August 17, 2005

The idea's in the brain, but it has no clear exit strategy....

Got a comment on my page the other day.  "Is this BLOG thing a one-hit wonder?”  To that, I say, "Thanks"!  That, at least to me, implies that a little of what I wrote was vaguely interesting.

The main problem is that I have the ideas swirling around in my brain, but when I attempt to articulate them, they fall apart as put them into words or paper.  I have visited other blog sites for ideas and for the most part they are nothing more than "Dear Diaries" and other wheels-off rantings.

Dear Diary,

Today, I woke up and went to the bathroom.  I didn’t think it was possible to urinate for 2 minutes. I shouldn't drink so many screwdrivers the night before. Hey!   Who's that weird man in my bed? I'm not gay? What are those weird stains on my bed?  Dang, I need to change the sheets again!

Dear Diary,

I hope they never find that shallow grave in East Texas I put that hobo I killed in just to see if I could. 

My life, as a whole, is as about as interesting as a nudist camp is to a blind man.  There's potential, but just out of sight.

There have been some very harrowing moments in my life.  Tales and girlfriends fathers and showers, tales of demented women performing exorcisms on me in the wee hours of the morning (maybe a future blog, no?)  An Encounter in a bathroom with a girl I didn't know at a Christmas party way past. Doors blowing off jet airliners on take off (which happened the same night as the exorcism, by the way).  And a few other things I can't recall offhand.

For the most part, however, my life has been pretty vanilla.  I'm ok with that.  Excitement can be nice, but it seems that when it happens to me, it's the heart-attack or stroke inducing kind.   Nothing wrong with vanilla, mind you.  My favorite ice is vanilla. (But with a little chocolate syrup for excitement). 

August 5, 2005

Gay or Not Gay...

My longtime childhood friend, Lance, has been my best friend since late 1984 (That's 147 dog years).

I had just moved to Lindale from Sulphur Springs halfway through my eighth grade year. I went from a school with 200 kids K-12 to a school that had 168 or so in the eighth grade alone. I went from class president and class favorite to absolute zero. Just some new kid with a bad country accent wearing those ignorant pearl buttoned country shirts (vomit) with a Peterbuilt belt buckle. Sad.

My first experience with Lance wasn't a pleasant one. Being the new guy, the kids in class enjoyed "testing" me.  (I refered to it as "torturing" me...But Tomato...Tomahtoe) You know..Snarfy comments behind my back, just barely loud enough to be heard, laughing at my East Texas Drawl whenever I would answer a question in class, poking fun at my shortness, etc. Life affirming complements. Lance and his merry band of cohorts put a piece of paper under my desk with a crudely drawn penis on it. Just to see if I would tell the teacher or not.  Oh my and mercy doodles, how happy I was to move to this God-forsaken Prep town.

I later had a class with Lance in our Freshman year. We met as misfits in a Physical Education class, and a friendship was born. We would walk halfway between our houses and walk to one or the other house from there. He introduced me to such greats as Motely Crue, Stevie Ray Vaughn, L.A. Guns and others. We were both raised middle class, though admittedly, my parents were less strict on me.

I remember, after we got our drivers licenses, Crusing up and down Broadway in my red 1974 Camaro LT or his mothers Caddy, looking for girls to annoy or holding their parking spot at the movie theater for some girls for a slice of pizza and a decent chance to be shot down.. Kind of sad, but good times.

We drifted apart our Junior year of high school a bit.. We still talked and hung out, but he was in advanced classes and theater, and it intimidated me a bit. But, we came back together. Friendships, just like marriages, ebb and flow. And a friendship is a bit like marriage. We both know basically what the other likes and dislikes and have enough dirt on each other to pretty much screw with each other pretty hard. :)

After High School Graduation, he left for college in Commerce and I stayed in Tyler and went to Junior College. I later moved in with him (and his truck driving father, Roger) in Greenville. Roger was always away so it was basically our place and treated it as such. From the Simpson's wall to the boxes of Hamburger helper in the pantry and all the unwashed dishes in the sink, we treated that place as our bachelor pad. Living in such close proximity with someone shows you what your friendship is made of. We would fight some *Just One More Thing!*, disagree some, but we stayed friends. He worked at the newspaper and I worked at a local grocery store. See an emerging pattern here? He seems to take the more challenging path.

As we have gotten older, we still hang out whenever possible and online game together multiple nights a week. Over the years, he has emerged as the more responsible of the two of us. Taking the path less traveled and over the past five years, I have tried to model some aspects of my life after his. Not his temper, mind you! And since then, my life has improved. I took a job that challenged me. Albeit, not near as challenging as his, but more so than the grocery store. I have gotten my finances in order and have since bought a house. He's like my brother, but he is also, in many ways, a role model. Whenever something big happens in my life, I'm usually calling him for his take or just to rant. Without his help, I probably wouldn't have made it through my divorce 5 years ago as well as I did. Kevin K and Eric K were big players too, but nobody knows me like Lance. Now his opinion are usually a little more liberal than mine, but are always pretty sound and always provide some good outlines.

The long and the short of it is this:  Whenever he needed me, I would haul ass to him.  He does the same for me to this day.  And I truly hope it stays this way.  He is, in my mind, a flesh and blood brother.  Period.

Sounds a little bit like a crush, doesn't it? Not in the "gay" sense, but I do admire him greatly.

Lord, as reading some of his blogs, I realize my writing talents are a mere Ford Pinto next to his Lincoln Continental. But, they will both get you to your destination with enough patience.

 

August 4th, 2005

Website starting to come together and head in a direction.  What that direction is, I'm taking it there anyway.  At least it makes me look busy at work.  Found a bunch of cool articles to help populate my Console Pages.  Wikipedia is an unbelievable site.  It's on online encyclopedia and I could not stump it.  Currently I'm sitting next to my wife, Katie, as she does a live online survey for $20.  Girl has an uncanny ability to find this crap on the internet.

I'm in shock that they killed off Nate on Six Feet Under.  I know he will be in the remaining 3 episodes as a ghost, but crap man!

August 3rd, 2005

Online Nothing...

Woo and or Hoo!  I'm online now.  So now there is one more very lame website out there with big hopes (not really) and will probably die from neglect and be deleted off the server in time.  But I am here now.

August 2nd, 2005

Here We Go....

    I sit here in my cubicle pretending that I'm working on some sort of support problem.  I'm actually messing around with FrontPage making myself a webpage.. (yeah yeah.. I don't know html by hand..).  I'm only a partial nerd, so cut me a tad o' slack.

This site may never get published.  It all depends if SBC YAHOO gives me space for such nonsense, I suppose.  I certainly can't see myself paying hard earned money on such egotistical ventures.  I'll do it for free, but that's about the limit of my self-love.  Well...not really.  But that will not be discussed here.