Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Don't Call Me Ishmael

Let me preface this by apologizing to the ex-girls who read this. This is no way a shot at you, just the opinion of yours truly. You are all beautiful women, and I can say this with confidence because, I like to think that other than a few "low" points, I have above average standards on those I consider to be "easy on the eyes".

In this world of MySpace and Facebook and a bunch of other social sites we are able to find some old friends and maybe form some new connections with friends of friends and so on. It can be great but there is a darker side to all this reconnecting. Allow me to give you, Gentle Reader, an example of this dark side.

A few nights ago I was killing some time cruising the Space and I came across the profile of a certain girl that I was involved with in my high school years who, in my somewhat humble opinion, was the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. Even though the face had aged I knew it was her right off the bat, but something was amiss! This was not the girl that used to make all my high school friends envious, she had changed, a lot and, I dare say, it was for the worse.

Is this superficial of me? You bet! Am I somewhat wrong for thinking like this? Absolutely! But I think we all need a White Whale. I've never compared a woman to a whale and meant it to be a good thing, but I digress. What I mean by White Whale is I looked at this girl as perfect and I imagined that she continued to be the perfect woman 10 years later. I come to find out that she wasn't and for some reason I can't stop thinking about it.

Is it because somethings are better left to mystery? Is it because we remember things to be better than they actually where? When I was living in Norfolk, I enjoyed it, but I also thought about leaving and not looking back. When I didn't get to leave on my own terms and was forced to Baltimore I decided that the streets of Norfolk were paved in gold. The streets of Baltimore, the same city that at one point in my life I said that I wouldn't mind living in, were paved in mercury and you would be poisoned as soon as you touched them.

When the Girl and I split it was the days before
every house and desk had a computer with internet access, including my own. It was also before everyone had a cell phone attached to their pocket. I was carrying around a pager in those days and I thought I was on the cutting edge of telecommunications technology. Anyway, her parents decided to move somewhere and because of the aforementioned reasons we just lost contact, that's what you did then. You didn't call long distance on your parents dime so there was no phone calls. We were learning how to use AOL and honestly, what teenager takes time to write a letter. Sure we kept it up for a little bit, but that faded fast. So ever since, in the back of my mind I had an image of this girl who grew into this beautiful woman and just knowing that she was out there kept some sort of mysterious aura about her. I then come across a picture of a girl that I may say hello to in a bar, but I wouldn't necessarily try to pick up. I used the phrase White Whale, and to amplify that point this is like Captain Ahab finding out that Moby Dick washed up on Myrtle Beach last Wednesday. There is nothing in the sea that fascinates him anymore. The positive side to all this: at least this whale didn't kill me like Ahab's did.


Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The Freaks Come Out At Night!

What the hell is wrong with This Picture? Have we become such a cowardly nation that we now deem this show dangerous? My generation came up with it and I think we're doing alright. We are living in such a culture of fear that it completely baffles me. Don't go into the city, because black people will rape and pillage you! Don't leave your door unlocked because crack addicts will break in and steal you! Don't let your kids play out side because the pedophiles and molest them. Don't let gay people get married because they will ruin it for the 40% of the straight couples that actually work out.

How is it we got to this point? Is this something that every generation has gone through? Is it our parental instinct to protect our children and in doing that we have just escalated to the point that we are currently? I, unfortunately, don't have these answers, but if I did I would fix the world!

By the way, as I'm typing this, goddamn teenagers are outside. Why aren't they at home? Don't they know it's dangerous out there at night?

Monday, November 19, 2007

A surreal moment is hearing your ex-girlfriend say she is going back to prison...more on this later, maybe.

Friday, November 16, 2007

I've Got This Idea

I'm here in the living room watching a little late night television and I just saw a very corny commercial with some sort of four piece band that was playing and singing one of the worst jingles I've ever heard. My first reaction to this was that I couldn't believe how horrible this song was. I then got to thinking that I can not imagine the executives of this company sitting in a board room with the big polished wood table with probably 12 or so chairs around it. The glass pitcher and crystal glasses of water that no one ever seems to drink from were stationed in the middle of this table on a faux silver platter. There are doilies under the cups that are there to act like coasters so that no one leaves rings on the polished table should they decide to drink from the unknown source water.

At one end of the room are a few young men in suits who have a laptop hooked up to a projector that is shining onto a screen. They are young and enthusiastic and are doing their best to close this deal and get some steak with a side of beer before they head back to Chicago. The eager young men start to perform this very tacky and off key rendition of the proposed song with a sense that this is going to fail. This song has been written once on their way to Manhattan. They didn't bother to revise it because they stayed up late trying to soak up the New York scene. They may have even gone to a Rangers game and drank a little too much and got up a little too early. Nevertheless here they are, Chicago's favorite sons, ready to land this big deal and get back to the Windy City in time for their girlfriend's dinner party.

They start the song, which they know is horrible, and a strange thing happens. The executives don't throw them to their pink slips in Chicago, instead they nod their heads, tap their feet, snap their fingers, and the CEO stands up and yells, "That's it! We've found it, the song of XYZ Company!" I hope that doesn't happen, but I have a feeling that I'm closer to the truth than I want to be.

Now there is one more quick thought that follows the previous James Michener type thought is that the most annoying thing is also the most memorable, may that is the true reason these things are the way they are. I've been typing this little story for about half an hour now and the song is still stuck in my head.

Now could you imagine being the band who is so down on their luck that this commercial and this song are a good option? We'll revisit this thought later, Gentle Reader; I've taken enough of your time. Good night!

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Big City of Dreams

I checked another thing off my life list this past weekend! I finally made it to New York City. As a native New Yorker I have been taking crap almost all my life for never actually going to the City. It's not that I was avoiding the place, I just never had a reason to go and I always wanted to go so when the opportunity came up I jumped on it. As Gentle Readers know, I love the city life and they don't get any bigger than that so the thought of actually having a New York apartment is even more appealing now that I've seen the place first hand. I keep thinking about Life's Little Instruction Book that said, "Live in New York once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in San Francisco once, but leave before it makes you soft." I read that once when I was in my later teen years and have held on to that statement ever since.

I didn't get to see everything that I wanted, but I saw the three things that I needed to, Strawberry Fields in Central Park, the Dakota building (where John Lennon was shot), and the Trade Center site. The first two I wanted to see for my birthday reasons. The Trade Center was something else though. I took no pictures, I said no words, I just stood and watched. It was strange to think about what happened on that day, I remember watching it unfold on a television set in my North Carolina barracks room and to stand there a few years later almost gives you a sense of the world that was and the world that is. I'm sure that the only thing that compares to it is for someone from my grandparents generation to see Pearl Harbor. I've been to the Pentagon since then and it kicks up emotion, but it was also rebuilt the way it was and people are back in those offices working again so it almost has a different feeling. I'm sure that when the Trade Center site is rebuilt it will have a different feel as well but as a whole, to think about the events of those sites and how they changed life for us as a country is amazing. We each have individual things that change our own life, but those things changed us as a group and that is a powerful thing. Thinking about the Joe Schmoes that were just going to work like normal and the police officers and fire fighters that were running in while the others were running out gets one a little choked up when you're standing on that sight.

A few months before I got out of the Marines a few NYPD recruiters came to a job fair on base and I thought about doing it for a few minutes. A police officer is something that was on my "I Wouldn't Mind Doing That" list. The "IWMDT" is is a list of careers that I've made that statement about and given some sort of thought about doing at some point in my life. The only problem with that list is that most of the stuff on it doesn't pay very well and that is a hot topic in my life as a single parent. Also time management is a pretty high priority too and the police department wouldn't offer much of that. Either way, it's still on the list and being in the city highlighted those things again. I doubt it will ever happen, but someone took out a neon yellow highlighter and took it to some things on that list. Now that I'm out of the military and have all this new found freedom to go which ever route I choose I find myself constantly wondering what I want to be when I grow up and it's just as scary and appealing as it was when I was 17.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

The System Is Down

I hate computers! Not only do I have to mess with these pieces of crap all week at work, but then I get to come home and mess with mine. I've got some sort of spy ware that causes inhumane amounts of pop ups; I just had to close one out as I tried to type this sentence. What makes it worse is that it is one of those spy ware programs that all four of my "security" stuff can not find or delete. In order to get this thing gone I've got to get so far down in the computer files that I very well could fry this thing for good. Wish me luck! Oh yeah, I've also got a laptop that took threw itself out of commission a couple of weeks ago. What the hell! All the machines have gone mad. Maybe it's the Matrix coming into reality...if it isn't already!