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Dudes. I just got back from voting and I want to thank all the responsible citizens who have been standing in lines for HOURS voting early. It took me about a half hour from start to finish! For me, it's hard to get excited about this. It was another year of voting against candidates by voting candidates I think are only slightly better; the old "lesser of two evils" dilemma. My man went out when Ron Paul withdrew. I'm trying not to get depressed about it, but I feel like my generation is witnessing the decline of a great nation into... I don't know. It seems like the bad guys are always winning, mainly because they don't follow the rules, or else they'd be good guys. Without integrity, as people, as leaders, as a nation, we have nothing else. (And so, his words, while still important to him, fell on the deaf ears of the Godless hoards, and there was no echo above the din of a depraved nation.)Tags: conservativism, politics, truth
Current Mood:  cynical
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Dude, I'm barely keeping up with life here. Or so it feels. Brief, blurry collage follows. I bought one of these wallets and I really love it so far. We went to Carowinds last Tuesday for Josh's ninth birthday (on Wednesday). It rocked, of course, and we rode the Nighthawk which blew me away. Best ride EVAR! You start out standing and it lays you back flat as you begin the ride. Then you proceed to zoom about, mostly hanging like you are in a hang glider, through a series of loops, barrel rolls, and inversions. It is so intense, I actually found myself thinking, "I hope this harness holds up, I'm a pretty big guy!" Rarely am I actually, you know, scared on a ride. This one does that for me. It was an excellent day full of good memories. I have too much music in my music library. It is unmanageable, especially since I put iTunes on my box once and it rearranged it all into some Apple-centric gibberish. iTunes is off my pooter now. Hated it. Soon I will be in the correct mood to make progress with this. It is a combination of feeling incredibly patient, as well as being ready to prune the poo out of music I haven't listened to in, literally, years. Yeah, I really need Benedictine monks singing REMs "Losing My Religion," heh. If someone would just die (or not) and leave me about 100K, it would erase nearly all of my life's mistakes and I'd never, ever make them again. Anyone, anyone... Bueller? In my dreams, I live my life just like a Gene Hackman movie. When I wake up? It's more like I'm stuck in John Luvitz mode.  If I were a good man, I'd understand the spaces between friends (Random Pink Floyd Quote section - New with every post!) (Yeah, probably not.) We broke down and saw Iron Man at the $2.50 theater. Outstanding, just like I'd heard it was. It's a keeper. I read that this was the role of a lifetime for Robert Downey, Jr., the movie he was born to do. I agree. I like him, though he's had a lot of self-induced problems. He's human, and you want to see him "make it," no? Have you ever seen him in that Elton John Video? One cut all the way through, the camera is on him as he walks through a huge, vacant (and tacky, rich people have no taste) mansion lip synching the song flawlessly. You haven't seen it? HERE! I woulda embedded it, but it's disabled by the evil music company. A 15 year-old kid was playing football for his school Friday night. It was just another hit, (you know we teach them to hit hard!) but his head got smacked back in just some special, one-in-a-million way that caused massive head trauma. He died last night at the hospital. If he'd have been a year older, he might have been my patient but he was, thank God for this, in the Pediatric ICU. I'm as tough as a Gene Hackman movie at work but, mark my words, somewhere, at sometime, I would have cried for him. Moving on. I have been reading you guys, nearly all of it. You make me happy, you know that? I think I made an unconscious decision sometime in the distant past to exchange cold comfort for change. Meaning, I gave up change in favor of the other. I was mistaken. Must work on that. Less numbness, please. Life, come prick my finger kick me in the junk to get me moving again. Oh yeah, in case you are wondering, this post is brought to you by post-work fatigue (read: fugue) and a combination of not working out recently and an inconsistency in my brain chemistry altering med consumption. Questions? I thought not. You're probably better off. Family interaction time. Wish me luck! Tags: aspiring to live, boys, exercise, money, movies, music, rancho update, work
Current Mood: Fugue State
Current Music: Balboa Park - Bruce Springsteen
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I just saw a commercial on TV from this guy and went and checked out the website. I'm not sure what to think if it yet. First impression is, yes, I think nearly anything we do to reduce our dependence on Arab oil is a step in the right direction. After reading there a few minutes though, I started to get a feeling I've had before about somebody. I hate to even jog your memories like this, but remember Ross Perot? How, at first, he sounded like he might have some good ideas. But then, he started dragging out the charts and pointers and you started to realize how much that voice was annoying you? Yeah, it didn't take long for me to place him in the wacko file, and I think we can all agree that he drove himself there as fast as his little legs could peddle the crazy clown car. This guy? I don't know, but I DO know that you can't simplify any solution to our current energy "problem" with a whiteboard and 5 minutes of numbers pulled abstractly from your interpretation of facts. That's just crazy.
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maybe I should, you know, post in it. I just spent the last two nights busting my whatevers keeping someone alive whose death is imminent. Yes, there is some satisfaction in knowing that my efforts kept him from dying on my shift, but mostly I just feel spent, and for no good reason. It's one of the frustrations, you've heard it before, yada fast forward through the drudgery till I get to the tired sign off. Except sometimes, when I'm really tired, I post some real tight stuff. My inhibitions are broken down, my attitude is a little sharper around the edges, I'm just flat out pissy even, sometimes. It's almost like I want someone to come give me some crap, to hurt me and anger me and and kick me when I'm down, give me a reason for feeling this bad. But after a while here, I'll go sleep it off like a drunkard winding down off a bad week. When I wake up, I'll just be Bruce/dad/husband again. This is such a post. Recently my sister e-mailed me, out of the blue, with a fairly trivial question about someone we used to know a long time ago. Understand, I haven't heard from her in months. We are... estranged, for lack of a better or more accurate term. I'll leave this post hanging here because I doubt she'll ever see it. Her LJ is all but dead and I doubt seriously if she comes to read mine anymore. I do have her to thank for getting me started here, and I'm so glad she did. Truth be told, I leave this here also out of honesty, because she should probably know these things as well. I'm also sometimes blunt like that, but you know this already. So, she writes. I'll be the first to tell you that she has said a lot of really positive, complimentary things about me in her journal over the years. I know because I recently went back and re-read them. I would point you there, but her entries are nearly all friends only and you couldn't see them anyway. Long story short, this is really about the death knell of a relationship and when and where it occurred. When she decided that she was a lesbian after meeting a woman on the Internet, and decided to leave North Carolina, all of her family, and the only life she'd ever known to go live with her, I was supportive. At first, anyway. Until she started rushing things, and refusing to plan well, and refusing to listen to anyone else, and refusing to take advice, and abandoning all reason. So, I told her that I thought she was making some mistakes, to slow down and think things through, to be sure this was all as good of an idea as her heart was telling her. (All along she was telling me that she was listening to her heart, and I was telling her not to listen only to her heart, but also to use her head.) Suddenly, I was no longer the supportive, wonderful big brother, but some sort of traitor, or betrayer for having spoken the truth in love. I swear to you now that I've never been subjected to the irrationality and... accusatory hostility? that I got during that time. We've had very few words since. The woman? Not with her anymore. My sister's been almost totally out of her family's life for YEARS now, and none of us could do anything about it. Know what? It's too late, for me. My oldest son has grown to nearly my own height and his voice has changed. She missed it all. My youngest son is not too far from being as old as my oldest was when she left. She'd barely recognize him, he's changed so much. She left us all. It was as traumatic as a death. So yeah, I have had a hard time dealing with it. I've put it out of my mind, and sat on it, and ignored it, and chewed on it, and fumed over it, and fought it out in my own head, and yelled and cried and reminisced and memorialized and gritted my teeth and hurt and waited. I've done everything I needed to do except get past it, and I realize I may never be able to do that. I can't forget I have a sister. But I can't include her in my life either. It isn't like she died, it's like limbo. It's the waiting room just outside hell, at the end of the hall where family members wait a multitude of eternities for me or some other nurse to come give them just a few encouraging words. "...send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." * But we all know there's no ice water in hell. Finally, despite all of the "good" things she said, I'll tell you where I keep getting stuck whenever I think about her, or when my mom talks about talking with her. I keep going back to the moment I read a post in her journal which is still there and is now tagged with my nickname, Bubby, which she's called me nearly all of her life. This is no less than the cleaving of our paths, I realize. This is the stake in my heart that keeps me from returning to the place I cherished sharing with her before. It's, of course, friends only, but I reproduce it here, for my own sake, if not for your clarity: Phrases from a Song...my indecision to call you
and hear your voice of treason...
...Don't waste your time on me
you're already the voice inside my head...~Blink 182 Tags: sister
Current Mood:  contemplative
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Elliptical and weights. Nothing special. The last 10 minutes of my 30 on the elliptical, this chick came in talking on her cell phone and proceeded to walk on one of the treadmills yammering away. Rude, inconsiderate cell phone users irritate the snot out of me. I was across the room and had on headphones, but she was right next to an older couple (the treadmills are in rows of three). I couldn't ignore it. I mean, there are signs saying not to use cell phones in the workout areas and locker rooms, etc. Only in the lounge/lobby areas are they allowed. Everyone knows this. After my workout, I walked over there and said, "Excuse me, cell phones are not supposed to be used in here, there are signs everywhere saying that, we all know it (motioning to others in the room), now you know. Next time, I'll get a director. It's rude and unappreciated. Thank you." I made this statement calmly and without malice and she immediately left the area and stood in the stairwell to have her conversation. Apparently, I wasn't alone in my irritation because 3 different people came up to me later and congratulated/thanked me. I still want one of these for the restaurants and clueless traffic talkers. Someday. Tags: 150, exercise
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I broke 270 today. Scale says 268. This is big, yes (in more ways than one), pardon the pun. However, like I told my dad this morning, when I reach 250 I'll know I'm doing something because it's been years since I've been down there. Oh, and as a side note, I weigh exactly 100 pounds more than my boot camp issue weight in June of 1984. So, as you can see, though the weight loss is exciting and good and all of that, I'm a short way down a long road, so the mood remains realistic and sober. Wednesday and today I did my 30 minutes on the elliptical torture device and lifted my 12k+ pounds. Seems the extra 30 minutes I spend lifting has a tremendous effect on my emotional/mental outlook. Since starting back last week I've been on the couch less, I've been moving more, I've been eating better. Things are a couple of shades brighter most of the time. To be more direct, even though I continued the cardio during my month off from lifting, I think it is the weights that have slightened my depression issues. Who would've thought that? I didn't. Clearly I've lost whatever cushion I had earlier in the year. I'm at 51/150 workouts for the year and It's May 9th. May have to jump back on the Saturday morning bonus torture. I've just started something else that's exciting to me. I bought one of those HUGE containers of whey protein at Wal-Mart only to find it's half full. Now for breakfast I'm having one scoop (26 grams of protein! !! !) in some 2% milk with some ice and a banana blended together. Yesterday I went all Rocky and put a raw egg in it. Problem is, it's too fluffy. I want it to be thick and shake-y, like a smoothy, but it's coming out super frothy. I have to experiment and figure out what I'm doing wrong. Still, a nearly ALL protein breakfast and a reasonable (one hopes) lunch have found their way into my diet. As I've told you before, I knew the diet part was going to be the hardest for me so I've saved my focus on that till last. Now we begin. I've got a bunch of chicken breast pieces marinating in Frank's with a bunch of other spices thrown in there for good measure. Lot's of body friendly chicken in the freezer just waiting to be thawed and eaten with a salad or such is going to help as well. Gotta sleep soon for work. Two day weekend, I scoff at you! Pish. Tags: 150, diet, exercise, weight
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contemplative