He’s a fat man with a thin skin.

Tonight I was out with some friends enjoying an evening at the ballpark. A beautiful, warm evening where you could sit in just a t-shirt and just enjoy being outside somewhere and watching a game. You talk about myriad things and something came up - I found myself explaining something.

What do you bring to the table?

It’s a question I’ve asked myself more and more as the years pass. In trying to reconcile the distorted self-image with the image the world around me perceives, I find myself questioning just what I put out there. What do I bring to the table and how does it affect my interaction with the people around me?

Further, what kind of a person do I want to be? What kind of people do I want around me? Can I recognize situations that are unhealthy and toxic? What steps can I take to correct prior patterns of destructive behavior? How can I improve my own behavior to make the world around me a better place?

All of us struggle with these questions I imagine to one degree or another. It’s how we choose to deal with them that determines how much we enjoy or don’t enjoy our lives. I don’t think I’ve ever been as successful as I would like to be when it comes to dealing with these problems. Mainly, I haven’t been as successful because these are not easy things to confront but, the choice is to either avoid confronting them and repeat the same miserable patterns or really attempt to make a change and move forward and grow.

Some people need drama in their lives. I’m not sure why, maybe they’re bored with their own lives or tired or insecure but, they need something to feel better about themselves. Specifically, they need to feel superior to the people around them so, what they do is they create drama. They create excitement. It’s a desperate cry for attention, a desperate cry for help - usually it’s done to offset the person feels about themselves. They look in the mirror and they are unhappy with what they see staring back and rather than try to work on making themselves better, it is easier for them to blame the world around them.

What’s the old saw, the fault lies not in the stars but in ourselves.

I’ve seen a few of my friends go through some incredibly difficult times over the last few months. I myself have gone through some tough times but, coming out the other end I can see very readily who I can depend on and who I can’t and more than that, what I can overcome and what I can abide.

I don’t mind being there for my friends and I consider myself fortunate for the ones I have because they are wonderful, generous and glorious people. I appreciate them. I hope to have been as good a friend to them in their time of need as they have been to me. It is with their help, I realize I can overcome quite a bit. But, I can’t tolerate or waste my time on petty people whose sole purpose is to revel in the misfortune of the people around them. Life is far to short to waste my time on morons like that - hence I no longer find myself having the time for fat men with thin skin.

And I find life is much, much better for it.

Monday blues.

I f**kin’ hate OS 10 - not all the time but a lot lately.

Before the news.

I heard an announcer talking about Megaballs - sounds like a horrible condition to be stricken with.

No new tale to tell.

You would think I had more to write, seriously. Funny thing though is life proceeds in an uneventful way these days. There are storm clouds on the horizon in some ways to be sure but, for the most part I’ve been content to be a passenger in the car of life just staring out the window and taking in the scenery.

Sounds incredibly boring but, it isn’t.

Right now, I’ve spent the last few days enmeshed in one of those sisyphean jobs that come my way from time to time. The kind of job which at the outset seems so insurmountable because you just need some time to go back and mull it over figuring out how you will attack it.

And, when I say enmeshed, I mean enmeshed as I spend several days with my ass parked in front of the computer slowly chipping away at the “pile.” Today when I got up, I could see an end in sight. Of course I got up at a little before 9 am but this was after being up until 3 am working to get to a logical point at which to stop. The thing is I’m working from home and I know I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) want to work these kind of hours in an office.

At home the TV is on if I want it, the refrigerator is mere steps away, I can lounge around in the uniform of the day (I will refrain from sharing what the uniform of the day is just to spare the more delicate sensibilities of those among you and not conjure up a frightening image) and take a break when I need to or if I just get too fed up with the project.

I’ve got a big pile of my own stuff to address - like this ever goes away - but I seem more inclined to at least make some of that diminish by being around the house. Right on the tail of this project, I have another small one lined up... simply amazing!

So, consequently I find I have little time to rant about the goings on in the world around me. Excuse me if you will.

Taking satisfaction where you find it.

The things that I find myself really taking pleasure in, really deriving satisfaction from my efforts are a varied and odd lot. They cover a broad range of personal likes to be sure.

One of the things I take great pride in is a well adjusted kitty. When kitty and I first met we approached each other warily, neither confident in our trust of each other. Now, I am alone with kitty and while I am sorry that I am the sole source of attention for her (at one point her having had three humans around to lavish her with love), I do take pride in the fact she does genuinely seem to be very happy.

Most days start off and finish in a very similar fashion.

Mornings find kitty perched in some spot atop my sleeping form or close at hand. If she is not happily sleeping, enjoying the heat I give off (and I am told I do run hot) - she sits, sits! Quietly studying me for any hint I may be close to awakening and thereby close to feeding her.

Sometimes she will become impatient and she will take it upon herself to torture me. By this I mean she will discern the most uncomfortable part of my body on which to perch herself applying the cat form of accu-pressure in order to force me from dreamland. Or maybe it will kitty-krazy time (cat owners are all too familiar with kitty-krazy time as it is displayed by the cat darting around the house for no good reason) and she will run across the room using my lower abdomen as a trampoline in the process hoping to burst my bladder.

It’s a dance we do. She will sit there and if it gets to be too late she will begin to whine incessantly, making the most woeful cries imaginable as if she is in the throes of the greatest sorrow a creature can bear.

After bounding upstairs leading the way towards the glory of the foodbowl, she will chow down afterward looking for her post meal petting and stroking. There are times she anticipates this and is so happy her little body vibrates due to the very strong purring her happiness brings.

At night there will come a point when the cat thinks it is well time I went to bed and she will come over to me, stand on her back legs, swat at me and cry. If she does not jump atop me, she will impatiently wait for me to make my way down to the bed so she can crawl up at my side. Once I am settled, she will again be purring very loudly as she makes herself comfortable next to me.

Quite the pair we two and truthfully I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Spring cleaning.

I’ve managed to figure out a way to just have all my drafts displayed in the que and so at some point over the coming weeks I’m going to give it a go to take all those unfinished thoughts and weave them into something of a coherent thread - won’t be easy, I’m sure.

In the interim, I’ve been taking a lot of pictures and spending altogether too much time devoted to the Flickr side of things (see badge at right). The flickr stuff is fun and surprisingly enough I have enjoyed getting the feedback I have been getting as well as making friends with people all over the world.

The other thing is, I’m finding things have been very busy lately but, busy in a good way.

Happy birthday!

I have to send out big time Happy Birthday wishes to not one, not two, but three remarkable women.

First off is my cousin Jill who is closest to me in age (and who I have a picture of the two of us taken back when I was five and she seven where the family resemblence is unmistakeable - we look like brother and sister). I was digging through some more of the big pile of sort and found a list of family birthdays and I noted frantically Jill’s is tomorrow! She sometimes lets me edit her newspaper column which I enjoy doing.

Second and third respectively are two glorious women who I know only peripherally.

Audacia Ray of Waking Vixen fame who I had the very pleasant occasion to meet several weeks back. I have a partially done entry about that experience hiding away in my drafts que - needless to say Dacia was even more incredible in person than I could have possibly imagined. A tremendous Happy Birthday to her - she was writing on her birthday and I’ve no doubt she has long since celebrated.

Second is the inimitable Cherry Bomb! A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her! I am anxiously awaiting the opportunity to attend her next burlesque performance, I’ve meant to go to several but work obligations and other things have always seemed to get in the way. Cherry I must note was incredibly kind enough to link to me and I find I sit in a prime position on her blog just below Wassabusco and Dacia - actually a very good place to be! Maybe she will one day model for Mr. Sketchy’s or I’ll get a chance to take some shots at her next performance and post them up on the flickr site.

I would certainly buy both these ladies a drink if the opportunity were to afford itself - hell, I think I have a couple of bottles of champagne around here I would be willing to throw in the mail if only I knew where to send them to. Anyway, they are both incredibly charming women and I send out heartfelt birthday greetings their way.

More Friday Cat Blogging...

...OR HELP ME MY CAT IS POSSESSED!



Anna pre-haircut, in the carrier and moaning woefully. I hate hearing her like that but, she is generally a lot happier after the clipping.

Big brother would be proud!

The police cameras will constantly keep watch over neighborhoods plagued by crime and monitor potential terror targets as the city moves to put another 1,200 cops on the street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

The exact locations of the cameras were not revealed, but the electronic eyes will be set up in 253 spots, including many Operation Impact zones - high-crime areas already targeted by teams of cops.

One night (when I was working nights), on the way home I was stopped by the police. I was driving up Broadway trying to get over to H&H to get a bagel to take home when the lights came up behind me. I was really annoyed.

See, I had seen the cruiser when I stopped for the light going up Broadway at Columbus Circle. I hadn’t paid particular notice of it. As I made my way up Broadway, I have to say I was more tired from a long shift than anything else. Being just after 5am, my main interest was getting a bagel and getting home. The drive home is always more leisurely than the drive to work. Broadway is bumpy in the sixties so I didn’t feel like going fast (banging up the car in the process) but, I imagine my slowness must have piqued the curiosity of the boys in blue.

After following me for a few blocks in their cruiser (ironically which had a defective non-working headlight - an equipment violation), I was pulled over.

At this point in life, it’s the exception rather than the rule when this happens. It’s never something I eagerly anticipate but, at this moment in my day it’s just plain aggravating, especially when I'm not speeding or doing anything else. I turned the car off, turned off my headlights, rolled down the window and lazily leaned back against the headrest as the officer warily approached the car (his partner flanking me on the passenger’s side in the very best police trained fashion). In between getting pulled over, shutting off the car, I pulled the lap belt over and latched it. I don’t often ride with the seat belt in use and it’s become just another reason to get a ticket.

The officer approached. I initiated our dialog, “Is there a problem, Officer?” My voice was laced with no small amount of impatience at the interruption of my journey to a welcoming bed.

“Um...” there was a pause as the officer tried to come up with a reason for the traffic stop. “Well, you didn’t have your shoulder belt on.” He could plainly see the lap belt strapped over me stymying his ability to write a ticket for that specific violation. “Can I see your license and registration please?”

When I was looking for the registration, I had thumbed open the glove compartment, prompting the officer‘s partner to shine his flashlight into the glove compartment. Meanwhile, on the passenger’s seat in a misshapen pile were my warm winter coat, my bag, another bag containing remnants of whatever food I had taken to work with me to snack on and the newspapers. Quite the unshapely bundle next to me there. I didn’t have the registration but forked over my license. As I waited, they went back to the cruiser and performed whatever intrusive magic PO’s perform in this brave new electronic age.

I must to point out, now, when the rare occasion presents itself and I am pulled over, the officer is usually much younger than me. There is something less fearsome in being pulled over now than there was as a teenager or a younger man. Then, the officer was a bit of an authority figure, now they are just another wet behind the ears eager beaver.

A few days prior to this I had been walking along the street and had another officer yell at me after I approached him regarding a continuing nuisance out in front of the building I’ve been working in.

A string of loud profanity to erupted from the officer when I interrupted his contemplative moment. Staring off into space, he looked as if he was trying to mentally note where the closest Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts shop. It seems, I was the third person who had inquired as to whether or not the police could provide some respite from our problem. As the third person in a string of people, I had lit a fuse in the young man hence the barrage of the profane.

My traffic stop, happening as closely on the heels of my prior negative experience, found a certain amount of residual contempt for my present blue stalwart. He returned indicating everything was in order and all the while I am thinking - DON’T YOU HAVE SOMETHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR TIME?

In the interim, I get a phonecall from work (of course). I loudly rant into the phone about being stopped for no reason and about the idiocy of even being stopped in the first place. I am speaking in very loud, easily audible tones, as the officer sheepishly approaches my car to return my documents. Rather than get off the phone or better still, start to drive off while continuing to talk on the damnable phone (a sure moving violation), I remained sitting in the stopped car with the cruiser behind me. The officers impatiently waiting for me to start my vehicle and pull out so they can continue forward without backing up.

Needless to say, I stayed on the phone long enough for them to get antsy and back into one of the side streets and turn around and go back down Broadway. Now looking back, I wonder what I was thinking but, at the time all I was, was very tired.

Friday cat blooging.



A soon to be rare sight as today kitty goes for a haircut.

Memories of a bygone era.



Just came across this series of IBM ads from years ago up at the DigiBarn website. They’re interesting not only for the design of the ads which captures the sensibilities of the era so very well but also, because of the way they position the product. The story of the DigiBarn itself is an interesting one since it’s a museum of the computer. Worth taking a look at.

Work and you.

This previously unfinished entry was started back in the beginning of March. I thought it still had some value so, I finally got around to getting the damn thing done...

So much to do so little time to do it all. The old saw applies today in the workplace more than anywhere else. A couple of long days on the job and I find myself looking at work through a jaundiced (if tired) eye. It’s not so bad, except for the long hours and at this point in life I find the body can only do so much before it rebels.

Speaking of which, something happened the other day which was quite interesting...

A co-worker, a friend if you will, has been toiling away with me on and off for the last few days.

I’m no longer gung ho about work anymore, not that I’m surly, I just won’t buy into the rah-rah stuff. I’d probably buy into it a bit more if any of the places that tried to foist it on me would have figured out you need to reward people for going those extra miles but, it’s been my experience the whole employer/employee relationship is often a one way street. You put in your hard work, toil and sweat and in return you should be thankful to have a job.

In previous generations people would spend their entire working careers with an employer. These days, it’s the exception, not the rule. The economy slows down and expenses have to be trimmed, so people must be cut, they don’t keep you on just because of years of good service. Hell, if you’ve managed to work your salary up to a respectable level, it may mean you are even more of a target because of it.

The result of this is a dysfuntionality in the whole work dynamic, people are understandably worried much of the time, job security for people today can be termed tenuous at best. This results in people doing things that just aren’t good for them.

Case in point, the aforementioned co-worker/friend. The person in question, has a tendency to put in way too many hours in working than is good for a person. Toiling away through a day shift and a night shift (consecutively), getting very little sleep, surviving on coffee and little else. The job is sedentary, there isn’t a true abundance of physical toil but, that doesn’t mean your body still doesn’t suffer the effects of all those long days.

People‘s body’s are funny in that you can only ignore the signals your body sends you for awhile before the body figures out a more dramatic way to get your attention.

This particular Monday had been a long day and round about 5am I just about had it. A long drive ahead of me, it being Monday (meaning I had been up a bit earlier than I normally would have bee), when 5am rolled around it REALLY felt like it was 5am. I don’t know about most of you but, I’m not really effective after about 9 hours of having my ass parked in front of a computer. After 9 hours or so my mind begins to wander, all I can think about is how the crappy office chair I’m sitting in is really uncomfortable, what it would be like to be in bed at the moment, how many bad life choices bought me to the point where I had to sit in a chair for nine hours, blah, blah, blah, blah - you get the drift.

5am rolled around the shift had dragged out to almost 12 hours and the last three or so hadn’t been all that pleasant. Besides tomorrow’s another day! I no longer buy into the work until everything is done mantra, not since it has become a way to cover a lack of proper staffing and leads to people rapidly burning themselves out.

I scooted out of the office at 5am and started to make my way back to the hinterlands just hitting the cusp of the morning rush hour. Even with the twelve hours I had put in, it was somewhat frowned upon when I announced my intention to leave but, so be it.

As fate would have it, I didn’t immediately jump onto the highway as I would normally. I proceeded to look for a mailbox to mail out a letter (got to pay those bills). I was on a quest, not realizing the corner mailbox is fast becoming a thing of the past. I didn’t realize it but, in Manhattan anyway, the terrorists have won in you can hardly find a mailbox on the street anymore! Something so relatively innocuous and convenient has now become the matrix for terrorist activity on the urban streets. So, I imagine in the name of safety, street mailboxes are vanishing faster than Bush supporters.

I made it up to around midtown when my phone started vibrating in my chest pocket. I couldn’t fish the thing out quickly enough but, when I looked at the number and saw it was work my heart immediately sunk. My first thought was, “Oh no! Only three weeks on the job and already we’ve broken down those barriers where work intrudes on life past work hours. Already we’re beginning the odyssey of the work emergency phone call.”

A lot of people know exactly what I’m talking about, immediately I was thrust onto the horns of a dilemma, to call back or not to call back? The Hamlet-like question of the morning, suffering the slings and arrows... well you get the drift. Finally, I succumbed and I called back only to wind up speaking with a very shaking up supervisor. The friend who had worked a day shift and night shift, still at work when I left, succumbed finally to exhaustion in the form of a seizure!

The guy had had seizures before. While I hadn’t been present when they happened, I was fairly nonplussed by the whole seizure thing having experienced myself a few decades back. Plainly put, it’s more embarrassing than anything else for the person having the seizure. You don’t feel so hot on the tail end of the thing but, the really off-putting moment is realizing how little control you have over your own body. Embarrassing to be sure but supremely terrifying to lose command of one’s own ship of self.

I had intended to speak to the supervisor in question about keeping my friend on a limited amount of hours to avoid exactly what had happened but seeing as how the guy was only on his second day I hadn’t had the opportunity to get around to having the conversation.

The upshot of everything was I wound up getting little sleep that day as I felt obligated just to go to the hospital and be there for the guy. How horrible is it for something to happen to someone and no one is there for you? I mean, I had to make sure the guy was alright.

In the meantime, the supervisor was absolutely, positively freaked out by the whole thing. I’m sure it was an unnerving experience but the guy was just totally shaken up. There had been a bit of a resultant mess from the incident which meant the supervisor had to toss his shirt, socks and shoes. I went back to work to get my friends possessions only to find the supervisor shaking, really out of sorts and unclad. I almost wish I had used my camera (which I did have that morning) and taken a picture to capture the moment for posterity but it probably would have bordered on bad taste.

It didn’t stop me from taunting the shaken and distraut man by observing how I thought he was a truly nice guy - what had he done to terrify my friend so? I would have to rethink my whole approach to him as a person! The next evening when I came in, of course this was the talk of the department. The event that had happened, everyone was curious to whether or not I had been there at the moment and I took the opportunity to equate the supervisor to the incredible Hulk having torn off his shirt and socks and shoes and running around like a madman.

I’m horrible, what can I say.

At the end of everything, I spent a bit of time at the hospital with my friend and explained all the necessary background information to the medical staff. After it became obvious he wasn’t going to get out in the next hour or so I left him with his possessions and a voucher so he could at least get a car home. Mind you, he was looking at his watch while he laid on a gurney in the emergency room of the hospital and when I asked him why he was looking at his watch he responded he was concerned how he might not be able to make it to work that day!

There’s dedication and then there’s something bordering on work insanity. The only thing I can say at the end of all this was, don’t let this happen to you.

On a Sunday no less!

You know, if you mistype the address of my blog you wind up at some kind of Mega Studies bible site! How f**king weird is that!

Friday cat blogging.

Trying to get back into the habit:



What! What! I’m comfortable here!

Wow!

It’s almost May!?!? Where does the time go?

So fitting for Easter?

Mom: Baby, now if you don’t put your coat on, I’m gonna spank you.
Little girl: No! I will tell Daddy and he will spank you.
Mom: No, baby, he will not. Nobody spanks me but Jesus.

—M101 bus

Overheard by: Lucy Sorensen

From the incredible Overheard in NY site.

Lost weekend.

What I call the many hours spent diagnosing drives and reinstalling system software. Watching the computer come up in the shell and really missing simpler days of OS9.

I’m free.

The precipice.

I imagine I shouldn’t sit down and write something while I have White Riot by the Clash playing but, I get this feeling we are on a precipice. By that I mean we are on the verge of one of those periods where our society undergoes significant social change.

Looking back over the course of my life, I think the mid-nineties (93-97) was one of those periods where a lot happened. It was the dawn of the age of the web, the end of the nuclear arms race as we had lived with it from the fifties and sixties with the breakup of the USSR. The late nineties was just the country waking up from all the frenzied speculation as things came back to earth. You think about 98 through 01 and it was more about the bubble bursting than anything else. Everything since September 11th has been about the war on terrorism.

I never think of the eighties as being much of anything after about 82 except a lot of really bad music (hair bands) and all the years of trickle down economics. The mid to late seventies are still those wonderful days of being a teenager and watching the growth of punk and lots of other cool things (which amazingly some of which survives even to today).

Today, reminds me of the fifties and early sixties in a way. Boom times followed by a frenzy of patriotism. Then, the late sixties happened and everything changed. Could we be approaching another period like the late sixties? I think we might be. Two terms of Junior, war overseas with no end in sight, an economy that seems to be in a state of uncertainty. Do people have faith in the institutions of society today? In government? In business?

I wonder, if you put people into a position where they no longer feel secure in their jobs and they find that the framework of the society around them will do little to address their needs, how long will it be before the populace takes notice.

Just some random speculation on my part of course but, I always like to look at analogies throughout history and recent events have me wondering.

What I do with my free time.

Take pictures and screw around with them in Photoshop.