Roger & David, they knew something.......

Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?

I haven't posted in a while. There are several reasons, some practical, some not.

Come on, now.
I hear youre feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again.

Work has take a large part of my energy the last 3 weeks. A project we've been working on since January was implemented the weekend before last, and we've been cleaning up since. It has been difficult to think of anything else lately.

Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts:
Can you show me where it hurts?

Summer has hit full blast. The drought from the beginning of summer has given away to rain, rain, rain. At least, so it seems. I try to mow the lawn, or work on the house, or go outside to play with the dog and it starts sprinkling, or it's just finished raining.

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.

But it's more than work or the weather. I've been mired in melancholia for a while now. I don't seem to have any mental energy. I've no creative energy. I can't find anything I'm sufficiently interested in to blog about. I read your blogs and I am hard pressed to find a comment, so they wind up being half-assed, superficial blurbs.

When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I cant explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.

I read through posts or comments of the people who went to Blogher and see the enthusiam and the obvious blast that it was and (other than a slight envy that people are meeting in person) all I get out of it is a "eh, so" kinda feeling.

Ok.
Just a little pinprick. [ping]
Therell be no more --aaaaaahhhhh!
But you may feel a little sick.

I don't know right now what I can do to kick myself in the ass and wake up here. It isn't that there aren't things to look forward to. I'm 6 - 8 weeks from my trip to Bahrain. I had been tutoring myself in Arabic, trying to pick it back up and I've lost interest in that too.

Can you stand up?
I do believe its working. good.
Thatll keep you going for the show.
Come on its time to go.

I did wake up briefly for HP7, but that was quickly gone too (I read too damned fast). The movie was good, saw it the same day I bought the book. Somehow, I don't think Balls of Fire will make up for the ending of the HP series.

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.

So, this is why I'm not on top of my game right now. It's been easier not to post than to. But I haven't stopped trying. The pendulum will swing, as it always does, and I will get back into things. Just be patient with me, I would appreciate it.

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

little black cloud........

"gloom, despair, agony on me.
deep, dark depression, excessive misery
if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.
gloom, despair, agony on me."

crappy week so far, hopin' for better.

school daze

in a fit or originality (not) I thought I'd steal this meme from meno.

High School

(just as a preface, I went to 3 different high schools, but all of this is from the last where I was a jr. and sr.)

1. Who was my best friend? Van. He and I hung out and double-dated until we graduated. He and I went to different colleges. After our first quarter (I finished before he did) he invited me to spend the weekend with him on campus. It took him all weekend to work up the nerve to tell me he was gay. I didn't care. from then on, whenever he and I were back in our hometown at the same time, he would take me to the greatest (gay) bars I never knew existed and we would dance the night away. I learned a lot about how gay people are treated here in the south (and maybe everywhere) and it left me with the ability to accept people for who they are and not what they do. I also learned how to gracefully turn down offers for "dates".

2. What sports did you play. none. didn't have the jock mentality, and high school and college sports in the rural south are almost a religion and me an atheist.....

3. What kind of car did you drive? an early-seventies Mercury Comet for basic transportation. it had a 3-speed manual and was fun to drive. For dates I would drive a 1972 Pontiac Catalina ( a boat of a car with bench seats front and back. GREAT make-out car). for special occasions I begged to use our "good" car, a 1978 Buick LaSabre - turbocharged!.

4. It's Friday night, where were you? During football season I would hit the local pizza joint. off-season, I was at home. date night was usually Saturday night for me.

5. Were you a party animal? oh, hell no. I was reclusive, wasn't part of any "in" group.

6. Were you considered a flirt? oh, hell no. (see above). I was also painfully shy around girls.

7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? I was in the marching band, orchestra, and jazz band. (marching band = football season after game pizza joint)

8. Were you a nerd? we were called squares back then.

9. Did you get suspended/expelled? oh, hell no. (see #5 & 6).

10. Can you sing the fight song? I remember we had one, I had to play it in band, but since I was always playing it I don't ever remember learning the words. In any case, I can't remember the tune nor the lyrics.

11. Who was your favorite teacher? I guess I would have to say our band director. He worked our asses off but we consistantly made 1's in our competitions.

12. School Mascot? raiders (pirate).

13. Did you go to prom? I went to my junior prom but not my senior. I had broken up with the girl I had invited to the junior prom a month or so before it occured but we went anyway. we wound up getting back together sometime during my senior year and we were still together when I left town to go to college. it didn't last my first quarter.

14. If you could go back and do it over, would you? oh hell, no. (I wrote about this briefly here.) The gist is that I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't been the person I was then. but that isn't to say I haven't thought about it!

15. What do you remember most about graduation? losing my tassel when tossing my cap at the end of the ceremony. I was an honor student and it was a special tassel and I was proud of that/it. I went to the school the next day and scrounged another one.

16. Where were you on senior skip day? we didn't have an official senior skip day, and I wasn't hip enough to know if an unofficial one was planned/taken.

17. Did you have a job your senior year? I worked weekends at the local library in the fine arts department - Van was working there and let me know of an opening. The director of the department was openly gay and he wound up hitting on me one night. I was "rescued" from him by the deputy director of the library that night and upon, in turn, I hit on. after I left the library (when I went to college) my former boss was brought up on charges for making anonymous threatening phone calls to another official at the library. I had a second job during the summer after I graduated high school cutting down trees.

18. Where did you go most often for lunch? I didn't each lunch, I went to the school library and worked.

19. Have you gained weight since then? oh, hell yes.

20. What did you do after graduation? During the summer worked for a one-man tree service. Usually I would drive his dump truck and load it with what he had cut down, but I did climb & cut for some time while he recovered from falling out of a tree and spiking himself. near the end of the summer he was driving me over to pick up the dump truck when someone ran out into the road in front of us and we hit him. As it turned out Gary (the one-man) had a suspended license from a DUI so he ran from the scene. After spending 20 minutes at his aunt & uncle's house trying to establish an alibi, Gary took me back to my car and I split. I called the cops and they asked me to help look for him, so I spent the next hour riding around town in a cop car scared shitless we would actually find him (he was made of muscles and had a hell of a temper) - but we didn't. (he turned himself in the next day). needless to say, that was the end of that job. I started college that fall.

21. When did you graduate? 1980.

22. Who was your prom date? I am ashamed to say I cannot remember her name right now. We didn't go to the same high school so I can't look at my annual to see. weird thing is, even though I can't remember her name, I can still see her face and I still know how to get to her house.

23. Are you going/did you go to your 10 year reunion? nope.

24. Who was your home room teacher? don't have a clue.

25. Who will repost this after you? don't have a clue. I'm not omnipotent either.

TGIF - I think?

***edited, go to bottom***

here's a summary of how my week has gone:

Saturday - I installed a window and prepared the wall for the siding.

Sunday - biweekly visit to mom & dad. left mid-afternoon to start on siding and the flooding commenced. got donuts instead.

Monday - sunny all day, left work to start on siding and it started sprinkling. just enough to keep the weeds growing, and to prevent wall construction. ate rest of donuts.

Tuesday - ditto, except with jello & cool whip.

Wednesday - work from 9:00 AM to 9:30 PM putting up siding. fell off of ladder onto old A/C window unit, huge scratch and massive bruise on thigh. (very impressive, too. I'd post a picture but it frightens even me, I don't want to make the internets green around the gills).

Thursday - find out daughter's laptop battery won't hold a charge, take out second mortgage to buy new one. ipod will have to wait until I can spare a kidney.

Friday - come home, plug my cell phone in to charge - it won't charge. battery almost dead. (there are numbers in there I don't have anywhere else and don't know how to replace). time for new cell phone? start on trip to visit hardware store and cell phone store and supper and car breaks down halfway between towns on interstate - in a almost dead spot for cell signal. it starts to rain. do the bizarre-gestures-like-for-surrealist-painting-find-cell-signal-pose and yell into phone and redial umpteen times to call for tow truck & daughter to come get us. (knew there was a reason I kept up the roadside insurance w/Laura's cell phone.) wait 1.5 hours for tow and when it finally arrives and is being winched up onto the truck a part falls out from the engine compartment. take car to shop, resume interrupted trip for hardware getting to the store 20 minutes before close and do my best O.J. Simpson airport impression to get stuff (on opposite sides of cavernous building - of course) - and finally eat supper.

tomorrow - find out if it will take an arm or an arm and a leg to fix the car, start putting the trim back up around the eaves to finally finish wall, and hope I can stay on the damned ladder this time.

if I don't surface after the weekend, you'll know it was 'cause one more incident pushed me over the edge and my head exploded. send CSI over, it will take a whole team to find what's left of my sanity.

addenda

I decided (at her insistence) that since urban-urchin was brave enough to show her injuries, mine couldn't be ALL that bad, so:



actually, it looks better today than it did a day or so ago.

also, I want to leave you with an exchange between the tow truck guy and Laura:

TTG: What year is this jeep?

L: 1988

TTG: And it's still running. (in an admiring tone)

L: it was until a few minutes ago.