Time Takes Time Takes Time

Did a wedding last weekend that was pretty fresh to the divorce. So fresh that there was a seat for my wife next to me that we rapidly filled at our table with a friend who was sitting at a less cool table. The drinking experiment was very successful as I kept my composure and was relatively charming for the majority of the night. Ended up getting back to my car at 7:00 AM the next morning and back home at 8:00 AM. I managed to sleep until noon and then test our database at work as we did some maintenance on it over the weekend. Gamer.

The only thing was Monday and Tuesday were rough on me. I'm hoping it was just exhaustion or emotional fallout from the wedding as it was mutual friends and it was a wedding. Hung in there, though and put up a good fight. No drinking because I was sad or lonely or anything like that. Just read, played guitar and relaxed. At this point, I am comfortable with the present and future, but still hurt about what's behind me and what WE lost. I may be delusional and way off, but I thought that we had something that was pretty good. The sad part is that no one can make me feel better at this point, not even her. A time machine would be the only thing that could help either move me forward or move me back to before she wrecked everything or perhaps in her eyes fixed everything. I'm not blind to there being two sides to every story, but in my eyes we both lost out and nobody really won. I don't think I'm that awesome and in fact, probably 1 in 150 not million, but we were pretty good friends aside from being husband and wife. Regardless, making it through today will feel like an accomplishment. Five hours to go.

Last thing, after bouncing it off family and friends there is absolutely no way, no matter if I am not drinking or anything, that I can attend my friend's wedding who is marrying my ex-wife's sister. No way. An out of country blackout with no cell phone would be a better alternative for everyone. I'll see if anything changes in the next month, though. Will probably just stop by with a toaster and a handshake prior to the wedding and say congratulations.

How boring. Today is all about me. Haven't been inspired lately. Perhaps if I have a few this weekend I will post and be funny.

Today's Pro Tips:
Benefit of the Doubt means assume the worst.

When chipping onto the green try putting your feet together and your hands in front of the ball on your downswing-keep your head down.

Get out of REITs before the real estate bubble bursts.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three make a left in San Francisco.

Far Better or Far Worse

Feeling real bad for the last couple of days. I guess it would be depressed. Just low self-confidence, lonely and a little sad, but putting up a good front and putting up a good fight. Therapist says that I need to let it happen and not fight it, but that sounds miserable. So, going into the weekend I am not supposed to worry about how much I smoke, if I am eating enough or if I am acting all right. I just feel like I am crazy and can't be around other people because they will think that I am weird. However, it is going to get worse before it gets better, which sucks, because I felt that I had already bottomed out and that things would only improve as time went on. This is not true, I guess. Hopefully, it is just a stall. Anyway, the world is not going to pull over and wait for me, so I've gotta push it along.

I am tracking my smoking in a spreadsheet to try and figure out how horrible it is going to be for me to quit based on a report by the Royal College of Physicians in London. Based on what I read, I got rid of the morning smoke with coffee and now I am trying to push it out later and later until I can make it until the end of the day. According to the report, there is no effect related with smoking that alleviates stress and instead it may aggravate it. This doesn't make sense to me because I swear it makes me feel better, but it may not be the actual smoking.

Michael Bay is going to direct a live-action version of transformers. While all the dorks are dressed up as Autobots and Decepticons I will be the one in the fake moustache so I can keep my street cred coolness. Hundred bucks says G.I. Joe the movie is made next. "Uh, American movie-going population? Hollywood left this message for you. It says: Dear movie-going public we are totally out of ideas so we will just remake everything until we can start remaking the remakes. P.S. - We are going to start basing movies on commercials and company trademarks to just cut through the shit, so look for Cap'N Crunch the movie. Here is the synopsis: The Cap'n and his crew called the Crunchberries are looking for the long missing General Mills' treasure of delightful and nutritious goodness enriched with Vitamin B in the cape of the Rusty Spoon."

Fianlly, Joe Buck should punch himself in the face for being such a slave to the man. Of course, it is hard to find this one in USA Today because they would lose advertisers. Joe Buck pointed out a planned banner which was a plug for a new model of Chevy. Call me crazy, but is he trying to make it into the Carson Daly Hall of Fame for sucking up to the man? Next, you will see him kicking it in the Hamptons with Tara Reid, Kid Rock and Tom Brady. Bob Costas kicks the ass of him in street cred, man. I'm not going to advocate shooting your television a la the King, unless you have a backup, but watch with caution. You may be being hypnotized.

Until next post, I will be hanging in there doing my (no)thing and taking calls from my mom, dad and sister.

Crab Feed

Getting super crabby today. A woman ordered a Caramel Macchiato with extra caramel this morning at Starbucks and I wanted to hit her in the back of the head to try and make our civilization a better place. She should've just asked for a banana and scoop of ice cream in it and really gone for it this morning. Speaking of that, chicken fries at Burger King brilliant or crazy? The meat shake a la Ugly Duckling is so close. Taste the secret, man.

Also, new gripe. The spelling of vaccuum totally bugs me. It's like the multiple allowable spellings of Cancelled (Canceled). We should pass something and choose one. I like the double "L" myself.

What is the real problem going on with me is what I need to figure out. Of course, it bothers me that I have a wife that doesn't love me anymore and is dating someone else. I don't know much, but that almost makes it worse. How can she be normal and happy when my life feels like a Where's Waldo cartoon, just meaningless and confusing...and dumb and played out. However, just like the last election, you can be pissed, but if you are pissed it is an uphill battle and useless. You can just accept or wallow and usually those waver.

DRINKING. Yes, I do it again, occasionally. It's an experiment. I am starting another phase to see if I quit again if I will feel better. I didn't feel better before when I had quit for 7 weeks so the two things could be unrelated. On the fence about AA again, though.

Apartment is coming along. Need some bookshelves and and need to put all the DVDs away, but I can cook things, work at my computer and have a good couch to sit on. Need to finish the living room, have a housewarming party with my three friends and my mom and dad. Then, I can start working on the bedroom. The toilet is crooked I think. I haven't set a level on it yet, but it is starting to bother me a little bit.

SMOKING. Hate that I smoke, but I think it is helping me when I feel overwhelmed lately. All mental, of course. I am so mental lately. I am going to try and chart the number of cigarettes that I smoke a day in a spreadsheet. I'll put the chart on my fridge. Also, want to quit smoking in my car and also quit smoking at half time during soccer games. Missed 4 goals last Sunday. That is sad. Don't know if that is related to smoking. New experiment.

When will this therapy start working. I should probably just take the meds and forget any of this is happening. Speaking of meds, I am off of Tylenol PM to sleep. Finally, I get a point in this crappy game. At least it won't be a clean sheet.

Here are some cool things:
The Rasterbator
Dynamo from Trader Joe's mixed with Pelligrino
Sondra Lerche-Norway's Donovan
The Decemberists-Brilliant songwriting and all their gear got stolen earlier this year so support them by buying shirts and crap
Daryl Hall has Lyme Disease-You would think this would be John Oates chance to throw the game winning touchdown, but instead the men who brought you H2O would rather reschedule the end of the game. You could tell John Oates had thrown in the towel when he shaved off his moustache.

Well....?BUTRIN

I can tell how good I am feeling on a particular day by the amount of cigarettes that I smoke before noon, which is gross anyway. I was down to 1 to 3 a day before my wife and I got separated. One thing about this whole situation is that I will never spell separate wrong again. So, anyway, this morning when I was getting ready for work I saw Wellbutrin, Zoloft and a box of Nicotine patches in my medicine cabinet. None of them have been opened because I am trying to do this on my own, but I have been thinking about quitting smoking.

If I could take a pill and never want to smoke again, would I take it? I don't know. It's kind of like Madison in Splash. Would I want to give up being a mermaid forever to be with Tom Hanks? No. Or how about when Superman gave up his powers to be with Lois Lane in the movie. He then gets his ass handed to him in a bar fight. All of a sudden, he is not such a big fan of not having superpowers. He goes back, so in this example, figuratively starts smoking again. This actually is a recurring theme in many myths and stories. I guess smoking isn't a talent or superpower, though. An argument to that would be Michael Madsen, who makes smoking look so good...

I was playing my guitar last night with my screendoor open and my neighbor introduced himself and commented on my Hammer-Ons. So awesome.

Hmmmmm

Drank on Sunday. 4 beers in 4 hours. Responsible. Drank on Monday. Probably could have drank less, but it's still an experiment. Regardless, killed the taboo of it. It's not such a big deal anymore. Trying to figure out if it was the cause for me feeling bummed out yesterday, but I think even without the drink I would have been bummed. Holidays will probably be doing that to me for a while. It's just frustrating and disappointing that the wife has a boyfriend and stuff and goes to visit him on 3 day weekends. Of course, she asked me to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it's pretty hard to think of anything that she is uncapable of when it comes to knife twisting in my back.

The new apartment is good and I've moved everything into it. Train is going to take some getting used to and apartment sized ovens suck. No take and bake for me for a while. That's probably a good thing. My couch rocks.

So, some things that have been bothering me lately. How can Starbuck's be out of coffee at 7:15 AM? Did I surprise them by wanting coffee in the morning? I hate to watch as people walk away with 27 syllable non-fat, Chai anythings while I wait for a cup of coffee. They need to bring back the airpots. It's like going to go get gas in Oregon and HAVING to have someone pump it for you. Thank you Starbucks, but I can pump my coffee myself.

Tom cruise is lame. Duh. The SF Giants suck. Finally, people that do all of their laundry and take up all of the washers make me want to commit bizarre acts of crime upon them and not in a pleasurable way. I need to get back to work.

Another Wednesday and another afternoon of not being happy to be going through a divorce because my wife is dating someone. Useless feeling, though, because I wouldn't want her back either. Kind of a lose-lose situation, but at least I can do whatever I want now. I just have to figure out the whatever I want part. My question for the week is to figure out if I am alone, but not lonely or if I am lonely, but not alone. Thinking about that makes me really thankful for a great group of friends.