Monthly Archive for February, 2006

happy happy, joy joy

Published on February 26, 2006 in Family & Friends, Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I got so many messages from people about my “depressing little story” that I decided I should try to make a happy post to make up for it. So let’s start with this:

Thanks to Mom, I have a brand new car. It’s just like hers, big ol’ extended warranty and everything. It’s peppy and spacious and comfortable and white. I’ll take pictures at some point. I’m still busy enjoying all the neat little things it can do. This is the first car with remote locks that I’ve owned… and the first with fog lights … and the first with airbags … and the first with more cupholders than it can hold passengers. It’s my first new car… heck it’s the first car I’ve owned that hasn’t been 15 or more years old. It’s a little overwhelming, but it’s fun.

That’s it, I guess… for happy. I tried to think of some more happy stuff, but it’s all seems like “not that bad” stuff, as opposed to happy: I haven’t used up all of my savings, yet. Alicia only talks about breaking up when she’s drunk. Ropes is probably still going to happen this spring, even though Andy, the best boss I ever had, left. There might be more teen center hours in the coming months. I haven’t been running my computer for long enough periods of time for that audio bug to show itself very often. The cat’s not being annoying, tonight. The car Mom bought me gets way better gas mileage than my dream car would have. Etc., etc.

Oh… it’s my birthday. That’s happy, I guess. My cousin is trying to get my sister and my mom, who are apparently both attending some sort of tupperware party in Plymouth, to go out to dinner with me afterwards… of course, I’m working way out in Southbridge, so we did a little “If Eileen, Karen and Mark leave Plymouth at 6 and head west and John leaves Southbridge at 5.30 and heads East, where could they meet and eat dinner that wouldn’t take any of them to far out of the way of their final destinations?” brainstorming/figuring and decided that somewhere near Woonsocket would be ok middle ground. So I asked around a little and got a good recommendation for Gregg’s in East Providence and suggested it to Mark… haven’t heard back yet, we’ll see how it goes.

if a badger sees his shadow an undetermined number of years of inadequacy follow

Published on February 25, 2006 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , .

Here’s a short story, loosely based on the groundhog day tradition, since it’s still February.

Once upon a time there was badger who liked digging holes and living in them. He changed holes occasionally, but whatever hole he was working on, he got really into it, and only came out at night to forage for food and other such necessities, so he could stay alive and keep digging his hole. There were a couple times when the hole got old, or he hit a rock and decided to come out in the daytime. Then he’d run into other woodland creatures and be forced to interact with them. Sometimes he liked the other animals and sometimes he didn’t. Occasionally, he’d like one so much that he’d forget all about digging holes. Then, inevitably, on a really sunny day, he would see his own shadow, and run back to his hole…

There was a hole that became unfulfilling, last year, and he ventured out into the daylight, again. And he found some of the other animals, who had missed him, and he spent a lot of time with them. But the sun shone brightly again and he saw his shadow… but this time, his shadow spoke to him. It said,
“I am your shadow and I am part of you. You cannot get rid of me and you cannot change me. But, that’s not really the bad news…”
The badger tilted his head quizzically.
“The bad news is that your hole-digging days are over. So, you can try and hide in the dark out here, but you won’t be able to avoid the light all the time. You, and others, are going to see me a lot more; Most others aren’t going to like me, when they do. You can warn others about me, but it probably won’t prepare them.”
So, the badger was doomed to a life of daylight and dealing with his shadow… trying to decide when to hide it and when to warn others. But his shadow was right, and most others don’t know how to deal with him. He longs for digging, but can’t do it. So, he hides in the dark places, but eventually light shines down and he tries not to disappoint.

No, there isn’t a happy ending. Get over it.

bullshit

Published on February 23, 2006 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: .

I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately… more accurately, I’ve been watching a lot of DVDs and downloaded videos of some of my favorite shows. When I have some spare time at home, I watch an episode or two of or or the third season (not released yet). This is a spectacular show that debunks all sorts of things that most of the world believes in and/or takes for granted. I think the entire series should be required viewing for all 16 year olds… maybe earlier, I can’t decide.

check out the topics

New season starts in April. I can’t wait.

phantom blue 06 Mazda5

Published on February 21, 2006 in Family & Friends and moBlog. Closed Tags: , , .

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mom’s new car… Picked it up today

Everything works now!

Published on February 16, 2006 in Music and moBlog. Closed Tags: , , .

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mission accomplished. made small holes in front of ashtray with a hot nail. bought a second lighter extension to reach the sirius power that happened to have the right size screws to attach the power strip. Radio Shack audio switch attached to bottom of power strip with Velcro. bam.

need a project, I think

Published on February 11, 2006 in Music and Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , .

I decided that I’m still not happy with the music situation in my car and need to do something about it. The main issue is that I wan’t to be able to easily switch between iPod and Sirius. I can achieve this, but I’m not entirely happy with the set-up. Both the Sirius and the iPod are going through the Aux-in of my car stereo, and I have an external switchbox from Radio Shack that can easily toggle between them. Problem #1, no matter how I set it up, is that the switchbox is sitting on the passenger side floor and needs to be mounted somewhere near the radio. Problem #2 is the only way I can switch between them now is by having the iPod loose on the seat next to me (which makes me constantly worried about it flying to the floor on a short stop) or in the armrest/console thing (which makes changing songs tedious). Both of those situations are no good at all when there are passengers in the car. I do own a cool little dock for the iPod which charges it and holds it up on a flexible arm… unfortunately, this requires a nice stable cigarette lighter outlet. My main outlet is in a broken ashtray, which would fall to the floor if I put too much pressure on it, and the “power strip” is in the glove compartment, which would be a little far to reach, just to change the song on the iPod, and it is just loose in there, not mounted. I would mount it closer to the middle of the car, but the power cable for the Sirius is tucked into the trim of the car and just reaches the strip where it is now. I was thinking that I might be able to mount the “power strip” on the front of the ashtray, since it doesn’t fall to the ground if it’s mostly closed. if I could find some way to extend the power cable of the Sirius, this seems like the best idea… I would need to find a way to extend the power if I went with my original Mod idea and replaced the ashtray with a shelf someday. That seems like the only way I’ll get the audio switch off the ground anyway… and obviously, securing the “power strip” and the switch to a metal shelf welded onto the existing ashtray frame would be way more secure than trying to mount the thing on the plastic ashtray with the broken rails.

And then I think to myself, “I need to replace the driver’s seat if I’m going to keep driving this car, maybe I should be shopping for a new car a little more seriously.” Which leads me to wonder whether any of this work would be worth it at all. And then I start thinking about the work I’d have to put into cleaning the car up to make it sellable and it seems like even more work. And while the car runs pretty well, I don’t think it owes me much of anything, so I’d probably sell it for the cost of the radio I put in it… which I actually put into the first wagon I owned, so it doesn’t owe me much either. Maybe I should donate it back to the place I bought it… not that my itemized deductions would ever add up to more than the “standard” deductions when I do my taxes.

it must get better

Published on February 10, 2006 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Break-downs, losing my mind, freak-outs. I’d like to take this time, when I feel sort of stable and write down some of the thoughts that crossed my mind today during a conversation about losing one’s mind. I am reminded of three major events which might be called break-downs. There were other smaller events, but these are the ones that pop into my head. I can look back at them now, in a sort of detached way, for some reason… maybe enough time has passed that I just don’t feel like that person anymore… or maybe that last break-down really did take that person away.

The first one, the earliest, was my second semester at UMASS. I had stopped playing music (for the first time in years), in an attempt to bring my grades up. It was a tremendous failure. I was truly addicted to music and performance and I was just realizing it for the first time. My roommate had left to go live with some friends in another dorm… so I had no one to tell me how crazy I was getting… and there was no one to kick my ass out of bed. I had been down before, a little depressed, not up to doing certain things… but this was extreme. I wasn’t up to getting up. I spent whole days in bed, whole weeks in my room. The bathroom was only a few steps out of my room, and I had a fully stocked micro-fridge. This was, of course, after I decided that I was not going to finish the semester and was going to leave school for an undetermined amount of time. This breakdown probably lasted about a month and a half. I know I spent a little time outside before the semester ended… I even went to the last couple classes I cared about.

The second time I lost my mind was the most fun. It was completely induced by a combination of my physical condition and being completely stir-crazy. I was working at an after-school day care in Woonsocket and I contracted Chicken Pox from the kids. I didn’t realize it until I was down in Baltimore for a gig with Mark, but that’s a story for another day. When I finally got home and figured out what I had, I was given some big blue pills and told to stay home for a couple weeks. I got myself all set up at home with enough food and supplies that I didn’t have to leave for a couple weeks… ready to start the recovery. I didn’t realize how long the itching and fever would last, though. It’s much worse as an adult than as a child apparently. Two weeks dragged by, the TV and Computer and such grew old in the first couple days… so I just sat and thought, and itched, and fevered. And by the time I wasn’t contagious anymore, I was completely wacked out. I wasn’t in my right mind… I’m not sure what had happened, exactly. But I took almost an extra week to get myself back into a work-worthy state of mind.

The third and most recent incident was that long set of circumstances I call “last year.” The whole year, really. At the beginning of the year, my lowest income season, I lost my roommates and became very, very poor… Got some new roommates, and they helped the money situation a little bit. I also joined a band with them, and the combination of wanting that band to be really a really good time and some general job dissatisfaction led to a mini melt-down where I abandoned my hyper-focus on work and decided to “live a little.” That led to falling in love… which led to driving 800 miles to get dumped… which led to some “curl up in a ball on the couch for a few hours every day for a month” depression. The logical course of action would have been to go back to my hyper-focus lifestyle, but at that point, I couldn’t even focus enough to continue playing in the bands I was in. So I limped along, and just about the time I had given up on trying to figure out how to get back to that lifestyle I missed and try to learn how to live without the ability to focus the way I used to, my Dad fell into a coma and then died.

UMASS was a learning experience, which I unfortunately didn’t take in completely, since I went back to school after a year off, only to fail out again. The Chicken Pox were a hellish experience that proved to me that I couldn’t ever really be a hermit/shut-in. But “last year” didn’t teach me much of anything. I already knew about all these eccentricities I have in regards to life and love. Alright, so some of the last year was fun, but I feel like I paid dearly for those fun times by losing my focus and not having it at times when I really needed to have it. What it has left me with, is a nasty inability to focus and nasty little freak-out sessions when I try. I don’t know how to explain it, but when I try to focus on something intensely, the way I used to focus on just about everything, I freeze up. I don’t know what to call it: Mini panic attacks? Mind moving a million miles an hour? Inability to function and communicate? I dunno. It sucks though. Does it get worse from here? Do we lose a little more with each episode?

Again. I may not be 100% … but just the fact that I can look back at all this and have some perspective is progress. Perspective is something I used to be good at. It’s something I used to offer my friends… I gave up offering actual advice because no one ever took it, but I gave my perspective and was asked for it quite a bit, since it was usually so different.