hope that i get old before i die…

let me just start by saying “i needed that”. after feeling down for so long lately i decided i would take a “me” night and do some things that i haven’t done before, or at least haven’t done for awhile in some cases. i had yet another mediocre day at work (big fucking surprise there ) but i found out a few days ago that there is a “bike night” at a restauarant literally a block from my work. so i took my bike to work and rode over to the restaurant to check it out. it was supposed to start at 6 but of course being so close i was there not long after 5. as soon as i parked and took my helmet off i started talking with this lady and some other guy who had both showed up early to get their happy hour drinks in. then the lady’s husband showed up and we all started hanging out and having a good time together. it was his birthday and they let me sit with them at their table where i met all of their friends who had come out not only for bike night but also to celebrate his birthday. i remember Dee, Don, Suzy, Chris & Jeremy (twin brothers), Paige, Jason, Bryan, and that’s about it off the top of my head. then i checked out all the other bikes and went home to get ready to head out to karaoke.

then i got a return phone call from a guy i used to work with that i had called the night before but had to leave a message. so i left a message, went to get my mail and ended up talking to one of the other bike owners at my complex for about 30 minutes (give or take). came back inside and my ex co-worker had called back. called him back and had another good chat for close to 30 minutes. apparently he got screwed at that job we had together so he left and ended up having some health problems, for which he is expected to finally be healthy again this weekend. it was really good to get in touch with this guy, because he really gave me some perspective on some things i’ve been trying to decide lately. i don’t want to get into that part of things just yet as not only am i not 100% positive about what i’m going to do, but i don’t want to take the chance of someone reading this that i might work with. suffice to say, it’s nice to get someone else’s perspective on things when you can, especially when they’ve got experience behind them.

so then i went to do karaoke, which i haven’t been to in MONTHS. at least, not this karaoke. i used to go a lot when i was seeing this one girl a long time ago (in a blog far far away….) but i haven’t been in awhile because of finances and trying to get people together to go. so i decided i was just gonna go this time because i know the guy who runs the machine there and his band is playing tomorrow night, so i wanted to talk to him a little tonight since i know i probably won’t get a chance tomorrow. for those who really *must* know, i sang “another one bites the dust” and “dinah moe humm”. i don’t think anyone knew dinah moe humm but that’s ok. my buddy said he wanted to hear something that was not the same old songs so i picked zappa

anyway, while i was talking to him this girl came up and put in her song choices and then he finally called her up. she didn’t have much stage presence (but then hardly anyone does really) but she had a very cool tattoo on her left arm which was a bunch of notes written out on a musical staff. my friend says “dude, her tattoo ROCKS” and i said “yeah, it probably does!” then we laughed about how it’s probably this great riff that could change music as we know it etc etc. so i went up and asked her about it and she told me it’s the first few bars of “stand by me”, which happens to be her favorite song. so we chatted for a bit and told each other our brief stories and exchanged business cards. the upshot of it is, we may meet out tomorrow night to see my friend’s band if she can get out of work in time i don’t want to call it a date, but she seemed adamant that she would call me when she got out of work. so we’ll see what happens, but i haven’t had this good of a time in a very long time.

one of my absolute all time favorite songs in the history of music has finally made sense to me, and it’s all because of myspace. …and a little help from the wikipedia as well. i was browsing through profiles on myspace, looking for people who live near me, and someone had their quote reading “nam myoho renge kyo”. as this phrase is in the song in question and i had no idea how to spell it, it was quite powerful to finally read the words that i have enjoyed for so long. (they also appear in one of my all time favorite episodes of the simpsons, but you can barely make it out ) so i looked up the phrase and came across this article which talks about the origins of the phrase and its meaning. for years i’ve been wondering about this song and what the hell the words meant, and now i feel like i am that much closer to the song.

for those wondering, the song is “open” by king missile. you can hear it by clicking here. if you can’t play it, then you should download itunes, cause itunes rocks! and now, here are the lyrics. it doesn’t quite have the same power without hearing it, so please give it a listen. and also realize that this is not typical king missile music. after all, they’re the ones who did “detachable penis”

Open the door to your heart and your mind
There are so many places to go
Open the gateway to a new time
There are so many things to know.

Ishe Oluwa Koleba Jahwo
Open
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Open

Open the porthole and stare at the sea
Open the window and learn how to breathe
Open the curtains look at the movie
Open your soul and learn how to believe

Govindam Adi Purasam Tam Aham Bhajami
Open
Govinda Jaya Jaya Gopalla Jaya Jaya
Rhadharramanahari
Open

Ishe Oluwa Koleba Jahwo
Open
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Open
Govindam Adi Purasam Tam Ahm Bhajami
Open
Govinda Jaya Jaya Gopalla Jaya Jaya
Rhadharramanahari
Open

started in on this at 10:30 this morning and didn’t finish until 5pm. but there are now no more leaks!!! so that means i have a few days left to enjoy this bike before i sell it off.

and the funny thing is, there’s this woman who lives next door to me that has never said one word to me even if i try to say hello. she was standing out in the hallway and i went to my apartment to grab some more stuff to finish putting the bike back together. and she actually started up a conversation with me! i was incredibly shocked to say the least. i mean, i don’t find her particularly attractive or anything, so it’s not like i really care if she wants to talk to me or not, i just find it interesting that when i’m just her neighbor she has nothing to say. but now that i’m the neighbor who works on motorcycles, i am suddenly talk-worthy. people will never cease to amaze me sometimes….

i listened to this song the other day and it always reminds me of my best friends in life. those friends that are always there and you can go weeks (and sometimes years) and still connect with each other no matter where you are in your lives. the song is called “thanksgiving” by poi dog pondering. the emotion that was poured into this song is so heavy that you can just *feel* the pain he’s talking about pushing into your consciousness. anytime i hear this song it always puts me in the mind of all of the friends that have come and stayed in my life.

somehow i find myself
far out of line
from the ones i’ve drawn
wasn’t the best of paths
you could attest to that
but i’m keeping on

would our paths cross
if every great loss
had turned out our gain?
would our paths cross
if the pain it had cost us
was made in vain?

there was no pot of gold
hardly a rainbow
lighting my way
but i will be true to those
reds, blacks and blues
that colored those days

would our paths cross
if every great loss
had turned out our gain?
would our paths cross
if the pain it had cost us
was made in vain?

thanksgiving for every wrong move
thanksgiving for every wrong move
thanksgiving for every wrong move

i owe my soul to
each fork in the road
each misleading sign
cause even in solitude
no bitter attitude
can dissolve my sweetest find

thanksgiving for every wrong move
thanksgiving for every wrong move
thanksgiving for every wrong move
that made it right
that made it right
that made it right
that made it right
that made it right

would our paths cross
if every great loss
had turned out our gain?
would our paths cross
if the pain it had cost us
was made in vain?

thanksgiving for every wrong move
thanksgiving for every wrong move
thanksgiving for every wrong move
that made it right

more introspection from my recent vacation:

- it is amazing how transitive our everyday lives really are. the things that seem so permanent when they are current are nothing more than memories when all is said and done. each token of our lives is only there to get us through the day. and once they are gone, the only thing left is our thoughts. all of the sights, smells, tastes and sounds may be reawakened within us, but they do not last long in this material world we live in.

- being sick is a pain in the ass. especially being sick from exhaustion. just when i thought i was in pretty good shape, it turns out that i was wrong and that i have no idea at what point i had passed my limit. i think it was the excessive sun at the beach, after a night of too much beer and then staying up way past my bedtime, and then only getting 3.5 hours of sleep before i had to get on a plane. but maybe it was before that, i’m not sure. either way my head is feeling like i’m alternating between being in the clouds and having marshmallows stuffed in my ears. not a fun experience all things considered. but i wouldn’t have done anything differently. well, i *might* have gotten out of the sun sooner if i had to do it all over again, otherwise this was one of the best vacations i have had in a long long time.

vacation time is now over and it was an incredibly exhausting one. besides the 4-5 hours of sleep per night, the 2.5 straight hours of sun at the beach (which i’m still paying for) and the fact that air travel is very taxing on your body, i think i’m in pretty good shape otherwise. tomorrow it’s back to the grind, but for now i am still relatively free.

emotionally, this week has been one hell of a rollercoaster ride. i go to visit a friend i haven’t seen in over 10 years and an unforeseen twist of events has her being single and actively dating before i land. and as much as i tried not to, i couldn’t help but develop some feelings for her during my stay there. i guess that’s what happens when you put two people together who are both single and get them to spend a lot of time together. i tried my best to only see her as a good friend, but it’s so easy to slip into a romance role when you end up doing date-like things together and spending so much time in each other’s company. nevermind the fact that she’s also an incredibly amazing, beautiful woman with a great head on her shoulders but i feel like we’re closer than ever before, and that was the main reason for visiting in the first place, so it’s all good

this whole experience has had me in some serious introspection this week. i started thinking about my lack of friends, or lack of “real life” friends that i can hang out with. because as much fun as some of my online friends are, they’re no substitute for flesh and blood. but then i’ve always been all about the human factor over the cyber version. and what i’ve come to realize since i’ve come back is that i really like having *anyone* i can talk to. i think i felt these things because of a lack of diversity of communication, since i only really ended up talking to my friend for a whole week. not having other people to talk to made me feel isolated and lonely, as i’m sure it would for anyone in that situation. and i’m not talking about random small talk, i mean like the kind of talk you can only get when you sit down with people you’ve known and just talk. my mom picked me up at the airport, and after talking to her for 10 minutes i felt so much better in general. this blog is good therapy for me when i need to get something out and i don’t have anyone around at the time, but it only goes so far. i guess that’s why we have therapists to handle the “real” therapy….

i’ve also been thinking about what exactly i find desirable in the opposite sex, and the kind of woman i want to be with. i don’t consider myself shallow at all, but it’s hard for me to be with someone that i don’t find physically attractive to some degree. but that’s a given with just about everybody. i know there are plenty of matches that happen with people who have never seen each other IRL but for the most part we all want someone we like to look at. but beyond that, personality counts for so much. i have always liked girls/women who have an internal energy bordering on the bubbly side. a sense of humor to match my own, preferably someone who appreciates that i can be a huge smart ass most of the time. sensual and sexual, but not to the point where they just give it up for anybody. (i.e. - not a slut) someone that can be friends first and let things develop as they will, if there’s anything to develop. that’s the basics of what i’ve always looked for, and i don’t want this to read like a personals ad so i’ll stop there. but if anyone out there knows a woman who fits this description, please send her my way if you don’t mind

well, maybe later i’ll post some pics of this trip, including the slimy-ass hotel i ended up staying at, complete with what looks like blood stains on the wall and dead cockroaches embedded in the drywall. if you looked up “disgusting hotel” in the dictionary you might not find its picture there, but i’m sure it would be listed under “see also…” anyway, back to my so called life. i’m sure work will suck for the next few weeks but as they say, all good things must come to an end someday…..

if you’re like me, you probably have quite a few online aquaintances that you feel relatively close to. you read each other’s blogs, you might chat over some IM client, and in general you share a common experience with each other through your internet surfing habits. eventually you come to think of some of these people as “friends” even though you may not have met IRL (or in real life for the acronymically challenged). but then when you get a chance to meet some of these “friends” through a vacation, either yours or theirs, it’s only natural to want to meet the person behind the pixels. or so i thought anyway. obviously there is something about meeting someone IRL that you can’t get over the non-human interaction of the internet, no matter how “close” you think you might be to the other person.

then there is the factor of not really knowing the person on the other end and having stories of online stalkers and predators spread by a tabloid-esque media and it’s no wonder that everyone is cautious about having their online aquaintances show up on their doorstep (so to speak). lately i find myself in such a position of being practically on the doorsteps of some people i thought i was close to, but receiving almost nothing in response to my queries to meet somewhere. i know i can’t ask someone i hardly know to drop their lives in order to meet me out somewhere. but i thought i could read people pretty well, and maybe i just do better with the old-fashioned method of face to face. but i also don’t just make friends with anyone, so it makes it very hard for me to take when someone i think of as a friend, even in the ever elusive medium of the internet, seems to stop wanting to talk to me for no apparent reason and won’t explain why. but life goes on as usual. if we constantly dwell on these things then we make ourselves incredibly bitter and jaded, and that’s not the way i like to live so i choose to move on and get on with my life.

Dateline NBC has been running an ongoing series where they have police pretend to be very underage girls and/or boys and entice men to show up at a certain house where they put these men on camera, give them a good talking to, then tell them they are “free to walk out that door” where a group of police officers promptly arrest them on the spot. they explained tonight that they can arrest someone with “intent” to have sex with a minor if they show up at the house and actually bring something the “kid” told them to bring, or something related to sex such as condoms. other than that, it just seems like there’s so much wrong with how they’ve handled the situation.

first of all, when they tell these men they are “free to walk out that door”, it implies that they can leave, no questions asked, and the problem will be forgotten — except for the tv show part and the reruns in syndication etc etc. i don’t know if that would ever stand up in court, but it seems like they have quite a bit of footage of guys being told “you’re free to walk out that door right now”.

then there’s the fact that these men are being given directions for the meet up. of course they don’t publish the actual chat logs, but the gist of the story is that these men are being contacted by the police first and initiate a lot of the dialogue and just wait for the men to ask to meet them. i can see if the guys are initiating contact, but again the chat logs are not public record, so who really knows what happened?

this is not to say that i think people should be allowed to meet with minors for sex. i think that the online sexual predator is very real, but this tv series just seems like it’s a heavy handed story where the network is more interested in ratings than actual justice. chris hansen (star of the show) does mention this very point on his show blog, but it still smells like entrapment to me. although i do have to wonder what any of these guys are thinking, assuming that someone so young not only (a) wants to chat about sex but also (b) actually wants to meet some random stranger for it. of course, i like to think i have a lot more sense than the average person, so it’s easy for me to sit in judgment i guess…

nevermind the fact that i had her fixed last friday, she is literally suspicious of me since i’ve tried to give her pills this morning. both times i tried she spit it out and drooled all over the place afterward. and now if i try to pet her she ducks and wants to be somewhere else very quickly. ah well. i’m sure she’ll get over it eventually.