Decompression

This weekend has been reserved for much-needed decompression time. The problem with go-go-go nonstop is that I need down time in order to properly evaluate everything that's going on: to look at what's going on, re-evaluate what I want, and figure my shit out.

One of Jenn's buddies from California is over for the night, and I opened up the door to find a tall, blue-eyed guy in a suit staring back at me, and felt a startled jolt at the idea that ah, yes, this was the guy I'd been hearing about for the last five years, standing at my doorway... and I looked at him, and he looked at me, and sweet fuck, he's pretty. And damn, yes, he's currently single.

We all went out for dinner, and the plan after that was to go to the Hancock Tower for drinks and then go out to the Second City comedy club and have a night of it... but after dinner, when we came back to the place so Jenn could switch coats, I realized I really didn't want to go out on the town. I just wanted to be home. I leave for New Jersey again on Monday. All I want is this time, here, in my own bed, sleeping and mulling over everything that's going on. I haven't had enough downtime.

So I bowed out of the rest, and here I am, preparing for bed, trying to work some stuff out, wondering about life, about what I want, about how everything can fit together, wondering about... just, everything, and how it can all go spectacularly wrong and change you forever, for better or worse.

I wonder, sometimes, if relationships are just sort of like the rest of the things in my life... something I'm so afraid of, but need to come to grips with in order to live fully.

I've been told that vertigo is not, in fact, the fear of falling - it's your mind fighting your body's desire to fall. We have a tendancy to desire those jumps, those freefalls into space, and what we fight, the battle we wage, is desire against logic.

For some bridges, the big kind, the ones you jump off in order to die, these are good battles to fight: having some wit keeps you breathing. But for those more modest bridges, the ones, say 55 ft. tall with a freefall into water, well, those are more realistic bridges; the ones our mind might fear, but the sort of jump that will make us different, better, for having jumped it.

That's what I'm decompressing.

Good, Old Fashioned Romance

Everybody needs a little lovin'...



via Greg.

Ah, Chicago

Oh, I'm home....

Thai food, beer, soaking in the tub, decadent reading of multiple books...

Oh, yes. This is the good life.

You're In Trouble

Mosh just took me aside with the immortal words, "You're in trouble," and put me in a closed-door meeting with him.

Thoughts running through my head:

1) Somebody's been checking my internet time. I'm screwed.

2) Somebody found my blog

3) Somebody found out that I'm staying at the Grand Hyatt week after next

4) Hopefully, I'll be fired.

In fact, Mosh was totally being a smartass, and he'd brought me in to discuss my $1000 yearly bonus that just got deposited into my account. 40% is stock, 60% is cash, but all of the taxes come out of the cash, so I've only got an extra $221 in my account.

Not exactly a high-roller.

I was thanked for doing what I do (what do I do, exactly?) and thanked for my willingnes to travel, and told what an asset I was and blah blah and hope you'll be here many years to come and blah.

I swear, people can totally sense when you're completely fed up with your job and ready to jump ship.

The Pope

Gosh, sure is lucky he had the choice to have an elective surgery, huh? Sure is great that the Catholic church thinks going to the hospital for an elective surgery is OK, if it can potentially improve and lengthen your quality of life.

How thoughtful of them, to let him choose how he'd like to be cared for. I mean, could you imagine having the procedure in place that could potentially allow him to lead a better life, but him being unable to make that choice because his religion said that only God could play God and that humans had no right to interfere with the body's "natural" processes? Like, say, birth and death?

He sure is lucky to be a white man with choices. White men sure are lucky that way.

So Incredibly Illegal

This is just sooo incredibly illegal that I didn't even think it was worthy of bringing up: it's just so illegal. You just can't do it.

But that was when I lived in another country.

Why aren't they demanding the sexual health and histories of the men whose sperm instigated these pregnancies? Aren't promiscuous men equally suspect of being "sexual perverts" because they fucked around?

Oh, wait, I forgot: women are the sexual gatekeepers. Guys get a Get Out of Jail Free card.

This is fucking grotesque. It's a mockery of women, of the supposed "equality" of women, and it's a fucking smack in the face for every fucking woman who's fought to keep her body off the state chattle market.

Bull fucking shit. Bullshit. This isn't treating women like human beings. Watch yourself being put back into line, chiklits, one Kansas attorney general at a time.

I want a record of his sexual history, seeing as everybody's sexual history is now of the utmost importance to the State.

Fuck you, asshole.

Random Links

Alaskans make me proud... Check out the latest shuttle commander... Here's what happens when your parents get pissed off with what you write...

D.H. Lawrence gets taken to the mat:

It is hard to take Lawrence's preachings about 'phallic tenderness' seriously, other than as a reflection of the deep-rooted fears evoked by the first phase of the sexual and economic emancipation of women. He is the ultimate spokesman for a particular type of male personality, so defended against a devouring mother that he is crippled by fear of commitment.

And, Look! The Gays Are Taking Over the Phillipines, too! In the army, no less! All this gayness! All this marriage! Too much love and happiness and this world might just EXPLODE!

And, for your workday amusement... Practical Applications of the Philosopher's Stone. For Drunks.

All via Jenn. Cause lord knows I haven't had the time to find all of these myself...

Hotels Suck

I don't know that I can do this "living out of hotels" thing much longer; this is probably the loneliest state of existence, ever. Being nomadic is fun and great, and I've done that - but when I've done that and lived out of a backpack and enjoyed it, I enjoyed it because I didn't really have a home or a life at the time. I was really just doing the nomad thing. Now I've got an actual home and an actual life, and this is a killer.

This is seriously wacky. How do people do this? I mean, I know all of the guys have been married and divorced at least once (including Yellow, who's only 34); I guess you do this shit and have to give up everything else. And you know what? It's not a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Damn. I've got a lot of work to do this weekend to get the hell out of this job and figure out my shit.

Deja Vu

New Jersey. All next week. AGAIN. Weekend home.

NY city the next week, Mar 6-10th.

I knew things were bad when I arrived at the Hilton in Denver and thought, "Oh, I'm home."

This can't go on much longer.

She Won! She Won!

Amanda won the Koufax for Best New Blog!

Yay!

Thanks for voting!

Tipping Point

Well, had my expected little freakout at the Denver airport today. Made a beeline for Taco Bell, though I wasn't hungry, and ran into an obsessive desire to then eat a chocolate croissant and ice cream. About the time I got the ice cream, I was sick, and threw most of it away, but it was good little mini-binge the likes of which I haven't run into in a long time.

I've been reasonably good the last couple weeks; not eating great, but definately not binging. My workouts are sporadic, but they're getting done, and now.. and now...

I'm incredibly stressed out, I have too much going on, and I'm really fucking exhausted. I have no idea how the hell or if the hell I'm supposed to be doing whatever the hell I do at work, and I'm flying to New York again tomorrow morning, and all I want to do is be home and write books.

The reason I don't like the idea (for myself) of using drugs like, say, appetite suppressants or anti-depressants is that I think that when my body freaks out like this, it's trying to tell me something, and that something is usually, "You're unhappy. You're doing too much. You're losing sight of what you want. Slow down. Back off. Rethink."

A bunch of stuff has been going on all at once, and I haven't had the downtime to mull it all over and figure out what to do with it. I have such a huge, long list of shit (need to study for the LSATs, make my June test date appointment, gotta gotta gotta drop those two sizes [meaning continuing to eat right and exercising way more than all this traveling allows] if for no other reason than that there are far better clothes available in a 12 and I need to clean up my look, need to ask for a raise and/or dump this shit job [they'll squeeze until you say STOP], need to finish my fucking latest novel, need to get three more short stories in the mail [which will require, you know, *finishing* them first,] and etc. and more bullshit, and other bullshit and more...).

And it's a lot. I'm going to try and see if I can get away with only spending half of next week in NY, or a day in NY or whatever, as I've got a computer training class in downtown NY for Mar 7-9, and shit, I need some time at home. I need a life. This is getting fucking ridiculous.

And I know it. My body knows it. It's getting really pissed off at me.

Denver's Continuing Fuckups: And Why It Matters to You

From the state that brought you Littleton and the fucked-up still-unsolved Jonbenet Ramsey case comes the latest fuck-up by the Denver police. Not only was their latest serial rapist just out of prison... for being a serial rapist, but he confessed his post-prison crimes to the police and was released from their custody due to red tape issues. He then went out and assaulted more women and young boys.

As if that wasn't enough, some dipshit sent out all of the personal information about the two women he most recently assaulted - including their names - to a bunch of accountants "by accident." In fact, they didn't even know it had gotten out until the local news station brought to their attention the fact that they now had the names and details of the assault victims (this was just on the local 4 news, I can't find an internet article yet).

Go Denver police!

And guess what I was doing this morning? Why, I was walking to work from my hotel... my, my, it occured to me halfway over there, "I wonder if they've caught that rapist yet?"

Ah, yes. This is why police fuck-ups matter, because when you've got a predator on the streets who primarily attacks women and girls and young boys, you've got over half the population of a city looking over their shoulders. I sometimes wonder if people fuck this shit up on purpose, just to keep everybody afraid. Fuckers.

And to top off my day, which began by me looking at the news of the missing pregnant woman and her son and thinking, "Duh. The boyfriend did it," I returned home to find that yes, indeed, the boyfriend did it. And you know what, it actually got to me. It made me teary-eyed, that it was so bloody fucking obvious, that the person who fucking kills you is somebody who was supposed to give a shit about you.

Because a real man slaughters his girlfriend and her kid. That's pretty fucking manly, isn't it?

Please take your self-defense classes, my chiklits. Until guys get their shit together, about all you've got to rely on is yourself.

I'm just... disappointed.

What I Learned Today

1) Basics of Adobe Photoshop. Best. Program. Ever.

2) Improving my knowledge of Access. We're trying to implement a company-wide database system that we can apply to all of our markets. It's gonna be a tough sell to the Boys, and me and the amazing woman who put it together had a pow-wow to try and get me familiar with it so I can take it back to NY.

3) Got familiar with the electronic filing said amazing woman had set up so I can replicate it in New York.

I've got some good stuff I wanted to bitch about tonight. Will get there eventually. Leaving early today because of general exhaustion. Out to lunch. More later.

Shit I Never Thought I'd Be Doing

I've been in three different time zones in the last two days. It's now 10pm Denver time, 11pm Chicago time, midnight in New York, and I just got back from the gym where I put in my jogging time. I ate at the airport because I knew that the only place near the hotel was a sit-down, and by the time I finished there, it'd be midnight, and I'd have lost my workout time.

This was hard. It was a bitch just to psych myself up to get down there, but if I want to get in three days this week, I had to go down tonight. My motivation was simple: I repeated over and over to myself, "You'll feel better afterwards. You'll feel a lot better. You're feeling twitchy and anxious because you're traveling so much and living out of hotels and so much is on your mind, and if you exercise, you're going to feel about 80 times better. It's meditation time."

That was the only way I could get down there. Even then, I committed to a time limit instead of a miles limit because I feared I'd peter out. So it was a couple minutes walking at the beginning, a couple for cool-down at the end, and twenty minutes of jogging in the middle. I tried to stumble off toward the free weights after this, but I already did my weights this morning, and I was exhausted.

I'm committed to taking care of myself. I'm committed to being this person. The great thing about having been the absolute worst person you can be is that you always have a place you never want to go back to, and you can look at yourself now, and look at yourself then, and look forward and go, "Yea, it's possible. I can be that fucking cool."

It's possible. It's just really fucking difficult.

Stumbled back upstairs, setting my alarm for a day in Denver.

EDIT: Took out some work stuff that - it occurs to me in the light of day - might get me into trouble if it makes it back to a client.

I need to be making more money.

I'm exhausted. I was IMing my buddy Julian this morning, and peppering everything with a bunch of stupid spelling errors. I'm just wacky. I miss my MA classes so damn much. I want to go to class on Saturday, but I think I'll be risking my sanity. I'm going to need to sleep.

By Saturday, I'll have lost track of what timezone I'm in.

Keep `em Stupid

Ah, yes: America's children shouldn't be educated, they should be entertained.

"I'd rather them not do it at all," he added. "You've got a show watched by millions of children. Do children need to have gay marriage thrust in their faces as an issue? Why can't we just entertain them?"

It reminds me about the parent complaints when a high school teacher had his students engage in a debate about the validity of the war in Iraq. I think one of the parents said, basically, "These are high school students. They shouldn't be engaged in debates about these kinds of issues. They're in school to learn things, not argue. That's what college is for."

Cause high school kids are just naturally DUMB. Like women. And people from foreign countries.

For fuck's sake.

Random Links

I'm getting on a plane to Denver later today, but I've got a couple hours of office time...

So, just a couple of things. For those who haven't seen "Sideways," do. It's a great movie. I tend to bitch about movies that give me two random people who are supposed to be falling in love but don't show me what the hell it is they find attractive or interesting about each other. This one does it right. I was a believer. It's a great "people" movie about what it is that draws friends and lovers together over the long haul. Very well done.

In other news, the fucktards are back. I think they only write up this "women just don't blog" crap because it pisses women off, and gets a lot of comments going as women bitch at dumbasses who argue that women are biologically inclined to argue less. Excuse me a moment while I snicker uncontrollably. It's the same old bullshit. I think it has something to do with the incredibly short attention spans of modern media-saturated adults. Nobody stops to think about anything any more. They just vomit something up, say, "Of course," and move on to the next guy who's murdered his pregnant wife; while forgetting that yes, in fact, the leading cause of death among pregnant women is being killed by their significant other. Every time it happens people keep thinking it's some kind of fluke. Shit, doesn't anybody read anything anymore?

Amanda's got a great post up about teen girl hysteria and boy-bands/boy celebrities, and argues that a lot of this hysteria has to do with the repression of female sexuality. I have to agree with her on that point. It also puts me in mind of that scene in The Handmaid's Tale, when the incredibly repressed women are allowed to tear up an accused "rapist" a couple times a year as a way to vent their incredibly anger at the system. There's also a phenomenon among Zulu women called umhayizo a "bewitchment" exclusive among Zulu girls and young women in which they break into hysterical crying, attack anyone who approaches, and have an irresistable desire to run after and be with the man they're pining over.

There's something to be said for the repression of desire.

And, of course, there's the other point Amanda makes: that the desire for these men is articulated about being "Mrs. Somebody," and reinforcing the get-married culture. However, I think that the reason women give for wanting to be "Mrs. Somebody" may have to do with the fact that it's just not considered proper for women to have conversations about casual sex and desire. Whereas men are encouraged to talk about their attraction to women in casual terms, women get a "gotta marry him," script, even if that may not exactly be what they're looking for. There's more pressure to talk about attraction in terms of long-term viability and not "Really, it's mostly about the sex. I really, really want to drag that guy home."

Marriage - and the way a lot of women and men talk about it - has also always struck me as feeling very much like possession: wanting and desiring an object and finding a way to bind it to you in an effort to pretend that perhaps things won't change, that perhaps you can relax and be comfortable and not worry quite so much that your partner will be banging the hot thing next door. It's a false security, of course, especially now... but it's interesting to listen to people talk about it.

I'm off to lunch...

Fucktards

They wouldn't give me a late checkout time, so I had to rebook my flight, which, honestly, is a way better state of affairs. I really just want to be home for awhile. Do some laundry. I might even be able to get out and go jogging while the laundry's running.

I'm a bit exhausted. Looks like they want me in Denver for a few days next week, then more time in NY... I'm looking to book a hotel closer to downtown. These transit costs are fucking killing me. I could have bought a punching bag with this goddamn money. Spent Sat. night watching HBO boxing with Brendan, which was cool. I haven't watched professional fights since I started taking boxing classes, and let me tell you, it's waaay cooler when you have an appreciation for just how fucking difficult it is for them to do what they do...

Outta here in an hour.

It's Official

I'm in love with that guy at the front desk. We keep beaming at each other. Granted, he's paid to beam, but hot damn. I keep trying to think up ways to take him home with me...

Anyhow, as regulars have likely noticed, blogging has stalled out. We're packed into meeting blocks all week. It's an all-or-nothing business. Just don't expect miracles.

I've gotta get some food and get to the gym... Corp travel is tough. I can see how easy it is to default to bad habits. If I can travel and still get in at least three good gym days a week and continue to watch my food intake (one of the problems with being on somebody else's food schedule is that they've got you eating when they want to eat, not necc. when you're hungry). It's just going to take a lot of work.

Just like anything else.

I think I'm job searching the next time I get back to Chicago. I'm secretly hoping that in their meeting tomorrow, they decide they don't need me to fly into Greensboro, N. Carolina, and I can go home to Chicago for a week or so. I'm also trying to lock down the March 6-9th date for my return to New York - I'd prefer to do the map training they have me slated for in Manhatten as opposed to Minneapolis. Right now they're going back-and-forth with it. We'll see.

Damn, I'm tired. Sorry, I have nothing pissed off or witty to say. This is how pissed off people become conservatives: you make them work crap hours at crap jobs so they don't have *time* to think about what a raw deal the world's giving them.

We could use more pissed off people.

Out & About

Bleary-eyed and functioning on about five hours of sleep, which isn't too bad.

Had dinner in Brooklyn last night with Brendan, which I was nervous as all hell about for a number of reasons. He's the first person who's "known" me through the blog first, and met up with me offline.

In fact, this turned out to be way easier than I gave it credit for, pretty much from the moment I saw him. It was a little bit like hanging out with a smarter version of my buddy Eli (no offence in that dept. Lysha darling), which meant I was pretty comfortable after about five minutes, and felt like I'd known him a long time by the end of the night. Yay. Very cool guy. What was it I was saying about guys from NJ/NY?

I must meet more of ya'll offline. I have amazing readers ;)

More good fun this weekend, and reading recommendations.

I'm now going to go find some coffee...

I Went To Work Today And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt

Insane. Insane. I don't know how anything manages to fly around here. Miracles. All of it.

I'm out of here in 45 minutes, fucktards.