I've never been a gambling man. My dad tried to impress the losing nature of gambling on me during a trip to Las Vegas when I was very young. I suppose I was around the 10 range back then, which makes me wonder how I was allowed to play the slots at all - but times were different back then so go figure. He gave me 2 dollars and let me play the slots. When I was done feeding the money into the one-armed-bandits (a moniker that should tell you everything you need to know), I ended up with 70 cents and I reported back to my dad, with a big smile, "I won 70 cents!"
So much for the lesson.
It would be many years later that I would acquire my true distaste for gambling. So much of my life has been unpredictable and unstable that I've naturally tended towards minimizing that element as much as possible. One of the easiest things to eliminate was formal gambling games. I just never saw the point in taking money I had right here in my hand, and giving it away for something as intangible as "a chance." A chance? Uh, I've been getting "special treatment" from lady luck for as long as I remember. I think I'll just keep my money.
Being separate from the gambling frame of mind also allowed me to see the point my father was trying to make all those years ago. If you watch any set of gamblers for any period of time there is an unavoidable trend that is built into the system they are playing under. The trend is summarized under the undisputed title, "The house always wins." So let me get this straight, you're saying I can pay money to play a game wherein it's a given that my opponent always wins?
Thanks, but no thanks - I think I'll let my misfortune come to me.
Now we find ourselves at the ultimate in gambling holidays; New Years Eve. Nothing draws out the giddy, gaudy exuberance of Las Vegas glitz and spreads it more generously than this alcoholic orgasm of hope and cheer. Celebrants break out the bubbly, kiss randoms around them, and welcome each other into another year of life. It doesn't matter if this year has been like a sentence in a Singaporean prison, or if it's been the best year of your life. The point is that it's over, you made it, and brace yourself 'cause here comes another one.
The big hope is that regardless of how the previous year treated you, the following one is going to be better. The little assumed party favors of New Years Eve include: appreciating that you're still alive despite all your efforts, a refreshing feeling of renewal, a powerdrink's worth of hope, and if you possess even a modicum of ambition - all the alcohol you can drink.
Happy New Year indeed!
But despite that seeming to be enough, at least by my accounting, to make for a successful evening, we find ourself inexorably drawn towards that personal craps table affectionately referred to as "My New Years Resolutions." Here is a wonderful, seemingly unavoidable, game we play whereby the stakes are our confidence and self-image, and the odds of success are unavoidably no different than they are on the other, notably more sober, 364 days of the year.
I will quit smoking. I will actually use the gym membership I've had for 4 years and counting. I will listen more to my partner. The hits just keep on coming, and I get to hear about them for a good week before and after New Years. But, like Christmas in Russia, the anticipation and hope poured into this endeavor are in the final analysis, matched only by the vacuum-packed disappointment that follows. A rare few succeed, the rest take their lumps and console themselves with the ironic hope of "next year."
As usual, the house always wins and for my money, I'll steer clear of the whole thing. No New Years resolutions for me - and pass the champagne!
I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to post about my trip to NYC any more than I have.
I will say that paying almost $100 for cabs to and from the airport just on the trip back tonight represented, for me, the gentle and reassuring pat on the ass in the post prison-rape that my vacation turned out to be... at least financially.
Pre-Day One:
I was pretty apprehensive about going to New York in the first place, so it was no big surprise that I waited until the last moment to get my shit together before leaving. In the end, the exit strategy was pretty simple. I threw a bunch of stuff in the old bag, called Liz (thanks!) for evac, and headed off to the airport. I made it with time to spare, as usual, and by 11PM I was onboard and ready to go.
I had the window seat on the right side of the plane and right until the last moment, there was no one in the seats next to me - which made me hope I could get a little shuteye in the relative comfort of a three-seat bed - but as the last people filtered in, a woman hustled into the aisle seat near me. This left an empty seat between us. In the last flight I had taken to NYC, this same situation had occurred and the woman on the aisle seat had been uncomfortable the entire flight, endlessly shifting and grunting in a futile effort to get comfortable enough to catch a few winks.
It drove me insane. I can't stand to be around people who are visibly uncomfortable if I can help it at all. I decided that this time would be different. I immediatly explained to the woman that I had no plans to use the extra seat and she should use it as much as she likes, for whatever she likes, without concern for me.
She said thanks, but seemed very uncomfortable and annoyed. I asked what was wrong and she explained that there had been a fire in San Francisco that had killed the power to the Opera House where she was performing in The Nutcracker not more than an hour before. Apparently the delay caused by the power outage had resulted in her barely catching the plane - which meant she had come directly off a performance to the airport. No shower - no rest.
Well, who couldn't understand being upset by that? Well, long story short, I gave her my seat and she ended up curling up on the two seats next to me. I think she got a little rest, at least. After we landed at JFK, I suggested we share a taxi ride into the city and even though she really didn't need to, she was kind enough to save me from a bus ride by agreeing.
We talked a bit more on the way into the city, and it turned out she was 21! I was pretty surprised, even though in retrospect it makes sense... I don't think there are many old ballerinas.
Day One:
I left my travelling companion (yes, I forgot her name. My friends will understand.) at 38th and Park (ooh, swanky!) and cruised down to my dad's house in the village. We had coffee, talked, and eventually mosied on down to Brooklyn to surprise my sister (ha ha!) and eat lunch. That went by without highlights, partially because I don't remember them since I was going on about 4 hours of sleep per the last three days, but also because it was a pretty short meal.
After I got home, I had the requisite and very enjoyable politics talk with my dad and made plans to see Mia, an old high school flame (of sorts), uptown later that night. I decided shortly after that to be smart and cancel plans, since I was beginning to feel the effects of no sleep til Brooklyn. Good move. I passed out and slept like a rock, barring one short call from Sasha, until the next morning.
Day Three: So far New York looks a lot like my house. I've been lying in bed for two days now, sick with the flu. My sister got it, and Denali, and Christmas dinner has been cancelled.
I guess I had to prove to myself that being wasted doesn't neccessarily translate into being a coherent writer.
*sigh*
Man that last post was a bunch of gibberish. I had to do some heavy editing just to wrangle it into solid rambling.
It's 2 AM, and I'm horny and angry and alone. This is not a good mix, my friends. I find myself making sounds like a wounded animal, and hoping desperately to jump start some cathartic tears. It's not going to happen. My awareness of how I'll soon have to get up and get it together and begin my trip to NYC is unavoidably growing.
I'm moving there. I'm going to grab my ass and throw it right into the firestorm that is my home town. Fuckin' A. I'm going to pick up my sensitive POS lifestyle and heave it into the mix. I can't wait. Can you?
I almost punched my screen in there. I am so fucking angry it doesn't even make sense to me. The amount of time and effort and whining and bitching it seems to take to get people to tier one of response - ridicule - is too much.
You think it's weird? You think it's whiney? You sit alone and hold your fears close in an effort to make them seem familiar and familial, but they are no more than reflections and shadows of our own differences. We fight the same enemy, regardless of its name.
I'm going to die. I'm going to die and I'm going to hate it, and I'm going to fight every second of its inevitable conclusion. Not because my mother did. Not because my father wants me to. Not because I'm worth it. But because I understand why I'm here, and why it is I must exist, despite all reason and rationale.
It's not dying that is hard. It's living. It's deciding that you are embarking on a course that may or may not make sense to you or anyone else, and following through on it regardless of the corresponding experience.
Indra's net. Karma. God's will. The balance of mechanism. You call the shot, I have a place in it. I'm not concerned with the territory, because I understand my place on the map. I'm not fighting it. Not anymore. I understand that regardless of my own intentions, embracing my future it wiser than resisting it. I may not have to serve, but there is no avoiding my awareness of what is to come.
I am so afraid. I want to pass the baton. I want to give up the names of my co-conspiritors and list the caches of money and information. I want to do whatever I have to do to stop the horror. I want to pass this on to the next generation. I want my children to take my mantle, which will protect them from a spectrum of misery, and carry it onwards. Maybe they'll succeed where I am sure to fail.
Maybe that is why I'm not fit. Maybe that is why I don't understand. Maybe that is the form of my cage.
The Fab 5 take on Sir William.
"Ovr lorde in heaven! Is that last yeares potatoe sacke?" LOL!!!
"I am outgoing and funn loving. I love going out and having funn.. and just hanging out with friends. I might be yonge but im still wild and crazy =)"
*sigh* I like having funn as much as the next guy, but I think you're too yonge for me. Even if you are still (?) wild and crazy.
"hello my name is aley.contact me if ure a jw. i have to fill this out so theres a hundred characters. well there we go." *
I'm an orthodox jw, and we're not going anywhere.
"Mixtapes, vinyl records, cigarettes, and coffee. I'm a vintage t-shirt clad indie rock junkie. Don't know who Issac Brock is? I feel for you."
I don't have any idea who Issac Brock is, and up til this moment I didn't care. Now I feel vaguely lame and un-hip. Perhaps giving up smoking and drinking coffee is to blame. *
"I'm 18, currently in San Francisco (going to school) but otherwise I live in NY. Just looking for someone to talk to, going to SF next week. I do have a tattoo and piercings." *
No, no, no, NO.
"I SEE BEYOND THE LIMITLESS; I REST IN THE REGIONS OUTSIDE THE BOUNDS OF SPACE, I GO WHEREVER I WILL, HAMPERED BY NO BOUNDARIES AND IN WHATEVER FORM I PLEASE."
Hot or Cthulhu?
"hi im destiny im 19 and i study computer engineering i have a daughter 10 months old and i love to dance" *
I've already dated too many cliches. What club are you "dancing" at?
"Prrrrrrrrrr..... I must warn you, I bite And when I bite, I bite HARD........ But don't be frightened, I'm harmless.....sometimes"
*picture neccessary* I have t-shirts that are older and scarier than you.
"HEY..iTS ALiNA. i l0ve t0o shOp..PARTY..get craZzIi. i have bLack hair n bLue eyeSz.. dats very striking. tw0o tato0s n a belly ring.. im a BALLROOM DANCER..s0o if y0u wanna chat just CLICK YES..and ill be happy t0o taLk t0o y0u!" *
Keyboard Tourette Syndrome victim. Sad, really.
Man my head hurts. The room is still spinning from last nights foolishness. Ugh. Waking up at 6AM from a dream where I couldn't drink enough milk to quench my thirst - and running to the kitchen to get water - and smashing into just about every wall on the way over - only to realize that I needed to eliminate water more than ingest it and do the pinball act on the way back to the bathroom - sucks.
Apparently I am still able to write coherently when wasted. Good for me. As usual, I wonder if I'm going to regret posting my drunken rant.
The burrito I bought last night and was too wasted to eat is staring at me and doing a weird wormlike wiggle. I am going to toss it in the oven at 250 and let it bake for half an hour. That should calm it, and me, down a bit. I swear I would pay any amount of money for a hottub right now. Ugh.
Oh, and Dan Amrich added some names to the New York City post and reminded me of part of the reason I started writing in the first place, namely, wit is good. I have a sneaking suspicion there should be a semicolon in that last sentence.
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I love Denali. I love her more than it's possible for me to put into words. Why? You ask me these foolish questions from a place that doesn't hold a vista encompassing the terrain I'm speaking from. I love her past understanding, past reason, past my own well being. She is human, a girl, a woman, just a collection of meat and experience. She is my godess, my hope, my angel. I don't have a way to express what she means to me. These words are grossly inadequate.
I have a life without her. I have my own awareness. I see my life and my own range without her in it. I live and sustain myself without her. It's as clear to me as my life with her. Is she the one? Isn't she? I have faith, even if she doesn't. I love her, period.
I love Rose. She spits in the face of my misery and refuses to allow self-pity or despair to take root. She believed in me when I didn't. She was a beacon guiding me to the good life when I was resigned to my self-made dungeon. Without her, I never would have seen how much I have to offer. With her, I was forced to use my overwhelming personality against itself. She told me what I didn't want to listen to and I desparately needed to hear. She ushered me into a new era of my life.
She left me, with a dear john letter suitable for a bad blind date. I refused it - did I have any choice? What could one do when offered the choice of abandonment over a phantasm over a last ditch effort to grab ahold of a powerful friendship? I had no option.
So as it stands, with one who is terrified of what I stand for and another who can't understand what she has created.
I love you. listen to me, I love you.
This got me out of bed last night/this morning when I heard it on the radio. I'm too hung over to write about this at length, and I'm lucky enough to have Winds of Change expertly doing it for me.
Great news. Really great news.
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Just once I'd like someone kinda wise-lookin' to say that to me.
Sometimes life is like NASCAR. You go around in circles really really fast, as fast as you can, and even under the best conditions sometimes people die. One of the things that made NASCAR fascinating for me was learning (from an actual driver) how they use the slipstream of the car ahead of them to gain just enough speed to pass that same car. They use each other to get ahead. Naturally this involves tailgating in it's purest and most deadly form. Drivers are struggling to get closer to each other - so they can get away from each other. And sometimes there is a mistake. A little thing. A twitch, or a small wind, and suddenly that one inch is six inches and you're sent flipping 200 MPH into the wall - or into other drivers. Sometimes people die. Always they learn.
You make these calls every day, these tiny decisions that are almost negligible in their isolated effect, and every so often a small breeze comes along and
I am disturbed.
I am disturbed by a trail of ants on my kitchen counter that leads to an empty spot with nothing there. The ants walk up to the empty spot, stop, then turn around and go back to wherever they came from. I have washed that spot and sprayed it with any poison with no effect. Back and forth they go from somewhere to nowhere and back again.
I am disturbed by how excited I get by Kirstie Alley singing "Santa Baby" on the Pier One commercials. I usually hear it before I see it, which makes it a little better, but in the end the fact is that I'm attracted to Kirstie Alley. I have always hated her. I hated her on Cheers and I hated her on SNL and I've hated her on everything since. But that Santa Baby song gives me wood.
I am disturbed by my increasing sense of security and internal strength. I know what I am doing. I like who I am becoming. I understand why I feel the way I do. I am afraid of how fearless I am, but then I'm unafraid of my fear as well. Quite a pickle.
I am disturbed by the ever widening gulf between my understanding of global politics and others understanding. I get to listen to hare-brained notions, rock-solid theories, facts and figures, wise opinions, angry diatribes, flippant quips, apathetic grunts, democratic debates, bushisms, flag-burning screaming, yougottaminit activist screeds, desperate dissembly, and my own meandering mind and I find that the gap I'm trying to bridge is inexorably expanding. As an undocumented side-effect, my sentences are getting longer.
I am disturbed by sex with Denali. I am disturbed by dreams of teenage girls. I am disturbed by the creeping doom of my laundry pile. I am disturbed by my desire for Hope. I am disturbed by my weight gain. I am disturbed by my frustration with Rose. I am disturbed by my not seeing the sun for five days in a row. I am disturbed by my newly harnessed faith. I am disturbed by Ian and Julie, and Joe and Mary, and John and Gelsie, and me and no one. I am disturbed by my quitting smoking for no reason. I am disturbed by my writing. I am also disturbed by reading my writing.
Exactly as disturbed as I am by you reading this.
How come it always seems so arbitrary when characters in movies or TV start a romance with some other character, seemingly just because they are around? Seems to me, that kind of thing yearns to happen but rarely does. You have that weird interest in that person at work. You find yourself ranking your associates by who you'd sleep with on a desert island. You see someone in the train/cafe/etc. and *bam* you'd want to ... get to know them.
I remember daydreaming very vivid visual fantasies of women on BART and myself getting it on. It almost always started the same way. I'd want to touch their face, and tell them how pretty they were. It was rarely a physical thing, it would frequently be some weird aspect of them that had caught my eye. Perhaps a businesswoman who had hello kitty earrings, or a girl with an interesting scar on her lip, or maybe she was humming or tapping her fingers in some way that I harmonized with. Who knows. The fantasy never really got very explicit - it never needed to. The point was we were so close and yet so far away.
I think sometimes the distance between an accepted lonliness and a whirlwind passion is like the width of the glass (was) on the WTC Skydeck, thin and invisible and deceptively safe. I remember people leaning up against the glass there and looking down to feel the rush. Now I need only look at popular entertainment to see people leaning up to the glass and looking in to feel a rush.
Yet despite that it seems fairly clear why these scenes happen constantly, I still feel that they are unbelievable. Conflict of interest?
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As I begin to write this, its 4:20 AM. If I smoked weed, now would be the perfect time to partake. If I still smoked cigarettes (when not drinking) I would find that to be an adequate substitution. As it stands, I'm merely trying to knock out some of what has been buzzing around in my noggin for the past week or so before I reach that magic 5 o'clock marker.
Thanksgiving was good. Really good. My plan was to simply cook dinner for myself, at home, and enjoy it. Alone. At home. By myself. I had a kind of old man winter theme going on in my head, and I was really warm and happy with it. Well, turned out that it was excellent to have Travis there. He was a huge help with just about everything - excepting the eating part. So it goes.
Cody also stopped by. She'd formed something of an attachment to Travis (that's a whole post unto itself) and although I was worried about the two of them glomming onto each other and thereby intruding on my home alone meal, it turned out to be just fine. I got a chance to level with her about how I was still unsure about our relationship post-Liz-betrayal. It worked out fine.
After we'd squared away the drama, I proposed the idea that we be boyfriend/girlfriend for a while. We took turns laying out our specific requirements for each other. I didn't require sex, but I did require sleeping over. I didn't need exclusivity, but I did require enough attention that I would at least feel like El Primero. She brought up her once-a-month mood stuff and I laughed. Her demands for sex were certainly above and beyond my general capacity to deliver, but I was willing to give it my best shot. Why not?
But as quickly as we squared the deal, it was forgotten. I felt a little foolish for letting a game like that persuade me into lending it actual credence. But, then, I wanted to believe - and more and more I see the residual effects of faiths ebb and flow on my behavior. I wanted it, reached for it, it retreated, I hurt and then forgot it.
It's 5 o'clock now. AM.
Go figure. I woke up early (11AM... ok ok not the earliest ever) and it is beautiful out. Sunny and clear. Nice California weather. I'm going to make a fried egg sandwich and toddle on out there.
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Eight hours of talking with Fred later, I notice it's five in the morning. I call the dialog to a close and pop the TV on to give me something to watch while I finish the sushi I jammed in the fridge eight hours ago.
It's still good.
I know because I can feel my gut churn in that good way. I pop on the computer and as my monitor powers back up from sleep-mode (my monitor is vastly superior to me in this regard) I notice the IM from Rose telling me she loves me.
High Fidelity is on TV.
I think of my old boss, how much he liked the movie, and how much I hated that he liked it. I think of how apropriate it is to watch a movie about love lost and found and lost and found again. I think it's ironic to play this movie on the Comedy channel. I wish I had someone in my bed so it would be warm when I eventually sentence myself to another few hours in it.
Milk doesn't go with sushi.
I love them both, but they just don't go together. Is it sad when your diet describes your sex life? I only wish it was the beer talking. I hate writing more than two lines that start with "I".
I guess it's time for bed. Fuck.
Apparently a couple of drinks rapidly transformed into a whole lot of drinking last night. I'm not sure how much I spent, but when I try to remember, I feel my tear ducts start to fire up so I bet it was too much. Sometime later in the evening I slipped on the wet tiled floor (damn hazard I've been wary of for years) and went flat on my back. Two guys nearby looked at me moon-eyed and asked if I was alright and I told them that I was just testing how drunk I was and I'd passed the test, since I knew I had injured myself and simply wasn't feeling it.
Today, however, I'm not so lucky. My right wrist is swole up like I got a golf ball in there and my right hip ain't feeling so hot either. I popped some advil and put my big girl pants on. You shoulda heard me in the shower moaning like a war casualty - it made me sick. Pathetic, really.
While in the shower, I had an opportunity to weigh myself. Just shy of 140 pounds in my birthday suit, I've gained at least 10 pounds in the last year. Shocking. I place the blame on thanksgiving dinner, the El Nino of carbohydrate meals. Sadly, I think most of the added fat has distributed itself on my hips and between my ears. If this is the price of getting older, I'd like a refund.
As punishment for my absolute disregard for frugality, I've decided to make myself the last of the leftovers instead of ordering pizza or chinese food. Cooking is just about where dying of dysentery is on my list of things I'd least like to do, so I reckon if this hangover I'm gurgling through doesn't remind me that drinking to excess is excessively drinking then cooking with my busted wrist probably will. Not to mention the frustration involved in masturbating with my off-hand.
*** Geek Alert: Please don't bother reading if you are not a computer geek ***
Having spent a lot of time recently playing AO, and having played EQ back in the day, I have come to a few realizations about MMORPGs.
1. There is in fact no "role playing" in MMORPGs. This is not because people do not speak to each other in character ("ho there! Well met fine ranger!") or because players are largely focused on gathering items as opposed to prestige or knowledge, but rather because there is no story. The lack of a story to push characters out of the inn, give them meaning for their "camping" the dungeons, and pull them on towards clear goals makes for an unavoidably vacuous experience.
2. The "massive" in MMORPG is refering to the shocking number of people who desire what I can only describe as twitch gaming for the cerebral set. The insanely tight challenge-reward cycle that drives all MMORPG combat (aka core gameplay) creates a low intensity, but high frequency, feeling of value and success. There is little difference between a player at level 1 from a player at level 100, since the overwhelming focus of these games is combat. Fighting rats differs from fighting Supreme Overlords of the Chaos Dimension only in one's ability to take and dish out damage.
3. I am eagerly awaiting a hybrid of traditional CRPGS and MMORPGS wherein I am offered the potential to start a 1st level character, and follow a Baldur's Gate (or at least Icewind Dale) grade plotline for a long stretch, say perhaps a month or two, and then move on to a different area/world/continent/island/dimension with the same character to engage in a new adventure. I want a beginning and an end. I just want the end to come at the end of a year of play, instead of a few weeks (BG, IWD) or never (EQ, AO, etc.)
Sadly, I think we have many many more years of my first sentence.
There has been so much on my mind since Thanksgiving, I'm mentally congested. I've decided I'm not going to write for a while, barring suggestions for topics.
Thanksgiving, great. Denali, awesome. Chocolate crepes, so-so. Bad Santa, awesome. Elf, heartwarming ugh. AO, too much. Why won't it stop raining? Where's Ian run off to? Thinking of moving to NYC.
Done.