This is your captain speaking. Today you'll be reading over 38,000 feet. Below you is the River City...
I don't know about you and where you're at but it's been a wild week for me. It's nearing springtime and all the chicks are going crazy to get outside and do something which means my “backburner” status has been called up. Whether some of the ones contacting me are truly interested OR I'm being relegated to (again) “backburner status,” we'll see.
Of the positives of this past week I finished added shelves to my bookcase. I had boxes of movies in my room and wanted to get them displayed and there happened to be too much room in-between shelving in the bookcases I have so I borrowed a friend's cordless drill and went to Home Depot to have four shelves made. I started the project Sunday, finished a bookcase on Monday, and finished the other Friday night. After I immediately uploaded a pic on Facebook asking others to guess how many movies total are on the shelves. Hint: I don't even know. I really don't care. At this point I'm just trying to get them converted to Blu-ray before I need to convert them again. How technology goes...
Another positive note: I spoke with my manager about what else I can do within the job I already have. Outside of running some reports... zip. Zelch. Zero. Nothing. Nada. I could try to see if I can be elevated to a “III” position however it's more responsibility, no pay increase (that I know) and it's not going to make my job any better. I then applied for the position of Account Manager whereby I would get to speak with clientele, travel, keep up with what's going on, etc. I remade my resume and need to get it back out on the Web and whatnot; apply for different things in different cities. See what happens. I need out of my rut.
Speaking of rut Saturday is reminiscent of the old adage, “do not cast ye pearls before swine.” Funny thing: I never grew up with this one. For those who don't get it: do not try to impress those who would not understand anyway. Kinda like the old joke that bacteria is the only culture that some people have. Case in point is Uncle Roomie who didn't get out of bed Saturday until 3pm after having went to bed around midnight the previous night. Friday night we sat and watched “No Country for Old Men,” which he proclaimed sucked because the end didn't mean anything. Anyway after returning from driving around/researching historic Middletown and returning the cordless drill I got to the apartment and found that he was gone. He reappeared around 6pm asking where we were going for dinner (alluding to the fact that every weekend we try at least one place new). After fifteen minutes of me wracking my brain trying to come up with a location and his help being “anyplace that's cheap as far as I'm concerned” I picked out Shiraz Mediterranean Grill. There was a location not too far away so I navigated him to that.
Let me hit pause for the moment. Let me describe Uncle Roomie to you. 49 years old. 360 pounds. Diet consists of tea, tuna, fast food restaurants, and whatever generic snake cakes, brownies, etc. that he can pick up at the Wal-Mart five minutes away from the apartment. He's a dietician's worst nightmare (or possible source of income – it's all perspective). The guy who wants to “eat nice” while only paying the price of a Sonic combo. Ya got me? Let's continue.
Shiraz MG is a little restaurant nestled into the front of a complex where by the rest is used for housing. There are other first-floor storefronts but an alleyway leads to a courtyard in the center of an apartment complex. Kinda nice. The restaurant itself seems low-maintenance enough: aluminum chairs and tables, drink machine, small room overall. I ordered a beef kabob and two sides, one being hummus and the other quinoa. He ordered a beef kabob with two different sides. We both got their “cucumber” sauce.
And the results?
I liked it. Uncle Roomie didn't. “Next time I hear 'mediterranean' I'll remember to skip it.” Some review I read stated that the hummus was great and it was – best hummus I've ever had. But I've been in this situation before where I was the person not “impressed” with where my friends took me so... yeah.
Having read the Internet announcements of a “supermoon” I had him drive downtown to my favorite spot to shoot – a parking garage. I grabbed my camera and tripod, went to the top, and took pictures while he walked around. After I showed him around 21c Museum Hotel and we looked at their current art offerings. His version of “art” is short for some guy named “Arthur.” (it's a joke, people) We finally went back to the apartment.
It was around 10 and I asked him if he wanted to watch anything. “I don't know. Read them off to me.” I have a collection of over 400 movies in two bookcases sitting in the corner of the room – get off your fucking ass and pick one! I didn't say it but I wanted to so I got up and picked out a movie I hadn't seen in a long while - “Into the Wild.” For those not in the know “Into the Wild,” was directed by Sean Penn and stars Emile Hirsch as a guy named Christopher McCandless who, at the age of 24, graduated Emory University and went out in search of Alaska. Great movie in my opinion. Roy chimed in every five minutes asking questions about the guy and I just tuned him out. Eventually he went to bed.
Now for a moment I want to reflect on the movie. I went and saw it in a theatre (Village 8 if I remember correctly) and bought the 2-disc DVD when it was released (my pre-Blu ray days). Not having watched it in a while I had forgotten enough to enjoy it and to realize...
I understand Christopher McCandless. I really do.
If McCandless was really anything close to being like Hirsch portrayed him in the film then he is quite possibly high-functioning autistic. That's not a bad thing, mind you, it's just that the person is so headstrong about ideals that nothing is going to stop them. I could relate and understand every step of the way why he did what he did. Why he thought what he thought. Felt as he felt. A friend of mine recently said that one reason enjoyment is had from my blog is my introspection – the ability to look and dissect my insides. Again if he is like anything remotely exuded by Hirsch then I know exactly who he was.
And that brings me to the lesson of today which is: you are not alone but the others you seek are a helluva long way away. My friend Cindi points that out to me on occasion and it's hard, so fucking hard, to see that sometimes because those people who are most like us would think like us, would see, breathe, live and die like us shying away from finding others like us while secretly sorting through the loneliness and desperation inside locked behind a 128-character digitally encrypted code that only we know. It's that difficult for us. And our world slowly dims little by little because we want so much to be understood, to be accepted, to feel either that we can go about it the wrong way with the wrong people. When we find our others they come as “blips”; momentary reprieves from a society we feel cast away from but tethered by a chain to. “We don't want you but you need to stay.” “You don't have to go home but you can't stay here....”
And so it's cool that I have Andy as a friend. We've hung out a bit this past weekend – went and saw, “Paul,” ate at BBC, shot the shit – and he's dark and more “realist” than others I know. And by hanging out I feel normal as opposed to a lot of the more shallow ones that I've gotten to know. I swear I'm caught between in-betweeners, cheaters, liars, yuppies, the shallow, etc. It's cool just to have a friend.
Aside from that I'm just trying to get a few things done. I've killed my exercise routine so that starts back Monday night. Most of my online chatting friends haven't been around as of late, or I've been busy at work, so I have no clue as to what's going on. Tired. Lonely. Feels like I'm going crazy. “Running off the rails on a crazy train...”
Mmm, Mediterranean food...
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