Wisdom: Just because you live in the country doesn’t mean people will not break into your home and steal stuff.
More Wisdom: If someone does break into your home, they may not be smart enough to take things of value, like the display full of DVDs right next to the tower of CDs. Or the computers. Or the TiVo.
Fun night on Harper Hill, kiddies. Everyone’s okay, including the cats — who all stayed inside for however long with the patio door wide open. But this is screwy, and it got inside our heads.
When I was 11 years old, there was a city-wide talent show at DeSoto High School’s auditorium, and I had auditioned and got on the program doing stand-up comedy. I was dressed in a dark red suit (that, if memory serves, was from Johnny Carson’s clothing label), went up as the third act that night, deflected one heckler after the first line of the bit, and killed ‘em afterward.
The routine I did was a bit off George Carlin’s “A Place For My Stuff” album. I didn’t have to do much to clean it up — it was his riff on fridge leftovers, and pretty family-friendly.
Even after I knew who Carlin was, it took a while before I heard about the whole “seven dirtiest words” controversy and what it really meant for free speech in America. I just knew he was extremely funny, very insightful, and amazingly talented. All you had to do is hear the “football vs. baseball” comparison he did to know that.
George is gone now. Heart failure at age 71. In a decade where there’s been so many icons and talented humans shuffling off that mortal coil, Carlin’s death saddens me to no end. In a culture that now favors insult over insight (a phrase that comes to mind from the olde Hardline open, but is now true of much more today than sports talk radio), we need more people like George Carlin, Bill Hicks, and Lenny Bruce… not less.
People can’t seem to talk about Carlin without mentioning the profanity. While I don’t think it defined him, it’s important to note that we may not have paid as much attention to his underlying message without first hearing the dropped F-bombs. Same for Bruce, same for Hicks.
Or, maybe you have to be considered “obscene” to be insightful.
Well… I know I shouldn’t put this out there but I’m going to anyway…
The Rangers as of today are currently better than:
Twins
Indians
Tigers
Royals
Mariners
Mets
Nationals
Pirates
Reds
Dodgers
Giants
Padres
and Rockies…
We are one game behind .500, and currently only 2 behind Oakland… is there a chance we could see some kind of freakin’ glory or am I completely delusional?
Or you can just link to flobots.com and that would be swell too. People that are looking for official Flobots T-Shirts will be able to find them there. Notice how I mentioned the “flobots t-shirts” a lot in this post? It’s SEO at it’s finest. Not to mention the topic tags.
Made it to the train station on time this morning. Set up my gear bag, got out of my car, went to the back, pulled out my bike. The wind gusted, and closed my driver’s side door. Doors… locked. With the gear bag inside.
My gear bag held: my keys, wallet, phone, change of clothes for the office, breakfast, and train pass. My bike helmet was also still in the car.
The only option I could think of was to just get on the train, hope I don’t suffer a massive head trauma from a crash either coming to or leaving from the radio station, and have Pop-A-Lock meet me at my car after I get off the train in the afternoon.
So, when does DART police decide to do a fare sweep and ask me for my ticket? The one day I don’t have it. I’ve been riding constantly for two weeks, and occasionally for over a year. I have NEVER been asked for my ticket. Irrelevant that I have one in my car along with the rest of my life; you must produce a ticket when asked, or get written up.
I swear to you, Gentle Readers, I fought through an urge to slap the snooze button and roll back over to sleep this morning. It was a really strong urge. And the next time I get that urge, I’m listening.
With Friday’s thirtieth entry, the Gratitude Experiment is up. Thanks for participating — and thanks to everyone else who took the challenge with me. You can read all thirty bits of gratitude here. Cheers.
Now, it’s time to head downstairs and do the dishes.
For the record: I haven’t given up on the Gratitude Experiment. Each day’s entry from the last week is in my Moleskine, where I jotted stuff either on the train to work, or from work.
My first anniversary with Manda is Tuesday. While we do have other things planned, there’s a strong possibility we’ll spend that night at the Ballpark.
Until the developer steps out of the shadows and delivers a WordPress client for the iPhone, I’ll be forced to use Twitter for random synapse firings. And, if you have an iPhone and are Twittering with anything other than Hahlo, you’re wasting energy.
(Both El Blog and the blog for 100.3 Jack FM are optimized for iPhone reading. I look out for my brethren.)
After I do a bit of housework, I’ll get the Gratitude rolling. Love to all.
Day Thirty: Friday, May 23, 2008
I’m grateful for this moment.
Say what you want to about “Star Trek: Insurrection” (certainly not my favorite of the Trek films, and not even in the top five made), but it did have one scene I’m reminded of a lot:
Picard and Anij are making googly eyes at each other when Our Captain asks his Baku squeeze how they’re able to handle near-immortality. She shows him how to let your mind go and expand a moment so it can stretch into hours. It’s never fully explained (which is a good thing, as the whole thing is just a set-up for a later scene), but I’m reminded of it when I have one of those days when everything seems to be rushing in at once.
Lately, though, instead of getting overwhelmed by it all, I find a stopping point as soon as possible, go outside, start doing some deep breathing, and expand myself into that moment. I’m certain there’s a Zen meditation term for doing this, or maybe it’s just meditation at its most simple form. Bottom line: it doesn’t get to me, and I can get back into the thick of the action.
At this moment, for example, as I’m surrounded by people rushing to and from their lives on the train, I’m digging this moment. When the train stops, the moment will be gone and I’ll need to hop on my bike and get moving. And that’s fine by me.
Day Twenty-Nine: Thursday, May 22, 2008
I’m grateful for the future.
As bleak as times are in America, I look for a rebound. A renaissance. Something that makes the Nineties look boring in comparison. It’s that hope for the future that I think a lot of people are missing these days. It’s not going to be instantly sunshine and flowers, and it may get a lot worse in the short term, but I have a firm belief in the years to come.
Maybe it’s the sci-fi fan in me, but I refuse to believe that this is the Beginning Of The Dark Times. Look ahead. Look up.
Day Twenty-Eight: Wednesday, May 21, 2008
I’m grateful for my past.
I have made a ton of mistakes in my life. I have made things considerably harder on myself than I needed to. Had I listened to the advice of my Guiding Spirit, family and friends, I would have had a much easier go of things in the last thirty-seven years.
Yet, for all of the stupidity, pain and nastiness, heartache and grief, I have had a ridiculously wonderful existence. Better than I could have mapped out in my youth. Partied like a rock star. Partied with rock stars. Been a rock star. Can’t ask for more than that.
Wait, yes I can. I’m also a greedy bitch. Want more.
Day Twenty-Seven: Tuesday, May 20, 2008
I’m grateful for my wife.
Amanda and I were married fifty-one weeks ago. That’s just an absurd thing to write — not because I don’t see myself as a married man, but that I’m certain we’ve only been hitched for a month, or two at best.
This year has screamed by at speeds the Wachowski brothers can only dream of depicting. Everyone we say this to thinks this has to do with the frenetic pace we’ve both been keeping up, but I know better.
I simply love her, and my life doesn’t drag because we’re married. It flies.
We went to the Stars/Wings game last night (couldn’t afford tickets, so we sat in the AAC Plaza and cheered just as loudly as if we were in the stands). I looked over at her around the start of the game (before the barrage of cursed Red Wings scoring), and realized I wouldn’t be nearly as happy as I am at this point in my life were she not at my side.
Day Twenty-Six: Monday, May 19, 2008
I’m grateful for adrenaline.
The definition of an “adrenaline junkie” is usually punctuated by people who jump out of planes or ski down ridiculously steep mountains. I prefer riding my bike in rush hour traffic.
The first day of “Operation: Tipping Point” was a rough beginning to the whole exercise (pun semi-intended) — you could think of it as a cold start, if I didn’t feel so damned flushed afterwards. The original route I picked from the train station to my office had my heart pounding in my chest, and it wasn’t because I hadn’t worked out that hard in months. I was in genuine fear for my life. No one came close to hitting me, but every moment I was sure that I was going to be a sad newscast footnote. “Man dies riding bike to work; oil companies rejoice.”
That said, as I sit here on the train heading back home, I feel amazing. Alive. Proud that I actually got started on this little adventure. And the adrenaline is a nice pick-me-up.
Day Twenty-Five: Sunday, May 18, 2008
I’m grateful for my “outside voice.”
When my band of cronies in high school would run around, I was usually the one driving. Three reasons: I had a bitchin’ Camaro (which I saved for YEARS to afford), I knew how to drive in freeway traffic without getting anyone killed, and I was loud. One afternoon, someone cut me off as we were heading to Red Bird Mall, and I screamed at the woman. With the windows rolled up. And the woman still heard me. That’s when I knew I had pipes.
I went to my first college football game as a freshman at North Texas. During the second quarter, I yelled something at the referee… but no one could understand it. I was quite loud, but it was so fast and unorganized that everyone turned to me and wondered what language I was screaming in.
There wasn’t a concerted effort to get louder, but in the following years, if I was at a sporting event, there was no question on what I was yelling at the umpire or opposing team. This has come in handy with the Stars Fanatics, as you can imagine. People four sections away have reported hearing me loud and clear when I’m screaming.
Day Twenty-Four: Saturday, May 17, 2008
I’m grateful for superstition.
There is absolutely no reason to think that any action you take, as a sports fan, will affect the outcome of a game — especially if you’re not in attendance. I tell myself this over and over again as I’m sitting in the hot mid-May sun out at the American Airlines Center, watching the Stars take on the Detroit Red Wings (who suck) in Game Five of the Western Conference Finals.
Yet, here I am in my Mike Modano jersey with undershirt (an Imaging Bureau shirt, no less), hanging out with over a thousand like-minded Stars fans (and maybe two dozen Red Wings fans). And when the Stars win the game, Manda text messages me, saying “well, now you really can’t wear anything else for this series.”
See, I wore that jersey two nights prior, when the Stars played the Wings and won for the first time in the series. Two times to wear the sweater, two wins. Damned sure can’t go without it now.
