hope that i get old before i die…

so i started dating this girl last week that i met online. we hit it off immediately and ended up talking for hours and hours as if we were old friends catching up on the last few years. it was something i’ve never really experienced with anyone before, except for the few friends i had talks like that with, but i already knew them so it doesn’t really count. and there is this other girl i work with who is very interested in hanging out sometime. …with me. i came here for the job opportunity but i am getting a lot more than i hoped for these days. i really need to find me a great paying job so that i can spend money going out and having fun while i’m still young enough to enjoy myself. i have a few prospects coming up soon, and if they work out then this will probably be the best start to a year that i can remember. it seems that most of my new years start off very mundane and ordinary. so far this is looking like a very very good year is on the horizon.

ok, more like 12 years ago, but it was still today …then. one of the oddest christmas eves i have ever had. i should probably not admit to this, but i suppose the statute of limitations has finally run out (i hope anyway). so the story begins like this. i had done some acid with some friends about a week before and had a little bit left over. i thought that i had such a good time the first time that i should try it again. the only problem was, i had no real experience with the effects of ell ess dee except for the time a week before. but as i said, it was such a good time that i thought i could handle it again. so i took it, and sat down to start wrapping presents. while i was wrapping presents i thought i would watch the latest episode of star trek: next generation. i distinctly remember that the episode was the one where geordie gets stranded on the planet with a romulan and of course wesley crusher saves the day. and now i’m not sure which is worse — to admit to doing drugs or to admit to knowing the plot of more than a handful of star trek:tng episodes. the reason this particular episode stands out is because it has some very nice visual effects by showing the world through geordie’s visor. but the episode itself was very dark and sinister.

those of you who have experience with the stronger hallucinogenics are probably saying to yourself “uh oh, this isn’t going very well”. well, you are very correct. inexperience with acid + doing it by yourself + dark and sinister TV = BAD TRIP. about halfway through the episode — right about the time when the plot gets so thick you would need a chainsaw to cut it — the acid kicked in hardcore. all of a sudden the cool visual effects were very disturbing visual effects, and the show that i had seen a few times and enjoyed was suddenly the worst possible thing i had ever experienced in my entire life. it got so bad that i had to call my friend i had tripped with the week before — remember this was christmas eve, and also around 9:30pm — to talk to me. but talking on the phone just made things so so bad and i started to freak out a little (ok, a lot) on the phone. so he said he would come right over and talk me down. i felt a little better but i was still in a bad place. a very very bad place.

the distance from his house to mine was about a 20 minute drive on average. so i waited about 30 minutes and went outside to meet him on the road. and i waited… and waited… and waited… and waited… and a little over an hour after i went outside he finally showed up with his sister and sat and talked with me a little. i still couldn’t snap out of it, so i ended up going over to his house to help calm down a little. i hung out with him at his house for a little over an hour and a half and managed to come down to a point where i felt like i could handle the rest of the night by myself. but i still didn’t realize the ramifications of my actions until a few weeks later when i actually thought about what a bad situation i had created by imposing myself on my friend and his family at such a late hour on christmas eve. so the moral of the story is: don’t ever do acid

…by yourself

…on christmas eve

…if you can’t handle it.

i’ve really been thinking about this a lot lately, mainly because i’ve been talking to this woman i met online who is 22 and we’ve been trying to get together for a date. for those of you keeping track, this makes her 9 years younger than me. the other reason i’ve really been thinking about this a lot lately is because there’s this girl i work with who is 19 and acts a little like she has a crush on me. i’ve never been one to worry about the age of the person i was with, my “soon to be” ex was almost 6 years older than me, and i have a female friend who is 38 and we can always have a good time when we get together. it’s always been about the personality for me moreso than the age of the person. i mean, there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that someone close to your age has experienced something similar to yourself at about the same point in their life, or at least that’s how the theory goes.

in reality, we are all shaped by so many different forces that you will never find someone who experienced the same things you did, except for things like natural disasters or other singular events. and besides that, the bulk of human experience is repetitive to the point that people still do share the same experiences, they just do it in cycles except in the extreme circumstances. when it comes down to it, i still feel very much like i did when i was in my mid-20’s and except for a couple things that i can’t do now that i could do then, i don’t feel like i’m that aged in the grand scheme of things. sure, compared to others i am a “late bloomer” in certain life experiences, but for the most part i don’t judge people by their age. and hopefully i am not judged by my age either, although i have been told that i look younger than i am — whatever that means…

spent half the day splitting wood with an axe, which is a very nice way to spend a few hours if you can swing it. (cue rimshot) but when you live in a house with no central heating, it’s a necessity if you don’t want to sit at home wrapped up in blankets, unable to move or else you’ll lose your warmth. and swinging an axe has been the only exercise i’ve gotten for the last couple months, so i definitely cherish the time spent outside. i really love the sound of the wood splitting as the axe goes through it, too. it’s just one of those things that everyone should experience firsthand at least once in their lives.

so i helped my mom deliver some presents to some needy families today. these were some kids that had some circumstance that kept them from receiving presents for christmas, and her church put together a drive to buy a lot of gifts for all these kids. well, we went to one family who lived in a pretty rough trailer park neighborhood, the father just got put in jail for something, and the kids weren’t getting much for christmas. there was a 5 year old, a 3 year old and a toddler, but only the 5 year old was home when we delivered the gifts. but we put the gifts under the tree and the little boy was SO excited to have gifts. it was just so touching to see, but even moreso for what he did after we told him they were from his dad. when he heard that, he went up to the presents and hugged them under the tree! i still don’t feel much in the christmas spirit, but that was most definitely a very uplifting experience to make that little boy’s day like that.

i don’t know why but the smallest things have been setting me off today. it started when i was thinking about the execution of tookie williams in california. this reminded me of one of my most favorite songs from phil ochs called “paul crump” which is about a man named paul crump (of all things) who was sentenced to death for killing a security guard in 1953 during a failed robbery. while on death row, crump wrote a novel called burn, killer, burn in which a man who is sentenced to death for a murder kills himself rather than be executed by the state. eventually his sentenced was commuted to life without parole, with a life sentence of 199 years. but the underlying concept here is that prison used to be meant not as a deterrent but a place where you served out your time till you were rehabilitated and could be released back into society. not as a hardened criminal but as a reformed member of society.

but the point of *this* story is that while reading the lyrics to the song, it just made me cry. and so did about half the songs that phil ochs wrote after i read their lyrics. yes, i admit that some things occasionally make me cry. for some reason i’ve been incredibly emotional today. so since i believe in sharing the wealth, please read the lyrics of the song so that you too might understand. keep in mind that the events took place in 1953, and that 52 years later we’re having this same conversation. i guess the more things change, the more they stay the same….

In the state of Illinois ’bout nine years ago
A cold blooded killer he went against the law
He killed a factory guard when his robbery did fail
And they caught him and they threw him in the jail.
He lay there in his cell locked up with his hate
Not many men knew of him and less cared for his fate.
And he knew no peace of mind when his trial was comin’ by
The judge said, “You are guilty you must die.”

But Paul Crump is alive today
He’s a-sittin’ in a cell, he’s got somethin’ to say
Every man has got something to give
And if a man can change, then a man should live.

They sent him to Cook County Jail, a jail known far and wide
Where pity was a stranger and brave men often cry.
They locked him in the death row to count the days before
To the day they came a knockin’ at his door.
But another warden came along, Jack Johnson was his name;
He knew how prison living could drive a man to shame.
He had no need of pistols in a solitary cell
But a word of trust would help him just as well

But Paul Crump is alive today
He’s a-sittin’ in a cell, he’s got somethin’ to say
Every man has got something to give
And if a man can change, then a man should live.

Between the warden and the convict a friendship slowly grew
And one learned from the other that a man can live anew.
Then the warden called the convict, “You must leave the devil’s plan
“The time has come for you to be a man.”
Then the convict found religion and he started him to learn
He wrote himself a novel called _Burn Killer Burn_.
And as his dying day grew near, to the warden he did cry
“You must pull the switch and I must die.”

But Paul Crump is alive today
He’s a-sittin’ in a cell, he’s got somethin’ to say
Every man has got something to give
And if a man can change, then a man should live.

It was up to Governor Kerner to keep him from the grave
Was rehabilitation a reason to be saved?
The hour was comin’ closer, the word was spread around
A new and better answer must be found.
Well the electric chair was cheated, the convict didn’t pay.
A new concept of justice was born and raised that day.
Now throughout this peaceful land there are others set to die
What better time than now to question why?

But Paul Crump is alive today
He’s a-sittin’ in a cell, he’s got somethin’ to say
Every man has got something to give
And if a man can change, then a man should live.

well, i may not have blue eyes, but the sentiment is the same. life has been quite the rollercoaster of emotions since i lost my job almost two weeks ago now. if it weren’t for the christmas season upon us right now, i would probably have to take a very crappy job but i know that i’ll get *some* money for christmas. at least, i *hope* i get some money for christmas. but at the same time, because of the christmas season nobody is hiring for *right now* except for a couple jobs that filled up as fast as they were posted online. i don’t know whether to be extra pissed off because my job is still considered open, or jump for joy that they haven’t filled it after a week and a half.

i’m also finding that the only “friends” i have aren’t really friends. there’s almost nobody here that i can talk to and hang out with as a friend, and my few online “friends” i can’t actually talk to except over some chat client. and sometimes you just need to hear that voice over the line. i’m sorry for the down and depressing post, today’s just turned into one of those kinds of days

and if i showed you my dark side
would you still hold me tonight?
and if i opened my heart to you
and showed you my weak side
what would you do?
would you sell your story to rolling stone?
would you take the children away
and leave me alone?
and smile in reassurance
as you whispered down the phone?
would you send me packing?
or would you take me home? — pink floyd

i was helping my dad clear some wood today so that we could keep the fire running in the house cause his house has no central heat. we have the fireplace for the front area and then a little space heater for the rest of the house we have to live in. but it’s been *almost* snowing (for texas anyway ) when we were walking through the woods and it got me thinking of “stopping by woods on a snowy evening”. especially the part whose woods these are i think i know…. i mean, of course i know whose woods these are, they’re ours!

later on he was showing me where his old neighbor and he had cleared away the brush so that they could put up a fence and it got me thinking of “mending wall”. after all, good fences make good neighbors. so that’s what was going through my mind this morning and i couldn’t get rid of it. kind of like having a song stuck in your head, but different.

but as good as this morning was, this afternoon has had me kind of depressed. i went in for what i thought was an interview for a sysadmin position with a job placement service and what i got was just a bunch of shit. first the guy doesn’t even talk about the position, instead he rips apart my resume and tells me i should combine the experience of the last 3 years into one big category since a lot of the experience falls under similar positions, even though it’s all different companies. only thing is, this resume has gotten me three offers in the last two months, so it must not be *that* bad that it needs a complete rewrite. i can see some room for improvement, but not what this guy wants for me to do.

on top of that, he kept trying to push these positions on me which are known as “helpdesk” in the technical world, but what they are is a place for people with almost nothing after their names to get a foot in the door for a career in I.T. since i’ve been doing that kind of work pretty much for the last 5 years, i feel like it’s beneath me to take that kind of position again. i know i can do much better than helpdesk or PC tech, both entry level jobs. especially since i have my degree in computer science, so i know i can work a job that is a higher level than the bottom of the barrel. so i left there feeling like absolute shit, and tried to call some friends, but literally nobody was home. so here i am, feeling dejected and nobody to talk to. plus traffic was much worse than normal because of the freezing rain, so i had to sit and listen to music that i’d grown tired of, with nobody to talk to, and it was just a completely miserable experience all around. so glad to be home and able to lose myself in my many distractions. at least i have stuff to keep me busy around here…..

ok, so i just got laid off from my job. not such a big deal, as there was very little for me to do there, plus they just lost a couple clients. so i can understand the reasons given for letting me go. when you work for a small company, you can’t take any loss in revenue without repercussions of some kind. but the part that has me screaming mad right now is that while looking for jobs in the paper today i found that my old position is up for hire, three days after i was let go! and they didn’t run the ad last weekend, so it’s not like this was some leftover ad for a different position. no, this was for the exact position that i have been working for the last 6-7 weeks now. the one that i’m supposedly being released from because the company can’t afford to pay me anymore. i really want to call the owner up and ask what the real reason is for letting me go, but i know that won’t really accomplish anything. if anything, it will probably only make me even more pissed off.

well, they rearranged the schedule at work today and for the 7th week in a row i was given nothing to do for next week. when i asked about the schedule and when i could expect to see some work coming my way, the owner of the company emailed me back and asked me to meet him this afternoon. at this point i felt a knot in my stomach, dreading the worst, but i tried to stay positive because i was hoping that the reality would be that they were waiting to finish training me before letting me have some clients of my own. but no, when i went into that meeting i was informed that my employment is done as of today, but at least they’ll pay me through next week so i can still make my middle of the month bills. but my end of the month bills are going to suffer if i don’t find something soon.

*but* there are still plenty of jobs for me to get i just have to push myself to make sure i get in on those jobs before they pass me by. my mom does business with some people who have told her they will help me get into their companies, so i’m hoping that pays off for me. and these are very nice, very large companies like apple, ibm, whole foods, etc, so hopefully that gives me a little job security on top of an actual job. so once again my future is up in the air, but at least i won’t have to look very far to find something to occupy my time.