life observations, thoughts

the gauge is reading well below E.

snow flew in non-stop. mr. storm came in a big, fat hurry and knocked on our doors saturday afternoon and then he fucking wouldn’t leave. he just kept going and going until monday afternoon – by the time he left my car was a blob of maroon metallic jelly inside a snow donut.

i managed to catchup on a lot of sleep, having no desire to do anything productive. for awhile i fancied the idea of being motivated while i was kept prisoner in my house, but instead i enjoyed the company of hockey and ocarinas. the water temple is a bitch by the way, but my hockey franchise is an even 20 across the board and is now the proud owner of a digital stanley cup.

b-b-b-b-x-y-y-y-right. b-b-y-y-left. damn straight.

people went to work yesterday. there was a state of emergency (SOE) so i figured people wouldn’t get mad if i decided not to go in. technically we weren’t supposed to be driving because of the SOE, and driving is the only way for me to get to work. add one in my favor because there was a ton of snow on my car. add another one because the street where my car was parked had not been plowed.

fuck, it still isn’t plowed.

so like i was saying, i caught up on a lot of sleep but of course the night i decide that i’m going to go to work the next day (i.e. last night), a massive bout of insomnia hits and i stay up all night. as in, not go to sleep. at all. at around 3 in the morning a car alarm went off and proceeded to wake up the neighborhood for an additional 20 minutes. it teased us with some 5 minutes of silence and then came roaring back for another 10. i peeked out my window a couple of times to check if i could see what car it was just in case i came up with some sort of devious plan for retribution… but i couldn’t find it. besides, it wouldn’t have mattered; my plans of revenge never seem to make it past the conceptual phase. probably safer that way.

i rode in with m— because of the previous problems mentioned; i’ve come to decide that i don’t like how he drives in the snow. i grew up driving in snow. i am comfortable driving in snow. i was not comfortable with m— driving in snow. he was running twice the speed everyone else was while being right up on peoples asses. he kept muttering things like “sorry buddy, the rules don’t apply to me”, and “damn, why can’t he get out of the way” while he cut people off and rode on the wrong side of the road. my grogginess disallowed any visible nervous twitching, but i definitely kept a mental note of where the oh shit! bar was.

at work i’m full of chills and intoxicated apprehension. throw clarity out the window and take some nyquil because that’s where i’m at. my capacity to think is excruciatingly low and any attempt at a cerebral conversation ends up being puerile. i want sex and i need to sleep and i am buck-nutty tired.

on a totally different note, i fell asleep to johnny cash covering “hurt” on both saturday and sunday night. was that an original NIN song? holy flircking shnit.

winter has been brutal. by far, the weather where i previously lived was much harsher and unforgiving, but having gotten used to such mild post-autumns has spoiled me and makes me wish that spring or fall were here again (because secretly i enjoy winters a tiny, tiny bit more than summers. i know, ass-backwards). it’s been the coldest and longest winter that i’ve dealt with since moving down here and with the horrible snow removal in my neighborhood – and general area – i have become less inclined to enjoy snow as it drifts in. as soon i see white specks flickering in revealed more clearly at night by the soft yellow glow of street lights i’m thinking “god that’s beautiful, but driving in this shit is going to be a bitch.”.

my office definitely did not escape unscathed by this past season. my work complex has been plagued several times by acts of nature (aka in-office floods) which has brought our general paranoia to a higher level. whenever there is hard rain or a large amount of snow we wonder if our office will be flooded and whether the precautions that our landlord took to prevent water from seeping in clandestinely will actually stand true. for two years things held up and then we became complacent; a few weeks ago the cold froze our pipes and gutters and the water came in and soaked up our carpets. shutting down operations, bringing in wetvacs, and making sure expensive electronics wouldn’t be damaged became our main priority. after the initial wave of problems our office space became wet and damp, bringing in mold which made employees sick and also attributed to the “swampy” smell that now permeated throughout.

suffice to say, bitching and moaning ensued and we are finally getting our carpets replaced. this of course required that we pack up our fragile belongings and little toys (breaking down my lego set was just as fun as it was putting up) in order to make things easier for the crew that would be coming in. now, while i sorted through my papers and documents to see what i should throw out or spare i came upon an old steno notebook – my first since working at the company – that mostly contained weird abstract doodles, several meeting notes and the hours i put in for the projects that had been assigned to me. deep within the uselessness inside i did find one gem: a draft for a letter i had written. it read:

Dear Dad,

I came to the LF (which is not a cult by the way) to learn about myself and relationships. However, what I’ve learned is that I haven’t been completely honest to myself. For a long time I have been under the pretense that you were never willing to listen to me, that you never thought that I could do anything right. In actuality I’ve been using these excuses and lying to myself that my shortcomings have been due to your unwillingness to support me and believe in me. Because of this interpretation, it has destroyed my ability to be approachable and to approach those that I love. I felt for many years that your critical and analytical report of me was only to spite me and make me look like a fool, but I have since come upon the realization that you only wanted the best for me and not have to go through the same hardships that you had to go through when you were growing up.

I’d like to say that I am sorry for blaming these things on you for all these years, and I ask that you forgive me. I have made the possibility for my life to be forgiving, trusting, open and accountable for my actions and as a result I am inviting you completely into my life and to begin the truly open dialogue that we never possessed. I hope and pray that you will except my invitation.

Love,

Mark

i read this to him the day after i wrote this draft. our relationship has never been the same.

life has grown into a great uncertainty.

i realized this after a night of severe dreaming. now, i get that it’s a well known fact that everyone dreams – however, not everyone remembers them when they wake up. being as i am one of those that don’t usually remember my dream visioned flights of fancy once i wake, it struck me odd that i would remember a lot if not most of what i dreamt last night.

perhaps it was the cold, frigid air that night, as i had left my door slightly ajar, allowing the rogue and less accepted air to creep into my bedroom – or maybe it was due to the fact that i had a particularly stressful time at work yesterday. i don’t think i’ll ever know.

what i do know is that while i stared into the mirror, covered in a slight sweat after waking from my last night journey, i felt that something was wrong. now, it wasn’t the type of wrong where i thought my life was in danger or that someone i cared about was going to die, but something definitely felt awry. so to try and analyze why the hell my mind was racing in this fashion, i sat down and began to recollect my first couple of dreams.

some time later, i decided that my dreams were pointing to the uncomfortable notion that i didn’t know what was up with my life. i am 4 years into my career, but don’t feel like i am progressing forward. my educational path stopped years ago despite my father’s adamant disagreement, and while he and many others continue to prod me that i should go back to school again, both my heart and my mind don’t want to. how can i ignore that? my financial situation is precarious at best, with one and a half years of planning hardly making a dent. i am still reeling from a relationship that disintegrated in front of me and have no immediate plans to pursue another one. not that i have a large amount of options in that regards – the memory of “lines at the door” has long been lost.

so while i am generally feeling better about myself these days, i really don’t know where i’m at and more importantly, where i’m going. but you know, i’m not really distressed about it. how can i amidst all this panic, fury and concern over nuclear, chemical and biological warfare?

i’m going to get some lunch.