Because it’s fun…

I’m pressed for time, true, but even if I wasn’t I wanted to steal this quick meme from Crisitunity.  Enjoy!

***

1. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?

Karl Rove.

2. You can flip a switch that will wipe any band or musical artist out of existence. Which one will it be?

Hmm.  I dunno, even artists that grate on me have served a purpose.  I’m tempted to do something wholly heretical like say “The Beatles” or “Michael Jackson” just to see how popular music would have evolved without them.  But for now I think I’ll say “I pass.”

3. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?

Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or anybody who’s actually making a living by gleefully pounding a wedge between the American people.  Yes, including liberals who do the same, although I tend to hate the right-wing fearmongers more.

4. What is your favorite cheese?

Provolone.

5. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your immediate disposal. What kind will you make?

Hmm.  Chicken cordon bleu.  Except with endangered chickens.  Mmmm.

6. You have the opportunity to sleep with the movie celebrity of your choice. We are talking no-strings-attached sex and it can only happen once. Who is the lucky celebrity of your choice?

My obvious and immediate answer would be “Salma Hayek.”  But that “only happen once” thing – aside from being laughably impossible in and of itself – would it be better to nail somebody mediocre-looking, or at least crappy in the sack?  You know, so you wouldn’t just pine away for them every day of the rest of your life afterward?

7. You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Whom do you pick?

Honestly, I don’t lust after any female artists (or male, for that matter).  The one I’m most thoroughly ga-ga over is Alison Krauss, but I think she’s so angelically beautiful that I have a hard time thinking of her in a sexual way.

8. Now that you’ve slept with two different people in a row, you seem to be having an excellent day because you just came across a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk. Holy shit, a hundred bucks! How are you gonna spend it?

Logically I should put it toward my massive credit card debt.  If I had to blow it, I’d put it toward either a good tent for me and Boy or the $99 drum-simulator software I’ve been drooling over.

9. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

Right now?  Fuck, there are no GP races going on right now!  Because that’s ideally where I’d go – to a GP race in Italy or Spain or Australia.  If I had to go right now, I’d say Australia just for the change of season, but visiting some of my blog buddies in warmer climes could be just as cool.

10. Upon arrival to the aforementioned location, you get off the plane and discover another hundred-dollar bill. Shit! Now that you are in the new location, what are you gonna do?

Go out to eat, be semi-daring and try something new and local, and order some good booze.

11. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. It is…?

23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle.  If I have to name my favorite that I’ve actually been able to afford myself, Elmer T. Lee.

12. Rufus appears out of nowhere with a time-traveling phone booth. You can go anytime in the PAST. What time are you traveling to and what are you going to do when you get there?

I’d go back to the day of the infamous Jamie incident, wake myself up first thing that morning, and convince the younger me to tell her, “Fuck you, I’m worth more than that.”

13. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?

RESPECT SHALL BE GIVEN.

14. You have been given the opportunity to create the half-hour TV show of your own design. What is it called and what’s the premise?

It would be called “Rubber Side Down” and it would be a “Long Way Down” all about North America.

15.What is your favorite curse word?

“Fuck,” but only if I use it creatively.  Otherwise it’s just cliché.

16.One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Tell them that the sterile tape is in the bathroom closet.

17. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the item?

My Fender.

18. You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What’s it gonna be?

Telepathy.  Oh, god, that’s who you want to have sex with right now?  You are sick.

19. You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

It would be some portion of Dys’s first visit to see me.  Maybe around the time we had our picture taken at the roadside overlook.  Or maybe the first half-hour after she got off the plane.  (Or maybe the second half-hour?)

20.You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

See Jamie Incident, above.

21. The constant absorption of magical moonbeams mixed with the radioactive vegetables you consumed earlier has given you the ability to resurrect the dead famous-person of your choice. So which celebrity will you bring back to life?

Elvis Presley, so I can kill him and exhibit the body as proof that the motherfucker is dead.

22. What’s your theme song?

The last song I claimed as a “theme song” was “Hellbound” by Pantera.  The song that most inspires me of late, though, is “Odal” by Agalloch.

Quick Hits

First off, HEAR YE, HEAR YE, for the forgetful among you, the next radio show is a week from tonight!  Mark your calendars, text it into your PDA, write it on your hand in blue ink, whatever you need to do!

I’ll be premiering my new radio show theme song (all 30 seconds or so of it) at the very beginning for those of you who are interested.  The only people who have heard it so far are the ones who actually offered an opinion on how it should sound.  Except Steve, because I utterly failed on the “Hot for Teacher” part, dude.

Probably not a good enough incentive to get people to tune in right at the dot of 10 Eastern, but wtf, right?

***

Boy is feeling better, although he’s crashing out pretty damned easily.  He fell asleep on the floor in his sleeping bag last night in the middle of an Iron Maiden documentary.  And it was HELL to wake him up just to get him to go to bed.  (He takes after his mother that way.)

***

I have to turn in all my accomplishments and crap from last year to my boss by the end of the day tomorrow.  Every year I look at the list and say, “That’s a short list to look at it, but FUCK it was a lot of work!  Can’t I pad it out like a college essay to make it look better?”

***

In related news, I have a big meeting later today to pitch a work project that I’m actually excited about (for a change).  For that reason, I’m wearing a tie for the second day in a row. I even threw on a dash of cologne that I bought as a Christmas present for Dys so I even smell kinda good.

Peanut gallery:  “You still look horrible, though.”
Me:  True.  And:  Thhbbpptttt.

But I really am excited about this.  My co-conspirators are equally excited.  And if the lawyers throw up any more blockades, I think we’ll collectively nad-punch them.

***

As I twittered this morning, I did curls for the first time in about 2 years this morning and FUCKING HELL my arms hurt.  I can get them to about a 150-degree angle just fine, but straightening them all the way out to a 180-degree straight line?  Fuckin’ ow.

I just had to interject that, because it’s a dull background noise for my day.  But generally I’m saving all my exercise-related words for No Butts, so if you want more head that way.  And if you don’t, well, you’ll be less bored over here.  (At least in that respect.)

***

Enough from me; shit to do!  Y’all have a good’un.

Public Service Announcement

Ladies and gentlemen,

The No Butts Crew is officially rockin’ again.

Lock up your exercise equipment.  And probably your chocolate.  Just to be safe.

That is all.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog reading, already in progress…

Massacre

I just finally had enough and blocked about a third of my Twitter followers.  I was just tired of looking at my “Followers” column and seeing nothing but links and bullshit.  I may yet go back and whack a handful more, but I was overly-generous on a couple of them because they’re motorcycle-related and that is at least a vaguely legit thing we have in common.  The mortgage stuff, Dove chocolates, assorted other “every single tweet contains a link” – ker-BLOCK.  And all of the ones with “make money free” tweets got reported for spam.

I always feel a little like an elitist prick for doing stuff like this, but in this case, said feeling is stupid.  I’m 98% positive that every one of them never read a single thing I actually said and could generally give a fuck less that I exist except to pad their numbers.  But I still feel weird that there’s a possibility, however slim, that someone’s a real person who wanted to hear what I had to say.  And I basically told them to fuck off.

So, if perchance you’re reading this and I blocked you, drop me a line.  Over/under on responses received:  0.0.

But hey, at least now I’m confident that over half my followers are actual, real people!

Up Close and Personal

Oh yeah.  I just HAD to talk about my concert on Friday night.  Too bad I didn’t do all of this that night when I got home all jazzed about it!

I’d had a pretty crappy week.  Not terrible, just a whole long grey rainy week full of blah.  So I was ready to throw it all away and let my hair down let my chrome dome shine.  As I said, I’d been looking forward to this for a long time.

After work, I changed into my Sheldon Cooper costume of a red Flash t-shirt over a charcoal long john shirt (like this, except bald with the piercings) and went to McDonald’s to grab some horrific grub that would sustain me for a long while.  I was in one of those positions in which not going home would give me a LOT of time to kill, but going home would have made me rushed as hell.  Knowing my week, Dys graciously gave me permission not to come home.  So instead I ate my burger and fries and read some Douglas Adams for a while before finally heading to the venue.  (My favorite local place – here’s the blog of the last show I saw there.)

The doors were set to open at 7, so I left McD’s a little after 6 and drove across town, parked up the street a block or so (the lot across the street wasn’t full, but I know it’s easier to get out from up the street a bit) and walked down to the venue at 6:30, where the line was already pretty frickin’ long.  I chose not to wear a hat or sweatshirt over what I had on, because I knew I’d be hot as hell later.  So outside, I quickly settled  into a nice shivering pattern.  I also, pardon the expression, had to piss like a Russian racehorse.  That’s a long fuckin’ half hour, especially when you spend it looking around and thinking, “Wow, this crowd is younger than I expected.  Quite a bit younger.  Oh, no fucking way, THOSE FIVE KIDS JUST GOT OUT OF A MINIVAN.  FOLLOWED BY THEIR MOM.”  (Consequences of mostly attending death-metal shows – they tend to draw a slightly older crowd than the 17-19 year olds that night.)

Finally they split the line into will-call and paper-ticket sections again.  Being smart, I had a paper ticket this time, so I got into the shorter line that would go in first.  The five-foot tall/four-foot-wide black bouncer with the enormous voice screamed, “IF YOU ARE OVER 21!  AND YOU INTEND TO GET DRUNK!  I NEED TO SEE YOUR ID PLEASE!  SO I CAN GIVE YOU A BRACELET!”  Behind him, someone hollered, “Bitch!”  To which he screamed over his shoulder, “FUCK YOU, NEEDLEDICK BASTARD!”  Heh.  I like this guy already.  I didn’t plan to drink, but fuck it, why not keep my options open?  I got a wristband.

I made it inside, bypassed the biggest part of the crowd that was heading to the bar, and went right for the men’s room, which looked more or less like you’d expect a men’s room in a small heavy metal venue would look.  I whizzed for about 10 minutes straight (using the abs – I didn’t wanna have to go again later, dammit!) and then went out to the floor.  Still very few people inside – bonus!  So what did ol’ TB do?  Oh yeah.  Ol’ TB went right the fuck up to the stage.  There was no rail.  It was my belly to the lip of the stage itself.  I was just to the right of the mic, in a gap between monitors – resting my arm on one of them.  This, I thought to myself, has the makings of one awesome night.

While the crowd filed in, a couple of other guys joined me right up front.  One was a kid who reminded me of myself about 18 years ago – thin, long haired, desperately guitar-dorky.  He was pissing himself with excitement, and kept babbling about all of the bands on the bill.  The other was a guy close to my own age, standing with his arms crossed and a dubious look on his face.  I exchanged vague conversations with the kid.  The kid turned to talk to the other guy, who talked music for a minute.  I heard him say he was a drummer.  The kid then asked, “Oh, well, which drummers do you like?”  The guy scoffs, “Oh, I quit listening to other drummers years ago.”  Okay.  Well, thanks for helping me peg you as a pretentious prick so quickly!  The kid continues to gush, though.  Eventually Pretentious Prick Drummer leaves, saying he’ll be back – only he doesn’t come back.  Oh, boo hoo. I’m just sorry I couldn’t remember his band’s ridiculous name so I couldn’t link you all to their Myspace page.

The first band takes the stage, looking like a couple of high school kids.  “Good evening everybody, we are Scale the Summit from Houston, Texas.”  They then launch into this upbeat, cool, and highly technical 7-string prog metal that really astounded me.  At one point I heard the kid say that they had met at Musician’s Institute, and brother, I can believe it.  These are clearly some kids who have studied their technique.  A LOT.  I defy any of you, yes ANY of you, to listen to this song all the way through and not be impressed.  That part around the 4-minute mark is two-hand tapping on the fretboard – by both guitarists.  And I’m saving the better song for next week’s Monday Music.

SO.  I’m standing here, looking up at this little blond kid who’s barely shaving standing above me with one foot on the monitor just beside my arm, and having my mind blown.  And this is the opening band – that probably merits a CD purchase sometime.  Yep.  A good night is on tap.

Scale the Summit leaves the stage, and the kid asks for and receives a guitar pick.  Myself and a couple of guys nearby me make small talk with them, and thank them for coming out.  They’re appreciative – one of the guitarists takes a couple of photos of the crowd.  Heh.  That sort of thing from a very young band is pretty damned cool.

So then the next band starts setting up.  The band I came to see.  OH YEAH.  DEVIN TOWNSEND, BABY.  Dev himself is over to one side of the stage.  Wearing a pinstriped suit over a black tank-top.  Hah!  I actually got to exchange a couple of words with him before the show.  I think I said “Hey man!  Nice threads!”  and he said “Nothin’ but the best!” before noticing, “Oops, my fly is down!”  *zip*

Now that’s not something you see every day.  One of your idols noticing that the ol’ barn door is open in front of a couple hundred people.

But whatever!  He was laughing and smiling and came over and shook my hand.  FUCKIN HELL.  STOKED.  ME.  YEAH.

They strapped up and started playing “Disruptr.”  Fuck yeah, I’d been listening to that tune earlier in the day!  So Dev is playing right over my head and to my left.  And then, every so often, he steps down into the gap between the monitors.  RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.  DUDE.  As I told Dys that night, I actually thought he had BO until I figured out it was the fuckhead to my right (not the kid) -  if he’d been any closer I’d have been able to tell you if he was circumcised or not.  I could have reached up and strummed his guitar for him.  If I dared.  He was standing in that spot when he got to my favorite part of my favorite song of his, the descending riff in “Truth.”  (Starts at 1:09 in this clip.)

Best of all, they were all having a fucking blast.  It’s not every day you see your favorite metalheads just busting out in big ol’ grins, but they all were.  Brian “the Beav” Waddell on the bass caught my eye a couple of times, grinning.  Dave Young on the rhythm guitar was all smiles after the show, and was talking with us as he packed up his pedalboard.  Promising that they’d be back.  HELL YEAH.  I hollered at Dev, “Hey, thanks for coming out, man!”  And he hollered back, “Thank YOU!”

Fuck yeah.

Next on the list was the band Cynic – this band was one of the leaders of the death/jazz fusion renaissance of the early 1990s in Florida, releasing a true classic album called “Focus” in 1993, but disbanded soon after.  They reunited just recently and released their second album in 2008.  These guys can PLAY.  The bandleader, Paul, plays and sings (with his vocals doubled an octave higher by electronic effects) and the other guitarist does the occasi0nal death scream.  The drummer was all the way to stage right (unusual, but cool) and the bass player was right in front of me, playing a gorgeous five-string.  The bass player would do this cool thing in which he’d drop into a deep, wide stance and slowly roll his head instead of headbanging.

Both guitarists played Steinberger guitars, most famous for being “headless.”   Lucky for me.  Because not only did Paul stand in the gap between the monitors to play, but he actually crouched down a couple of times while he did it – putting him right at my eye level.  He looked me in the eye and grinned while I hollered at him (something like “Fuckin’ go Florida!” or “holy shit!” or something equally loquacious).  Once when he stood up, well, if his guitar had had a headstock, I’d have needed stitches.

Also, and I emailed Crisitunity about this already – at one point Paul acknowledged “the onslaught of a four-band bill” and so led everybody in half-moon yoga poses.  “Arms straight up – hands together – forearms over your ears – now keep your hips in position and lean to one side…now to the other…there, you’ve had your first yoga lesson.”  HAH.  A surprising number of the crowd did so, too.

Considering I was all the way up front, I was not at all noticeably crowded until the end of Cynic’s set.  By then I was starting to feel a little pressure.  But I was mainly there for Dev, and to a lesser degree, Cynic, so I had always planned to abandon that post when Cynic was done.  So I did – I turned and walked away, at which point I heard a guy say, “FUCK, somebody’s gonna take THAT spot!”  At every other show I’d been to at this venue, the upstairs bar was closed and the merch table was over to one side, but this time the merch table was upstairs.  (It did seem to be a bigger crowd than I’d seen there before.)  So I’d planned to go upstairs, buy a shirt, and watch from the balcony.  And after fighting my way upstream through the crowd, that what I did.

I ended up with a zip-up DTP hoodie for $40.  The merch girl (who was a slightly big girl, but was drop-dead gorgeous) looked and looked for a 2X for me and came up empty, so I took a 1X and it’s turned out fine.  I went over and watched Between the Buried and Me (aka BTBAM, pronounced “Bee Tee Bam!” by the scene kids) from the rail.  I paid about as much attention to the moshers in the crowd, and the bouncers taking out the more rowdy and/or unreasonable of them, as I did to the band.  They were good – just not quite my cup of tea.

In the meantime, I noticed said gorgeous merch girl looking hellaciously bored.  It was hot as hell up there, and she was intermittently fanning herself with a bit of paper and texting someone.  I finally said, “WTF,” and walked up to her.  It took me a couple of tries to get her to hear me over the music, but I finally got it across to her:  “You can tell whoever you’re texting that some bald guy came over and told you you’re beautiful.”  When she finally heard me, that got a big smile and a “Thank you!!” which was pretty damned cool.  I then retreated back over to the rail again, every now and then looking her way, occasionally catching her looking my way, at which point we’d smile and both go back to what we were doing.  I’d planned on hanging out a little after the show to ask her name and then say goodbye, and I did hang out until the place was mostly empty but after they cleared the lower level the bouncers moved up top.  “If you ain’t buyin’, you’re flyin’!!”  I pondered lyin’, but decided nah.  It was time to go home.

After being so freakin’ hot upstairs, the cold air outside felt good.  I went home, woke Dys up from her nap on the couch (Xbox controller in hand, heh) and gushed for a few before sending a few quick squee-ish Twitters, taking a shower, and crashing.

All in all, probably the most fun I’ve ever had at a concert.  And that’s saying a lot.  Now I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping that the rumors and the vague promises by band members that night are true, that Dev will be back through on a headlining tour, and soon!

I don’t have many people that I admire enough to call an “idol.”  Dev happens to be one of them.  I’ve never before had the opportunity to face one such person, shake their hand, and thank them for what they do.  I have to say, it was fucking fantastic, and I hope I can do it more often.

Monday Music

Hoo boy.  First, I’m tempted to blow my self-imposed rule of never repeating a Monday Music song, and my self-imposed preference (not quite a rule) to not re-use an artist twice in one year.  Because HOLY SHIT Devin Townsend rocked my world last Friday night.  All told, all of the bands were excellent, and I think I’ll save the blog about the show for later (maybe today, maybe tomorrow).

But I’ll resist the temptation.  Barely.  Instead, I’ll post a song from one of the other bands on Friday night.  Highly technical jazz-metal?  Yes, please.

Cynic, “Integral Birth”

Or, if you wanna see something similar to what I did, try this live version of the same tune.

I’ll probably use another song from one of the OTHER bands as MM next week, because WOW.  So yeah, it was a good night.

More to come!  Woo!

Why So Serious?

Yeah, I know, yesterday’s post was kinda heavy and kinda came outta nowhere.  Sorry about that.  But as I said in the comments, I was just damned tired of all the mindless fluff I’ve been posting and I wanted to write about something that meant something to my life.  Truth be told, I’ve been inspired by reading through Maria’s blog (thanks for the recommendation, Heather!  And Happity Birfday!!)  On a dreary, bleary day, thass’ whatcha got.  You bought the ticket; take the ride, right?  But seriously, thanks a bunch to you guys for commenting on it.  Group hug time.  B&G and I will try not to give anybody scalp-stubble burn.

Not today, though.  I’ve had enough of said dreary weather, all this grey and fog and cold fucking rain.  Months ago I bought myself a ticket to see Devin Townsend and Cynic play tonight, and I’ve been looking forward to this day ever since then.  Tonight, ol’ TB is gonna go have some fun.  Fuck, I might even buy a t-shirt at a concert, which I don’t think I’ve done since Van Halen’s “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” tour.  Too bad I’m too broke to buy a shirt AND a drink.

Meh well.  A little caffeine and no alkie-hawl will make it easier for my old ass to stay on my feet, anyway.   Things I never thought I’d say when I was 15:  “I’m glad I remembered my earplugs.”  “I wanna mosh tonight, but my back’s acting up.  I’ll probably skip it.”

Next week:  More meaningful (but maybe not sad-sap) posts, if I can pull ‘em off.  And TB’s Return to the Gym!  Also, TB’s Annual “I’m sore from my workout, waaaah” Whining Post!  And hopefully not TB’s “WHAT?  WHAT DID YOU SAY?” I’m Even Deafer Post!

Y’all have a good weekend.

Different

Looking back on it, I don’t think there was a particular moment in time to which  I can point and say, “Here…here is where I learned that I was different from the other kids.”  But I did learn that I was different, and in some ways, I was never allowed to forget.

There was only one thing unusual about me when I entered kindergarten – I already knew how to read.  I don’t remember how I learned, exactly.  I think it was equal parts comic books, the old Book and Record things that I used to get as presents, and dumb luck.  But I came to kindergarten able to read most things put in front of me.  One of my uncles used to get me to show off by reading the ingredients on a cereal box.

Anyhoo, one of my earlier memories of school (besides the love of my tiny life and the sickly kid barfing, that sort of thing) is standing onstage during the Christmas program when I was in kindergarten, reading the scripture all Linus-style out of a big booklet one of the teachers had prepared with red and green construction paper and black magic marker.  “And there were in the same country shepherds…” (I think this is part of the reason I’ve never been afraid of public speaking.  I was put up there and led to do it before I learned that it was something to be nervous about.)  Because I had this one propensity over my classmates, I soon picked up that wonderful and dreaded label “gifted.”

I don’t remember being in meetings in the principal’s office.  I’m not sure I was ever present, but I have a vague impression that I was.  At least once.  After a series of those meetings I started going across the hall to the first grade classroom every day for reading.  Then I got bumped up to the next reading group.  Then the next one.  And I started spending more time across the hall.  Although I don’t remember this detail, my mother once told me that it just got to the point at which I was spending more time in the first grade classroom than in the kindergarten one.

And so, after more meetings, it was decided that in the following year I’d join my first-grade classmates full-time instead of my kindergarten ones.

Sometime during that year, my “different” perception was cemented.  In my own mind, and definitely in the minds of my classmates.  I had forgotten, but an offhand comment by my mother reminded me how my second-grade teacher encouraged the other kids to ride me for my faults – what I particularly remember is that my desk wasn’t neat to her satisfaction and so she told everyone to refer to me as “Messy Marvin” like Peter Billingsley in the old Hershey commercials.  (I’m tellin’ ya.  YouTube is a hell of an invention.)

More or less, it was all downhill from there.

Two years later, in fourth grade, I was one of a half-dozen or so kids from my school chosen to attend the gifted program, in a series of mobile units outside the junior high ten miles away, one day a week for fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grades.  Although it never occurred to me at the time, in retrospect I agree with Philip Done who says that whatever is gained by sending the “gifted” kids off someplace is hardly worth the dozens of kids who get to stay behind knowing that they’re NOT “gifted.”  As elementary school dragged on, my life at school got gradually less tolerable, until by seventh grade I was regularly perusing kids’ books on ignoring people who made your life hell, and unsuccessfully attempting to implement that advice.

Instead, I pinned most of my hopes on making it to junior high and finally shedding the same group of kids that I’d seen day after day after day from that first moment I walked into the first grade classroom.  The first month of junior high punctured any illusion that it would be any better, so then I transferred that hope to high school.  Nope.  Not even my deliberate earning of a couple of D’s earned me anything but the derision of ye olde geek.  Then to college.  And then when my NoVa yuppie roommates didn’t like the fact that despite my hick accent I was pulling in a 3.9 without visibly studying (although I had the audacity to actually get up in time to eat breakfast and get to an 8am class every day), that illusion was shattered, too.

I remember waking up one night to the sound of one or two of said roommates having come home drunk, sitting in the common area outside my room, railing at high volume about how I was such a massive nerd.  The point was raised because it was 11:30 or so and I was in bed (see:  8am class, above) but it continued beyond that.  FAR beyond.  I think one or two of the others picked up the refrain, but more painful to me was the fact that the two guys I really considered my friends did NOT take up for me.  At all.

I sat there for probably an hour and a half or two hours listening to this drunken diatribe.  I finally got up, got dressed, and put on my shoes.  Not to leave, but because I was convinced that one more fucking word was going to leave me with no choice but to fight.  And if I was going to fight, I didn’t want to do it in bare feet.   At this point, the loudest antagonist was right outside my door.  It would be easy, I thought as I put my left hand on the latch.  The door opened to the inside, to my left.  I could open the door, drag his tipsy ass into my room, slam the door shut and lock it behind us, and beat the absolute fuck out of him before anyone could manage to get inside to stop me (was 98% sure roommate’s keys were in the room with me).

My hand stayed on the latch for a good solid 15 minutes.  I was at my breaking point – but that “one more word” never came.  As the diatribe wore down, I finally sat back down on my bed listening to the blood roar in my ears.  I needed an outlet…in some ways, I really needed to pound the fuck out of someone, but I couldn’t make myself do it without every possible justification.  I had that justification for a few minutes, but it slipped by.  As I was putting my shoes on.  And then it was gone, and anything I did wouldn’t have been second-degree beating-the-fuck, it would have been first-degree, premeditated, capital beating-the-fuck.  And I just didn’t want that.

Some time later, after the drunk had gone to his room to pass out, my roommate came in and found me, wide awake and fully dressed, still pulsating with rage.  I think I said something like “Thanks a lot for sticking up for me,” and for the life of me I can’t remember what he said in reply.

The truth is that now I realize I wouldn’t have been kicking that guy’s ass because he was an asshole who deserved it.  (Although that could have been applicable and I think any jury would have acquitted me on those grounds.)  I would have been kicking his ass out of sheer frustration, out of the desperation of having that hope that sustained me for a decade – “one day I’ll get to a place where people will understand and not be threatened by whatever level of intelligence I may or may not have” – being finally and utterly shit upon.

Luckily for me and my continued existence on THIS side of the padded rooms, the very next year I was paired up with a couple of guys who were every bit as lovably geeky as I was.  And having finally found My People, my self-image finally quit plummeting and leveled off.  Not too high, mind you, but not abyssal, either.

I still have a hard time of it.  Although I don’t have so much trouble online, face-to-face I’m still pretty hesitant to spout off on any number of topics to any degree like I’m capable or might like to.  I keep my thoughts largely to myself and to a very small group of people who have very slowly earned my trust – because one of my earliest and most repeated lessons was that the tallest blade of grass was just the first to meet the lawn mower.

Thirty years later, while I don’t necessarily believe it’s true, it still hasn’t been proven conclusively false.

In Which I Confess To Sucking

This blog has really been stinking it up lately, and I know it.  I have brought neither Teh Funnayz nor Teh Deep Philosophizin’.  I’m a little short on time today, and possibly will be a little quieter than usual on odd days for the next couple of weeks as I do some gallivanting around campus for other projects, but I’m thinking about some Deep Thoughts.  Or at least thoughts that would get your ankles wet, eh?

Generally, I’m thinking a few Memory Lane-ish sorts of things would be both fun for those of you who like hearing funny stories about yours truly before you knew me, and potentially interesting for me to look back on.  There are a couple in mind already, actually, but what the hell, I’m always up for a challenge, too.  If you have curiosities, parts of or times of my life that you’d be vaguely interested in hearing about, leave a comment or drop me an email and we’ll see what happens.

Sparky

Nothing like dumping $1200 into repairs on  a ten-year-old car to start off a long weekend.  Unless it’s capping the long weekend with a steak dinner, preheating the oven to make fries, and having your wife say, “What smells like it’s burning?”

She opened the oven door to find a one-inch section of the heating element had broken OFF and was lying on the bottom of the oven.  Meanwhile, the remaining element was arcing to the farthest contact like there was a tiny welding fairy taking his new equipment for a merry little test drive.

Luckily, it looks like replacing the element is a job we can do ourselves, and the part will run about $25-50.  But holy crap, seeing that big spark-shitting arc happening in your kitchen will make your eyes go wide.