If you're reading this, be happy for me. I have two posts written and scheduled to go live at 7AM 5/31/13. The other one is laden with curse words. That's the one that goes up if I oversleep and miss my train to New York. If you're reading this one (and only this one) then I woke up and canceled the other. It's amazing how curse words start to rhyme after a while.
Anyway...I tell this story a lot but it's worth repeating. It's one of those pivotal moments that gets teased before the commercial break "When Behind the Music continues [insert sound bite]..." I used to cling to my mother all the time and wouldn't let her escape my sight. Then came the great Ski Trip of 1990 and my mother backing out as a chaperone at the last minute. My grandmother forced me to go saying, "You'll do great. I believe in you!" Okay, she didn't really say that. I just wanted to throw the frequent readers for a loop. She actually said, "You need to stop being so damned scary-acting. You gonna miss out on a lot in this life waiting for people to do something. You take your ass up there!" It was very heartwarming, I know.
That trip changed my life. I learned to "be by my damned self" as she would say. So, after asking everyone I know to go do something interesting, I've finally decided to just go to New York by myself. Don't cry for me Argentina. You'd be surprised how many pictures in my photo album are self-shot. I'm going for 15 hours. Normal people would get a hotel room and leave the next morning. I'm cheap. Cheap as in "I know the serial numbers on the three five dollar bills in my pocket" cheap. I'm not paying just to sleep. I can do that when I get back home.
So, my plan is to see ALL of New York in the scorching hot sun. AND, because I love a challenge, I've dared myself to spend less than $20. As soon as I finish typing this I'm heading to the kitchen to make some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Don't judge me. Assuming I don't sweat to death up there, I'll give you an update on Monday.
Goodnight and Good Luck!
Friday, May 31, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Dear Whoever You Are
Dear Whoever You Are,
I don't know who you are, but you come to my site everyday. For the past week, you've come several times a day. Yesterday you sat and read eleven of my posts. Don't worry, I'm not stalking you. There's a "statistics" feature that I can see. Big shot bloggers use this to get advertising revenue. It doesn't show who you are, so you're safe. It only shows your IP address and what you click on. You make me feel like a really crappy blogger, because I feel like you've been coming in vain this past week.
Believe it or not, I have about 50 saved drafts that were all scheduled to go out at some point or another. But they really really sucked. The one I wrote last night was just a chore to proofread. The truth is that I'm getting a divorce and whether I've decided to dance around the bonfire, run away, or carry a torch (allusion to a previous post, just for you)...it still takes a lot out of you. We are talking about fire after all.
My daughter also has a few serious things going on. If I had to pick, I think I'd rather go through the fire thing again instead of this. What's the movie where they say that every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings? I think that's from It's A Wonderful Life. Well, every time a shitty father strikes, every time a father forgets a birthday or leaves his kid waiting in the window for him to show up, every time a shitty dad does something to earn his crown...I get a tingle inside that tells me I'm not doing enough. I get this feeling that, even if I'm in the middle of feeding ducks with her down by the Monument, it still isn't enough.
It's always been that way. Maybe that's how all decent parents feel. All I know is that I've felt like that from day one and then I turn around get some bad news about her and it makes me feel like I didn't do enough. I missed something somewhere. I got tired and didn't see something when I should've. It just...I can't explain it. You have to be in the situation to get it, I suppose.
The point of this post (that I apologetically acknowledge has gone off track) is to say that there are once again some life issues going on, but I'm still alive. And more than anything, I really do appreciate the support even if there isn't a blog post to show it. (this shouldn't count. this sucks too. Who puts punctuation inside parentheses?)
Thank You,
Me
I don't know who you are, but you come to my site everyday. For the past week, you've come several times a day. Yesterday you sat and read eleven of my posts. Don't worry, I'm not stalking you. There's a "statistics" feature that I can see. Big shot bloggers use this to get advertising revenue. It doesn't show who you are, so you're safe. It only shows your IP address and what you click on. You make me feel like a really crappy blogger, because I feel like you've been coming in vain this past week.
Believe it or not, I have about 50 saved drafts that were all scheduled to go out at some point or another. But they really really sucked. The one I wrote last night was just a chore to proofread. The truth is that I'm getting a divorce and whether I've decided to dance around the bonfire, run away, or carry a torch (allusion to a previous post, just for you)...it still takes a lot out of you. We are talking about fire after all.
My daughter also has a few serious things going on. If I had to pick, I think I'd rather go through the fire thing again instead of this. What's the movie where they say that every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings? I think that's from It's A Wonderful Life. Well, every time a shitty father strikes, every time a father forgets a birthday or leaves his kid waiting in the window for him to show up, every time a shitty dad does something to earn his crown...I get a tingle inside that tells me I'm not doing enough. I get this feeling that, even if I'm in the middle of feeding ducks with her down by the Monument, it still isn't enough.
It's always been that way. Maybe that's how all decent parents feel. All I know is that I've felt like that from day one and then I turn around get some bad news about her and it makes me feel like I didn't do enough. I missed something somewhere. I got tired and didn't see something when I should've. It just...I can't explain it. You have to be in the situation to get it, I suppose.
The point of this post (that I apologetically acknowledge has gone off track) is to say that there are once again some life issues going on, but I'm still alive. And more than anything, I really do appreciate the support even if there isn't a blog post to show it. (this shouldn't count. this sucks too. Who puts punctuation inside parentheses?)
Thank You,
Me
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
80s Baby Memories
Someone suggested I go back to the random word generator thing to avoid so many days without posts. I'll do you one better. I was on Buzzfeed and saw an article about 80s memories. Here's my thoughts on a few at random.
1. Muppet Babies-- I loved this show as a kid, but the logic behind "Nanny" was lost on me. I didn't get that it was intentional that we couldn't see anything but Nanny's legs. I thought there was something wrong with my shitty 13" TV. This was back in the day when you had to adjust the knobs and sometimes the picture would just roll vertically like that wheel on The Price is Right. For whatever reason, I thought that if I got really close to the TV and looked up (as if I were looking at the sky through a window) that I'd be able to see what Nanny looked like. I was like five, so cut me some slack. I also used to think that the adults on Charlie Brown were speaking a language that I just didn't understand.
6. Baby Jessica-- I was five when that happened and it gave me nightmares. My grandmother, being my grandmother, said, "You have a better chance of falling through one of those grates on the sidewalk than finding a well to fall into. Go back to sleep." New nightmares, yay!
7. Punky Brewster-- I was gonna marry her until I saw her friend Cherie. With the exception of the Huxtable kids, Cherie was probably the only black girl on TV... and I would've kicked Rudy and Vanessa down a flight of stairs to get to Cherie.
10. "Just Say No"-- I was five and knew that tidbit of advice was useless. I wasn't concerned with drugs. I was concerned with getting robbed by the people trying to buy them or shot buy the people trying to sell them.
12. The Death of Optimus Prime-- It's still too fresh. I can't talk about it.
15. Garbage Pail Kids Stickers--My grandmother beat my ass when she came home and found all of them on the fridge.
20. Books on Record--That's how I learned to read.
24. Betamax--We had one until Cracky the Crackhead broke into our apartment and stole it.
31. Triple Fat Goose--I wanted one so bad. Almost had one until my grandmother peeped the red London Fog King Joffee Joffer trench coat with the fur going down the collar. "And you wear it all day. Don't put it in the coatroom. I didn't pay $100 for somebody to steal this coat." 80 degrees in school and I'm sitting in class looking like Santa Claus.
32. Double Dare-- No cable! I heard about it though. It wasn't until "Fun House" came on channel 20 that I understood the gist of it.
41. Sugary Cereals-- How many times did I get cursed out for "wasting up that milk!" Crunchberries turned the water into syrup. I couldn't bring myself to drink it, so, being clever, my grandmother started buying one PINT of milk to go with every box of cereal. Finding a bowl of pinkish milk covered with aluminum foil in the fridge became common since I had to reuse my milk.
42. Book Fair order forms--Whoever said that literacy was invaluable never met my family. Slaves had a better chance of getting a book than I did. "You can get books from the library for free." Speaking of which...
44. The card catalog--I'll never get that wasted time back. Subject Card, Author Card, Title Card. I needed to learn this and the dewey decimal system just so that the internet could come out a few years later and make it obsolete. That's up there with the
10 print
20 print
30 run
BASIC class that we had with the big floppy disk and the monochrome monitors. A year later...WINDOWS!
47. Dot matrix paper--Only useful for making banners with "Ordale Rocks" and a picture of a basketball.
48. Trapper Keepers-- I don't understand the hype of these things. Like most of my school supplies, my three ring binder said "Property of the US Government" on the inside. That's the gift/curse of having government employees in your family. When I FINALLY got a Trapper Keeper--And I mean a REAL Trapper Keeper, not that shitty 'No Rules' knockoff--I was disappointed.
The little mesh pocket on the inside ripped the first week. The holes in the two folders tore so they fell out whenever I picked it up. The little school supply plastic pouch just had remnants of pencil sharpener shavings everywhere, and after a while the binder stopped closing all the way. The only thing that worked was the clipboard part in the back. Hell, even the plastic cover on the front came off so I started sliding my own drawings inside to cover up the LSD inspired design on the front.
I dare not tell my mother of this, though. "For $15 this thing better last you from now until you finish high school." This was in 5th grade, by the way. Wanna hear something funny? Why did I JUST throw that thing away a few years ago?
[caption id="attachment_3357" align="alignnone" width="604"]
Thought I was lying?[/caption]
1. Muppet Babies-- I loved this show as a kid, but the logic behind "Nanny" was lost on me. I didn't get that it was intentional that we couldn't see anything but Nanny's legs. I thought there was something wrong with my shitty 13" TV. This was back in the day when you had to adjust the knobs and sometimes the picture would just roll vertically like that wheel on The Price is Right. For whatever reason, I thought that if I got really close to the TV and looked up (as if I were looking at the sky through a window) that I'd be able to see what Nanny looked like. I was like five, so cut me some slack. I also used to think that the adults on Charlie Brown were speaking a language that I just didn't understand.
6. Baby Jessica-- I was five when that happened and it gave me nightmares. My grandmother, being my grandmother, said, "You have a better chance of falling through one of those grates on the sidewalk than finding a well to fall into. Go back to sleep." New nightmares, yay!
7. Punky Brewster-- I was gonna marry her until I saw her friend Cherie. With the exception of the Huxtable kids, Cherie was probably the only black girl on TV... and I would've kicked Rudy and Vanessa down a flight of stairs to get to Cherie.
10. "Just Say No"-- I was five and knew that tidbit of advice was useless. I wasn't concerned with drugs. I was concerned with getting robbed by the people trying to buy them or shot buy the people trying to sell them.
12. The Death of Optimus Prime-- It's still too fresh. I can't talk about it.
15. Garbage Pail Kids Stickers--My grandmother beat my ass when she came home and found all of them on the fridge.
20. Books on Record--That's how I learned to read.
24. Betamax--We had one until Cracky the Crackhead broke into our apartment and stole it.
31. Triple Fat Goose--I wanted one so bad. Almost had one until my grandmother peeped the red London Fog King Joffee Joffer trench coat with the fur going down the collar. "And you wear it all day. Don't put it in the coatroom. I didn't pay $100 for somebody to steal this coat." 80 degrees in school and I'm sitting in class looking like Santa Claus.
32. Double Dare-- No cable! I heard about it though. It wasn't until "Fun House" came on channel 20 that I understood the gist of it.
41. Sugary Cereals-- How many times did I get cursed out for "wasting up that milk!" Crunchberries turned the water into syrup. I couldn't bring myself to drink it, so, being clever, my grandmother started buying one PINT of milk to go with every box of cereal. Finding a bowl of pinkish milk covered with aluminum foil in the fridge became common since I had to reuse my milk.
42. Book Fair order forms--Whoever said that literacy was invaluable never met my family. Slaves had a better chance of getting a book than I did. "You can get books from the library for free." Speaking of which...
44. The card catalog--I'll never get that wasted time back. Subject Card, Author Card, Title Card. I needed to learn this and the dewey decimal system just so that the internet could come out a few years later and make it obsolete. That's up there with the
10 print
20 print
30 run
BASIC class that we had with the big floppy disk and the monochrome monitors. A year later...WINDOWS!
47. Dot matrix paper--Only useful for making banners with "Ordale Rocks" and a picture of a basketball.
48. Trapper Keepers-- I don't understand the hype of these things. Like most of my school supplies, my three ring binder said "Property of the US Government" on the inside. That's the gift/curse of having government employees in your family. When I FINALLY got a Trapper Keeper--And I mean a REAL Trapper Keeper, not that shitty 'No Rules' knockoff--I was disappointed.
The little mesh pocket on the inside ripped the first week. The holes in the two folders tore so they fell out whenever I picked it up. The little school supply plastic pouch just had remnants of pencil sharpener shavings everywhere, and after a while the binder stopped closing all the way. The only thing that worked was the clipboard part in the back. Hell, even the plastic cover on the front came off so I started sliding my own drawings inside to cover up the LSD inspired design on the front.
I dare not tell my mother of this, though. "For $15 this thing better last you from now until you finish high school." This was in 5th grade, by the way. Wanna hear something funny? Why did I JUST throw that thing away a few years ago?
[caption id="attachment_3357" align="alignnone" width="604"]
Thought I was lying?[/caption]
Monday, May 20, 2013
Rekindle
An analogy:
I was walking out in the cold for a very long time when I came upon a fire. It was a godsend, because I'd been out in the cold so long that I don't honestly believe I would've made it another mile without it. As soon as it warmed me, it flickered out, leaving behind a few smoldering embers. I gathered them up and tried to relight it.
I'm no boy scout. I know nothing about lighting fires, except the stuff I see in movies. This half-knowledge almost worked. I'd see it growing a little and then it'd just go back out. Nothing motivates a person like "almost" doing something. I don't care if it's video games, building a card house or just trying something no one has accomplished before. If you "almost" do something, then you won't rest until you succeed at it. That's what happened with me and this little fire.
There was also the feeling that I came across this fire for a reason. Maybe I'm the "Keeper of the Fire!" Maybe I'm supposed to make a torch with the flame and carry it with me to light the night. I didn't know. I just knew that the fire was burning fine when I came across it and it went out while I was sitting next to it. Maybe I felt guilty like I inadvertently did something or didn't do something that caused it to go out. Whatever the reason, I refused to rest until I lit it.
If this were a movie, then this would be the part where they'd play a humorous montage of me trying to relight the fire a bunch of different ways. It became an obsession. I had other things that I should've been doing, but none of that mattered anymore. Hell, I'd even forgotten where it was that I was headed when I came across the darn thing. I figured out early on that external forces (rain, the elements, etc) made it really difficult to kindle a fire, so I built a shelter around it. Before long, I'd decorated this shelter and started calling it home. In short, I lost myself in it.
Years went by. I accepted that I might never relight that damned thing, but I was too heavily invested now to leave. Where would I go? Would it even be better than what I had here? This place was comfy. It'd be a lot warmer if I could get the fire to light, but it was still home. I felt safe and secure here. All of my memories were here. Who knows what's out there. I know "bad" and this place wasn't it by a long shot. So screw the fire! I was gonna try one last time and then call it quits. Fire or no fire, I'm home.
I took whatever fuel sources I had left and set them all up in the pit. It was all or nothing this time. I placed the last of the embers and emptied my lungs. There was smoke at first. Then nothing. I wasn't even disappointed. Deep down I knew it wouldn't work, but out of nowhere came more smoke followed by...FIRE.
I did it!
I re-lit the fire!
I can't describe that moment. Everything happened so fast. I watched the flame grow higher and brighter than I remembered it. Before I could bask in it, before I could celebrate the fact that this fire represented what's possible if you just don't give up, before I could do any of that I had to run...away.
You see, when I came across the fire it was burning by itself. I put a shelter up to make it easier for me to relight it. I built a home around it to nurture and care for it, but I never considered what an uncontrollable open flame would do to all of those things once it sprang back to life. It burned my house down. And it did it quickly. There was no time to salvage anything. All I could do was to get out, and even with that I still got burned. The pain is fading, but it left a scar that will take a long time to heal.
I told this story to someone not too long ago who asked, "Well, did you even try to put it out?" The answer is, "of course not." As much as I loved my house--Hell, I built it from the ground up with the expectation that I'd live there forever--the thing that I gave my heart and a third of my life to wasn't building a house, it was relighting that fire. Now I know that I wasn't the "Keeper of the Fire" after all, so maybe I am supposed to take a small piece of it with me as a torch and finish walking wherever it was that I was headed to begin with.
I guess it all depends on how you look at it. The cool thing about torches.......They're warm. They make it a lot easier to see where you're going in the dark, and they make it very easy to start a new fire.
[end]
I was walking out in the cold for a very long time when I came upon a fire. It was a godsend, because I'd been out in the cold so long that I don't honestly believe I would've made it another mile without it. As soon as it warmed me, it flickered out, leaving behind a few smoldering embers. I gathered them up and tried to relight it.
I'm no boy scout. I know nothing about lighting fires, except the stuff I see in movies. This half-knowledge almost worked. I'd see it growing a little and then it'd just go back out. Nothing motivates a person like "almost" doing something. I don't care if it's video games, building a card house or just trying something no one has accomplished before. If you "almost" do something, then you won't rest until you succeed at it. That's what happened with me and this little fire.
There was also the feeling that I came across this fire for a reason. Maybe I'm the "Keeper of the Fire!" Maybe I'm supposed to make a torch with the flame and carry it with me to light the night. I didn't know. I just knew that the fire was burning fine when I came across it and it went out while I was sitting next to it. Maybe I felt guilty like I inadvertently did something or didn't do something that caused it to go out. Whatever the reason, I refused to rest until I lit it.
If this were a movie, then this would be the part where they'd play a humorous montage of me trying to relight the fire a bunch of different ways. It became an obsession. I had other things that I should've been doing, but none of that mattered anymore. Hell, I'd even forgotten where it was that I was headed when I came across the darn thing. I figured out early on that external forces (rain, the elements, etc) made it really difficult to kindle a fire, so I built a shelter around it. Before long, I'd decorated this shelter and started calling it home. In short, I lost myself in it.
Years went by. I accepted that I might never relight that damned thing, but I was too heavily invested now to leave. Where would I go? Would it even be better than what I had here? This place was comfy. It'd be a lot warmer if I could get the fire to light, but it was still home. I felt safe and secure here. All of my memories were here. Who knows what's out there. I know "bad" and this place wasn't it by a long shot. So screw the fire! I was gonna try one last time and then call it quits. Fire or no fire, I'm home.
I took whatever fuel sources I had left and set them all up in the pit. It was all or nothing this time. I placed the last of the embers and emptied my lungs. There was smoke at first. Then nothing. I wasn't even disappointed. Deep down I knew it wouldn't work, but out of nowhere came more smoke followed by...FIRE.
I did it!
I re-lit the fire!
I can't describe that moment. Everything happened so fast. I watched the flame grow higher and brighter than I remembered it. Before I could bask in it, before I could celebrate the fact that this fire represented what's possible if you just don't give up, before I could do any of that I had to run...away.
You see, when I came across the fire it was burning by itself. I put a shelter up to make it easier for me to relight it. I built a home around it to nurture and care for it, but I never considered what an uncontrollable open flame would do to all of those things once it sprang back to life. It burned my house down. And it did it quickly. There was no time to salvage anything. All I could do was to get out, and even with that I still got burned. The pain is fading, but it left a scar that will take a long time to heal.
I told this story to someone not too long ago who asked, "Well, did you even try to put it out?" The answer is, "of course not." As much as I loved my house--Hell, I built it from the ground up with the expectation that I'd live there forever--the thing that I gave my heart and a third of my life to wasn't building a house, it was relighting that fire. Now I know that I wasn't the "Keeper of the Fire" after all, so maybe I am supposed to take a small piece of it with me as a torch and finish walking wherever it was that I was headed to begin with.
I guess it all depends on how you look at it. The cool thing about torches.......They're warm. They make it a lot easier to see where you're going in the dark, and they make it very easy to start a new fire.
[end]
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
I Want You To Hit Me As Hard As You Can
Attention Everyone:
If you EVER see me with another pack of Skittles, please punch me in the face. Today marks the first time in my extremely long and sad history of going to the dentist where I've discovered that the Novocain didn't take mid-drill. Because people never get sensible until it's too late, it has been my mission since childhood to constantly have a mouth full of dice. So there I was today laying back in the chair chewing my cheek when she began drilling.
It felt different. The operative word here is 'felt.' As a matter of fact, that's our word of the day.
Pressure or discomfort is normal. 'Feeling' isn't. She told me to raise my hand if I experienced any discomfort. Apparently both of us have great reflexes. Mine told me swing at her while her's said to bob and weave. She stopped immediately and apologized. She gave me another dose and we waited five minutes for it to kick in. I could barely speak when she started up again. My whole face was puffy. She stuck something in my jaw and I felt nothing. There's that word again.
She started back up with the drill and all was well...for about twenty seconds. Then there was this immense pain that was worse than the last. She was afraid to give me more anesthetic, so she decided to stop with the drilling. Out of nowhere she picked up some medieval torturing device and started scraping the last of the decay away.
She's a very nice lady and very pretty. I think it's that latter part that caused me to sit there and try to be tough. She thought that doing it by hand would be less painful because she could control how deeply the pick went. She was mistaken. It felt like I was getting an unmedicated cesarean section in my jaw. There was a baby in distress beneath the gum line and she had to get it out.
I left there a changed man, which brings me back to my initial statement. If you see me with another pack of Skittles, do your civic duty and punch me in the face!
If you EVER see me with another pack of Skittles, please punch me in the face. Today marks the first time in my extremely long and sad history of going to the dentist where I've discovered that the Novocain didn't take mid-drill. Because people never get sensible until it's too late, it has been my mission since childhood to constantly have a mouth full of dice. So there I was today laying back in the chair chewing my cheek when she began drilling.
It felt different. The operative word here is 'felt.' As a matter of fact, that's our word of the day.
FELT!
Pressure or discomfort is normal. 'Feeling' isn't. She told me to raise my hand if I experienced any discomfort. Apparently both of us have great reflexes. Mine told me swing at her while her's said to bob and weave. She stopped immediately and apologized. She gave me another dose and we waited five minutes for it to kick in. I could barely speak when she started up again. My whole face was puffy. She stuck something in my jaw and I felt nothing. There's that word again.
FELT!
She started back up with the drill and all was well...for about twenty seconds. Then there was this immense pain that was worse than the last. She was afraid to give me more anesthetic, so she decided to stop with the drilling. Out of nowhere she picked up some medieval torturing device and started scraping the last of the decay away.
She's a very nice lady and very pretty. I think it's that latter part that caused me to sit there and try to be tough. She thought that doing it by hand would be less painful because she could control how deeply the pick went. She was mistaken. It felt like I was getting an unmedicated cesarean section in my jaw. There was a baby in distress beneath the gum line and she had to get it out.
I left there a changed man, which brings me back to my initial statement. If you see me with another pack of Skittles, do your civic duty and punch me in the face!
Friday, May 10, 2013
Time-Space Church Home
Well, they finally found a name for what's wrong with me:
Time-Space Synesthesia
I stumbled upon an online forum the other day where the discussion centered around amazing memory. There were people who can remember every single telephone number they've ever read. One lady said she remembers which geographical direction she was facing for every single memory in her head. The conversation shifted from 'what' you remember to 'how' you remember it. That's what sparked my interest the most.
Some people said something along the lines of, "I just do," but there were a few who claimed to actually 'see' these things in their head, almost like a projection in front of them. Someone suggested they look up synesthesia. I googled it and my jaw dropped.
There are many different types of synesthesia, but they can all be summed up as, "screwed up senses." Some people see numbers in color even if they're black and white on the page. Others can taste sounds. A car horn may trigger the taste of peppermint in their mouth. But there are some who can 'see' time.
If I ask you to think about a bald eagle, what pops in your head? Probably a bald eagle. If I ask you to describe it to me, you'd probably start seeing the feathers and its beak or something. Now, think about June 11, 1993. What do you see? Probably nothing. I see a calendar in front of me. Not a wall calendar, but a very expansive calendar projected in front of me in a semi circle going around me.
I see 2013 in the center, 2012 to the left, and 2014 to my right. I can scroll the calendar left to right at will and I can zoom in on each year in much the same way that you would zoom in on a google map. 1993--June--11th. I was in the fifth grade, it was hot, and my teacher had an attitude that day. The girl that I liked smiled at me a few times, which threw me off because we argued the day before after I told her to "give me a chance." My mother and I went to see Jurassic Park at Union Station. It was opening day, we were late for the 5:05 show and ended up sitting apart. I sat in the 3rd row from the front on the right hand side of the theater three seats from the wall. She was one row ahead two seats over. The theater was freezing and I had goosebumps on my arm which I kept rubbing, wondering why they were called goosebumps.
And that's just one date. I see thousands of dates in the same way. They're just...there...in my head. I recall them just as you would recall your phone number or your name. I 'see' them. For the longest time, I assumed everyone was like this. It only takes a few arguments with your girlfriend or spouse to realize that your memory is not only different, but irrelevant to someone who thinks they're right. LOL
Well, that's apparently called time-space synesthesia and there are several studies that are trying to link it to eidetic memory. This may not be very interesting to most of you, but I feel like I just found a church home or something.
Time-Space Synesthesia
I stumbled upon an online forum the other day where the discussion centered around amazing memory. There were people who can remember every single telephone number they've ever read. One lady said she remembers which geographical direction she was facing for every single memory in her head. The conversation shifted from 'what' you remember to 'how' you remember it. That's what sparked my interest the most.
Some people said something along the lines of, "I just do," but there were a few who claimed to actually 'see' these things in their head, almost like a projection in front of them. Someone suggested they look up synesthesia. I googled it and my jaw dropped.
There are many different types of synesthesia, but they can all be summed up as, "screwed up senses." Some people see numbers in color even if they're black and white on the page. Others can taste sounds. A car horn may trigger the taste of peppermint in their mouth. But there are some who can 'see' time.
If I ask you to think about a bald eagle, what pops in your head? Probably a bald eagle. If I ask you to describe it to me, you'd probably start seeing the feathers and its beak or something. Now, think about June 11, 1993. What do you see? Probably nothing. I see a calendar in front of me. Not a wall calendar, but a very expansive calendar projected in front of me in a semi circle going around me.
I see 2013 in the center, 2012 to the left, and 2014 to my right. I can scroll the calendar left to right at will and I can zoom in on each year in much the same way that you would zoom in on a google map. 1993--June--11th. I was in the fifth grade, it was hot, and my teacher had an attitude that day. The girl that I liked smiled at me a few times, which threw me off because we argued the day before after I told her to "give me a chance." My mother and I went to see Jurassic Park at Union Station. It was opening day, we were late for the 5:05 show and ended up sitting apart. I sat in the 3rd row from the front on the right hand side of the theater three seats from the wall. She was one row ahead two seats over. The theater was freezing and I had goosebumps on my arm which I kept rubbing, wondering why they were called goosebumps.
And that's just one date. I see thousands of dates in the same way. They're just...there...in my head. I recall them just as you would recall your phone number or your name. I 'see' them. For the longest time, I assumed everyone was like this. It only takes a few arguments with your girlfriend or spouse to realize that your memory is not only different, but irrelevant to someone who thinks they're right. LOL
Well, that's apparently called time-space synesthesia and there are several studies that are trying to link it to eidetic memory. This may not be very interesting to most of you, but I feel like I just found a church home or something.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
The Story of Bob
I just saw a McDonald's commercial that reminded me of an old friend named Bob (not his real name). He's filed away in my memory under "Appearances Are Deceiving." I thought about some of the random things that I observed and figured I'd write a post about him.
Bob was a friend of a friend. When I first met him several alarms went off (something I'd learn that Bob was good at). We were all having a conversation about some cop show and Bob's ability to shoot down the realism of the show was...interesting. He had this intricate knowledge of police and court procedures that would put the late Johnny Cochran to shame. One only gains that kind of knowledge through experience, and MAN, did Bob have experience.
In fact, he got arrested the first week that I met him. I was walking home and saw a bunch of cop cars. As I got closer I saw Bob sitting on the curb in bracelets. He saw me and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Yeah, they got me. What can you do, huh?" With armed robbery among the list of charges, I assumed that it would be a while before I'd see him again. Nope. Two days later he was sitting at the bus stop eating a box of chicken. He explained arraignments and bail to me about as casually as you'd tell someone the time. And so began our friendship.
I've known a lot of career criminals, but I never met one like Bob. It was his nonchalance about the whole thing that intrigued me. Some people boast about the stuff they do. Bob saw it as just a way of life and that fascinated me. I had no interest in what he was talking about. In fact, in the beginning I did my best to avoid him at all costs. One day he saw me walking down the street and decided he would walk with me since we were going to the same store. The whole way I just assumed that I was being photographed by some member of law enforcement perched on a roof or hiding in a van somewhere. I kept thinking, "Now I'm a 'known associate' of Bob." No, I didn't find the stories themselves interesting, just the guy telling them.
I read something once that said "Even warlords go home and tuck their kids in at night." Bob was far from that, but he was the same guy who would steal a car and then offer me a ride to work."Yo, it's raining. Why do you wanna walk?" I'd explain, "Listen, I appreciate it, but the fact that your 'uncle's' car is missing an ignition and there's a screwdriver on the floor makes me think that we'd have a hard time explaining it to the police." He'd just laugh and drive off. The next day it'd be his "cousin's" car and I'd have to go through it all over again. On the one hand, he was a criminal, but on the other hand he was considerate.
One day we were going to play basketball and he wanted to stop at McDonald's first. I told him that I was broke and I'd eat when I went home. I sat down at a table while he got in line. He came back with two Extra Value Meals, two apple pies, two sundaes and a double cheeseburger. He took the cheeseburger and one of the sodas and pushed the rest over to me. He said he felt bad because I never eat when we go out and he knows it's because my family doesn't have any money. I tried to refuse it, but he said that he didn't do it out of pity, but to thank me for helping him with "that stuff with Jane" last week.
Jane (not her real name) was his ex-girlfriend. One day I ran into him on the street and he was crying. Like... boo-hoo crying. I didn't even know he had tear ducts. Even when he was laughing he frowned, so to see this stone cold guy who talks about sticking people up crying was baffling. I figured that his entire family must've just gotten killed...at the same time. That was the only thing that could make someone like that cry. Nope. "Jane broke up with me. She said I'm crazy." (He was)
For the next few days I had to really summon my powers of psychology in order to convince him not to shoot her. He didn't want to kill her. He loved her way too much, but his logic (if you can call it that) was to put on his mask and gloves and to shoot her in the leg or arm one night on her way home from work. He was going to make it look like a robbery and then run through the alley by her house. Then he was going to ditch the gun, gloves and mask, then put on a change of clothes that he'd have waiting in the alley and run around the block and "rescue" a wounded Jane. That, in his mind, would make her love him again, because he would've gotten her to the hospital on time. (You can't make this stuff up)
I don't know if it's a bad reflection on him or a bad reflection on me that it took an entire week to convince him that his plan was flawed. Either way, he eventually saw the err of his ways. They reconciled without him having to shoot her and the meal at McDonald's was a thank you from him to me.
I'm approaching 1,000 words, so I'll cut this short. He was a good friend. He's still alive, although I haven't seen him in a while. He got locked up for robbing a cleaners or something. It was either that or sticking up a cop. I can't remember. He had so many pending cases, that they just ended up putting him under the jail. But every time I see a McChicken meal, I think about him.
Bob was a friend of a friend. When I first met him several alarms went off (something I'd learn that Bob was good at). We were all having a conversation about some cop show and Bob's ability to shoot down the realism of the show was...interesting. He had this intricate knowledge of police and court procedures that would put the late Johnny Cochran to shame. One only gains that kind of knowledge through experience, and MAN, did Bob have experience.
In fact, he got arrested the first week that I met him. I was walking home and saw a bunch of cop cars. As I got closer I saw Bob sitting on the curb in bracelets. He saw me and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Yeah, they got me. What can you do, huh?" With armed robbery among the list of charges, I assumed that it would be a while before I'd see him again. Nope. Two days later he was sitting at the bus stop eating a box of chicken. He explained arraignments and bail to me about as casually as you'd tell someone the time. And so began our friendship.
I've known a lot of career criminals, but I never met one like Bob. It was his nonchalance about the whole thing that intrigued me. Some people boast about the stuff they do. Bob saw it as just a way of life and that fascinated me. I had no interest in what he was talking about. In fact, in the beginning I did my best to avoid him at all costs. One day he saw me walking down the street and decided he would walk with me since we were going to the same store. The whole way I just assumed that I was being photographed by some member of law enforcement perched on a roof or hiding in a van somewhere. I kept thinking, "Now I'm a 'known associate' of Bob." No, I didn't find the stories themselves interesting, just the guy telling them.
I read something once that said "Even warlords go home and tuck their kids in at night." Bob was far from that, but he was the same guy who would steal a car and then offer me a ride to work."Yo, it's raining. Why do you wanna walk?" I'd explain, "Listen, I appreciate it, but the fact that your 'uncle's' car is missing an ignition and there's a screwdriver on the floor makes me think that we'd have a hard time explaining it to the police." He'd just laugh and drive off. The next day it'd be his "cousin's" car and I'd have to go through it all over again. On the one hand, he was a criminal, but on the other hand he was considerate.
One day we were going to play basketball and he wanted to stop at McDonald's first. I told him that I was broke and I'd eat when I went home. I sat down at a table while he got in line. He came back with two Extra Value Meals, two apple pies, two sundaes and a double cheeseburger. He took the cheeseburger and one of the sodas and pushed the rest over to me. He said he felt bad because I never eat when we go out and he knows it's because my family doesn't have any money. I tried to refuse it, but he said that he didn't do it out of pity, but to thank me for helping him with "that stuff with Jane" last week.
Jane (not her real name) was his ex-girlfriend. One day I ran into him on the street and he was crying. Like... boo-hoo crying. I didn't even know he had tear ducts. Even when he was laughing he frowned, so to see this stone cold guy who talks about sticking people up crying was baffling. I figured that his entire family must've just gotten killed...at the same time. That was the only thing that could make someone like that cry. Nope. "Jane broke up with me. She said I'm crazy." (He was)
For the next few days I had to really summon my powers of psychology in order to convince him not to shoot her. He didn't want to kill her. He loved her way too much, but his logic (if you can call it that) was to put on his mask and gloves and to shoot her in the leg or arm one night on her way home from work. He was going to make it look like a robbery and then run through the alley by her house. Then he was going to ditch the gun, gloves and mask, then put on a change of clothes that he'd have waiting in the alley and run around the block and "rescue" a wounded Jane. That, in his mind, would make her love him again, because he would've gotten her to the hospital on time. (You can't make this stuff up)
I don't know if it's a bad reflection on him or a bad reflection on me that it took an entire week to convince him that his plan was flawed. Either way, he eventually saw the err of his ways. They reconciled without him having to shoot her and the meal at McDonald's was a thank you from him to me.
I'm approaching 1,000 words, so I'll cut this short. He was a good friend. He's still alive, although I haven't seen him in a while. He got locked up for robbing a cleaners or something. It was either that or sticking up a cop. I can't remember. He had so many pending cases, that they just ended up putting him under the jail. But every time I see a McChicken meal, I think about him.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
I'll Be Missing You
Breaking up is hard. Talk about an understatement. The lucky ones are those who come to a mutual disdain. When you both feel like you've squeezed the last drop of positivity from it, then you can part ways amicably. But more often than not that isn't the case. Back in the good old days, before I was in the cast, I was just a member of the audience watching "The Break Up Show." I used to tell people that the toughest role was the one who fell out of love last.
When you're the initiator of a breakup you get to fall out of love first. You have time on your side to sort things out. I've been in that role before. I woke up one day and realized I wasn't happy. I tried to jump start it, thinking maybe it was just a temporary feeling, but after a while it became clear that the love was gone. The next few days/weeks involved me trying to figure out how to breakup without crushing her. That's why I still maintain that saying, "I love you, but I'm not in love with you" is genuine. Some people go to great lengths to not crush the other person.
But even with that extreme consideration for the other person's feelings, you still get the luxury of falling out of love first. The honorable thing that I've learned over time is to let them know right away. That way you get the chance to try and repair it together or at the very least, you're both going through it at the same time. Because if you don't, then you condemn the other person to go through it alone.
I like to think of love as a form of energy that begins in your heart and flows through you to the other person. As long as they're there to receive it, everything is great. In a "merciful" breakup, both people start shutting their love flow down around the same time. I call it 'merciful' and not 'peaceful' because there's usually a lot of arguing or disagreements going on between the two. But in that other kind of breakup, the kind where you don't see it coming, that second person has their love running at maximum capacity and is all of a sudden expected to just shut it down. You have a better chance of getting a 30 car train to stop on a dime, than to get someone to gracefully accept that you're not in love anymore.
And in a lot of cases it isn't that you don't love them anymore. It's that you've done something that goes against your professed love or you've just chosen a direction that doesn't involve them. Regardless of what it is, once that person hears, "I don't love you," "I cheated," "I got someone else pregnant" or "I took a job in another country. See you later." --Once that comes up, you pretty much assume that the other person isn't receiving any more of what you're shipping out. In the meantime, what the hell do you do with all of this love you have flowing through you?
Love is a nurturing type of energy. It's like food. But, just like food, it can spoil if not consumed. You now have all of this excess energy building up inside and it's starting to go rancid. Some people run out and find someone else to give it to. Rebound, I guess you'd call it. Other people go nuts. They start bargaining, begging and just acting crazy, because they don't know how to release it. But eventually it all spoils and you just become angry. It's okay, anger precedes acceptance, but you really gotta be careful how you allow that anger to manifest.
In the Curious Case of Me, I've found that I can deal with most things if I can understand the motivation behind them. If not, then I need an analogy or something to help me process it. Sadly, in most breakups, the other person is usually short on explanations that you find sufficient. Most of us need an encyclopedia of explanations that cannot be refuted, and god help the other person if they don't have one ready.
Being me, I tried to come up with my own, not to explain it but to cope with it and understand the emotions going through me. At first, I saw it like this: My love was dead and the object of my love is the one who killed it. She is both victim and assailant. I grieved yet despised at the same time. But that just leads to a duality that's not sustainable. Anger and sadness can't coexist for long before one wins (usually anger). So I came up with a different one. And this one works a little better:
Instead of grieving the loss of the person, grieve the loss of the relationship as though it were a person. Don't try to focus on all of the negatives in an attempt to make the breakup more palatable. Instead, remember all of the good times, and try to make peace with whatever thing caused its abrupt end. You can't change it and you can't pretend it didn't happen. What you can do is move forward and try to make something good with whatever you gained from it.
It's funny, all of this came to me while watching the music video for Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You." It kinda makes me wanna dress in all black and dance in the rain. Maybe I could even dress my daughter in all white and we go climb up a hill. Two questions stop me from doing that:
1) Can Puffy do any dances besides spinning around in a circle?
2) I still don't understand how/why he crashed the motorcycle in the beginning of the video. I know he slammed on the brakes, but why?
[youtube=http://youtu.be/mM0-ZU8njdo]
When you're the initiator of a breakup you get to fall out of love first. You have time on your side to sort things out. I've been in that role before. I woke up one day and realized I wasn't happy. I tried to jump start it, thinking maybe it was just a temporary feeling, but after a while it became clear that the love was gone. The next few days/weeks involved me trying to figure out how to breakup without crushing her. That's why I still maintain that saying, "I love you, but I'm not in love with you" is genuine. Some people go to great lengths to not crush the other person.
But even with that extreme consideration for the other person's feelings, you still get the luxury of falling out of love first. The honorable thing that I've learned over time is to let them know right away. That way you get the chance to try and repair it together or at the very least, you're both going through it at the same time. Because if you don't, then you condemn the other person to go through it alone.
I like to think of love as a form of energy that begins in your heart and flows through you to the other person. As long as they're there to receive it, everything is great. In a "merciful" breakup, both people start shutting their love flow down around the same time. I call it 'merciful' and not 'peaceful' because there's usually a lot of arguing or disagreements going on between the two. But in that other kind of breakup, the kind where you don't see it coming, that second person has their love running at maximum capacity and is all of a sudden expected to just shut it down. You have a better chance of getting a 30 car train to stop on a dime, than to get someone to gracefully accept that you're not in love anymore.
And in a lot of cases it isn't that you don't love them anymore. It's that you've done something that goes against your professed love or you've just chosen a direction that doesn't involve them. Regardless of what it is, once that person hears, "I don't love you," "I cheated," "I got someone else pregnant" or "I took a job in another country. See you later." --Once that comes up, you pretty much assume that the other person isn't receiving any more of what you're shipping out. In the meantime, what the hell do you do with all of this love you have flowing through you?
Love is a nurturing type of energy. It's like food. But, just like food, it can spoil if not consumed. You now have all of this excess energy building up inside and it's starting to go rancid. Some people run out and find someone else to give it to. Rebound, I guess you'd call it. Other people go nuts. They start bargaining, begging and just acting crazy, because they don't know how to release it. But eventually it all spoils and you just become angry. It's okay, anger precedes acceptance, but you really gotta be careful how you allow that anger to manifest.
In the Curious Case of Me, I've found that I can deal with most things if I can understand the motivation behind them. If not, then I need an analogy or something to help me process it. Sadly, in most breakups, the other person is usually short on explanations that you find sufficient. Most of us need an encyclopedia of explanations that cannot be refuted, and god help the other person if they don't have one ready.
Being me, I tried to come up with my own, not to explain it but to cope with it and understand the emotions going through me. At first, I saw it like this: My love was dead and the object of my love is the one who killed it. She is both victim and assailant. I grieved yet despised at the same time. But that just leads to a duality that's not sustainable. Anger and sadness can't coexist for long before one wins (usually anger). So I came up with a different one. And this one works a little better:
Instead of grieving the loss of the person, grieve the loss of the relationship as though it were a person. Don't try to focus on all of the negatives in an attempt to make the breakup more palatable. Instead, remember all of the good times, and try to make peace with whatever thing caused its abrupt end. You can't change it and you can't pretend it didn't happen. What you can do is move forward and try to make something good with whatever you gained from it.
It's funny, all of this came to me while watching the music video for Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You." It kinda makes me wanna dress in all black and dance in the rain. Maybe I could even dress my daughter in all white and we go climb up a hill. Two questions stop me from doing that:
1) Can Puffy do any dances besides spinning around in a circle?
2) I still don't understand how/why he crashed the motorcycle in the beginning of the video. I know he slammed on the brakes, but why?
[youtube=http://youtu.be/mM0-ZU8njdo]
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Jump, Jump!
R.I.P. Mac Daddy
For all intents and purposes, Kriss Kross was pretty much a one hit wonder (album, at least). Totally Krossed Out came out 21 years ago (Yes, you are old). They tried a comeback which failed to pan out, and that was pretty much it for them. Still, Mac Daddy's death was on CNN's homepage last night and I think it was well deserved.
It says something about you if you can have one major hit over two decades ago and still have name recognition. I don't know about you, but no 90s playlist is complete without Jump. And not even the album version that just starts off with the chorus. It's gotta be the extended version that starts off with, "Some of them try to rhyme, but they can't rhyme like this!" Yeah, that's the one. I was in the bowling alley one day in college when that came on and I almost broke my neck in those shoes trying to jump. I wasn't alone. I looked up and saw two or three people planking in the lane.
I'm trying to remember where I was when I first heard Jump. More than likely I was watching Arsenio, another victim of time. But that's my point: The song is iconic. It's an anchor that holds my 90s memories in place. I remember listening to it in the car on the way to go see Bebe's Kids in the theater. I remember it playing at a dance we had in elementary school. They pushed all the metal crates that the book fair books were in up against the wall of the 'multipurpose' room (aka the cafeteria) and brought in a DJ. I can't dance now and I really couldn't dance back then, but jump was pretty much an instructional song. "Wait for it. Wait for it. NOW! Jump! Jump! Stand still. Jump! Jump!"
I still know the dance to this day.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/010KyIQjkTk]
For all intents and purposes, Kriss Kross was pretty much a one hit wonder (album, at least). Totally Krossed Out came out 21 years ago (Yes, you are old). They tried a comeback which failed to pan out, and that was pretty much it for them. Still, Mac Daddy's death was on CNN's homepage last night and I think it was well deserved.
It says something about you if you can have one major hit over two decades ago and still have name recognition. I don't know about you, but no 90s playlist is complete without Jump. And not even the album version that just starts off with the chorus. It's gotta be the extended version that starts off with, "Some of them try to rhyme, but they can't rhyme like this!" Yeah, that's the one. I was in the bowling alley one day in college when that came on and I almost broke my neck in those shoes trying to jump. I wasn't alone. I looked up and saw two or three people planking in the lane.
I'm trying to remember where I was when I first heard Jump. More than likely I was watching Arsenio, another victim of time. But that's my point: The song is iconic. It's an anchor that holds my 90s memories in place. I remember listening to it in the car on the way to go see Bebe's Kids in the theater. I remember it playing at a dance we had in elementary school. They pushed all the metal crates that the book fair books were in up against the wall of the 'multipurpose' room (aka the cafeteria) and brought in a DJ. I can't dance now and I really couldn't dance back then, but jump was pretty much an instructional song. "Wait for it. Wait for it. NOW! Jump! Jump! Stand still. Jump! Jump!"
I still know the dance to this day.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/010KyIQjkTk]
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