All it takes is a little faith and lot of heart

War Eagle!

Sorry, just had to post it. It means something to me, being that pulling for Auburn is part of who I am.

I'm currently somewhat engrossed by the whole wild card and division races in the National League (baseball). So far the Mets have gone through a historic meltdown at the end of the season and the Cubs have won a rare division title, thanks in large part to the Brewers' own choke job. And several teams remain relevant with just two games to play. In fact, three spots are still up for grabs for the postseason. I think it will be the Diamondbacks, Padres and Phillies. It could conceivably be the Mets, Diamondbacks and Rockies. Does anyone else care? Probably not, but I want to write about what I'm interested in, dammit.

Anyway, I'm plugging along with the job, bouncing between news and sports. Did the front page, then worked on the weekly college football tab, did state news today and tomorrow it's the LPGA tournament that's in town.

The weather is finally turning cooler here. I actually thought a jacket might not be out of the question tonight, although I got by in a T-shirt. (and jeans. I wasn't JUST wearing a T-shirt)

I've been re-arranging stuff in my apartment. I'm trying to change things up. When you're in a slump, as I feel I've been the last few months, you feel like you need to change things up. A job change or address change might be even better, but I really need to take the whole change thing in baby steps. I'm not very good at it.

Why aren't you married?

It's a question that my family, and other others, ask often. I guess I should take that as a compliment to some extent. If they didn't question it, I guess I'd really worry.

The answer is quite obviously that I've found no one to marry. I haven't found someone that I really want to spend my life with. But the truth is, I haven't tried that hard. I have always enjoyed solitude. But there does come a point where you have to consider the prospect of being alone forever. You start to realize that life only gets harder and that it would be nice to have someone there to help out.

So why am I not married? Basically, because I'm lazy and selfish. I can blame my crappy work hours and days off all I want, but really I just haven't wanted it enough so far.

So I was reading one of those stupid MySpace surveys that girls like to do. Some of them are kind of entertaining if they ask interesting questions. This one I was reading was mostly crappy, but there was one good one: Where is the weirdest place you have slept? That's a good one. So I ask anyone who might read this what their answer would be.

It's sort of a cleaner variation of where is the kinkiest place you have had sex question on your NN profile. It's also more interesting, to me, because sex tends to be a deliberate act, whereas sleeping often happens by accident.

My answer is the hood of my car, downtown, right around sunset. It was when I was in a band. I had just joined, and practice was supposed to be, let's say 6 p.m. I got there probably five minutes early. The entire band, as it turns out, was not together until about 7:30. At any rate, I had to wait until the guys with the keys to the practice space got there. So I laid down on the hood of my car. Of course. Why wouldn't I? I don't know at what point I nodded off, but I did, sprawled out on the hood of my car. Not surprisingly, my new bandmates had a lot of fun with finding me asleep on the hood of my car. The drummer -- a much more subtle and diplomatic guy than you might expect a drummer to be -- told me in mock seriousness, "There are a lot of things we look for in a bandmate, and punctuality is definitely NOT one of them."

So where is the weirdest place you have slept?


And on a somewhat related note, I wanted to post here another of those surveys, or something like a survey. It was to take all the songs on your computer on shuffle, and each one represents a different moment in your life. It's supposed to be a soundtrack of your life. I love the idea of that, and I thought mine worked out pretty eerily in spots. (especially at the end)

Opening Credits:
Linus and Lucy (Vince Guaraldi)

Waking Up:
Grudge (Pain)

First Day At School:
Loser (Beck)

Childhood:
Wasted (Black Flag)


Falling In Love:
27 Jennifers (Mike Doughty)

Fight Song:
Clear Channel (Fuck Off) (Leftover Crack)

Breaking Up:
Cooking Wine (The Alkaline Trio)

Prom:
High on a Mountain Top (Loretta Lynn)

Life:
Hard Now (The Black Keys)

High School:
Stoner Jam (Blood on the Wall)

College:
Watch Your Head (The Bloody Hollies)

Mental Breakdown:
The Flute Song (lalala) (The Alkaholiks)

Driving:
Sans Cosm (Sparta)

Flashback:
Bad Mouth (Fugazi)

Getting Back Together:
Feed the Tree (Belly)

Wedding:
I'm Like Yeah, But She's All No (The Mr. T Experience) ... haha perfect

Birth of Child:
Ten Minutes (The Get Up Kids)

Final Battle:
Decision at Midnight (The Toasters)

Death Scene:
Lived in Bars (Cat Power)

Funeral Song:
Broken Boy Soldier (The Raconteurs)

End Credits:
Drink to Me, Babe, Then (A.C. Newman)

It was a long week, and I'm coming out the other side of my off days. It will probably be another long week.

A friend is going to be in town tomorrow, and she may or may not have time to visit. She'll be here on business, and I don't know exactly how busy she will be, but I really hope she stops by. The last time she did was fantastic. For her, too, as far as I could tell, so I hope she decides to take some time out, if she can.

Meanwhile, the apartment is a little cleaner but the grass needs cutting. A couple bills need to be paid. I need a break from the mundane.

song lyric for the day:

My new resolution is to be
Someone who does not care what anyone thinks of me
'Cause I don't even like myself half the time
So what's the use in wondering
What's on other people's minds

So the last blog's theme was power outage. Today it was my water being off. I always feel the need to blog when I lose one of my utilities, apparently.

The "landlord" didn't pay the water bill, the landlord being a property management company. I got a letter saying "We're no longer managing your property effective today" and the next day the water gets cut off. HA! Fuck you very much! Tried to call the owner and his wife hung up on me. The woman at Water Works called her and got better results (on speaker phone, and she sounded a little embarrassed, a little nervous and very willing to help).

So I got my water back. More importantly, I finally figured out that it's not nearly as effective to get pissed off and call the person you are pissed off at and let them know how pissed off you are as it is to calmly tell your story to someone who has the other person firmly by the balls.

The power first went out late Monday/early Tuesday, close to midnight. It came back on almost immediately. Freaked me the fuck out regardless. But I went to sleep shortly afterward. Apparently, the power went out again while I slept, because I was awoken by the power coming back on around 5 a.m.

I couldn't get back to sleep for some reason. I cut on the TV, and ESPN had a women's world cup match, U.S. vs. North Korea (I think it was north) so I decided to watch it. It was raining wherever the hell they were, and the women were not looking so great. They're tough, for sure, though. One got a cut on her head and, according to a story I read, literally ran to the locker room to get stitches, and then cussed at the person giving her stitches to hurry the fuck up so she could get back in the game and kick some more Korean ass in the rain. These are not women you would want to fuck with, is what I'm saying.

So the power goes out again. This time it doesn't bounce back. It just stays off. I called the power company and apparently it was caused by a car wreck. It will be about two hours before it's back on. OK. Sigh. All right then. I decided to get some breakfast at a nearby restaurant.

I came back and eventually the power came back on. All was well. I had a nap and went to work and so on. It rained a good bit, and there was lightning, but I thought nothing of it.

As I was coming home from work, about 1 a.m., everything seemed normal. But as I reached the top of the hill that leads from my workplace to the area where I live, a vast expanse of darkness rose up, a cavernous maw of foreboding, fog hovering over the ground. It was about to swallow me up, and I drove into the darkness, and it was like I was no longer in the place I had just occupied, but in some nightmare world. The darkness consumed everything. There was no light on the horizon. The only light came from my headlights, which I noted seemed quite paltry. The power was out yet again.

I decided to go to a nearby bar, because I couldn't stand the idea of sitting around in a dark house. Eventually there were lights and signs of civilization.

I hung out at the bar drinking beer and listened to some very drunk people have what must have seemed to them to be very stimulating conversation.

I was about to leave when two couples walked in: one in their very early 20s and another in their early to mid forties. The older couple consisted of a trailer park version of Robert DeNiro and an aging bar slut who let her figure go but was still playing the game.

The young couple consisted of a somewhat tall, round-faced guy, the kind of guy who always seems about to smile, laugh or tell a joke. He was in a hockey-style shirt and a baseball cap. With him was a ridiculously pretty, tan brunette dressed in short shorts with long, lean legs and a pert, sexy ass. That one didn't have a care in the world. The men in her life no doubt adore her without exception, and she is too young and too pampered to have tasted the bitterness that life can dole out. She was quite a sight in that dive bar filled with old rednecks ranting about the Confederacy, younger guys calling people motherfuckers because they're drunk and drunk women at turns flirting and yelling at men for being such assholes. That girl was a diamond in the rough, although it turns out she may be a gold digger.

The young guy with the round face was talking to Bobby DeNiro as I cashed out. That bar is kind of depressing and I couldn't take it much more. As I settled up I overheard "no, no the slider ..." a baseball term. I started listening, because that sounded a little different from the usual bar talk. I heard "Don't get me wrong, I have a 92, 93 mile per hour fastball, but ..." As I was walking out the door, I realized who the young guy was. A pitcher on the minor league team here in town. Once I thought about it, I recognized that round face. He's their best pitcher, and will most likely pitch on the major league level (hence the girlfriend possibly being a gold digger). The team starts playing for a championship tomorrow. I thought about going back in and saying to him, "I hope you're not pitching tomorrow," but I let it go.

I came back home and the power was on.

There's normal sexual urges and then there's sex mad. When you just want to fuck every woman you see ... oh, man.

I was brushing my teeth today with a hard-on. I started stroking while I brushed my teeth. I couldn't stop thinking about sex.

I guess I just need somebody to help me take care of all that. It's been difficult lately. I've been too far in my own head. Too isolated. I go to work and go home. That's all I do.

This blog is sure to be deleted. I've said too much personal stuff, but maybe someone will read and understand and at least commiserate.

What's going on in my life:

My grandfather is not doing well, and that's on my mind. Sorry to lead with a bummer.

I'm doing the freelance writing thing, and so I'm busy with that. Not as busy as I should be. I'm really bad about procrastinating.

My boss is absolutely batshit insane. That's not new, but I felt like saying it.

I'm not having a whole lot of sex. Sorry. I have a date Thursday, so that's something.

I'm enjoying baseball and anticipating football. Yes, I'm a sports fan, but it's real easy to lure me away with the promise of sex. I'm a bigger fan of sex than sports, by far.