Rave: Instead of packing for my Norfolk training week, I'm setting up a tent in my living room and making believe I'm on a camping trip. I need to really use this stuff outside.
Rant: I was an idiot for signing up for this extra class. It's only once a week, but it just fucks with everything. Rant: I'm so starved for social contact that when an opportunity does arise to talk with someone even somewhat like-minded I come on way too fucking strong. If Axe made a personal bodyspray for me, it would be called DESPERATION.
RANT/RAVE: At my cousin's wedding on Saturday, I found myself watching him and his wife making the table rounds with bit of admiration and mild jealousy. Just the little touches and interactions between the two of them and the thought that its basically a celebration of your continued happiness, it was cool. And thats coming from someone who has been ardently against young marriage and spent the majority of his post-collegiate years as a single guy. So its interesting and kind of comforting to see I've had a bit of a maturation, but still at the same time, the idea of marriage is still incredibly daunting and couldn't seem farther away. The Rant comes from the fact that all of those relationship related positives and maturations on my part come as I wander through a dating desert at the moment.
Rant: My endometriosis is flaring up again. Fucking ovaries. Of course I quit smoking weed and nothing in my medicine cabinet will take the edge off of this pain. I can usually tune pain out, but this feels like someone is stabbing my right ovary. At least I got my doc to agree if this flares up again, we are ripping out my uterus. A surgery or two a year is retarded. I'm over it.
Rave: Got a couple e-mails from readers of that tri-weekly regional newspaper I started a boxing column for a couple weeks ago. Am surprised to get feedback so quickly but am really happy. Boxing is such a niche sport I was wondering how it would be received but I've gotten nothing but good responses so far. It also helps because now I can put in for credentials to fights that other people from the website I write for want to cover. It has also been fun but challenging to write boxing for people who aren't reading the publication because they are boxing fans. Rave: Working on a story about a comebacking fighter from a town nearby where this paper is located. He isn't some scrub either, he held a piece of the welterweight title during the primes of De La Hoya, Trinidad, and Mosley but was unable to ever cash in on a fight against any of those guys. This guy was locked up for 10 years plus and is now trying to comeback at 41. I've been working this angle for years even while the guy was still locked up and have gotten into a good enough spot with his handlers that they will trust me to write a fair story. I'm getting up to 1200 words on it for this paper. Dunno if it will be enough.
Rave Got another interview set at the accounting firm with a swanky business lunch with some supervisors/managers. At least, I'll be telling everyone that it's a super swanky business lunch. Things seem to be progressing pretty well. As long as I don't fuck up too badly, I think I should be able to land a position. Even if it's not *exactly* the level I want, I have little doubt that I'll take it. Five months of unemployment has been just about enough for me. Rave A belated Rave, but the Rush show kicked all kinds of ass. Definitely looking forward to being able to see them again. Rave?Rant? Finally got back into doing lower body weight training. I hadn't done any in about a year and a half and the pain I'm feeling today is reminding me I should have gotten back into sooner. I've somewhat managed to get my upperbody a little bit toned/defined now I need to get the lower half up to speed. I guess the pain is the rant part, but the move to better fitness is the rave part. Now I just need to stick with it.
Rant: I spent most of the day hungover as fuck and skipped both of my classes. Rave: Went out with a few friends last night to celebrate my birthday and had a great time. Rave: Things with the new girl are going great. She's really cool and we have a hell of a time together. The more I hang out with her, the more I like her. Rant: The relationship with the new girl doesn't have lasting power. After next year, I will be going back to Wyoming to take the bar exam and she will be staying here to take the bar.
Rave: We had to drop off a car at my daughter's work tonight for her to get home later. I followed my husband out and he drops off his car and gets in mine. As he does so he says, "I turned the radio up all the way before I got out." I asked if he got the wipers too. He forgot, so we turned around so he could turn them on also. It's the little things people. I'm sure our daughter (and other people) will not find this as amusing as we do.
Rave: First night ever doing BJJ (or any martial art, for that matter). I should have sought this stuff out years ago. Rave: You, blonde girl in the bubble-gum pink sports bra - thank you for existing. Watching you do leg curls made my entire week.
Rave? I was shooting pool with Bartender Girl's friend. We stepped outside to smoke, and she started touching me and saying stuff like how I'd make "such a good boyfriend." She was drunk and horny. Rave: She's GORGEOUS. Rant: She's CRAZY. Rant: She just broke up with one of my subordinates. Messily. Rant: Banging her would cause a tropical shitstorm, possibly even a shiticane. Rave: I sidestepped the issue nicely by being noncommittal until she calmed down a little bit and apologized. She's still shook up over the aforementioned breakup, and I happened to be there. Rant: Somehow, reluctance to take advantage of her vulnerability made her even more attracted to me. Jesus Christ.
Rave: Leaving work in an hour. 24 hours from now my ass will be in a canoe in the Boundary Waters. No work, no electricity- just fishing and drinking (not necessarily in that order) without any other cares in the world. Rave: The forecast couldn't be better. Lows down to 40 degrees and no precipitation in sight. It has dipped below freezing up there already so the bugs will be nonexistent. Rant: My fingers are already really torn up from working in my shop this week so I'm really hoping they aren't a problem on the trip. Rave: Starting to turn things around at work (to some extent). I'm not back to 100% yet but working towards it.
RANT I'm ashamed and embarrassed to be living in this shitty, backwoods area of America. Wake County in North Carolina has to be the dumbest area I've ever lived. For an area that can lay claim to such a large population of highly educated people due to the research triangle and tech sector and all the major universities, this area is backwards and idiotic. Maybe it's just the public schools. All these smart people must have their kids in private schools. They fired the superintendent yesterday of the school system here for seemingly unknown reasons. It seems really politically motivated. The problem with this is that the county can't afford to give raises to teachers, is begging the state for money and has a bond coming up for vote soon, yet they have no problem terminating this guys contract forcing them to pay a $250k severance and have to hire a new person. As soon as the opposite party got a majority on the board, they seemed to be gunning for him. He wasn't a local and part of the "good ole boy" club and tried to make changes. I hope to god my wife and I are gone from here before our daughter is of school age. My wife is a high school teacher here and used to teach middle school in Maryland. The middle school kids there are more advanced and smarter than the 11th and 12th graders here. Stupid people popping out stupid kids in an endless cycle who become the stupid leaders here that propagate this madness because god forbid an outsider comes along trying to make some positive changes. I'll keep my political opinions out of this as this isn't the place, but I'm really angry and hating that, in this situation, the ones who are going to suffer are the kids. They are the only ones that the school board and people in the area should be giving a shit about.
Rave: Apparently there's some fitness competition occurring in Iceland. In completely unrelated news, I'm moving to Iceland.
Rant: I should stop having revelatory epiphanies about myself all over an internet message board in front of strangers. It's unbecoming of me... Rant: I'm failing my way out of this adventure I started at the beginning of the year. It was a gamble that didn't pay off (not yet anyway), but at least my future isn't all grim. I give myself about 12 years: I'll either have my dream job, or I'll be dead. Outside chance I'll be doing menial work to support my family. Rant: Firt bourbon in more than a week, and I'm already as dirty as a Frenchman...
RAVE: Did the NorCal Tough Mudder on Sunday. RANT: Took forever as I was doing it with my 50lbs over weight, out of shape, near 40 y/o brother who had a bad hamstring and tore his contact in half that morning in the hotel room. RAVE: He still sacked up and did it. Wrapped the shit out of his leg, downed some Advil and got to it. RANT: FUCK getting electrocuted. I'm not talking the sprint through the wires at the end, I'm talking about the obstacle called Electric Eel. Belly crawling through 6" of water and took a wire to the face. Put me out for a second. Everything went gray and I thought someone kicked me in the face.
Rant: Dear apartment management, I understand that you checked the sprinklers in my apt today. Next time, it would be marvelous of you to NOT close the door to the closet which only, and very clearly, contains the cat's litter box. I came home to a living room with cat poop in the carpet and on my couch. I don't blame the cat since he probably held it for hours. I blame your dumb asses since you had to have seen the litter box in order to close the door.