This Is My Life

(this is my only life)

The phrase is, "No news is good news." That seems pretty valid, in the sense that this is one of the longest breaks in this blog, and coincides with the greatest time of my entire life. Indeed, I do this more as a courtesy, as I don't feel the need to write (in my blog) much. There is little I need to figure out. My life is very, very, very blessed.

Foremost is Casey. Pandora (my romantic muse) and Caissa (my writing muse) are off-the-charts giddy and excited. I could write a thousand paragraphs on what she means to me - but will simply state that I have found my match, my friend, my confidant, my lover, my teammate, my challenger, my supporter, and my love. For all those who still search and yearn for such a person, know that I passed up a chance to settle, had to wait two and a half years filled with many questioning thoughts and wonderings about whether I would ever find someone who made me truly happy. Then came the random Friday night when I went to a gathering where I told myself I didn't even want to meet anyone and was only going to see friends... and my life changed, instantly and irrevocably. It was all the cliches. Love at first sight. It will happen when you least expect it.
Maybe yours won't work the same way, but in my case, I had to simultaneously stop looking so hard and make sure I was out there for that to happen. And I thank God daily that it did. My prayers were answered.

Sports are fun. After a tough time over the last few weeks because my heart acted up again - necessitating a hospital visit in Maui on our only family vacation west of Kansas ever - I've been tentative. But after DW's bachelor party weekend, I've realized that this is my life. This is my only life. And I will not let this rule my life. I have to push through.

Dave is getting married. :) I am so excited for the wedding. Jess is a great girl. Dave seems excited and content, a good combo. Casey has already bought a dress. I think this might be one of the best dancing opportunities of my life so far.

My city is doing amazing.
The Steelers won the Super Bowl... and I was there, in person. I was at the 18 yard line, some 33 rows back, on the end zone that James Harrison scored into after he ran across my whole field of vision. I saw Ben scramble right in front of me four or five times and marveled that he even survived, much less made critical plays. I saw Santonio Holmes's catch in a perfect window and stunning snapshot in my mind. I agonized over every reviewed call without the benefit of instant replay. We celebrated like mad.
My Penguins won the Stanley Cup, and I was in person for the entire regular season and playoff run, including Games 3, 4, and 6 of the Stanley Cup Final at Mellon Arena. I attended Game 4 with Case; it was one of the seminal sporting moments of our lives (and our relationship). We were both at the parade (with DW) with another 374,997 people. It was all so surreal. It was a script that was written four years ago... and then came true. That is what never fails to astonish me. The Game 7 experience, watched with my family, was a tie with the Super Bowl in intensity. I held hands with Case tightly, paced back and forth, laid on the kitchen table and groaned in agony. I don't even remember what happened after the last-second save Fleury made. I can't believe we did it. Arguably the most amazing championship I've ever seen.
The city is beautiful. It will host the G-20 soon, and is as gorgeous as ever to watch from Mt. Washington or to see coming through the Fort Pitt Tunnel. I've visited other big cities, like Philly and New York, but only Pittsburgh makes me feel part of it. I feel so connected to it... and so does Case. We are happy here. We feel at home here. Yay, Pittsburgh.

I'm still employed at work - even though I am writing this right now - and have the opportunity to perhaps continue schooling, if my heart is in it.

I haven't done much writing lately, mostly because of Casey - in the best way - but still think about it and love it as much as ever when I do it. I am literally hours away from being done with the first ten chapters, and capable of handing 145 pages to anyone and say, "This is the beginning of my story." That is the length of the entire book I wrote in high school. That is exciting.

5725 Phillips, in Squirrel Hill, where I've lived for four years - as long as college - is ending. Dave has moved in with Jess. Nate is buying a house. I may not follow him to it, but will look back at that time - the 5725 Phillips Ave - as the height of my bachelorhood and transition into something else. Drinking on the steps, late night bears/baseball/boobs, random wandering around the apartment in boxers, eating when you could. Total madness. Totally wonderful.

To all those who wrote nicely about this blog - maybe most eloquently summed up by Ryan Corbi, a friend from afar who wrote a note that I think about much more often than he probably guesses - hoped for more updates.

I will try to keep them coming, so check back, if you wish; I sure as hell will not abandon this writing space. I've grown to like it, and will need it in the future, I am sure.

But this is my life.

And no news, for right now, means the best news of all.

I am happy.

I Won't Hesitate, No More, It Cannot Wait

(I'm yours)

Her name is Casey.

She is 6 feet tall with long black hair, an easy smile, and astonishingly light brown eyes.

She has an amazing family. Her sister may be the sweetest person in the world; her parents, a great two-sided mix of direct uprightness and silliness; her brother, an easy-going and intelligent guy. Her little nephew and niece, Mac and Annie, are 2 1/2 and 1 respectively, and are rambunctions, intelligent children that have no qualms going straight into the dip with the same pretzel time and again.

She's been hurt before, giving her this bizarre, intriguing mix of inner strength and vulnerability.

She plays basketball, coaches the cross-country team, and is a teacher of multiple grade levels.

She can cook, including an amazing, bursting plate of grilled salmon, fresh broccoli, and seasoned potatoes, served with bread and homemade garlic oil, set to a tasty red wine at a candlelight dinner.

She will shoo you out of the kitchen 47 times as you try to smell what is being cooked, and then end up shooing you twenty times even though you're not in the kitchen, because she keeps coming into the dining room for kisses, distracting you from pictures.

She will dress up as a French maid for a France party, and with you as French butler, will put the rest of the party to shame.

She loves dancing. Loves it. Loves slow dancing, loves hip shaking, loves wedding dancing, loves fast dancing until she is covered in sweat and can barely move her legs. The sensual and free spirited nature of her is released on the dance floor.

She loves my writing style and length of e-mails, and the conversational nature of words on my words on a computer screen. She will then respond in kind, replying to e-mails and creating her own as fast as you yourself can type. She will punctuate these with emoticons, italics, and all kinds of explanation points - and never misuse a word or spell it incorrectly.

She can pout with amazing cuteness.

She is proper, yet has an intensely wild side. She is moral but open to everything. She can completely let go with someone she trusts. And she loves to spend energy.

She will stay up all night partying on one night; stay home, read a book, and watch a daytime movie another.

She loves sleeping with someone she cares about. She can fall asleep with someone nearby, can drift seamlessly in and out of consciousness, and sensually lay her long frame across yours.

She will shout as loud as you at a Penguins game, and get out of her seat on a breakaway a half-second before the rest of the section.

Above all else, she loves life. There could be no more heady, intoxicating wine for my soul.


It is - stunningly - only a little over a month since I first met her, yet every meeting, every e-mail, every date, every touch, has been an unbelievable learning, a realization that in our physicality, our hearts, our souls, we have found a like person, someone who sees the world the same we the other does, who has hopes and dreams and loves like them, and, like them, is totally falling for the other - without reservation, without fear, and without any semblance of anything like this happening before.

I am taking it slow. I am taking my time.

But she is my girlfriend. And I'm not sure I've ever been this happy.

In A Dream

(I hope not to wake from)

Our second date, we had planned to go to the park for a walk, to throw the frisbee, and maybe dinner afterwards.

She let me know that day that she wanted to cancel our plans... to invite me to her place for dinner, a movie, and a bottle of wine.

We didn't eat much dinner.
We never got to the movie.
We didn't even make it that far into the wine.

That makes it sound wilder than it was - and it wasn't like there wasn't some romance - but for almost all that time, we talked. Talked, and laughed, and commiserated, and joked, and whispered, and learned. We talked about basketball and injuries and Kennywood and haunted houses and family trips and religion and hobbies and stuffed animals and height and family resemblance and school kids and Blades of Glory and houses and writing and scrapbooks and seasons and - blessedly - being yourself. Truly, truly your self. Just writing the words has my head whirling.

I e-mailed her today, the next day. She sent back a voicemail, and an e-mail, both utterly wonderful. The e-mail, though, was glorious. In it she wrote, " I love being myself around you. I feel more alive."

Wow.

This post really needs to be predecessed by all the bizarre connections that we have found out about since meeting each other. It's... uncanny isn't even the right word. It's amazing. At times, we won't even like the same things, but her tastes compliment mine, in a way that I could never describe, writer or no.

I spent 30 minutes working with my boys about what to wear on the date, which is 29 more minutes than I usually take at most.
I couldn't sleep for an hour afterwards.
I planned to stay to 10 or so, and got back just before 1.

I am reeling, and loving it.

Writer's Weekend

(Caissa in paradise)

I recently returned from a Writer's Weekend. It was Martin and I, at Chautauqua, alone, for the weekend, and it was an absolutely wonderful trip. If it was slightly less productive than I had hoped, it was also much more enjoyable than I thought, and the trip can only be classified as a major success. Especially since no cars were damaged, the foundation did not get damaged by flooding, and no snowmobiles were lodged into tress (not that there was enough snow on the ground for that to occur anyway).
The actual events of the weekend were fun - I have a quote page from it that will not only remind me of the events, but is fun enough to post - but it definitely got me thinking. Martin and I talked about his movie, and how he still has not completed it, and as we sat around the fire, I realized that my core, my group of friends who were most responsible for me completing the Gate of Dragons, were all having similar problems. Margaret was still writing her pilot (did she ever finish it, I wondered?). Marla, as far as I knew, never followed up on her amazing writing from high school (or did she, and I just didn't know it, I wondered?).
Thinking of them, I wished they were up here, to enjoy the amazing ambience - Chautauqua is muse crack - and critique and suggest and praise and doubt and all the 100 things that any writer really needs. And I wished they were there not just to read my story, but so that I could read theirs, and be excited by their plots and characters and turns of writing, and be inspired by them in turn.
And by the way, Martin - so much potential, so little completed - is the definition of not finishing what is started. Until recently, that is. He did finish his CD... and he did finish his job search, and was able to get a job and hold onto it. That gives hope that he may finish his children's book or Nione or the movie.
And I? I've been writing this book for five years. I thought I was working hard on it, but I realize I haven't really been working hard until last year. Then I went a level above that and realized I haven't really been working hard until six months ago.

And I'm not done either.

I guess that's why I'm thinking on the subject of my story; its current progress, it's ability to move forward, its final picture. I think it might be good to record the progress, just to see how it goes. This is an amazingly rough viewpoint, and only includes work that is significant enough to warrant its inclusion in this list.
Ch.1: 27 pages, 15,739 words
Ch.2: 13 pages, 7,489 words
Ch.3: 9 pages, 5,112 words
Ch.4: 11 pages, 6,567 words
Ch.5: 14 pages, 8,124 words
Ch.6: 16 pages, 9,125 words
Ch.14(in progress): 9 pages, 4,476 words
Ch.26(in progress): 8 pages, 4,487 words
Ch.27(in progress): 7 pages, 3,237 words
Ch.37: 13 pages, 6,669 words
TFOR All Notes: 51 pages, 23,457 words
TFOR All Sections: 39 pages, 18,828 words

Total
217 pages
113,110 words

Wow. ...Wow! I have never actually taken the time before to count up what I had accomplished. Even though this is a very rough estimate, I am still proud to see that I have actually made it a lot farther than I had originally envisioned. During WW, I told Martin I might have as many as 150 pages. The Gate of Dragons, which I wrote in high school, was 154.
Now, not all those 217 pages are good pages. TFOR All Sections is (by definition) all over the place. TFOR All Notes doesn't always translate to already written material. Some of the chapters (like 14,26, and 27) are incomplete. Others (like 2) are a disgrace. Damn you viewpoint issues.
But what gives me hope is the story, plot, and characters; how much I enjoy the characters I'm writing about, how much I enjoy them interacting, striving, failing, and succeeding. Ch.3 is decent, and the new Ch.4 was well-received by Martin over the weekend, who proclaimed it his favorite dialogue of the book. Ch.6 I've always enjoyed, and 14 has real power. The good points remain.
How long until I finish? How long until I have something, really something, that I can hand 120 or 140 or 160 pages to someone and say, "Here is the first ten chapters of my book, The Flames of Resistance"? ...I don't know. I know that the writing is coming more quickly; the days between my notations in All Notes, shorter and shorter. I now run more and more into scenes I've already written, and they match into what I'm doing, like speed powerups in a racing videogame. There is real potential here. What timeframe does that equate to? I don't know... but I know it is up to me.
I'm simultaneously overwhelmed and excited by it. I guess that's both my story and my life.

Not giving up on the dream yet.

Staying

(strong)

Through it all, I live.
I'm continuing to write, more and more with each passing day. I completed Ch.6 - at sixteen pages, no less - and it was pronounced by Martin to be his favorite chapter yet. Now, Martin is not the final word on chapter quality - how I miss Margaret and Marla's daily comments - but it's an excellent start. The only points of confusion where plot decisions, not writing, so I will take it. Now it's onto Ch.7, the new Ch.4 (Sitiani and Cain in the Inn), all the while fixing up the order/POV of Ch.1-4 (currently).
The light is still far down at the end of the tunnel... but it's getting brighter.

The rest of the parts of life are going well. After a small scare (required every few months), work has settled to its usual state (meaning alternating hard work with hard fantasy stat checking).
Dodgeball is going well for Team HTD - minus Dave's broken finger - with a league-leading .962 win% and a bead on the #1 seed for the playoffs.
Basketball and Team CLAB is good too, with a 3-1 record and some great team chemistry.
The apartment is slowly being taken over by God of War II for the PS2. Amazingly cinematic game.
And despite some tough nights, I have had a glass of wine or two with my roomates, played sports without thinking about my heart every five seconds, and managed to fall asleep at night, surrounded by darkness and accompanied only by thoughts of how simple it is for a faulty blood-filled pulsing sack to go wrong... and how it only takes one mistake to be permanent.
I'd like to live to 72. The average male lives until 71 in America - the average woman, 79. Most of the Calland women live long, healthful lives. The males... not so much. We burn bright, but we burn out.
We all burn out sometime, of course. I'm less concerned about that. And 72 or 32, I'm enjoying every flicker of this flame a great deal more.

What You Want

(from life)

"I have found the best way to give advice to your children," wrote Harry S Truman, "is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it."

Sometimes, life is so complicated that we get caught up in all the day-to-day activities, get bogged down with all the immediate needs, that we lose sight of the basics. Particularly in the midst of a transitional time, it's easy to lose one's way.
Paraphrasing Truman, life is very simple.

Figure out what you want. Then go get it.

There are very few things that I want in this world.
In the life sense, anyway. There are many things I want, generally speaking. I want a Wii, for example. I want a dodgeball championship (accomplished most recently last night). Some cash. A book. A massage. I always want chocolate.
But in the life sense... there are very few things I want. They are:

- To create something that gives others the same sense of wonder, enjoyment, sorrow, and excitement I felt reading some of my favorite fantasy stories.
- To live a worthwhile life, to play hard and fair, to make others' lives better for the brief time I am in them.
- To love, and be loved, by someone special. To be with a girl that I hold higher than everyone else, higher than the world, higher than myself - someone who makes my heart race, makes me want to strive to be the best person I can be just by her mere presence. I want full, fierce, lasting, tender, love. A romance I cannot live without - and as a corollary, will die for, and die happily. There is no greater sacrifice. And none easier.

Those are the three.

#1 is going well, if a little slowly. Not so slowly, however, in the last few months.
#2 is good, though a struggle. I am fairly confident of the existence of God and the sense of right and wrong that exists; but I am not so sure of humankind's interpretation of it and I go to church less than I should.
#3 is the hardest of all, and currently the one exhibiting the least progress.

The bizarre thing is, I have the strongest faith that #3 will happen. Odd, isn't it? That the element that I have the least movement on is the one I am least concerned about? I don't know why this is.
It might be because of my belief in love. I left a long-term relationship, not because the girl I was with was a bad person, but because I wasn't sure that I couldn't live without her. It would have been so much easier to remain, to let things take their course. We were comfortable, had worked well together.
But I want something I can barely think about without cracking a smile. I want someone that is simultaneously my greatest friend, my hardest taskmaster, my best ally and surest confidant.
I am fairly certain that the girl I will be with will be imaginative, will have the capacity to be sensuous, will mix in a slight dose of insanity to keep things interesting and a hundred other things I could list. I am fully certain, however, that the girl I will be with will have traits I will never have thought of, or wouldn't even have picked if I had the option; but they will be part of her, intrinsic and mysteriously integral, perhaps even occasionally contradictory, defying explanation or analysis as to how they combine into something beautiful. I have contradictory traits; my proclivity for formality weighed with my occasionally willful ignorance of public opinion is an example. Human beings are a bizarre mix. Hell, love itself can be like that.
I've felt love, of course. I've had love - love that is comfortable, that is good in its simplicity, that is nice and kind in its persistence.
And that is just what it is. Comfortable. Unassuming. A warm blanket on a somewhat chilly morning, something that encourages you to stay in bed permanently, to shy away from getting up and seeing the sunrise in all it's bitterly bright, beautiful-in-the-cold glory. It's nice to stay in bed, don't get me wrong. But one day you wake up and realize that you traded comfort for beauty; what was easy for what was best; and you realize that your avoidance of something bad comes with the failure to achieve something worth your trouble.

I won't stay in bed any longer.

It will be far from perfect, of course. The love I search for doesn't have to know itself right away. It will have its faults, as nothing involving human beings is ever perfect. But it will be special, and precious, and something worth fighting for. Something worth dying for.
And I have had glimpses of it. I have met two women that have made me sway on my feet, that made my heart rush, that made my stomach turn and my head spin. They questioned, they laughed, they hurt, they loved. They are, indeed, special people.
It can be done.

It is a lot to ask, I know. Some say life is not perfect; others that life is cruel. I disagree, to some extent. At heart, I am an optimist, not an idealist; but I am also a romantic, in the original sense of the word. My stance on love is, in some ways, a gamble - as my refusal to settle for less than the best risks me from experiencing it at all. Women in particular feel this, I understand, as the years go on; they feel as if they are running out of time, that they have to get something or they will have lost, somehow, or maybe just lost their opportunity. I can understand where they are coming from, to some extent. It is a scary proposition to live life alone, particularly when you have not truly experienced love before. I can see why people would settle for something good, instead of something incredible. It is risky.
But I have to try. This is my only life. This is my only chance at existence. If there is a God, I trust that He will help me achieve something so monumental.
And if there is not a God, and this existence is merely a composition of atoms and chance events? That 'love' is a mere biochemical reaction, surviving over millions of years for its evolutionary benefits?
All the more reason I want the highest ideal I can imagine.

This is my life.

I want to write.
I want to make people happier.
I want love.

I want.

.

What I've Learned

(and what I've done)

Many times, my longest silences in writing are the most important.
They can speak of many things - a restocking of creativity, a busy time in my life - but this was the most important of pauses.

My life has changed. Irrevocably.

Five days after my last entry, my heart slowed to the point it couldn't keep me conscious and collapsed in a movie theater. I spent the next five days in the hospital. We discussed pacemakers, lifelong medication, a life without heavy activity, before realizing that it was more minor.
I tried to write a post on it, and only could get halfway through without being unable to continue.
It took weeks to recover physically. It took months to recover inside. I wrestled with mortality and the impermanence of life, the fear of something as simple as little parts not working right. And something breaks. That something being me.
Then, just when I thought I had a handle on it, my Aunt Linda took a turn for the worse. She finally passed away just a few weeks ago.
I was at her viewing. I was a pallbearer in the funeral. I carried her to her grave.

Life is very different.
My life, as it is, is much the same. I go to work in the city, I come home and hang out with my roomates and friends. I write whenever I can. I play sports and like ordering Chinese while watching hockey.
But it's all different.
Everything is different to me; more important, more real, more meaningful. More. I feel like the man dragged outside the convenience store in Fight Club with a gun put to his head just to make his life better. Only this was lighter - a reminder that this life is finite, and singular, and will not be offered again.
I think of playing sports with friends and the stories from them; the feel of wind in my hair; the sparks that led to some of my most romantic stolen moments; the pleasure of writing and creation; the hugs of my family; the calming enjoyment of video games and fantasy sports with the boys; the anticipation of a Penguins game; the comfort of a longtime friend's voice.

I enjoy them all.
I didn't want to write this post without time elapsing. Too often this kind of thing is a short-term change.
But five months later - and after my Aunt Linda passed away - I feel it just as much. No. Stronger.
I had to leave Pittsburgh for a while to realize how much I liked it. I had to leave the security of my youthful naivety about mortality for a while to realize how much I liked life.

Oh.... and chocolate tastes even better than before.


So let mercy come
and wash away
what I've done

For what I've done...

I start again
and whatever pain may come
Today this ends
I'm forgiving what I've done

I'll face myself
cross out what I've become
Erase myself
and let go of what I've done

The Blog Is Back

(and it wants a snack)

My first massive blog break.
The reasons are many, but more than anything, I needed a rest. I had Easter, family, the ever-interesting tonsils, trips, friends, and surprises. Instead of my mind's usual thoughts - "How should I use fire imagery in The Gate of Dragons", "The apathy of today's society, not the lack of power among the poor, is the singlemost reason the government could begin a 1984-esque rule over society", "I wonder where I can get chocolate" - my mind has just been sort of going, "Hey, a nap sounds good." Thus, little progress, both in the blog and elsewhere.
However, so many people left me IM's, phone calls, e-mails, or personally told me, "Hey, where are the blog updates?" I have people complaining to me that the friends of their friends are complaining to them that there hasn't been an update. Which leads me to ask: "How many freaking people are reading this thing?!?!"
Of course, they've been saying that for two weeks now, and only now am I writing. Why? For the same reason I mentioned at the beginning of this little foray: I write for myself, and not for an audience. If I don't feel compelled to write for myself, I shouldn't be writing at all, I don't care if the President is reading it. And if you are, Mr. President, please don't think I was referring to the American government ruling in a 1984-esque way over society. I am referring to other governments, preferably godless ones. I love the Patriot Act! Haha! Please don't tax audit me.

On a more personal note, a tax audit wouldn't be nearly as bad as what has finally happened after five years of careful practice; the spammers have found me. Let me tell you how much I missed the joy of opening my inbox and seeing e-mails from people with names like "Corncooker A. Housewarmer" telling me how I can have sex with any woman INSTANTLY, RIGHT NOW, LIMITED-TIME OFFER SEX WITH ANY WOMAN INSTANTLY!!!! (True note: The last e-mail I got was from "Plea B. Antler" about how to make women "really happy". No further explanation was given, but I doubt they were referring to respecting and listening to them.) Since this is my Nova webmail, it has nowhere near the correct amount of spam controls it needs to. It's not a huge waste of energy just to hit the delete button, but I had made it five years. I wonder where they got it.
Probably the women.

I won't leave this entry too long. Some parting notes:
- Dodgeball and volleyball have both started. We're tied for first in dodgeball (.810 win %) and are 2-1 in volleyball (and we only played with five players the first match).
- I had a great friend catch-up day where I got to talk to Justin Bello.
- Fantasy baseball remains as fun as ever, in that it keeps you in great touch with friends.
- Margaret thinks I'd look good in a skirt. No other explanation given here.
- I made $70 in poker in a basement table game in Connecticut. Cleaning house!
- I played basketball with the five and it was just incredible.

And lastly, I answered the pizza guy with my shark on my head the other day without ever commenting on it.
All is right with the world.

I Consider This Day Seized

(tomorrow we'll seize the day and throttle it)

For all those who know this quote, you know what I feel like. For those who don't: today has been an absolutely fantastic day!
For starters, it is stunningly beautiful here. Warm, sunny, it's like a nice April afternoon without all the wind. Only it's the dead middle of February. Anyone who doubts the effects of global warming is an idiot. It's stunning to think of how long it takes to get snow now, how little total snow we get, and how quickly it gets warm. It's really stunning. But this morning the air was crisp and clear, and it buoyed my spirits immensely.
Then, on the way to work, the T broke down. I mean, we were at the Potomac stop and it just didn't want to go again. T's break down pretty rarely. I've only seen it twice now in many years riding the rails, and once I was on a T when the whole line got struck by lightning and it reset all the signals and switches, so they had to manually reset everything on all 10 miles of track. But this T wasn't going. Perhaps it wanted to enjoy the nice day too.
No problem! I took my laptop out and began writing my story. This is after last night, where I wrote some great pieces of various scenes throughout the book. My muse is picking up the production big time. I think that's because I am now getting to hear from two of the three people that were so critical to me originally writing a fantasy story, Martin and Margaret. Both want to see the rough draft I'm feverishly trying to work on, and I think the excitement have having such talented readers is pushing my muse to new heights. If Marla got in on the act, who knows what could happen. But I sat on my stopped T, the sun shining in the window, cheerfully called in to work to tell them I wasn't going anywhere for a bit, and started typing the morning away. Yeah!
Eventually we got out and had to catch a T that was going the wrong way, which then went inbound on the outbound track towards the city. So I eventually got into work at about 10 AM. All good so far.
At lunch I went outside, and it was even more beautiful than the morning. "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" got into my head out of nowhere and I couldn't stop singing/whistling it. I danced across the street, I walked on top of the planter in Fifth Avenue, I bounced up to the Wendy's. I got my order and went back to find out that my burger was incorrectly made, a difficult thing to do when the order is "Plain burger, ketchup only." And this happened three times. No problem! I kept going back outside to get the order fixed, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I said hi to people I knew on the street and took my time getting back to work. Ahhh.
But the ultimate highlight of the day were the envelopes on my desk today. Upon opening them, I was given some wonderful information. I received a raise! It's a modest raise, but the mere fact that I was deemed to be putting in the time and working hard really meant a lot to me. But even cooler, I received A BONUS. (Every time I say that or think that, all I can think about is the commercial where the guy comes into his boss's office and says, 'This other company is offering me a bonus. Can you even say that? BO-NUS. ....BO-NUS." He also picks up the boss's telephone and says, "Hello, Bonus?" Then switches it to the other ear and says, "Speaking..." Great stuff.) But I received a 100% bonus, meaning I achieved all the goals the company set for me personally and I was following the company direction and guiding principles. Translation: A four-digit check in my name. I'm stunned! I'm going to put most of it in my savings, but maybe I'll do something or get something fun for $50 or so. My first raise and my first bonus on the same day. I can barely believe it.
And my boss just left my cube after trying to convince me to take off early today!
Days like this don't come around too often. I'm going to enjoy it!!

Time Isn't Poison

(but the past can be)

I got some IM's this morning, and they knocked me on my ass.

Your past is a funny thing. It's at once black-and-white - this happened, that happened, no two ways about it - and subjective, as your perception of why and how changes. As time goes on, events take on different levels of importance in your mind, have different meanings and different causes.
This graying of concrete facts is accelerated by my memory. As some may know, I liken my memory to a huge hallway with the walls endless dwarers of files that hold all my memories. Unfortunately, there's only one worker, and he's 84, has a cane, and is going senile. Whenever I'm trying to remember anything, he has to amble down to the right dwarer and find the right file. Unfortunately, since he's old, not only does it take a long time, he often gets the wrong file, or the wrong dwarer. So there I'll be, trying to remember the name of the band at a concert I attended a year ago, and I'll come up with, "The Pulsating Squids."
The point is that of all things to remember, events are one of the worst for me. With the rarest of exceptions - I can tell you individual seconds of my mother and my highway car crash and the bloody aftermath - events, important turning points of people's lives, of my life, vanish like mist in the morning sun. I happily remember taking Julie on our second year anniversary to the Grand Concourse. I remember her little chocolate cupcake she got and looking around at the train station. Why is this important? It's the only anniversary of the five I can remember. I don't remember what we did for our first, our third, our fourth. I just can't remember.
And these IM's got my old guy working overtime.

I've spent the whole morning feeling sick to my stomach. What I can remember of the events of years ago keeps replaying in my head. I sit at work and I can't concentrate, images of the past floating by, unbidden.
Betrayal. I've never really thought about it in such a blunt, harsh way, but that's what it was. I betrayed someone. A friend. The circumstances were complicated, I was in a difficult position, it was a tough decision either way... and that is all irrelevant. I know that now, aided because the past is a little clearer as it gets farther away. Regardless of the circumstances - the excuses - I was wrong. I held something beautiful in my hand. And while I didn't crush it, what I did was I took my hand away, and it fell to the floor and broke.
I thought that the pain would eventually subside, that I would learn to realize that it was a huge mistake and I would learn to live with it. Lord knows I learned from it. I changed because of that incident; the more I thought about it in later years, the more I realized what I did wrong and what I should have done. And it changed me. I am a better person because of the lessons I learned, probably because those lessons burned with the shame of my choices. So, tons of regret, but shouldn't I feel that at least I learned from it?
Not a chance. The magnitude of my mistake grows every year.
And its proven by the way my stomach is doing flip-flops now. One IM, bringing up the past that I never got close to putting away to begin with. How do you put something back together that was so intricate, so wonderful? What was there had been special. One-of-a-kind.
I miss those times.
So, this IM reads, do they.

I have had enough. I have spent years regretting my decision. I know now that I will never make it again. It may be impossible to totally fix what was there. Maybe it will be better. Maybe it won't. But what I had - what I threw away - was so wonderful, so great, that what memories I have left of that time deserve all my effort to recreating it. Successful or not. Second chance? Maybe not. But I'm damn well going to try.
My stomach butterflies just left.

If I wrote the emotions I felt now, I'd go on for hours.

You don't know what you got 'til its gone.

Hippos don't die

(they just fade away)

Work provides a rare opportunity to stay in touch. At times - times like now - I have nothing to do because I've completed all my work and asked for more, and there's simply no more to be done at the moment. It's also known as a slow day.
This provides opportunities to stay in touch with people. I send e-mails, check messages, try and stay in touch. I can't emphasize how important this is.
I have two friends, Nate and Martin. Their ways of handling people are very different.
For years, I WAS Martin. Consistently forgetful, unreliable, wonderful to be around when present but never present when I was supposed to be. This is probably why I like Martin a lot despite his faults - he is me, or I was him, and probably still am to some extent. I realized I was hurting my friends, but I couldn't get my life in order enough to fix it. There was no intent at all - just disorganization.
Then, at college, I met Nate. Well, I knew him from before, was even friends with him, but I got to see him in action. He attended more of his friends speeches, concerts, awards, presentations, you name it, he was there. He never forgot. And he had HUNDREDS of friends. Everybody loved him, despite the fact that he was pulled in 19 directions he still managed to go out of his way to make everybody feel cared about. And this happened year...after year... after year.
Gradually, over college, I changed. I'm somewhere in between the two now. I have been in fantastic touch with my college friends. I am sending IM's and messages to my high school friends, who I must work extra hard at seeing as how they took the brunt of me not talking before. I stay in better touch with my family, with my relationships, with my friends.
Part of it is getting in a habit. A message a day, or an IM a week, or a post in a blog on a consistent basis. I refuse to revert back to the way I was. I may not be perfect, but I'm better.
The change? Martin and I have now on our third consecutive month of seeing each other once a week. There has not been a single miss. We've occasionally had to reschedule, but he now gives me prior notice. He's called me twice to let me know he'll be 15 minutes late for a 9 PM meeting - and not at 9 either, he calls at 8:30 or 8:45. People can change for the better.
So here's to improvement! Give me someone who is imperfect and trying hard to change over someone who is perfect but can't change any day. To those who refuse to remain complacent to their own faults, I commend you. Raise my glass? You bet your ass!