Sight Seeing

If you had a limited amount of days left to be able to see, where would you go? What would you want to see? What would you want to see again?

I've been thinking about this more over the last couple days. I tend to have what I call "Bad Eye Days," where something seems to be wrong with my eyes, more so than usual, for me at least. It manifests itself in different ways; some days my eyes feel cloudy, like when you first wake and wipe the sleep from your eyes. Other days, I just feel extreme strain and sensitive to light. And other times, my eye will just keep watering all day.

All this makes me think about what may eventually happen to me. I am not scared of losing my sight. And I am not scared, necessarily, of the things I have never seen, and will have to go the rest of my life without seeing. I have seen beauty in the world, and it sits in my heart and my memory. I don't have a list of things that I want to see before my eyes die, like an Ocular Bucket List. I don't feel the need to spend all of the money I have (and don't have) travelling the world, seeing all the wonders. I think that my imagination can fulfill that for me.

But there is one place, that if I knew that I was going to lose my sight, that I would make damn sure I saw again. I have been there twice before, and to me, it is the most beautiful, serene, spiritual, awe-inspiring place: Ka Ena Point on the North Shore of Oahu. It is where Heaven meets Earth, where land meets sea, where my known world ends and the unknown world begins. When you walk to the edge of the rocks, overlooking the ocean, all you sea around you is the water and sky, as if you were an island of yourself. All the cares of "landed life" can be temporarily washed away from you as you listen to the waves crash against the rocks and reef, as if the waves themselves were the Earth's heartbeat, calming you, as a baby resting on its mother's chest. I could spend hours out there, just listening to nothing, and everything, and thinking about why I am here.

That is where, if I have to, I want to spend my last hours, minutes, seconds of sighted life, taking in the majesty of G-d's creation, and knowing that even though part of my life will be ending, a new part will just be beginning.

Remember the commercial with the Pasta Trees?

My coworker and I were talking about noodles, and she told me that she saw a special on Barilla pasta, in which they went to the factory in Italy to see it get made.

I imagined a hollow warehouse, with low hanging lights, with those dog-cone style lightshades, swinging in the hot breeze coming from the massive ingredient mixers, full of hundreds of modified sewing machines, with elderly Italian women hunched over each one, their feet constantly pedaling to keep the pasta flowing through, spinning spaghetti and singing old Italian pasta making songs, while a Foreman approached each one, and in a voice that carried both concern and condemnation, inspired them to continue with, “Spaghet like the wind!”

I nearly peed myself.

Bad Day

A chronicling of a crap day.

- Woke up from a weird dream, leaving me in a funk. Something about buying a house and then forgetting I owned it until it is sold to someone else.
- Dumped a cup full of ice all over the kitchen.
- Called my brother to talk about serious issue and he's too busy playing a video game
- Walked right into a wall and gave myself a really nice lump on the head.
- Grocery store didn't have what I was looking for.
- Kitchen store didn't have what I was looking for.
- Nearly hit a guy in my car as I was making a turn.
- Dryer I was doing laundry in broke down partway through the cycle, so I have soggy clothes.

But I did watch a fun movie, AND we have a new president (officially). So that ties up the end in a nice, little bow.

10th Anniversary

You know how sometimes you get in a particular mood and you don't know why exactly you feel that way? I have had this kind of thing happen before, and it happened again today. When I thought about it a little, I realised that today is the tenth anniversary of my divorce. OH YEAH, I SAID IT! DIVORCE!!

I was married. I wanted the things my parents seemed to have: companionship, a best friend and lover, someone to celebrate the ups and downs of life with. That is not to be, at least right now.

I got married to a beautiful woman (inside and out), and I thought, "This is it. I have found the one that I will spend the rest of my life with." Apparently, the rest of my life equaled out to a little less than three years. The divorce papers (filed by her, not me) say that the marriage was "irretrievably broken." I was never sure of what that meant, because I thought, and still do think, that if you really want to make something work, you will do just that. You fight for what you truly believe in.

Granted there were problems, youth probably being the biggest of them. As young adults, we (general we) think we are not going to mature any more than we have. I am today what I will be in ten, twenty, or fifty years. But life has a funny way of showing us different. I have seen that first hand, on both sides. When I see my friends, who are younger, and seemingly going through similar situations that I went through, I try to lend my opinion and help, so that there journey will be less rocky. Almost inevitably, the people I try to help reject my help, as I did when I was in the situation. Only in retrospect can I see what my friends then were trying to do, and I appreciate them more for it.

All of this hurt so much, and I still carry the scars from it. But it has never kept me from jumping back in all over again and giving it my all.

I have never regretted the decisions I have made in life, because everything you do in life are bricks in the road leading you to where you are supposed to be. Do I wish I could go back and not do this? No, because if I hadn't had this event in my life, I wouldn't be sitting here writing this.
Have I spoken to her since the divorce? Twice, I think, once on purpose and once on accident.
Would I speak to her again? Yes, if only to see if she is happy in her life and feels as fulfilled as I do with where I am today.
Have I tried to contact her? No. Simply because she may not want to hear from me, and who am I to force my way back into her life, if ever so brief, if she is happy without knowing anything about what happened to me after?
Do I hope she'll read this? Sure, why not. I don't think I have said anything false in this post.
Will I be sad if I never talk to her? Maybe slightly, but that is just natural to feel that from someone who was your everything for however long you had them in your life.

If I am never to talk to her again, this can be my last conversation with her.

Belle*, if you read this, I hope you are happy in life. And I hope, that if you think of me, you spend more time on the happy times than sad.

Sincerely, Gaston*.

*Nicknames provided to protect the innocent. But, of course, if you are reading this blog, you can find out who Gaston is by looking at the blogger's profile. D'oh!

Charleston Comedy Festival

That is where I have been for the last three days.

I didn't write over those three days. I wanted to, but the Holiday Inn we stayed at only had two complimentary computers for all the guests. And I didn't want to be "that guy." And besides, we already had "that girl" there. Several hours looking at Wedding photos on Facebook. Seriously. Who does that? That can't wait until you get home? Oh, wait, maybe she's homeless. But then she wouldn't have a Facebook account.

But anyway, I was torn because of the promise I made myself to do this experiment. I have to think of a way to make it up to myself. Suggestions?

T Minus 7 Hours

Horse & House is making a trip down to Charleston, SC for the Charleston Comedy Festival.

It's gonna be AWESOME! 9 hours in a car with my troupe mates.

YEEHAA!

Play is important

I just got home from my day.

Tonight was the first night in about two months were I have been able to "play." I had my first rehearsal back with one of the groups I do Improv with. And it was a blast.

You forget the fun you have with people you really care about until you have been out of the loop for a while.

It's good to be able to play again.

Take-away from tonight - find you inner child and let them roam free.

The Life After Life

There’s not much that really freaks me out, at least consistently, but I have one thing that sometimes sneaks up on me and really does a number on me.

“What happens when we die?”

I will get washed over by this panic; my body will shut down for a few minutes while this thought consumes me, and makes me reel with angst. This is one of the few things that will cause me to have a panic attack. I can’t function when it hits, and I have to let it wash over me, have a mini freak-out, and then try to get back to work or play or whatever I was doing at the time. Sometimes I am around someone who I can talk about it with, but not always. It usually manifests itself in a sense of, “What happens after you die? Is there a Heaven and Hell, is there nothing? What is this life we lead all about?” I get this lead weight feeling in the pit of my stomach and I get light headed, and I start to really get scared. It comes on from nowhere, seemingly, and it becomes like a distant thought by like an hour later. But in that moment, it is overwhelming.

It’s the fear of possibly going to Hell. Or of just no longer existing. The fact that I am here, right now, composing this, and it may have an impact on someone’s life, or not, and then POOF! I am gone and it’s all over for me. How can this be? Is there more than just this life? There are so many battling opinions out there in the world that claim to be the one truth, but are they? We don’t know. The same blind faith is what makes people follow Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or even Atheism, along with all the other belief structures. As one believes in G-d to the Nth degree, another believes in Nothing to the Nth degree. And so forth. Regardless of what you believe, something happens when you die, and that something may be nothing, but whatever it is has the power to complete invade me and turn me into a sniveling 4 year old child, wanting his mommy.

I think that this “fear” has kept me from trying things in my life; all of those extreme things, and even some that aren't extreme at all. I would gravitate away from them for fear of something going wrong even though the chances were slim that anything bad would happen. But I am trying to at least face my fear more these days. Case in point, on my last trip to Hawaii, my brother and I took surfing lessons. Tod, my brother, asked me if I wanted to do it with him, because his lady didn't know how to swim. I was super psyched about it, I have never surfed, it looks like fun. But then my brother started reading that we had to sign a waiver, just in case, I started to freak a little. There was a chance that we could be attacked by a shark. Or swept out to sea, or dashed on the reef in the shallow waters. These chances were slim indeed, but I still began to think twice about whether or not I wanted to do it. It turned out to be a perfect experience, and I now have a new appreciation for surfers, and dental hygiene (most surfers are missing some teeth from taking a board to the face at one point or another).

I always feel a bit nebbish with stuff like this because everyone has done these things and very few have been hurt or killed by these things; Bungee jumping, Skydiving, etc. All of these things are fairly safe, in the way that life is fairly safe. You could walk out of your house and be killed by a skydiver falling out of the sky just as easily as you could plummet to your death while skydiving. But still, this thing keeps happening to me and every time it freaks me out as strong as the previous time.

I wish I knew where this thought came from. But I guess that is like trying to figure out the meaning of life. You won’t ever know that answer until you are at the point where you can be let in on the secret, because you definitely won’t be sharing it with anybody.

Top of the bottom of the barrel

I was taking my usual daily walk to the Safeway near my office with my coworker today, and we started to talk about engagement rings (He started it not me). He confided in me that he had X amount socked away for a ring, like a little trust fund. When he told me the amount, I was taken aback, because I had spent less than that on my last engagement ring (yes, there have been multiple rings in my life, what can I say? I am a hopeful romantic). He then told me that he was only a quarter of the way to the price amount for the ring he wanted. That blew my mind! I had to remind myself of what he does for a living and how much he makes, or will be making. That was when I realized just where I stood in the scheme of things. The last time I told someone how much I spent on the ring I got, the person I told had the same reaction that I had to my coworker's announcement.

I am not sure if I take this whole thing as a plus or a minus to me. I am somewhere between the top of a small barrel or the bottom of a big one. And if I am there, do I have to make a choice as to which barrel I want to stay in? Or can I maintain this razor's edge, tightrope walk for a while?

When we had finished the conversation, he asked me if he should reconsider his "dream ring." I told him to give all he has to offer to his love. Love hard! Love big or go home! All of those cliched phrases with love replacing certain words to make them apropos to the moment. In the end, you have to love this person like there is no one else for you. And if it doesn't work out, get the ring back, because you can probably buy yourself a nice car for that amount.

Weekends are tough

I found it is hard to write about stuff when you don't do anything all weekend. I was supposed to go into work today, but I helped my friend Mark with a video project he is working on and by the time we got finished it was 7 pm, and no time to go to the office.

Ugh.

I need cooler stuff

I just finished a marathon of video game playing with my buddies, Jon Lee and Erik. What a great way to spend a rainy Saturday! XBOX 360 and Playstation 3. Some really fun and addictive games: Dead Space, Little Big World, and Portal. I spent the last 6 hours of the day playing all the way through Portal. A fun game that we all helped beat. Thanks, you guys!

I can upload videos of myself?!?!?!

F U AT&T

Eternal Kodachrome

I’m going to try something new today; writing before 11:30 pm.

I have had a few thoughts today that I thought I would munch on.

First was a comment that my coworker said to me while we were discussing James Earl Jones and his 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award winning, as chronicled in the Screen Actor Magazine. In the article, there are many pictures of Ole’ Low-Voice himself from his many films, etc. I made the comment that he looked a lot darker when he was younger compared to now. My coworker said (jokingly) that he was fading as he was getting older. I found that thought funny and poignant. At first I thought of it as the curse that you get for not wrinkling. You see, my mom is of the thought that African American men and women don’t get wrinkles as they get older, but us white folk do. So when my coworker said what she said, my immediate response (thought) was, “That’s for not wrinkling.”

But as I thought more on the subject, I came to think that it might be more a fact. And again, as I work, I don’t research anything, I just like to make my own assumptions. But it actually made sense to me that he would fade, not like a picture though, but purely based on science. Our bodies are limited production houses. We have only so many heartbeats, so many strands of hair, so many eggs and sperm, so why not consider that we have only so much melatonin? As JEJ gets older, his body produces less melatonin, which would make his skin lighter in appearance. This could be a scientific fact, but like I said, I am not going to risk actually finding out the truth.

Then I started to think of people as a picture or a newspaper; as they get older they begin to break down, and fade. Leave a soda can out in the sun and all the color will be removed from it. So as we get older we become harder to see. (Ha, an eyesight joke! Works on two levels, three if you know me well enough!) And the fading made me think about how we as a society have pushed our elders away, putting them in homes, and assisted living communities, etc, essentially fading them from our own lives, because for whatever reason, we can’t be bothered to take care of “our own messes.” Better to pass the buck, literally, and pay some stranger to take care of our parents so we don’t have to think about them. I can understand why people would do that, but at the same time, we need to honor our parents, IF they deserve that honor. Now, I have some very good friends whose parents I think should definitely be put in a home, so that my friends would never have to think about them again, but far too many people use these assisted living places as an excuse to just abandon their parents.

And who can blame them though? We live in a disposable society, where children are dropped off by their parents at day care centers, and where they spend half of there awake day with a “foster” parent, not necessarily learning anything, just remaining alive. And even when the parents have a day off, they still drop their kids off at the day care center, so they can spend a day without them. Why should it be any different when our parents and grandparents enter their “second childhood?”

All I know is that I have made up my mind and made this known to my parents, that when they get to the point where they can not live on their own any longer, they will come and live with me (and my family, if I ever have one). I refuse to let them fade out of the picture.

So Tired

I've been having trouble sleeping the last few nights. Part of it, I think has to do with the post-apocalyptic TV shows I have been watching. Whenever my alarm goes off in the morning, I think of it as some early warning system, or that it can't be real, because we don't have technology, and then I keep oversleeping. Meh. Must realize it's all in my head.

Oh yeah, and I put together a shelf unit I bought from Target, so tiny, but I guess it serves its purpose.

Time for sleepy.

Magellan

My brother is currently travelling across the lower United States from Los Angeles, CA to Augusta, GA. He Left on Saturday and is currently in Houston, TX. He and I had been talking about this trip for a while now.

Originally, I was going to fly out to LA and we were gonna drive cross country together. A kind of brother bonding bit. Unfortunately I was not able to work out the details - work issues prevented me from being able to do it. But there was one phone conversation he and I had right around Christmas, when he was getting really fed up with the situations at his house and in his life.

You see, my brother and I are what people call "Nice Guys." We are the guys that are the shoulder that is cried on when a person is hurting. The back that holds up the weight of someone else's problems. And in doing so, we often times are walked over, and mistreated, by the same people that we are trying to save from pain. And he and I often have to be sounding boards for each other so that we keep from saying all the hurtful things we sometimes think and feel. We joke about what we should say to a person, knowing full well that we would never actually say those things. It just helps us to deal, like writing that letter to the person and then never sending it, just to get the emotion off your chest. I think that because we have to keep so much in ourselves, that it can create outrageous ideas and impulses.

When my brother was talking to me about how the pressures at and around where he was living were getting to him, I suggested that he just get in his car and drive across the country to GA and surprise our folks on Christmas or at least Christmas weekend. Naturally, he was hesitant to do that. My argument to him was this - you are already traveling across the country, no matter what, that much is certain. But how many people can say that they packed up everything they wanted to keep in their lives, hopped in their car/truck, and made that trip by themselves? Just you against the road.

Granted, a lot of people, back in the day can stake that claim, but today? Not many people would attempt that, not even small trips. People think that they need safety nets and bumper guards. But I bet, if you tried to drive across the country, on your own, and something did happen, you'd find that deep down in the heart of it, all people are helpful. My brother's argument was that he was unsure of whether or not his truck could make it. My counter was that if it didn't make it, I'd bet that there would be someplace near where it died that he could pick up a rental truck and swap out his stuff, and scrap the truck and keep on truckin'.

That is what I would do. That is what I want to do. When I moved to Maryland back in 2001. My parents and I drove all the way across the southern US, and up the east coast, my mom and dad in my mom's Volvo, and me in my dad's truck, the very same truck that my brother is taken across that same stretch of road. And as we were making that trip, I made a mental plan that I would circumnavigate the contiguous US one day, maybe not all in one go, but I would definitely be able to say that I have driven through all of the perimeter states. I will make that happen. And although it is always more fun to have someone there with to explore and have fun, when the time comes for me to make this trip, whether or not I have someone to go with, I will make this dream a reality.

A Silent Office

I went into work for a few hours today to work on my special extra project. I love going into the office on the weekend because I get to play my music as loud as I want to, and sing along at the top of my lungs when the mood strikes, which is pretty often.

Pandora has been great to me because it has introduced me to music I probably would have never heard otherwise. It's weird to think about how you have lived without something in your life, after you have introduced to it. Whether it is Internet, or cell phones, or morals, or Hershey's Kisses. But at the same time, as my mom would say, all things in moderation, and I have found that though I avail myself to things when they are close to me, I can certainly live without them, or at least go long periods of time without them in my life.

On cell phones, think about this. Think back to before you had a cell phone, can you remember your home phone number at your house? I can 703-369-8993. That was the phone in my house in Virginia, when I graduated from High School. I still remember it to this day. But thanks to cell phones, I have no idea what my parents' phone numbers are, other than they start with 808. Funny how technology has just made us lazier, and yet we are (I am not) ready to give up on the comfort of owning a cell phone.

Wall-E really shined a light for where we as a people are headed.

The Day After

I always find that on the day after I have been a complete sloth, I am usually pretty darn productive. Today was no exception. Laundry - check, Storage Shelves bought - check, new movies added to my ever growing collection - check.

As I went through my day today, I was beginning to get concerned that I might end up with a similar entry to last night; nothing really to say, but the need to do this as part of my experiment. But, as the fates would have it, something fell right into my lap.

I ended up in the Wheaton area because the Peeve needed to go to the HMart, which is like an Asian Super Walmart. It's a pretty cool place, lots of free samples of small, crunchy, spicy things - mostly fish, but tonight I wasn't feeling it. As we pulled into the parking lot, I remembered that there was a Hollywood Video in that same strip. And after having experienced the joy of my old Hollywood haunt while visiting the parents for Christmas, AND discovering that HV was having a buy two, get two free sale, I figured I could poke around for a while and see if I HAVE to pick up some more DVDs.

Now, it's not how you think. People think that I just buy movies no matter what, but that is not true, especially as I have gotten older. I have become more picky in what I buy for myself. There have been plenty of occasions
in the last three years or so, that I have walked into a store and picked out a handful of movies, only to return them to the shelves and walk out with nothing, thinking that there are more important things that I should be spending my money on, like Diet Soda.

I had this high expectation for this store before I entered, based on my experience back in GA, and I was sorely disappointed in this place. Granted, their selection of Previously Viewed DVDs was pretty good, all in all, it was the store, the presentation, and the customer service that left much to be desired.

I walked through the many shelves of Previously Viewed DVDs, looking for those movies that I just couldn't live without, sometimes based on the film itself, but many times it's the price, and it's always based on the fact that I had seen it before. I don't buy movies that I haven't watched before; this is what separates me from the rest of the animals. I ended up with many DVDs, and ended up putting about a third of them back. It is always based on the sale. In the end, I ended up with 6 DVDs, that were part of a "50% off all DVDs Marked $9.99 or Lower," making them all each under $5.00 at least, so I had to buy them. That's a rule.

And this is where the experience turned ugly. I stood waiting to get served for a few minutes while the two, and then three, staff members talked among themselves about this and that. I tried to endear myself on them by helping answer another guest's query about a specific Charlize Theron movie, which ended up being "Aeon Flux." I got checked out and I was signing my receipt, and I noticed that one of the movies was not marked 50% off, and was in fact priced incorrectly at $12.99, when the sticker said $9.99.

I pointed out the error to the cashier, and he said that the sticker was incorrect, I excused myself and went and grabbed the other DVDs of the same movie to verify to them that they were all priced the same and should be a part of the deal. (You see, I always look at the price tag on almost every copy of a movie to see if one is marked cheaper than the others, hey every penny counts) My cashier couldn't make the refund, so I was shuffled off to the manager, which is totally understandable. But the manager, who happened to be the Store Director, end of the line as far as the store goes, spent the next 24 minutes (I have the two receipts showing that time difference) trying to figure out how to fix the issue, apparently having to void out multiple attempts to figure out why these one DVD was priced incorrectly, or how to make the exchange and refund me back the difference. At a certain point, I was sure that he was stalling to get me to just say, "Fine, whatever, just give me the movie." But I had nothing else really planned for the night, and I wanted to get the movie for $5.00.

Now, I used to manage a Hollywood Video, granted that was a little over four years ago, but the computers system didn't appear to have changed much; they're still using dot matrix printers for their receipts. I tried to explain to this guy that all he needed to do was a refund of the original price and then sell it back to me at the $5.00 price, either by manually changing the price to $9.99 and using the 50% off coupon, or just manually pricing the DVD to $5.00, but I didn't want to just say to him that I used to run a store, and all that.

After the 24 minutes of him clicking and clicking on the computer, he took my credit card and swiped it and refunded me $8.47. And when I looked at the receipt, it was exactly how I said it should have been done. But why had it taken him 24 minutes to do that? On a Saturday night? These guys aren't pulling in much business if our transaction was allowed to take up that much time.

In the end, I got my movies, at the price I wanted to pay, but I think a piece of my heart died. It's hard to see something you dedicated 7 years of your life to, fall into the hands of incompetents.

A Day is a Terrible Thing to Waste

We make plans for ourselves, every day, or just in life, and then we sometimes sit and watch them go by from the sidelines, or from your sweet Lazyboy recliner.

I was supposed to do the massive amounts of laundry today, but I just sat on my butt and finished watching Jeremiah on Netflix. It didn't help that I was feeling a little ill, but that is no excuse. I feel so unproductive. Meh.

At least I wrote today. Day 2 down.

The Experiment Begins

2009 is here.

A time for a clean slate. A chance for us to begin anew. To start fresh. Pure and virginal (pronounce that vir-jy-null).

I made a promise to myself as 2008 came to a close; That I would start something and see it to it's end. I have made up my mind to write every day for the entire month of January. To see if I could do it. It will be a stream of consciousness writing experiment, with only going back through to correct spelling errors. I will write for as long as it takes to finish whatever thought is in my head when I sit down to write. So here we go.

I love movies. Anyone who knows me knows that about me. I decided as a great way to start the new year, I would recap my 2008 in movies. I went through my Netflix queues, both online watching and the DVDs I was sent, and my Hulu account, and just see how many movies I had actually watched. OVER 300 movies and TV series. I actually had thought it would have been more, to tell the truth. But still if you calculate the average length of a movie and a TV series it will tell you, and me, where all my free time went. Let's just say, for arguments sake, that of those 300 or so, 260 where actual films and the remaining 40 were entire TV series.

260 movies at an average length of 90 minutes equals out to 23,400 minutes, or 390 hours, or 16.25 days. A little over two weeks straight of just film watching.

A TV series can range from 30 to 45 minutes long, and episodes can be anywhere from 12 to 20 per season. So let's average that out. We'll say 38 minutes per episode, for 16 episodes per season. That is 24,320 minutes. That's 405.33 hours, or 16.89 days. Another two weeks plus of TV series watching.

Basically, a month, and one with all 31 days, was spent by me, watching movies and TV shows in 2008. I don't know whether to proud or ashamed by that number. I think I'll lean towards proud, in a nerdy kind of way.

Cheers!