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Misc Stuff

This is a page for anything that comes to my mind

2012-02-19: First World Problems

So these days there's a meme running around the Internet entitled "First World Problems." It features a picture of an attractive woman cradling her brow, and overlaid text such as, "I asked for a DOUBLE latte. Only got a latte."

I suppose that all of my problems are first world problems. I lament the difficulty of my rehabilitation...Rehabilitation, at 36 years of age, from minimally-invasive surgery 5 weeks ago. I am lamenting my ability to only run a 10 minute mile twice a week. Boo Fucking Hoo.

I agonize over the stress of my job. The never-ending strife of office life. I struggle with time-lines, with unrealistic expectations, with politics, with petty squabbles. In the womb of the wealthiest and most peaceful place the world has ever known I agonize over my plight. With unemployment levels chewing on the heels of the depression, I bitch about my job.

Because I can't run right now, I am softer in the middle now. Why am I softer in the middle now when the rest of my life is so hard? (Credit: Paul Simon)

I am enraged when I lose 4 Starcraft games in a row. My boat keeps breaking down. It seems that I have taken it to the shop for every 3 outings. My crappy pontoon boat, only $3,000, has performed better than my new boat. I am so unlucky. I get screwed no matter what I do.

The bulkheading on my property sunk into the water. I had to pay a lot of money to fix it. I sued to get some of my money back, but the lawyer just took the money and did a whole lot of nothing. Woe is me. Look at all of the paper I threw into the wind. My house is fine, my life is fine, and numbers in my bank account are the only difference.

"Oh, I had a hard childhood," says the privileged brat. Meanwhile, his entire childhood is filled with memories of a strong mother who showed him the value of perseverance and character.

I am sad that 18 year old girls no longer look at me. Yet I am married to a beautiful Athena who will punch out Satan's spleen just because he interrupted her sleep.

I am going to print this out and keep it in my pocket. The next time I'm asked to say grace, I'm reading this. Family, consider yourself warned.

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2011-12-15: Pain

I try to be a bad ass. I realize that I am not an MMA fighter. For a guy who spent two years in the ring, I am just OK. I do not fool myself. I never poured myself into fighting the way that I poured myself into software. I am not an expert. And I am not 25. I am 36, and I am not an MMA fighter.

But still, I imagine myself some sort of badass. The sort of guy who slugs it out through anything. A MAN who will never give up. A machine that will push and push, smoke and grind, until there is nothing left but will. I do some pretty badass things, I imagine. I continue running when I feel that I cannot. I sweat and I suffer.

Today I saw a leaked video from the war in Afghanistan. There were some American troops laughing at a prisoner, some Afghani soldiers being brutal, and a hapless nobody forced to dig through his fallen friends' bodies for something. I don't know what. Money? Who knows.

He found a gun. He pointed it at the cameraman and the world erupted in wails, in chaos, in entropy.

What struck me was a scream in the background. Someone was hit. And his agony was without masculinity, without any pretense.

We can fancy ourselves cerebral entities all we like, but the truth is that our bodies are all we have, and all that we are. Pain in an extremity can reduce us to an animal nothingness. That wail of anguish is humanity. No book, poem, idea, or ethos could ever describe us more than that sound.

We are meat machines, we are weak, and there is no worse fate than to be that man screaming for his mother.

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2011-12-13: The MRI

You would think that they could have made them less terrifying at some point. It isn’t just that you are hustled into a narrow tube. It isn’t just the checklist of innocuous things you have to promise you have never done (are you really 100% sure you’ve never been hurt and had a piece of metal stuck in you?)

The worst thing is the sound. When it first starts up it is terrifying enough. It is easily as ominous as a fire alarm and a cop siren played in unison. And if it just did that repeatedly, it would be bearable. But the volume, tempo, and sound itself change dramatically and without warning. The sounds change maddeningly, and your instincts tell you that something horrible is happening. You should squeeze the bulb in your right hand to alert the radiologists.

I almost vomited in my throat while lying in the MRI. Is death better than this?

They put some sort of heavy groin cover over me. I don’t know why. I suppose I should have asked, because I am pretty sure that thing got about 150 degrees in 15 minutes. I was in a hollow tube, my hands were pressed against my chest, and a hot heavy leaden thing was compressing my crotch. I imagined metallic foreign bodies in my scrotum drawn to the magnetic machine.

I told this story verbally, and it was much better. I cannot properly communicate this experience without loudly and uncomfortably shouting frightening noises in your face. I don't know how to type the sounds of nightmares.

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2011-09-18: Greatness.

First of all I have to say that I felt for Jake Cutler. His O-Line played like a turd. He took abuse that would make most people lay in bed for weeks nursing their injuries. I understand that he is a great athlete, and among the best of the best.

But there is a difference between a guy like him and a guy like Drew Brees. I can't even imagine Drew walking around like a pissed off diva. I don't think that is possible. When backed against the wall, Drew would try to rally his troops, build emotion, and make something happen. I don't think he could EVER just spit on the ground and malign his plight.

I am more like Jake Cutler than Drew Brees. I malign my plight all of the time. But I want to be more like Drew Brees.

I have seen Drew under pressure. He was on TV. I have seen him in the face of insurmountable odds. And it is in those moments that he is a champion. He is a wonder to watch. He leans back and chugs the ball. You can see it building up. There is no way that a man could lean back like this, throw this hard, and still have any sort of accuracy. And somehow, impossibly, the ball sails into the hand of an equally brilliant receiver.

If Drew were pressured the way that Jake was pressured today, he still would have shown you the face of a champion. He may have lost the game, but you would have marveled at the amazing way he got rid of the ball sans penalties. You would have been stunned by the tight and tiny passes he made to unintended receivers.

At this moment I am quite literally an armchair quarterback, but I think Jake Cutler should take a lesson from Drew's School of Champions.

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2011-09-01: The Baseball Cap

I have always hated "Baseball Cap Guys." There is something about the Baseball Cap that I have always considered lame. It is mainstream. It is the FratBoy Douche go-to-move. For years and years I refused to ever wear a baseball cap.

I like Adam Sandler's comedy, but the baseball cap always pissed me off. Underneath the funny was this baseball cap wearing fratboy asshole. And he wore it backwards. Jesus Christ.

And I segue into Gay Porn: Not that I have ever seen gay porn, but a guy I know that has seen it has pointed out to me that the baseball cap (and especially the backwards baseball cap) is a regular fixture in gay porn to represent the (one would assume) "straight guy going queer." Ladies and Gentlemen: I am not making this up. I am a mere observer on this crazy planet that you have created.

And what is the deal with the socks? Seriously? Anyway.

I don't know when I decided that I loved baseball caps. They are so practical. I have fair eyes, and I am always squinting. Now that I am (cough cough) years old, I care about that sort of thing. I don't want lines on my face. I wear sunglasses, put on sunscreen, and put on a baseball cap.

Every time I go to the MegaStore I look for new and interesting baseball caps. Every time I drink in New Orleans, I leave (unintentionally) a money baseball cap on the bar for some lucky fratboy.

The hat is like a mask. It covers my eyes and face from the world, and I feel like I can do anything. I look at the ground, the hat covers my eyes, and I run and run.

I love the baseball cap.

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