Hugh Voltage

Hey Stacy, This is Some Great Kool-Aid

2011-07-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

This is probably my bad for watching the first 30 minutes of The Social Network, but what the fuck?!?!?! Were the rights to Back of a Tampon Box taken? I watched The Pirates of Silicon Valley movie back in the day starring Noah Wylie as Steve jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates. That was interesting, if anything, because Anthony Michael Hall was playing Bill Gates. Social Network? One angry dwarf, spurned. Those four words plus "Justin Timberlake" can save you 90 minutes of your life. It was filmed very nicely, though, David Fincher is good. Also, Mark Zuckerberg's actual review of it in a bar to me one night was "I liked Fight Club better. Better ending." That was actually a perfect review.

So, anyway, the movie sprung a leak in my brain that I had been suppressing so as not to go fuckin' nuts. When I was a kid the future was jet packs and exploring space and defeating Russia. Now, the fact is this: Our economy, our future, our civilization and culture is driven by an application to send us personalized advertisements based on our personal information and also let us talk to people that in turn creates more information about us to send us more targeted advertisements and FUCKING COUPONS! It's one thing to respond to marketing. It's another thing to jump into bed with it and give it your spare key.

Really? Are we there now? Coupons and communication applications? Fucking Penny Saver and a goddamn phone. When you are in line for the Kool-Aid, look around you. Are these your peers? This has happened before. I said the same thing when Pets.com had free shipping on dog food and WebVan had free grocery delivery. You can tell something is not right. The numbers don't add up. Like, "Hey. Who left these free donuts here?" Don't ever get off the boat and don't ever eat the free donuts. Someone WILL send you a picture of the donuts on their dong. Anyone that invests in these overvalued IPOs will be getting a pic of a donut on a dong eventually. I can guarantee this.

So, let the "wealth" managers talk idiots into investing in overvalued stock that is going to lead us right down to a bunch of people feeling entitled to being bailed out and a bunch of investment firms that should feel guilty for kicking a retard in the mouth and we'll do it again. Seriously. It's coming and I think we earned it.

Shawful

2011-07-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

It's Friday and I'm doing a throwback to the search for the whack ass pattern in the iPod shuffle. I've got $50 on a triple shot of Beck. It's going to come out that people are paying to get into the shuffle algorithm someday.

1. Pie In The Sky by Frank Black
FB is rad. This is on Teenager of the Year which was my gateway for FB and the Pixies, but this song is just okay. In there and out of there, though. It doesn't waste your time and it's better than Linkin Park.

2. Friend of Mine by The National
Rules are rules. When Ryan Adams comes up 72 times on the shuffle, I've gotta wear it. This band belongs to someone else and I had it flagged to not show up in shuffle, but the new iPod refreshed and this comes up. I mean it's not like she owns this band, but we went and saw them so it reminds me of her. Plus, she really liked it. Music for wounded birds. What ever happened to happy music? The National is for drinking whiskey by yourself in a low lit room. They are awesome, but fuck man, if this music were a color it would be the grey of Eeeyore's fur.

3. Space Dementia by Muse
These dudes sucked Steve Jobs' dick or something. They are in the contest for most plays on shuffle with Ryan Adams and Beck. So, Muse is rad. They are surrogate for Radiohead's The Bends after Radiohead went Ok Compute. My homepiss Joel brought Absolution back from Europoe when he played there and we loved it. I downloaded their whole back catalog because it wasn't in the states yet and always wondered why their label thought it wouldn't sell here. Well, it sold. It got played on the radio. It got played during movie trailers and lo and behold, the record industry Blood Sugar Sex Magiced Muse for me. They just played that shit into the fuckin' ground and somewhere there are "kidz" singing a Muse song for a Kidz Bop album somewhere. Muse is bad ass, though. They write bad jams that are so secretly science fiction that you don't pick up on it on the first spin, but all their shit is about space. This song is not so secretly about space. If Carl Sagan started a band, it would be Muse.

4. Officer David Livingston ny The Shit (Ryan Adams)
Told you. Ryan Adams comes up constantly on shuffle. Need to uncheck this from the shuffle list, too. The song was only a minute long. Had no time to write anything about it. The Ryan Adams side project is pretty funny, though. I have enjoyed it in the past.

5. Jackson Cannery by Ben Folds Five
I know it's hella pussy to like Ben Folds, but I do. He's a rad songwriter and The Five has a great sense of humor. This is a bad jam, too. I couldn't tell you what it's about, but the bass on it does a great job of making a trio sound big.

6. Assemble The Empire by Sparta
This is when they still sounded like At The Drive In. This was the first album post breakup. Now, somewhere down the line after this they turned into fuckin' U2. I swear to God, I could play one of their songs off of Porcelain for Bono and he would lawyer up. It's a good band. This was the first song I ever heard by them off of a downloaded rough demo.

7. Carpal Tunnel Slug by Buckethead
Another favorite of the shuffle. There are 11,000 songs on this iPod and all I get are The National, Ryan Adams, Butch Walker, Beck, and Buckethead. Elvis? Hasn't come up once on shuffle. Now, Buckethead jams, but it's like Q-Bert to a DJ; this isn't something I'm going to have playing at a BBQ, but dud fuckin' jams. He also uses nunchuks live and is batshit crazy. Good guitar tones. Interesting composition on writing tunes. Not enough live drumming on most of his stuff, though. Now, legato? For daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaays.

8. In God's Country by U2
And there's U2. Dude, shuffle is a scam. This is all premeditated. There was a fucking u2 iPod. Of course they are going to come up on shuffle. If you are going to do U2, you might as well listen to Joshua Tree. I go hot and cold on U2. I'm admittedly not a huge fan of all the echo that Edge uses. When he is just banging on an acoustic I can get behind it. Finally, U2 is interesting and they really do mean well, I think. Yeah, Bono, comes off as bigger than life and they charge $250 for tickets to watch them on giant screens, but they mean well.

9. I Ain't Tha 1 by N.W.A
All I have to say about this song is "Are We There Yet?" Seriously, what happened to Ice Cube. He used to be hella street. Now he's just countin papes like Ice-T. Hollywood came knocking and just leaving piles of money on their porches. Money will take a dude away from the streets. It did with me. i used to be hella street.

10. Vulnerability by Operation Ivy
This is pretty much where it all started. The shit actually kind of holds up relatively well. It just reminds me of being 16 and going to Berkeley Square for rock shows. This generation underneath us is fucked going to $180 Bieber shows. The rock show quite possibly could be dead. It's definitely scarce. There are also a lot of fakers trying to pass as real rock shows. A rock show isn't sponsored by Red Bull.

11. Hole in the Earth by The Deftones
These guys are so rad. They can do no bad in my book. I'm never like "Oh, that shit is so played" on a Deftones jam. There tones are distinctive and you immediately know when it's a Deftones song. That's such a good quality in a band that is a little lost these days...said the jaded fading hipster.

Side Note:Here is a sentence that you should never ever hear: "Oh, I've got to stop by my travel agent and then swing by Blockbuster and rent some movies for the kids tonight."

12. Autumn in New York by DJ Reggie (Ryan Adams side project)
It's absolutely insane late night bullshit, but he mentions Revenge of the Ninja sometimes. There was a nice morning just kicking it and listening to DJ Reggie jams in bed, but it's music for another time and place. It will be removed.

13. Dreamer in My Dreams by Wilco
This is off of Being There. It's also the name of an awesome Peter Sellers movie. It was my first Wilco album and I was like "Hmmm. Let's see what all this Wilco business is about." It's a great fuckin' double album. There newer shit smokes it, but there are some really deep jams on this album. This song isn't really my favorite. I don't like honky tonk so much. Honky tonk just has way too much tonk in it. This song is also like 2 minutes too long.

14. Backseat Love by N.E.R.D
Dude, I don't even know how this is on my iPod. If Adele comes up today, I'm going to get mad. There is some Gwen Stefani and Black Eyed Peas (pre-fergification) in there, too. It's one thing for a girl to leave underwear or a sock at your house, but Adele on your iPod? Amoxicillin won't get rid of that. This song blows. Rules are no skipping, though. I think it might be about anal sex. It's hella boring. Anal sex and the song. Anal sex with choking in a clown suit? Now, that is interesting.

15. Evening Star by Judas Priest
This is off of Hell Bent For Leather. How did hessians miss that clue in the album title? They could have called the album "Sucking Dicks on the Weekend" and dudes still wouldn't have got the hint. The thing a lot of people don't know about Judas Priest is they really aren't that heavy. Their music sounds like fuckin' Boston or Bad Company at some points. Adults just got scared of all that leather. I went and saw these dudes last year and I'm not being homophobic or anything, I'm just calling it as a I see it, there were some super gay points of the show. It's not meant to be derogatory, it's meant to be used as an adjective. This song is just meh.

16. Erase You by DJ Shadow
This is off of Outsider which was kind of a trip. Shadow had some hyphy shit and some Cold Play shit on the album and I didn't really know what to think, but a not as good DJ Shadow album is a lot better than a lot of other things. The beat on this is sick. The thing about DJ Shadow is you WILL get some sick beats.

17. The Reaping by Coheed & Cambria
the songs are about comic books and space, but these dudes have riffs for days. The lead singer takes a bit to get past and some people never make it, but if you can do Rush, you can do Coheed & Cambria. Riffs and bad ass solos. that is Coheed & Cambria.

18. Little Journey by The Avalanches
Probably the most interesting record I have ever stumbled upon. The sample selection is crazy as fuck. It's almost like Paul's Boutique the way he works samples together from old travel albums and modern jams. This CD is one of the crown jewels of my music collection.

19. Fizzy Lipton Drinks by Buckethead
This is heavy. Also heavy? The love that iPods have for Buckethead. Seriously?!?! A Steven Seaweed Threefer Madness is going to happen on this shuffle test. This song is off of Elephant Man's Alarm Clock and actually is pretty cool. The only thing, though, is if you don't play guitar this is not going to interest you. It's like Satriani not for general contractors and pressure washers. I don't know anyone else who listens to Buckethead. I don't know anyone else who really would. Oooh. There is a hidden track on this song. The track just goes quiet for a 3 minute gap and then starts rocking again. The hidden jam would say "Hey, I can play hella fast" if jams could talk. I am naming this hidden track "Still Life With Envelope Filter." This is why the days of CDs will be missed. The mp3 will destroy and maim music as we knew it. Fuck, records sound better than mp3s at this point.

20. Que Onda Guero by Beck
I fuckin' called it. I could pull these artists off of my iPod and Beck and Ryan Adams would still come up on shuffle. I've got nothing against Beck, but I'm dying to know how Apple programmed their shuffle. Does it honestly go grab U2, Beck, Ryan Adams and The National first and then spice it up with some random tunes to seem legit like it's not just playing the same shit over and over again?

21. The Stars Look Down by Rush
This is off of Vapor Trails after Neil Peart wife and daughter passed away in a tragic car accident. Rush was almost done, but dude went soul searching and came back a new man. I have a ton of respect for that. As far as Rush goes, I saw them last weekend and they are just monsters. Every one of them is the master of their instrument. Neil Peart hits his kit with purpose and perfection. The drum solo is a little lame at this point, but I could watch him play drums all day. Geddy Lee? Dude, a bass off between Steve Harris from Maiden and Geddy Lee from Rush would make the world spin backwards. I've seen them a couple times and they just get better as they get older. They definitely got me fired up on Rush again. This album, though? Not as awesome as Hemispheres. Dont' get me wrong, though. Rush is hella bad.

22. Plug In Baby by Muse
11,000 songs and it grabs two Muse songs off of Origin of Symetry. What are the odds of that? 2 in 11,000. That's .018%. So, here is how Muse works. The bass player plays classical triads to move the song along and the guitar adds the accents. That's how they make it work as a trio. It's actually really interesting and good and it's not their fault tha they got Blood Sugar Sex Magiced. I can still listen to them occasionally. They just always sound so...desperate? They are the soundtrack for the end of the world.

23. Instrumental 1 by Wilco
This is from the never released Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album that Warner refused to release and eventually got Wilco dropped from their label. It's documented in the movie I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. This version of the album is preferred in some circles. Jeff Tweedy leaked it to the Internet after the band was dropped from the label. What a savage. it's actually really cool to hear the differences between the songs on each album and some of the songs ended up as B-sides. This is what you need to know. Wilco is good. This song is pretty cool, as well. Just a mellow little piano ditty.

24. Conversation 16 by The National
.018% chance of this happening and it did. God, they are good, though. It just sucks that it's tainted. It's like going to your favorite restaurant and then getting home and getting the flu. You kinda blame the restaurant for it and don't want to go back. The thing is, though, the restaurant is still good. It's not the fault of the food provider. So, yeah, The National, gets fucked because I still get hung up on some exes. You can't just hoard your music, though. You have to share it with the caveat that you could lose it. I suppose it's the same as sharing some of those deep, dark feelings you have with someone you trust that will eventually just walk away like you weren't never there at all. This song is actually one of their more awesome songs. This album became the darling of Pitchfork last year. The luric "'Cuz I'm evil" is particularly good. Somewhere there is a picture of these dudes with myself and a friend in it.

25. Perfect Timing by David Lee Roth
Finally shuffle is comin' up Jauge. Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan and David Lee Roth? So sick. The opening riff is so awesome. The keyboards could be turned down in the mix, but who am I to question David Lee Roth. I sometimes get this riff stuck in my head. Those are good riffs when they do that.

26. Corduroy by Pearl Jam
I recently hung out with a girl that said this was her favorite Pearl Jam song. We discussed exchanging music and books and things were going real good. Then my buddy told me that he thought she was too old for me and should not date anyone older than me. For my final trick with her, I had a bottomless champagne brunch and stunt drank with her next to me. The idea was to drink enough champagne to drink on the house's money. I did and flipped the J.J. Show switch and we haven't talked since. We probably won't. Old habits die hard, but problem solved. It kinda sucks, but I think deep down, the guy driving this boat knows what he is doing. I hope. If not, we're fucked. Oh, as for the song, it's actually pretty good. This was the last Pearl Jam album that I bought and recently I've been listening to them again and they are a really cool band that just kept trudging through the end of grunge and came out on top by defying genre.

27. Snowden by The Doves
Dark, depressing, d'awesome. That's how I describe The Doves. Joelge got me into them and they really are dope. It's a soundtrack for a Sunday when you haven't talked to anyone in three days and you don't really see any chance of any human interaction for the rest of the day so you throw this on and read a book and enjoy being alone. That is The Doves. I don't share them. I want to keep them for me.

28. Crack The Skye by Mastodon
This song is radical. Science fiction and comic nerds have left their basements and picked up guitars and turned it to 12. The Sword, Coheed & Cambria and Mastodon are all nerds that just rock the shit out of everything. This whole album is incredible. They aren't the best live band, but may be one of the loudest. They play their music perfect, but that's the problem with their live show. It's almost too perfect. Their guitar lines are awesome in the way they are all crunchy and then get all loose and play single note lines that just sound gigantic. They are masters of sound dynamics. They are also still big dorks.

29. Cro-Magnon by Mr. Lif
This dude is smart. This is good hip-hop that you will never hear on the radio. So, go find it. Discover music and don't wait for it to be forced on you. Pro tip.

30. Get Yo' Feet Back On The Ground by Tower of Power
Best drummer ever in this band and from Pleasanton. I can't say enough about this band so I won't bother, but this record changed my fuckin' life. After I heard it, everything was different about music. The way I looked at my guitar was different. The way I listened to music changed. It made me feel insecure about my honky pox. It's just so funky and in the pocket, it's ridiculous. It makes me miss the East Bay like a Casper's dog does. Oh, and my family and stuff, but Tower of Power and a Casper's dog sounds like my Ben & Jerry's flavor called East Bay Grease. Crazy modulation on the fade out. Band nerds can make rad funk.

Gonna go build something at work now. A disaster recovery database. Seriously. When the shit goes down, everyone in the room will be looking at me hoping that my app on a thumbdrive is going to get us through it. Scary.

Negative Ghostrider

2011-06-15T08:55:00.001-07:00

Have you ever been walking to work (not slowly and not staring at your goddamn phone) and had someone come up from behind you while jogging and they just lightly graze you as they pass as if it could possibly be on purpose like some kind of Maverick-buzzing-the-tower kind of move? If that has happened, have you ever started lightly jogging behind them just to kind of freak them out? It's a totally creepy move and highly recommended. Here's how it works:

1. Find an area with a heavy and consistent jogging population.

2. Walk nonchalantly while paying attention to your surroundings and wait for your moment. You get bonus points for finding one of those real serious jogging types. Usually you can tell by the bottoms that they are wearing. You can tell the ballers from the hobbyists.

3. When you find your mark, let them pass you and then BAM! throw a fucking headband on and just start jogging next to them, but don't say anything. Just act like it's totally normal.

Point A to Point Break

2011-06-14T13:14:00.001-07:00

We just got a new student intern in our department that I've deemed "Nerdy Betty." I'm not even sure if it is a girl yet. It honestly might take an ultrasound to figure that one out. I'm at a loss at this point.

So, I take mass transit for all of the hot chicks that do it and also because there is no parking at work at 7:15 AM. It's totally convenient for where I live and I actually really enjoy it at this point. I hate driving now. I have a brand new Civic that has 612 miles on it at the moment and it's been three months since i bought it.

There are some drawbacks, though. A rigid schedule and occasional late trains can be a hassle, but it's all part of the deal. I can accept that. Giants trains can also be a little full and you don't really get a seat, but I can deal with that. The shuttle once I get to work can sometimes be crowded and the asshole next to me can sometimes bleed over into my assigned seat space because he thinks he is home on his couch in his underwear with one ball hanging out while he watches "Biggest Loser" while eating a bucket of KFC, but I'll deal with that, as well.

The thing that I can't stand is fucking slow walkers. There are variants of them and I'm convinced that there is a conspiracy of slow walkers conspiring against me in some kind of fucked up cabal dedicated to slowing down my life's progress. There is a simple rule in getting from one point to another and that is a straight line as fast as you can. An object in motion must remain in motion. It's just efficient. Some people, though, aren't of that persuasion. They honestly must have nowhere to go or are just waiting to be stomped on by a predator like a wounded gazelle.

The first slow walker is the "I Don't Where I Am" walker. They will take a few steps forward and then a few diagonal and then back right in front of you and then just stop and look around like they have lost their bearings after 9 steps. They aren't aware of the fact of the surge of people trying to catch the fuckin' train and for all intents and purposes are the only living human being on the face of the Earth. They should probably just sit down and quit trying.

The second slow walker is the "Person With Kids" slow walker. This type is complete chaos and absolutely unpredictable. They could absolutely be existing on two or more separate planes of existence at the same time and their movements can only be described in a fourth dimension of reality. With the child chaos factor, even on a tree diagram of possible outcomes, their movements cannot be predicted. They are the Schroedinger's Cat of the slow walkers. They are in front of you at the same time as not being in front of you. They are all possible outcomes that only exist once you have observed them. There is also a modifier on this slow walker when you add a stroller or a dog. Seriously, it would take a graphing calculator and a Cray supercomputer to evade their walking pattern. You are going to get stuck behind this one.

A third slow walker was discovered yesterday. Sadly, the best name I have for him is "Guy Holding His Polo Shirt Out At 10 and 2 Like He's Driving" slow walker. This one's a trip. I was stuck behind him making a break to Trader Joe's to buy groceries with about 10 minutes of allotted time to spare. I was stuck in a walkway and trying to figure out a way around him without hitting trees that were lining the walkway or cafe tables on the other side of the walkway. His moves were subtle and you could kinda get a cue on where he was going by where he pointed his shirt with his "10" or "2," but he was also throwing some fakes in there. He was crafty for sure. It was like watching for signals from a level boss in a Nintendo game.

A fourth slow walker is the "Lean Back And Walk Like You Are Browsing A Mall" slow walker. These people drive me crazy. It's that slow shuffle from left to right with 60% of your weight located 7 inches behind the balls of your feet. I've totally caught myself doing it. It happens. It's cool, but you don't do it around transit machines that work on a set schedule. I'll admit that I will occasionally mock these motherfuckers when I'm stuck behind them, though. Missed a fucking train once because of one of these. These people are the people that stand on escalators and don't walk up them.

There are definitely more types that I'll find today. You never really know until you are behind them, but trust me, they live among us.

So, I think the whole thing that bugs me is the lollygagging. I'm a man that moves from one point to another with purpose even if there is no real purpose at my destination. I'm a destination lollygagger and not a journey lollygagger. From my desk to the printer at work? Head down and straight at it. To the bathroom? Head down, body leaning slightly forward and right to it. I may not be doing shit, but at least I look like it. I think I may start stepping on the backs of their shoes and yelling "Flat Tire!" at them. It's just hard to figure out what they are going to do even at a low rate of speed. It's the tai-chi of point A to point B and the slow walkers have mastered it.

AC/DC/E/F/G

2011-06-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

I don't like meatloaf. Never will. It makes me uncomfortable the way they shape meat into a loaf like bread. Bread and meat are delicious as separate entities, but when mashed together it is not a peanut butter and chocolate moment to me. It's also because as a youth I was forced to eat it by my stepdad one night. It was an epic meeting of two stubborn motherfuckers at the dinner table. He was new and I was adjusting to him as a patriarch. He was doing the same adjusting to me as a sort of son. We sat at that fuckin' table for three hours while I picked at it and choked it down. That is probably the other reason that I won't eat it. This is a metaphor for life. I don't do well when forced to do something and will often throw a wooden shoe in the gears of the mechanism that is forcing me to do something either in the form of self-destruction which diffuses the whole situation a la pushing the big red button and blowing it all to pieces or leaving something in the results to fuck with the forcer later down the road.

This brings me to last weekend. The goal was to find two priest costumes and a Jesus costume for a mini Cannonball Run that I'm participating in at the end of the month. The idea is to pay homage to Cannonball Run while also committing heresy. I was raised religiously as a child or should I say religion was forced on me as a child and now I will occasionally say things that would be viewed as improper in a church setting. Well, not improper, but not popular in that type of setting.

Jesus was easy. Beard, hessian wig and crown of thorns. To match my Jesus keychain, we picked up a Caesar robe. It seemed kind of ironic that a Caesar robe was the robe that matched the keychain model that we were using.

The priest outfits were not so easy. You figure black pants and that priest shirt with a collar would be pretty basic. It wasn't. At the costume store all they had were priest outfits with ten year old boys sewn to the crotch and inflatable boners. Who's the heretic now? We tried a police uniform store and still nothing. We got a referral to a Christian bookstore and I started getting uncomfortable. Like meatloaf uncomfortable. I didn't want to go in one. It felt really wrong.

So, we called it and they closed at 1:00 PM. It was 2:00 PM. I dodged a bullet, but in the voice message at the place they used the term "Church Goods" and it turns out this is the proper term for finding Jesus gear. A Google search later, we end up heading up to South San Francisco to Western Jesus Supply or something like that.

On the way up El Camino Real, past the largest smattering of dive bars I have ever seen in my life, we established our cover story. We were going to say that we were making a student film about religion and needed the priest shirts for that. We weren't the directors and we were just sent out to get the shirts. It was pretty solid.

We got to South San Francisco after passing the See's candy factory (awesome!) and went into the store. My buddy looks at me and goes "Dude, keep it cool. You can do this." I had a smoke and went into the store after him.

He was outed immediately by the saleswoman as not being a priest and she asked him why he needed the shirt. Thank Go...Thankfully, we had the cover story. I browsed the store and couldn't believe all the Jesus gear. Some of it was super cool. There were 50 different sets of rosary beads and a statue of the patron saint of real estate for help in selling your house. I wish I was lying about that last part.

As my buddy is getting rung up, a car pulls up to the stop light outside the store and I hear music blaring through the open door of the Jesus supply store. I recognize it immediately and under my breath say "Listen, dude. Listen to the music from that car."

My buddy was like, "What, Dude?" and started listening.

Out of the car blares "Won't take no prisoners. Won't spare no lives. Nobody's putting up a fight. I got my bell, I'm gonna take you to hell. I'm gonna get you, satan get you."

I'm losing it, doing that breath through your nose, bite your lip thing to stop from laughing and blowing everything as you can hear the chorus of "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC as the car drives away.

It was totally weird, but we got the gear. We went and visited one of the old drummers from my band that worked down the street for a bit and talked about hooking up later.

We did some early evening drinking in Saturday night shirts when we got home and called the old drummer on a lark. He said he was going to an AC/DC cover band that night and would pick us up and we were like "We're in. We kinda have to go." We had come completely full circle.

I'm not really superstitious, but I do have to admit that something extremely coincidental is going down. I'm kinda on the lookout for things now. If the walls of my apartment start bleeding and locusts swarming, I may have to call it off and admit that I was wrong, but for now, I'm just kinda on heightened alert to my surroundings. I'm not ready to eat crow yet.

A House Is Not Home

2011-01-25T10:56:00.000-08:00

The living situation has reached a fever pitch. Like a fever pitch that is purely low and outside and just walked in the game winning run of the opposing team, ruining your career and sending you to the minors to rot pitch.

Over the recent holiday my breaker flipped, knocking out everything in my apartment. It wasn't the local breaker. It was the main breaker and my apartment was the only one in the complex that got knocked out. The next day they sent someone out around 5:00 PM to fix it. The dude was a little sketch. I opened the door when he got there and had two thoughts 1) I'm about to get home invaded and 2) Where the fuck did I leave my nunchucks?

So that incident wasn't that bad, however some ice cream was lost as collateral damage.

The next incident was two weeks ago. This one was similar, but it only knocked out the oven and the fridge. It knocked out the oven while baking (half-baking, technically) tiny pizzas from Trader Joe's. I had to push them across the finish line using the microwave and that resulted in ruining them. If you'd like the recipe for making disappointment, however, I've got it.

I called the property managers the next morning and asked them if they could send someone out to fix it and they said they would send someone out to fix it that day. This was after they asked me if I flipped the breaker. Yes, I fuckin' flipped the breaker. You can't just CTRL+ALT+DEL everything as a solution, asstard.

After I hung up the phone I peeked into the freezer at three kinds of ice cream and told them that they were going to be okay, but you could see that they were sweating. God knows what they would say if they could talk back.

Day goes by and no one shows up. Fantastic. Next day at around 6:00 PM the smell let me know it was time to let everything in the fridge go. I pulled the plug on the ice cream and tossed it away as if we had not grown closer than a man and his dog...that he eats over a 2 week period.

Three days and 5 phone calls later, they sent a dude out. It was a real electrician this time. He had tools. He checked out the wiring and did some test scenarios. Diagnosis? The wiring is fucked. The whole thing has to be redone. Headstones and bodies, man. When will people understand that you've got to do things full assed and not half?

So, anyway, I call the property managers about three times a day now trying to get out of my lease and no one answers. This whole electrical issue is just in addition to waking up to "Good Morning" on a Saturday as the neighbor wakes up her kid. There is also a Turkish debate that goes on every night at 11:30 that is followed by a Turkish marathon at about 2:00 AM. I'm sleeping with ear plugs now and feel like a fucking prisoner of my neighbors. I ordered a pizza from Dante's pizza the other night and instead of asking me which floor I lived on, he said "Apartment 20? Which ring is that on?" I know. Really forced and obscure reference. The walls of my apartment are so thin...How thin are they?...they are so thin that if I wiped a piece of fried chicken on them, I 'd be able to see through them.

Anyway, if I can't get out of the lease, I think I'll start growing weed in my apartment until they kick me out. If that doesn't work, I plan on training an illegal pet monkey to do my laundry and taking in a pet raccoon and naming him Gary Bandit. I'll have Gary Bandit drive a tiny Trans-Am up and down the hallway until all the neighbors demand that I be removed. Oh, shit. I think the work ecstasy is kicking in.

Scene From a Laundry Room

2010-12-14T12:03:00.001-08:00

The laundry machine in my illustrious apartment complex has been broken since this weekend. It's the machine that soaks and spins and not the unsoak machine. I resorted to going to the floor below mine and using their machine yesterday. It's no problem. A flight of stairs with an elevator option for the weak.

I crammed my way into the tiny room that houses the machines, a wash basin for the Amish and a bookshelf. I don't understand why there is a bookshelf in there, but it does make the surroundings much more intimate for multiplayer washing. I had never been in the room with another person until yesterday. Anyway, I threw my clothes in the machine and went back to my apartment to tidy up a bit.

I returned after 35 minutes and walked into the room to find what would later be identified as a woman staring at the drying machine...intently. I squeezed past her and thought to myself there is no way that I'm getting out of here without some form of physical contact and that contact should be avoided. Maybe I can go over her if I climb up on the machine, but then it will be obvious that I'm avoiding her and I also may wreck my back.

She looked like she had not been out of the apartment for like six weeks and had not seen the sun in seven weeks. She had kind of a pale face with marks of adult acne scattered across it and was grinding her teeth. She looked at me kind of sideways and then left the room immediately.

My first thought was that she was reading my mind. That concerned me. When I started to think rationally in the situation, I decided that she was trippin' balls and hallucinated me as a demon or some type of laundry performing dragon and feared for her safety. That was a way better option than the mind reading, but that option has still not fully been discounted.

I managed to get out of the room without any type of physical contact and took that as a win in addition to getting my laundry dried on my floor which I promptly burned due to concerns of neighborly contamination. I think I'm going to stay off that lower floor, though. It's either that or fully investigate the situation. Sounds dangerous, though. Sounds a lot like Blair Witch Project meets Requiem for a Dream.

You're Doing It TRONg

2010-11-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

The other night I was out. Spoiler alert: I fell down stairs and hit my head. That's how it ended. I'll tell this story like that show The Event and just take a timeline, cut it up, throw it in a hat, and then tape it back together. Actually, that was Interzone, by William S. Burroughs. Dude, Robocop was in the movie adaptation of that book. God, Robocop was a good movie. For your information, Robocop and Starship Troopers are unsung cinematic masterpieces.

So, anyway, I'm playing shuffleboard with this dude and his friend and a girl that we'll call "random chick who has no idea what she is doing." I'm talking to dude's friend and he starts talking about his very very detailed camping plans for getting in line for the TRON premiere. Seriously. A month out, this guy is planning his...plan?

So, he had a tent planned, some lawn chairs, games to keep him busy, a bathroom plan and he kept going on and on and I was hanging on every word that came out of his mouth. I would kinda guess what he was going to say next, but think to myself, "No fuckin' way is he really going to say this" and then the words would come out of his mouth. I was floored. I should have started recording it. That's my bad. So, anyway, he goes on about his TRON plan for like 15 minutes and then paused and I pounced. I had to. I looked at him and just said, "Dude. You don't have a girlfriend, do you?" Do I even need to type his reply?

Wait! I don't have a girlfriend either. Fuck, this guy is way ahead of me in his TRON premiere plans. He's probably already in line and I don't even have lawn chairs or a tent or Jesus, I don't even have a bathroom plan. I can hear them already. "Oh, there's Ol' Hughge in the back of the TRON line. What a dork."

Oh, in addition to Robocop and Starship Troopers, Ice Pirates is six degrees of bad ass. The love theme from Ice Pirates would occasionally find its way through my guitar in live situations. Now, that my friend, is a passionate love scene I can get behind.

Don't. I know You.

2010-11-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

So, last night I did what any 35 year old man does after work: kicked the ass of Rock Band 3 on Expert guitar. There's a trick. Due to the fact that I play my guitroller with a pick and have a naturally quick hammer-on technique learned on the non-plastic variety of guitars, it takes two beers to slow down to match the computer's "speed." That's the sweet spot when I can just kill it. Seriously, after wiping the floor with Crosstown Traffic by Hendrix, the thought did in fact cross my mind to light the fucker on fire and just go straight Monterey on the lump of plastic's ass, but look at me, I'm not made of money. I believe I'm made of puppy dog tails, snails and something else. Oh, and like 60% water. Or, is that the Earth? Okay, either I or the Earth are made up of hella water...and puppy dog tails.

Anyway, I played Rock Band until my hand-eye went to Hard level. This is how I know that I've had a few too many and need to eat. I put on a t-shirt (this will be important in a second) with work pants, work socks and Adidas shelltoes. Just a fuckin' mess. I went across the street from my apartment and grabbed a Coors Light and chicken strips. This will be my meal right before they walk me to the electric chair. Wait. They don't electrocute people anymore, do they? So, my meal before...how do we kill incarcerated...got it.

Coors Light and Chicken strips will be my meal before they lethally inject me. I love how the state has to kill with kindness. Nice work on the math, lawyers and hippies. Seriously, do the math. Death probably should hurt. It fucking kills you. If you burn your mouth on a piece of too hot pizza it bugs the shit out of you for a week. Why should lethal injection be a peaceful experience if too hot pizza is super annoying for a week? They should get creative with it and air it on Fox. They could make Johnny Knoxville the executive producer and kill murderers with fucking wrecking balls and dynamite. Basically, treat them like army men or GI Joe figures. Throw ethics aside and get higher ratings than Jersey Shore. The American public is ready for it for now. Yeah, as a society we may get smarter than a sixth grader and look at the world differently, but now we just drool in a lean cuisine and watch fucking talent shows and spectacles of social atrocities that we call reality.

So, I eat, whatever and decide that I need social interaction. This is always how it starts. I roll down to the cougar den down the street from my house and there is a table of people out front and one of them calls me by name and tells me to sit down with them. It's four girls and three dudes. I know none of them. One of them knows me. I introduce myself to everyone and I can tell that they are a little tipsy, but I'm a man with no pointed fingers so I grabbed a Coors Light and sat down with them.

One of the girls (women) was kinda fucked up and started talking about driving. I advised her not to with glamorous stories of 9 month programs and cleaning up the city of Cupertino. I raked the shit out of Cupertino, motherfucker. There was not a leaf on the ground for 9 weekends. I talked her out of it and she made the brilliant move of asking her friend to follow her home. I mentioned that that was a great way to have your friend watch you hit a lamp post, but whatevs.

Instead, I suggested that both of them chill for a little bit and not drink and then I would let them make whatever decision that they wanted to. The friend said, "Fuck that. I've gotta go." I told her that I would tell her funny stories for a half hour and she wouldn't even notice that the time went by. She sat down next to me and I told her stories. Her name was Melissa. She was actually really cute and friendly.

So, I made her laugh for a half hour and she grabbed her friend and they walked home. Smart move. Anyway, as they walked away, the Melissa girl yelled over her shoulder, "Hugh, your shirt's on backwards." I looked down and it was. It had been since I left the house. I switched it around and returned to the table where the dude who knew me looked at me and said, "Dude. You fucked up. She totally wanted you, but you made no moves. Why aren't you more aggressive?" This was the point where I looked at him and asked "Where do I know you from again?"

This Is Gonna Hurt On the Count of 1...2...

2010-11-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

So, it's been since July. Where do I start? What do I remember? It'll probably help if we just look at it like a TV show. I stopped writing because things became ridiculously unanonymous. Probably my self-promotion gene, but whatever. So, every person that I'm about to write about will probably read this. Some of them will probably tell me to "Fuck off." It's all part of the game, though.

So, if it were a TV show, it's like season 4 or 5. Recently, the show changed settings. I finally moved...impulsively. My neighbors are the loudest and most fucked up derelicts that I have ever been this close to in proximity since I lived at home with my family in high school (kidding guys). There is the Loud Family on Section 8. There is the negligee neighbor with like 42 kids who got arrested the second week I was there. There is my upstairs neighbor family that is extremely active at 1:00 AM. I do, however, love the new town. I lived there with my ex-wife about ten years ago and even put a hole in my leg playing "You Love the Bushes" with her one night right up the street from my current apartment.

Next, we are getting tons of cameos from seasons 1 and 2. Cat Lady is back and going through some personal stuff that we talk about sometimes and has recently been renamed #2 in reference to 3#. #1 is the ex-wife. The numbers are references to the number of times that I have been smittstant (instantly smitten). Shit, #2 hit me from about 30 yards away. Recently, in dealing with #2's problems, I've seen some things come to light that were pushed down deep in the recesses of my traitorous brain that came back to me for processing. These things have led to me trying to quit #3. I tried to have something with her and lost some friends over it. It didn't work. Need to find a #4, but these things only happen, on average, every ten years. Another cameo is a girl that I treated really crappy during my self-medication phase. She really liked me and I probably could have made something out of it, but I was an asshole. She let me know that I broke her heart this weekend over a text message and said that she'd still get drunk and do me, but she doesn't really like me anymore. So, that's your cast. I'll expand on that later.

Now, recent episodes? Hmmm. There is the one where a guy choked me and I got in a fight. Walked away luckily. Still trying to figure that one out. There are some nice episodes, as well. Had a really great time at the Bridge School Benefit with one of the best dinners ever afterwards. It quickly turned to shit, but as far as moments go, that was a nice one. There is the episode of watching the Giants win the World Series while sober with my monkey stepson who also stayed sober. That was a weird episode. I made out at a train station with a girl with a boyfriend one night. She said that I was a good kisser. I got propositioned by two cougars for a threeway at karaoke. That was really really weird. I turned it down. Not quite there yet. Plus, I settle for nothing less than 4. One of the cougars also had these giant fuckin' Elway teeth. I'll be honest, I was a little frightened. She may have been a werewolf.

All right, I'm out of stuff at the moment, but will try to remember something from the last 4 months. Also, probably need to expand on the fucked up relationship dynamics that I'm discovering. I'll be honest. I'm doomed and kind of just accepting it now. It falls somewhere between Jerry Seinfeld and Charlie Brown. You know that Charlie Brown actually never got the girl and then Charles Schulz died therefore making Charlie Brown eternally lonely, right?

Waiting For Sunday by Far

2010-07-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

Song of the day:
http://tinysong.com/uMU5

I'm always frightened
I wear my helmet every day
I'm scared the sky might tumble down from heaven
I blame my neighbors
I wish that they'd all move away
They're all on welfare, kill babies, pass bad laws, start all the wars
I wait for a miracle
I go to big building, I pray
I dance with demons, they whisper my fate
Scare me into thinking I'm saved
We're all so tired
We wear our raincoats every day
To keep the wet and wind and world out
Waiting for Sunday

Buy the album here.

People Talk By Talking

2010-06-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

Just a smattering of some of the dumb conversations from this weekend.

First one:
I was out with a friend and stepped out of the bar for a smoke. The bouncer asked me to watch the door, so I asked him what the date was and started a short sentry duty. There was a chick, her date and some random dude talking for a bit. It turned into arguing and then the chick and her date went inside. The third wheel turned to me and said "Hey dude. What's like the most superior chord in the United states?"

I thought for a second and replied "A minor seventh."

He looked back quizzically and really confused and I said "Fine. C major then. All white keys on the piano. No sharps or flats."

Still confused, he just stared at me and said "No. Most superior court!"

I just replied "Oh, the Supreme court you retard. Why?"

Then he told me he was trying to impress the girl he was talking to because she was a lawyer and he was a doctor.

I told him to lay off. She was on a date and he was in no condition to impress even if he was a doctor. He then showed me some kind of doctor card and I told him that I had totally lost interest in the conversation even if he had a doctor card.

Second one:
Lawyer chick comes back out and looks at me sitting on the stool next to the door.

"I don't like your shirt."

I replied "Okay. Sorry about that."

She then said "I don't like your glasses."

I said "All right. How about my shoes?"

She looked at my shoes for a bit and said "Your shoes are good. You have good hair, too."

I thanked her and said that I'd take two out of four.

She then asked to try on my glasses and I let her. She said "Last time I tried on someone's glasses I broke them."

I told her that it would be okay as long as I supervised the situation and she told me that I had a good prescription and I marked that down as three out of five. You take what you can get.

She went back inside after a brief introduction between us both and her date.

Third one:
After witnessing a guy with Down's syndrome get into a dance off to "It Takes Two" by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock, my friend and I left to go wait for our cab. On the way out, I nodded goodbye to the lawyer chick and she grabbed me by the face and kissed me. I apologized to her date and walked the fuck out.

As soon as I got out the door, I turned around and there she was with her date. First impulse was to remove my glasses and get punched in the face, but instead her date started talking to my friend about cars and she started talking to me about whatever. I went along with it and she knew my mom from court and also the judge that my mom works for a lot. Then she looks at me and says "Give me your hands."

I replied, "Why?"

She just replied authoritatively "Give me your fuckin' hands."

I was like whatever and gave her my hands. She took them and rubbed them across her stomach on the way to her hips and placed them firmly there and looked at me and said "Am I fat?"

I started giggling and just said "Seriously, hon? You're not fat and now take your date home and be nice to him."

I jumped in the cab with my friend and he goes "What the fuck was that?"

I just started laughing and told him that apparently I was the go-to guy when lawyer chicks think they're fat and that people are fucking weird.

Get Back, Jo Jo.

2010-06-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

"Man, I blew it. I blew it, man"
"Kumar, what were you doing in the freezer?"
"I don't know, man, I lose my touch, man."
"Did you ever have a touch to lose, man?"

So, strange turn of events this morning. I think my dad may be reading my blog. He called this morning and invited me out to my little brother's barbecue this Sunday. Super random. We talked briefly about nothing and then I went back to work. I told him that I would go, but I may flake. It would be pretty tough right now. Nothing to lose, though, I suppose. Plus, who would ever miss a trip to a real life alpaca farm.

This is funny and I am old. About five years ago, I blew out my L5 and the disc back there gets a little bit weird sometimes and will block nerves to my leg or just create havoc across my lumbar making it totally a pain above the ass to bend over or lay down. It's been fine for a while now.

So, on Wednesday, I'm at work and I go to the bathroom and I'm at the urinal and it just goes out. It felt like a strip of barbed wire running from my lower back up to the bottom of my neck and back down. I almost fell down. I got through the rest of the day, but had to leave a little early and go home and try and get it back into alignment. It wasn't happening and the next morning it was worse. I had to work from home and call in for a sub for soccer. That sucked.

I worked from home and it was actually quite brilliant. Ran into work for a sec and grabbed some documents that I needed and got more work done at home than I usually get done at work. Chased that at 3:00 PM with pool, iPod and Pynchon time. I'm determined to finish Against the Day and hit page 800 on Thursday. 300 more to go. Plan on finishing it this weekend. One thing to watch out for when working from home, though, don't go back to work with a sunburn. It shows lack of foresight.

The ironic thing is that I talked to my physical therapist out of the blue this weekend (think she was drunk) and she moved to the city finally. We talked some shit for a bit and then she joked that I should hurt myself and go back to her for physical therapy. I never went back to her after our second round of dates due to a conflict of interest. I told her that getting injured was a bit of a stretch and congratulated her for her move to the city. We don't date anymore or even talk much, but she enjoys telling me her horrible dating stories now and then and they are genuinely funny most of the time. She knows why the caged bird sings and also has a good sense of humor about it. I blame her for the back injury and think she may be a witch. Regardless, giving it two more days before checking back into physical therapy.

HughVoltage Show, Beta Version.

2010-06-03T11:30:00.001-07:00

I don't know where this is going, but I don't really have a proper outlet for it at the moment, so with a complete disregard for privacy, here it is.

Recently, I experienced a bit of emotional unsettlement. First reaction to disappointment was my old friend self-medication. The result was like that of being bitten by a dog. It failed miserably. After my medication trials of Memorial Day Weekend behind me, I tried hyper sleeping. I went to bed while it was still light out and woke up to the morning light after a slight 3:00 AM intermission. It was like living in Alaska. It was still a better alternative to self-medicating. Finally, this is a new thing, I reached out to friends and family to talk about things.

Started with a few friends and my sister. They were extremely supportive and helped immensely. They put a lot of things in perspective and expressed enough compassion to kill a small dog. It's just a few paper cuts on a heart. It's totally manageable.

Last night, it resulted in spending some time with my best friend I think I've got in my arsenal and his wife and his cute baby. We just watched a Giants game and ate ice cream and touched on the situation lightly. The situation is complicated and really logically unjustifiable. If you show up to the ice cream parlor and they don't have the flavor that you are looking for, there is no reason to sit and pout. Get a different flavor and fuckin' enjoy your ice cream. You STILL get fuckin' ice cream...unless you are lactose intolerant. If that's the case, you probably shouldn't get ice cream at all.

So, the reaching out project culminated with a just finished two plus hour conversation with my mom. The mom/son relationship is super complex and is really more of an old friends relationship. We fight like kids with each other. We hold grudges against each other and we even hurt each other a lot.

So, we talked about everything and started to get to the question of what prevents me from being happy. My dad and the old times were brought up and we started talking about my childhood. She started talking about how I was the happiest kid in the world and I told her that I didn't really remember a lot. I just remembered painful moments. It made no sense because she said I was the happiest kid in the world and everyone adored me. Based on this, the HughVoltage show may have been going on for longer than I thought. She told me about the time when I was two and a half and ran away. I had no recollection of it and she said, "Let me be your memory." At that point, I felt the bees starting to swarm in my chest and my allergies set in.

It was actually a really funny story. Apparently, we had been driving home from somewhere and I pointed at some girl on a horse and said that I was going to ride it. She gave it a whatever and we kept driving home. An hour later, I was nowhere to be found and was eventually found down the street on the horse with the girl. I had snuck out of the house and gone to ride the horse where the girl just grabbed me and threw me on the horse when I asked for a ride. I got invited back when it was all over.

I told her that she must be wrong because two and half seemed way too young to cross a road and get on a horse, but she swears by it. She said I had to be two and a half because it was before I ran away to Long John Silver's in Manteca when I was three. Her timeline checks out.

She went on to talk about how I would sneak out of the house a lot without telling her to spend breakfast with a neighbor family around that time without her knowing that I was gone. She commented that I was very good at coming and going as I pleased and that I ate two breakfasts a lot.

So, anyway, the question is Why do I remember so much pain as a kid when it seems like I was pretty happy. It really bothers me to talk about it. I thought I was all good, but I guess I've still got some of that crazy pissed off five year old weight buried in my head somewhere.

So, we talked forever and got into some really specific stuff about childhood and it really hit some buttons, but it was good to talk to mom in an unbridled situation. Painful as hell, but no longer an elephant in the room. We can be extremely open with each other and it's almost like my dad left both of us and we helped each other get through the whole thing, but we still share some resentment that is very similar. It was extremely disturbing when she told me that when they got married my dad told her, "Now, we never have to say goodbye again." Yeah, dude. Right. It was really weird to hear her tell me that my dad loved and adored me when I was a baby. I have no memory of a loving father ever, but if he had nearly the gleam in his eye that I saw last night at a friend's house and how much they loved their baby, I find it extremely moving. It's one of the most pure loves that you will ever see in your life.

I can't get into other specifics as they might get read into, but we seem to be very similar in some of our less self-serving traits. Especially the one where we neglect ourselves in lieu of others' needs. We agreed that we do it to ourselves and then we both took the blame for it and then agreed that we were doing it to each other.

She told me that I was one of the best things to happen to her when she was sixteen and that I really helped her get through the pain when she was young. It was really good to clear the air and talk about old times. It hurts, but it's good to talk about. Sometimes it feels like we were both growing up at the same time. So, heads a little fucked up from it all, but pushing along. Never going to stop pushing along.

Industry Rule Number 4080. Record Company People Are Shady.

2010-04-15T11:28:00.001-07:00

I'm never going to be the one to say "Yeah, my life is completely normal. It's just like yours." I spend all this time trying to be "normal," but I've even had a therapist tell me that that's just not going to happen. So, here's the newest in a long line of abnormalities.

Last night I was sitting at home watching REC and eating a bowl of kettle corn to my head. It's been a particularly rough week, but it was as expected. I got a knock on the door and it was my neighbor who is a producer. He's legit, I've looked up his credits and he did an album that I talked tons of shit about. He actually got performance and writing credits on the album that I talked shit about. So, we talked about the whole album in meticulous detail from recording process to song structure to completed product one night. I felt bad for talking shit, but he agreed with much of my criticism and actually told me how a lot of it happened and why.

So, he came in and told me that he had a follow up project to that album and thought that I knew enough about the band to help out on the new album due in 4 to 6 months. At this point, they have nothing. It sounded like a daunting task, but I told him I would try and it was a great excuse to get my chops back up to speed. It's also a huge put up or shut up moment. Kind of an "Oh yeah. You think you could write a better album?"

While the whole thing is a little disillusioning that the band no longer writes their own stuff completely, it's also a chance to help make a better album that makes them sound the way I think they should sound. Kind of a "Fuck it. You drive then."

So, the first step was to go back through a song that I really liked by them and dissect the shit out of it to write something similar, but not the same. Every band has a signature writing style. The key is to not just rewrite the same songs (Aerosmith) while not abandoning the signature. It's a thin line to walk and can be abused, but why not take a stab at it? Regardless, I looked at one of their songs that I liked and broke it down to a formula. Sus (jangly) chords on the intro, strong riff in the verse, big and tight chorus, altered intro for the bridge, harmonies in the solo, etc...

I think I totally nailed it in my first try last night. Need to work on the bridge and the chords for the solo, but not bad for an hour worth of work. I'm rusty as fuck and have only really written funk and some pseudo jazz stuff so this is undiscovered country for me, but it's coming together. No block yet and I'm overflowing with shit to write. Database guy writing a progressive metal album in my free time. Weird.

Now, the business is shady and I've been promised publishing if they use anything, but it's really just a reason to play more and get my laptop set up with a recording rig. It's also stressful as hell, but has made me take a bunch of stuff that was stressing me out and throw it to the side. I can immerse myself in the writing process and in the past this has helped me feel purpose and not worry about extraneous crap. Music has always been a valuable tool for me in the past in dealing with a host of internal issues. I don't use it enough anymore. I'm really looking forward to the whole thing and if it turns out to be a bust, I'll at least have a progressive metal album under my belt.

A Brave Man World

2010-04-12T12:27:00.000-07:00

This is soooooo good. Felt compelled to post it.

Horsemouth

2010-03-31T12:57:00.001-07:00

"I sat around and thought about the things we used to do. It really meant a lot to me."

"I really mean that much to you" - Milli Vanilli, Girl You Know It's True

In the words mouthed by Grammy award winning artists, Milli Vanilli...There's not really anything to say about that. Just wanted to drop the quote.

Been sitting around thinking. Thought is dangerous in both tyrannical societies, modern television viewing habits, popular music, and at my desk.

Here's what I've got on the table. An ex-girlfriend that I've turned from a girlfriend to a person that hates me and is seemingly obsessed, although it has cooled way down since it peaked. Still can't really go to some public places without looking over my shoulder, but there has been no physical altercations or surprise visits as of late. It's been quite nice.

I've got a neighbor who refers to me as "Lonely Guy Neighbor." I give nicknames in the complex, not some newcomer 24 year old from Indiana. You need to know the ways of the world before you can start handing out neighbor nicknames like Rapy, Nudist, and Methzophrenic.

Lastly, I've got the hangup. I've been hung up on the girl with the on/off boyfriend for a while now and every time I get burned and recover, I look down and the thorn's in my foot again. I mean, I put the thorn there, but still. It is what it is.

The three things are: a girl who liked me, a girl who sees me as a lonely person who barely knows me and a girl that I like unrequittingly (unrequittedly?) who means well, but just isn't in to me that way. Or, at least does not have the capacity to deal with a girl manbaby. You just know.

I deal with seemingly solutionless problems for a living that are solved with large doses of logic, but can't for the life of me figure out this puzzle. Being from the Nintendo generation, the first thought is to pull the cartridge out and blow into it and try again. When you do this three times and it doesn't work, you've missed the point and have officially put a toe in the water of the clinically insane. Performing the same process repeatedly and expecting a different result. That's insane.

So, the funny thing is, the three things are girl, girl, girl and I think I'm missing the point. The problem is me, me, me. As Pappy says in his logical wisdom, "You are the least common denominator in all of these situations."

First thing. I didn't like the girl enough to pursue anything long term and I made the decision to leave someone that liked me, but didn't make me tingle right.

Second thing. I'm not lonely. People fuckin' love me (apparently) according to other people. I just don't ever believe it and choose to isolate and wallow and punch myself in the brain. That's my bad. I choose to be lonely I think. It sounds kinda crazy, but I think I do.

Third thing. All me. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. If someone is nice to you, it does not mean that they want more. Even phrases like "I love you" and crap like that should not be read into. People say they fuckin' love candy bars. They say they love Justin Bieber. I've even heard someone say that they love Everybody Loves Raymond. Case in point, nobody really loves Raymond in a way more than one would love a salad or Led Zeppelin. This doesn't necessarily translate into anything, but it's not a total loss. It's a genuine sign of liking something, but it's not good to take it that seriously.

Instead, be happy that someone likes you enough to get mad if you are out with a member of the opposite sex enough to send you an email about it berating you. Be happy that a stranger thinks that you are lonely, but personable and nice enough to make casual conversation with you or drop a bottle of barley wine by occasionally. Be happy that you have someone who cares enough to listen to your meltdowns when they happen even if they don't want to be around you.

So, problem solved. I've just got to be breezy and go about my routine. Just had to air it out a bit on the InterWebs. I can't believe I used to pay so much to a guy for this when I could do it for nothing. I might as well have just wrote it on my wall...over and over and over again like a real crazy.

So, be breezy and never look at anything in the mouth. Problem solved. I'm still not buying that lonely guy thing, though. I don't want to be the lonely guy.

Arsenal just tied up the first round of their Champions League game against Barcelona on a penalty kick. Life's not that bad at all.

Rabbit Seasoning

2010-03-31T10:26:00.000-07:00

I figured it out. It's birthday season. For me, that can be translated into feeling like Bugs Bunny holding the Rabbit Season sign while the world is Elmer Fudd with a cartoon shotgun. I deal with it with a series of misdirection and sidestepping while dealing with an internal mental dip. You'll never see it behind a curtain of false bravado and smiles, but I know it's there and if you look close, you'll see the cracks.

The 30th birthday book was the first omen. Then, last night, out of the blue, I got a series of texts from my ex entering me into a business trip bargument about the genuineness of Michael McDonald's voice. In the end, the guy who I was third party text arguing with conceded that I seemed like a good guy after I cited it was blue eyed soul and the Doobs never recorded a Motown cover album. So, I've got that going for me.

So, I'm aware of it and have my head in my lap assuming the crash position. I'll get through it, but it gets me every year. Last year it was easy. A small family dinner chased with some drinks with a red head a la Charlie Brown. I tried to dodge the drinks, but in the end met up with her. She meant well, but I was just going through the motions to feel like I wasn't completely alone. I don't even remember her name at this point.

This year is going to be better. I've got a haircut scheduled and then will jump into the rabbit hole until it passes. There's always music, books and movies to keep me occupied until it's over. The day after is always refreshing while I wear another ring around my trunk the next day and clean the dust off for the next year.

TYRIBFY

2010-03-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

There's Your Record That I'm Buying For You.

Dude. Deep Cuts?!?!?!?! All Mr. Big ballads?!?!?!?!? There are 15 fuckin' songs on this. You can't just put out a best of the ballads album. Why not put out one called Bad Jams and just have all of the bad jams on it? Or, if you feel compelled to put out a best of ballads, at least call it "For The Ladies" or "Music To Take Baths To."

Just a couple of ideas there, Mr. Big.

Click on the pic to buy if you plan on taking a bath soon.

Yes, I realize baths are getting namedropped alot.

I Just Know

2010-03-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

About a week ago some things transpired that have kinda heated up my mental climate. Some good, some bad and then you throw in what has become normal and you have the little maelstrom I consider my day-to-day.

Honestly, I lead a simple life. It's the surroundings that get complicated. I spent all day yesterday with my escape switch flipped and hung out and watched movies all day. I tried to go to the record store, but ended up turning around and going home. I just didn't have the energy for the outside world.

I tried to figure out why and came up with a few things, but they seemed so trivial. It may have been a triggered event, in hindsight. While I have been accused, mostly in a defensive way from people, of being hung up on my ex-wife still, I'm not. We talk sometimes, but any type of intimacy is gone. The friendship is all that lingers. We spent a lot of time together in the past. She knows me better than most and can be good to lean on sometimes even though she is the one that put the biggest scar on me.

So, the trigger? A good friend made a book for me of pictures from my 30th birthday in Las Vegas. It showed up as I was living with him after my ex and I separated due to the trip. It was accidental salt for a fresh wound. It turns out to be one of the most pivotal moments to date of what I am today. On Saturday, my mom decided to pull the book out of some old stuff that she had removed from our soon to be foreclosed house. She took me on a walk down memory lane and then threw in some pictures of me when I was tiny with my dad and stuff. I can accept my past, but I'm not one to take a bath in it.

I was picking up my sister at my mom's house to go to a barbecue and talked with my mom while I waited for my sister to get ready. My mom was on the defensive a bit, I could tell. It was probably the point where she said, "No. Let me finish." and I told her that I hadn't interrupted her. There is some tension regarding the house, regarding the parents split, regarding family relations in general, etc.

Grabbed my sister and we ran to Wienerschnitzel in Livermore to bring ten chili dogs to the barbecue. It's tradition, right? It was really more for nostalgia. When my sister and I were growing up and lived with my grandparents, they would take us there because a Mormon owned it. I won a free corn dog on this particular visit. It was quite glorious. We passed the comic book store that I went to when I was a kid as we made our way to the barbecue with me freaking out about winning a corn dog and passing a disgusting hole in the wall that my band played a long time ago. We played a country version of Star Wars that night after I heckled some woman that kept asking me to play Seeger (either) or Zeppelin all night.

I wasn't drinking at the barbecue so that I could get back home that night. The man cave magnet was turned on full power and I just wanted to get home even though there is nothing there. I also felt the creeping in of some emotional garbage and didn't want to pour gas on the fire that was building. It's the best group of friends in the world, but sometimes, not even they can make me feel okay. This is probably made worse when I'm dry.

At the barbecue, my sister decided to tell the 30th birthday story to everyone in front of me. I'll wear it, but it's not pleasant. A friend's fiance cried and gave me a hug. It's the second time she's done it with the story. I've recovered from it, but when people look at me sadly because of it, it reminds me that I should be sad about it. I take it for what it is. I see it as part of my make up. I wouldn't be me without it.

This turned to the topic of all of my failed relationships since and the "you are the least common denominator to all of this" talk. Maybe it really is me and my horrible decision making. Every time I think I've got it figured out and I think I'm doing the right thing, rugs get pulled out, I get burned, parades get rained on. If none of that happens then I just jump on my sword and ruin it myself. It's gotten to the point that not only do I not trust myself anymore, but I don't trust anyone.

That's basically what I sat around and thought about all day Sunday while feeling paralyzed on my couch. It wasn't a lot of fun, but was probably necessary to process it rather than try and drown it like I've done in the past.

At therapy, my therapist asked me what I needed to feel safe in a relationship. I thought about it for a bit and said that I need to feel secure. He asked what would make me feel that way and I told him that I would have to feel like someone really cared about me. He asked how I would know that and I told him I wasn't sure anymore, but when I feel it, I just know.

Wow. Somebody's got a case of the Mondays.

ipod Shuffle Challenge: Mr. Big Doubleshot Edition

2010-03-26T08:03:00.001-07:00

The HughVoltage iPod shuffle review:

1. "Were You There" - M.Ward
This is pretty typical Americana and pretty typical M. Ward. It's like interesting Jack Johnson. It's what it sounds like when you play an acoustic guitar with shoes on.

2. "Brianstorm" - Arctic Monkeys
This song is the shit on Guitar Hero. This whole album is great. Just love the groove of this song. It's totally Munsters with some Dick Dale sprinkled on top of everything.

3. "We Be Clubbin'" - Ice Cube
Why not bump some Cube at 8:09 AM? This shit should be played on DJ Roomba during a housewarming party in the suburbs. I've got the Eye of the Tiger remix of this song in the iPod somewhere. It's dope. Was this made the same year as Anaconda? Can't hold a candle to King Cobra starring Pat Morita.

4. "Oceans Apart" - The Fire Theft
Hands down the best sounding band I have ever seen live. Got to shake Jeremy Enigk's hand that night and was speechless. This song is good. It's 75% of Sunny Day Real Estate. What could go wrong? It's got that nice slow quiet build up into really big Les Pauls through Marshalls in the middle and then just kinda drives along for about two minutes. If you really wanted to dig in and analyze the lyrics. It's Enigk. It's about a girl or God.

5. "Takin Me Back" - Cheap Trick
Somehow, subtley, these guys mastered the art of writing rock songs about diggin' chicks, losing chicks and wanting chicks and got not nearly enough credit. They fuckin' opened up for Poison and Def Leppard last time I saw them, which was almost heartbreaking in it's unjustness and they played the tightest set of the night. Anyway, this song just sounds like a Cheap Trick song. That still means it's awesome. At least awesomer than your band's songs. Yeah, I wouldn't put this on a mixtape or anything, but would defend it in a bargument.

6. "Flynn" - Ratatat
There are a number of types of instrumental music genres. There is jazz, soundtracks, surf guitar, shred guitar, prog, electronic, etc. These guys fuckin' kill. This one is kinda short and repetitive and not their best. Serves more as an interlude on the album and is being caught out of context. The Mirando video is proof that these dudes are rad. I want these guys to do the soundtrack for my funeral.

7. "Zak and Sara" - Ben Folds
Love the lyric "You'll all die in your cars and why's it gotta be dark?
And you're all working in a submarine." It reminds me of a time in high school that I was all out of it in photography class with Mr. Dreyfuss and stood up and yelled "Nice Bureaucracy" at a TA. No reason at all. Total freak.

8. "Hand of Stone" - Mastodon
The drummer of this band is so sick he should get a flu shot. This is really the best thing to come out of Hotlanta in years. Butch Walker might take offense to that, but these dudes are just so metal. Riffs for days. Beards. One of the most boring live shows ever because they just wanted to rock more and talk less. Magnets must stick to these guys. Super metal

9. "Grace" - Jeff Buckley
Pro tip. Don't take a bath and listen to Jeff Buckley. Actually, don't take a bath. The Jeff Buckley story is one of the most interesting and tragic in music history. I'm not going to do the homework for you. Here it is. Anyway, most well known for his Leonard Cohen cover of "Hallelujah," he also wrote some other jams on Grace. Every song on the album is arranged super interestingly, a bunch of songs involve wine in some way and almost every song on the album is deep and dark. Then one day he walks into a river and poof. Dude's found floating in the river by a tourist like a week later.

10. "Unstitch Your Mouth" - Sparta
This is the half of At The Drive In that didn't keep it weird. It's still good. It's just different. This song is like hyped up U2 with less biblical undertones.

11. "Strip My Mind" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
This band ruled until someone told Kiedis to sing. This song sucks balls. Skipping.

12. "Shores of Sin" (Live) - Death Angel
These dudes are rad. Whammy divebombs. Slow, minor bass lines. Then, boom, ride cymbal and thrash metal. This music makes East bay dudes with sleeveless shirts mosh. Seriously. They still do it. My buddy Dave and I met the drunk Indian and "Fishnets" at this show. She was brilliant. She had this move where she faked a fall and I caught her and then she started up conversation. From chivalry to trickery in 1.7 seconds. If you've ever seen the Cow Palace parking lot before a Tesla show, you know that metal chicks are crafty and will do anything in the back of a pickup truck.

13. "Price You Gotta Pay" - Mr. Big
This isn't even the Mr. Big version. I can't even figure out who is singing it. It's from this album Volume 1: Influences and Connections. Dude, whatever, there's some shredding on this album. The King's X cover is sick. Glenn Hughes sings this version of the song and Steve Lukather takes the solo. You will only know Lukather if you have been reading Guitar Magazines since '88.

14. "Road To Ruin" - Mr Big
SHUT THE FUCK UP! My iPod just threw a Steve Seaweed Double Shot of Mr. Big at me? If this goes into a Threefer Madness weekend or Get's The Led out for an hour, I'm going to have to write a letter to Apple demanding an explanation. Anyway, this song is a Mr. Big song. A difficult riff to play that Billy Sheehan and Paul Gilbert play in unison until they both take solos after the second verse. Paul Gilbert just kills it every time. The dude is so good. Again, this song isn't going to make any mixtapes. Now, "Dady, Brother, Lover and Little Boy" might. They use Makita's with pick attachments on that intro and in the solo.

15. "Southern Fried Intro" - Ludacris
So bummed this wasn't Threefer Madness. Great Isaac Hayes sample on this tune. It's actually a sample from a Burt Bacharach's 'Walk On." The song is whatever, but may Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul rest in peace.

16. "In The Waiting Line" - Zero 7
This is chill out music. It's a favorite for book and iPod by the pool. The chorus will loop in your head when you are feeling abandoned or lonely and it puts you into a floaty, Zach Braff movie montage feeling. Seriously, this song might make me feel invisible just like walking through a Costco after five people have walked right into me. Thought I was Sixth Sense Dead for like 20 minutes in there one day until someone handed me a gelato sample. Also, pro tip, no more Bagel Dogs at Costco. I'm paying $4 a pop for handmade ones at my local grocery store.

17. "I Summon You (Cool) (alternate version)" - Spoon
This is from the Ga x 5 bonus disc. It's cool, but it just makes you want to listen to the original because it was so dope. How great is their video for Underdog? Real musicians making real music. It shouldn't be a luxury, but it's why the music industry deserves to die.

18. "All Over The World" - The Pixies
This is good personal soundtrack music. You could put it on your Walking Through Airport or Biking Through Town playlists. The Pixies mastered this music and if you listen really close you can actually hear the blueprint for Smells Like Teen Spirit in this tune. I never picked up on that before, but if you listen to the Loud Quiet Louds through the first half, you can totally hear it. Weird.

19. "Prelude" - The Fabulous Hedgehogs
The first song from the Hedgehogs metal concept on their last album. I don't know where the rest of the dudes are, but Mike is here. And he is seriously amazing live. You will question everything you have known to be true in your life after seeing him. It's like looking into the Ark without melting.

20. "Times Like These" - Foo Fighters
This song sounds just like The Cult at the beginning. I think it's She Sells Sanctuary. Now, you can go back to the very beginning with Foo Fighters and it's like Dave Grohl has been writing Jock Jams albums before ESPN even knew what they were. I actually figured it out and 86% of all songs he has ever written could be played into or out of commercial breaks during sporting events and 72% of them could be played underneath commentary. The NFL should just suck it up and have the Foo Fighters play the Super Bowl Halftime show every year. It's going to fucking Bieber this year. Watch.

Okay. Back to work.

Voltie's Choice

2010-03-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

Here's the setup. I go into the bathroom and I have my Charlie Brown mug filled with coffee in my hand. The only place to set it is on the pipe attached to the flusher on the urinal. I unzip and proceed to use the urinal when it hits me. If there was a seismological or plumbing event, I would have to make a choice. Urine or coffee.

I went through both scenarios in my head. Scenario 1 is that the coffee falls from the pipe and I catch it. This would result in soiled clothing and shoes.

Scenario 2 is that I proceed with urinaling and just wear the coffee stains.

I'm going coffee stains.

Luckily, there was neither a seismological or plumbing event, but still, it was good to know that I had a plan.

Always have a plan. Now, I will go back to finishing the plan for a Predator attack. Step 1 is to cover myself in mud, making me invisible to infra-red. The nearest available mud is 350 yards from here and would take an estimated seven minutes to reach. Always know where the mud is.

Impressted Development

2010-03-17T15:36:00.000-07:00

Did the interviews for the new job opportunity yesterday. Got passed around for three hours to multiple people and got asked similar questions from each. It's all part of the process. There actually was one point where a woman asked if I had any questions for her about the job and the Munsters question flashed in my head for a second. My inner ten year old is always there no matter what the situation.

I think it actually went really well. The two worst things that I did that could kill my chances were oversharing and overqualification.

I'm very personable and will be very transparent in some situations. I kept it all businessy, but was honest. I have a job and don't need to fake it with bullshit. They should know what they're getting. There were no sea animals mentioned at any time.

Every person I talked to referenced my resume and then asked if I would get bored in this position because I had extra skills that would no be flexed. Being able to code can really intimidate, but I don't even code that much. It's kinda just enough to communicate between business and tech people. I can serve as an interpreter of logic. I explained to them that if I needed to get a code buzz there were always crossword puzzles, sudokus and computers at home to wreck to spark that jones if it occurs. To learn about anything, it helps to break it.

When I looked back on the three hours of interviews for a highlight reel, I put it into perspective of where I'm at right now. I'll still turn on the HughVoltage show from time to time, but it's much less frequent. The days of waking up in the morning and realizing that you left your backpack with your laptop in it at the bar are gone. Walking to get the car in the morning doesn't happen on weekdays anymore. It's alleviated a ton of stress of the WhatDidIDos and WhatDidISays. There are less random numbers in my phone with cryptic descriptions as a last name. It's much more boring, but it's relatively peaceful and I really feel like I'm moving in the right direction.

If I get this job it could man a move out of Hellrose Place. It could mean a new set of acquaintances. It could mean a ton of things and definitely could serve as that crossroads that has been way way way overdue as I was stunting my development. This could be good.

Here Comes the Pride

2010-03-15T15:07:00.001-07:00

So, stuff has finally wound down at work. I hit a personal best of a 75 hour week a couple of weeks ago. It was at the 60th hour when I decided being payed a salary over hourly blows. I grew up significantly through the process.

As a reward to myself, I'm going into a third interview with a different company than my current employer. The job is a significant pay cut, but it's the natural next step in a career path. Plus, it's been like 7 years at a job that I took because the benefits were good if I were to start a family. That's no longer an issue. I'm more apt to start a fight than a family at this point.

In preparation for my first real job interview in almost a decade, I've been looking at some articles online (useless). All it's done is psyche me out. On the other hand it has made me remember some interview debacles from early in my career. One of them may have been a million dollar mistake. Literally.

The first one was on a third interview when the interviewer asked a wrap up question of "Do you have any questions for me?" Being young and retarded, I asked her "If Eddie Munster's dad was a Frankenstein and his mom was a vampire? Why was he a werewolf?"

Needless to say I didn't get that job, however I did learn never to do that again.

The big mistake happened at Google in 2002. It was a shitty adsense inside sales job, but the company was still really young. They had headhunted me out of Arthur Andersen after we were indicted for the Enron scandal. I was a little frazzled by the whole ordeal as it was my dream job. I worked as a mailboy at an Andersen Consulting when I was going to junior college and I had made it to the point of getting mail brought to me by one. It was the American dream, but per usual, Lucy yanked the ball at the last second.

Anyway, I go to Google when they had one or two buildings. Nothing like the campus they have now. There were still jelly beans everywhere and roller blades in the hallway, but nowhere near where they are today. I still had to get a name tag, but there was no NDA or anything.

I hit my first three interviews like a rockstar. I was killing it. Witty. Charming. Interesting. Then, this dude that looked like Ted's dad from Bill and Ted's walks in. He was the International sales manager or director or something.

We started off very light and he started prodding my marketing background as it was a sales position. I discussed the similarities and differences between the disciplines and how ultimately there should be a synergy with them both to enjoy success on both sides of the ball.

The next part is where I fucked up bad. He stood up and started talking down about marketing, which I felt very passionate about at the time. I let it go on for about ten minutes and noticed that there were people waiting outside of the conference room. As a chip became evident on his shoulder, his voice started raising. In my head, I start thinking maybe this is one of those tests in the interview process to see if I have a backbone. I stood up and continued the conversation face to face with him. I think he found it a sign of aggression. He must have done some prison time and had an adverse reaction to eye contact.

We wrapped it up as the conference room was clearly belonging to someone else at that point and he left almost pissed off.

The recruiter brought me to my next interview where I met with a guy who I would be working with. He was pretty much telling me that he had heard that I did really well and couldn't wait to work with me. I kinda told him thanks for the compliment, but it wasn't going to happen, most likely.

So, the question I'm left with is: "Was my pride worth possibly a million dollars?"

At this point, no. On the other hand, a million dollars will barely buy you a house around here and to buy pride is nearly impossible. Yeah, a nice car may give you sense of it, but it's not pride.

Moral of the story? Tomorrow, I'll take a beating if it comes to it. I have nothing to lose and can shake any dust off that I pick up if attacked. Also, the Munsters mailman was a werewolf. No need to ask the question.

GI Joe Vs. The Pr0n

2009-11-26T11:50:00.000-08:00

Sitting at Tully's in downtown Pleasanton on Thanksgiving at Noon. Family went on a hike, but I felt like more coffee and more iPod. Some playlists just fit the moment and you need to isolate yourself and look around at your surroundings with a soundtrack. I knocked out the Benzedrine playlist this morning that felt like open heart surgery the way it just pulled out all the stitches that hold it together, but it's healthy to open wounds every once in a while so that you can apply more scar tissue on top of it.

So, today's story is another chapter in the randomness that is my life. I was doing laundry the other night and my neighbor said, "Hey, I opened my DVD player and the DVD of G.I. Joe was in the player, but I returned the movie like three weeks ago. Blockbuster never called or anything and I couldn't figure out why, but I think I know what happened..."

Here's what happened. I loan my rapy neighbor tons of movies all the time as I'm the resident pirate and also just have a shit ton of movies laying around that are of his taste. So, he had his Vegas girlfriend in town and I loaned them a stack of DVDs. Apparently, there was a porn DVD in the stack. I figured this out when I heard them watching it while I was on my porch.

Now, here is the thing about porn. You don't ever loan porn to someone. You give porn to people under the guise of loaning it to them. There are a couple of reasons. If somebody truly appreciates porn and doesn't find it shameful, they just fucking buy it for themselves. If they like it, but are a little up tight, they borrow it...and never give it back.

As part of my accepting growing up phase last year, I threw a bunch of it away, but have since also been like Johnny Pornoseed and have been doling it out to those in need. It never comes back. One dude has had New Wave Hookers 5 for like 5 years. He's gotten married since he borrowed it. It's not coming back, which is fine because there is a weird porno clown scene in it that is just frightening. So, it's a win-win. Someone gets porn and I get rid of it.

Anyway, so rapy neighbor has a porn DVD for a while. He rents G.I. Joe and some other shit and then returns the movies. Unknowingly, he put the porn inside the G.I. Joe case and returned the movie. So, some dude checking in DVDs at Blockbuster just got some porn returned and no fucking duh you didn't get a call about it. Shit like that tends to fall through the cracks and go unmentioned.

Sadly, if you've seen G.I. Joe, I think the neighbor came out on the shit end of that stick because the porn that he had had more artistic merit than G.I. Joe by far and even a more fluid storyline. Now, that's just fuckin' sad.

Bite Me

2009-11-23T11:45:00.000-08:00

Here's a typical Hugh moment. The end was me staring down at a dude's face bloodied up pretty good in a doorway. I reached down and checked his pulse and he twitched. The twitch is the difference between a cab and an ambulance. A couple of dudes then grabbed him and threw him in a cab. I grabbed a girl that was somehow involved in the scuffle and removed her from the situation while she called her mom for a ride home. During the call she looked down at my hand and said, "Oh my god. Your hand is bleeding all over the place."

The bartender looked at me and said "Stick your hand out." He then poured a couple of shots of 151 on it as I said, "That's really all right. I think I'll just put some Neosporin on it when I get home." That was my manbite.

Somehow in the process of being a misguided boy scout, I managed to get my hand bit by a human. Who the fuck bites people? That's got to be a last resort like twenty steps below kicking someone in the balls and the classic throat punch. They are dirty, but incredibly effective in some situations just like jeans that haven't been washed for a week.

I'm still not sure about what happened, but heard that someone may have thrown a drink in a girl's face. Cliched, but still unacceptable. Still, there is no excuse for my involvement in something like that. It was all very instinctual, in my defense, but I should've been home in bed and not being bitten.

Land of the Free. Home of the Grave.

2009-11-03T12:00:00.001-08:00

Fuck, man. I went straight Obi-Wan Weekend last weekend. Performed a year's worth of introspection as I tried to distract myself from doing a state of a personal union speech as an internal monologue all weekend. Weakly, I fell into slight self-medicating Friday night. That equals ten beers while trying to beat Guitar Hero: Van Halen on bass. It wasn't so bad, but I Saturday morning quarterbacked myself pretty brutally for doing it. It's severe weakness of character and was a result of a recent dust up over an A-Team like crime that I didn't commit and light rejection. People are not going to like me and that's all right. I need to accept that. That is starting to become very apparent.

The main problem is that, at this point, I feel like a guy running through Bridgetown who is clearly on fire again. I'm getting lonely, yet introverted. I don't want to be around anyone. I just want to sit home and stew. I decided Saturday that I wouldn't drink for the rest of the weekend as it made my mind turn on me. Saturday was Halloween and as I caught up with my DVR and pounded ginger ale, I had this thought. I'm absolutely free. Lonely, but free.

Isn't freedom what we all want? Shouldn't I be happy that I can do anything at any moment in time? On a dime, I can jump on my bike and drink myself into the clouds with the only consequence being the occasional drunk text or off hand remark that ruins everything. Or, I can just sit in my sweats and watch the sun move slowly across the sky until it's dark and then realize that I've done nothing, but effectively melt away a day like a Bond villain with some piece of super science time bending machine.

My two points of human interaction were my buddy Warnervon dropping by to give me a new xbox game for us to play together and dropping off the Bakersfield Raccoons at a club for Halloween. That's right, bitches. HughVoltage as your sober driver pseudotaxi on Halloween. They invited me, but I was in no mood for social interaction, although, painfully lonely. I just didn't know of anyone eligible that I wanted to be around. Everyone that I wanted to be around was simply not an option. So, I sat there with Halloween candy for costumed kids that would never show. I did, however, grab my neighbor kid Sunday afternoon and give him all the candy I had in my Halloween Pumkinhead. The little dude was stoked.

Sunday was xboxing, football watching, grocery store and light chores. The apartment is clean. Very clean, but I'm starting to see areas for drastic change and reorganization. I need to just pick up and leave the apartment, but moving is such a bitch.

Sunday morning was filled with the cacophonic symphony of variations of "Fuck" heard from the Raccoons lair. Duh. Tons of boozing plus Halloween lead to these things. I had made the right move by staying in to stew no matter how lonely I was feeling. I've been what some people would deem phenomenally successful on Halloween in the past, but these are only successes to married men. They were pretty awesome, but not real healthy and I'm still convinced that two of them have been caught on closed circuit cameras somewhere. Wait, I just realized that there is a theme of waking up in hotels involved with them. That and strangers in costume. What a fuckin' mess. So, yeah, this Halloween, I didn't wake up in a hotel room with a relative stranger or strangers. I'm checking the success box on Halloween '09.

So, I'm cutting off the therapy tomorrow to save some money and hunkering down for the war in front of me. I'm at ground zero. I look at my phone to call someone when I'm like this and then just put it away because I have no one to say anything to. The upside to everything is that a) I'm totally free to do whatever I want and b) Something rad is bound to happen if I just sit tight, don't do anything stupid and ride it out.

To be completely honest, it's painful, but I think there was some necessary social cleansing that took place and once it takes I will have an opportunity to improve my immediate surroundings. I lay in bed last night with my first bout of insomnia in weeks and went down the list of companions for the last three years or so and I've made some horrible choices and have made a career of jamming square pegs into round holes expecting something miraculous to happen. It doesn't. Time to take everything at face value and quit making excuses for everyone. It's not that I don't play well with others. It's that they don't play well with me and fuck them. I'm taking my toys and getting out of the toxic sandbox even though it's my fault for being in there in the first place.

This wasn't meant to be a big fuck you. It's meant to be a big thank you. A thank you to Kismet for punching me in the face until I could see again. Time to man up and quit taking this so fuckin' seriously and also drop this sensitive bullshit in lieu of self-preservation. Fuck empathy for now until someone or something presents a reason. Time to take life for what it is and not what it is not. That's freedom. I'm a goddamn patriot.

Letter From The Office Of Can't Win

2009-10-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

So, after a phone call and some e-mails calling me at least four kinds of fucker, I've slept on it and have come to a conclusion. I've done nothing wrong, but I still lose...kinda.

Here's the situation that happened as far as I understand while keeping everyone anonymous. Individual A committed action 1 which irked Individual B. Individual B ran it by Individual Me and I told them to just let things work themselves out and it really shouldn't be an irkabling situation. Action 1 took place which led to Action 2 by Individual B which resulted in talking to Individual Me about it.

Two weeks go by and gnarly phone call (action 3 takes place) and I'm accused of telling someone (Individual X because I have no idea who it is) about Individual A's actions which then lead to Individual B telling me, which then lead to Individual Me being an asshole.

A1 = B
B + ME = A2
ME + A2 + X = A3
B + ME + A3 = B(Asshole)

By the way, I've gone through credit card charges and I have no idea when and where this could have possibly happened and wouldn't put some brilliant Melrose Place conspiracy out of contention, but then when I even pondered that, I lost interest in the whole thing and just felt dirty for even considering it a possibility. I think it may actually be one, though, judging by recent historical events paired with clandestine bathroom meetings and subterfuge that have taken place. It's like being in a fucking Cold War with all the spying and misdirection going on. Then again, it could have possibly been an offhanded comment in a blackout, but there was only one of those and the worst thing that happened was that I think I have a stripper's phone number in my phone.

I felt bad about it for a day and then retraced everything back to action 1. I didn't do anything besides try and be supportive to Individual B, however, go back and try to figure out that chain of events. Honestly, if I was quizzed about action 1 and action 2, I don't really even remember any details and to be able to relay that to someone else boggles my mind.

At this point, you are totally as lost as I am, but in a nutshell, I've been accused of saying something about someone's actual actions. Dude, if I say something shitty about someone or do something stupid, I'll be the first guy in line to beat myself up about it and totally take responsibility for it, but I've got nothing on this one.

If you beat up a hobo and I watched it and someone asked me if I saw you recently and I replied that I saw you beat up a hobo, am I an asshole for beating up the hobo? Fuck, I need a team of lawyers to figure this one out.

There is a silver lining to it, though. I've gone back and retraced my steps like a guy who lost his keys and have come to the conclusion that I don't do this He Said, She Said shit. I've tried to find instances in the recent past as a starting point to figure out what to do and I've got nothing. I do know that I've dealt with it more in the last six weeks than I have since high school and I'm way too old for it.

I don't understand the toxicity in people and I do worry about catching it. If you put your toe in a public swimming pool, you are more than likely going to to get pee on it. Fuck, somehow, even when you walk away from the pool, you can still get pee water splashed on you from inside the pool. The message? Don't stand near a pool unless you want to get pee on you.

So, I'll take one for the team, but I prefer being called an asshole for being an asshole. This time, however, it's the path of least resistance and that is definitely in the other direction of the pool.

Take this for an example, you've been walking through the desert for like two days and you come upon two baskets. In the basket on the left there is nothing in it. In the one on the right there is a giant bottle of ice cold water and a snake. Take my advice, if you are going to put your hand in anything, put it in the empty basket. Better to not risk getting bit and remaining thirsty than to take a chance of getting a snakebite and a drink of water and called an asshole. Snakes will totally call you an asshole. Pro tip. It's in the bible. I've never really read it, but I know there is a snake in there somewhere near the beginning. If snakes were rad then Indiana Jones would like them. He doesn't because he probably read the bible. Or, he got lost in the desert and reached into the wrong fuckin' basket and got called an asshole and bit by a snake.

Up next is the mating habits of the Bakersfield raccoons that have taken up residence outside my front door. So far I've got this. They watch a lot of movies and then between them they straddle each other on the front porch while listening to country music too loud. They also make the sounds of a raping at a petting zoo that can be heard outside of the apartment.

Yeah, from the outside it looks like true love, but upon further inspection there is something incredibly dysfunctional that you can't quite put your finger on. Perhaps it's the Orange Crush and plastic bottle vodka that one of them offered you. Perhaps it's the way one of them walks up to your screen door and shakes her fake boobs at you while you are closing up a 13 hour work day on your couch. I should probably have an answer in the very near future and in the meantime will just involuntarily observe the mating habits of the Bakersfield raccoons in love.

Addendum: There was an incident in July that was some He Said, She Said stuff that I was involved in. I'll take that one.

A Man A Plan A Shower Grenade

2009-10-28T08:45:00.001-07:00

Never let it be said that I didn't have a plan from the get go. Miserable failures and unlikely awesomenesses are all part of the game, but there is always a plan whether I'm aware of it or not. Usually it's the latter.

So, here's the plan. Socks with magnets in the toes so that when you are watching porn and sorting your laundry (carrot and stick), it's easier to pair them. Why hasn't this been done? Instead, sock manufacturers have devoted time to creating new shades of black ranging from army black to navy black and 36,000 different fabric textures.

It's like playing fucking Memory once you've accumulated enough work socks. You pull them outside in and then lay them out on your bed. After you've hung your pants and shirts up and put your underwear away, there it is: 36 completely different socks. You start top left of your sock grid and start comparing one to the other 35 until you find a suitable match. My ex was horrible at this game and often I'd find myself in a lower calf work sock and a lower knee work sock working in tandem with each other. It was horribly uncomfortable. Yeah, me. I do my own laundry now.

I've tried to buy one brand and it didn't work. I could never find the same socks again. They change from season to season or from store to store. I've seen my step brother safety pin matching pairs together and thought it was crazy, but he might've been on to something...if he had used magnets. This is why I'm the family genius. I haven't come up with a solid solution to this outside of magnets, though. Okay, I'm like the family shitty genius.

Next plan. Shower grenade. It started with a daily shower wash and then it evolved into this. It's the Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner For the Hopelessly Fat and Lazy Consumer crowd. It's pretty much a fucking sprinkler for your shower. So, my ex got me to buy into the daily spray and I'll admit that it has lessened the time spent shower scrubbing, but a whirling soap siren is a little much I think. I do, however, think that cleaning the shower and related bathroom receptacles should be more fun, so I propose the HughVoltage Weekly Bathroom Grenade.

Here's how it works. Once a week you pull out your bathroom grenade and pull the cleaning pin out of the device. Let's say Friday morning before work. Toss that fucker into the bathroom and go to work. At the end of the day you will return home and bask in the explosive cleanliness of your bathroom. No paper towel mess. No streaks on the mirror. Just an explosion of cleanliness. If this pans out, the HughVoltage Weekly Living Room Grenade would be next. Oh, also, do not eat the HughVoltage Weekly Bathroom Grenade like ice cream. It is not astronaut ice cream.

Fuck, maybe I just need a maid or a butler. Waiting on the butler until I start fighting crime at night. So, I'll have to stick with the maid for now.

Actually, maybe I'll just get a plant.

Corey Feldman Was Awesome In Dream A Little Dream

2009-10-26T10:38:00.001-07:00

Okay. Gonna get a bit weird for a second. Last Friday, I made the trek to the old hood for my stepdad's birthday. My stepsister and her husband were in town, so we had a small dinner with my grandparents and my sister from LA.

The drive was horrible and traffic laden, but I was feeling really good about stuff. The physical therapist had gone silent since the date on Thursday, but I was totally cool with it. Sometimes people just don't click. I thought it actually went pretty well, but I did inform her that I was operating way out of my comfort zone as I could not find one hangup about her. There was absolutely no dysfunction with her and there was nothing to "fix." Basically, I had never experienced it before and was lost. It felt like wearing one wet sock. Hmmm. Maybe that was it. Whatever, I was being myself and if she had an issue with that then it is what it is. As a consolation prize, one of the waitresses on the way out asked me where the last girl I was with was and I told her that she broke up with me for her ex. The waitress then told me that she had a boyfriend, but I should really have her number and she put it into my phone. Why do I ever even bother trying to understand people or their motives?

So, anyway, got to dinner and then about twenty minutes into it I just got this wave of bad vibe. It was like when Obi-Wan sensed the destruction of Alderaan. It was as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I feared something terrible had happened...or was about to.

I went to the bar that my sister works at with my stepdad and got mortified by the town that I grew up in. It was absolutely frightening, the combination of cougars and dudes with grey chest hair escaping their hopeless Tommy Bahama shirts. The apparel had no chance of holding that shit back. We bounced after one beer and one horrible cover of Panama by Van Hagar. Van Hagar? Yes, because the dude couldn't sing it David Lee Roth style to save his life.

We got home and drank 80% of a bottle of Glenlivet with my brother-in-law who is a naval pilot. He's good people. I fell asleep that night to the sound of the freeway through the window. I find it somehow calming and it reminds me of being a kid and growing up in that house. Simpler times.

So, the next morning at 7:00 AM, I got up and my little sister told me that my other sister had broken up with her career boyfriend at 2:00 AM that morning. For a second, I felt I had had a premonition the night before, but I don't believe in that crap. The family went into red alert. We'd been through this before so many times. We're a family that gets punched in the heart habitually. You'd think we'd learn. It probably explains why we are all so funny. Humor is our only hope of dealing with the horrific shit that we are always dealing with. A tribe of sad clowns.

So, I jumped on some baby shower tasks with my coffee run that morning. One of which was getting an out of season watermelon. That shit was like $16, but was the prized task of the morning. I got back to the house and then ran my 15 year old sister to the salon to get her nails done for homecoming. I then realized that I was three years older than my mom was when I was 15 and going to homecoming. That was creepy. I followed that with casing a house that had a lawn jockey in the front yard that I wanted to steal. The garage door was open and my attempt was foiled. Next time, though, I will come both correct and prepared for the theft in the name of anti-bigotry.

I got back home from the errands and my sister showed up. She got three steps out of her car and lost her shit. My heart broke for her. We sat down in the back yard for a bit and talked stuff through. It's a horrible thing that she's going through and I know it all too well. She left before the weird grandma could get to the party and accost her via passages from the Book of Mormon. It was a smart move.

I had had enough of the shower at one point and bailed back home to meet friends and watch football. Cue the shit show. After a bevy of Robert Palmers we went to sushi. I was housed. We then got dropped off at one of the shittiest strip clubs known to man by my friend's wife. I grabbed a cab from there and went back downtown to meet the waitress from the bar at another bar. This is the part where if I was sober I would have asked myself "If I am so unhappy in the hole that I'm in, why do I keep digging down?" I would then toss the shovel and start screaming for help.

I knew that it was a waste of time. I knew that it was wrong, but my feet kept taking me in that direction. Regardless, there was nothing done wrong and I went home after hanging out briefly.

Sunday was a wash while wearing sweatpants and catching up with the DVR. It was actually fairly relaxing after a nutty Saturday. Everything still felt okay. I realized I shouldn't be unhappy about what I don't have and instead should direct my happiness towards what I do have. I'm the rebound guy. I'm who girls turn to when their boyfriend or husband is a dick. That's my role. I'm not going to savor it, but I'll be okay with it until somebody decides to stick around for a bit. There is just one problem. I'm always waiting for the next one to pick up and split. They always do.

So, this morning, mental debris has just kind of been tugging on the back of my brain. There is a tinge of anxiety. A tinge of dizziness. A lack of concentration with a side of notivation. Finally, I'm experiencing what I'll refer to as self-estorm issues. It's a lack of calmness in regards to how I feel about myself. I'm totally cool with myself. I have nice shoes on and a full head of hair, but I still am having issues accepting my situation as happy this morning. There is the residual tug from what my sister's going through. There is leftover brain sludge from visiting home. There is a general malcontent with being alone. There are just some things that I want that I can't have: lightsaber, monkey, a counterpart who cares. For now, I've got absolute freedom and complete unaccountability to anyone. I'm living some peoples' dream, I just wish it was mine.

The Chronicles of Normia

2009-10-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

So, last night, I took the pill and jumped down the rabbit hole. My feet were definitely dragging, but I knew I had to try going out with my physical therapist for at least my family and friends sake. Plus, she asked nicely. The girl is a physical therapist who tutors high school kids in Algebra in her free time from work. She is the female equivalent of a boy scout in heels. She likes to cook, loves her parents and is well versed in pop culture. It's absolutely frightening for me. I don't do the traditional date thing. This was more like a job interview.

So, I met her at her work downtown and we just walked a few blocks to a place that had the baseball game on and wasn't too loud that had good food. We were not going out to party. The girl weighs 85 pounds and can't do more than one drink. It's good on my credit card, that's for sure.

We talked about whatever for a bit and then we hit the elephant in the room. After our second date about 8 months ago I was convinced that she didn't like me because she yawned while we were hanging out. Apparently, she is an insomniac, too. We share a similar non-sleeping pattern. She has a pharmacological background, though, so she knew a thing or two about pill cocktails that she shared in the event that I ever want to go that route. She then explained to me that after we hung out she had a bout of disillusionment with her place in life and was going to pick up and leave California because she missed her social network in Philadelphia and just kind of withdrew. It's funny because after I hung out with her I realized I had a ton of hangups and rushed my head to therapy to get repaired. So, that was kind of eye opening. Then, she called me out when I yawned. Irony.

So, we watched the ball game and she actually called both home runs in the game as the batter came up to bat. It was freaky. This is definitely different than I'm used to, though. I'm used to reckless abandon and tragic romance. In this case, it's two kids with walls up against each other trying to figure out if they can trust the other person and I think I actually intimidate her, but she made two Aldous Huxley references and followed that up with an Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged reference, which is awesome. She is well read. If she makes a Pynchon reference I'll be amazed.

We had dinner and then chased a beer with water while the game finished out and I walked her to her car and gave her a hug goodnight. She said she wanted to hang out again next week. I said "No problem. That would be good" and then went home to catch hell for it. That's none of anyone's business, though.

So, drinking the Kool-Aid of the Bed, Bath and Beyond set. Trying to live how the other half lives, but it seems kind of healthy. Not fun, but healthy. Is this giving up or growing up? Is normalcy okay for me? I'm severely conflicted by the whole thing and definitely have some cobwebs lingering from very recent wounds. The jury is definitely out on this one, but I'm doing my best. I feel like a guy staring at the menu who knows that a salad is better for him, but that steak looks pretty fuckin' good even if it's going to wreck my heart, but everyone knows that a fool thinks he can have his cake and eat it, too. Sometimes, though, it's good enough just to have the cake and not eat it. Sometimes. A steak every once in a while is fine, too, by the way.

Must Love Dogs

2009-10-16T07:50:00.001-07:00

I got my second night of decent sleep in a row last night. I blame two Amstel Lights and some pasta, but it was much better sleep than lately. I had really peculiar dreams, though.

I woke up from one of them around Midnight or One because it was disturbing me pretty bad. I was hanging out with my sister's dog, who I love to death, and it kept biting my hand. Then, it started biting my leg and I kept looking down at it and saying, "I love you to death, Charlie" and then would remove its mouth from my hand or arm or leg or wherever the dog was clamped down. I then punched it in the nose and it stopped, but my sister got superpissed and quit talking to me. Like it wasn't the dog who was doing the wrong thing, but me. Hmmm. Sat and thought about that one for a bit last night.

Can you imagine if people were like dogs? Walking around pissing on trees, marking their territory as they went? That world would be insane.

The other dream was just of a party that I was at where a girl that I knew wasn't talking to me and in turn convincing dudes with tribal armband tattoos that I had done something bad to her. I woke up when they all were pummeling me for crimes I didn't commit like the A-Team. Weird night.

Ballad of the "Hey, How Are Ya?" Guy

2009-10-14T12:57:00.000-07:00

It seems so simple. A look from a relative stranger expresses acknowledgment of your face and you say instinctively "Hey, how are ya?" Honestly, you could give a fuck, but it seems like the right thing to say. They say "Good," "Fine" or whatever and then they say back "How are you?" and you boldface lie to them with a "Great."

Your stomach's in knots. Your heart hurts. Your head hurts. You're exhausted and your hands have been shaking for weeks to the point that you think you have MS. All of this shit and you just lie to them. You are a liar for the benefit of others.

On the other hand, they could be doing the same. When is the day when we can all drop the charade and just share our real feelings with each other? Good ones will eventually happen. I had them for a couple of months recently and the "Great" was really great. It wasn't bullshit, but it was fleeting.

So, now, I'm looking at others who tell me they are doing "Good" a little suspectly. They could be bullshitting me and going through the same stuff that I am and we'll never know. We could help each other and talk about things, but we just hide our secrets behind cordial pleasantries. They could be going home and staring at a bottle of meds while they pet their cat named after their high school sweetheart and watch Moonlighting reruns on DVD while eating a tasteless Lean Cuisine at night and planning their escape. They could be going home to a man with a shirt with his name on it who calls them a "cunt" and hits them as he gets ready to go to bed underneath his handlebar moustache and a stench of whiskey.

Where am I going with this? There are horrible people out there doing horrible things to people and these people just keep walking through life faking it. Faking a smile. Laughing nervously as if someone might figure them out if they don't laugh. So, they look at you and say "Good." It's a protection mechanism sometimes. It's a wall. As long as everyone is good, everything will be fine.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's not all darkness. I've seen good in the world. I've seen people that say "Good" and I know it's the truth. These people intimidate me because I feel like we are on different teams. Or, I feel like they've reached some unattainable level of self-awareness that has to be cut with ignorance to be truly reached. Like if they were really aware of the things that I was, there would be no way that they could be happy. I'm really hoping that someday, however, I'm going to relate to these people. I want to be one of these people. I want to mean it when I lie to you.

I have to be wrong on this and "good" has to be real. God, I hope I'm wrong, but in the meantime I'll just be "great."

By the way, I don't have a cat and don't eat Lean Cuisines. Everything is fine and manageable. It's everyone else that I worry about.

Just Once

2009-10-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

Last night, I did everything right...almost. I had a salad when I got home from work and then worked for a bit while I watched House. I'm still trying to figure out why my mother is always saying that he reminds her of me. No limp. No beard. No pills, but Mom sees the world just a little different than the rest of you.

I was working the whole time until about 9:30, which is close to bed time for me and headed off to bed. I was stoked because I was getting to bed early and was going to get a gang of sleep after like a 14 hour day. SPOILER ALERT: It didn't happen.

I'll be frank. I dropped off the radar because I fell and skinned my knee, figuratively. She really made me happy, though. I took it a little hard. Not as hard as I've ever taken it, but a little hard. (Insert that's what she said or gay joke right here.) Still aches a bit, but that's how second place feels. Actually, it feels more like Al Gore must have felt. I feel like I may have actually won the election, but someone else gets to be President and I would've been a better one and Sean Penn would probably agree. See? Exactly like Al Gore.

Anyway, I was exhausted and relatively at peace and should have fallen right asleep, but nothing. Almost had it a couple of times, but my mind was just bouncing from subject to subject and thinking about it too much. It went through the girl situation a few times, how I've gotta move, how I've gotta buy a new car, get some new shoes, get a haircut, get back to the gym, eat better, why is that lump on my head not going away and why does it hurt, vacuum, clean my apartment, take out the garbage, get up and go to work in the morning....This is how it works. It's like a fucking Bing commercial.

So, I read somewhere that if you try for an hour and can't sleep, you should get out of bed and smoke. Well, it said you should get out of bed and the smoking part I kind of added, but sometimes it works. I sat down and turned the TV on and ate a handful of trail mix while I stressed about all of the sleeping opportunity I was missing out on. Then, I realized that I had "Just Once" by James Ingram from Quincy Jones' The Dude stuck in my head. Not the worst thing to get stuck in your head, but still. On top of that, I was watching the season premiere of Girls Next Door. This lasted about four minutes before I switched it to the news for a second and then tried to sleep again.

Here's the new pattern: sleep for two hours and then wake up for a half hour and then sleep for two hours, etc. I FUCK(intentional space for emphasis) ING hate it. I've tried Tylenol PM. Mom says smoke weed. Some dude said masturbate...how in the hell would that make you sleep unless you were super out of touch with yourself? Coltrane used to work. White noise used to work. The last thing to work was a stuffed hippo and someone to spoon. That was the last time in two years that I've slept in until 10:00 AM.

Could that really be it? Could I be having problems sleeping alone again? That's dangerous. That's how you get into some trouble just so that you don't have to be alone. That's what we no longer want to get into because some mistakes get made that way. Awkward mornings and beds also get made, though. The bed part is nice.

So, anyway. I thought I had this last thing locked down and thought I was pointed in the right direction, but I think I've still got some slivers from the stake that got jammed in my chest or back depending on which angle you look at it from. It's all good. I'm taking it for what it is, but it's like getting gum on your shoe. It's never fully gone no matter how hard you try and remove it. David Roth, my problems have become gum on shoes. This would never happen to DJ Reggie. (wink wink)

Next up is blatant retardation in the workplace. I went back to my normal desk this morning as I've been on a project that is killing me more than cigarettes could ever try to and wanted to get back to my stuff. I walked into the office and it was completely dark. Now, I'm down with sustainability, but that's stupid.

"Hey, I love Abraham Lincoln, but where's the light switch? I'm not working by candle light."

A girl said, "Oh, we had the lights changed yesterday and they are too bright so we're not turning them on."

I replied, "I'm turning on the goddamn lights and if the water bottle is empty and the coffee is not made, I swear to god, I'm gonna fucking lose it."

She just snapped back, "You are the fucking office diva."

What? Coffee, water, light? I'm not asking for stock options, free lunch or free It's-It's. Just the fucking basics. A Sharpie. An Avery Hi-Liter. A black Uni-Ball deluxe pen. Post-Its and a ruler. Just basic items.

So, the electrician came over and literally said this, "Oh, so you are going to need to turn them on now that it's dark?"

I replied, "Dude, they are lights. You don't need them when it's light out. It's nice that they hang there, but if they are not going to light the room, you might as well yank 'em out. It's like a flashlight with no batteries. Those are called sticks."

Seriously, dude?!?!?!? Think about it. Yes, lamps are for light. Yes, they will be needed when it is the opposite of light as they are there to compensate for the absence of light. This is basic luminal philosophy. So, there you are. Bees in the bonnet by 9:30 AM with no sleep and a jilted chip on my shoulder. Look out motherfuckers.

Seriously?!

2009-10-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was a disaster. Lost my phone and recovered it in some lady's mailbox. Lost my glasses. Self-medicated, etc...

Then, after a night of no sleep over a twelve hour period of trying, I opened up my inbox and the physical therapist who I had a miserable second date with awhile back emailed me to ask me out after I bumped into her at my physical therapy appointment. Actually, my new therapist and her were pointing at my shoulder and going, "watch what his shoulder blade does right there." The balls on her. I've become a test case at physical therapy and I guess the awkwardness was all in my head. This was pre-mental therapy mind you.

My only concern is her lack of red flags. She is tiny, cute, smart, and has nothing to fix or save. Is that anything I should be interested in? Can I handle normalcy over lunacy? Can I shake the dust off and put my head back together? So many questions with worthless answers these days.

Whuddadik?

2009-10-07T09:35:00.000-07:00

Just to prove to myself that I was still relevant, I got the untouchable bartender's number last night. And her last name. I saw it in my phone today. I'm still too distracted by the last girl to possibly have any connection with her, but she's stupid hot. I was in trainwreck mode and still pulled it off, which proves that I can do it on autopilot. Autopilot is going to be the main mode from here on out. I don't want to be with her, I want to be with someone else, but if I can take her away from everyone else, I win. It's the difference between an emotional connection and a physical connection. Also, I'm a dick at heart.

I'm naive and stupid thinking that the last girl was the be all end all. I've had the be all end all a couple of times and survived, but goddammit this last one was awesome. She made me laugh. She made me feel. And, I could see it in her eyes that she adored me, but in the end, none of it was enough. Trying to let go and face the music, but it's just very bitter medicine.

On a medicinal note, I went to what used to be Long's yesterday because they called and told me I had a prescription to pick up. I wasn't aware of one, so I showed up and bought it out of curiosity. The warning on the bottle said "Consult a physician if you experience fear or anxiety." Yeah, dude, I'll skip that. After further inspection, I figured out it was Welbutrin. Apparently, I'm still on it. I gave the last bottle to my rapy neighbor after he cried into a vodka gimlet at 7:00 AM. My therapist asked me not to take it as I was making progress being in touch with my feelings. That worked out fuckin' well. He told me I was ready to have an adult relationship and that just fucking blew up in my face. I was so much better when I was unavailable and inintimate. Regardless, I'm debating on giving the bottle to my neighbor to keep him less rapy, but that's just starting a vicious cycle where I carry a prescription for him. Oh, shit. He never gave me back my ice tray that I loaned him. Whuddadik?

Grand Finally

2009-10-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

So, I still have my bouts of insomnia, but managed to pull some sleep together last night with only one minor incident. I'm off the Tylenol PM (pills are bad for me) and managed to fall asleep fairly peacefully, but woke up at midnight from a horrible nightmare where all I remember is that someone was drilling through my fingertips with a cordless drill. It felt real and as I woke up from it my body was tensing like it really happened. It was a little bit weird.

Right then, when I started realizing everything was okay, my phone buzzed and it was a text that said "Can't sleep. Is it past your bedtime?"

Of course, it was. I go to bed when children and old people do most nights. I also get up with the rest of the cocks. Totally unnecessary poultry joke there. It was an ex who is married now and I texted back for a little bit and said goodnight and then all the bad (mildly bad, really) stuff started flooding in and I had to sit there and process it all so that my brain would shut the fuck up.

For the best. Better off. These are fun collections of words that manifest themselves as velvet daggers. They are meant to make you feel better, but ultimately just pull your stitches out. There is definitely an ideal situation that would be for the best and leave me better off, but it's not this one. The situation would involve having someone who cared about me in my life and in turn, having someone to care about. I had those things for a brief moment. Now, I'm getting back to my old routine and withdrawing, eating healthy, going to bed early, but I feel lonely and lost.

I'm fine. I'm better off than a lot of people are, but there has got to be something more than this for me. I'm finally not being retarded. I'm finally not being self-destructive. I'm finally caring about myself, which by the way, makes one feel incredibly vulnerable. I won't be jumping off of a moving car any time soon unless this goes away. I'm finally at a place where I could actually be good for someone and then when I got a chance at it, it got yanked away. Classic case of up for grabs, down for keeps. Never really understood that game when I was 8 and still am being left flustered and disappointed by it.

I could sit here and say that I preferred disaster and disappointment when it was my fault because it seemed almost controllable in a way, but I don't feel that way. I honestly believe that it's worth it to be "good" and that often there is nothing given in return for being "good," but it's worth it just for the piece of mind. I do, however, feel a little bit ripped off by some elements of the world at the moment. Life can feel like a big rip off at times.

One Night In Somnia

2009-09-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

There is an awesome thing happening. I no longer fear the need to self-medicate in times of great stress and anxiety. Huge step forward. It's a bitch to actually ride out the things that are stressing you out or driving screws into your head while you try to sleep at night, but it's the healthy way to process changes in life. Or, so I'm told. The old way was to numb up and bury things. No more. I take the arrows naked and alone now.

It's not easy. Last night I went to bed at 9:00 and laid in bed until 11:00 trying everything to put myself to sleep to no avail. Then, light shot in through my blinds from someone parking by my window and then a second later a neighbor started taking a shower and the pipes were keeping me up. Not knowing what else to do, I went and had a smoke on my patio and then popped two Tylenol PMs. Nothing. I finally fell asleep around 2:00 or 3:00. I took liberties and slept in until 7:00 and was a fucking straight up zombie in the morning. Nearly fell down in the shower, which would have fulfilled my fear of being found naked and alone in the shower with the water running after three days of my facebook status not being updated. Then, walked into my door and now am sitting here just feeling nauseous, but my cheeks aren't orange, so the liver is doing it's job with the Tylenol PMs. When I used to drink and use them, I'd turn orange. It was really weird.

The part about the whole thing that really bothers me is that I feel so weak when this happens. I'm constantly falling for the song of Sirens' and smashing my ship into the rocks and then having to build it in the bottle again, minus a bottle now. When my brain gets all scrambled, I have to stay sober and experience it now. It kinda sucks. The part that sucks the most is that it hurts. Why should it hurt? Why should I believe anyone when they say anything? A more logical approach applying to things that you can see and feel needs to be taken.

When someone looks at you and says "I love you," you need to be careful because they may be saying it to try to convince themselves that they do. I mean, fuck, if you say something enough, you can start to believe it. It's a selfish act and when said without meaning it, it just waters it down. It's not their fault. They probably just don't understand it either. It's just a fucking word. Now, this is the part where I admit that I know nothing about this stuff. In fact, I probably try to understand it too much and that's my windmill to chase. The smart man knows he knows nothing. The more he learns, the more he learns he doesn't know.

So, I understand what's happening and it'll take a day or two more to get everything processed and filed away and back to my routine, but in the meantime I feel like I'm clutching a number at the DMV and have about 200 more to go. This time was pretty good and I'm sad that it didn't work out and I totally fell for it, but sometimes shit just doesn't work out. Lucy is going to pull the ball or the joke will be dead. How much crap do you think Reese put into peanut butter before he got to chocolate? He never gave up, so why should I? Will probably withdraw for a little bit, though and go back to MeKends rather than DrinkEnds and calibrate back to zero. It's healthy. I'll get back up. I just want to lay here a little longer.

All's Well That Ends...

2009-09-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

So this feels a bit selfish. I stop writing for months because things are going well. It's kind of unfair. Why not share the good times and the gut wrenchingly bad? Well, it's actually because when I'm having a good time there isn't a lot of time to write. On top of that, lately, I've been being a grown up and working nine plus hour days and don't have that much time.

The good news? I got a punch in the face again and need to write a little to hopefully kill all those butterflies that keep me up at night. I'm riding my first Tylenol PM hangover that I've had in a couple years as I try not to take them unless I'm completely out of ideas. Last night, after laying in bed for an hour and a half, I was out of ideas and took two. I usually only take one, but my brain would not stop chattering back with conclusion jumping, analysis, insecurity and attacks directed at myself. All I wanted was to sleep. Then, right when my arms went numb and the Tylenol PM was kicking in, my phone started blowing up with texts from the source of the butterflies.

Eventually, I did pass out, but woke up at 4:00 and then tossed and turned until 5:00 when I just gave up and laid there until 6:00 AM while fighting a toxic internal monologue.

Honestly, shit's not that bad and I've really built up a set of personal characteristics that have gotten flexed a lot in the last two months. It feels like a sparring partner with life at times, but I keep getting back up even if my nose is bleeding and my teeth are scattered about the floor. I feel stupid for doing it, but I promised my thereapist I would attempt to have adult relationships. Now, I feel that I'm playing my part well, but you can only control so much when involving a second party. Seriously, you can control two things in life: your TV and yourself. The rest is pretty much a crapshoot.

Yes, I go over and over it with my therapist that there is a plan and everything happens for a reason and I really believe it does, but even knowing that, a burn, whether planned or not, burns. Hurt hurts. Happiness is happy. All of these things happen in the pursuit of a life less complicated, but I'm learning to expect the unexpected and also it's a fucking bumpy ride to get there. Point B may be less complicated, but it's a really complicated process of putting the pieces together without getting hit in the back of the head with Karma's shovel.

So, yesterday sucked, but was manageable. There were just a couple unexpected situations. The first of the morning was an astronomical one and involved "space." As a child, I loved space. All the mysteries all the things that couldn't be understood because we, as people, just weren't prepared to understand them. So, while I know what space is and respect the need for it, sometimes I find it really hard to understand and can't help, but think there is an ulterior motive.

The other situation was expected, but not last night. The ignoring neighbor came over and apologized for being weird. I knew it was coming, but it was just weird timing to throw that on top of the mental stew that was brewing in my head all day. She is moving and told me about her new hobbies and conducted light conversation for about a half hour.

So, collected, there were two resolutions. One tepid and one cold, but resolve is resolve. All's well that ends.

The moral of the story is that you should plan for nothing and accept and adapt to anything. When the good happens, let it happen and enjoy it, but know that it may end at any moment. In fact, in may end in the moment. It doesn't mean you shouldn't participate in a game if you think you are going to lose. Shit. I play Halo and get beat by ten year olds, but I still play. It's fun. It puts the fun in losing. It's not whether you win or lose; It's that you have fun losing.

The List

2009-08-21T11:38:00.001-07:00

I've been working on the list. I suppose it should be some kind of victory list, but it's become sad. The initial list of everyone I've ever slept with started out as a therapeutic tool of dealing with my past and hopefully, putting it to rest. Instead, it awoke a lot of buried memories. It sits on my desk written on the back of an envelope with my work healthcare benefits information inside. Every time I walk past it I remember another girl that I forgot about. The most recent was "Paralegal who said she didn't have a gag reflex (liar)" and another one "I think her name was Tina." We'll call her Trina to keep her anonymous.

She was the only blind date that I have ever gone on in my life. The first night we ever hung out we went downtown and shared some appetizers and cocktails. She had a good sense of humor and was cute and surprisingly, over 30. After two hours, she said "I've got to go meet friends in the city."

I thought this was her making an escape until she followed it up with, "I'd love for you to go with me."

I agreed to go. We went to the Elbo Room which was a bar from my youth. That place awakens so many memories, it's ridiculous. Being nineteen with a fake ID and listening to the best music on weeknights and then chasing it with a quesadilla suiza and two tacos al pastor from El Farolito at 3:00 AM. Driving home wasted and still feeling invincible. Not a care in the world, but a love of nice times and good music. I was there on my twenty first birthday and asked the bartender if I got a free drink and she said, "Dude. You've been coming here three nights a week for two years."

So, we got there and it was reggae night. The contact high was ridiculous. I met her friends and was charming and nice and really got along with everyone. She drove me home with a slight buzz and I didn't invite her in. I think I was kinda buying into it. She was just normal. I was looking for that at the time. We later talked about it and she said that she thought it was weird I didn't try anything and I told her it was because I respected her.

A week later I met her and her friends at a pub quiz night. I fuckin' rule at pub quiz. I drank too much and she gave me a ride to her house where I stayed for the night. We got along well. The next morning I showered and wore my yesterday clothes to work after she drove me to my car. The work of shame.

So, shit was good. She was mature. She was thin. She had good hair. She smelled nice. She adored me. I could feel it. She walked around in a silk robe in the morning and just glided around her room while I was slowly waking up and grabbing glimpses in between fighting seizing the day and ceasing the day.

The next time we hung out was at home with some of my friends. It started at a Mexican restaurant with a group of my friends where we created a temporary shortage of margaritas for the country of Mexico. I heard NAFTA had to change some tariff regulations to get it back to acceptable levels. We went to my home bar where I have CDs in the jukebox. We drank cocktails. I ingested horny goat weed from the vending machine in the ladies restroom and then we headed back to my apartment with everyone. It was a vortex of chaos.

At some point, I said something to her and she got pissed and walked out of the apartment. I looked at Pappy with my back to the front door and said "Fuck it, dude. That shit wasn't working out anyway. Let her fucking go."

Pappy was making a weird face. I thought he was going to puke. I turned around and she was standing behind me. She still stayed the night and we slept together, but any respect was gone for the way she let me talk about her. The whole act was more instinctual than passionate. It was almost a fucking reflex.

The last time we hung out was after the Super Bowl one year. It was pre-DUI so like an idiot, I drove to her place after the game. On the way there, my best friend since I was eight years old called me to tell me that he asked his girlfriend to marry him. I'm on a booty call and he's getting engaged to be married. Talk about fucking parallel, but fuck it. I got married first. Got divorced, too. A fucking relationship pioneer. Or, the Lewis & Clark of disappointment, perhaps.

Again, that night was reflexive. I felt empty the next morning, but still made out with her on the couch on my way out the door. I think she was really trying to make it work, too. I mean she shaved before every time we ever hung out. That says a lot to me. I knew in my heart, though, that this would never be it. I needed someone that would punch back and I was just going to leave footprints on her back if we tried to progress any further on this.

After that night, I dropped off her map. I got three drunk phone calls over the next week with her telling me, "You blew it. I was the best thing you will ever have. You have no idea what you are missing out on." I wished her well in all her endeavors and already had a short list of the best things I had ever had. She wasn't on there. She was merely my ticket to what I thought was normalcy. She was settling. I got defriended on facebook the next day. I now have three defriends. At this rate, hatebook could become a reality.

So, the list makes me reflect on shit like that. It's kind of good. It's kind of bad. In that situation I did the right thing, but feel bad for delivering the bitter pill to her. I tried to be as gentle as possible and would totally be comfortable if I bumped into her, but she is one of the few that carries ill will as an aftermath of us crashing into each other. I still carry feelings for about 60% of anyone that I've ever dated and even carry some feelings for a few of the one night stands. A few of those are still jump in front of a train for them strong. I don't know what that says about me. Fall too easy? Fall too fast? Or, is it all not even real and I just perceive it as falling. This is the stuff that keeps me up at night. The perils of honesty and wearing your heart on your sleeve. You get burned a lot, but you get to dance in the fire just as much. It's great in small bursts.

Hardly Gras

2009-08-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

Just went and did the company picnic thing. It was on a Wednesday and they rolled it into the years of service ceremony and cancelled the cakewalk and the beer. There was still the three legged race and a guess how many Bellyflops in a jar contest, but it was just more depressing than morale inducing. Oh, I participated in the guess how many. I entered "7" as my guess and the lady looked at me like I was being a dick. I was.

It was a mardi gras theme and there was decent food, but not even a fuckin' free soda? They had kool-aid and ice water, seriously. It sparked memories of growing up Mormon and also evoked images of Jim Jones. Suddenly, I thought we were all going to die. I went with the ice water.

I looked around the picnic at all my co-workers and realized I didn't know most of them and wasn't friends with any of them except for a few. Aren't these things supposed to be happy? It was like going to an old Chuck E. Cheese with piss soaked carpet for your 21st birthday. Just disappointing. There is no morale at this point. I went with my cube mate and we were both having one of those days. Mine was because I got defriended on facebook by someone and the beat just goes on on that thing. I'm exasperated with it. Hers was with life in general. It was a lot of fuel for our pity fire.

This dude is making this long speech about a guy that has been with the department for 40 years and was "the mayor of this city that we have built." I had to comment on that to my lunchmates by saying, "And what did we build this city on? Rock and Roll, of course." Then, I looked at another co-worker who is just crazy and told one of the Directors beside me that someone should GPS her before she gets lost. Honestly, Island of Misfit Toys.

So, yeah, did my part and went to the picnic, but left real disappointed and wanted to be at a different place where I would like something like that. I hate feeling like this at work and used to try really hard to not get sucked into it, but this place is a stimulation dead zone. They should really do something about it. It's like a bad marriage at this point. I've been at places where it wasn't like that. Where I'd go to lunch with co-workers. Where we'd hang out afterwards. It really helps. I'm starting to really miss it and feel ground down.

Shall Not Covet Your Neighbor

2009-08-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning came too early this weekend. I'm still not sleeping and woke up at 7:00 AM after going to bed around 2:00 AM after hanging out with friends from the soccer team. I had already been drinking a beerzooka with another group of friends that afternoon. It was all good, though. I went AWOL at some point in the night and took a cab home and threw a cooler off of my patio into the bushes. I'm starting to draw some lines in the sand with the neighbors and expressly said to not put the cooler on my porch ever again.

In the morning I was trying to go back to sleep by holding the pillow over my head, but it wasn't working and didn't matter as there was a knock on my door. Pappy and Warner were at my place. We kicked it and I showed Warner a list I was making of every person that I've ever slept with. I told him that there is this period where I can't remember anyone's name and so they have names like "Mexican Bo Peep," "Ginger Bo Peep," "Leather Pants Vampire" and "Four Piercings Below The Belt (but may have been named Arlene)." Then Warner gave me a ride to my car. I got the car home and all was well in the world. Watched Liverpool lose while trying to fall back asleep on the couch. Wasn't going to happen.

Around 2:00 PM I decided to be Johnny Palmerseed and go spread the love for the wondrous elixir that is a Robert Palmer. The Robert Palmer is an Arnold Palmer + Vodka + Peach Schnapps. Apparently, people are really ordering them now. It's become a totally legitimate order since being invented at the Portland airport by myself in honor of the love addicted British rocker, Robert Palmer. Sadly, it's only recognized by the few bartenders that I drink with, but it should make the Applebee's menu in about 6 months. It's delicious.

I bargained my way into a sixth on Sunday and introduced a cougar to them. She was a huge fan and thanked me for inventing it. They never thank you the day after, though. So, yeah, after six, I was a little trashed and ready to head home.

I biked home with the plan to order a pizza, watch a movie, and go to bed. It was a pretty solid Sunday plan. The pizza gets there. Life is good and my phone blows up. I'm expecting it to be one of the two people that I've been texting all afternoon, but it's some weird number. The text says: "So...how did you feel about talking?" I texted back "What?!?"

The next text said, "what do you mean by that? I'm asking if you want to talk."

I texted back "I don't know who this is?"

I googled the area code and got up and walked next door. I knocked on the neighbor's door and said "Is this you?"

She said, "No" and I turned around and then she said, "Just kidding, but you deleted me out of your phone?"

We talked for a bit. I told her the silent treatment/ignoring thing was a bullshit move and uncalled for and that I deserved more than that. At the very least she needed to treat me like a fucking person as I had been super cool to her and this is not how you return favors.

She countered by saying she wasn't avoiding me and that she had just been busy helping her friend buy a car and some other bullshit. She actually looked like she might be able to convince herself that that was true. I told her that that was complete bullshit and I didn't care about any of the whys or hows anyway. It just had to stop. Honestly, she hopped the fence onto her patio once last week. It was a little transparent. How am I feeling like the crazy one when stuff like this is happening?

She knew a bunch of stuff I did this past week, too, and knew my routine pretty well. That was creepy. She said that she would occasionally look for me out of her peephole in her door. I mean it's one thing noticing if your neighbor's car is not in the parking lot, but checking the peephole before you leave your apartment? That's a prison.

So, the goal was to end the neighbor feud and I think we got there in about an hour. I then gave her half of my pizza and went home. Mission Accomplished.

Where does this leave things? No more bike rides. No dinners. No sleepovers. No middle of the night comfort calls. No more after work hangouts. No more Rock Band. No more feeling like a stalker in my own apartment. Now, however, we can at least just coexist. A life less complicated is my windmill to chase. I, honestly, don't believe I'm destined for a normal life, but it doesn't mean that I won't try.

Home Is Where The Hard Is

2009-08-13T09:47:00.001-07:00

Stuff is starting to fall back together. It's not great or anything, but it's totally manageable. The routine has just been altered a little bit. At this point, it's all about me. I'm the one with the problems and I'm the only one that can help myself. The help from others greatly diminishes the difficulty, but ultimately, I'm the only one that can flick the heavy switch back to "normal."

Starting to sleep again. D sent an itunes playlist of whitenoise that I didn't get fully downloaded by my new 9:00 PM bedtime, but I did something else I had read about and it kind of worked. I just laid in bed and breathed in and counted to 5 and then breathed out and counted to 5. The point being that the oxygen lets your body know that you are not under duress and the rest of you follows suit. The result? I no longer was playing six degrees of your stressors as I slept and also woke up dreaming about Ms. Pac-Man after 4 hours of sleep and then snuck in a couple of more hours after that and still woke up with the alarm clock rather than before it.

I think I may have been wrong about my subconscious being evil and plotting against me. It's taking everything it can and filing it away in the most efficient way it can so that my conscious doesn't have to deal with it during the day. It's why it feels like my brain is spinning the whole night while I try to sleep. It's really just inconvenient timing and I suppose it's the cognitive equivalent of moving furniture for the carpet cleaners. After it's all done, it will be a much better place to hang out. I still have a stock GABA chemical and receptor system, but am a little jealous of those that get to use benzodiazipenes to throw a muzzle on that whole system. It's cheating. "It's the rules of the game and the rules are the first go," sadly.

I was playing the stupid self-imposed curfew game with the blinds closed last night, but realized how stupid that was. I just need to go back to doing what I was doing and not worry about the drama moat that is around my apartment. The moat is what I make it.

Also, had a huge breakthrough with self-medicating again. I had a couple of beers after work to take the edge off. Honestly, just to take the edge off. I took a short nap after that and woke up a little later. The news is like the best thing to fall asleep to in the world next to golf. I got up groggily and thought about another beer. That would be stupid. So, I got up and jumped in the car and went and got a salad from the grocery store and ate. Never got to a third beer. That's a win.

So, tonight, might suck it up and go to a cougar nest in Los Altos to people watch with a girl that I met awhile ago. Going in real softly to that one and will go home early. Or, may just see if we can reschedule until I'm a little bit more together.

The two things I think are the major things to deal with right now are loneliness and believing that I deserve for good things to happen to me and quit self-punishing myself. See? It's all me.

Deprivation Nation

2009-08-12T08:49:00.001-07:00

All right. Going to wrap this one up, put a bow on it and give it away.

I was waiting for my sister to meet me for dinner yesterday and my other neighbor goes, "Hey, you want to talk about it?"

I said, "Talk about what?"

He replied, "You and the neighbor over here."

I said, "You know there's been this gray cloud over this whole complex since I got back on Sunday. I don't know that there is anything to talk about, but did something weird go down this weekend besides the obvious? I wasn't even around and we are no longer on speaking terms. That's weird."

He laid it all out for me. It was a typical night of recklessness that I was not above in my formidable years, but I've also learned that nothing good happens on one of those nights and try to not do it anymore. So, newsflash, nothing good happened and it goes way beyond me and has turned the complex that was Melrose Place to Hellrose place.

One neighbor wants to fight the other for cockblocking him by hanging out in a Speedo until 6:00 AM. One neighbor is not talking to me because she is "sick of this shit." Me, I'm just disillusioned by everything. How one man could be so wrong is the part that I'm having a hard part dealing with, but it's pretty resolved. I feel chumpy and stupid, but that's my own deal and is pretty easily resolved. I'm not chumpy. I'm not stupid and I'm shaking this and getting back to being good. Bored, but good.

I had two beers while I talked to the other neighbor and he ran down the events of the weekend for me. He was super angry and I just kept explaining to him that anger was way more hurtful to one's self than the hatee. I learned that a long time ago. I just told him to find his center and get some balance and zen the fuck out. He kept looking to me to get angry about the stuff that I was dealing with as a fallout from the weekend. I'm not angry. I wasn't even in the same area code and had nothing to do with any of it. If anything, I'm just disappointed that what was in my head was better than the real thing, but it's generally the case. Beyond that, I had a where the fuck am I living moment. My sister showed up and "I'm better than all this" was chiseled into my brain. I felt pretty good about stuff. She just looked at me and said, "You need to get the fuck out of here."

To drive that point further home, I got this text while we were at dinner and showed it to her, "Don't 4get my smokes. Thanks dude. Ur so fuck'n young n got so much goin 4 ya can't believe you get upset about this shit. Pussy."

I went to bed after dinner, though, and something weird happened. Everything felt normal and then my pulse started racing. I had it at 120 BPM as I laid there at 9:30. I tried breathing to slow it down and then figured out that I had been thinking about the situation so much that it was all I could think about. I never really thought about it, but what do you think of to fall asleep? Shortly after my separation, sleep dwindled to almost nothing. I could visualize myself in a giant field under a blue sky just floating and it would help sometimes. With deep breathing it works. That still doesn't get away from what I think about when I go to bed under normal circumstances. I'm totally at a loss.

So, I finally fell asleep at about 10:30 and then snapped awake at 11:30. My subconscious was finding all these ways to relate the random things of REM sleep to the neighbor. The funniest one that it pulled off was a melody that was stuck in my head. I couldn't remember what song it was and it ended up being "The Neighbor" by Jason Falkner. I hate my brain for shit like that, but it was pretty brilliant on its part. I'm starting to believe she is a symbol of something else. It's not actually her. It's what she represents. I've read enough of Jung to know that she could be a symbol of something unresolved in my subconscious that I can bury when I'm awake and can turn on some defenses, but there is a shadow lurking in there that needs to be resolved. Sadly, again, there isn't a real clear answer or solution on this one. I'm just being alerted that I need to resolve something by the most innerworkings of myself and she was a reminder of that.

So, anyway, woke up at 3:15, 4:11 and then 5:00 and just laid there until the alarm clock went off. It wasn't a clean night of sleep, but it was unmedicated. I'll take that as a win.

As far as the neighbor situation thing goes. She made a few things a lot easier to deal with down the line by drawing a line in the sand like this. Yeah, it's a bitter pill, but you've got to take it. I'm staying above the whole thing. If she doesn't want to talk then we shouldn't talk. I'm not losing out on anything. She never gave as much as she took and I just plan on playing the ball as it lies. It's the rules, dude. I'm better than this.

Valerdictorian

2009-08-10T10:52:00.001-07:00

I'm having a bit of anxiety today due to recent events. Not just the neighbor. The dad. My little brother. Work, etc. I was cyberdiagnosing my condition looking for a first line of defense against the anxiety just to kind of take the edge off and found Valerian root as a natural remedy. I was reading about it and found this weird side effect that it has. It attracts cats and rats. Perfect.

I'm just imagining me sitting there thinking to myself, "Shit. This really works. I feel okay" and then looking around at a bunch of cats surrounding me preparing to steal my soul or my breath while I sleep.

I mean. I've got a full bottle of Welbutrin on my coffee table, but the therapist says not to take it. I could probably get a Xanax prescription today if the doctor checked my pulse and blood pressure or just looked at my hands shake, but there was actually a better answer out there. The answer was friends. They work.

A friend checked in on me this morning just to see how I was hanging and it meant a lot. Another friend who had shared a particularly harrowing experience with me this weekend also exchanged some IMs with me. We talked about the weekend and about things moving forward and the neighbor and me and her, of course. It alleviated some of the stress and pressure from the whole thing. I learned this morning that it was way easier to help someone than it was to be helped, but she was good at it. It's my whole easier to give than receive condition that I have.

She put a lot into perspective both in general terms regarding myself and specific terms regarding the neighbor situation. She told me that if the neighbor wanted to talk it out she would come over and talk it out. If she is hooking up it doesn't mean she doesn't care. Sounds crazy, but it's true. If she doesn't want to talk it out, we won't talk it out and it wouldn't matter at that point anyway. It also made me realize that there were people who cared and there is something so comforting about being missed by someone. Never get to the point where you honestly believe that you are alone and that no one cares about you. Someone does. It's a sneaky feeling, though, you've got to be careful not to let it in. It's pretty much the hot shoes and bikini of the feelings world. You'll let it in too easily sometimes.

When you get your head all bashed in sometimes it makes it possible to absorb some things that you had lost sight of because you weren't paying attention to the big picture. It takes some affirmation that you are a good person and makes it worth fighting again and not giving up. Also, if you're not careful, you just might learn something.

In the past, I would internalize everything and wouldn't reach out for help. That would be followed with drowning whatever ailed me with booze. It's funny, nowadays if I'm feeling bummed, the last thing I'm going to do is booze. The eating? Still an issue, but seriously, it feels like I've got a nest of butterflies in my stomach. They're not pretty when they are inside you. They are what they are. I still get them before soccer games. It shouldn't be such a big deal.

So, someone asked me how I was at work today and rather than say fine, I replied, "You know what? Sometimes things just drop in your lap and you have to look at them and analyze them for what they are and then work with them. It doesn't really matter if they are good or bad. They are your things in your lap." They looked back at me like I was crazy, but I felt like the better man for not lying to them and telling them that I was great. The world won't wait for you and sometimes you've got to pick up your things and keep moving or you will fall behind.

Also, one last point. If a spider spins a web and a fly flies into it, can you really be mad at the spider? It's just doing what it knows to do. The fly is the idiot for flying into it.

Punched By A Ten Year Old

2009-08-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

What's it feel like to be punched in the face by a ten year old? I have the answer as of yesterday.

It wasn't really a physical punch from him, but more like a bitchslap of reality.

I got home from some time in Napa. I had gotten a text from the neighbor on Friday assuring me that it's good if we spend the weekend apart and deal with the fact that we are "just neighbors" and that's all. Whatevs. Drank irresponsibly with friends and performed one stunt jumping into the pool from way too high of an elevation on a rockwall. Proceeded to drink myself into a mess with them and gave myself a much deserved panic attack for all of Sunday.

I made the drive home and felt that burning in my stomach paired with a tightness in my chest as I got closer and closer to home as if I knew the shit was going to go down. We talked briefly after work on Friday and she had that look that my ex gave me the morning after my birthday so long ago when she was finally done. It's a look that hits a wall ten feet behind you with an absolute steel quality in the eyes. This is the point when an individual has switched you off. It's a look that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

I got into my apartment and tried to nap, but it wouldn't happen so watched "Enter the Ninja" and did some laundry. The neighbor kids were running around all giddily and started rapping the neighbor's wall knocker repeatedly. I peeked my head out of the apartment and said, "Hey man. If they don't answer after three, they aren't going to answer. Leave her alone, T-Biz."

He then came up and whispered "Go look in the window at her couch."

I replied, "That's creepy and weird. You shouldn't look into people's windows, dude."

He then said back, "They are having sex on the couch?"

He followed this up with "Are you and her dating?"

I told him, "No, man. We're just neighbors."

He took off and I finished my laundry. Normally, at times like these in the past, I would just booze myself to sleep. Not this time. I went inside and laid down for a little bit and just tried to accept and process everything.

The neighbor is in the right on this and has every right to pursue whatever she wants to pursue. I firmly believe that there is some kind of plan of sorts and just need to accept it. There is no talk needed. There was nothing really besides two people having a nice time together briefly. I wasn't being nice to her expecting something in return for it and this is all fine. Yes, if you are falling for someone, it's nice if they fall back, but that's not always the case. Of course, with any fall, there is some time required for a recovery. You've got to fall every once in a while, though. It's how you learn to stop falling.

I exchanged texts with some friends and didn't feel alone in it anymore. I didn't necessarily feel good, still don't, but I definitely felt better. I mean, my hands are still shaking a bit, it's hard to eat and I'm a bit dizzy, but it's all part of the process.

I went to bed at 9:00 and tried to do it natch, but eventually got up and took a Tylenol PM. Only one because I kept almost falling asleep and then some subconscious lightning bolt would jerk me awake. It was horrible. I would lay there and it's like my brain was fighting with itself. One side was doing the right thing and accepting the whole situation and the other one was jumping to conclusions and creating all of those hurtful scenarios in very vivid imagery which would result in me waking up again. So, I got into a two hours on and one off sleeping pattern even with the Tylenol PM which just made me feel like I couldn't move when I did wake up.

The dreams were speaking volumes about what was going on. First, I was in Orlando (hate Orlando) and had forgotten to pack any clothes. Then, my bike was stolen and my phone got run over by a car. Add a lost laptop and then waking up at 5:30 AM unable to go back to sleep and there you have it. Fear of loss.

I swear I swear I swear I'm cool with it, but I do feel just numb. I feel like I'm wearing my body like a suit today and just trying to act like everything's cool, but I'll get into a conversation and just feel my mind slipping away from it. It's hard to concentrate.

The plan: put myself back together and just move forward. It's a little tough at first and blows my mind that this could happen this quickly, but it's doable. Who knew a ten year old could pack such a punch?

How To Save Money On Therapy

2009-08-07T10:05:00.001-07:00

"I'll save you money on therapy, Hugh. Life's a bitch." - Hugh Voltage, SR.

So, he finally called me back from my message on Father's Day and made one statement that made every pint of blood drain from my heart and eyes well up. You fucking miserable asshole. He told me I should take all of that money and just buy a nice car and that would make me feel better. He followed that up with news that one of my younger brothers was abusing pills and just fucking up everything. Then he said he would have to call me back. I just kind of sat there in the area in the back of my work where I smoke in awe of what had just happened. I'll admit that he is a particularly powerful man when it comes to words. He crushed me with one sentence in less than five minutes.

This is why we don't talk. This is why I avoid him. This is why I've mentally destroyed all family bonds in my head. I'd like to see what Norman Rockwell would paint of that interaction. Fuck, even Charles Shultz would never do that Charlie Brown. The dad would just say "Bah Bwah Bwah Bwah. Bwah Bwah. Bwah BuhBuh Bwaw." I'd prefer that.

This was after a fairly horrific therapy session yesterday where it came up that I remember the day he left when I was five and the therapist asked me to go over it with him. I woke up and realized he was gone and pinned a note to my mom's bed to let her know. It was the day I gave up on childhood and just wanted to take care of my mom and my sister. It was the day that I developed a crippling fear of abandonment, which is also why I fear giving myself to the neighbor and want to pull away so as to avoid being abandoned, AGAIN.

So there it is. Happy Friday. I can beat this. I can handle this, but fuck it hurts. One day Lucy is going to not pull the football away and I plan on crushing it.

A,E, I, O, U and Sometimes Y is Not the Answer

2009-08-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is, but a wave a melancholy overtook me last night as I had my last smoke before bed.

I had just walked from my neighbor's apartment where I had fixed her Internet after helping her learn Mary Had a Little Lamb on guitar and then laid on the floor with her listening to Jeff Buckley. She's really gay for Jeff Buckley at this point. I laid next to her and rubbed her back as she started to fall asleep. The whole time a film strip of her pictures was flickering on her laptop. There were pictures of her, of her with friends, of her with family and of her with boyfriends. I thought to myself, "You know somewhere down the line, you are going to have to deal with this." I then got her up and gave her a kiss on the cheek and went home.

She has pointed out that there is no way that we will ever be together and I'm starting to believe it, really. I mean, it makes no sense, we like each other, but the only time she really shows it is after a few drinks. That's not real to me. She does, however, share some real moments with me when not drinking. That's the conflict. It doesn't, however, solve the problem of what I need from a person to make me feel secure and trust them.

She's already breached my defenses more than anyone in a severely long time and I don't know if it's her or because therapy has opened up some of those avenues for people to break and enter into. Regardless, why can't I accept the possibility that she could really like me, that it's not some kind of inside joke that is being set up from the get up by the entire world around me?

On top of that, what if she doesn't? I know that I'm okay alone and might possibly even be better alone, but that's the kind of bullshit that we all tell ourselves as an excuse of not getting what we want. We all want to belong and be loved. We all want to be adored and anyone that tells themselves or others that they'd rather be alone are full of bullshit. It's the one thing that we all collectively pursue. It's the reason behind everything. Yeah, I'll say I don't want you to like me or I don't care if you like me, but it's a boldfaced lie. Cheap Trick said it first. They wanted you to want them. I agree. I want you to want me and need me.

Now, I know that even in the short time that the neighbor and I have known each other, her life and my life have been better for it and without each other our lives would be a little less awesome, but there is just so much on the line for me. So much. And, sadly, the horse is so far from the stable at this point that I could never get it back in there easily.

So, she hasn't even done anything to hurt me in real life, but I've gone over about a hundred scenarios of how it is going to happen in preparation for what my mind has turned into the inevitable. Still trying to not put my finger near the eject button, though. I can do this without copping out. I'm just going to try to enjoy it while it lasts. Knowing why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling is not going to really help. An answer in this case would be completely worthless.

Jesus. I should just print this out and hand it to the therapist after work.

The One-Winged, Caged Bird Sings, Too.

2009-08-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

This is a tough one, but I really need to write. For some reason, probably lack of sleep, everything just feels real heavy right now.

Friday night I went to Judas Priest and Whitesnake. It was pretty rad. I drank responsibly and headed home afterwards and my neighbor was still up. I went to her place and had a beer with her and listened to some music while I gave her arm tickles until she fell asleep on the floor. As soon as she was out, I left her apartment and locked the door behind me.

I got up at 8:00 AM and made some coffee and worked until about 2:00. The neighbor got up and I Irished up my coffee and gave her one as I completed my last action item. She said she wanted to hang out and be a bum and I told her that I would welcome that. We ended up doing the pool for a bit and then a movie and pizza. It was really domestic. I'm not sure what transpired next, but we got into it again. This time there was door slamming and name calling. I went to bed really pissed off having said some harsh things back. In hindsight, there were some things at play that I was unaware of.

Had breakfast the next morning while I waited for my mom to meet me for breakfast. She showed up right as they took it away and I switched to mimosas while we hung out and talked. I told her right off the bat that I was pretty pissed off from the night before and she reassured me that the neighbor was just going sideways and she would apologize and that if it was going to work out, it would work out. I told her I hoped so because I was falling madly in love with her. I've gone over it and over it and it's the only explanation that I've got. Right after that, I had an "I'm sorry" text show up.

So, we wrapped it up and I stopped at a bar on the way home to have a Robert Palmer to take the edge off. Later I found out that there are Federal, State, and Municipal regulations that state I am to be capped at 5 Robert Palmers in one sitting. Yeah, I got Palmered. It was actually a really fun afternoon of day drinking. The HughVoltage show switch got flipped.

The neighbor texted me to see if I was home and I told her that I was heading home, but was not "talk" worthy for some of the stuff we needed to talk about it. This is where I get fucked. If you would like to know anything about me, put me on a stool and fill me with cocktails. I will be stripped of all secrets if you want them. Nothing is off the table. I would never be a victim of waterboarding. Wait. Maybe they should use my method to get information from terrorists. I might be onto something. When you sum it all up, I think getting my secrets would go over way better in the press.

Long story short, the neighbor invited me in Sunday night when I got home and every card from my hand has been put on the table. She knows that I think I'm madly in love with her.

So, on a rough Monday due to a rough Sunday, she dropped by my work for lunch on her bike and we had lunch and talked about stuff. She pointed out all of the things that I didn't remember telling her. I told her that I may not remember it, but I can tell her that it was all true. She said that I made her laugh. It was a solid recovery. I'm not real mean anymore.

She biked around and met me after work and we went and grabbed a quick bite. I introduced her to fried dill pickle chips and sweet potato fries. I got a random text from a dude I had met the previous day. He thought I was entertaining and wanted to see if I was hanging out for a drink. It wasn't a gay thing. We went over and talked to him for a bit after turning down his offer of a drink. He seemed like good people.

We headed home and I played guitar and sang to her for a little bit, which is really alien to me. I've never done it before, but she's got me pretty good and to be completely honest, I enjoy her as an audience. She just lays on the couch with her eyes closed and listens to me do my thing. It's really awesome and sweet and there will probably never be a moment in our near future to compare to when I was playing "Lilac Wine" by Jeff Buckley to her while she laid on the couch. She looked so peaceful and it was completely contagious. Of course, a ten year old neighbor smashed into the sliding glass door like a lost bird at some point. He's got a mean crush on her, too, and was peeking through the blinds.

She went home after listening to some music for a bit and I went to bed. I wasn't really sleeping. I was mostly just laying there and my phone rang so I grabbed it. It was her and she was crying. We talked for a bit about stuff and I tried to calm her down and then she had to make another call and I went to bed again. Couldn't sleep at all at that point. She called again and I just told her that I would come over.

I went over to her place and she just looked really sad, so I gave her a hug and tried to reassure her about everything from here to there while we listened to "Happy" by Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins on repeat. She eventually looked at me in my Adidas sweatsuit that I had on and said, "You look like a pimp." After that, she asked me to stay, so I stayed. Nothing happened. That's not what this is about. I just like to be around her. I want to protect her, take care of her, make her laugh, all of these things that I didn't know were in me anymore. It's all very dangerous, but it's not worth fighting anymore. I want to watch her while she is sleeping and at peace. I also caught her watching me sleep, too, this morning.

And The Avalanche Cascades

2009-07-23T10:19:00.001-07:00

With the stroke of my silver tongue wagging "As soon as I walk out this door, I'm nothing, but your neighbor. Borrowed cups of sugar and maybe half and half on a Saturday morning and that's it," I've completely unraveled whatever was raveling with my neighbor. I think it's for the best.

Here's how it started.

I was on the second day of a coolout period that included cooking angel hair pasta with olive oil, hot pepper flakes, cherry tomatoes and basil leaves. It was spicy, yet delicious and cooking it was the fun part. Yesterday was the second day. I worked through lunch and headed to the driving range after work intending to whack some balls and then eat and then enjoy a glass of wine and sleep like a baby. Solitary. Confined. Okay. Three bottles of wine, a myoplex bar and two cups of coffee in 36 hours. That's your 100% RDA of bad idea.

I got home from the range and showered and cracked open a moderately priced bottle of Cabernet. Dropped the tuning on my guitar to a D and ran through a Minus the Bear song on my acoustic. Finger tapping on an acoustic is an acquired taste. I was completely into what I was doing and completely alone. Happy.

My phone rang and it was the neighbor. She had lost her keys at work and was a bit frantic. I told her to just come by when she gets home and I had a half a bottle of wine and some smokerretes for us to share while she waited for maintenance. Happiness was officially threatened.

She had had a rough day. We shared some personal/very personal thoughts. We killed the bottle of wine. We opened a bottle of Mick Fleetwood (yeah, that one) Merlot. It was a gift from a neighbor for Christmas. It tasted like Tusk.

She got tired of waiting for maintenance and thought she could pick her lock with allen wrenches that I loaned her. I watched attentively at her lock picking techniques and then pulled her screen out and popped her window off the hinges and asked her if she would like me to let her in. I let her in and then got a screw lock for her window so no one could do what I did again.

We hung out for a bit at her apartment and listened to music from my iTunes library. That part was kinda awesome. She's on my network. Another bottle got opened and we sat and listened to Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah in a dark room. Everyone should do that once or a hundred times.

We then got to some touchy subjects about us which culminated in an ultimatum. I left a neighbor while she played Hallelujah on a loop that I could hear in my apartment. I texted her to turn it off and it persisted. I then shut down the network to turn it off. Brilliant. Don't fuck with your IT guy.

So, this morning I read our text exchange where she referred to me as drunk and mean and left her a voicemail with a neighborly apology. Three bottles of wine and eleven days of acquaintance equals one apology. Not bad.

I'm letting it go, but still have a soft spot for her. How does one do that in such a short amount of time? I'm emotionally easy. That's really the reason that I questioned the whole thing. I fall too fast.

In other news, I went to the doctor today and got my ankle checked out. It's healing. While I was there I got my annual STD screening to the question of "Have you been exposed to any STDs in the last year?" with a response of "Statistically? Probably." While there I asked him about my back. I've got a beat up L5 vertebrae from soccer and it hurts persistently. I asked him whether I should just get surgery to fix it while I still have health coverage. He recommended I go to physical therapy and I started laughing. He asked what was funny and I told him about how I dated the therapist twice. He laughed right in my fuckin' face and said "That was stupid." I'm about to send her an email and warn her. I'm sure she'll bump me to another therapist so that I can feel rejection again.

Cognitive therapy this evening. Thank god. I managed to get some material pulled together for it. Just a man with a shovel at the bottom of a hole looking at everyone else asking how he got there and how to get out.

Live By The Bottle. Die By The Bottle.

2009-07-22T08:29:00.000-07:00

I've worked at a few jobs in the past where I was consistently pondering where the coffee came from. I'd roll into work and smell it brewing and go grab a cup and feel like someone in a tv show getting to work. I even considered whistling and taking up a briefcase briefly. (Briefcase briefly? Seriously?) Did I say few? I meant once.

Not only do I know why the caged bird sings, but I fuckin' know where the coffee comes from. I also know who changes the water bottle every goddamn time it goes empty. I know who picks up the cigarette butts next to the ashtray and the stray McDonald's wrappers next to the trashcan. I know the guy who straightens crooked pictures and throws away stray butter chips from the refrigerator. It's actually gotten to the point where co-workers will walk up to my desk and ask me to make coffee or change the water bottle or fix their chair or unjam the copier.

There was one company that I worked for and the coffee pot was all the way on the other side of the building. So, I would trudge from my office to go put a pot on and then retrudge back to my office to work while it brewed. No whistling. No wanting to take up a briefcase. By the time I returned to the pot it was empty. Those motherfuckers would take it while it was brewing leaving me with nothing unless I stood next to it.

The water bottle? I went on strike here and refused to change the bottle for a week stating that you cannot help anyone unless you can help yourself. I was hoping that I would spot some initiative in the office. It sat empty for three days and everyone just switched to bottled water. I got fed up and changed the water bottle. They won. They always eventually win.

Yes, I make better coffee than them and yes, I don't spill a drop when changing the bottle out, but just because I'm good at something does not mean I should have to do it every time. Hmmm? Perhaps they would be better if they ever tried it. Perhaps they would be better if they even took interest in it. It's shit like this that is going to result in our civilization culminating in nothing but a smear on a dead planet as a legacy in the Universe.

I mean, come on. We have more referential materials at our disposal for intense amounts of information than at any point in history and we're doing what with it? Going to see movies with Katherine Hiegl in them? Status updates about what we're eating? This is what we do? I'm beating up on myself here, too. I watched ten minutes of Hell's Kitchen last night and watched three episodes of Kendra a couple of weekends ago, so I'm not off the hook either. I'll also update a facebook status 72 times in three hours.

I guess it goes beyond coffee and water bottles, but they're a start. From there we can progress to modifying the AC to come on before 4:00 PM everyday. Actually, I'd try, but the union dudes would kill me.

Try Not to Love They Neighbor

2009-07-21T09:10:00.001-07:00

This week's therapy session is going to be about how short the road is from smitten to smited. I am quickly falling hard for my neighbor. Too quickly?

There is that undefinable quality in a person where you just know after ten minutes that you like them a lot. The first conversation I had with her there was a surge of butterflies in my stomach and a tightness in my chest. My first reaction was flight from the situation. The proximity factor was too dangerous. I fought it that first week, but we hung out a lot. This culminated in going out again last Friday night.

Let me just jump in with a childhood story. I was probably twelve years old and had done particularly well at baseball tryouts and got bumped up a division. I got put on a team with 14 year olds. I showed up to our first practice and everyone else was much bigger than me. Some probably had pubic hair for christ sakes. This was my first encounter with operating out of my league. I tried to hang, but it was very frustrating as everyone else was two years ahead of me. It was a rough year, but I eventually got through it and the next year was much easier. I feel like I'm operating out of my league with my neighbor at this point.

She is super cute, young and actually has a glowing personality. She makes me giddy. She makes me feel funny. She makes up funny words for things. She makes me drop all of my normal defenses that I employ. She scares the hell out of me and is a threat to my normal, sustainable routine. I've been here a few times and the eventual result was devastating, but when it all went down at least I didn't have to see them everyday or sit in my apartment and know that they are on the other side of the wall.

Anyway, Friday night she came over after work and we listened to music on the porch and had a few beers while she smoked these cigarettes that smelled like candy. They will forever be associated with her. She went into my apartment and grabbed my guitar and looked at me and simply said, "Play for me." I don't play for people anymore. It's something I do by myself in my apartment. I looked back at her and couldn't say no.

She had me play along with some flamenco music that she loved and then I turned it back on her and gave her a real quick lesson on some basic chords and she was killing it. She was playing along with "Ashes of American Flags" by Wilco within a half hour. We decided we needed to eat so I suggested we go downtown and grab something.

We changed and jumped into a cab and headed downtown. I showed my exceptional talent in singing traditional Indian music and impressed both her and the cab driver. He thought I was a natural. We got downtown and I jumped out of the cab and ran to an ATM to grab cash for the cab. I was so wrapped up in the moment that I left my card in the ATM. Brilliant.

We walked to the restaurant and managed to crash a table for two with no reservation. Totally crediting kismet for that and also putting absolute trust in it at that point. We had a nice dinner with the best gay waiter known to man. I thought he had a crush on her until we figured out that he had a crush on me by the end of dinner.

From there, we rolled to a club and put on a dance exhibition. The dances included Making Pancakes, Grocery Shopping, Double Dutch, Jumpshots and a variety of other completely goofy dances as the patrons just stared as us as if we were absolutely crazy. We both could fall back on being part-time mimes at any moment in our lives.

There is a definite caveat when hanging out with a super hot girl in a club environment. Every dude in the club and some of the girls want to destroy you. Even with that distraction, she never dropped her attention from me. I was probably too buzzed to really appreciate this as we devolved into a pair of hot messes. She grabbed my glasses and turned into sexy Sarah Palin before stepping on them and then managed to lose her credit card. We were killing it with recklessness. I realized we were done and pulled her from the club.

We walked past a group of homeless people and her golden heart bled. So, we ended up buying forty bucks worth of pizza for the homeless as all of the cabs sped off into the night filled with drunks. After she had distributed all of the pizza, she looked at me and said, "I'm hungry." This is where we had our first argument. We were really packing in a lot in a small amount of time. We argued in some alley and did that awkward face in face thing, but resisted making out because we were neighbors.

She saw a couple sitting on a curb and the girl looked really tore up so she grabbed me by the arm and led me over to the couple where she talked to the girl and then held her hair while she gave it up into a planter. As the couple walked away the dude looked at her and said "That dude's an asshole. You shouldn't date him again."

I looked at her and told her to hold my glasses while I went and showed him how much of an asshole I was. She grabbed me and talked me out of it as we walked back to where the cabs used to be. As we approached, a cab was going towards the throngs of displaced revelers waiting impatiently. She jumped into the street, stopping the cab short of the people waiting and yelled to me, "Get in!" She then rolled down the window and flipped off everyone waiting while she yelled "Fuckers!" at them while we drove past.

That was the point that I realized I was done. I was smitten.

We made out in the cab on the way home like the ship was going down. Both of us realizing it was totally wrong and that we shouldn't be doing it because we were neighbors.

We got home and...The next morning she was laying on my chest while I stroked her hair and we just talked about whatever before I snuck her back to her apartment next door in an effort to conceal it from any of the neighbors. It was as at peace as I've felt in a really long time and more potent than any amount of booze that I've ever tried to use to self-medicate and forget. She made me want to remember every moment we were spending together. She made me want to live and die on every word that came out of her mouth.

This is not a crush. This is an emergency.

Chile Coloradical

2009-07-14T15:20:00.001-07:00

Yesterday my neighbor and I rode our bikes into work. It was cute. I've never done that with anyone before. I did kind of miss my me time and my iPod, but it couldn't hurt to get comfortable around other people. I have to admit that I was a little concerned when she left my office yesterday morning. Honestly, the bike that I was letting her ride was as advanced as a fixed gear with freewheel and handbrakes can get. I was waiting for a call all day from her describing some horrific, face ensnarling bike wreck that was going to be due to my shoddy bike repair skills.

Anyway, I headed home from work and got home with saddlebags under my arms from a proliferation of perspiration. I don't sweat. Things have to be pretty extreme to get me visibly sweaty. Got home and donned a wifebeater and continued working on my patio for a bit when my ex-neighbor's kid came by and asked some question of me that really didn't have an answer so I made one up. He then went and knocked on the new neighbor's door. She answered after a little bit and he let her know that if she needed help moving anything that him and his friend would help. It was actually supercute, but nothing worth waking up from a nap for.

She came over to my patio and we talked for a bit and she went back to her place as I went to soak and drink beers by the pool. I bumped into another neighbor that is kind of a trip. He rocks a Speedo and is super tan and has his nipples pierced and turns fifty in a couple of months. We always get talking about philosophy and quantum mechanics. Yesterday was Taoism and whether science will ever advance to a point that would lead into religious values completing a belief system based in logic and faith. The more we drink, the more interesting it gets. So, we have a few beers and are just talking and hanging out and he goes "Well, I met this chick on, uh..." and then he paused and I jumped in with "On match.com or something?" and he replied back, "No. It was singlenudist.com or adultfriendfinder." The dude's advanced in the online dating department for sure. I had to look up singlenudist.com today because I didn't really believe that it existed.

So, it started to get dark and he came by a little later and we just sat and smoked cigarettes, watched a little Bill Hicks, and had a few more beers. It was getting ridiculous for a Monday night. Anyway, the new neighbor came out on her way to our "State-of-the-art" apartment complex gym. I'll admit, as he pointed out later, that I got giddy when she came out. It was the booze, but regardless, the conversation turned to the neighbor after she had left. I told him that it was strictly off limits and to not speak another word of it. He just looked back at me and said "Bullshit. You've got a new toy."

She came back later and we ended up getting burritos after a conversation that went like this:

"Are you guys still open?"

"No. We close at 10:00"

"Dude. It's 9:55"

"Yeah, but we can't make anyone dinner in five minutes."

"Dude, remember that loco guy named Hugh from last Saturday in the bar being totally loud and obnoxious? This is him. Can I just get two Chile Coloradical burritos and one chile verde burrito to go."

"Oh. It's you? No problem. You love Vicente Fernandez and Lionel Richie, senor. They'll be ready in ten minutes."

"Thanks. Vicente Fernandez es mejor cantador del Sudamerica y Mexico. Duh."

So, the neighbor? Really tempting, but it would be one of the stupider things one could do. So, plan on keeping it all above the covers and it's just really cool that, so far, I've been lucky in the neighbor lottery this time. We're supposed to be biking to a Steely Dan tribute band in the park tonight, but I'm secretly hoping she flakes so that I can be breezy. Now if only something could happen with the creepy neighbor. I know that one shouldn't wish that on anyone, but it sure would make things a little cooler.

Oh and did I just listen to "This Is It" by Kenny Loggins three times on my iPod? WTF?!?!?!

Normalcy. Normal Do.

2009-07-13T09:36:00.001-07:00

The weekend. I had therapy last Thursday and we actually changed the schedule to every other week because things have been going well and we were actually struggling to find new things to talk about. It's really cool. My ex-wife texted me in the middle of the session. It was perfect. Feeling normal or at least similar to everyone else.

I played soccer Friday night and even skipped postgame beers in lieu of going home and relaxing with ice around my ankle for ten minutes every hour. I had a couple beers by myself or at least only with Tiger Woods on xbox. Never drink alone. I went to bed relatively early for a Friday night and slept in as late as I could which is now about 7:45. Hit my routine schedule and went and got coffee at Philz and did a crossword before going to my last DUI appointment ever.

I got to the appointment and dude started sweating me by saying that he couldn't find my file. I've never missed a class for over 9 months and they can't find my file? Honestly, the whole program is an administrative nightmare, but is over. He handed me a bunch of paperwork and talked about what a shitty day he was having and how his pension sucks. I got out of there in six minutes and was done. Paperwork should clear in a week and I'm back to normal after the whole harrowing affair. I learned so much from the experience and ultimately it's proved to be incredibly positive. I'll actually miss it a little bit.

I left the appointment and drove to the music store to buy a capo. I've never owned one, but need it to play The Decemberists and Josh Ritter accurately. Plus, only ballers have a capo stuck on the neck of their acoustics. When I got to the music store, I put a toe in the water and went and looked at some of the used stuff. There was a strat that spoke to me a little, but it was only a whisper. It was no reason to tie myself to the mast. My ship was safe from the rocks.

I went to the companion store with all the new gear and looked at some strats for a bit. I saw one for $650 and took it on a test drive. The neck felt like hot butter. It was brilliant like wooden Xanax. As I was playing it, though, I caught an Ibanez RG350 out of the corner of my eye. It's a way cheaper version of one of my first guitars ever that got stolen. I got nostalgic and asked one of the dudes who works there to grab it for me. He handed me a cord and a pick and sent me to the gear room. It took ten minutes of playing for me to walk out and ask, "Does it come with a case?"

He went to go ring it up and gave me a soft case for cheap. I almost forgot the fuckin' capo I was so excited. He threw in some complimentary strings and I also grabbed a stand for my Guitar Hero controller. I felt just straight fuckin' giddy driving home. I suppose it's what it would feel like coming home from the hospital with a newborn. Or, at least my equivalent.

Got it in the apartment and tuned for 45 minutes as the gitbox got acclimated to my apartment. Dual locking tremolos are a pain in the ass, but they have whammy bars for the rock. Played it for a bit and then put it on its stand next to my other two guitars and caught myself just staring at it from time to time.

A side effect of the whole experience is that I think I've talked my neighbor into buying his a kid a Chinese B.C. Rich Warlock for his kid's tenth birthday. It was my first guitar and I know that it will inspire the kid to play forever. It looks badass enough that a kid will just want to rock it. So, it's on. Lil Trav is getting a Warlock for his birthday. Sick. Of course, it comes with me obligated to give him lessons, but that will be good for me.

So, the neighbor came by to check out the new ax and a girl walked out of the apartment that he had just moved out of. On top of that, she was cute. He started up a conversation with her and we all exchanged introductions and gave her a few tips for checking out San Francisco for the day and also about the weird neighbor.

I hung out and owned Tiger Woods and played guitar for the day completely spacing on eating. The neighbor came back over that evening and I set up his kid on Rock Band. Over the span of a half hour I decided I had to eat and told him he was in charge of my castle and I was going to jam to a Mexican restaurant for margaritas and a kick ass Chile Colorado burrito. He asked if he could go and I told him, "Shit yeah you can, but you're not paying." He always pays.

We grabbed our Lolitish fifteen year old neighbor and I set her up on my wireless to babysit in my apartment and bailed. We got there and the HughVoltage show immediately went into effect. $10 in the jukebox to play Vicente Fernandez and Lionel Richie with one MJ tribute of "PYT." Within ten minutes we had met everyone in the tiny bar and were hanging out. There was a pregnant lady drinking margaritas and it went like this:

"You're pregnant? What the hell are you doing drinking?"

"They're virgins."

"Hey, I bet you aren't."

So, we ate and drank and were merry and my neighbor was going to take off. At the same time a couple of girls who wore bigger jeans than I would were leaving, too. They asked if I'd like to go to a bar with them and I thought "What the hell" and got into a stranger's car. One of them smoked weed in the back seat and they took me to their friend's house. That was awkward. We got to the bar and I bought them a round and realized I was done. One of them ordered an Adios Motherfucker and it totally put a shot across my bow. If you see a blue drink, you should leave the vicinity immediately. Pro tip.

I snuck out and grabbed a cab and went home as I had a pending breakfast date with my mom the next morning.

The next morning I woke up and heard nothing from my mom. She pinged me at 11:30 AM and said she would try to get to my place by 4:00. I simply told her that that was a late breakfast and bailed to Der Wienerschnitzel to satisfy a dersgusting urge. It was derlicious and gave me derarrhea. Gross.

My new neighbor had mentioned that she worked at the same place that I did and I had offered her my backup bike because parking is a joke. This meant I had to put it back together and it became my Sunday afternoon project. The back tire was a little messed up so I rode it to the bike store to use their tools and got it rocking by the time I left. It's a beast and it's awesome, but a little intermediate for riding. On the way home I grabbed the Sunday paper and a FroYo. It was turning into a perfect Sunday.

Anyway, I got the bike all set up and went out with my mom. We had a really good talk. The therapy is contagious and she talked about the scarlet letter that we both wore when I was growing up because she was a 16 year old mom. We have a lot of the same things going on because of it. It was really cool. There is a lot of opening up going on. A lot.

I got home and was chillin' from a really productive weekend, I felt. My new neighbor knocked on my door and was holding two beers and came inside to hang out. We moved to the porch and she smoked flavored cigarettes while we kicked it. We ended up biking to work together this morning. Trust me. It was way too cute for my tastes and my comfort zones.

Threebird

2009-07-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

Two nights ago I was coming off a night of no sleep and heading to bed at 8:15. It was still light out. The night before, I had gone to bed and woke up every hour on the hour with my favorite waking up being at 2:34. Numbers are fun. I was having super vivid dreams that kept waking me up and it was like a hundred degrees and didn't cool down until around 4:00 AM. I only know this because I was laying awake in bed and noticed that the temperature was more tolerable.

So, the next night, I'm exhausted and inching up to that pre-bed smoke. My neighbor knocks on my sliding glass door as I'm laying on my couch semi-lucid and points excitedly towards his apartment and is saying something that I can't hear through the glass. A couple minutes go by and he walks by with this chick towards the pool. Okay, he wanted me to see that he was with some chick. Good for him.

About a half hour later, I'm indulging that smoke I mentioned before and they are walking back from the pool laughing and holding hands. Holding hands the first time hanging out is something I'll never understand. Perhaps I should. That could have been my bad with the physical therapist. We had an invisible shield between our personal spaces that, in retrospect, may have been emanating from me.

They walk towards me and he says as he giggles, "Hey, show my buddy."

I look up and she pulls her towel back and pulls her bikini down to show me her giant fake boobs. I acknowledge and look back down politely saying "Thanks." Ten minutes later it sounds like a raping at a petting zoo in his apartment and I headed to bed.

The following day I got home from work and was purposefully avoiding going outside to avoid the play-by-play. It's always kind of gross to hear about that stuff coming from him. Avoidance never works.

Around 8:00 PM last night I decided to pick up the gitbox and practice for a little bit. It was hot as hell so I had my screen door open. My neighbor walks through my screen door into my apartment and says "Hey man, does this look okay for a job interview tomorrow?"

I reply in my head, "Yeah, if it's at Tommy Bahama," but actually say out loud to him, "Sure, but I would add a belt, tie and socks."

He then asks, "Hey, can I borrow a brown belt, brown socks, a tie and a sport coat?"

"Dude, Macy's is having a sale you should just go pick up some gear. Plus, my sport coat would require a time machine to look fashionable. It's gross and from JC Penney in like 1995." I answer back. Trying to mask my sarcasm.

He then says, "Dude. Target is always having a sale and I have a credit card there."

"Then I would do that," I say.

He leaves and I go back to my scales. I'm rusty.

Moments later he comes back in the screen door. I think I'm about to be victim of a home invasion it's so abrupt.

He sits down on th couch next to me. I haven't even stopped from playing F sharp major to F sharp minor alternately. He starts cycling through his camera of the previous night. Not only do I get a play-by-play, but I pretty much get a powerpoint presentation of it. He finally stops the slideshow at a tongue to breast picture. My brain is scarred.

Then this happens: "Dude, I was gonna come get you last night. She asked if I'd grab you because she likes to have two dudes at once. Like..." I'll paraphrase the rest. In the blue movie biz they refer to it as MFM. It's like the letter "H." He gets into some detail here that's not worth repeating. He says she is coming back from Las Vegas in a month and maybe then.

I simply reply in a monotone, "I'll keep my eye out for the evite, man. Hey, what does she do for a living? She seems like a nice girl."

He says back, "She's a masseuse."

At this point, I just start laughing and say "Is that what they call it now?"

He left and my mancave was mine again. I moved on to F sharp Dorian to F Sharp Lydian alternating. Consequently, slept like a baby except for the dream of hooking up with Dakota Fanning that woke me up. That was gross. It was an older Dakota Fanning, though, that seemed more like Tatum O'Neal in Bad News Bears. I cannot be held responsible for my dream state.

You've Got To Therapize.

2009-06-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try and get this all down before it slips away. I'm on my patio with a smoke in my mouth, typing furiously like a caricature of an overrated and not really comparable Hunter S.. Let me start by saying that I had a beer before going to the therapist, which I don't think is a terrible move.

I rolled up on my bike and locked it up and started walking to his office and bumped into him on the corner playing with his kid. You could tell that he keeps his relationship very professional with patients and saves everything for the room so we didn't talk that much and I met him at his office. It was either that or he didn't want me near his kid because he thought I was batshit crazy and just wanted his $200 for the session.

We jumped right in. I told him that I was feeling pretty good since we last met and did the sadness exercise for five minutes and then one more intense version of it while playing Tiger Woods on Xbox whilst imbibing some beers and listening to my sad playlist titled "mixt8p" on my iPod. He thought it was interesting that I could turn sadness on and off like I can. I told him that I noticed when something disturbs me I start to grin. It's creepy. I've never noticed it before. I discussed how it feels like I've always got some guy sitting in the room with me who is sad now. It's just weird knowing that he is there now. He's my elephant in my room. So, still practicing the sadness exercises in short bursts. Only 29 years to let out. The word "manic" was brought up at one point, but more pointed to a manic mechanism to deal with intense pain by smothering it with intense unpain. Pain't, if you will.

We discussed the not eating. He explored whether it was a sort of self-punishment fueled by guilt versus self-destruction. I told him that I just didn't find real pleasure in eating and found it more like fueling, however could see it being some sub-conscious self-punishment. However, after talking about it more, it may be a result of DUI commitments breaking up a routine that I relied on post-divorce for structure. Trader Joe's on Monday. Laundry on Tuesday. Tacos on Thursday. Soccer on Friday. You'll never know what I did on Wednesday. These things kept me afloat while I rebuilt my personality following the divorce. The DUI commitments broke this up and I never reestablished them. This resulted in a feeling of chaos for me. This is this week's homework: Rebuild routine.

Next, we dealt with the ex-wife. He was really impressed that I still have feelings for her. Not in a loving way, but a very deep friendship and trust. This came out when I told him that I called her after my DUI because she is one of the people that I trusted the most. This is the most ironic thing that you've ever heard, but it's true. It's not like she is invited to my birthday or anything, but if we were both stranded on an island or stuck in a Wal-Mart after closing and couldn't get out, we're not going to try to strangle each other. We'd figure our way out of it and then go back to our respective lives. You can't deny all of the reasons that got two individuals to an altar. There had to be something there in most cases. People just change and grow apart. It's okay. He said that it showed that I processed everything that happened and was able to see past the loving relationship and anger and separate that from the friendship that actually was there on some level. He commented that this showed great hope for developing another strong relationship at some point in my life. That was encouraging.

We then talked about the sad clown. I feel that I have a lot to give and share. That's the "HughVoltage Show." That is why, and I apologize, that I will dominate a conversation in some instances. I just have so much fucking shit to say and feel that it has value. This, in turn, brought up the blog and the death of Dick Steele for the old timers. I use an alter ego to express all of these things that I want to share. It's funny that HughVoltage is writing this, right? I killed my last pseudonym as a way to escape him. I created a new one to feed that beast that wasn't being fed and needed to say a bunch of stuff to someone, to anyone who would read it. I asked him if I was schizo or something and he said that it was okay to have an alter ego like this. Also, it's hella easier to say you fucked the neighbor after drinking a handle of whiskey in which she asked afterwards "Do you have AIDS?" because she was from the South and thought everyone in California had AIDS, when your real name is not attached to it. Using an alter ego, you can bend truths and extrapolate on ideas and situations that may not have necessarily happened, but may entertain others. By the way, Sea World really happened and most of this stuff has, it's the arrogant and sometimes reckless opinions that can be attributed to HughVoltage. Maybe he is the one that hates cat ladies. He's definitely the one that proposed the group DAMM (Drunks Against Mad Mothers).

We talked about the girl that reads the blog briefly and he asked if I sometimes imagine what people's reactions will be when I write. Fuckin-A right, I do. There are so many times when I write something down and there is a hidden joke in the word choice that I just hope someone is going to get. In some instances, the one person that would get it. I used to communicate with my ex through my Dick Steele column on a few occasions. Those columns were my peacock feathers. There are actually a few times, too, where I hope someone spits their coffee out on their keyboard while reading. Sometimes it just cracks me up so I've got to write it down somewhere. It's my attempt at getting someone to hear awesome falling in the woods even though they are not necessarily in the woods.

We also got back to the survivor instinct that has taken over. It's most likely related to years 20 to 21 in the city, basically on my own. This is where it really blossomed. There are also a few tinges of family dysfunction in that I looked to some type of Norman Rockwell painting idea of what family should be and didn't see it and just let it go forever. Ummm, let me see, an aunt that is never mentioned anymore who was a prostitute in Oakland and was nice enough to manage to give you an adopted brother who was born addicted to heroin. Yeah, we don't talk about it at dinner, but this never happened on Growing Pains. This was brought up when I told him that I called my dad on Father's Day after dragging my feet a bit. My dad was tending to his livestock and I left a message. Still haven't heard back. He said that I called expecting disappointment and when it happened, it had absolutely no effect. He said it was okay. He said that I didn't have to feel guilty about that.

So, I think that about covers it. He said that it seems like I know what I need to do and I just need to do it. The insight and outlook all seem to be there. I'll be completely honest, I have no idea how me talking for most of the time can make me feel so much better, but I genuinely am feeling better. I smile when I'm happy now and not just when a particularly sad lyric or a particularly bad memory trigger occurs. Rewiring, really. There actually may be a happy ending to this. I believe it now. I also believe that sasquatch exists. You never really know how it's all going to unravel, but it's no reason to ravel it back up. You've just got to sit back and watch it...and be ready for anything. Anything.

Getting Overdoing It

2009-06-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

I was going through my Loni archives and came across a document titled "Seven AM." Oh, Loni is my old computer from college. I had two computers, one was called Loni and one was called Burt. They fought consistently until I decommissioned Loni, but moved her hard drive over to Burt. Loni will forever be in the heart of Burt. I think I'm creating small chores for myself this morning as I procrastinate calling my dad on Father's Day. I'll eventually call him, I always do, but it always feels like a chore.

So, I opened the document and it was something I wrote a while back. I suppose it was the first entry in what was going to be my great work that put a veil of fiction over what was really autobiographical passages that used third person rather than first in an attempt to distance myself from the real events. So, here it is. I just read it for the first time in probably at least three years. It totally overdoes it, but I'm trying to write more and I suppose it could be a starting point.

He walked from his apartment door to the walkway to the parking lot. The fifteen steps that it took felt like he was walking on a planet of Jell-O, mounted on top of a carousel while he was wearing Doc Martens with wet socks and one boot untied. He knew that already he was an hour into the longest day of his life and it was only seven in the morning. He went to take a sip off of his coffee cup and realized that he didn’t even have it and there was no way that he could go back through that door. He hoped he would never have to, but knew that eventually he was going to.

Without coffee, frame of mind and cigarettes he dragged his ass to a 1993 Nissan Sentra that was on its last leg and he would be lucky to even make it up the hill on the way to work in third gear, but he went anyway. There was simply no other option.

The ride into work felt like it took two days and it very may well have had he known the way the sleepless nights were going to start blending into each other. Days would have no meaning anymore, weekends would be worse than weekdays as every day was just another interruption into sleep attempts filled with Tylenol PM dreams.

This day would turn into weeks, then months, then a year showing no signs of relief, but tiny short lived distractions from self-indulged pain would at least flip a switch on his brain to off temporarily.

He refused to be a victim, then refused to medicate instead choosing to endure something that he didn’t even understand he could feel at the age of twenty nine.

Someone had snuck up behind him and pulled the rug that he so depended on from beneath his feet and then as he fell, put a knife solidly in his back as they pushed him from behind down a rabbit hole. When he woke up and looked up at the dim light peeking through the top of the hole and stopping three feet from his face he would feel lonelier than he ever had before.

At this moment, he found himself sitting at his desk in an uncomfortable chair leaning forward in a posture that CAL-OSHA could never approve, staring at information simply occupying a screen and offering nothing. It was lunch time, but hunger didn’t happen anymore. Only cravings for cigarettes that never made him feel any better, but could make ten minutes disappear from his life. Plus, as a bonus, could take some time off down the line. Life had become a series of activities intended to kill time and himself in ten minute increments. That was his new purpose. Gone were the days of living his life for someone else. He would never pull a panty liner off of a pair of dirty underwear while doing someone else’s laundry. He would never again have to sit through a pilates class to please someone else. If ever diagnosed with a terminal disease, he hoped that his last days on earth would feel like this, everlasting.

Therapy, working out, doing laundry, and blacking out in exchange for feeling blue filled the nights between the days that lasted forever filled with a green tint of envy and grayness from a cloud that he knew was floating above him most of the time that was there to block out the yellow sun.

That was definitely the worst birthday ever.

Two Hundred Seventy Five Bones For 75 Minutes of The Rapy

2009-06-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

I went to therapy yesterday. It was time. The last three or so years were spent expending a tremendous amount of energy to tread mental water in an effort to break even emotionally. I've managed to get pretty comfortable at zero on a mental number line. I don't feel sad, but I don't feel happy. I feel manageable. So, here are some highlights.

We started off just going through some aspects of who I was and got to the point where the therapist asked if I wanted to work with the divorce or my childhood. I told him that the divorce was pretty much locked down and dealt with so we moved to my background starting at the beginning. He asked me what my first childhood memory was and I told him that it was my race car blanket as a kid. It's funny because I've used that line to pick up a girl before and let him know that. The blanket thing carried on to a gray blanket that I had and finally let go of when I moved out of my apartment when I separated with my ex. It's gone. I have no blanket anymore, but my mom was nice enough to make me a new quilt. It's not a security item anymore, though.

He then asked if I've always been a sad a person. I told him that I think I actually have always been a sad person internally, but never let anyone know if I can help it. I mentioned that as a kid my mom had referred to me as Eeyore for being a sad little kid and that I often identified with Charlie Brown. It turns out that I use humor and self-deprecation as a result of an emotional trigger as soon as I feel myself getting sad. Internally, it's an unaccepted emotion that sends me into a flight mode. The way he described it is that as soon as I feel it and recognize that my toe is in a depression puddle, I jump out and away from it and try not to experience the sadness. This results in what some have seen as the "HughVoltage" show. It's almost manic, but is very entertaining externally as I'm pounding the shit out of internal sadness. This has resulted in me building layer upon layer of other feelings on top of the bad ones since I was about five. Fighting sadness for much of my life because I felt alone in the world. Total sad clown.

So, as homework, I was told to connect my mind to my sadness and to try and experience it rather than fight it. I tried it last night and it was super freaky. It went like this. I got ready for bed and tried to tap into it a little bit. I made the connection as I lay in bed in the dark. At first I could feel it trying to creep in and actually feel myself fighting it and then stopped myself after about five minutes and the sadness just completely overwhelmed me. I let it go for a little bit and then just turned it off again. It was really weird and uncomfortable, but I've seen it now and can actually feel it underneath everything now. It almost physically resides two inches behind my face while I smile at you and make jokes. The real creepy thing is that I recognize it now and it has been there forever. I just compartmentalized it and have refused to recognize it for what it is. It's hard to explain. I guess it might be like having a mole on your arm that you never really paid attention to and then you saw some news story on skin cancer and can't stop noticing it.

So, the next thing we covered is going to be a little disturbing for those close to me, but he said it, not me. I've written about the little crazy inner demon that is about five years old and takes things over occasionally before. Apparently, I was right on with that. Here's how it works and I need to preface this with a warning that no one is to blame for this, but it's there. He said that because of my dad leaving at five and having such a young mother, I never had a real childhood because I felt that I had to take care of myself. I never really felt safe or that I could trust anyone to take care of me. This separated me from those close to me including my parents. It created a part of me that wanted to be taken care of, but never believed anyone could. It's why I feel separated even among family and friends and even more so around strangers. I have a hard time accepting help or gifts from people because of this. I try to do everything on my own and have a hard time developing empathy for those that can't keep up with me because I feel that I worked so hard to get where I am and they should have to, too. I see this now. It's why I subscribe to social Darwinism so much. So, I want to be taken care of, but won't let you. I'm a wounded bird.

We then covered the "What makes you happy/when have you been happy?" question. This is pretty standard and I think about it all the time. Music, writing, soccer and being with family were the four topics. There was also a tinge of the work project successes. I genuinely love figuring out complex problems at work. This was encouraging as I thought work was the stem of all my problems. Fuse may be a better word than stem for that one. By not participating in those things as much as I'd like, I get frustrated and self-medicate with alcohol until the feelings subside. This also coincides with an internal voice that tells me that I'm not good at them anyway. Happiness is only experienced through the eyes of others acceptance. If awesome falls in the woods and no one is there to see it, did awesome really matter?

I discussed happiness in the workplace with a friend the other day. I asked him if he liked his job and he replied, "Fuck no." I then asked him why he went everyday and he said to pay his mortgage and other assorted debts. I followed that up with "What's your dream job then?" He said he didn't know. That's exactly where I am. I've been beat into submission so hard by the expectations of work and the status quo that I don't even know what would be a dream job anymore or what makes me happy. I'll say that I want a happy life, but I don't even know what that would be at this point. I want to travel. Well, fuckin' where? I want a girlfriend. Well, what would she even be like? I want things, but at this stage none of them can be defined. It's really frustrating.

The therapist followed up the happy talk with "Have you ever felt guilty for any successes or being happy in life?" Sadly, he totally hit it on the head with that one. Somehow, I've developed guilt for things that happen to me that are good. I never feel that I deserve anything good to happen to me. This explains why I have a hard time accepting relationships with the oppo sex. If a pretty girl likes me, I honestly, have no idea why. This is not good, but I think we will work on this.

We discussed my relationship with my ex-wife and what I liked about it as it lasted a long time. I told him that it was the "nothing" part of it that I loved dearly. I really loved the time that myself and the ex spent doing nothing. That was the true test. If you like someone so much that being in line with them at the DMV or sharing a crossword puzzle on a Sunday morning completely satisfies you and you never want it to end, you've won. Congratulations.

So, let me see, he complimented me on being extremely self-aware of myself and what happens to me internally. I identify things that happen internally and have learned how to control many of my self-destructive tendencies and at the very least can recognize them. It's kind of why I'm seeing him. I know that some things are not right. Sadly, this works against me in some instances because I recognize my fallibility too clearly at times and will attack myself for it.

So I think that about covers it. I go again next week. The ironic part about this whole exercise is that I've always thought boozing was my main problem, but that's actually pretty controlled at this point. It could be better, but it's been way worse as recently as a year ago. Anyway, the therapist is right across from my bar that I walk to from my apartment. So, my self-medication destination and my cry for help destination are 50 yards from each other. Brilliant.

iPhuckin Give Up

2009-06-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was treating myself to a VentiNonFatVanillaLatte and a yogurt parfait from Starbucks on the way to work. I got into the fairly sparse line due to the fact that I work so early in the morning that it is almost the previous day when I get there. I say "hello" to my neighbor who gives me her complimentary pound of coffee every week and get my seventeen syllable order put together in my semi-lucid brain and try to link that to my tongue somehow with a wing and a prayer and wait patiently as I approach the barista.

I start to hear this sqeak that I assume is a glitch in the quintessential Starbucks XM feed of music. I'll say this about their music, it doesn't suck as bad as some places like dental offices, but it's not as good as the Bob Hope airport in Burbank. Anyway, it persists and it gets a little louder and worse and it feels close to me. I take a gander about the place and there is this lady that screams of feline female behind me. You can almost see the Fancy Feast cans overflowing from her purse. I look away and as I'm processing her upside down image from my eyeball to the back of my brain, I file away that she had a bird on her shoulder. I think to myself that it's just some residual effects from not being caffeinated and turn around again and sure enough she has a fucking bird on her shoulder.

Who the fuck are you, lady? Bring a fucking bird into Starbucks on your shoulder at 6:45 in the morning. I could understand if it was a seeing eye bird, but she looked like her vision was solid. The thing starts actually squawking at this point and she starts talking to it.

"Oh, baby. Don't bite mommy."

"Be quiet, baby. Mommy is trying to get a coffee."

"Calm down, baby."

Now, I could be way off here and maybe she got pregnant and gave birth to a baby bird, but Jesus Christ. There are bird people now? Bird people have just trumped cat people as my arch-nemeses. Arch-nemesists?

Also, my Motorola Razr was beginning to reboot in the middle of phone calls so I made a move and started researching phones. The counter culturalist that I like to consider myself said no iPhones. I ordered an LG Incite for free through my work and bumped up my data plan and again waited patiently for it to arrive. It showed up yesterday and I set it up for two hours and found it completely unusable as a phone. It was almost there, but not quite. Windows mobile. Sleek design. Shitty performance. Stupid stylus to navigate tiny icons. A completely unusable keyboard in conjunction with the screen. Good Try, LG. Anyway, after owning (phowning?) the phone for three hours, I found myself at the AT&T store begging for anything. I walked out with an iPhone with an oncoming Kool-Aid hangover from drinking that Apple Kool-Aid that I despise so much, but keep gulping down.

Sadly, so far, it's not that bad and I even have an application that acts as a guitar tuner, metronome and chord finder. It's really kind of awesome. So, per usual, I lay on my back and bare my neck to all of those that were subjected to my iPhone hate and I submit. I was wrong. Still, I miss my Razr a little bit.

The Enigma of the In-Betweens

2009-05-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

Recently, my neighbor introduced me to self-psychoanalysis in tandem with Internet prescriptions. I'm not a fan of either, but it seems to be working for him and has served as inspiration to pursue at least one of those through proper channels. So, I've sought out a referral for a psychiatrist or psychologist. I don't know the difference between the two, but felt that either could lead to a significant improvement to my general outlook on life. I think one can hand out prescriptions. I think that's the difference.

There is this verse in "Philosophy," which has always served as one of my personal theme songs, by Ben Folds Five that goes "I've seen that there is evil and know that there is good and the in-betweens I never understood. Won't you look at me I'm crazy, but I get the job done. Yeah, I'm crazy, but I get the job done."

So, I've finally decided to deal with the crazy part. It's worked out fine until now, but it's becoming an annoying novelty. It hinders this pursuit of normalcy that I may not even want, but wouldn't mind a taste. I'm finding that having a retirement fund, paying taxes in January, wearing black socks with decent shoes and occasionally sporting a tie for a wedding or a funeral is not the true definition of "normal" that I've always thought it is.

I imagine "normal" to be an acceptance of all that is. I'm always convinced that there is something more. Something better. Like this isn't the life that I'm supposed to be living, but I'm also convinced that perhaps the key to happiness is accepting that this is your life. Exactly what is is exactly what you are supposed to be doing. It's exactly what you are supposed to be satisfied with.

Lately it started with stopping going to the gym because honestly, who cared. Then I noticed that I was smoking more. Next I noticed that I didn't feel like putting toilet seat liners down in the work bathroom. After that it was a general lethargicness and finally all I want to do is to go home to my mancave and sleep. I get lonely, but don't want to be around anyone.

It's not as bad as that paragraph makes it sound, but it's still not happy. I still get up early on Saturdays and clean my apartment, drink coffee and listen to good music, but I'm lacking "reason." Not the reason that culminates in rational thought and good judgment, but really a question of "Why?" Why do anything? The personal satisfaction related to feats of awesomeness is dwindling. If a tree falls in the woods, it's proven that no one hears it. If I do something awesome, it's been proven that no one notices or cares. Christ, I made pudding pops one Sunday and also invented the Cashew Chicken Burrito and no one was around to share in the deliciousness. Actually, the pudding pops were kinda gross. I used banana pudding and no one likes that.

So, why? I'm sure it's all related to my environment. I'm in a toxic environment surrounded by toxic people in a work environment that could be categorized meteorologically the same way that a weatherman would describe the forecast for Seattle in November. It's gray. I've lost faith in the people that sign my checks and have been disillusioned by 9:00 AM more than most people get disillusioned all day. At home I've got a neighbor that makes me fear growing old, lonely, and creepy. I can see the cat lady waddle to the elevator with a pull-along cart full of cat food. She only lives on the second floor and has clearly given up.

Now, I haven't given up hope. Instead, I've looked for ways to improve the situation. I'm trying to eat three times a day. Definitely cut back the booze. I'm looking at new places to move to. I almost got a new job until I got Charlie Browned, which my Aunt described as a typical Hugh Voltage situation. It'd be fine if she had said Hugh, but she used my real name. I try to cook more at home and just keep myself busy, but I'm not sure where it's all going. So, perhaps this whole post is just a dry run for therapy, but regardless, I'm aware that there are some loose parts rattling around in my skull for the time being.

I was recently told by someone I've never met, yet someone that I talk to more than almost anyone in my life currently (thank you, by the way), that I look "normal" in pictures, but that just triggered a thought I had the other day while driving. I was looking in my side mirror and thinking about how it says "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear." I got home and was looking in my bathroom mirror and the statement flashed in my head again, but instead it said "Objects in mirror are farther away than they appear." Also, that person always manages to provide the pleasant surprises lately through music and books and just general pleasantries and somehow being there when the avalanche cascades. It seems that one of the few that seems to understand me, I've never met. Sounds like what some people consider God, but she talks back.

I'm sure it's just a case of the recurring Wednesdays (not good, not bad, the in-between day of the week), but I'm working on it and pretty sure I can get through it. It's mild compared to what I've made it through in the last five years and should be no sweat and involve less questionably legal activities. Yeah, I've got some scars, but should be fine moving forward.

Critical Mess

2009-05-18T11:52:00.001-07:00

So, went on a date with my PT on Saturday. Going into it I was freaking out. Like stomach hurting stress. I woke up early Saturday morning and had a half a pot of coffee, watched soccer and tidied up my apartment. I smoked a little bit as I still had no idea what we were going to do.

She texted around Noon and said she'd be ready about 1:00. That worked. I told her to just meet me at my place and we would cab down to an art & wine festival. I sent her directions and told her just to call me when she gets into the abandoned shopping center. I got the text saying that she thought she was in an abandoned shopping center and walked out to meet her. It looked kind of foggy in the parking lot which was weird since it was about 90 degrees out. I looked to the left and one of the buildings and an adjacent tree was on fire. This was probably a sign.

I called her and told her to park closer to the apartment complex and pointed out that I called her before I called 911. We walked back to my apartment and I threw on my shoes and stuff for the art & wine thing and called a cab. I'm thinking that she thought that I didn't have a car, but even a girl is not worth a second DUI for a .04 BAC.

We got to the festival and went to lunch at this ripshit Mexican place that has awesome margartitas and we each got one. Conversation went well as I nibbled at some nachos and she got a veggie quesadilla. Topics included NASCAR, TV (Lost, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, 90210) and music. She liked Jeff Buckley's album Grace which really worked in her favor. She's a Cubs fan because her dad is from Chicago and she likes olde-tymey pictures from magazine covers and the like. She wants to get a tattoo of a butterfly with her mom and her sister, but hasn't because it violates some rules of her mom's people. She would rather be evacuated from an embassy by boat rather than helicopter and her life plan includes never getting a phone that receives e-mail.

It turned out to be a two plus hour lunch and she started yawning. Yeah, could've been the margarita and the heat, but this was the second date and the second time she started yawning. So, I settled up the tab and we went and got her a coffee. Grabbed a cab back to my place in which I referred to the dangerous at night park as "The Stabby Park" to the cab driver. She was not a fan of that remark. This was quickly followed by a walk her out to her car, an awkward hug and what felt like a girl making an escape.

It's been pointed out that this is the first time in 34 years that I've tried a normal courting process wihtout booze, bars or any other extraneous environmental issues to work to my advantage and I will admit that I hate it. Eventually, however, I need to do this without crutches or shortcuts. Eventually, it will have to work. In the meantime, my question is "This is how you really do it? Seriously?"

Regardless, it was good practice and has forced some super self analysis post-game. She was my kryptonite. I totally faked like I was something else the whole time because I thought that I would like her when I got to know her. If you read that sentence again, you will read volumes into how I set myself up for failure.

My problem was nailed in one statement made by the sage wisdom that is Pappy sometime ago: "You are in a hopeless cycle. If a girl likes you, you don't trust her due to poor character judgement because you don't like yourself and if she doesn't like you, you hang around to figure out why because you can't stand the fact that someone doesn't like you."

It's true for now. Scary.

Pet Smells

2009-05-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

This weekend I had my first owning a pet experience. If you've read this before, you know that I desperately want to give up any type of hope and become a cat lady to fill all of those holes that I have in my life with hairballs and empty cans of Fancy Feast and this felt like the first step on the way there.

It started on Saturday afternoon after I burned the Canadian flag into my front while I lay by the pool and talked on the phone. I forgot to rub in the sunscreen because I was distracted with a 48 hour followup to hanging out with a girl.

I'm completely out of my element on this one. I'm used to "Hey, you're cute" then "Hey, I'm drunk" and then a phone number with a question mark after the first name that I'm never going to call. Honestly, this is the first time that I've made an effort responsibly and relatively sober and kind of hoped that something worked out. I have to be honest, it's not an incredible amount of fun, but I guess it's how the other half or 97% live. I'll try it.

Anyways, next to the pool I forgot to rub the sunblock in because I started eavesdropping on this chick that was talking about going to a Los Lonely Boys concert that night and I was really intrigued about who a typical Los Lonely Boys fan was. I thought they were always just the band that happened to be playing at the fair that day that you happened to be there.

I went back to my apartment after not learning too much about the LLB demographic. I did think that there might be a white trash element to it, but can't confirm that yet. My apartment smelled a bit foul and I thought it was the recycling or the trash so I hauled it all out and went so far as to actually attack the bins with an assortment of sprays and a roll of paper towels. Thought it was done.

I sat at my computer for a bit and could still smell it faintly. I did the obligatory nose to armpit and thought it could be me. I don't really smell ever, but didn't want to rule it out. So, showered.

A few hours later I could still smell it. I pulled everything out of the cupboards and cleaned them out. It smelled like cleaning produck at that point and covered up the gross smell.

The next morning it was in the kitchen area again. I was at a complete loss and went to Mother's Day in the city after making mixtapes for mom and sister all morning. I just relistened to one of the playlists and it's absolutely heartwrenching. It's like an audio suicide note. I'm wondering how that's going to go over and also why I was haing a Mother's Day morning funk like that.

Mother's Day was radical. My sister showed up from LA. There was a slowly escalating water arms war that eventually resulted in a broken window and blood. That's a badass Mother's Day.

Got home and walked in my door and it was an odor of death you could feel. The only thing that it could've been at this point were the floors. Vaccuumed and did the linoleum on hands and knees because I don't have a mop. The smell was still there and I went to grab my neighbor to borrow his nose because he doesn't smoke and probably has a better one.

He asked why and I told him I needed to locate the smell and he said that he had it in his apartment, too. Bingo. Light Bulb. Eureka. Uno. Tic-Tac-Toe. Yahtzee. It was a dead rat in the wall. Awesome.

So, I named it "Stinky" and will consider it domestic pet ownership until they extract it from the wall. In the meantime, this bitch is going to be tits up in Glade plug-ins and mandle burning.

Not In This Dojo

2009-05-07T15:28:00.000-07:00

As the sun sets on my court-mandated, rehabilitative, community program that I playfully refer to as cocktail college, I thought that I would reflect on a discussion that we had last Monday. The exercise was to write down some things that you enjoyed as a child before you started drinking to assist you in tapping into that joy of life that you had as a child without involving booze. It's to prove to you that you can have a good time without boozing. You then have to pick one or a few of the things that you wrote down and try to do them in your near future or day-to-day life. Tag or a BB gun war, anyone?

Sadly, my list of things I did as a child were predominately things that I do now. There were some throwbacks in there, though, such as sidehacking and muddogging. Those would probably get me in trouble or maimed nowadays. Sidehacking is basically hanging as much of your body outside of the passenger window of a car while your friend drives erratically. Muddogging is taking snow toys to a hill of mud in the rain and treating it as if it were snow. Muddogging is brilliant.

So, we've got this venture capitalist guy in the group and he went down his list. He tries to be funny, but it always fails completely, so it's a tough read usually. Anyway, he went down his list of like chewing wood, eating Necco wafers and whatever and then said "doing karate." Motherfuckin' karate. The balls on the fucker. He then followed it up with karate as being the thing that he would like to get back into, "but it's complicated" he said.

I perked up and asked "Did you kill your sensei?" and waited for an answer.

He didn't answer. It was like he really may have killed his sensei, which we all know is never accepted in any dojo. Mercy? Not in this dojo. Failure? Not in this dojo. Killing your sensei? Not in anyone's dojo.

So now you know about proper dojo etiquette.

Would You Like Some Rain For Your Parade, Sir?

2009-05-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was kinda rad. I was killing it in meetings. I was supposed to call the cute girl after work and then I got home and there was a pound of coffee on my doorstep from my neighbor that works at Starbucks. So, it's going great as I let myself into my apartment and then my neighbor takes a deep inhale off of his smoke and says "Hey, dude."

I turned and replied "What's up?" as I held my new coffee closely to my body and was teeming with anticipation of drinking the shit out of it Saturday morning.

"I started drinking again," he said "I got suspended from work and maybe fired and now I want to call that chick again to tell her that I'm sorry."

We had both cut back on our drinking, coincidentally, a week or two ago. He was drinking Gimlets at 8:30 in the morning and crying to me. Grown man crying is so uncomfortable.

I've done it. I know a man can be driven there sometimes. Christ, when I was going through my divorce I cried while watching Star Wars: Episode III and also during a Simpsons episode. It fucking happens. Anyway, he's been doing it a lot and he's 50 and has kids. I mean, there comes a point when you've got to take an assessment of the situation and realize that there is not a time and place to make a habit of cashing checks at a bar in the afternoon and drinking a gallon of vodka that comes in a plastic bottle at night. That wasn't me doing that, by the way. I have excellent credit and use direct deposit for my checks. I also only drink vodka from glass bottles and preferably with a cork.

Anyways, I started firing back at him "Dude. Number one. Start alternating those beers with fucking water. Number two. Eat something. I've got some food in my house and you can have it. Number three. You know that you are making it fucking worse by drinking that shit and you shouldn't have a drink until you have resolved all the toxic shit that you've had in your head. Down times are the worst times in the world to fucking drink."

He lost interest at that point as I stood there in disbelief of all the shit that had just come out of my mouth. It was all the right things rather than "Fuggit, dude. Let's booze."

So, he went back inside and I was feeling kinda awkward and it totally ruined my free coffee buzz. Just then, my ten year old neighbor was cruising by and yelling to his dad that he was bored. So, like a succubus that feeds on youthful exuberance, I had him over for some xbox time. We played some Rock Band and I let him play my Kozik guitroller and we were having a blast. Then his "girlfriend" came over and they nudged me out of the game to talk to his dad for a bit about high school sports. High school sports is the worst topic EVAR. I'm almost to the point of telling him that that topic is off limits, but he feeds me, so...Anyway, he went and grabbed me a Chile Colorado burrito that is off the chain for distracting his son so that he could have some dad time. Totally good tradeoff. I got a child's outlook on life and fed and he got to troll facebook. That , my friends, is true symbiosis.

Let's Get Physical Therapied

2009-05-06T11:08:00.001-07:00

I went to physical therapy for an ankle sprain that was getting kind of unpredictable. It would just constantly roll. I would be walking and it would just go out like getting flat tired or something. You know, like when someone walks behind you and steps on the back of your shoe? That shit never gets old.

So, over a six week period I developed a crush on my physical therapist. She was a little mousey girl, kinda young and looked like she would be totally by the book, but had an appreciation for the smell of Thera-band. I like that in a girl.

By the second appointment, it was a bona fide crush. There is a hitch here, though. My personal definition of a crush involves something that is totally and completely unattainable. Like my crush on the e-surance girl. As the sessions went on she started to play along with my inane conversations and would follow me off topic of ankles and balance drills. She seemed to be genuinely enjoying hanging out for our hour a week. I chalked it up to a courteous bedside manner, but was developing a thing for her.

My ankle was pretty much rehabbed two weeks earlier than planned and I told her that we didn't need to have rehab anymore, but she told me to come back and work on my balance. That's when the conversation happened that changed everything. I was trying to balance on one leg on a foam pad with my eyes closed. It's way harder than it sounds.

I said "This is really hard. You aren't going to make me juggle now, are you?"

She said "Have you ever surfed?"

I replied with my eyes closed "No. Have you?"

She replied "No."

I just started cracking up and fell down and said back to her "Then why are we talking about it?"

I still get a kick out of that conversation.

Anyway, I finished up and she gave me her card on our last scheduled day and I was a little bummed that I wouldn't get to see her anymore. After two weeks I did the unthinkable and sent her an e-mail to her work e-mail thanking her for fixing me and then asked her out...over e-mail. It felt horrible and gross, but it fucking worked. It was also a better call than hurting myself again so that I could pay $35 a week to see her again. That felt dirty. I'm still shocked, but celebrated with one beer after I received her reply. One beer in eleven days. This is a new Hughge.

So, anyway, finally figured out how to ask a girl out when not drowning rationality and tact in ten Ketel & Sodas in a bar and then not remembering what the girl looked like the next day.

Speaking of that, as I hit that lucid state last night at 9:48 PM on Cinco De Mayo, my phone beeped letting me know that a text was coming in. You can also hear a pop in the alarm clock speakers a few seconds before this happens. I hate that. Anyway, my brain tucked away my almost dream of a dude in a Carpeteria jacket eating a cartoon taco and I checked the message. It was a number with no name asking me to go down to the bar to meet for drinks. It took me a second and I think I figured out who it was. Here's the story:

Was at the bar down the street from my house and just getting a toe in the water for getting heated. I was walking to the bathroom and saw this girl. She was a Ginger, which is normally not my type, but for some reason I ended up talking to her for a few hours and we exchanged numbers. You should never trust a ginger. It's totally documented.

About a week later, she texted me. It was my birthday and some Sangria had pretty much punched me in the face at dinner with my parents for my birthday, but I went out anyway letting her know that my charm may take a small hit due to the fight with a pitcher of Sangria, but she was game anyway. I hung out with her friends and had some drinks and everyone was getting along, but there was no connection I felt with her.

Long story short, at the end of the night, we were talking out in front of the bar and I wasn't getting a vibe from her so while we were talking I clicked my phone open and navigated to her name in my contacts directory. I then said good night and deleted her name out of my phone right in front of her and then walked away. What a prick?

Anyway, I think her name was Kendall and I think she texted last night. Her name is in my phone now as First Name: "Kendall?" Last Name: "Bar".

Re: (g)Urgent

2009-04-30T14:54:00.000-07:00

Got a memo in my inbox this morning from HR at work. The subject line said "RE: Urgent" so I grabbed my emergency survival kit that I'm required to keep at my desk as a part of organizational policy and moved on to the e-mail. I bend the rules on this a little since one day I ate my rations to see what they tasted like and then refilled the kit with Glenfiddich scotch and a pack of Parliament recessed filter cigarettes. Both will act like currency when the grid goes down and buy me three times as many rations as the original kit held.

So, there I am clutching my survival kit and reading the attached memo. It was titled...I've got to fudge this a little bit or I could probably get in toruble. Basically, it was my organization's policy for returning to work if returning from a trip to Mexico. Here are the highlights.

"For seven consecutive days after returning home, take your temperature each morning before going to work." You are allowed to come to work if your temperature is below 100 degrees and do not have a runny nose, sore throat, nasal congestion or cough.

Umm. Sounds like allergies combined with a hangover so far.

Now, for the if you do portion. It says you should contact your doctor. That's super brilliant. Oh, and you should tell your doctor that you just got back from Mexico. Just for fun, tell him it was via Thailand and you got into some weird shit over there with ping pong balls and three trannies and a scooter.

Now, if after seven days, your temperature is good, you can stop taking your temperature.

Wait, not done yet. Say this next part in a Jeff Foxworthy voice. If you have not been to Mexico recently, but have been in contact with someone who has? You just might have swine flu.

So, all of this is all fine and dandy, but they added one stipulation to the e-mail they sent out the memo with. It said this applies to all faculty and staff except for one group. Of course, the group is the portion that is primarily hispanic. Love it. The one group that probably has the highest chance of visiting Mexico is not part of this policy.

In the meantime, all hypochondriacs driven by fear, raise a glass and let's toast to the new disease to fear while we ponder waiting in line under a makeshift tent at the nearest hospital.

And We're Back

2009-04-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

Wishful conversation at work:

(Real part) Douchebag: "It smells like tobacco Hugh must be at his desk."

Wishful reply: "That's funny. I thought it smelled like assholes and thought that you must be near my desk."

So, stuff should be getting exciting again. I've been pretty much dead man walking at work which has caused an "unsettled" mental meteorological mood. The dead giveaway was a request from my boss to put together a document of all my job duties with examples and time commitments of each. That means a raise justification unless you've just gone through a round of layoffs. In that situation it's a deathblow.

Work stress has become nearly debilitating at times and makes me just want to sleep all the time. I applied for a new job and that was going extremely well, but unraveled last Friday. I retired to my man-cave with a sense of defeat, but was lured out for a Friday night late birthday dinner. Dinner was delicious. The resulting cop beatdown was an epiphany.

So, there have been some cosmic coincidences lately that were ignited by the beatdown. For the record, I was wasted, but being responsible and walking to a couch to crash on. I'd say that they were justified for a drunk in public, but there wasn't even any public around. I was walking down a suburban street minding my own business. When one cop's knee pushed my face into the pavement by way of his knee to the back of my neck I realized I needed to make some life changes. Had I not asked him to pull out my wallet and check my ID and look up the same name with a ",SR" on the end of it, it could have ended quite badly. No cop wants to beat up a cop's son. They got me a cab and for the bargain price of $30 I averted a complete disaster.

The next morning I decided to try and put things into the proper place and put a toe in the alcohol abstinence pool. I figured if I eliminated that chaos variable that the resulting chaos would be much more imaginable. It feels like a false promise, but it's something I need to do while I'm trying to figure out what's next. It's an awesome super power to be able to destroy anything and create complete havoc while drinking, but x-ray vision would be way cooler as a super power. Even my super power of being able to look at kids on swings or bikes and make them stack is a better super power.

The morning turned to evening and I noticed three kids sneaking around my front patio like squirrels orchestrating a bird seed heist from a bird feeder. I thought they were friends with my neighbor's kids and just dismissed it when I saw one of them dart past my sliding glass door. When they appeared a second time I thought I would ask them what they were doing. One of them replied "Nothing." I in turn said back, "Sure, dude." I had just officially became a "get off my fuckin' lawn you kids" adult.

I let my neighbor know that there was some Tom Fuckery going on on his porch and then about an hour later he knocked on my door to tell me that someone took his cooler. The same cooler that he always stocks with cold beers for his neighbors. One neighbor who had cried at me at 8:30 that morning while he drank a vodka gimlet and told me that he had called in sick to work with the excuse that he was picking up his son from jail. Helluva an excuse. I'd go swine flu before I used that. So, anyway, I see the cooler theft as a sign that maybe some dudes need to cool their drinking jets. Last night he confided in me that he's begun going to AA classes, which is not a bad idea. So, that was cosmic coincidence two. I'm expecting some other type of Budweiser recall to be cosmic coincidence three.

So, anyway, I'm going to try to quit booze and see how this fucked up freak flag is going to unfurl. My best chance of winning is to have full control of all my wits, but it's really hard to motivate in a situation like this. Even then, being well fed and well rested is the name of the game, so eating and sleeping are the first step towards getting through it. It's scary is all.

Sadly, this horrible memory of my mom standing above me while I was a sad seven year old and singing "Every party needs a pooper that's why we invited you..." and then calling me "Eeyore" because I was a bummed out little kid all the time is on repeat in my head. Just goes back to the plain fact that I'm a giant manbaby. Thank god, it'll all work out based on the one fact that it has to.

Shenanigregarious

2009-02-18T09:13:00.000-08:00

Whelp. I pretty much don't blog anymore. So, here's a quick update working backwards.

Last night I did my second public access appearance on a local soccer show. My segment is basically three to five minutes of unscripted shenaniganery. The first appearance I had a slight buzz on and it was on Cristiano Ronaldo getting a pregame mani/pedi. It was pretty easy and discussed his penchant for Ferraris and diving.

Last night's was on the Beckham AC Milan debacle. It was a little more difficult and I was super sober (semi on the wagon right now). It's all green screen and the backgrounds are as public accessy as anyone could ever imagine, but I'm learning how to work with it and look into the camera rather than turning to talk to the guy asking me questions.

So, last night my prep consisted of a text that said "We're going to talk about Beckham tonight." I texted back, "What's our angle?" and received a response that said "B there at 8."

Sweet. We had nothing. So, dude goes through this youtube segment of soccer clips and it's going all wrong and his elephant soccer clip turns out to be just an elephant walking around not playing soccer like it was supposed to. Apparently, he had the wrong clip.

So, we go through our back and forth about Beckham's possible transfer to AC Milan which breaches his MLS contract in an obscene way. It moves on to what was Posh wearing and some other inane topics and scamboogery. At the end, the other dude asks, "Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about?" I reply, "Yeah, I was watching that clip you had of that elephant and I was wondering do you think that Nike makes elephant balls? You know, like elephant balls for elephants to play soccer with?"

At this point, I start cracking up while everyone in the studio is just looking at me stunned because I said elephant balls. Of course, everyone in the studio consists of a dude in suspenders, a guy that looks like he owns a van with no windows for the sole reason of not clashing with his moustache, and two high school volunteers running the cameras. Also, this is more people than will ever watch the show when it airs.

So, I finished the show and took off. I think it may have been my last show. The preceeding show, I caught some guff for repeating the term "Meat Tube" rather than youtube over and over again. To be completely honest, though, it's kind of fun. Painful as hell to watch and I feel really bad for taking the spot of Chess Diva #6 on public access, but that's the business for ya.

Recommended things:
1) I was a huge fan of KEXP and listen to it on Flycast whenever I can at home. Truth is radio died, but is being slowly resurrected via the Interwebs. I listen to KCRW in the morning at work and also enjoy Indie Pop Rocks on SomaFM. I've got a new one out of LA that I listen to now. Apparently, it shutdown and moved to the Internet and it's really good. It's KDLD 103.1. I'd love to hear stuff like this on the radio rather than listen to preprogrammed crap that ClearChannel wants me to listen to. I'd also like to point out that I've never heard Linkin Park on any of the above stations and that is a good thing. They FUCKING suck. You know that you are either older or that radio is super crappy when you've got talk radio going on AM. That's a bad sign.

2) The 33 1/3 book series by Continuum is an excellent way to further enjoy some of the most classic albums ever made. I recommend ordering a few and spending a Sunday with the headphones on while you read one of these. I did the Paul's Boutique edition last week and was floored by how awesome it was. The first section opened up with a history of the origins of the album. The second section broke down the album song by song. It was like discovering a classic album all over again. Paul's Boutique, especially. I remember the first time I heard that album, I was like "What the fuck?" and it turned out to be probably comparable to when the generation before me heard Sgt. Pepper's. It changed everything and just got better with every listen. The album could definitely be described as rich. John Darnielle from the The Mountain Goats wrote the one on Master of Reality by Sabbath and Colin Meloy from the The Decemberists wrote one on The Replacements' Let It Be. I'm working on the Aja entry now and needless to say, there is a glossary.

3) Lastly, I'd like to recommend a wonderful concoction that I stumbled on. Cap'n Crunch (no crunchberries) and Breyer's natural vanilla ice cream. One word describes this: fuckingretarded.

Happy Hump Day. Enjoy yourself.

Shittibank vs. Mint

2009-02-03T11:29:00.000-08:00

I recently began using mint.com to manage my finances after using Quicken forever. Quicken was cool and very well integrated online, but mint.com was just way easier to setup and maintain and over the last couple of months has proved to be an extremely positive experience.

So, I was checking out my accounts the other day because I love to watch my money whether it's expanding or failing miserably via my retirement account and I noticed that I had a 14.99% APR on my favorite card. It's black and awesome and used to have an APR of 4.52% which I really liked. I have never missed a payment and pay a lot on it every month as it's my primary bar tab card. I'll admit that it's been misplaced a few times and their customer service has been incredible on it.

The card was lifted in Vegas and they shut down the charges and killed the card swiftly and ably over the phone. I thought that the APR had to be a bug with mint and logged on to my account to check it out and sure enough it said 14.99%.

I checked out my past statements and November's had the 4.52% on it while December's had the 14.99%. I sent an e-mail off to their customer service asking if I had been a bad customer or something and they replied that it was due to the current condition of the financial markets and that I was sent the new terms and conditions and given the opportunity to opt-out if I wanted to. Now, in between convenience checks and bullshit that they send, I didn't read the 32 page fold out statement of terms and conditions, that's my bad. Who reads that?

To their credit, they gave me a second opportunity to opt-out, which to me, screamed that they tried to pull one over on their customers and got called on it. What kind of business outside of the oil business can you justify a 300% rate increase and get away with it? Furthermore, I live within my means. I haven't purchased a home because I can't afford it. I haven't bought a new car because I would rather pay my credit card bills down. Why should I be responsible for them or their customers' negligence?

So, I weighed out my options and decided to opt-out. The opt-out entails keeping my old APR until the expiration date on the card and then the account will close and remain until it is paid off. It will be paid off by that time, so I don't even get why I would choose to keep the 300% rate increase unless I never read the document. Honestly, there were no Pros to those Cons. That would be the best critique of prison writing that any prison writing program critic could ever write.

The question is how many others is this happening to or am I the only one that doesn't read all the mail that his credit card company sends him? Honestly, I've learned that if my bill isn't in the envelope, it's junk. Hmmm. Maybe if they quit sending convenience checks they could save that money that they need to provide their exceptional service and benefits. Then on top of all this, you have the bail out and their private jet they had to send back. Should I be feeling bad for them enough to say "Yeah, man, you've had a rough patch, so let me pick up the tab." They are not your mom-and-pop liquor store that you can justify paying more for convenience because they are a local business. They are not even your uncle with a drinking and gambling program that lost his rent in Reno one weekend.

Regardless, the whole thing kind of pissed me off and made feel a bit vulnerable. The moral? Read your goddamn mail or pay the price. Also, mint.com is pretty rad. I figured out my account had been messed with because they showed me cards that I could get that would be better than those existing.

So Rad

2009-01-22T08:50:00.000-08:00

I need this for desk tchotke at work real bad. I just added it to my Amazon wish list. Ladies and gents. The Playmobil Airport Security Checkpoint playset.

Also, the Playmobil baby in an incubator is kinda tight.

OMG. Playmobil office equipment set is rad.

Won't You Sign In Stranger

2009-01-21T19:34:00.000-08:00

It's been a month. I was accused of moving the blog and writing it under another fake name. In truth, I was just lazy and uninspired. Could be the TV. Could've been the weather. Could've been work. Could've been a variety of things, but it's not worth analyzing.

Here are some highlights. The coolest thing that happened was receiving nunchucks from my sister for Christmas. Scratch that. I actually almost received nunchucks. Instead, it was two pieces of wood and some chainlink. If they were connected it would be a felony unless used in a martial arts exhibition. Therefore, they are illegal if you suck at nunchucking and legal if you are good. Let's just say that if I did have nunchucks, I would probably have hit myself in the mouth with them about two weeks ago while chucking under the influence.

Now, in reference to their legality, how fucking stupid is that law? You break into my apartment to steal my TV that I love so much that I would write up a proposition to make it legal to marry it and you wake me up mid-theft. I come out in my underwear with my nunchucks. Pop-quiz, hotshot. Would you rather I had a gun or a pair of nunchucks? It's a no-brainer, but I don't have a large group of nunchuck enthusiasts in California that vote, so this is what we get. Watch for the NNA, though. I will start the National Nunchuck Association and make Mark Wahlberg our President due to the passing of Chuck Heston. I believe the rules are that the President must be the lead from Planet of the Apes and that's the best we've got.

Speaking of groups/associations, I've finished my community service for my Blottaux Pas. It wasn't that bad, but it was time consuming. The first weekend following it, I'll admit, I felt weird being at home on a Saturday morning. I'm not saying that I missed it, but it felt weird and I did have a small raking jones in the morning. So, after going through everything that I've gone through so far and still having a weekly meeting for the next five months and a zero tolerance for three years and a black smear on my record for ten, I'm starting to feel a little pissed at the California chapter of MADD (Motherrs Against Drunk Driving).

Yes, I empathize with people that have experienced loss due to people acting negligently, but I think in California they overdo it a bit. I mean fuck, okay, my bad. I've learned my lesson. Can we just move past this? I do feel lucky that I didn't hurt anyone or myself. I feel really fuckin' fortunate in fact, but get fucking over it. It's so typical of a woman and feels like a horrible marriage has been struck up with the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. It's just no fun. Let it go. I'm sorry.

So, while I bear my scarlet three letters of D, U, and I, I'm getting myself a little divorce from this group that has just been riding my ass for making a mistake and refusing to accept my apology. I'm putting my own association together called DAMM (Drunks Against MADD Mothers).

It's not pro drunk driving, but it's pro forgiveness. It's pro let people get the fuck on with their lives. It's pro let people dig their own fuckin' graves and make their own fates possible without trying to control their behaviors through administrative bullshit. The best I can do at this point is to vote against anything they support in the form of propositions. I actually checked last November and did vote against anything they supported.

In fact, I think the BAC laws are completely relative. So, the legal limit is .08. That is whether I'm 6' 4" and 340 pounds or 4' 6" and 40 pounds. That is completely aside from the fact that people have different tolerances based on their familiarity with blottopia.

For instance, if I've had eight beers and am driving behind some soccer mom drinking a chai latte and talking on a cell phone while wiping up her kids fucking applesauce that's all over his face, I'm less of a danger to anyone on the road and she has a .00 and I've got a .10.

Actually, I'm extremely agile and resilient when under the influence. I would throw down the challenge of my inebriated agile self against Joe Grande Iced Mocha in a variety of tests like cabular impact absorption (absorbing impact from chartered transportation), long distance falling, and breaking and entering into secure objects (getting inside your house and into bed without keys).

So, anyway, say I perform a battery of tests at the DMV including monkey bars and running through tires on an obstacle course and as soon as I can do it without being awesome, that's my legal BAC. I think I could easily pull off a .18 while still remaining relatively awesome. Doesn't this seem a lot more fair, the idea of earning your BAC? Honestly, it just makes a lot more sense to me, but is definitely against the grain in a society of people that feel they are owed something just for being here.

Anyway, trying to write more and feliz ano nuevo.

Round and Round

2008-12-18T10:04:00.000-08:00

So, we were on the bus. For those that have not been forced to give back to the community in lieu of serving jail time, there are wheels on the bus. They go round and round. Round and round. I kinda get where Ratt got the idea for the song now.

The bus cruises down the freeway. We still have no idea where we are going as I stare out the barred windows trying to get my bearings in case there is some type of riot and I have to find my way home. It's me. It could happen. It's a ragtag bunch of dudes. There are dudes with tattoos of stars behind their ears, the dudes who can't speak a lick of English with what looks like their kids' backpacks because they are obviously too small and feature cartoon characters, and the club kids who look like they just got on the bus from gettin' down up in da club. A dead give away to these dudes is the crooked army cap.

We are so South of San Jose by the time the bus pulls off the freeway that we could be in Fresno. Ahhh, Fuck. It's Fresno. We're not really in Fresno, but the only landmark that I can pick up is a Golfland about a quarter of a mile before we turn into the yard of the Santa Clara Valley Water Authority. We file off the bus and start milling about waiting for direction.

There are a couple of folding tables set up end-to-end that are employed as backpack storage. Kid backpack storage in some cases. Just backpacks full of bag lunches and in one case a Cup O' Noodles (sounds Irish). Brilliant planning in that guy's case. Expecting a microwave or tea kettle, dude?

This dude in coveralls who is a spitting image of Scatman Crothers in The Shining rolls up to and addresses the crowd as the prison bus dashes out of the yard amidst more milling about by a couple of bulldozers. He lets this group of Noway Laureates know that they will be bagging sand for the rest of the day. Global warming. Drought. This sounded like make work work, but whatever, it's something to do to kill time.

The rules: teams of four will be on the hoppers dispensing sand into the bags. The winners behind them will tie the bags. The winners behind them will place them on palettes. Easy enough, right? Also, we will be issued safety glasses, gloves and respirators. Glasses and vests will be worn at all times even during breaks. There will be no use of outhouses outside of allotted break times.

I took 25% of the hopper crew and started filling bags and passing them behind me. It's actually a really good lat exercise that is not too unlike working with a Swiss ball. So, it was what it was and I really didn't mind it.

After about an hour I kind of caught one of the club kids staring at me every time I passed a bag back. Whatever. Maybe he knew me. I had noticed him on the bus because I didn't think he was properly dressed for work. Also, remember that you are never fully dressed without a smile. Pro tip.

So, there was a period of time that I was waiting for a sand refill in my hopper and dude goes, "So, how do you like it so far?"

"Dude, I fuckin' hate it. Are we supposed to like this?" and I went back to filling bags.

As the day went on dude kept making small conversation during any opportunity. The third conversation set my gaydar off. Well, that and the fact that dude was staring at my ass the whole fucking time. Well, whatever.

Lunch came and went with the rule that you could do whatever you want outside of going horizontal. No laying down.

After lunch I saw these dudes using their keys to slash the bags before passing to the palette guys so that the sand would spill out in the name of entertainment. This would make sense if you didn't have to fuckin' clean it up. This sums up the mentality of these people that were never going to graduate weekend work and who may not have wanted to. This was a peer group to some.

Day ends (sorta) and we clean up our stations and wait for the bus. We jump on the bus and get back to the freezing cold garage at three. We stand there for forty five minutes doing NOTHING. Like fucking nothing unless freezing can be considered a hobby.

The asshole cops line everyone up and do another roll call. I guess they occasionally lose people. They call my name and I walk across the garage to the other side and freeze some more while we wait for them to call everyone's name. Somewhere deep in the annals of public service this is considered a system. It explains a lot.

I get out and go home and sleep with visions of sand in my head. Piles and piles of sand. I imagine that the next day we are going to have to go take all the bags that we filled up and empty them out for the dudes to use the next weekend. Losing faith in the system as the whole thing is a huge fucking waste of time and benefits no one. Perhaps they should let me set up a new system for them, but I have a feeling this is a culture that is adverse to efficiency. It's called my own personal kryptonite.

SPOILER ALERT: I got CalTrans the next morning. More to come.

I Write, You Left.

2008-12-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

So. I had my criminal part of Project: Debt To Society last weekend. That now makes my week consist of four DUI related activities a week. There is the weekly group meeting for an hour and a half, a two hour education session that is straight propaganda, and then two days a week of the Weekend Work Furlough Program.

The weekend work is to replace the jail time. You can do three straight days in the hoosegow or nine weekend days from 8 to 4. I chose to knock it out the box and do Saturday and Sunday and it just happened to fall in December which blows donkey balls, however every time I find myself complaining about it I hear a school marmy voice say "You should have thought about that before you drank and drove."

Anyway, here is how it went down for the curious. We can evaluate the DUI education experience in its own episode.

For the first weekend, you have no assignment and are to show up at a parking lot across the street from the jail and the courthouse. You've just got to be there at eight. "We," the collective one, as in me, almost didn't make it. Drank with the soccer team the night before and it got fun as I found someone to call me on my shit and then explored tan bark theory for a little bit. It was fun. It caused me to get to bed too late. It caused me to sleep in past one alarm. It caused me to sleep past another alarm. Finally, a teammate who has saved my ass in countless games saved my ass again by giving me a wakeup call and telling me to get the fuck out of bed and get there.

I jumped up convinced I was fucked and threw a toque, jeans and a sweatshirt on and threw my lunch that I had made the night before into my backpack with my court papers and jammed out the door. I got in the car and realized at this point that I had left my water bottle at the bar (again) and pulled a Diet Coke out of my lunch to pound at 7:45 in the morning. There is something so white trash about morning soda. So, I hit the freeway with about twenty miles to go in fifteen minutes. I'm also painfully aware that if I get popped for speeding a) I'm not going to make it, which means court or a warrant and b)there is a chance of getting breathalyzed in a situation where .02 would get me another DUI as I have no tolerance. It was reckless, but here is a pro tip: There are few risks that are not worth taking when balanced against legal administration. They just cannot figure out how to do shit.

So, I'm in the 80s and my car is shaking furiously because I haven't gotten my tires rotated in forever because I rarely drive anymore and the cigarette perched out my window is shaking like crazy as I barrel down the freeway just asking for it, but I've been good lately and knew I deserved this, so there was a chance.

I got to the exit ramp right at 8:00. At this point, I'm hoping that the cops are not good at setting watches as everything else to do with this program is about extreme punctuality. You CANNOT be even a minute late for things. Luckily, this was not one of those things. I got my car parked and emptied my pockets of "contraband" and ran toward the parking garage where I mulled in with about 25 Mexican dudes. It felt like Christmas, kinda.

I'd like to point out right here that on the program contraband list there are things like knives, cell phones, and lighters, which make sense. There are also things like calculators that don't make a lot of sense. Remember that.

So, I stood in a freezing ass garage for about a half hour before anything happened. This would prove to be a theme for the program - standing with nothing happening. When something finally did happen, they lined us up to be checked in and searched for "contraband." It would be really funny to bring a copy of the supergroup Contraband's CD to this. Okay, that would be fuckin' lame. I got checked in by the most unpleasant man alive. Here's how it went.

"ID, Please."

"Here ya go"

"Empty your pockets and pull them out of your jeans."

"No problem"

"Is this your lighter?"

"Oh crap. I'm sorry about that. I missed it when I cleaned out my pockets in my car."

"Do you have cigarettes?"

"No."

"If I find some in your bag, I'm sending you back to court."

"Sorry, sir. There should be nothing in my bag except for my lunch."

Dude looks through my bag right here and finds a book, The Suitors by Ben Ehrenreich, and pen. He looks at me with a hard look and says, "What is this?! I could send you back to court for this. Didn't you read your list of contraband? Books are contraband."

At this point, I couldn't help it and said "That's very Bradburyian of you."

He looked at me like I was about to be fuckin' tased and I said to him quickly before I was made an example, "Dude, that's not a putdown it's a reference to an author" and to amuse myself just said in my head "Not a strong reader, huh?"

He told me that I could pick up my book at the end of the day which was hilarious. A big fucking clear trashbag full of cell phones, lighters and cigarettes and that one lonely fuckin' book. The woman in charge of the "contraband" asked me what my cellphone looked like at the end of the day and I told her I was there for the book and emphasized that it was the ONLY book. This was not a very literal crowd. I mean, no offense, but all most of them would be into reading would be books by Iceberg Slim.

So, I get checked in and the cop hands me a vest and tells me to go stand against the wall. A small group starts to collect around me like dirt would to a piece of gum on the bottom of your shoe. Then, when it got about 40 deep, a dude came over and got us to line up and get on a bus. We were getting bussed somewhere with no idea where we were going. Honestly, I'm not even going to bother explaining what this imagery was comparable to. We get on the bus with two dudes in the cages to boot and the bus driver fires up the bus and the radio kicks on and what do you fuckin' hear? "I kissed a girl and I liked it. The taste of her cherry chapstick."

It was going to be that kind of day. I'll pick up on that later. Gotta work.

Real Work Conversation #45

2008-12-02T09:46:00.000-08:00

Girl1: "Hey. You are never gonna guess who I saw last weekend."

Me: "Who?"

Girl1: "I saw Cheryl in the city."

Me: "Where were you, the Power Exchange(sex club)?"

Girl2: "Oh my god. That place is weird. I've been there once."

Girl1: "Uh, I think he was just kidding."

Me: "You are hella busted."

Home Is Where The Hard Is

2008-11-18T14:44:00.001-08:00

We (the collective one) are bored. Life has taken on some form of undynamic, blah persona and just kind of sits there staring back, saying nothing. It's a really awkward silence. The silence is broken, however, by the sound of beer cans popping like balloons at a crying child's birthday and the lovely sounds of young country (shitty rock) emanating through the front door as of late.

Here are the topics discussed in front of my apartment:
1) High school football games and kickers.
2) "Mama and Randall"
3) Online dating, both match.com and Yahoo! personals

This is what I hear while I don sweatpants and worship my television. I don't know why I bother with my television when I have thirtysomething and Intervention going on right outside my door, but sweats feel safer and distance limits my interactivity in entertainment. It's better to watch sometimes than partake in the action. Actually, in recent moments, that's the rule of thumb. Let someone else put on the clown wig and party king crown and run their own court. I'd like to watch for a while.

One neighbor is definitely going through some shit and putting down some serious booze. Power to him, but when he came home with a thirty pack of Keystone Light, I got both nostalgic and empathetic. He has been finding solace in Internet dating and is more than happy to show me pictures of boobs and talk about his dates, though. The Internet dating and weeknight drinking are just reinforcers to avoidance. A nice meal and four hours on the xbox is way preferred. I don't see that a solution lies at the end of his path, but who knows. Life is not known for being just or predictable.

Other neighbor has a high school crush on the new neighbor from Alabama. She's got the weirdest accent one has ever heard and he's like 50 something and she is way out of her element, so I can see the motive. It's actually kind of cute to watch. Everyday after work they end up sitting on the stairs in front of my apartment and shootin' the shit, but everytime I see it, I can't help but picture bleachers and varsity jackets. The other weirdness is about how she made out with me the first night we met and went out whiskey drinking with the other neighbor. I'm not interested because I could fit into her jeans. She caught me whiskey drunk is all. I don't do that anymore and I was the out-of-elementee in that situation.

So, anyway, everyone of her stories that I hear ringing through my flimsy door is about "mama," Randall, or involves a pig and a quad. Dude, Alabama is no joke. They are stuck in a timequake, man. Imagine the worst you could about backwardness, ignorance and the and a hateful Jesus and you will come to about the third ring in that Dante's Inferno.

So, yeah, I'm finger pointing today, but I had to write and these things do affect me. I do nothing, but sleep anymore and have kind of introverted, which is very uncharacteristic. I just think this shit is getting old and it may be time to move somewhere a little more socially motivating. I've got to clean up my own backyard before I start venturing out of it, but I'm close. The rough spots are getting smaller and more isolated and it's been a while since I woke up with a penis drawn on my chest or a stranger in my house. These are good things. They are starting points. I just feel like there could be a more productive and fulfilling place where I could set up shop. I feel like I'm constantly in a hurry to get out of what I'm doing, but to go do nothing. It turns out I just don't want to be doing what I'm doing a lot.

Otherwise, everything is perfect.

F-U tility

2008-11-06T14:01:00.000-08:00

Today is an exercise in repetitive futility not seen since one last stared at the stairs in an M.C. Escher drawing. Seriously, just circle and circle and circle of struggling while you drown in a puddle of shit that feels like quicksand. Some call it work. I think everyone has an e-mail filter on that auto-replys elaborate, over wordy versions of "Fuck You. Try again Fucktard." when they receive my e-mail address in their inbox.

Outside of that, everything is Jim Fuckin' Dandy. I'm finding solace in soulless searching of my innerworkings and trying to figure out how to unwind it all and not be so pissed off and frustrated. I've tried kicking a tree while I smoked a cigarette for ten minutes and it was just another action to put in the bin of futility to be incendiarily excited in order to be sacrificed to the Futility Goddess that rules my Charlie Brown-Dark Cloud work life at the moment. Just something else to throw on the fire.

Just like anything in life, however, it could be worse. Oh, so much worse. There are unexplained pee spots on the front of your pants, there are unexplained coffee outages, mirthless meetings that go nowhere for no reason and days that make you imagine that if you had a terminal disease you would want every day to last this long until the pain set in. Oh, so how could it be worse? Prison.

Recent events have had me reviewing work furlough programs because I really don't know what to expect from my criminal side of repaying my debt to society. I thought it was just an orange vest and get out there and pick up some garbage. Nope. There are other things and unfortuately none of them are prison librarian. Enacting a Dewey decimal system in a correctional facility has never sounded so good when compared to some stories that I'm hearing of what the program entails.

As a side effect of the research process, I decided to check out some prison pen pal resources. I thought it might be fun to get one. We could discuss our days and I could support him towards rehabilitation and life "on the outside." He could teach me how good I really have it not being incarcerated and also fill me with the purpose of helping someone. Perhaps there are sites like that, but I found this one: writeaprisoner.com. It's kind of like myspace or facebook mashed up with Megan's Law in some cases, but it is still a great time sink on a Friday.

I'm still getting familiar with the site and just found the part where it lists the crimes. There is also prison penpals with a hyphen that I haven't really checked out.

Also, being the competitive type, I suggested that some friends pick out their own prisoner, too. That way we could compare letters and see who is rehabilitating their prisoner the best. It would be like adopting a kid, but way easier. Or, maybe like getting a robotic dinosaur. Or, maybe like getting a pet rock that wrote letters to you. That is just the best premise for a sitcom in the 70s.

Be warned. There are some rules to mailing a prisoner. No stickers, no food, no nude pictures, etc...I will just mail mine cigarettes because that is like money in the joint.

Mom's Tamale Casserole

2008-11-05T12:05:00.001-08:00

I'm putting this here so that I have access to it whenever I have a hankerin' for some tamale casserole and comfort. It's from my mom and was kind of a family tradition. I think I'm going to bring it back tonight, but fuck, it looks like a lot of work. Whatevs. It's something to do on a Wednesday. Also, is this the part where I find out that she got the recipe off the back of a pack of Marlboros or out of the back pages of a Penthouse Forum. This is where I get crushed isn't it?

Future recipes? Look for the tuna casserole. Children of the 70s ate a lot of casseroles I think.

Tamale Casserole

1 whole roasted chicken from the store or 2 to 4 chicken breasts

2 small cans of tamales (Hormel is my favorite)

1 recipe of white rice (1 3/4 cups water to 1 cup rice)

1 can of cream or chicken soup

1/2 soup can chicken broth

diced green chilis (optional)

grated mexican cheese or monterey jack cheese or just cheddar

Bake chicken breasts and shred. While the chicken is baking, make the rice. Or if you get a chicken from the store, just shred it and make the rice.

1) Take the paper off the tamales and break them into thirds and layer the bottom of a 9 x 13 casserole dish (I do it in the sink so I don't make a greasy mess)

2) Layer the shredded chicken on top of the Tamales

3) Mix the soup and the broth in the pan with the rice until it is the desired consistency. You can add the diced green chilis if you want. You can also salt and pepper to taste.

4) Bake @ 375 for 25 minutes. Add the grated cheese to the top the last 10 minutes. When the underlying casserole is bubbly, it is done.

* I think grandma marlene sprinkles paprika on top of the cheese.

Serve to only the casserole worthy guests.

Enjoy

mom

D'yer Rol'ls

2008-10-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

This is wrong, but I have to profess a confession.

This morning, while making a fantastic pot of coffee, I was in the break room and this woman came in to get in my way as I moved fluid and lithely between the mini fridge, the coffee maker and my coffee mug. She had worked me towards the copier in her giant fantasmacolored shower curtain dress as she maneuvered herself to the microwave. She opened the microwave and it went down like this: she pulled a plate out of the microwave with five croissant looking things on it as I took my coffee and started heading out of the room.

She then looked at me and said "Do you want one of my rolls?"

I looked at the plate and then at her and then at the wall as I lied, "No thanks. I just ate a muffin."

Now, what really happened was when she said "Rolls" I flashed through all of the rolls on her body, got internally visually sick and then mentally, in my head said "Which one?" in reference to all of the rolls covering her body. That made me laugh inside a little bit and then I told my lie. That's what really happened in about half a second.

Fully Awesome Burbank

2008-10-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Pictured above are the pieces that make up a delicious puzzle. It's the raw elements of the Ready Pac Santa Fe Style Caesar Salad and it's no fuckin' joke. I'm a whore for anything with corn in it, so this salad had me at Hello, but chips, cheese and corn? That's the same chemical makeup as nachos on the food periodic table. I believe it is number 48. 47, is chips and salsa I think.

Anyway, cheese, romaine lettuce, chips, corn and chicken partnered with a non-chipotle dressing. That's a bold fuckin' move right there. You'd think a chipotle honey dressing or something, but no way...Salsa Ranch dressing. The Ready Pac people show real balls right there. Only a company like that would put apples in a prepackaged salad. My hat is off to your boldness Ready Pac people. You are innovators, risk takers and patriots.

So, what could possibly steal the thunder of this perfectly balanced ingredient wise salad? The packaging can, that's what. So, you think it's too fuckin' awesome when you pull the top level of the container out and it has all your ingredients separated from the salad in little compartments. Then, you dig into the lettuce to get the tortilla chips and Wham!, there is half of a spork and you are all like, "Shit, I need to go get a fork out of the break room because these douche bags at Ready Pac only put half of a spork in my container and now I have no handle to scoop salad. But, no, Ready Pac fires back, "Hey douche. Open up that spork and unfold it into a full size spork. Now who's the douche, Mayor of Doucheville, Nevada?"

Seriously, if you squint in the picture above you can see it. It's one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. More impressive than babies. More impressive than anything that your kid paints, draws or does in a recreational sports league. More impressive than a tiger meat burrito...Wait. A tiger meat burrito would be pretty impressive and maybe illegal. Jesus is anything impressive legal nowadays?

Anyway, finished spork is in the photo below, jammed into the delicious salad. My scissors and my favorite brand of highlighter are in there, too. Only because it's near Christmas and if you are buying me highlighters, that's my brand. While we're on that subject, I also use Number 3 pencils exclusively. There is one in the picture if you need a visual reference.

Now, something completely unrelated. Did you know that Burbank is fully awesome? Here's proof.
More proof. The place was lousy with Fully Awesome signage.

I like to think that if Axl Rose remade the Welcome to the Jungle video that he would not be getting off a bus in downtown LA, but rather landing at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. It's only like the best airport ever. Best soundtrack. Best twelve dollars for two pounds of pasta. Best looking people when compared to the ugliness and obesity that is the San Jose International airport. Amidst the current financial meltdown, I'd say that Burbank is one of the last banks that you can believe in. Dad Joke. Zang.

Hugh B. Forty

2008-10-16T14:13:00.000-07:00

Jesus. I suppose I owe an apology to the Interwebs for my lack of buy-in over the last few weeks (month). The God honest(awful) answer is that I've been busy in these subjects:

Work: Who cares about work

Weddings: Attended and participated in a beautiful wedding between two of the most beautiful people I know in lovely Portland. There was a little bit of everything in a break neck weekend in Portland, OR. Got to dress up like 007 and have a prom style hookup. Basically, two kids groping in the dark in a hotel room. Just like prom. I also managed to find a first printing of The Shining in the hotel's main lobby bookcase. If it wasn't missing the dust jacket and such a rad Easter egg, I would've put that shit on eBay in a second. Had a wonderful time and managed to not ruin the wedding, go to the most surreal strip club (the strippers put their own music in the jukebox while they are completely naked and there is a full bar), and even get a couple of Voodoo Doughnuts and a gnarly ass-kicking cold from the weekend. Oh, and some kick ass Arsenal cuff links (Thanks, JD and B!). Really the wedding was an awesome time and you could actually feel the Jungian libido of my brain moving to the "everything is fine" side. When it was all said and done I felt more emotionally sound and actual happiness than I have felt since 1998.

Acting: Let me preface this by saying that I am no actor, but have now acted in something. In life's constant pursuit of a presence on IMDB, I've finally done it with a credit as Chris Isaak. A friend sent me an e-mail asking me to play Chris Isaak in a project that he was writing and I thought it was a jab at me. The script showed up shortly thereafter and I started learning some CI tunes on guitar, still half assedly. I received the shooting schedule and booked a flight and it was fucking on.

It was one of the most intriguing experiences I've been in to date. Let me say right here that acting is really fucking hard. There is so much more than memorizing shit. There is interaction with others and yourself while spitting memorized strings of text while you move around. There is emoting. There is guitar playing and massacration of Chris Isaak hits.

The anxiety when compared to playing guitar in front of a bunch of people pales in comparison when there is a camera a foot from your face and you are talking to someone and can't look at it. The whole thing was a real fuckin' trip and actually really awesome. The after effects have been seeing behind the curtain when you watch TV.

For instance, there was a dude from Mad Men in the shoot and when I got home, I caught up on my Mad Men and there's the dude I was watching football with and hanging out with, but it wasn't really him on the screen. He was really some dude in the 60s.

I was humbled and inspired by the whole experience and really enjoyed it. Plus, all the free Emergen-C you could drink and all of the snacks in the world. They also called me "Talent" which I found a bit presumptous, but they were all very gentle. The director and the other actors were so incredibly nice and supportive that the whole thing felt like an Alcoholic Anonymous session without the Jesus element.

By the end of it, it started to feel a little more natural and I think if I do it again, it'll be really awesome.

Legal Issues: I got officially convicted of Driving Under the Influence. In fact REALLY under the influence enough to get an enhancement on the charge. So, I had to go get enrolled in a 9 month DUI class and pay a gang of fines and go get my "Restricted" license from the DMV. An exercise in waiting and flaming hoops to jump through. On the path to resolution, though, and come July, god willing, this will all be behind me. I've learned my lesson and not going to jump over this candlestick ever again. Hugh be nimble (like a ninja). Hugh be quick (like a ninja shark). Getting a DUI kinda sucks dick.

So, that's it. Sorry I've been neglectful.

& The News

2008-09-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

So, what's the bad news? The bad news is that my BAC was .22 a couple months back when they pulled me over and arrested me. Because of such a high (or impressive) BAC, I got an extra three months of cocktail college. My sister said she liked it and that you just end up watching a bunch of Intervention and hanging out with partiers.

In addition, I will be required to perform nine days of community service with criminals. I do, however, look pretty decent in orange. Vests, not so much. I wonder if they would let me just wear an orange cummerbund. I'm also trying to figure out which gang I should join. The white power dudes scare me and the Latinos are a little intense. I need to find the Canadian gang and then I think I would be able to get by by just being real nice to people and being funny.

Let me see. Other bad news is the fines, the restricted license for to and fro only to work, cocktail college and weekend freeway trash pick-up. This could totally work if I met someone at trash pick up or the cocktail college. It would be like a weekly date.

Now. The good news? I just saved three hundred dollars on car insurance. Seriously. I've never changed my insurance since I bought my car and was referred to a DUI car insurance guy who was kinda funny as hell and awesome. He called me back today and it will be switched over tonight. The car's a piece of shit and I never drive it, so it'll work out fine. Plus, I got a free t-shirt and bottle opener. Pure Awesomenacity.

Throughout the whole ordeal, I will admit one thing and that is that I really kind of needed it to happen so that I would stop arrogantly driving around like I was untouchable. I was given a lot of chances and someone had to finally come up and bitch slap me and cuff me to a bench so that I would stop acting like a fucktard. I still get fucktarded now and then, but I don't drive anymore when I'm all fucktarded. I think it's going to end up working out. Plus, I now have that social club that I've needed for the next nine months. DUI class has got to fall somewhere between AA and a book club, right?

Trail Of Beers

2008-09-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

Well, it's on. Fresh off a beautiful trip to Hood River, OR, I booked the flight to LA to be in a TV project, which absolutely cracks me up. I'd give away the premise, but it's not really mine to give away. So, put that on the list with all the other shit that makes no sense that I do. The only acting that I've ever done in my life is that musical when I was like 8 and various instances of creative lying. Oh, I've also acted like I had Down's syndrome when my sister and I were shopping for pants once. She got superpissed about it.

So, the recent Hood River trip. It was for a friend's wedding and I was staying with two of the dopest people I know in a really nice place that would cost way too much if it were located in the Bay Area. We even got a special guest visitor on the couch that I took to Shari's at three in the morning for some fine barefoot dining while wrapped in a TrailOfTears blanket that was worth $500 in this particular circumstance.

The condo was within walking distance of a severely confused British pub that became post-festivity headquarters. I call it confused because there was a fucking Frommer's guide to Ireland on the bar and not one TV for showing soccer. Plus, they weren't even open for the first EPL game of the day on Saturday. I guess if you fly the Union Jack and serve Bass, you are British enough.

The condo also had a view of Washington conducting commerce and for $1.50 American, you could cross a bridge and pay sales tax and pump your own gas. It was brilliant and the weather was a borderline sign of the apocalypse. It was just perfect.

The pub, however, had one thing going in their favor in the form of a bartender that I was lightly smitten with on the first night that we got there. The last night I was there, I ended up with her at another bar with her bartender friend that she had to have been sharing a bed with, but stranger things have happend. It was the Pacific Northwest, though, so I may have been reading her wrong.

The next day, I woke up and had a slip of paper with a penis drawn on it and her girlfriend's name written above it. That makes us BFFs. I don't remember a tremendous amount of the latter part of the night, but my left nipple was in severe pain the next morning when we disembarked on the scenic route to the airport. There are a lot of waterfalls in Oregon. Pro Tip.

Now, for notes from the wedding, I'll just bulletpoint some quotes/conversations:

Conversation 1
Her: "I was told that you are my best chance for getting laid at this wedding and I've already thought of some disgusting things to do to you."

Me: "And your name is?"

Conversation 2
Other Her: "Has anyone told you that you look like Dane Cook?"

Me: "No. And I don't enjoy his humor. Have you ever heard of Bill Hicks?"

Conversation 3
Other Her: "I heard you call some girl a moose at the bar. Is that what you call me?"

Me: "Uhhh. No. Of course not. Swear."

Conversation 4
Dude: "Robert Palmer is dead?"

Me: "Yeah, he died like five years ago."

Dude: "What did he die of?"

Me: "I don't know. Maybe a love addiction?"

Might As Well Face It

2008-09-17T09:21:00.001-07:00

I just ordered a new iTouch as I need an iPod upgrade. Coincidentally due to a friends re-enamoration with the brilliance of Robert Palmer (1949 - 2003), I had it engraved with "Might As Well Face It You're Addicted To Love." My iTouch will serve as a memorial to the man that didn't mean to turn you on. The runner-up engraving was "Mr. Gorbachev. Tear down that WALL!"

Bears

2008-09-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

This is one of the funnier stories I've seen all month. You may not even need to read it, but a dude was riding his bike down the road and crashed into a bear. Fuckin' rad.

Teacher OK after crashing into bear on a bicycle - Yahoo! News

47 Dicks

2008-09-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

Ummmmm. On a whim or because my house had been taken over by ten year old guitar heros, I went for a drink last night. Probably too late for a Sunday night, but I'm not as fragile as I used to be. So, I had a few and talked to some girl for a while...woke up with a swastika drawn on the right side of my chest and a giant dick on the left. There was also something drawn on the back of my neck that I'm kinda hoping that no one else can see. Also, there is ink all over my sheets.

There is a ton of irony in a dick being drawn on me. For some reason, it feels like a symbol's revenge somehow. The picture above is from the Imperial Palace last week when I decided to draw dicks with a keno crayon until I got my food. This is not some weird Superbad thing either. Been drawing dicks for a while. I think it started with golf balls. I would just draw a dick on them instead of my initials.

So, I was at dinner last Friday with my sister and her boyfriend and her old roommate and their friend. A lot of wine was harmed in the formation of the fuzzy memory that is Friday, but I was talking to her friend who is retardedly smart, charming and has an advanced degree in Psychology. I asked her if a grown man drawing 47 dicks on a placemat would concern her and she just told me that it definitely raises a red flag. I'm not even sure she was kidding.

So, regardless. I got chiefed by a girl last night. Grown man chiefed. That's just sad. It will get better. This I know.

FTATM

2008-09-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

This is my Favorite Thing At The Moment while I worry about The Breeder.