A Bunch of Stuff

Not surprisingly I have been absent from my blogging for longer than intended. Again. Oddly, I have actually had things to write about, but just haven't sat down to do it. Why? Who could say? I know I have a list of potential reasons, but none are really valid so F it. I won't even try.

Let's see, maybe a little recap of things that have happened that could have been cool stories, but since I am packing them into one post it will be perhaps slightly abbreviated ...

Number 1, football. I play in a league with some work folk. It's co-ed and two-hand touch. This sounds like a good combination for perverts such as myself, but two things hinder the perversion. One, it's winter and everybody wears lots of clothes, including gloves and two, most of the girls are scary and not really the sorts that I want to touch. And I'm guessing for the most part they aren't into the gents anyway. That's purely speculation, but I'll stick with my gut on this one.

Every week football is a mess. There are (again) two factors that influence this. One, we are pretty awful and two, Mother Nature. Every week the weather and the field conditions are different. Muddy, snowy, frozen, rain, slush, wind, you name it.

Three memorable football events over the last few weeks: One week it was sort of warm. I even wore shorts. BUT, there was leftover snow on the ground. This snow was melting, but not entirely, so we were playing in slushy water the whole game. Water over the tops of my feet. Ice water essentially. Our feet were so numb by the end that it was scary. I was seriously wondering if I had done permanent damage. As it turns out, I'm a overreacting pussy and we were fine. But Jesus that was uncomfortable. Also a highlight of that game, and memorable moment number two, is a girl from the other team gave a guy on my team the hardest slap I've ever seen administered. It was awesome. And really over nothing. His face was red until halftime and she got kicked out. The last memorable moment that I will mention is the game following the slush and the slap. My friend Mike and I were playing defense and guarding our guys, when they crossed each other we managed to run into each other full steam. We both got knocked pretty good, but Mike went down. When I got to him his mouth was a bloody mess and he was looking dazed. He eventually got up and made his way to the sidelines before eventually going home. His teeth were all intact as was his nose. After he had left, another guy on my team asked, "What part of you ran into him?" I said, "I think it was my shoulder but I'm not sure. But my shoulder sort of hurts so I'm guessing that was it." He said, "Oh yeah, it was your shoulder." I look and there is blood spatter and a piece of lip on the shoulder of the fleece I was wearing. Update: Photo now available here. I'm a murderer.

Number 2, I went to a pretty sweet birthday party at a place just east of downtown CL. The bar was great. 100 years old, cool owners/bartenders, good jukebox, snacks, beers I never see anymore (Stroh's?) a dog, a cat and fun times all around. Read these little blurbs about this place here and you'll get the idea: Playboy | Esquire

Number 3, I attended a show at Beachland Ballroom. It was Tim Fite as the headliner with Benjy Ferree and Elephant Bones opening. I had listened to Benjy Ferree online and was sort of looking forward to it live but was slightly let down. I like the more "old timey" sounding stuff (e.g. "Fear" on the MySpace page) but there wasn't all that much of that. They were fine. I guess I was just expecting something a bit different. Thumbs up to local guys, Elephant Bones. A good sound. Solid, gimmick-free rock (other than the singer's hat I suppose.) Fite was odd but good. Certainly entertaining. It's cool to see someone just doing their thing. I'm sure he's not making much (if any) money, but he keeps making weird, non-radio friendly music (art?) because that's what he wants to do. Amen to that.

Number 4, I had shingles. Not the flat, tar/stone sheets that go on your roof. This sort of shingles. My waist along my left side felt weird for like a week, almost like I had dry skin or like my pants had rubbed there or something, but I couldn't see anything. Then one day I woke up and the whole area (especially heading down towards my crotch) was tender and it hurt to sit. When odd feelings start progressing towards my "junk" I get nervous, so I went to the doctor. He knew right away what I had. I got some medicine to decrease the discomfort, I rested up a bit and now I'm pretty much back to 100%. I'm a medical misfit!

Alright, I'm going to go finish a movie I started yesterday and get to bed. I'll try to come back and give you a little update on this coming weekend as well as an update on some communications.

The Year That Was

So I used to have a blog here, but I packed that up for various reasons. Really because I had other things to worry about/focus on. Now I'm back to give this another try.

Perhaps I'll give a little update on the last year of my life so maybe more of this will make sense (or not) ...

2007 was sort of a mixed bag of experiences, activities and life in general. Highs, lows, unexpected realizations, stress, cursing and pretty much a total change in what my life was.

Looking back over the year, I managed to do a lot of crap -- concerts (mc chris, Slayer, Unearth, Peeping Tom, Frontline Assembly, Incubus, Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers, Kid Rock), baseball games (at Fenway Park, Shea Stadium, Yankee Stadium & Jacobs Field), a bunch of running (over 400 miles worth), trips (Cleveland, Pennsylvania, Western New York State, Cedar Point, Seattle, Vancouver/Whistler, B.C.), drinking, eating, PR classes, etc. However, the thing that made this all less than my norm was the fact that my traditionally stable employment situation as well as my traditionally stable home situation both became exactly the opposite.

My job was supposed to end at the end of March. There was a consolidation at the company I had been at for nine plus years and I had the choice of moving to Cleveland, OH or Albuquerque, NM or being unemployed. I had opted to be unemployed. But right before the end I was asked to stay on for a little while longer. The revised end date was the end of May. As that approached I had another opportunity to stay, this time filling in a spot in a different department, temporarily vacated by someone out on maternity leave. That kept me employed at least until after Thanksgiving.

While all this unemployed/employed again business was going on I also got separated from my wife. I won't go into all the details, but it wasn't all that fun. We had been together almost 12 years and married for the last three plus. That resulted in me feeling rather confused, guilty, angry, lonely, embarrassed, and on and on. Not so great, really. Actually it was and still is full-on sucky.

So with that I found myself packing my stuff and moving. I moved out of my nice "luxury" place in Manhattan and moved to a place in Crown Heights, Brooklyn (far from "luxury"). The apartment and the guy I lived with, I found on craigslist. It was going to be me, him and his girlfriend, but his girlfriend was off in Europe for school until February. The neighborhood was less than awesome, but sometimes I like less than awesome so that wasn't that much of a concern. My roommate was a cool guy. He worked a lot, never stole any of my shit, shared whatever he had in the fridge and never cared about who I had over or what I was doing. Oddly, about a month after moving in with him, I come to find out that this same roommate who seemed so cool and mellow was a former gang member. He used to be in the Latin Kings. He had once shot someone even. My street cred was on the rise. This didn't really bother me as he was very honest about the whole thing and seemed to really be out and out for good. He did however have a love for smoking pot, occasional coke use and not much issue with calling escorts over for an evening of coked up, naked fun. Even that didn't really concern me as he kept the bulk of that activity confined to his room, however it was certainly not the life I was used to.

After the bulk of the year had gone with no sign of my separation getting back to unseparated and after it became clear that work was really going to end (finally) I made a decision to move yet again. I opted to move to Cleveland, OH.

Yes, Cleveland.

So, the very end of December I packed up my possessions, put my goldfish in a Gatorade bottle, got everything in a big truck, yelled "So long, Stinktown" out the window and drove out to The Cleve.

So here I sit. In Cleveland.

We'll have to see what happens next.

I am guessing my blog will be even less awesome out here (not that it was awesome to begin with) as the interactions and the sights aren't really as newsworthy (aka retarded) as they were in NYC, but I guess if I am going to blog, technically there's no rule about excitement or newsworthiness, so I'm not going to sweat it.

So that's it I guess. That was my year. And this is my new place (at least for now) to complain and comment and document whatever else comes to mind. In the words of Dr. Tobias Funke, "Let the great experiment begin!” Or something like that.