or take), I was gone from the house I had thought I would raise my children in.  The house I thought I would cut the lawn at till death parted me from it.  I was homeless. 


And relationship-less.

And it sucked.

But still...there was the constant reminder that I had failed...there was Facebook.  Every stinking day.

I found that the loss of the relationship was just a part of it.  You see...my former intended has a vast social network of very active friends.  People whom I had come to know.  People whom I had come to like.  Some of whom had actually liked me and accepted me into their lives.  Some of them were warm and gracious, and some of whom made me feel like I was just a fill in for the guy whom they liked more than me.

And this network of friends is constantly planning something.  Constantly doing something.  Constantly posting evidence of this on Facebook.  And I was once a part of these posts.  I was in the pictures.  I was tagged and everything.  That proved I existed, I suppose.


Only now I was not in the pictures. I was not part of the parties and a part of the get-togethers and plans.

So, step one...when you break up...remove your ex's friends from showing up on your news feed.  

That helps. 

Because not seeing how excited "Party Girl" is about her next get together that you know your ex will be at helps.  Trust me.

Step Two...and this is a critical bridge you're going to cross.  Once it's crossed, you know there's no turning back.  That, as shallow as talking about Facebook being any kind of "factor" in your impending engagement can sound, you can only take when you're sure you will never, EVER get back together: deleting or blocking all of "her" friends that you had in common.

Strangely...deciding to block her friends bothered me almost as much as my relationship ending.  Well...losing some of them bothered me.  Some of the people I met through her were just simply awesome.  Hands down, freaking AWESOME. 


Some liked me with great sincerity.  Some I would have hung out with had I met them outside of the context of a future fiancée. 

But ultimately, these people were HER friends.  Not mine.  None (save for one or two) would ever call her out if they saw her making a choice they questioned as being shady.


They were her friends.  And sadly...I knew that I would never see any of them again.  And that hurt.

These were the people, the group of friends I thought would be our circle, our social scene until the end of time.  And now they were all people I had once known.  Not people I know.  So, I steeled myself one night with the drink, and I removed them all.  Because I knew they would all hear about how horrible I was from her.  And I knew I would never live in that rural town near the lake again to see them at the store or on the roads.  Closing that door was hard, tough medicine. 


And I repeated the saying again..."These are her friends.  Not mine."  Not one of them reached out to see if I was okay.  Not one of them said they were sorry for my loss.

So with that bridge crossed, it's been better.  Removing years and months of gushy posts from walls, removing tags from pictures, and removing "likes" takes a lot of time.  It took me about 3 hours one night.  And I cried the whole way through it.

I found that is the ugly underbelly to Facebook.  They always warn you that what is on the internet is forever.  You never really internalize it till you're faced with something like this. 

At least I didn't. 

Having to retract from the world what you once so proudly and willingly put out there as your proudest moment...because it's all gone away...well...that just sucks.

Choose wisely, friends.

And be excellent to each other.

eye lashes

I went to a "writer's workshop" two summers in a row when I was a teacher.

They called this "staff development." This two weeks sitting around with other teacher types acting like we were "real" writers. Going through activities that we would, in theory, work into our classrooms.

Two weeks of my life. In exchange for the $900 stipend. It was worth it to me.

So, on day one of that second year...and remember, I'm HABITUALLY early...I plop down in my "group" room at a table by myself. I leave it to others to extend the hand of friendship by sitting with me. At my table.

Me sitting at a table filled with Elementary Teachers is more than my single-guy stomach can bear.

And at my round table of four, in walks three teachers all from the same Elementary school and they plop down with me.

Two were teachers. Insert an image of every graying teacher you ever had. And with them, they had young, nubile Ms. First Year teacher.

(here is the picture of the two other teachers...every teacher you ever had that was not attractive)

Who sat next to me. And she smelled swell.

(so not her...but this is equivalent)

And she as attractive. In that nondescript Elementary School teacher way. She'd make a good mom. She was a Laura, fo sho!

And I thought she took a liking to me. Because I know I was digging her flirtations and her fresh, summery smell.

(Flirty Girl)

Our first activity was to interview someone at our table and focus on our writing "voice." I went for a monotonous, robotic "by the facts" approach that got all the laughs.

That's me. Class Clown.


She got called on to read hers. And she'd interviewed me. And it was as boring as the day is long. 

Until she got to the line, "He has long, lovely eye lashes. Eye lashes a girl would kill for."


And the room of mostly women let out a collective, motherly "AWWWWWW!"

And my right testicle fully rolled out of my shorts.

While my lashes may, or may not, be womanly. No dude wants to be called out on his long, luscious lashes.

Needless to say, there was no romantic destiny for Ms. First Year Teacher and myself. In fact, I grew a resentment for her that caused me to buzz all the hair off my head that week. I only offered the explanation that I was "in training."


So...ladies...for the record...no guy...and I'll carry the burden for speaking for ALL PENIS POSSESSORS...no guy wants to have any part of his being equated with being something that a girl would want for own body or life.

Luckily I found my manhood later that summer by working in a rock quarry breaking rocks, drinking only Budweiser and eating nothing but beef jerky and other beef products.

Dead Weight

"...and you throw the dead weight off the side of you balloon to rise faster and faster and higher and higher!" - Henry Rollins, more or less.


I've come to the conclusion this week that it's the decisions you make in life that can separate you being a kid from being an adult. Choices and decisions can separate you from a career. From your life and loved ones even. I know this.

I look back on the choices I've made in my life, and there seem to be two distinct kinds of choices you face in life. Or at least that I've faced in my life. Ones that affect who you want to be in five years, where you want to see your life going. And those that are the day-to-day shit things that don't matter.

McDonald's or Burger King. Call him or TXT him. Spit or swallow. It doesn't matter.

Not that I swallow. But you get my drift.

But the big ones...that's where the big kids get separated from the lil'uns. At least I think.

I made a lot of choices in my life that weren't wise for where I wanted to find myself in five years. And I indulged. And unwise choice gave way to unwise choice. And it ended with me losing a lot of time in my life.


'Cause I was choosing the unwise thing. Daily. And often. With gusto. I got good at it. Several times in a night. And it was fun. And it was hollow.

I was choosing the thing that was instant gratification. I wasn't choosing the thing that would make me a happier person "down the road."

And this topic isn't very sexy. I know this. Making "wise" adult decisions. But this is where my head is. And this is my blog. There's an "X" at the top right corner for a reason.

So, if you're out there and you're choosing the things that're not wise...those things that will stand in the way of who you want to be in five years. Of who you want to be "down the road"...fucking stop already!

If you're that girl I went to high school with and you're still out there fucking guys you meet in bars. Don't wonder why you're not happy. Don't wonder why you hate that you don't have a guy who loves and respects you.

And I'm not knocking you girls who meet and fuck guys you meet in bars. The world needs all types. Just that my world doesn't need all types, I guess. I needed you once.

And I recognize that change is hard. VERY hard. If you've gotten your gratification from hollow things and it's wrecked your life...I'm you. If you've felt hollow after that first date by your choices and decisions...I'm you.

And I know choosing otherwise is really hard because you know these things and they are what you know. And they're comfortable. But there today. They're not anything that can be built upon.

They'll lead you to the same place you are when you're choosing them. That same vacuum won't be filled.

So, if you're trying to change...I'm on your team. I'm rooting for you. I want you to be happy. Honestly. Even if I don't know you. It's up to you to stop shooting your happiness in the foot. It's up to you to stop nailing your foot to the floor of unhappiness. That's a metaphor, by the way. You don't REALLY nail your foot to the floor. I know this. And unhappiness doesn't have a floor. That'd make him too happy.

Get changing, kids. If you're ready. Only one person has the job of making you happy. I can only sit on the sidelines and cheer you on.

And I pray that your change doesn't come at the cost of losing a year of your life.

The sooner you throw that dead weight off the side of the balloon of your life, the sooner you'll rise into pure brilliance.

And I'm pulling for you!

(yes, I'm this gay-tastic...I'm wearing my cheerleader outfit RIGHT now!)

Toe in the Water

It's been years since I wrote an honest to goodness "blog"...that was placed out there for consumption.

I have no idea where this will head.  But you don't have to have a roadmap for everything you do.  I'll wing it, and I'll figure it out.

Like I always seem to do.