The Misspent Life

Sing It Back

Last night we went to get pizza and that meant also karaoke. Because the rest of my team are cowards that are too full of themselves, I was the only one who went up to perform. I would have to say it was my best yet. I sang "Hooked on a Feeling" by B.J. Thomas. It was the original, not that Ookachaka, ookachaka version everyone thought it was going to be. I belted that thing out, with inflection and smarm! It was the first time this week that I felt happy while not insulting people. Of course, that quickly wore off and I am back to my grumpy self this week.

Growth

I'm starting to develop a deep seated hatred of my team, or at least those that sit downstairs.

Olive Branch, But Not the Peaceful Type

Dinner at the Olive Garden last night with Rar-Rar and Slax. Rar-Rar and I ganged up on Slax but Rar-Rar did not like my out-for-blood approach. "You've got to try to turn him," he said. Honestly, I don't know if I want to convince him to take his head out of his butt because of how gross it would look. My rudeness to him probably explains why he told the waitress that I was from Wisconsin. Yech, but at least it wasn't Indiana. I'd have to resort to physical violence for that.

There is something strange about this town and probably across most of America that makes it a great place for stalkers. When you check into a hotel they announce your room number for all to hear. I dropped off Girl's bag at her hotel one night and said, "yeah, I don't know what name she's using, try one of these..." and they said, "Oh, she is staying under this one..." Thanks, now that I know what hotel she is staying at I can more effectively stalk her. The waitress last night really wanted to chat with us and said that she had two jobs. "Oh, yeah?" "I work on campus at the Rec Center." "Blah, blah, blah" "Blah, blah, blah, I work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday from 10 to 3, unless I have class, then it is 5 to 7." Thanks for telling three strange men exactly where you work and when, we'll make sure to be there when you leave. None of this would happen in the big city.

I had shrimp and crab ravlioli.

Taking Care of Business

This is an ad the Bush team should use!

Say it! Say it! Say it, again!

Old Coinage

There is a lot old coinage in Peoria. It isn't odd to get a wheat-backed penny or coins from the early 1960s.

Portrait of an Ass

This is the first in the promise serious of me commenting on someone I saw in public. This sighting took place on Friday evening, so pardon me if I embellish here and there and miss some key characteriscs of this awful individual.

The scene:

Outside of sketchy bar, the kind of place one who has failed to find someone to "go home with" goes at 2am to find others who also have failed to find someone to "go home with." 11:00pm, Friday.

So this jag-off is standing outside of the bar wearing a flashy charcoal sport coat, slick black mock turtleneck shirt, and pants to match the coat. He is probably around 45, is suffering from excessive balding, and has a rather rotund figure without being fat. You know the type, he looks as though he isn't fit, but if you were to poke his gut you would find it solid. Very un-Homer like. His skin is shiny and it is obvious that he uses too much aftershave. If he were just a bit more full of himself he would have a diamond stud earring. He might just have one, he just didn't wear it that night. He is divorced, maybe twice. His first marriage might have been for love, but it ended when he met the biumbo who would become wife number two.

He has one child from the first marriage who is in high school (private, of course) and for what outsiders think of as a "good kid" is shockingly amoral, having done several hard drugs (speed, cocaine) and lead to at least one abortion. He also has several younger children from the second wife, who really wanted kids after she got bored going to Saks every day.

The first wife wants to think well of him, but every once and a while she realizes what a selfish prick he is; she hates the second wife. While the second wife hasn't cheated on him, he has cheated on her with several young women he works with (young associates or administrative assistants). He also has been with a handful of women while on business trips, usually women who work at the hotel or he meets at restaurants. The second wife knew this, but was content shopping her days away and serving on a few boards. Apart from this, she spends a lot of her time angling her children into a good private school other than the one attended by the first child. They have been divorced for three months. He pays substantial child support.

Free from the contraints of a marriage, this man is out on the prowl. He drives an M3 and used to drive a Porsche. He is looking for young women with leathery skin and fake blond hair (much like the second wife, without the turkey waddle and facial cracks). Standing outside of the bar, he is already drunk. He is trying to talk himself into the bar, but the bouncer (a mid-20s alternative chap with tatoos up the neck, several piercings on his face, and rather impressively shaved facial hair). The man is thinking it extremely unacceptable that this young man, who will make less in his lifetime than he made last year, isn't letting him into this bar.

He will go home alone.

Poem of the Week

Unsaid by Dana Gioia

So much of what we live goes on inside–
The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.

Thank You for Your Patronage

Today this site passed the 1,000 hits marker. Granted, it isn't an exactly clean number, as a number of those are me checking to see that things look alright, but still I am proud. I'm rather impressed that anyone would ever bother to check back here given the poor grammar and sentence structure and rather uninteresting nature of my postings.

Please Accept...

...my apologies for the rather dreary content of my posts this weekend. If it makes you feel better, I cleaned my bathroom today and began the rather tedious endeavor of cleaning the entire apartment, so that might explain part of it.

Misspent Lives

On the cab ride home Saturday night I was discussing with Pluck our rather odd situation of being employeed in a job for whcih neither of us has much of passion. From what I gather he, as I do, goes along day to day doing what needs to be done and doing it in a way that allows us to be thought of as good, if not the best, workers. I wouldn't go so far as say that his life is as misspent as mine has been as he is much younger than I, but in this manner we are kindred.

Our druthers are not the same, however. He speaks of pursuing art and I speak of buttressing civilization (which, sadly, are often two wholy different aims these days). His idea of a relaxing read is The Economist and his recently acquired People's History of the United States (I expressed my distain gently without mentioning that any book lauded by heady undergraduates, Ben Affleck, and coffee shop employees would undoubtedly lead me to lower my estimation of him). I'd much rather curl up with The New Criterion, The Speccie, or a book dealing with the downfall of civilization or alternatively its zenith (in my estimation late Victorian England).

Instead of these things, we toil away until all hours for a comparitively meagre hourly wage pursuing ends that do not give us personal satisfaction. Outside observers would look upon us as two very successful young Men of Action. We would be foolish to caste away such opportunities. Such is my curse. One I do not wish upon young Pluck.